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Dive into the legacy of President Harry S. Truman, a key figure in shaping Cold War policies, introducing the Truman Doctrine, and pushing for the Fair Deal agenda. Learn about his leadership during World War II and his impactful decisions.
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German born American immigrant • Famous physicist and teacher • Convinced Franklin D. Roosevelt to create the Manhattan Project • Famous for this theory of relativity (E=mc²) • Taught at Princeton University
President from 1945 (when president Franklin D. Roosevelt died) to 1952 • Democrat • Made the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan to end World War II • Led the United States into the Cold War after unsuccessful meeting with Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, at Potsdam • Introduced the Cold War foreign policies of containment and the Truman Doctrine • Committed U.S. troops to the Korean War • First President to send U.S. aid into the situation that would become the Vietnam War • Domestic agenda known as the Fair Deal • Won famously close election against Thomas Dewey in 1948 • Promoted civil rights, although Congress was unreceptive • Desegregated the Armed Forces • Well known for candor that made him unpopular during his time but endeared him to historians
Cold War foreign policy that decreed the United States would provide economic and military aid to any nation attempting to fight against communism • President Harry S. Truman first exercised this principle by asking Congress for $500 million to send to Greece and Turkey in 1947, when Greece was fighting a civil war, one side of which sought to establish a communist government
Domestic agenda of Harry S.Truman • Largely an attempt to continue New Deal policies in the year after World War II
Site of meeting between Allied leaders Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Harry S. Truman (who had recently become president when Franklin D. Roosevelt died) just before the end of World War II • Truman alienated Stalin, contributing to the tension that led to the onset of the Cold War
The secret program to develop an atomic bomb during World War II • Worked in New Mexico • Staffed by a number of famous scientists, including Robert J. Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein • Resulted in the creation of the atomic bomb, as used by the United States against Japan to end World War II
A weapon of mass destruction created by splitting atoms • Used by the United States against Japan to end World War II • Developed by the secret Manhattan Project
International organization founded at the end of World War II to help arbitrate international disagreements before they led to wars; agreed upon by Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Yalta conference • First met in San Francisco in 1945 • Eleanor Roosevelt served as first U.S. representative to this organization
Massive program of American aid to help European nations rebuild after World War II • Undertaken during the presidency of Harry S. Truman • Helped solidify western European opposition to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact
Communist nation that rose to be a world superpower during the Cold War • Had been American ally in World War II but quickly became rival once the war ended • Formed protective alliances, including COMECON and the Warsaw Pact • Included Russia and 15 republics in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia
American and British joint effort to supply residents of West Berlin with food and other necessities after the Soviet Union blockaded the small, free enclave in the middle of East Germany. • Made Berlin an international symbol of freedom
Strongly anti-labor union legislation that the Republican controlled Congress pushed through in 1947 • Repealed large sections of the Wagner Act; vetoed by Harry S. Truman, who had not been particularly kind to organized labor but said that this bill was too harsh • Congress overrode Truman’s veto • Helped to build Truman’s campaign to unexpectedly win reelection in 1948
Constructed by the Soviet Union in 1961 to keep East Germans from leaving the country by entering the democratic West Berlin • Site of John F. Kennedy’s famous visit in 1963 • Destroyed in 1989 when East and West Germany re-unified as the Eastern European Bloc of Soviet satellites began to fall apart
President of the United States from 1952 – 1960 • Was a general in World War II • Led Allied forces on D-Day • Republican • Intensified the Cold War • Minimal Domestic policy • Oversaw the creation of the interstate highway system • Warned of the military industrial complex
The extended tensions between the United States and its allies (NATO) and the Soviet Union and its allies (Warsaw Pact) • Began at the end of World War II • Major events include the Berlin airlift, the Korean War, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, and the Vietnam War • Major American foreign policy ideas relating to the Cold War include containment, brinkmanship, deterrence, the domino theory, and détente • Ended during George Bush’s presidency when first the Warsaw Pact and then the Soviet Union dissolved
Cold War alliance formed in 1949 by the United States and western European nations for mutual defense against the Soviet Union and its communist satellite states (which later organized the Warsaw Pact)
Military Pact between the Soviet Union and its communist satellite states to serve as a counterbalance to NATO • Formed in 1955
Conflict early in the Cold War in which the United States lead a United Nations force aiding South Korea in a civil war against communist North Korea • War ended in a stalemate, as North and South Korea agreed to settle to the borders they had before the Korean War • Division of Korea into north and south has been caused by Soviet and American occupation during World War II
American Cold War policy pioneered Dwight D. Eisenhower. • Posited that the threat of “massive retaliation”- Eisenhower’s term for an American nuclear attack- would prevent the Soviet Union from undertaking policies it knew would upset the United States. • Operated as a justification for an increase in the American supply or armaments, particularly nuclear weapons.
Nickname for the national witch-hunt for communists that took place during the height of the Cold War, in the early 1950’s • Nickname comes from the leadership in this effort by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy • Came to an end when McCarthy took on the U.S. Army, which was too powerful for his intimidation tactics • McCarthy was censured by the Senate in 1954 for his conduct
President from 1960-1963, when he was assassinated • Won an extremely close election over Richard M. Nixon in 1960 • Youngest president ever elected • Only Catholic president ever • Domestic agenda was called the New Frontier and was largely uneventful • Oversaw the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, United States response to the construction of the Berlin Wall, and the early escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War • Lyndon B. Johnson pushed civil rights legislation through Congress, in part by evoking Kennedy’s memory.
Domestic agenda of John F. Kennedy; most of Kennedy’s proposals failed to make it through Congress
Government agency which coordinates American exploration of outer space • Founded by Dwight D. Eisenhower when he was president • Greatest moment was when Apollo 11 mission (1969) landed men on the moon, meeting John F. Kennedy’s challenge to beat the Soviets to the moon before the end of the 1960’s
Ill fated 1961 secret mission to overthrow the communist Cuban government of Fidel Castro • Authorized by John F. Kennedy just after his inauguration • Failed mission both angered the governments of Cuba and the Soviet Union and embarrassed America in eyes of U.S. allies
