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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Cold War
Chapter Summary
The mutual suspicion, fear, and outright hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union grew out of
ideological differences and concrete actions stretching back to World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution of
1917. These differences were briefly set aside for a portion of World War II. Following the Nazi invasion of
Russia in June of 1941, Washington and Moscow entered into what has been called a “strange alliance.” This
anti-German union of convenience and necessity temporarily muted the tensions between the two countries. But
disagreement over such issues as the timing of the second front and antagonistic visions of postwar Europe
pushed the United States and the Soviet Union into a “cold war” within months of the end of World War II. The
immediate cause of the Cold War revolved around the fate of central Europe. Would it remain within the Soviet
orbit or would it be open to Western influence? In response to Soviet aggression in the region, by 1947 the United
States had developed the Truman Doctrine, in which it would seek to “contain” communism at every turn. From
this point on, the Cold War became much more international in scope and was marked by occasional
confrontation and an ongoing fear of an actual military conflict. Meanwhile, the American people, after a decade
and a half of depression and war, were not anxious to join in a new international struggle. But after being coaxed
and cajoled by the Truman administration they did respond. Still, something had to give, and that was a
commitment to return to domestic reform. Instead of recharging the New Deal or advancing the Fair Deal, the
Truman administration and the American people grew increasingly worried about communism. This was
especially the case after the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb in 1949. American concerns soon shifted to
Asia with the rise to power of Mao Zedong in China and the North Korean invasion of South Korea. It seemed
that something had to account for the inability of a country as powerful as the United States to control
international events. In answer to their anxiety many Americans latched onto charges of domestic communist
subversion in Hollywood, in education, even in the federal government. No American exploited these fears more
effectively than Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Through smears and insinuation, McCarthy and the right
wing of the Republican Party proved to be powerful enough to discredit and weaken the Democrats. Although
they could not seize control of a majority of the electorate, their charges helped prepare the way for the 1952
triumph of the first Republican president in two decades, Dwight Eisenhower.
Objectives
A thorough study of Chapter 29 should enable the student to understand:
1. The status of Soviet-American relations during World War II, and the differences that developed between
them over their respective views on the postwar world.
2. The origins of the Cold War, the meaning of the doctrine of containment, and the specific programs that
implemented containment.
3. The problems of postwar readjustment in the United States, especially in employment, strikes, and inflation.
4. The nature of the Fair Deal and its successes and failures.
5. The significance of the communist revolution in China to America’s foreign policy in Asia.
6. The circumstances that led to American participation in a “limited war” in Korea.
7. President Truman’s conduct of the war in Korea, including his dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur.
8. The causes, nature, and extent of American fears of internal communist subversion during the early Cold War
years, and the political consequences of those fears.
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Main Themes
1. How the mutual mistrust between the United States and the Soviet Union combined with critical events of
World War II to cause the Cold War.
2. How the American policy of containment led to an increasing American involvement in crises around the
world.
3. How World War II ended the Great Depression and ushered in an era of nervous prosperity.
4. How the Cold War contributed to a reluctance to return to domestic reform.
5. That the immediate postwar era produced an anticommunist reaction, and how that reaction affected domestic
American politics.
Points for Discussion
1. Who was responsible for the Cold War? How have historians answered that question?
2. Does the story of American foreign policy toward central Europe after World War II tell us that the United
States placed principles above self-interest? Or was American foreign policy grounded in national selfinterest? As best we can tell, was corresponding Soviet foreign policy based on national interest or on
ideological concerns?
3. Was the Cold War inevitable? What actions by the United States and/or the Soviet Union might have
prevented it—or at least mitigated it?
4. What role did the wartime conferences involving Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin play in the coming of the
Cold War? Analyze those conferences from the standpoint of American national interests.
5. How were the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO, support for Chiang Kai-shek in China, and the
American response to the North Korean invasion based on the foreign policy of containment? Did any of
them go beyond containment? What did that policy concede to the Soviets? How did NSC-68 refine
containment? What geopolitical realities limited American options in Asia and Europe between 1945 and
1952?
6. What general factors contributed to the rise of anticommunist feeling between 1949 and 1953? What events
helped pave the way for Senator Joe McCarthy? What did his hunt for communists in the United States
accomplish?
7. Evaluate the successes and failures of the Truman administration when it came to achieving the aims of its
Fair Deal. How did the Fair Deal differ from the New Deal? Was Truman as committed a reformer as
Roosevelt? Why or why not?
8. Discuss the candidates, issues, and campaign strategies in the election of 1948. Why did Truman win? Why
was his win considered the most dramatic upset in modern presidential politics? Why did Henry Wallace do
so poorly? Who were the Dixiecrats? What issue led to their rise? Why did they prove to be no more than a
troublesome annoyance to Truman?
9. Describe the causes and results of the Korean War. Was the decision to involve the United States in Korea a
correct one? Why was it a frustrating war for the United States? How did those frustrations manifest
themselves?
10. Analyze the Republican revival in the late 1940s and early 1950s. How did that revival contribute to
Eisenhower’s victory in 1952? Why did moderate Republicans win out over right-wing Republicans? What
were the differences between the two?
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Map Exercises
1.
2.
3.
4.
Identify the countries in Europe after World War II.
Locate Berlin, the Warsaw Pact nations, and the NATO nations. Where is the “Iron Curtain”?
Identify the states carried by Truman, Dewey, and Thurmond.
Locate Pusan, Inchon, the Yalu River, Panmunjom, the 38th parallel, and the Korean War armistice line.
Interpretative Questions Based on Maps and Text
1. Why was the form of government in Poland such a difficult issue to resolve? What resulted?
2. Why was Germany divided and why was Berlin divided even though it lay in the Russian zone? What caused
the United States, Great Britain, and France to combine their zones into a single unit?
3. Explain the policy of the Truman Doctrine. What was to be contained? Where? What developments were the
catalyst for Truman’s promulgation of the policy? What was the economic manifestation of the idea?
4. Why was the Soviet Union so suspicious of the West and so insistent on control of East Germany and the
nations along the Soviet border? Were the Soviet concerns justified?
5. How did Truman manage to win the election of 1948 despite his loss of part of the Deep South?
6. Why did four states of the supposedly solid Democratic Deep South go for Thurmond? What implications for
the future of the Democratic Party can be seen in this vote?
7. Why was Korea of such strategic importance? How did the nation get divided?
8. What combination of motive and opportunity spawned the North Korean invasion?
9. How did the UN forces (mainly South Korean and American) turn the tide of the invasion? What did the UN
forces moving north do when they reached the 38th parallel?
10. How did the entry of the Chinese change the war?
11. How did the war finally end? What had the United States accomplished by its intervening?
Essay Questions
These questions are based on the preceding map exercises. They are designed to test students’ knowledge of the
geography of the area discussed in this chapter and of its historical development. Careful reading of the text will
help students answer these questions.
1. What attitudes and events eroded the American commitment to the “One World” concept? What vision of
world affairs replaced it?
2. Just as the United States had fought a two-front war in World War II, the nation now seemed faced with a
two-front Cold War in Europe and Asia. What were the similarities and differences in the early years of the
Cold War in the two widely separated geographic spheres?
Bibliography
H. W. Brands, The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War (1993)
Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War (1980)
Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (2000)
Richard Fried, Nightmare in Red (1990)
John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (1982)
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Alonzo Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (1995)
Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan (1987)
Stanley Kutler, The American Inquisition (1982)
Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–1967 (7th ed. 1993)
Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War
(1992)
David McCullough, Truman (1992)
Wilson D. Miscamble, George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947–1950 (1992)
Victor Navasky, Naming Names (1980)
Thomas G. Paterson, Soviet-American Confrontation (1974)
Richard Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s (1985)
Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998)
William Steck, The Korean War: An International History (1995)
Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (1978)
Allan M. Winkler, Life Under a Cloud: American Anxiety About the Atom (1993)
For Internet resources, practice questions, references to additional books and films, and more, see this book’s
Online Learning Center at www.mhhe.com/unfinishednation4
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