Transcript I. Origins of the Cold War (cont`d)

Norton Media Library
Chapter 23
Give Me Liberty!
An American History
Second Edition
Volume 2
by
Eric Foner
I.
Origins of the Cold War
A. Rival postwar powers
1.
United States
a. Measures of power
1) Half of the world’s manufacturing capacity; atomic bomb
b. Global agenda: determined to avoid isolationism
2.
Soviet Union
a. Measures of power: militarily occupied much of eastern Europe
b. Global agenda: determined to establish sphere of influence
B. Roots of “containment”
1.
Projection of Soviet dominance in eastern Europe
a. Iran
b. Poland, Romania, Bulgaria (the Latin America of Europe)
2. George Kennan’s Long Telegram (February 1946)
a. USSR was “not rational”
b. Only US could “contain them”
3.
Winston Churchill’s “iron curtain” speech (March 1946)
I.
Origins of the Cold War (cont’d)
C. Truman Doctrine (March 1947)
1. Background
a. President Truman’s perspective on world
1) Lack of experience
2) Black-and-white outlook
b. Greece and Turkey questions
1) Disengagement of Britain
2) Greece: threatened by communist rebellion
3) Turkey: USSR wanted control of straits linking Black
and Mediterranean Seas
4) Internal conflicts
5) Strategic significance: gateway to SE Europe and
Middle East
c. Unveiling by Truman: in “defense of freedom”
I.
Origins of the Cold War (cont’d)
C. Truman Doctrine
2.
Themes and significance
a. Presidential embrace of containment policy
b. Division of the globe between “free” and “communist”
c. America’s ongoing mission to lead, defend “free world”
3.
Impact on popular conception of postwar world
4.
Broad bipartisan support
5. Implementation
a. Aid to anticommunist regimes
b. Forging of global military alliances
c. Founding of new national security bodies: immune from
democratic oversight
1) Atomic Energy Commission
2) National Security Council (NSC)
3) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
d. “Are we to shoulder responsibility of 19th c. British imperialism?”
I.
Origins of the Cold War (cont’d)
D. [George] Marshall Plan: finance European economic recovery
1.
Provisions:
2.
Underlying motivations and vision
a. Containment
b. Pro-Capitalism
c. New Deal for Europe
3.
Achievements: Europe on its feet by 1950
E. Japanese reconstruction: Douglas MacArthur
F. Berlin Crisis
1.
Emerging East-West conflict over Berlin
a. New “western currency”
b. Soviets prohibit western access to Berlin
2. Western airlift
3.
Lifting of blockade (May 1949)
G. Escalation of Cold War
1.
Division of Germany into East Germany and West Germany
2.
Soviet acquisition of atomic bomb (1949)
I.
Origins of the Cold War (cont’d)
F. Escalation of Cold War
3.
Establishment of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1949)
a. Avowed mission: mutual defense pledge against Soviet
aggression
b. Belgium, UK, France, Canada, Portugal, Italy
4.
Establishment of Warsaw Pact (1955): Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary
5.
Communist revolution in China (1949)
a. Mao Zedong
b. Political repercussions in United States: negative impact on
Truman administration
c. American response: blocked Zedong’s government from UN
6.
NSC-68
a. Defined cold war as struggle between “the idea of freedom” and
the “idea of slavery under the grim oligarchy of the Kremlin”
b. Establishment of permanent military complex
I.
Origins of the Cold War (cont’d)
G. Korean War
1.
Postwar division of Korea (similar to Berlin)
a. Communist North; anticommunist South
2.
North Korean invasion of south (June 1950)
3.
Mobilization of U.S. military response
a. Perception of Cold War test
b. Obtainment of United Nations authorization
4. Initial American military progress
a. MacArthur at Inchon (September 1950)
5.
Intervention by China (October 1950)
6.
Removal of General Douglas MacArthur
a. Wanted to invade (w/ nuclear weapons) China
b. Truman refused; MacArthur publicly criticized; Truman fired him
7.
Protracted stalemate @ 38th parallel (original boundary)
a. 33,000 US deaths; 1 million Korean soldiers; 2 million civilians
8.
Armistice and aftermath
I.
Origins of the Cold War (cont’d)
H. Concerns raised by the Cold War
1. Simplistic East-West dichotomies
2. Inability to see foreign developments on case-by-case basis
3. Continual intervention abroad
a. Walter Lippman
4. Tendency to side with undemocratic regimes
5. Aversion to colonial independence
a. Philippine independence (1946)
b. Retraction of support of colonial independence movements
c. Double-standard of language of freedom
II.
Ideological mobilization for Cold War
A. Cultural Cold War
1.
Depictions of U.S. history
a. Historical Americanism: pluralism, tolerance, and equality
b. Ethnic and racial strife?
2.
The arts
a. Areas
1) Film: The Red Menace and removal of negative aspects of
American history from scripts
2) Painting: Jackson Pollock’s creation-based action paintings
3) Music: John Cage’s liberal compositions
4) Dance: George Balanchine’s “graceful freedom”
choreography
b. Secret involvement of national security agencies
1) CIA and Defense Department funded the arts
3.
Political discourse
II.
B.
C.
Ideological mobilization for Cold War
(cont’d)
Themes
1.
America as land of pluralism, tolerance, equality, free expression,
individual liberty
2.
Communist regimes as ‘totalitarian”
a. Aggressive states seeking to subdue all of civil society
3.
“Socialized” resources (medicine, housing) as communistic and a
negation of freedom
a. American Medical Associations campaign against “socialized
medicine,” a.k.a. Truman’s national health insurance plan
Rise of “human rights”
1.
Background
a. Historical origins of concept: Enlightenment, AR, FR
b. Impact of World War II: “Four Freedoms,” Atlantic Charter, and
Nuremberg
II.
Ideological mobilization for Cold War
(cont’d)
D. Rise of “human rights”
2.
Drafting of UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
a. Eleanor Roosevelt
b. Range of rights identified
1) Civil and political liberties: speech, religion, arbitrary rule
2) Social and economic entitlements
c. Affirmation of global accountability of nations
3.
Cold War contest over
a. U.S. emphasis on political rights
b. Soviet emphasis on social, economic rights
c. Compromise: two separate “covenants”
1) Civil and political
2) Economic, social, and cultural
3) Congress ratified 1st in 1992; has yet to ratify 2nd
III. Truman presidency
A. Postwar domestic situation
1. Rapid demobilization; return of soldiers to civilian life
2. Abolition of wartime regulatory agencies
B. Fair Deal
1. Aims
a. Revive momentum of New Deal
b. Improve social safety net and living standards
2. Program called on Congress to:
a. Increase minimum wage
b. Enact program of national health insurance
c. Expand public housing, Social Security, and aid to
education
III. Truman presidency (cont’d)
C. Strike Wave of 1946
1. Contributing factors
2. Scope and Magnitude
a. Range of industries affected: steel, auto, coal, etc.
b. Operation Dixie: Unionize the South
1) Textile, steel, and agricultural industries
3. Truman response
a. Concern over economic effect
b. Threat to draft striking railroad workers
c. Court order against striking miners
d. Outcomes
1) Presidential “fact-finding” boards
III. Truman presidency (cont’d)
D. Republican congressional gains of 1946
1. Causes
a. Middle-class alarm over strike wave
b. Labor disappointment over Truman
c. Failure of Operation Dixie: conservative coalition of
Republicans and southern Democrats
2. Consequences
a. Rejection of Fair Deal program
b. Tax cuts for wealthy
c. Taft-Hartley Act
1) Provisions: reversed many labor gains
III. Truman presidency (cont’d)
E. Steps towards civil rights
1.
Anti-discrimination measures, state and local
a. Fair employment practices commissions
2.
Vitality of civil rights coalition
a. Labor, religious groups, and black organizations
3.
Growing response to lynching: zero lynchings in 1952
4.
Integration of major league baseball: Jackie Robinson
5. Commission on Civil Right’s To Secure These Rights (Oct. 1947)
a. Called on government to end segregation across the board
6.
Truman’s civil rights initiatives
a. Program presented to Congress
1) Content: permanent civil rights commission, federal antilynching and poll tax laws, and equal access to education and
employment
2) Defeated by Congress
b. Executive order desegregating of armed forces
III. Truman presidency (cont’d)
E. Steps towards civil rights
6.
Truman’s civil rights initiatives
c. Underlying considerations
1) Personal sentiments
2) Cold War implications
3) Political strategy
F. Election of 1948
1. Truman and the Democrats
a. Drive to revive and broaden New Deal coalition
b. Progressive program
c. Hubert Humphrey: “walk out of the shadow of states’ rights and
into the sunlight of human rights.”
2. Strom Thurmond and the States’ Rights (“Dixiecrat”) party
a. Break from Democratic party
b. Call for segregation, “states’ rights”
c. The issue was “individual liberty and freedom”
III. Truman presidency (cont’d)
F. Election of 1948
3. Henry A. Wallace and Progressive party
a. Program
1) Expansion of welfare
2) Desegregation
3) De-escalation of Cold War
b. Support from communists; abandonment by liberals
4. Thomas A. Dewey and the Republicans
a. Colorlessness of candidate
b. Complacency and vagueness of campaign
5. Truman’s upset victory
IV. Anticommunist crusade
A. Wide-ranging impact of Cold War on American life
1. Permanent military-industrial establishment
2. Federal projects
a. Weapons development
b. Military bases
c. Higher education
d. Interstate highway system
3. Culture of secrecy, dishonesty: chemical, biological, and
nuclear testing on unwitting soldiers and civilians
4. Revised immigration policy: Communist-region refugees
5. Dismantling of segregation
6. Assault on right to dissent
IV. Anticommunist crusade (cont’d)
B. Emergence of anticommunist crusade
1. Truman’s loyalty review system (1947)
2. House Un-American Activities Committee hearings on
Hollywood (1947)
a. Pressure to testify about beliefs, “name names”
b. Cooperation and resistance
1) Walt Disney, Gary Cooper, Ronald Reagan
2) Arrest and blacklisting of Hollywood Ten
3. Legal cases
a. Trial, conviction, and imprisonment of Alger Hiss
1) Whittaker Chambers & Richard Nixon (prosecutor)
b. Trial, conviction, and imprisonment of Communist Party
leaders
c. Trial, conviction, and death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
IV. Anticommunist crusade (cont’d)
C. McCarthyism
1. Joseph R. McCarthy
a. Background: fictional war record
b. Emergence with sensational Wheeling speech
2. McCarthy’s Senate committee hearings
a. Wild allegations regarding disloyalty, communist presence
b. Growing Republican ambivalence
3. McCarthy’s downfall
a. Army-McCarthy hearings
1) Television exposure
2) Scolding by Joseph Welch: “Have you no sense of
decency”
b. Senate censure
4. Genesis of term “McCarthyism”
IV. Anticommunist crusade (cont’d)
D. Breadth of anticommunist crusade around country
1. Initiatives of government (national, state, and local)
a. Investigative committees
b. Police department “red squads”
c. Laws to ban, monitor communist presence
d. Loyalty oaths
2. Initiatives of private organizations: American Legion, DAR
3. Ideological “cleansing” of public libraries, universities: Robin
Hood
4. Acquiescence of judiciary: Dennis v. United States
a. Upheld jailing of Communist leaders (beliefs, not actions)
5. Acquiescence of liberals
6. Cost to the persecuted
IV. Anticommunist crusade (cont’d)
E. Anticommunism as popular mass movement
1. Strength among those of eastern European descent
2. Strength among Catholics
F. Multiple uses of anticommunism
1. Bureaucratic self-promotion
2. Political self-preservation
3. Discrediting of political, social targets
a. New Deal legacy
b. Economic regulation
c. Organized labor
d. Civil rights
e. Feminism
f. Homosexuality
IV. Anticommunist crusade (cont’d)
G. Anticommunist politics
1. Republican use of anticommunism to block Truman program
2. McCarran Internal Security Act (1950)
a. Barred “totalitarians” from entering US
3. McCarran-Walter Act (1952)
a. Act used to exclude prominent individuals from entry into
US
b. Authorized deportation of communist-Americans
4. Operation Wetback (1954)
5. Confinement of social welfare benefits to unionized workers
6. Ideological taming of organized labor
a. CIO expulsion of left-wing leaders and unions
b. Labor’s support for Cold War foreign policy
IV. Anticommunist crusade (cont’d)
H. Response of civil rights movement to anticommunist crusade
1. Outspoken opposition (Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois)
2. Shifting approach of mainstream groups (NAACP, NUL)
a. Initial resistance
b. Growing accommodation
1) Purges of Communist members
2) Silence about political persecution
3) Embrace of Cold War rhetoric
c. Use of Cold War rhetoric to promote civil rights
3. Demise of left-leaning organizations (Southern Conference for
Human Welfare)
IV. Anticommunist crusade (cont’d)
I.
Lull in momentum for civil rights
1. Dampening effect of Cold War
2. Diminishing of efforts from Truman administration, Democrats
3. Legacy for black postwar prospects