Ch. 23: The United States And The Cold War, 1945-1953

1. Ch. 23: The United States And The Cold War, 1945-1953 Containment Iron curtain Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan North Atlantic Treaty Organization NSC-68 Totalitarianism Fair Deal Taft-Hartley Act Dixiecrats McCarthyism Hollywood Ten Army-McCarthy hearings McCarran-Walter Act

2. I. Origins of the Cold War

3. A. The Two Powers The United States emerged from World War II as by far the world's greatest power. The only power that in any way could rival the United States was the Soviet Union.

4. B. The Roots of Containment • It seems all but inevitable that the two major powers to emerge from the war would come into conflict. • The Long Telegram advised the Truman administration that the Soviets could not be dealt with as a normal government. • Containment • Iron Curtain speech

5. C. The Truman Doctrine Truman soon determined to put the policy of containment into effect. To rally popular backing for Greece and Turkey, Truman rolled out the heaviest weapon in his rhetorical arsenal-the defense of freedom. The Truman Doctrine created the language through which most Americans came to understand the postwar world.

6. D. The Marshall Plan George Marshall pledged the United States to contribute billions of dollars to finance the economic recovery of Europe. The Marshall Plan offered a positive vision to go along with containment. The Marshall Plan proved to be one of the most successful foreign aid programs in history.

7. E. The Reconstruction of Japan Under the guidance of General Douglas MacArthur, the "supreme commander" in Japan until 1948, that country adopted a new, democratic constitution. The United States also oversaw the economic reconstruction of Japan.

8. F. The Berlin Blockade and NATO • In 1948, the Soviets cut off road and rail traffic from the American, British, and French zones of occupied Germany to Berlin. • An eleven-month Allied airlift followed. • In 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb. • NATO pledged mutual defense against any future Soviet attack. • Warsaw Pact: Soviet Union’s reponse

9. G. The Growing Communist Challenge • Communists won the civil war in China in 1949. • In the wake of these events, the National Security Council approved a call for a permanent military buildup to enable the United States to pursue a global crusade against communism. • NSC-68

11. H. The Korean War • In June 1950, the North Korean army invaded the south, hoping to reunify the country under communist control. • American troops did the bulk of the fighting on this first battlefield of the Cold War. • General Douglas MacArthur

13. I. Cold War Critics Casting the Cold War in terms of a worldwide battle between freedom and slavery had unfortunate consequences. Walter Lippmann objected to turning foreign policy into an "ideological crusade."

14. J. Imperialism and Decolonization • Many movements for colonial independence borrowed the language of the American Declaration of Independence in demanding the right to self-government. • French Indochina • Dutch East Indies • British possessions: Gold Coast, Nigeria, and Malaya

15. II. The Cold War and the Idea of Freedom

16. A. The Cultural Cold War Among other things, the Cold War was an ideological struggle, a battle, in a popular phrase of the 1950s, for the "hearts and minds" of people throughout the world. One of the more unusual Cold War battlefields involved American history and culture. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) emerged as unlikely patrons of the arts.

17. B. Freedom and Totalitarianism • Along with freedom, the Cold War's other great mobilizing concept was totalitarianism. • Aggressive, ideologically driven states that sough to subdue all of civil society, including churches, unions, and other voluntary associations, to their control. • Such states left no room for individual rights or alternative values and therefore could never change from within. • Just as the conflict over slavery redefined American freedom in the nineteenth century, and the confrontation with the Nazis shaped understandings of freedom during World War II, the Cold War reshaped them once again. • Congress added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.

18. C. The Rise of Human Rights • The idea that rights exist applicable to all members of the human family originated during the eighteenth century in the Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions. • In 1948, the UN General Assembly approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. • Core principle: a nation’s treatment of its own citizens should be subject to outside evaluation.

19. D. Ambiguities of Human Rights Debates over the Universal Declaration of Human Rights revealed the tensions inherent in the idea of human rights. After the Cold War ended, the idea of human rights would play an increasingly prominent role in world affairs.

20. III. The Truman Presidency

21. A. The Fair Deal • Truman's first domestic task was to preside over the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy. • Divorce rate in 1945 doubled its prewar level. • 2+million women lost their jobs to returning veterans. • He moved to revive the stalled momentum of the New Deal. • Called on Congress to increase the minimum wage, enact a program of national health insurance, and expand public housing, Social Security, and aid to education.

22. B. The Postwar Strike Wave The AFL and CIO launched Operation Dixie, a campaign to bring unionization to the South. Nearly 5 million workers went on strike.

23. C. The Republican Resurgence • Republicans swept to control both houses of Congress in 1946. • Congress turned aside Truman's Fair Deal program. • Taft-Hartley Act: reversed gains made by labor organizations

24. D. Postwar Civil Rights • Immediately after the war, the status of black Americans enjoyed a prominence in national affairs unmatched since Reconstruction. • By 1952, 20% of black Southerners were registered to vote, a 7x increase from 1940 • For the first time in 70 years, no lynchings occurred in 1952 • The Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 added Jackie Robinson to their team.

25. E. To Secure These Rights • A Commission on Civil Rights appointed by the president issued To Secure These Rights. • It called on the federal government to abolish segregation and discrimination. • In 1948, Truman presented an ambitious civil rights program to Congress. • Truman desegregated the armed forces. • The Democratic platform of 1948 was the most progressive in the party's history.

26. F. The Dixiecrat and Wallace Revolts • Dixiecrats formed the States' Rights party. • Strom Thurmond • A group of left-wing critics of Truman's foreign policy formed the Progressive Party. • Henry Wallace • Truman's main opponent was the Republican Thomas A. Dewey. • Truman's success represented one of the greatest upsets in American political history. • For the first time since 1868, blacks played a decisive role in the outcome

28. IV. The Anticommunist Crusade The Cold War encouraged a culture of secrecy and dishonesty. At precisely the moment when the United States celebrated freedom as the foundation of American life, the right to dissent came under attack.

29. A. Loyalty and Disloyalty Those who could be linked to communism were considered enemies of freedom. HUAC hearings against Hollywood began in 1947.

30. B. The Spy Trials HUAC investigated Alger Hiss. The Rosenburgs were convicted of spying and executed in 1953.

31. C. McCarthy and McCarthyism Senator Joseph McCarthy announced in 1950 that he had a list of 205 communists working for the State Department. McCarthy's downfall came with the nationally televised Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.

32. D. An Atmosphere of Fear Anticommunism was as much a local as a national phenomenon. Local anticommunist groups forced public libraries to remove "un-American" books from their shelves.

33. E. The Uses of Anticommunism • Anticommunism had many faces and purposes. • Anticommunism also served as a weapon wielded by individuals and groups in battles unrelated to defending the United States against subversion. • White supremacists against black civil rights • Businesses against unions • Traditional gender roles against feminism and homosexuality

34. F. Anticommunist Politics • The McCarran Internal Security Bill of 1950 • Vetoed by Truman, but passed with 2/3 majority vote in Congress • Required “subversive” groups to register with the government, allowed the denial of passports to members, and authorized their deportation or detention on presidential order • The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 • Also passed over presidential veto • Quotas based on national origins, and authorized the deportation of immigrants identified as communist • Organized labor rid itself of its left-wing officials and emerged as a major supporter of the foreign policy of the Cold War.

35. G. Cold War Civil Rights • The civil rights movement also underwent a transformation. • The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) purged communists from local branches. • The Cold War caused a shift in thinking and tactics among civil rights groups. • Dean Acheson's speech on aiding "free peoples“ was addressed to the Delta Council; it was filled with unintended irony, as the Delta's citizens were denied the very liberties of which he spoke. • After 1948, little came of the Truman administration's civil rights flurry, but time would reveal that the waning of the civil rights impulse was only temporary.