Give Me Liberty!

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Chapter 23
Norton Media Library
Give Me Liberty! An American History Second
EditionVolume 2
by Eric Foner
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I. Origins of the Cold War

• Rival postwar powers
• United States
• Measures of power
• Half of the worlds manufacturing capacity
  atomic bomb
• Global agenda determined to avoid isolationism
• Soviet Union
• Measures of power militarily occupied much of
  eastern Europe
• Global agenda determined to establish sphere of
  influence
• Roots of containment
• Projection of Soviet dominance in eastern Europe
• Iran
• Poland, Romania, Bulgaria (the Latin America of
  Europe)
• George Kennans Long Telegram (February 1946)
• USSR was not rational
• Only US could contain them
• Winston Churchills iron curtain speech (March
  1946)

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I. Origins of the Cold War (contd)

• Truman Doctrine (March 1947)
• Background
• President Trumans perspective on world
• Lack of experience
• Black-and-white outlook
• Greece and Turkey questions
• Disengagement of Britain
• Greece threatened by communist rebellion
• Turkey USSR wanted control of straits linking
  Black and Mediterranean Seas
• Internal conflicts
• Strategic significance gateway to SE Europe and
  Middle East
• Unveiling by Truman in defense of freedom

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I. Origins of the Cold War (contd)

• Truman Doctrine
• Themes and significance
• Presidential embrace of containment policy
• Division of the globe between free and
  communist
• Americas ongoing mission to lead, defend free
  world
• Impact on popular conception of postwar world
• Broad bipartisan support
• Implementation
• Aid to anticommunist regimes
• Forging of global military alliances
• Founding of new national security bodies immune
  from democratic oversight
• Atomic Energy Commission
• National Security Council (NSC)
• Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
• Are we to shoulder responsibility of 19th c.
  British imperialism?

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I. Origins of the Cold War (contd)

• George Marshall Plan finance European economic
  recovery
• Provisions
• Underlying motivations and vision
• Containment
• Pro-Capitalism
• New Deal for Europe
• Achievements Europe on its feet by 1950
• Japanese reconstruction Douglas MacArthur
• Berlin Crisis
• Emerging East-West conflict over Berlin
• New western currency
• Soviets prohibit western access to Berlin
• Western airlift
• Lifting of blockade (May 1949)
• Escalation of Cold War
• Division of Germany into East Germany and West
  Germany
• Soviet acquisition of atomic bomb (1949)

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Map 91
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I. Origins of the Cold War (contd)

• Escalation of Cold War
• Establishment of North Atlantic Treaty
  Organization (1949)
• Avowed mission mutual defense pledge against
  Soviet aggression
• Belgium, UK, France, Canada, Portugal, Italy
• Establishment of Warsaw Pact (1955) Bulgaria,
  Poland, Hungary
• Communist revolution in China (1949)
• Mao Zedong
• Political repercussions in United States
  negative impact on Truman administration
• American response blocked Zedongs government
  from UN
• NSC-68
• Defined cold war as struggle between the idea of
  freedom and the idea of slavery under the grim
  oligarchy of the Kremlin
• Establishment of permanent military complex

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I. Origins of the Cold War (contd)

• Korean War
• Postwar division of Korea (similar to Berlin)
• Communist North anticommunist South
• North Korean invasion of south (June 1950)
• Mobilization of U.S. military response
• Perception of Cold War test
• Obtainment of United Nations authorization
• Initial American military progress
• MacArthur at Inchon (September 1950)
• Intervention by China (October 1950)
• Removal of General Douglas MacArthur
• Wanted to invade (w/ nuclear weapons) China
• Truman refused MacArthur publicly criticized
  Truman fired him
• Protracted stalemate _at_ 38th parallel (original
  boundary)
• 33,000 US deaths 1 million Korean soldiers 2
  million civilians
• Armistice and aftermath

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Map 92
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I. Origins of the Cold War (contd)

• Concerns raised by the Cold War
• Simplistic East-West dichotomies
• Inability to see foreign developments on
  case-by-case basis
• Continual intervention abroad
• Walter Lippman
• Tendency to side with undemocratic regimes
• Aversion to colonial independence
• Philippine independence (1946)
• Retraction of support of colonial independence
  movements
• Double-standard of language of freedom

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II. Ideological mobilization for Cold War

• Cultural Cold War
• Depictions of U.S. history
• Historical Americanism pluralism, tolerance, and
  equality
• Ethnic and racial strife?
• The arts
• Areas
• Film The Red Menace and removal of negative
  aspects of American history from scripts
• Painting Jackson Pollocks creation-based action
  paintings
• Music John Cages liberal compositions
• Dance George Balanchines graceful freedom
  choreography
• Secret involvement of national security agencies
• CIA and Defense Department funded the arts
• Political discourse

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II. Ideological mobilization for Cold War (contd)

• Themes
• America as land of pluralism, tolerance,
  equality, free expression, individual liberty
• Communist regimes as totalitarian
• Aggressive states seeking to subdue all of civil
  society
• Socialized resources (medicine, housing) as
  communistic and a negation of freedom
• American Medical Associations campaign against
  socialized medicine, a.k.a. Trumans national
  health insurance plan
• Rise of human rights
• Background
• Historical origins of concept Enlightenment, AR,
  FR
• Impact of World War II Four Freedoms, Atlantic
  Charter, and Nuremberg

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II. Ideological mobilization for Cold War (contd)

• Rise of human rights
• Drafting of UN Universal Declaration of Human
  Rights (1948)
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Range of rights identified
• Civil and political liberties speech, religion,
  arbitrary rule
• Social and economic entitlements
• Affirmation of global accountability of nations
• Cold War contest over
• U.S. emphasis on political rights
• Soviet emphasis on social, economic rights
• Compromise two separate covenants
• Civil and political
• Economic, social, and cultural
• Congress ratified 1st in 1992 has yet to ratify
  2nd

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III. Truman presidency

• Postwar domestic situation
• Rapid demobilization return of soldiers to
  civilian life
• Abolition of wartime regulatory agencies
• Fair Deal
• Aims
• Revive momentum of New Deal
• Improve social safety net and living standards
• Program called on Congress to
• Increase minimum wage
• Enact program of national health insurance
• Expand public housing, Social Security, and aid
  to education

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III. Truman presidency (contd)

• Strike Wave of 1946
• Contributing factors
• Scope and Magnitude
• Range of industries affected steel, auto, coal,
  etc.
• Operation Dixie Unionize the South
• Textile, steel, and agricultural industries
• Truman response
• Concern over economic effect
• Threat to draft striking railroad workers
• Court order against striking miners
• Outcomes
• Presidential fact-finding boards

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III. Truman presidency (contd)

• Republican congressional gains of 1946
• Causes
• Middle-class alarm over strike wave
• Labor disappointment over Truman
• Failure of Operation Dixie conservative
  coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats
• Consequences
• Rejection of Fair Deal program
• Tax cuts for wealthy
• Taft-Hartley Act
• Provisions reversed many labor gains

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III. Truman presidency (contd)

• Steps towards civil rights
• Anti-discrimination measures, state and local
• Fair employment practices commissions
• Vitality of civil rights coalition
• Labor, religious groups, and black organizations
• Growing response to lynching zero lynchings in
  1952
• Integration of major league baseball Jackie
  Robinson
• Commission on Civil Rights To Secure These
  Rights (Oct. 1947)
• Called on government to end segregation across
  the board
• Trumans civil rights initiatives
• Program presented to Congress
• Content permanent civil rights commission,
  federal anti-lynching and poll tax laws, and
  equal access to education and employment
• Defeated by Congress
• Executive order desegregating of armed forces

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III. Truman presidency (contd)

• Steps towards civil rights
• Trumans civil rights initiatives
• Underlying considerations
• Personal sentiments
• Cold War implications
• Political strategy
• Election of 1948
• Truman and the Democrats
• Drive to revive and broaden New Deal coalition
• Progressive program
• Hubert Humphrey walk out of the shadow of
  states rights and into the sunlight of human
  rights.
• Strom Thurmond and the States Rights
  (Dixiecrat) party
• Break from Democratic party
• Call for segregation, states rights
• The issue was individual liberty and freedom

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III. Truman presidency (contd)

• Election of 1948
• Henry A. Wallace and Progressive party
• Program
• Expansion of welfare
• Desegregation
• De-escalation of Cold War
• Support from communists abandonment by liberals
• Thomas A. Dewey and the Republicans
• Colorlessness of candidate
• Complacency and vagueness of campaign
• Trumans upset victory

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Map 93
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IV. Anticommunist crusade

• Wide-ranging impact of Cold War on American life
• Permanent military-industrial establishment
• Federal projects
• Weapons development
• Military bases
• Higher education
• Interstate highway system
• Culture of secrecy, dishonesty chemical,
  biological, and nuclear testing on unwitting
  soldiers and civilians
• Revised immigration policy Communist-region
  refugees
• Dismantling of segregation
• Assault on right to dissent

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IV. Anticommunist crusade (contd)

• Emergence of anticommunist crusade
• Trumans loyalty review system (1947)
• House Un-American Activities Committee hearings
  on Hollywood (1947)
• Pressure to testify about beliefs, name names
• Cooperation and resistance
• Walt Disney, Gary Cooper, Ronald Reagan
• Arrest and blacklisting of Hollywood Ten
• Legal cases
• Trial, conviction, and imprisonment of Alger Hiss
• Whittaker Chambers Richard Nixon (prosecutor)
• Trial, conviction, and imprisonment of Communist
  Party leaders
• Trial, conviction, and death of Julius and Ethel
  Rosenberg

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IV. Anticommunist crusade (contd)

• McCarthyism
• Joseph R. McCarthy
• Background fictional war record
• Emergence with sensational Wheeling speech
• McCarthys Senate committee hearings
• Wild allegations regarding disloyalty, communist
  presence
• Growing Republican ambivalence
• McCarthys downfall
• Army-McCarthy hearings
• Television exposure
• Scolding by Joseph Welch Have you no sense of
  decency
• Senate censure
• Genesis of term McCarthyism

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IV. Anticommunist crusade (contd)

• Breadth of anticommunist crusade around country
• Initiatives of government (national, state, and
  local)
• Investigative committees
• Police department red squads
• Laws to ban, monitor communist presence
• Loyalty oaths
• Initiatives of private organizations American
  Legion, DAR
• Ideological cleansing of public libraries,
  universities Robin Hood
• Acquiescence of judiciary Dennis v. United
  States
• Upheld jailing of Communist leaders (beliefs, not
  actions)
• Acquiescence of liberals
• Cost to the persecuted

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IV. Anticommunist crusade (contd)

• Anticommunism as popular mass movement
• Strength among those of eastern European descent
• Strength among Catholics
• Multiple uses of anticommunism
• Bureaucratic self-promotion
• Political self-preservation
• Discrediting of political, social targets
• New Deal legacy
• Economic regulation
• Organized labor
• Civil rights
• Feminism
• Homosexuality

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IV. Anticommunist crusade (contd)

• Anticommunist politics
• Republican use of anticommunism to block Truman
  program
• McCarran Internal Security Act (1950)
• Barred totalitarians from entering US
• McCarran-Walter Act (1952)
• Act used to exclude prominent individuals from
  entry into US
• Authorized deportation of communist-Americans
• Operation Wetback (1954)
• Confinement of social welfare benefits to
  unionized workers
• Ideological taming of organized labor
• CIO expulsion of left-wing leaders and unions
• Labors support for Cold War foreign policy

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IV. Anticommunist crusade (contd)

• Response of civil rights movement to
  anticommunist crusade
• Outspoken opposition (Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du
  Bois)
• Shifting approach of mainstream groups (NAACP,
  NUL)
• Initial resistance
• Growing accommodation
• Purges of Communist members
• Silence about political persecution
• Embrace of Cold War rhetoric
• Use of Cold War rhetoric to promote civil rights
• Demise of left-leaning organizations (Southern
  Conference for Human Welfare)

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IV. Anticommunist crusade (contd)

• Lull in momentum for civil rights
• Dampening effect of Cold War
• Diminishing of efforts from Truman
  administration, Democrats
• Legacy for black postwar prospects