Origins of the Cold War

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Origins of the Cold War

• We Didn't Start The Fire

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Cold War Historiography

• Orthodox School
• Blamed Soviets
• Revisionists
• US the aggressor
• Realist
• Less moralistic pragmatic politics

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Interpreting Hiroshima

• Saving Lives
• Japanese stronger and more resistant than thought
• Unnecessary
• Peace feelers
• Soviet entry into war
• Message to Soviets
• Decision Making Models

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Differing World Visions

• United States
• Sees stable and secure world by spreading
  American ideas and values
• Shaped by depression
• Must be internationally active
• World Bank and IMF
• Soviets shaped by invasions
• WWII losses
• Seek secure border
• Demand buffer zone

Battle of Stalingrad
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WWII and Cold War

• Pre-War Relations
• Second Front
• Yalta Conference (Feb 1945)
• US needs Russian help in Japan
• Eastern Europes fate left unclear
• Truman and the Bomb
• Potsdam Conf. (July 1945)
• Unconditional surrender
• Timing and message to Soviets

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Cold War Heats Up

• Future of Germany
• Atomic Diplomacy
• Iron Curtain Speech
• Kennans Telegram (1946)
• Birth of Containment Policy

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Cold War Heats Up

• Truman Doctrine (1947)
• Implements containment policy
• Marshall Plan (1947)
• Helps US economy
• Undermines conditions for communism
• NSC-68

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Korean War

• Origins of Divided Korea
• First Hot War
• North Korea Invasion
• Kim Il Sung
• Korea is the Greece of the Far East
• UN Police Action
• China and MacArthur
• Stalemate
• 38th Parallel

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The New Look

• Eisenhower and Massive Retaliation
• Use of high tech and aversion to ground troops
• CIA
• Covert operations and the Third World
• Iran
• Mossadeq and the Shah
• Guatemala
• United Fruit
• Arbenz

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The Atom Bomb and American Culture in Early
Postwar America
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Initial Reactions

• Anxiety, Fear, and Elation
• Sense of doom
• Atomic sales
• Atomic bomb ring

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Initial Reactions

• World Government
• United World Federalists (1947)
• International Sharing
• Acheson-Lilienthal Report (1946)

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Atomic Cars and Cancer Cures

• New Hopes for Positive Benefit of the Atom
• Allowed Americans to avoid dealing with the
  realities of atomic warfare
• Cars
• Radioactive isotopes

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Cold War and the Bomb

• US Govt and Positive Image of the Atom
• Needed because of reality of Cold War
• Sunny Side of the Atom

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Cold War and the Bomb

• Civil Defense Greenbrier Bunker
• Russians detonate first atomic bomb in 1949
• How to Survive an Atomic Bomb
• Bomb shelters

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Cold War Science Fiction Film Ambivalence and
Anxiety over the Bomb
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1950s Invasion Films
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Politics, Cold War, and Science Fiction Space
Exploration
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Web Sites

• National Security Archive
• Marshall Plan
• Guatemala Coup
• Iran Coup
• Online FilmsCold War
• Cold War Interviews
• CNN Cold War
• Cold War and a Hot Bomb
• Tour the Greenbrier Bunker
• Propaganda Film Gallery

• Truman Speeches
• Truman Doctrine
• Kennans Mr. X Article
• NSC-68
• Walter Lippman, The Cold War
• Novikov telegram
• Civil Defense Documents
• Covert Action in Guatemala, 1954
• Dulles on Massive Retaliation