The U.S.A.

1
The U.S.A. A History1945 1952
2
The Atomic Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945

• On August 6, 1945, a plane called the Enola Gay
  dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.
  Instantly, 70,000 Japanese citizens were
  vaporized. In the months and years that followed,
  an additional 100,000 perished from burns and
  radiation sickness.

3
The Atomic Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945

• This map shows the range of the destruction
  caused by the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.
  Exploding directly over a city of 320,000, the
  bomb vaporized over 70,000 people instantly and
  caused fires over two miles away.

4
The Atomic Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945
A "mushroom" cloud rises over the city of
Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, following the
detonation of "Fat Man." The second atomic weapon
used against Japan, this single bomb resulted in
the deaths of 80,000 Japanese citizens.
5
The Atomic Bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 1945

• Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war on
  Japan. On August 9, a second atomic bomb was
  dropped on Nagasaki, where 80,000 Japanese people
  perished.
• On August 14, 1945, the Japansese surrendered.

6
Post war challenges

• When Japan surrendered to the Allies at the end
  of the long summer of 1945, Americans were
  ecstatic. Ticker tape parades were staged in
  nearly every town to welcome America's returning
  heroes.

7
Post war challenges

• Unfortunately, the euphoria could not last long.
  Although the Soviet Union and the United States
  were allied in their struggle against Hitler's
  Germany, Americans distrusted Josef Stalin's
  Communist government and abhorred his takeover of
  Eastern European countries immediately after the
  war. More Soviet citizens were killed in World
  War II than any other nation, and Josef Stalin
  was determined to receive compensation for
  damages and guarantees that such a slaughter
  could never again plague the Soviet people.

8
Baby Boom

• In 1946, 330 babies were being born every hour.
  The Baby Boom has begun.
• The term "baby boom" most often refers to the
  dramatic post-World War II baby boom (1946-1964).
  There are an estimated 78.3 million Americans who
  were born during this demographic boom in births.
  The term is a general demographic one and is also
  applicable to other similar population
  expansions.
• Post-World War II baby boom - Years of duration
  vary, depending on the source ( 1943-1960, or
  1946-1964).

9
The Cold War

• For its part, the United States was unwilling to
  sit idle while another form of totalitarianism
  spread westward from Moscow. One war immediately
  started another the Cold War.

10
The Cold War

• The Cold War lasted about 45 years. There were no
  direct military campaigns between the two main
  antagonists, the United States and the Soviet
  Union. Yet billions of dollars and millions of
  lives were lost in the fight.

11
The Cold War

• No single foreign policy issue mattered more to
  the United States for the next 50 years as much
  as the Cold War. President Truman set the
  direction for the next eight presidents with the
  announcement of the containment policy. Crises in
  Berlin, China, and Korea forced Truman to back
  his words with actions. The Cold War kept defense
  industries humming and ultimately proved the
  limits of American power in Vietnam. Democracy
  was tested with outbreaks of Communist witch
  hunts.

12
The Cold War

• The long-term causes of the Cold War are clear.
  Western democracies had always been hostile to
  the idea of a communist state. The United States
  had refused recognition to the USSR for 16 years
  after the Bolshevik takeover.

13
The Cold War

• Domestic fears of communism erupted in a Red
  Scare in America in the early Twenties. American
  business leaders had long feared the consequences
  of a politically driven workers' organization.
  World War II provided short-term causes as well.

14
The Cold War

• There was hostility on the Soviet side as well.
  Twenty million Russian citizens perished during
  World War II. Stalin was enraged that the
  Americans and British had waited so long to open
  a front in France. This would have relieved
  pressure on the Soviet Union from the attacking
  Germans. Further, The United States terminated
  Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union before the war
  was complete. Finally, the Soviet Union believed
  in communism.

15
The Cold War

• Stalin made promises during the war about the
  freedom of eastern Europe on which he blatantly
  reneged. At the Yalta Conference, the USSR
  pledged to enter the war against Japan no later
  than three months after the conclusion of the
  European war. In return, the United States
  awarded the Soviets territorial concessions from
  Japan and special rights in Chinese Manchuria.

16
The Cold War

• When the Soviet Union entered the war between the
  bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United
  States no longer needed their aid, but Stalin was
  there to collect on Western promises. All these
  factors contributed to a climate of mistrust that
  heightened tensions at the outbreak of the Cold
  War.

17
The Cold War

• At Potsdam, the Allies agreed on the postwar
  outcome for Nazi Germany. After territorial
  adjustments, Germany was divided into four
  occupation zones with the United States, Great
  Britain, France, and the Soviet Union each
  administering one. Germany was to be democratized
  and de-Nazified. Once the Nazi leaders were
  arrested and war crimes trials began, a date
  would be agreed upon for the election of a new
  German government and the withdrawal of Allied
  troops.

18
The Cold War

• This process was executed in the zones held by
  the western Allies. In the eastern Soviet
  occupation zone, a puppet communist regime was
  elected. There was no promise of repatriation
  with the west. Soon such governments, aided by
  the Soviet Red Army came to power all across
  eastern Europe. Stalin was determined to create a
  buffer zone to prevent any future invasion of the
  Russian heartland.

19
The Cold War

• Winston Churchill remarked in 1946 that an "iron
  curtain had descended across the continent.

20
The Formation of the United Nations

• The Big Three of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin
  had devoted hours of dialogue to the nature of a
  United Nations. After agreeing on the general
  principles at the Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta
  Conferences, delegates from around the world met
  in San Francisco to write a charter. With the
  nation still mourning the recent death of
  Franklin Roosevelt, his wife Eleanor addressed
  the delegates. Despite considerable enmity and
  conflicts of interest among the attending
  nations, a charter was ultimately approved by
  unanimous consent.

21
The Formation of the United Nations

• Despite the ideological animosity spawned by the
  Cold War, a new spirit of globalism was born
  after WWII. It was based, in part, on the
  widespread recognition of the failures of
  isolationism. The incarnation of this global
  sprit came to life with the establishment of the
  United Nations in 1945 with its headquarters in
  New York City.

22
The Formation of the United Nations

• World leaders met at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington,
  D.C., in August 1944 to formulate plans for a new
  organization to promote international
  cooperation. The general principles established
  there provided the foundation for the United
  Nations charter.

23
The Cold War

• When the Red Army marched on Germany, it quickly
  absorbed the nearby nations Estonia, Latvia, and
  Lithuania into the Soviet Union. Soon communist
  forces dominated the governments of Romania and
  Bulgaria.

24
The Cold War

• By the fall of 1945, it was clear that the
  Soviet-backed Lublin regime had complete control
  of Poland, violating the Yalta promise of free
  and unfettered elections there. It was only a
  matter of time before Hungary and Czechoslovakia
  fell into the Soviet orbit. Yugoslavia had an
  independent communist leader named Tito.

25
The Cold War

• And now Stalin was ordering the creation of a
  communist puppet regime in the Soviet sector of
  occupied Germany. How many dominoes would fall?
  United States diplomats saw a continent ravaged
  by war looking for strong leadership and aid of
  any sort, providing a climate ripe for
  revolution. Would the Soviets get all of Germany?
  Or Italy and France? President Truman was
  determined to reverse this trend.

26
The Cold War

• Greece and Turkey were the first nations
  spiraling into crisis that had not been directly
  occupied by the Soviet Army. Both countries were
  on the verge of being taken over by Soviet-backed
  guerrilla movements. Truman decided to draw a
  line in the sand. In March 1947, he asked
  Congress to appropriate 400 million to send to
  these two nations in the form of military and
  economic assistance. Within two years the
  communist threat had passed, and both nations
  were comfortably in the western sphere of
  influence.

27
The Cold War

• A mid-level diplomat in the State Department
  named George Kennan proposed the policy of
  containment. Since the American people were weary
  from war and had no desire to send United States
  troops into Eastern Europe, rolling back the
  gains of the Red Army would have been impossible.

28
The Truman Doctrine

• But in places where communism threatened to
  expand, American aid might prevent a takeover. By
  vigorously pursuing this policy, the United
  States might be able to contain communism within
  its current borders. The policy became known as
  the Truman Doctrine, as the President outlined
  these intentions with his request for monetary
  aid for Greece and Turkey.

29
The Truman Doctrine

• Truman stated the Doctrine it would be "the
  policy of the United States to support free
  peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation
  by armed minorities or by outside pressures."
  Truman reasoned, because these "totalitarian
  regimes" coerced "free peoples," they represented
  a threat to international peace and the national
  security of the United States. Truman made the
  plea amid the crisis of the Greek Civil War
  (19461949). He argued that if Greece and Turkey
  did not receive the aid that they urgently
  needed, they would inevitably fall to communism
  with grave consequences throughout the region.

30
The Truman Doctrine

• The policy won the support of Congress and
  involved sending 400 million in American money,
  but no military forces, to the region. The effect
  was to end the Communist threat, and in 1952 both
  countries joined NATO, a military alliance that
  guaranteed their protection.2
• The Doctrine shifted American foreign policy
  toward the Soviet Union from détente (friendship)
  to, as George F. Kennan phrased it, a policy of
  containment of Soviet expansion. Historians often
  use it to mark the starting date of the Cold War.

31
The Marshall Plan

• In the aftermath of WWII, Western Europe lay
  devastated. The war had ruined crop fields and
  destroyed infrastructure, leaving most of Europe
  in dire need. On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State
  George Marshall announced the European Recovery
  Program. To avoid antagonizing the Soviet Union,
  Marshall announced that the purpose of sending
  aid to Western Europe was completely
  humanitarian, and even offered aid to the
  communist states in the east. Congress approved
  Truman's request of 17 billion over four years
  to be sent to Great Britain, France, West
  Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium.

32
The Marshall Plan

• The Marshall Plan created an economic miracle in
  Western Europe. By the target date of the program
  four years later, Western European industries
  were producing twice as much as they had been the
  year before war broke out. Some Americans
  grumbled about the costs, but the nation spent
  more on liquor during the years of the Marshall
  Plan than they sent overseas to Europe. The aid
  also produced record levels of trade with
  American firms, fueling a postwar economic boom
  in the United States.

33
The Berlin Airlift

• Berlin, Germany's wartime capital was the
  prickliest of all issues that separated the
  United States and Soviet Union during the late
  1940s. The city was divided into four zones of
  occupation like the rest of Germany.

34
The Berlin Airlift

• However, the entire city lay within the Soviet
  zone of occupation. Once the nation of East
  Germany was established, the Allied sections of
  the capital known as West Berlin became an island
  of democracy and capitalism behind the Iron
  Curtain.

35
The Berlin Airlift

• The Soviets decided to seal all land routes going
  into West Berlin. Stalin gambled that the Western
  powers were not willing to risk another war to
  protect half of Berlin. The Allies were tired,
  and their populations were unlikely to support a
  new war. A withdrawal by the United States would
  eliminate this democratic enclave in the Soviet
  zone.

36
The Berlin Airlift

• Truman was faced with tough choices.
  Relinquishing Berlin to the Soviets would
  seriously undermine the new doctrine of
  containment. Any negotiated settlement would
  suggest that the USSR could engineer a crisis at
  any time to exact concessions. If Berlin were
  compromised, the whole of West Germany might
  question the American commitment to German
  democracy.

37
The Berlin Airlift

• To Harry Truman, there was no question. "We are
  going to stay, period, " he declared. Together,
  with Britain, the United States began moving
  massive amounts of food and supplies into West
  Berlin by the only path still open the air.

38
The Berlin Airlift

• Truman had thrown the gauntlet at Stalin's feet.
  The USSR had to now choose between war and peace.
  He refused to give the order to shoot down the
  American planes. Over the next eleven months,
  British and American planes flew over 4000 tons
  of supplies into West Berlin. As the American
  public cheered "Operation Vittles,"

39
The Berlin Airlift

• Stalin began to look bad in the eyes of the
  world. He was clearly willing to use innocent
  civilians as pawns to quench his expansionist
  thirst. In May 1949, the Soviets ended the
  blockade. The United States and Britain had flown
  over 250,000-supply missions.

40
The Formation of NATO

• Stalin miscalculated when he estimated the
  strength of western unity. To cement the
  cooperation that the western allies had shown
  during the war and immediate postwar years, the
  North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in
  April 1949. The pact operated on the basis of
  collective security. If any one of the member
  states were attacked, all would retaliate
  together. The original NATO included Britain,
  France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada,
  Iceland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Portugal,
  and the United States.

41
The Formation of NATO

• NATO was the very sort of permanent alliance
  George Washington warned against in his Farewell
  Address, and represented the first such agreement
  since the Franco-American Alliance that helped
  secure victory in the American Revolution.
• The United States formally shed its isolationist
  past and thrust itself forward as a determined
  superpower fighting its new rival.

42
The Chinese Civil War

• The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought
  between the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese
  Nationalist Party), the governing party of the
  Republic of China and the Communist Party of
  China (CPC). The war began in April 1927, amidst
  the Northern Expedition. The war represented an
  ideological split between the Western-supported
  Nationalist KMT, and the Soviet-supported
  Communist CPC. In mainland China today, the war
  is more commonly known as the War of Liberation.

43
The Chinese Civil War

• The civil war continued intermittently until the
  Second World War interrupted it, resulting in the
  two parties forming a Second United Front.
  Japan's campaign was defeated in 1945, marking
  the end of World War II, and China's full-scale
  civil war resumed in 1946..

Mao Zedong
Chiang Kai-shek
From left to right US diplomat Patrick J.
Hurley, Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek, Chang
Ch'ün, Wang Shi Jie (???), Mao Zedong
44
The Chinese Civil War

• After a further four years, 1950 saw a cessation
  of major military hostilitieswith the newly
  founded People's Republic of China controlling
  mainland China (including Hainan Island), and the
  Republic of China's jurisdiction being restricted
  to Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and several
  outlying Fujianese islands. To this day, since no
  armistice or peace treaty has ever been signed,
  there is controversy as to whether the Civil War
  has legally ended.

45
The Chinese Civil War

• On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the
  People's Republic of China with its capital at
  Beiping, which was renamed Beijing. Chiang
  Kai-shek and approximately 2 million Nationalist
  Chinese retreated from mainland China to the
  island of Taiwan. There remained only isolated
  pockets of resistance, notably in Sichuan (ending
  soon after the fall of Chengdu on December 10,
  1949) and in the far south.

46
The Chinese Civil War

• A PRC attempt to take the ROC controlled island
  of Kinmen was thwarted in the Battle of Kuningtou
  halting the PLA advance towards Taiwan. In
  December 1949, Chiang proclaimed Taipei, Taiwan,
  the temporary capital of the Republic of China
  and continued to assert his government as the
  sole legitimate authority in China.

47
The Chinese Civil War

• The Communists' other amphibious operations of
  1950 were more successful they led to the
  Communist conquest of Hainan Island in April
  1950, capture of Wanshan Islands off the
  Guangdong coast (MayAugust 1950) and of Zhoushan
  Island off Zhejiang (May 1950).

48
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• Containment had not gone so well in Asia. When
  the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan,
  they sent troops into Japanese-occupied Korea. As
  American troops established a presence in the
  southern part of the Korean peninsula, the
  Soviets began cutting roads and communications at
  the 38th parallel. Two separate governments were
  emerging, as Korea began to resemble the divided
  Germany.

49
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• Upon the recommendation of the UN, elections were
  scheduled, but the North refused to participate.
  The South elected Syngman Rhee as president, but
  the Soviet-backed North was ruled by Kim Il Sung.
  When the United States withdrew its forces from
  the peninsula, trouble began.

50
The Korean War 1950 - 1953
Northern Korean armed forces crossed the 38th
parallel on June 25, 1950. It took only two days
for President Truman to commit the United States
military to the defense of southern Korea. Truman
hoped to build a broad coalition against the
aggressors from the North by enlisting support
from the United Nations.
51
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• Of course, the Soviet Union could veto any
  proposed action by the Security Council, but this
  time, the Americans were in luck. The Soviets
  were boycotting the Security Council for refusing
  to admit Red China into the United Nations. As a
  result, the Council voted unanimously to "repel
  the armed attack" of North Korea. Many countries
  sent troops to defend the South, but forces
  beyond those of the United States and South Korea
  were nominal.

52
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• The commander of the UN forces was none other
  than Douglas MacArthur. He had an uphill battle
  to fight, as the North had overrun the entire
  peninsula with the exception of the small Pusan
  Perimeter in the South. MacArthur ordered an
  amphibious assault at Inchon on the western side
  of the peninsula on September 15.

53
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• Caught by surprise, the communist-backed northern
  forces reeled in retreat. American led-forces
  from Inchon and the Pusan Perimeter quickly
  pushed the northern troops to the 38th Parallel
  and kept going. The United States saw an
  opportunity to create a complete indivisible
  democratic Korea and pushed the northern army up
  to the Yalu River, which borders China.

54
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• With anticommunism on the rise at home, Truman
  relished the idea of reuniting Korea. His hopes
  were dashed on November 27, when over 400,000
  Chinese soldiers flooded across the Yalu River.
  In 1949, Mao Tse-tung had established a communist
  dictatorship in China, the world's most populous
  nation. The Chinese now sought to aide the
  communists in northern Korea.

55
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• In no time, American troops were once again
  forced below the 38th Parallel. General MacArthur
  wanted to escalate the war. He sought to bomb the
  Chinese mainland and blockade their coast.
• Truman disagreed. He feared escalation of the
  conflict could lead to World War III, especially
  if the now nuclear-armed Soviet Union lent
  assistance to China. Disgruntled, MacArthur took
  his case directly to the American people by
  openly criticizing Truman's approach. Truman
  promptly fired him for insubordination.

56
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, also known as the
  Chosin Reservoir Campaign or the Changjin Lake
  Campaign (simplified Chinese ????? pinyin
  Cháng Jin Hu Zhàn Yì), was a decisive battle in
  the Korean War. Shortly after the People's
  Republic of China entered the conflict, the
  People's Volunteer Army 9th Army infiltrated the
  northeastern part of North Korea and surprised
  the US X Corps at the Chosin Reservoir area.

57
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• A brutal seventeen day battle in freezing weather
  soon followed. In the period between 27 November
  and 13 December 1950, 30,000 United Nations (UN)
  troops (nicknamed "The Chosin Few") under the
  command of Major General Edward Almond were
  encircled by approximately 60,000 Chinese troops
  under the command of Song Shi-Lun. Although
  Chinese troops managed to surround and outnumber
  the UN forces, the UN forces broke out of the
  encirclement while inflicting crippling losses on
  the Chinese. The evacuation of the X Corps from
  the port of Hungnam marked the complete
  withdrawal of UN troops from North Korea.

58
The Korean War 1950 - 1953

• Meanwhile, the war evolved into a stalemate, with
  the front line corresponding more or less to the
  38th Parallel. Ceasefire negotiations dragged on
  for two more years, beyond Truman's Presidency.
  Finally, on July 27, 1953, an armistice was
  signed at Panmunjom. North Korea remained a
  communist dictatorship, and South Korea remained
  under the control of Syngman Rhee, a military
  strong man. Over 53,000 Americans were killed in
  the conflict.

59
Challenges at Home

• The end of World War II brought a series of
  challenges to Harry Truman. The entire economy
  had to be converted from a wartime economy to a
  consumer economy. Strikes that had been delayed
  during the war erupted with a frenzy across
  America. Inflation threatened as millions of
  Americans planned to spend wealth they had not
  enjoyed since 1929. As the soldiers returned
  home, they wanted their old jobs back, creating a
  huge labor surplus. Truman, distracted by new
  threats overseas, was faced with additional
  crises at home.

60
Challenges at Home

• To provide relief for the veterans of World War
  II, and to diminish the labor surplus, Congress
  passed the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944.
  Known as the GI Bill of Rights, this law granted
  government loans to veterans who wished to start
  a new business or build a home. It also provided
  money for veterans to attend school or college.
  Thousands took advantage, and Americans enjoyed
  the double bonus of relieving unemployment and
  investing in a more educated workforce.

61
Challenges at Home

• Although Truman maintained wartime price controls
  for over a year after the war, he was pressured
  to end them by the Republican Congress in 1947.
  Inflation skyrocketed and workers immediately
  demanded pay increases. Strikes soon spread
  across America involving millions of American
  workers.

62
Challenges at Home

• Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which
  allowed the President to declare a "cooling-off"
  period if a strike were to erupt. Union leaders
  became liable for damages in lawsuits and were
  required to sign noncommunist oaths. The ability
  of unions to contribute to political campaigns
  was limited. Truman vetoed this measure, but it
  was passed by the Congress nonetheless.

63
Challenges at Home

• Serious issues remained. Now that nuclear power
  was a reality, who would control the fissionable
  materials? In August 1946, Truman signed the
  Atomic Energy Act, which gave the government a
  monopoly over all nuclear material. Five
  civilians would head the Atomic Energy
  Commission. They directed the peaceful uses of
  the atom. The President was vested with exclusive
  authority to launch a nuclear strike. The
  military was also reorganized.

64
Challenges at Home

• The War Department was eliminated and a new
  Defense Department was created. The Secretaries
  of the Army, Navy, and Air Force were subordinate
  to the new Secretary of Defense. The National
  Security Council was created to coordinate the
  Departments of State and Defense. Finally, a
  Central Intelligence Agency was established to
  monitor espionage activities around the globe.

65
1948 Election

• In 1948, Harry Truman faced reelection. Almost
  every political spin-doctor in the nation
  predicted a victory by the Republican Governor of
  New York, Thomas Dewey. The Democratic Party was
  split three ways. In addition to Truman, Henry
  Wallace represented the liberal wing on the
  Progressive Party ticket. J. Strom Thurmond ran
  as a "Dixiecrat" Southern candidate who thought
  Truman too liberal on civil rights.

66
1948 Election

• Truman ran a whistle-stop train campaign across
  the land, hoping to win by holding onto the Solid
  South and retaining the support of organized
  labor. He also became the first candidate to
  campaign openly for the African American vote.

67
1948 Election

• Against everyone's predictions but his own,
  Truman prevailed on election day. He had hoped to
  enact a socially expansive Fair Deal, much along
  the lines of the New Deal of FDR, but
  conservative Democrats and Republicans in the
  Congress blocked most of his initiatives.

68
1948 Election

• Of the Presidency Truman wrote, "The President
  whoever he is has to decide. He can't pass the
  buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding
  for him. That's his job."

Harry Truman kept this sign on his desk to make
it known that he would not be "passing the buck"
on to anyone else.
69
Soviet espionage and McCarthyism

• Throughout his presidency, Truman had to deal
  with accusations that the federal government was
  harboring Soviet spies at the highest level.
  Testimony in Congress on this issue garnered
  national attention, and thousands of people were
  fired as security risks. An optimistic, patriotic
  man, Truman was dubious about reports of
  potential Communist or Soviet penetration of the
  U.S. government, and his oft-quoted response was
  to dismiss the allegations as a "red herring."

70
Soviet espionage and McCarthyism

• In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former spy
  for the Soviets and a senior editor at Time
  magazine, testified before the House Un-American
  Activities Committee (HUAC) and presented a list
  of what he said were members of an underground
  communist network working within the United
  States government in the 1930s. One was Alger
  Hiss, a senior State Department official. Hiss
  denied the accusations.

71
Soviet espionage and McCarthyism

• Chambers' revelations led to a crisis in American
  political culture, as Hiss was convicted of
  perjury, in a controversial trial. On February 9,
  1950, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy accused
  the State Department of having communists on the
  payroll, and specifically claimed that Secretary
  of State Dean Acheson knew of, and was
  protecting, 205 communists within the State
  Department.At issue was whether Truman had
  removed all the subversive agents that had
  entered the government during the Roosevelt
  years. McCarthy insisted that he had not.

72
Soviet espionage and McCarthyism

• By spotlighting this issue and attacking Truman's
  administration, McCarthy quickly established
  himself as a national figure, and his explosive
  allegations dominated the headlines. His claims
  were short on confirmable details, but they
  nevertheless transfixed a nation struggling to
  come to grips with frightening new realities the
  Soviet Union's nuclear explosion, the loss of
  U.S. atom bomb secrets, the fall of China to
  communism, and new revelations of Soviet
  intelligence penetration of other U.S. agencies,
  including the Treasury Department.

73
Soviet espionage and McCarthyism

• Truman, a pragmatic man who had made allowances
  for the likes of Tom Pendergast and Stalin,
  quickly developed an unshakable loathing of
  Joseph McCarthy. He counterattacked, saying that
  "Americanism" itself was under attack by elements
  "who are loudly proclaiming that they are its
  chief defenders. ... They are trying to create
  fear and suspicion among us by the use of
  slander, unproved accusations and just plain
  lies. ... They are trying to get us to believe
  that our Government is riddled with communism and
  corruption. ... These slandermongers are trying
  to get us so hysterical that no one will stand up
  to them for fear of being called a communist. Now
  this is an old communist trick in reverse. ...
  That is not fair play. That is not Americanism."
  Nevertheless Truman was never able to shake his
  image among the public of being unable to purge
  his government of subversive influences.

74
Indochina

• United States' involvement in Indochina widened
  during the Truman administration. On V-J Day
  1945, Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh
  declared independence from France, but the U.S.
  announced its support of restoring French power.
  In 1950, Ho again declared Vietnamese
  independence, which was recognized by Communist
  China and the Soviet Union. Ho controlled a
  remote territory along the Chinese border, while
  France controlled the remainder. Truman's
  "containment policy" called for opposition to
  Communist expansion, and led the U.S. to continue
  to recognize French rule, support the French
  client government, and increase aid to Vietnam.
  However, a basic dispute emerged the Americans
  wanted a strong and independent Vietnam, while
  the French cared little about containing China
  but instead wanted to suppress local nationalism
  and integrate Indochina into the French Union.

75
White House renovations

• In 1948 Truman ordered a controversial addition
  to the exterior of the White House a
  second-floor balcony in the south portico that
  came to be known as the "Truman Balcony." The
  addition was unpopular.
• Not long afterwards, engineering experts
  concluded that the building, much of it over 130
  years old, was in a dangerously dilapidated
  condition. That August, a section of floor
  collapsed and Truman's own bedroom and bathroom
  were closed as unsafe. No public announcement
  about the serious structural problems of the
  White House was made until after the 1948
  election had been won, by which time Truman had
  been informed that his new balcony was the only
  part of the building that was sound.

76
White House renovations

• The Truman family moved into nearby Blair House
  as the newer West Wing, including the Oval
  Office, remained open, Truman found himself
  walking to work across the street each morning
  and afternoon. In due course the decision was
  made to demolish and rebuild the whole interior
  of the main White House, as well as excavating
  new basement levels and underpinning the
  foundations. The famous exterior of the
  structure, however, was buttressed and retained
  while the renovations proceeded inside. The work
  lasted from December 1949 until March 1952.

77
Steel and coal strikes

• In response to a labor/management impasse arising
  from bitter disagreements over wage and price
  controls, Truman instructed his Secretary of
  Commerce, Charles W. Sawyer, to take control of a
  number of the nation's steel mills in April 1952.
  Truman cited his authority as Commander in Chief
  and the need to maintain an uninterrupted supply
  of steel for munitions to be used in the war in
  Korea.

78
Steel and coal strikes

• The Supreme Court found Truman's actions
  unconstitutional, however, and reversed the order
  in a major separation-of-powers decision,
  Youngstown Sheet Tube Co. v. Sawyer. The 63
  decision, which held that Truman's assertion of
  authority was too vague and was not rooted in any
  legislative action by Congress, was delivered by
  a Court composed entirely of Justices appointed
  by either Truman or Roosevelt. The high court's
  reversal of Truman's order was one of the notable
  defeats of his presidency. After coal miners went
  on strike in the spring of 1946, Truman
  threatened to draft the miners into the Army if
  they did not return to work, or use members of
  the Army to replace the workers.

79
Corruption Charges

• In 1950, the Senate, led by Estes Kefauver,
  investigated numerous charges of corruption among
  senior Administration officials, some of whom
  received fur coats and deep freezers for favors.
  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was involved.
  In 1950, 166 IRS employees either resigned or
  were fired, and many were facing indictments from
  the Department of Justice on a variety of
  tax-fixing and bribery charges, including the
  assistant attorney general in charge of the Tax
  Division.

80
Corruption Charges

• When Attorney General Howard McGrath fired the
  special prosecutor for being too zealous, Truman
  fired McGrath. Historians agree that Truman
  himself was innocent and unawarewith one
  exception. In 1945, Mrs. Truman received a new,
  expensive, hard-to-get deep freezer. The
  businessman who provided the gift was the
  president of a perfume company and, thanks to
  Truman's aide and confidante General Harry
  Vaughan, received priority to fly to Europe days
  after the war ended, where he bought new
  perfumes. On the way back he "bumped" a wounded
  veteran from a flight back to the US. Disclosure
  of the episode in 1949 humiliated Truman. The
  President responded by vigorously defending
  Vaughan, an old friend with an office in the
  White House itself. Vaughan was eventually
  connected to multiple influence-peddling scandals.

81
Soviet espionage and McCarthyism

• Charges that Soviet agents had infiltrated the
  government bedeviled the Truman Administration
  and became a major campaign issue for Eisenhower
  in 1952. In 1947, Truman issued Executive Order
  9835 to set up loyalty boards to investigate
  espionage among federal employees.Between 1947
  and 1952, "about 20,000 government employees were
  investigated, some 2500 resigned 'voluntarily,'
  and 400 were fired." He did, however, strongly
  oppose mandatory loyalty oaths for governmental
  employees, a stance that led to charges that his
  Administration was soft on Communism. In 1953,
  Senator Joseph McCarthy and Attorney General
  Herbert Brownell, Jr. claimed that Truman had
  known Harry Dexter White was a Soviet spy when
  Truman appointed him to the International
  Monetary Fund.

82
Civil Rights

• A 1947 report by the Truman administration titled
  To Secure These Rights presented a detailed
  ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms. In
  February 1948, the president submitted a civil
  rights agenda to Congress that proposed creating
  several federal offices devoted to issues such as
  voting rights and fair employment practices. This
  provoked a storm of criticism from Southern
  Democrats in the run up to the national
  nominating convention, but Truman refused to
  compromise, saying "My forebears were
  Confederates. . . . But my very stomach turned
  over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just
  back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army
  trucks in Mississippi and beaten." In retirement
  however, Truman was less progressive on the issue

83
Civil Rights

• Instead of addressing civil rights on a case by
  case need, Truman wanted to address civil rights
  on a national level. Truman made three executive
  orders that eventually became a structure for
  future civil rights legislation. The first
  executive order, Executive Order 9981 in 1948, is
  generally understood to be the act that
  desegregated the armed services. This was a
  milestone on a long road to desegregation of the
  Armed Forces. After several years of planning,
  recommendations and revisions between Truman, the
  Committee on Equality of Treatment and
  Opportunity and the various branches of the
  military, Army units became racially integrated.
  This process was also helped by the pressure of
  manpower shortages during the Korean War, as
  replacements to previously segregated units could
  now be of any race.

84
Civil Rights

• The second, also in 1948, made it illegal to
  discriminate against persons applying for civil
  service positions based on race. The third
  executive order, in 1951, established Committee
  on Government Contract Compliance (CGCC). This
  committee ensured that defense contractors to the
  armed forces could not discriminate against a
  person on account of race.