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The Beginnings of
the Cold War
Post War America
 Migration to suburbs
 Federal Housing Authority and Veteran’s Administration encouraged this (loans
made living in suburbs cheaper)
 Levitt Brothers – cheap housing plans
 “White Flight”
 Economic boom
 Baby boom
 Increased welfare state
 Focus on minority rights
 Faith in Government
 Standard of Living Doubled
Immediate Effects of World
War II
 Civilians Production Administration
 Republicans won control of Congress, 1942 election
 Taft Hartley Act, 1947 – outlawed closed shops, swear non-communist
oath, 60 days notice to strike
 Operation Dixie – tried to unite textile, steel and service works; failed due
to intended racial integration
 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, 1944 (GI Bill)
 Paid for school (college or trade) for 8 million GI’s
 Loans totaling $16 billion for homes, farms, businesses
 Sell off war surplus
 Employment Act, 1946
 Government will promote full employment, production, and keep inflation
in line – created Council of Economic Advisors
Dealing with the President
 Presidential Secession Act, 1947
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VP
Speaker of the House
President Pro-Tempore of Senate
Secretary of State
…rest of the cabinet
 22nd Amendment, 1947 (Roosevelt Amendment)
 “Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more
than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted
as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other
person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the
President more than once.”
Harry S Truman
 Took office when FDR died
 Wanted to give the people
a “fair deal”
 Civil Rights
 Health
 Welfare
 Labor
 Education
 Housing
 Veterans
 Agriculture
Yalta: Bargain or Betrayal
The new League
 International Monetary Fund
(IMF) to encourage world
trade, 1944
 Create a World Bank
 United Nations, 1945
 50 nations met in San
Francisco
 Security Council: USA,
USSR, Great Britain,
France, China given veto
powers
 Assemblies – all countries
Nuremberg Trials
 1945-1946
 Nuremberg, Germany
 Series of military tribunals
held by Allied forces to
prosecute 23 prominent
members of Nazi Germany
for their war crimes
 12 sentenced to hanging
 1 committed suicide
 1 most likely killed trying to
flee
Origins of Conflict: Mistrust
 Mutual Mistrust
 US opposed Russian Revolution – didn’t officially recognize Soviet
Union for over 15 years
 WWI – separate Treaty with Germany
 Stalin is a tyrant
 Soviet Union excluded from Versailles
 Stalin pledged that Poland should have a representative government
with free elections, as would Bulgaria and Romania – became
puppet governments
 Soviet Union promised to enter war with Japan – however, this
happened after the A bomb – war on paper only
 Disagreements of the Big Three when bargaining WWII
The “Iron Curtain”
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended
across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of
Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade,
Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in
what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not
only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure
of control from Moscow. “ – Winston Churchill
The Cold War [1945-1991]:
An Ideological Struggle
Soviet & Eastern
Bloc Nations
[“Iron Curtain”]
GOAL  spread worldwide Communism
METHODOLOGIES:
US & the Western
Democracies
GOAL  “Containment”
of Communism & the
eventual collapse of the
Communist world.
[George Kennan]
1. Espionage [KGB vs. CIA]
2. Arms Race [nuclear escalation]
3. Ideological Competition for the minds and hearts of
Third World peoples [Communist govt. & command
economy vs. democratic govt. & capitalist
economy]  “proxy wars”
4. Bi-Polarization of Europe [NATO vs. Warsaw Pact]
Truman said the US must help “free peoples who are resisting
attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”
The Truman Doctrine
 CONTAINMENT
 George Kennan
 Dominated American
foreign policy for 40 years
 March 12, 1947
 Truman’s speech to
Congress
 Protect nations from
subjugation of communist
nations
 Pledge American support
for fight against
communism
 US gave Greece and
Turkey $400 million
The Marshall Plan
 sent $12.5 billion over four years to 16
cooperating nations to aid in recovery
Mobilization at Home
 American military power kept at
war-time levels
 Atomic Energy Commission (1946)
 created to oversee all nuclear
research
 National Security Act (1947):
Revamped entire defense
bureaucracy, created:
 Department of Defense
 National Security Council (NSC)
 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
 Expanded powers of executive
branch to pursue international
goals w/o a declaration of war
1948 - intention to create a
West German Republic
In opposition to the
proposed republic, Stalin
established the Berlin
Blockade in June 1948
cutting off all rail and
highway access to Berlin
from the west.
Choosing not to abandon
Berlin or use military force,
Truman ordered an airlift,
called “Operation Vittles,”
to supply West Berlin. The
airlift continued until May
1949.
Berlin Airlift, 1948 - 49
Recognition of Israel
 Middle Eastern oil was
crucial to the European
recovery program and to
the health of the U.S.
economy.
 Despite threats from the
Arab nations to cut off the
supply of oil, President
Truman officially recognized
the state of Israel on May
14, 1948.
Two Sides of War
NATO, 1949
 North Atlantic Treaty
Organization
 USA, France, Great Britain,
Western Germany
 CAPITALISM
Warsaw Pact, 1955
 Pro-Soviet countries – USSR
and all countries controlled
USSR
 COMMUNISM
What about Japan?
 Gen. Douglas MacArthur
took control of the newly
democratic Japan
 In 1946, a MacArthurdictated constitution was
adopted. It renounced
militarism and introduced
western-style democratic
government
Presidential Election, 1948
Mao Zedong and Communist
China
 1949 – The Chinese
Nationalist government of
Chiang Kai-shek was forced
to flee to Taiwan
 Communists, led by Mao
Zedong, swept over the
country.
Meanwhile, back in the USSR…
 1949 – USSR drops their first
atomic bomb
 Creates atomic arms race
between US and USSR
 Truman okay’s the
development of an H-bomb
 US in 1952
 USSR 1953
Battling Communism on the
Home front during the 40s…
 Executive Order 9835, 1946 – program to search out any
“infiltration of disloyal persons”
 House on Un-American Activities (“HUAC”) to investigate
“subversion,” and in 1948, committee member Richard M. Nixon
prosecuted Alger Hiss.
 In February 1950, Joseph R. McCarthy burst upon the scene,
charging that there were scores of unknown communists in the
State Department.
 Truman vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Bill, which let the
president arrest and detain suspicious people during an “internal
security emergency.”
“This House [of Representatives] must now assume
the responsibility of preventing the onrushing tide
of Communism from engulfing all of Asia.” - JFK
NSC-68
 USSR angry at UN’s boycott of
China’s seat on Security Council –
leaves UN
 Top Secret Document, April 14, 1950
 Placed containment a HIGH
priority
 Recommended military over
diplomatic action
 Called for significant peacetime
military spending
 Trying to prevent “domino theory”
from becoming a reality
The Korean Volcano Erupts
 June 25, 1950, North Korean
forces suddenly invaded
South Korean (38th parallel)
 Truman sprang to action,
remembering NSC-68
 used a Soviet absence from
the UN to label North Korea
as an aggressor and send
UN troops to fight against
the aggressors.
 He also ordered General
MacArthur’s Japan-based
troops to Korea.
The Korean War
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General MacArthur landed a brilliant
invasion behind enemy forces on
September 15, 1950, and drove the North
Koreans back across the 38th parallel,
towards China and the Yalu River.
An overconfident MacArthur boasted that
he’d “have the boys home by Christmas,”
but in November 1950, Chinese volunteers
flooded across the border and pushed the
South Koreans back to the 38th parallel.
MacArthur, humiliated, wanted to
blockade China and bomb Manchuria,
but Truman didn’t want to enlarge the war
beyond necessity, but when the angry
general began to publicly criticize
President Truman, Harry had not choice
but to remove him from command on
grounds of insubordination.
MacArthur returned to cheers while
Truman was scorned as a “pig,” an
“imbecile,” an appeaser to Communist
Russian and China, and a “Judas.”
In July 1951, truce discussions began but
immediately snagged over the issue of
prisoner exchange.
Talks dragged on for two more years as
men continued to die.
Election of 1952
Eisenhower’s Campaign Political Ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh6aIkvgyVk
I Like Ike
 Eisenhower wins easily
 Promised to go personally
to Korea to end the war
 Dec 1952 – Eisenhower
went to Korea
 7 months later, after
threatening to use atomic
weapons, an armistice was
finally signed (repeatedly
violated)
 1953 – Korea War ended
 Bought only a return to the
conditions of 1950
 Korea remained divided at
the 38th parallel
Korean War Memorial in
Washington, D.C.
Problems for African Americans
 Jim Crow Laws – separate social
arrangements for blacks & whites
 Schools, public toilets, drinking
fountains, waiting rooms
 Violence broke out
 14-year old Emmett Till was lynched in
1955 for leering at a white woman
 1944 – An American Dilemma by
Gunnar Mydral
 Exposed the contradiction between
the treatment of blacks and the
belief that all men are created equal
 Jackie Robinson – 1st AA to break the
racial barrier in sports
McCarthyism
 Senator Joseph McCarthy
was the most ruthless of all
the Red Hunters
 1950 – 1954: Did the most
damage to American
tradition of free speech and
fair play
 1954 – McCarthy attacked
the US Army
 went too far
 Charged with “conduct
unbecoming a member”
Desegregating the South
 African Americans started demanding
more rights after WWII
 1944 – Supreme Court ruled that the
“white primary” was unconstitutional
 Sweatt v. Painter – separate professional
schools for black were not equal
 Thurgood Marshall, future Supreme
Court Justice
 Dec 1955 – Rosa Parks was arrested &
started the Montgomery bus boycott
 Martin Luther King Jr. followed the
principles of Gandhi
 Nonviolent protest
Planting Seeds of the Civil Rights
Movement
 1948 – Truman ended segregation in the
military
 Congress still resisted passing civil rights
legislation
 Eisenhower showed no real signs of
interest in the racial issue
 Chief Justice Earl Warren – attacked
social taboo items
 Brown v. The Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas (1954)
 Ruled that segregation was unequal
& unconstitutional
 Reversed Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) –
separate but equal doctrine
 Desegregation with “all deliberate
speed”
Ike is forced to Act
 Sept 1957 – Little Rock, Arkansas
 Governor Orval Faubus organized the
National Guard to prevent 9 black
students from enrolling in Central High
School
 Eisenhower was forced to send troops
to escort the students to class
 1957 – Congress passed the Civil Rights
Act
 Set up a Civil Rights Commission to
investigate violations of civil rights &
authorized federal injunctions to
protect voting rights
Remember the Titans integration scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZVDBDzQoBE
The Movement Starts
 1957 – Martin Luther King Jr. formed the
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC)
 Aimed to mobilize the power of black
churches
 Feb 1, 1960 – “sit-in” movement
 4 black college students in
Greensboro, NC started a sit-in at
Woolworth’s lunch counter
 Movement spread very quickly across
the South
 April 1960 – SNCC is formed
 Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee
Eisenhower’s Domestic Policy
 New Republicanism
 Strove to balance the federal budget
& guard against “creeping socialism”
 Extended Social Security benefits &
raised minimum wage
 Launched the largest public works
program ever
 Highway Act – created interstates
 Failed to solve the economic
problems of the 1950’s: low farm
prices
 Operation Wetback (1954) – sent 1
million Mexicans back
 Sought to cancel the Indian New Deal
Eisenhower’s Foreign Policy
 Sec of State John Dulles
 Pledged to “roll back” communism
& “liberate captive peoples”
 Wanted to build up a air fleet of
superbombers carrying nuclear
bombs (Strategic Air Command or
SAC)
 Massive retaliation policy – you
attack us we will attack you
The Vietnam Nightmare
 1954 – US was financing 80% of the French colonial
war in Indochina at $1 billion/year
 March 1954 – Dien Bien Phu
 25,000 French troops were trapped at this French
base
 Pleaded with the US for assistance but Ike refused
 1954 – Geneva Accords
 Communist & Democratic powers agree to divide
Vietnam
 Ho Chi Minh’s Communist would control the north
 Non-communist forces supported by the US would control the South
 1956 – Vietnam would unify after national elections
 1954 - Sec Dulles helped start the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
(SEATO)
 Included US, Great Britain, France, & others
 Nations pledged joint action against any aggressor
Cold War Thaws
 Nikita Khrushchev
 Becomes leader of USSR
when Stalin dies
 Hope for better
relationship with US
 Soviets agreed to end
their occupation of
Austria
 July 1955 – Geneva Summit
 Policy of peaceful
coexistence emerges
Menaces in the Middle East
 CIA engineered a political coup
 1953 – Installed a youthful Shah of
Iran as a pro-western dictator who
guaranteed Iranian oil for the West
 Us intervention led to a legacy of
resentment
 Suez Crisis – 1956
 Egyptian leader, Nasser, nationalized
the Suez Canal owned chiefly by
British & French stockholders
 led to a joint British-French attack on
Egypt that was condemned by the
US
 Eisenhower Doctrine – 1957
 Pledged US military & economic aid
to Middle Eastern nations
threatened by communist
aggression
 OPEC is formed – 1960
 Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries
Election 1956
 Candidates:
 Republican – Eisenhower & Nixon
 Democrat – Adlai Stevenson
 Eisenhower’s Second Term
 Labor legislation – Teamsters
Union
 “Dave” Beck – sent to prison
for embezzlement
 Replaced by James Hoffa – AF
of L / CIO expelled the
Teamsters
 Landrum-Griffin Act (1959)
 Prevent bullying tactics &
would make labor leaders
keep accurate financial
records
The Race for Space
 Oct 4, 1957 – Soviets
launched the first satellite into
space called Sputnik I & was
followed by Sputnik II a month
later
 US’s confidence was
shattered by the “missileGap”
 Created National
Aeronautics and Space
Administration
 Congress authorized the
National Defense &
Education Act (1958) to
improve the teaching of
science & languages
The Spirit of Camp David
 Khrushchev invited in 1959 to
America to met with the U.N.
General Assembly
 Discussed disarmament
 Result was a meeting at
Camp David in Maryland
 Follow-up meeting was
planned for Paris in May, 1960
 Eve of conference,
American U-2 spy plane
was shot down over Soviet
Union
 Ended hope of peaceful
coexistence
Problems in Latin America
 Latin American Grievances
 European countries received more US aid
 CIA-directed coup involvement in Guatemala
(1954)
 But continued to support dictators that
claimed to combat communism
 Cuba
 Dictator – Fulgencio Batista - some support
from US
 Fidel Castro engineered a revolution in 1959 &
was not friendly to the US
 US stopped importing Cuban sugar & broke
relations in 1961
 Cuba became a Soviet satellite
 Soviet Union set up a communist base in Cuba
 Khrushchev threatened an attack if the US
attacked Cuba
Ike’s Legacy
 22nd Amendment (1951)
 Presidents can serve only
2 terms or a total of 10
years
 Passed under Truman,
prevented Ike from
running again.
 1959 – Alaska & Hawaii
become states
 Exercised restraint on using
military power
Prosperity in the 1950s
 Surge of home construction
 Computers were developed – IBM
 Commercial airlines & “Air Force
One” – Boeing
 “White collar” workers
outnumbered “blue collar”
workers
 Clerical & service work filled by
mostly women
 “Cult of domesticity” emerged –
“Ozzie & Harriet”
 Betty Friedan’s The Feminine
Mystique (1963) started the
women’s movement
Consumer culture
 Expansion of the middle class
 Diner’s Club – first credit card in 1950
 1954 – McDonalds opened in California
 1955 – Disneyland opened in California
 TV were in almost every home
 Televangelists – Billy Graham, Oral
Roberts, Fulton J. Sheen
 Commercialized professional sports
 Rock ‘n’ Roll – mix of black rhythm & blues,
country, & gospel
 Elvis Presley
 Marilyn Monroe – Playboy in 1955