Download Unit 2: Building a Powerful Nation (1850-1915)

Chapter 19: The Cold War (1945 – 1960)
Section 1: Origins of the Cold War
- Roosevelt was so convinced he could handle Stalin, he called him “Uncle Joe”
o Churchill knew that Stalin would not be so easily controlled
 “Germany is finished. The real problem is Russia. I can’t get the Americans to
see it.”
1945 – A Critical Year
- had been a history of bad feelings between the two nations (US and Russia) ever since the
Russian Revolution of 1917
- Differences at Yalta
o Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta to work out the future of Germany and
Poland
 agreed to the division of Germany into American, British, French, and Soviet
occupation zones (eventually West / East Germany)
o at the meeting, Roosevelt pushed Stalin to declare war on Japan
 Stalin promised to enter the war against Japan soon after Germany surrendered,
in exchange for Soviet control over two Japanese islands – trying to expand their
territory / sphere of influence
o Stalin agreed on elections to let Poles choose their government, using the Communistdominated regime as a framework
- The United Nations
o all agreed on the creation of the United Nations (UN) – a new international peacekeeping
organization
o delegates met in April 1945 in San Francisco
 members would try to settle their differences peacefully and would promote
justice and cooperation in solving international problems
 would try to stop wars from starting and end those that did break out
- Truman Takes Command
o President FDR died while vacationing at Warm Springs, Georgia
o Truman had been vice-president for only a few months
o he had never been involved in major foreign policy
- The Potsdam Conference
o Truman’s first meeting with Stalin, in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam
 Churchill was also replaced by Clement Attlee
o these new representatives from Britain and the United States faced off against Stalin
o Truman received word that the atom bomb had been tested in New Mexico and hoped to
intimidate Stalin (already knew from his spies)
 told him that the United States had a new weapon of extraordinary force
Conflicting Postwar Goals
- The American View
o US had fought for democracy and economic opportunity for the conquered nations of
Europe
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o economically strong and politically open world would serve American interests by
providing markets for its products
The Soviet View
o Soviet Union was determined to rebuild in ways that would protect its own interests
 establish satellite nations – countries subject to Soviet domination, on the
western borders of the Soviet Union that would serve as a buffer zone against
attacks
 looked to the spread of communism throughout the world
Soviets Tighten Their Hold
- Poland’s Soviet-installed government had virtually eliminated all political opposition
- the Soviets sponsored similar takeovers in other nations of Eastern Europe
o Albania and Bulgaria
o Czechoslovakia
o Hungary and Romania
o East Germany (German Democratic Republic)
o Finland and Yugoslavia
 these two countries did manage to maintain a degree of independence from the
Soviet Union
 Finland – signed a treaty of cooperation
 Yugoslavia – became Communist under Josip Broz (Tito) who refused to take
orders from Stalin

Tito would pursue his own brand of communism relatively free from Soviet
interference
The Iron Curtain
- Stalin established the Cominform – an agency intended to coordinate the activities of
Communist parties around the world
- Churchill condemned the division of Europe achieved by Stalin and called on the US to keep
Stalin from enclosing any more nations
o iron curtain – Communist domination and oppression
- Cold War – the competition that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union for
power and influence in the world
o rivalry stopped just short of a “hot” war – a direct military engagement
Containment
- containment – policy that recognized the possibility that Eastern Europe was already lost to
communism
o called for the United States to resist Soviet attempts to form Communist governments
elsewhere in the world, became the cornerstone of America’s foreign policy
 Keenan believed that the Soviet system “bears within it the seeds of its own
decay”
The Truman Doctrine
- Stalin wanted to control the Dardanelles – a narrow strait in Turkey that would give Soviet
ports on the Black Sea access to the Mediterranean
- Great Britain could no longer afford to provide aid to Greece and Turkey and “handed the job
of world leadership, with all its burdens and all its glory, to the United States”
-
Truman Doctrine – policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting
attempted subjugation [conquest] by armed minorities or by outside pressures
Section 2: The Cold War Heats Up
- the atomic age
The Marshall Plan
- help restore the war-torn nations so that they might create stable democracies and achieve
economic recovery
o 21 million people had been made homeless
o 1 of every 5 houses in France and Belgium had been damaged or destroyed
- Marshall Plan – called for the nations of Europe to draw up a program for economic recovery
from the war
o United States would then support the program with financial aid
 plan of Secretary of State George C. Marshall in 1947
o Soviets called it a vicious American scheme for using dollars to “buy its way” into
European affairs
o it was formally known as the European Recovery Program – 17 Western European nations
joined and received some $13 billion in grants and loans
The Berlin Airlift
- the Western Allies announced plans to make the zones they controlled in Germany into a single
unit (March 1948)
o would merge their three occupation zones to create a new nation, the Federal Republic
of Germany or West Germany
 the Communist responded by forming the German Democratic Republic or East
Germany
- the capitalist West Berlin and Communist East Berlin became visible symbols of the developing
Cold War struggle
o Berlin was in the middle of East Germany itself
- many people were escaping Soviet confinement to West Berlin and then out of the country,
Stalin closed this escape route and blocked Allied access to West Berlin
o the blockade caused severe shortages in West Berlin, and Truman decided on an airlift
to move supplies in by plane
 Berlin airlift - 200,000 flights to deliver food, fuel, and other supplies; nearly
13,000 tons of goods arrived in West Berlin daily
o Soviets finally gave up the blockade in May 1949
NATO
- with the Soviet Union a member of the United Nations, Western Europe would have to look
beyond the UN for protection from Soviet aggression
- looked like a plan to arm half the world against the other half
- NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) – member nations agreed to defend each other in
case of armed attack
o “an armed attack against one or more of them … shall be considered an attack against
them all”
o included Canada, the United States, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal
 collective security – mutual military assistance
- Soviets responded by creating the Warsaw Pact – a military alliance with its satellite nations in
Eastern Europe
Communist Advances
- the Soviet Union successfully tested an atomic bomb in 1949
- The Soviet Atomic Threat
o Truman’s response was to forge ahead with a new weapon to maintain America’s nuclear
superiority
 he gave approval for the development of a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb
o Federal Civil Defense Administration – provided information on how to survive a nuclear
attack; included plans for building a bomb shelter, instructions for holding air raid drills
in schools, etc.
- China Falls to the Communists
o Communist leader Mao Zedong created a Communist state, the People’s Republic of
China
 Jiang and his followers withdrew to the island of Taiwan and continued as the
Republic of China
The Cold War at Home
- fears launched an anti-Communist crusade that violated the civil liberties of many Americans
- The Loyalty Program
o government officials launched programs to root out any element of communism that
might have infiltrated the United States
 federal loyalty program (1947)
 Loyalty Review Board

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all added to a climate of suspicion
HUAC
o House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) – established to investigate disloyalty
on the eve of World War II, now began a postwar probe of Communist infiltration of
government agencies and, more spectacularly, a probe of the Hollywood movie industry
The Hollywood Ten
o called before HUAC, ten of the accused declined to answer the committee’s questions,
invoking their constitutional rights
 the Hollywood Ten were cited for contempt of Congress and served jail terms
ranging from six months to a year
 studios compiled a blacklist – list circulated among employers, containing the
names of persons who should not be hired
The McCarran-Walter Act
o McCarran-Walter Act – reaffirmed the quota system for each country that had been
established in 1924
 discriminated against potential immigrants from Asia and from Southern and
Central Europe

was vetoed by Truman, but Congress passed the bill
-
Spy Cases Inflame the Nation
o suspicions that spies in the United States were helping foreign Communists gain military
and political successes overseas
o Alger Hiss – former State Department official accused by Whittaker Chambers of being a
Communist spy
 Hiss was convicted of lying to a federal grand jury investigating him for espionage
and went to prison for four years

the case seemed to prove that there was a real Communist threat in the
United States
o Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – married couple and members of the Communist party were
accused of passing atomic secrets to the Soviets
 were convicted of espionage and executed in 1953
o Soviet records opened after the Cold War indicate that both Alger Hiss and Julius
Rosenberg were guilty, while Ethel Rosenberg who may have known some of her
husband’s activities was not guilty of espionage herself
Section 3: The Korean War
- Korean War is sometimes known as America’s forgotten war
Communist Expansion in Asia
- caused a “hot” military confrontation
- The Chinese Civil War
o Japan had gained control over former German possessions after World War I, especially
in China, which angered the Chinese and caused rebellion
o Communists in China were led by Mao Zedong – who was redistributing land to peasants
and offering them schooling and health care
o Mao’s land reforms and his promise of equality, as well as his military victories, led the
Communists to power in 1949
- Dividing Korea
o Japan had also annexed the Korean peninsula, but no plans had been made for Korea
following World War II
o Soviet soldiers accepted the surrender of Japanese troops north of the 38th parallel – the
line of latitude running across Korea at approximately the midpoint of the peninsula
 Korea was then divided temporarily into a Soviet-occupied northern zone and an
American-occupied Southern zone
The Korean Conflict
- Korean War – broke out when North Korean troops streamed across the 38 th parallel,
determined to reunite Korea by force
o with the fall of China, and now the threat on Korea, it seemed as though communism
was on the advance again
- The UN Police Action
o branded North Korea an aggressor
o Truman committed American air and naval support for South Korea
 later he sent ground troops
-
o UN set up the United Nations Command – 16 member nations contributed troops or arms,
but America made up 80% of the troops that served in the police action
Waging the War
o General Douglas MacArthur – Truman’s choice to lead the UN forces in Korea
 was an excellent military strategist, and he developed a bold plan to drive the
invaders from South Korea
o the North Koreans had swept thought the country in weeks and only a small part of the
country, near the port city of Pusan remained unconquered
o landed troops at Inchon in northwestern South Korea and attacked enemy supply lines
from behind
 their success lead South Koreans to proclaim that they would reunite the country
under South Korea, alarming the North Koreans and the Chinese Communists who
had been in power less than a year and who did not want a pro-Western nation
next door
o Chinese warned UN troops not to advance any further
o MacArthur ignored the warning and announced the “Home by Christmas” offensive to
push the North Koreans across the Yalu River into China and end the war
 Chinese troops poured across the Yalu to take the offensive and a stalemate
developed
o MacArthur wanted to open a second front, which was opposed by Truman
 he sent a letter to House Minority Leader Joseph Martin in March 1951 attacking
the President’s policies

Martin made the letter public and on April 11, Truman fired MacArthur for
insubordination
o when peace talks stalled, the new president Eisenhower used the threat to use atomic
weapons to get talks going again
 truce was signed in 1953, leaving Korea divided at almost exactly the same place
as before the war, near the 38th parallel
The Effects of the Korean War
- 54,000 soldiers had been killed and 103,000 wounded for such limited results
- containment had occurred without nuclear war
- President Truman had ordered the integration of the armed forces in 1948
o Korean War was the first war in which white Americans and African Americans served in
the same units
- war led to an increase in military spending and the US came to accept demands of permanent
mobilization
o created a military-industrial complex
Section 4: The Continuing Cold War
The McCarthy Era
- Senator Joseph McCarthy – said that he had a list of known state department employees who
were members of the communist party, sparking an anti-Communist hysteria
- McCarthy’s Rise to Power
-
o his first term had been undistinguishable and he needed an issue to arouse public
support
 found that issue in communism and used smear tactics – McCarthyism
o merely being accused by McCarthy caused people to lose their jobs and reputations
o attacked former Secretary of State George C. Marshall
o Margaret Chase Smith of Maine presented a Declaration of Conscience – denouncing
McCarthy for debasing the Senate
McCarthy’s Fall
o McCarthy charged that even the army was full of Communists
o the army in turn charged McCarthy; charges and countercharges flew back and forth
o Army-McCarthy Hearings
 Democrats wanted them televised and McCarthy agreed
 most viewers were horrified by McCarthy
 by the time the hearings ended, McCarthy had lost even his strongest supporters
 Senate formally condemned him and he no longer had credibility
 the nation had been damaged by the era’s suppression of free speech and open,
honest debate
The Cold War in the 1950s
- Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower became President in 1953
- Secretary of State John Foster Dulles – called for a policy to roll back communism where it had
already taken hold
o Eisenhower decided that the United States could not intervene with the Soviet satellites
 East Germans revolted in 1953
 Poles and Hungarians revolted in 1956

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the United States kept its distance, fearing that any other action risked war
Southeast Asia
o US provided aid to France who was trying to retain control of its colony Vietnam
The Middle East
o the Holocaust had forced many Jews to seek safety in Palestine and calls for a Jewish
state intensified
o the UN – created two states in the area, one Jewish and one Arab
o the Jews in Palestine proclaimed the nation of Israel and had to face Arab hostility from
their neighbors
 the United States supported Israel, while the Soviet Union generally backed Arab
interests
o the United States also worked to prevent oil-rich Arab nations from falling under the
influence of the Soviet Union
 in Iran, the US overthrew the new nationalist government and restored the proAmerican Shah of Iran to power
o Suez Crisis – when Egypt’s ruler sought Soviet support, the United States and Great
Britain cut off their aid to Egypt
 Nasser responded by seizing the British-owned Suez Canal
 British and French forces attacked Egypt
o Eisenhower Doctrine – the United States would use force “to safeguard the independence
of any country or group of countries in the Middle East requesting aid against
[Communist-inspired] aggression”
- Latin America
o US also acted to support pro-American governments and to suppress Communist
influences in Latin America
o Organization of American States (OAS) – formed to increase cooperation among the
nations of the hemisphere
o CIA - helped overthrow the government of Guatemala, believing it had radical
sympathizers (restored the American Fruit Company to power as well)
The Arms Race
- arms race – the struggle to gain weapons superiority
- The Growth of Nuclear Arsenals
o United States exploded its first thermonuclear device, the Soviet Union successfully
tested its own hydrogen bomb in August 1953
o deterrence – the policy of making the military power of the United States and its allies
so strong that no enemy would dare attack for fear of retaliation
o between 1954 – 1958, the US conducted 19 hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific
 one was more than 750 times more powerful than Nagasaki and fishermen 90
miles away suffered severe radiation burns
 test was a chilling warning that nuclear war could threaten the entire world with
radioactive contamination
- Brinkmanship
o US was prepared to risk war to protect its national interests
o brinkmanship – a policy of risking war in order to protect national interests
- Cold War in the Skies
o ICBMs – long-range rockets or intercontinental ballistic missiles
o 1957 – the Soviets used one of their rockets to launch Sputnik – the first artificial
satellite to orbit Earth
o U-2 Incident – Soviets used a guided missile to shoot down an American U-2 spy plane
over Soviet territory
 spy planes can fly more than 15 miles high and American officials assumed that
they were invulnerable to attack

Americans were now willing to expend considerable resources to catch up
to – and surpass – the Soviet Union