The Cold War

1
The Cold War

• Chapter 29

2
Origins of the Cold War A. Soviet-American
Tensions

• Soviet-American Tensions
• WWII a break in the hatred long history of
  mistrust
• Reasons for American hostility towards USSR
• fundamental hatred towards communism
• anti-private property
• limited capitalist expansion
• Soviet regime first act was treaty that took them
  out of WWI
• Soviet call for world revolution against
  capitalism
• Stalin and the Great Purges

3
Soviet-American Tensions Continued

• Reasons for Russian hostility towards USA
• Fundamental hatred towards capitalism
• inhumane economic expansion
• USA sent troops to fight against Bolsheviks
  during revolution
• West excluded Russia from policy after WWI
• Versailles 1919
• Munich 1938
• WWII good for relations
• Americans portrayed Stalin as Uncle Joe
• Russians portrayed American troops and FDR as
  brave and heroic

4
Soviet-American Tensions Continued Again

• WWII bad for relations
• Russia
• allied with Germany
• invaded Finland and Baltic states
• brutality towards Polish allies
• United States
• delayed invasion of western front
• Opposing visions of post war world
• Atlantic Charter 1941
• One World model put forward by USA
• self determination
• no military alliances, but one international
  organization to protect every country
• Russia (and Britain) had different ideas
• control territories important to strategic
  interest
• each great power secures spheres in the
  interest of each country
• peacemaking process would become a form of warfare

5
Wartime Diplomacy

• USA and Britain separate war plan from Russia
  Morocco Jan 1943
• Stalin wanted immediate invasion on Western Front
• USA and UK refused but promised Axis surrender
• Nov. 1943 Teheran, Iran all three meet
• Problems
• FDR bargaining tool, gone Russia now pushing
  back Germans
• One World double standard Stalin allowed no say
  in Italy
• Future of Poland unresolved
• Success
• Stalin agrees to help in Pacific once Europe is
  done
• FDR promises invasion in less than six months
• All three agree to international organization

6
Yalta

• . from tension to amicability
• Churchill and Stalin meet in Moscow (no FDR) over
  Civil War in Greece
• February 1945 all three meet in Yalta
• FDR in bad health
• Stalin power play
• Russian troops miles from Berlin
• USA needs help in Pacific
• No interest in international organization
• Agreements
• Kurile Islands and other lost territory to Japan
• New international organization United Nations

7
Yalta Continued

• Unresolved Issues
• Poland London vs Lublin
• Germany
• reparations demanded by Stalin
• dismemberment wanted by Stalin
• zones of occupation
• Berlin in Russias zone
• Conclusions
• only a loose set of principles
• each country has different interpretation
• Soviet Union began to move to set up
  pro-communist government in Eastern Europe
  shortly after Yalta
• United Nations
• General Assembly
• Security Council of five (USA, France, England,
  Russia, China) each member with veto power
• United Nations Charter created in San Francisco

8
II. The Souring of the Peace A. The Failure of
Potsdam

• Roosevelt believed that Stalin could be reasoned
  with Truman did not in office two weeks before
  he announces that hes going to get tough on
  communism
• believes USSR violated Yalta
• attacks Soviet Prime Minister over Poland issue
• Limited leverage for Truman to stand on
• USSR already in Poland
• Germany already divided
• USA still in a war in Pacific
• Conceded Poland
• Truman, Churchill/Altee and Stalin meet in
  Postdam
• USA refuses reparations
• Ensures Germany is to remain divided

9
The China Problem

• Chiang Kai-shek head of nationalist government
• corrupt
• ignorant to problems
• Mao Zedong, a communist revolutionary, rising in
  power
• USA sends military aid to Chiang
• China Lobby in the United States
• Rather than send full military assistance to help
  the failing Nationalists, USA decided to assist
  in rebuilding Japan

Chiang Kai-shek
10
The Containment Doctrine

• shift from ideal of unified, open world to
  contain threat of communism
• GB announces it will no longer support democratic
  governments in Greece and Turkey
• Truman Doctrine
• influenced by American diplomat George Kennan
• assisting people resisting attempted subjugation
  by armed minorities
• 400 million to Turkey and France
• Caused Russia to withdrawal aid to communist
  forces in Turkey and Greece
• Result would influence US foreign policy for the
  next 40 years
• expansion of communism seen as threat to
  democracy (and capitalism)
• fear of domino effect one country falls (all)
  others will fall
• attack all forces of communism everywhere

11
The Marshall Plan
Fake Smile

• integral part of containment policy was economic
  reconstruction of Western Europe
• humanitarian concern
• economic drain to US unless fixed
• rebuild market for American goods
• if not assisted by USA, assisted by communist
  forces become communist government
• June 1947 Secretary of State George Marshall
  announced a plan to provide economic assistance
  to all European nations that would join in
  drafting a program for recovery.
• offered to USSR, but they quickly refused, along
  with the countries they controlled in Eastern
  Europe
• 16 Western European countries signed up
• Economic Cooperation Administration
• 12 billion in aid given to Europe to spark
  economic revival
• Results
• By 1950 European Industrial production up 64
• Communist strength in participating countries
  declines

12
Mobilization at Home

• 1947-48 series of measures designed to maintain
  American military power at near-wartime levels
• new military draft and Selective Service System
• doubled efforts in atomic research nuclear
  weapons take a central role in military arsenal
• Atomic Energy Commission established in 1946
  supervisory body charged with overseeing all
  nuclear research
• National Security Act 1947 expanded powers of the
  government to pursue international goals
• Department of Defense oversee all branches of the
  armed services
• National Security Council (NSC) operating out of
  White House to advise president on foreign and
  military policy
• Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) responsible for
  collecting information through both open and
  covert methods

13
The Road to NATO

• Truman agrees with England and France to merge
  the three western zones of Germany into a new
  West German republic
• Marshal Tito leads Yugoslavia into a separate
  communist state USA offers assistance
• Stalin responds by imposing a tight blockade
  around western sectors of Berlin
• Stalin wanted western powers to abandon post in
  Soviet controlled territory
• Truman refused to comply
• didnt want to risk war through military response
• airlift supplies to west Berliners

14
The Road to NATO Continued

• Berlin Airlift
• food, fuel and supplies
• lasted ten months and transported nearly 2.5
  million tons of material
• Spring of 1949 Stalin lifts now ineffective
  blockade
• October 1949 official division between Germany
  (Communist East and Republic West) became official

15
The Road to NATO Continued Again

• Division in Germany accelerated the consolidation
  of what was already in effect an alliance among
  the United States and the countries of Western
  Europe.April 4, 1949 twelve nations signed an
  agreement establishing the North Atlantic Treaty
  Organization (NATO)
• declared that an armed attack on one member would
  be considered an attack against all
• fused European countries that had been fighting
  one another for centuries into a strong and
  enduring alliance
• Spurred USSR to create its own alliance with all
  the communist governments of Eastern Europe 1955
  Warsaw Pact

16
The Open-Ended Crisis

• USA believed to have the upper hand series of
  events change things
• Sept 1949 USSR detonates atomic weapon years
  earlier than predicted
• Collapse of Chiang Kai-sheks nationalist govt
  rise of Mao and communism in China
• NSC-68 a national security council report that
  USA must establish a firm and active leadership
  in a non communist world
• report also called for a major expansion of
  American military
• defense budget four times greater than previously
  projected BUILD UP is on

17
III. American Politics and Society After the
War A. The Problems of Reconversion

• use of atomic weapons in Japan ended war sooner
  than expected and it hurt the economy
• Truman was in a tough position to heal the
  economy quickly, against the advice of economic
  planners
• fear that there would be a return to Depression
  after war, but that didnt happen
• Consumer demand helped compensate instant
  decrease in war contracts

18
The Problems of Reconversion Continued

• GI Bill of Rights Servicemens Readjustment Act
• Inflation
• Labor Unrest
• John Lewis led UNW on strike shutting down coal
  fields for forty days
• Railroads suffer a total shutdown
• Reconversion very hard for women and minorities
  who would lose jobs to make room for white males

19
The Fair Deal Rejected

• Outline of Plan
• expansion of Social Security benefits
• raising of the legal minimum wage from 40 to 65
  cents an hour
• programs to ensure employment through aggressive
  federal spending and investment
• Fair Employment Practices Act
• Long range environmental and public works
  planning
• And. National Health Insurance
• Had Enough? Republicans win control of both
  houses of Congress in 1946

20
The Fair Deal Rejected Continued

• New Congress quickly moves to do away with New
  Deal reforms
• Eat less Senator Robert Taft
• limited Social Security
• limited education
• limited reclamation and power projects in the
  West
• attacked Wagner Act of 1935 resented power of
  unions
• Taft-Hartley Labor Act of 1947 made illegal the
  closed shop. Places where people couldnt be
  hired without joining a union first
• Truman vetoes it but both Houses overrule him on
  the same day
• Made difficult the organizing of workers who had
  never been in unions before women and minorities

21
The Election of 1948

• Truman and advisors believed that America was not
  ready to abandon New Deal
• proposed reforms in 1948 knowing they would be
  shot down by Congress in an effort to raise
  election issues
• Troubles for Democrats
• Southern Dems. Leave convention in response to
  Trumans proposed civil rights bill
• form States Rights Party nominate Strom Thurmond
  as candidate for president
• left wing leaves and forms Progressive Party and
  nominates Henry A. Wallace as presidential
  candidate
• Democrats wanted to kick out Truman and have
  Eisenhower run for president

Truman
Truman
22
The Election of 1948 Continued

• Thomas E. Dewey, governor of New York, receives
  Republican nomination early favorite
• had insurmountable lead at the polls, so most
  media stopped paying for the polls to take place
• statesmanlike campaign refused to antagonize
  anyone
• Truman turned fire away from him and towards
  Republican Congress
• traveled 32,000 miles
• gave 356 speeches
• Im going to give them hell.
• Most dramatic upset in the history of
  presidential elections
• Truman wins with 49.5 of the vote 303 electoral
  votes
• Democrats regain both houses of Congress

Thomas E. Dewey
23
The Fair Deal Revived

• Democrats in Senate more hostile to Fair Deal
  than Conservatives
• no national health insurance
• no increased spending in education
• not able to persuade Congress to accept the civil
  rights legislation which would have
• made lynching a federal crime
• provided federal protection to blacks to vote
• abolished the poll tax
• BUT Truman is able to achieve many reforms
• raised minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents an hour
• approved an important expansion of the Social
  Security system
• National Housing Act of 1949
• Truman himself battled on many fronts to fight
  segregation (FDR 1941 Executive Order 8802
  protected Af. Ams in military jobs)
• Truman gives Exec. Order 9981 desegregation of
  military!

24
IV. The Korean War
Fair Deal plans would lose priority through a
sudden change of events. June 24, 1950 the
armies of communist North Korea swept across the
border separating North and South Korea. South
Korea was occupied by pro-Western forces. The USA
would soon commit itself in its first battle of
the Cold War.
25
The Divided Peninsula

• By 1945 both Russia and USA had sent troops to
  North Korea and neither wanted to leave instead
  they divided the country along the 38th parallel
• Russians depart in 1949, but leave behind a
  communist govt in North Korea with Soviet
  equipped army
• Syngman Rhee left in charge of South
• nominally democratic
• weak military used to suppress internal opposition

26
Invasion

• Not clear if Russians pushed for invasion, but
  clear that they supported it once it began
• June 27, 1950 Truman ordered limited military
  assistance to South Korea
• UN
• US appeals to UN
• USSR boycotting at the time in response to
  decision to refuse communist China
• US gains approval, gains international assistance
  to support Rhee govt
• Truman appoints Douglas MacArthur to command UN
  operations in North Korea
• First physical expression of NSC-68
• aim was not only to contain but liberate
• Truman gave MacArthur permission to pursue
  N.Korean forces into their own territory
• Goal was a unified, independent and democratic
  Korea.

27
From Invasion to Stalemate

• For several weeks, things go smoothly
• MacArthur takes N.Korea capital Pyongyang
• China alarmed by movement of American forces
  towards its border
• eight divisions of the Chinese army enter the war
  by November
• UN offensive stalled and then collapsed
• Within weeks, communist forces push Americans
  back below the 38th parallel and recapture Seoul
• By March UN forces able to reclaim much of the
  territory they had recently lost
• take back Seoul
• push communists back North of the 38th parallel

28
From Invasion to Stalemate Continued

• Stalemate
• Truman wanted to avoid war with China WWIII
• General MacArthur resisted limits on his military
  discretion (made public comments about Truman)
• wanted to attack China
• bomb Chinese forces
• drop series of atom bombs on the coast of China
• Truman fires MacArthur on April 11, 1951
• General receives heros welcome on the homefront
• Hostility towards Truman
• Peace negotiations begin at Panmujom in July
  1951 but negotiations and war would wage on
  until 1953

29
Limited Mobilization

• Wartime control
• Railroad workers walk off the job in 1951 Truman
  seizes the railroad to keep economy running
• Steel strike 1952 Truman seizes the steel mills
• 6-3 decision, Supreme Court rules that Truman
  exceeded his authority
• Good effects
• pumped new government funds into the economy at
  a point that many believed a recession was about
  to begin
• Bad effects
• 140,000 Americans dead or wounded (Korean War)
• USA recently wins greatest war in history, but
  cant settle a minor boarder skirmish?
• caused intense anxiety towards communism in USA

30
V. The Crusade Against Subversion

• Reasons for Fear
• the loss of China to communism
• Korean stalemate
• Soviet development of atomic bomb

31
HUAC and Alger Hiss

• Republicans search for an issue to attack the
  Democrats
• 1947 Republicans win control of Congress and hold
  very public meetings to prove that the government
  had tolerated communist subversion name of
  organization House Un-American Activities
  Committee (HUAC)
• HUAC first turned to Hollywood movie industry
  argued that communists had invaded Hollywood and
  tainted America with propaganda
• Hollywood Ten jailed for contempt (refusal to
  answer questions)
• Hollywood adopts a blacklist in an attempt to
  protect its public image
• Alger Hiss
• former high-ranking member of the State
  Department
• accused of passing papers to high ranking
  communist officials, but cannot be tried for
  espionage because of statue of limitations (7
  years passed)
• freshmen congressional rep. Richard Nixon pushes
  for trial
• Hiss convicted of perjury and forced to serve
  several years in prison
• Impact
• cast doubt on liberal Democrats
• made possible for Americans to believe that
  communists had actually infiltrated the government

32
The Federal Loyalty Program and the Rosenberg Case

• In response to Republican attacks, and due to the
  fact that an election was approaching, the Truman
  administration initiated a widely publicized
  program to review the loyalty of federal
  employees
• In August 1950, president authorized sensitive
  agencies to fire people deemed bad security
  risks
• by 1951 more than 2,000 government employees had
  resigned under pressure and 212 had been
  dismissed
• Amid crazed public fervor, a Democrat Congress
  tries to show itself as anti-communist
• Passes McCarran Internal Security Act which
  required all communist organizations to register
  wit the government and to publish their records
• Detonation of Nuclear Weapon in 1949 convinces
  America that military secrets had been passed to
  the Russians

33
The Federal Loyalty Program and the Rosenberg
Case Continued

• Ethel and Julius Rosenburg convicted of espionage
  April 1951
• Klaus Fuchs confesses he passed secrets to
  Soviets
• Ethels brother, David Greenglass, was a
  machinist on Manhattan project, testifies that
  Ethel and Julius masterminded delivery of
  information to Russians
• Easy targets both are registered in the
  Communist Party
• Electric Chair, June 19, 1953
• FEAR
• not only fear of communism, but fear of being
  suspected of communism
• gripped entire country
• judiciary
• schools
• universities
• labor unions

Ethel and Julius Rosenburg
34
McCarthyism

• Joe McCarthy undistinguished first term Senator
  from Wisconsin
• fighting for re-election
• alcoholic
• 1950 I hold in my hand a list of 205 known
  communist currently working in the American State
  Department in the weeks that followed McCarthy
  repeated and expanded on his accusations and
  emerged as the nations most prominent leader in
  the anti-communist crusade.
• 1952 McCarthy put in charge of special
  subcommittee and conducted highly publicized
  investigations of subversion
• members from US embassies around the world appear
  in front of McCarthys committee political
  career destroyed
• McCarthy NEVER produced solid evidence that any
  federal employee had communist ties
• growing contingency saw him as fearless
• Accused Democrats of twenty years of treason
  (FDR recognized USSR)

Joe McCarthy
35
The Republican Revival

• Two big issues 1952 bad year for Democratic
  party
• fear of internal subversion
• frustration over the stalemate in Korea
• Truman withdraws from presidential contest
  because his popularity was so low
• Adlai E. Stevenson
• Governor of Illinois
• Dignity, wit and eloquence
• Democrat nominee
• McCarthy deliberately confused his name with that
  of Alger Hiss in effort to slander his campaign

36
The Republican Revival Continued

• Dwight Eisenhower
• no previous political experience
• military hero
• commander of NATO
• running mate was Richard Nixon
• Checkers speech to justify financial
  improprieties (a horrible, HORRIBLE lie, but
  America buys it)
• Team work
• IKE statesman
• Nixon mud thrower
• 1952 Results
• Eisenhower gets 55 of vote / 442 electoral votes
• Republicans win back both houses of Congress

Dwight Eisenhower