Download Ch.19, Sec.1- Origins of the Cold War

Ch.19, Sec.1- Origins of the Cold
War
The United Nations
• One item leaders at the Yalta Conference all agreed on
was the creation of the United Nations (UN), a new
international peacekeeping organization. In April 1945,
delegates from 50 nations met in San Francisco to adopt
a charter, or statement of principles, for the UN. The
charter stated that members would try to settle their
differences peacefully and would promote justice and
cooperation in solving international problems. In addition,
they would try to stop wars from starting and try to end
those that did break out. President Roosevelt didn’t get
to live to see his dream of the UN fulfilled. He died on
April 12, 1945, just 2 weeks before the UN’s first
meeting.
The Soviet View
• The Soviet Union wanted to rebuild after WWII
by establishing satellite nations, or countries
subject to Soviet domination, on the western
borders of the Soviet Union that would serve as
a buffer zone against attacks.
• The Soviet Union also wanted to spread
communism throughout the world. According to
Communist doctrine, revolution to overthrow the
capitalist system was inevitable, and the role of
Communist governments was to support and
speed up these revolutionary processes in other
countries.
The Iron Curtain
• In February 1946, Stalin predicted in a speech
that communism would triumph over capitalism.
• A month later, Churchill also made a speech that
called on Americans to help keep Stalin from
enclosing any more nations behind the iron
curtain of Communist domination and
oppression.
• These 2 speeches set the tone for the Cold War,
or the competition that developed between the
U.S. and the Soviet Union for power and
influence in the world.
Containment
• The American policy of containment
recognized the possibility that Eastern
Europe was already lost to communism. It
called for the U.S. to resist Soviet attempts
to form Communist governments
elsewhere in the world. This policy
became the cornerstone of America’s Cold
War foreign policy.
The Truman Doctrine
• In February 1947, Great Britain announced that
it could no longer afford to provide aid to Greece
and Turkey, and they suggested the U.S. take
over the responsibility of defending the region.
The U.S. was afraid if they didn’t act
immediately, the Soviet Union would take these
two over. Therefore, Truman made a speech
before Congress that came to be known as the
Truman Doctrine, which he called on Congress
to approve of $400 million in aid for Greece and
Turkey. Congress agreed, and the U.S. soon
established military bases in both countries.
Sec.2- The Cold War Heats Up
The Marshall Plan
• After the Truman Doctrine, the other plan to combat
Communism was the Marshall Plan, which called for the
nations of Europe to draw up a program for economic
recovery from the war. The U.S. would then support the
program with financial aid. Secretary of State George C.
Marshall came up with this plan in 1947. The plan was a
response to American concerns that Communist parties
were growing stronger across Europe. The plan also
reflected the belief that the U.S. aid for European
economic recovery would create strong democracies
and open new markets for American goods.
The Marshall Plan cont.
• The Soviet Union was invited to participate in the
Marshall Plan, but it refused the help and
pressured its satellite nations to do so too. In
1948, Congress approved the Marshall Plan,
which was formally known as the European
Recovery Program. 17 Western European
nations approved the plan. Over the next four
years, the U.S. distributed 13 billion dollars in
grants and loans to Western Europe. The
region’s economies were quickly restored, and
the U.S. gained strong trading partners in the
region.
The Berlin Airlift
• In March 1948, the U.S., Britain, and France prepared to
merge their three occupation zones to create a new
nation, the Federal Republic of Germany, or West
Germany. The western part of Berlin, which was in the
Soviet zone, would become part of West Germany. The
Soviets responded in 1949 by forming a Communist
state, the German Democratic Republic, or East
Germany. Hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans
left their homes in Communist-dominated nations, fled to
East Berlin, and then crossed into West Berlin. Stalin
decided to close this escape route by forcing the
Western powers to abandon West Berlin.
The Berlin Airlift cont.
• Truman did not want to risk starting a war,
nor did he want to give up West Berlin to
the Soviets. He instead decided on an
airlift, moving supplies into West Berlin by
plane. During the next 15 months, British
and American military aircraft made more
than 200,000 flights to deliver food, fuel,
and other supplies. The Soviets finally
gave up the blockade in May 1949, and
the airlift ended the following September.
NATO
• In April 1949, Canada and the U.S. joined Belgium,
Britain, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal to form the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Member nations
agreed that an armed attack against one or more of
them shall be considered an attack against them all. This
principle of mutual military assistance is called collective
security.
• In 1955, the Soviet Union responded to the formation of
NATO by creating the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance
with its satellite nations in Eastern Europe.
The Soviet Atomic Threat
• In 1949, two events heightened American concerns
about the Cold War. The first was President Truman’s
terrifying announcement that the Soviet Union had
successfully tested an atomic bomb. Then, just a few
weeks later, Communist forces took control of China.
Truman’s response to the Soviet atomic threat was to
move ahead with a new weapon to maintain America’s
nuclear superiority. In early 1950, he gave approval for
the development of a hydrogen bomb that would be
many times more destructive than the atomic bomb. The
first successful test occurred in 1952, reestablishing the
U.S. as the world’s leading nuclear power.
The Soviet Atomic Threat cont.
• At about the same time, Truman organized
the Federal Civil Defense Administration.
The new agency flooded the nation with
posters and other information about how
to survive a nuclear attack. These
materials included plans for building bomb
shelters and instructions for holding air
raid drills in schools. Privately, experts
ridiculed these programs as almost totally
ineffective.
China Falls to the Communist
• Truman at first provided economic and military
assistance to Jiang Jieshi at the end of WWII. Despite
this aid, by 1947 Mao Zedong’s forces had occupied
much of China’s country side and had begun to take
control of northern cities. Truman then stopped giving aid
to Jiang because he concluded that Mao’s takeover of
China could not be prevented. He instead focused on
saving Western Europe from Soviet domination.
• In early 1949, China’s capital of Peking (now Beijing) fell
to the Communist. A few months later, Mao proclaimed
the creation of a Communist state, the People’s Republic
of China. Jiang and his followers withdrew to the island
of Taiwan, where they continued as the Republic of
China and claimed to be the legitimate government of
the entire nation.
The Hollywood Ten
• After WWII, if someone in the U.S. was accused
of being a Communist, they had little chance to
defend themselves and it was difficult to clear
their name. The House Un-American Activities
Committee, known as HUAC, had been
established in 1938 to investigate disloyalty.
Claiming that movies had tremendous power to
influence the public, in 1947 HUAC charged that
numerous Hollywood figures had Communist
leanings that affected their film making.
The Hollywood Ten cont.
• In September and October of 1947, HUAC called a
number of Hollywood writers, directors, actors, and
producers to testify. Facing the committee, celebrities
who were accused of having radical political associations
had little chance to defend themselves. Over and over
the committee asked, “Are you now, or have you ever
been a member of the Communist Party?” When some
of those called before HUAC attempted to make
statements, they were denied permission. Ten of the
accused exercised their Constitutional rights and
declined to answer the committee’s questions. The
Hollywood Ten were cited for contempt of Congress and
served jail terms ranging from 6 months to one year. The
studios compiled a blacklist, or a list circulated among
employers, containing the names of persons who should
not be hired.
Sec.3- The Korean War
Dividing Korea
• In 1945, the Allies agreed on a temporary
solution to divide Korea. Soviet soldiers
accepted the surrender of Japanese troops
north of the 38th parallel, the latitude line running
across Korea at approximately the midpoint of
the peninsula. American forces did the same
south of the parallel. While the dividing line was
never intended to be permanent, Korea was
divided into a Soviet-occupied northern zone
and an American-occupied southern zone.
The Korean Conflict
• Koreans on both sides of the dividing line
wanted to unify their nation. In June 1950,
the Korean War broke out when North
Korean troops went across the 38th
parallel to reunite Korea by force. The
invasion took the U.S. by surprise. The
Americans wrongly believed the Soviet
Union was the cause of this.
The UN Police Action
• The U.S. declared North Korea an aggressor
and called on member states of the UN to help
defend South Korea and restore peace.
President Truman immediately sent a fleet to
protect Taiwan, and he ordered American air and
naval support for the South Koreans. He later
sent ground troops as well. Both Democrats and
Republicans praised him for his strong actions,
despite war never being declared by Congress.
16 member nations eventually contributed
troops or arms, but Americans made up about
80% of the troops sent to Korea.
Waging the War
• Truman chose General Douglas MacArthur to lead the
UN forces in Korea. MacArthur developed a plan to drive
the invaders out of South Korea. The North Koreans
swept through South Korea very quickly using Soviet
tanks and air power. MacArthur suspected this stretched
their supply lines thin, and he wanted to strike this
weakness. His strategy worked, and the UN forces
caught them from the north and the south and cut off
their supplies, driving them back across the 38th parallel.
UN troops then went north, and South Korean leaders
began declaring Korea was reunited under South
Korea’s control.
Waging the War cont.
• As UN troops approached North Korea’s border with
China, the Chinese warned them not to advance any
further. MacArthur ignored this, and on November 24,
1950, the general tried to drive the enemy across the
North Korean border into China and end the war.
However, Chinese troops then combined with the North
Korean troops and pushed the UN troops back into
South Korea, which created a stalemate.
• MacArthur then wanted to create a second front, calling
on Jiang Jieshi to return to the mainland and attack the
Chinese Communist. Truman was opposed to this,
fearing it would lead to a widespread war in Asia.
MacArthur then 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.
Waging the War cont.
• The struggle would go on for 2 more years
into the presidency of Dwight D.
Eisenhower. When peace talks stalled,
Eisenhower threatened to use atomic
weapons, so peace talks got going again.
Finally, a truce was signed in 1953,
leaving Korea divided at almost exactly the
same place as it was before the war, near
the 38th parallel.
The Effects of the Korean War
• Americans after the Korean War wondered why
about 54,000 of their soldiers had been killed
and 103,000 wounded for a war with basically
no results. They also questioned whether the
government was serious about stopping
Communism. However, they did stop Communist
forces from taking South Korea, and it was done
without the use of nuclear weapons.
• The Korean War was the first war in which white
Americans and African Americans served in the
same units.
Sec.4- The Continuing Cold War
McCarthy’s Rise to Power
• Joseph McCarthy was a senator who came to
make accusations and unprovable charges of
someone being a Communist, which came to be
known as McCarthyism. Just being accused by
McCarthy caused people to lose their jobs and
reputations. He even attacked George Marshall,
who was a national hero and a man of integrity.
Even other senators feared McCarthy, fearing
opposing him would label them a Communist
sympathizer.
McCarthy’s Fall
• In early 1954, when one of his assistants was drafted,
McCarthy said even the army was full of Communists.
Army officials then said he was just trying to get special
treatment for his aide. This would lead to the ArmyMcCarthy hearings in April 1954. Democrats wanted the
hearings to be televised so everyone would see
McCarthy for what he really was. Seeking publicity,
McCarthy agreed.
• By the end of the hearings in June, he had lost even his
strongest supporters. The Senate condemned him, so he
called them tools of the Communist. However, he no
longer had credibility, and his power was gone.
Southeast Asia
• As the Korean War was coming to an end,
the U.S. continued providing military aid to
France as they tried to retain their colony
Vietnam. When an international
conference divided Vietnam, like Korea,
into a Communist north and an antiCommunist south, the U.S. provided aid to
South Vietnam.
The Middle East
• In the 1930s and 1940s, the Holocaust had
forced many Jews to seek safety in Palestine,
controlled by the British and the Biblical home of
the Jewish people. In 1947, the UN created 2
states in the area, one Jew and one Arab. In
May 1948, the Jews in Palestine proclaimed the
new nation of Israel. The Arabs then attacked
the Jewish state in 1948. Israel was able to
withstand the attack, and the U.S. supported
Israel while the Soviet Union backed the Arabs.
The Growth of Nuclear Arsenals
• In August 1953, less than a year after the U.S. exploded
its first thermonuclear device, the Soviet Union also
successfully tested its own hydrogen bomb. Deterrence
is the policy of making the military power of the U.S. and
its allies so strong that no enemy would dare attack for
fear of retaliation. Between 1954 and 1958, the U.S.
conducted 19 hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific. One of
these explosions, in March 1954, was over 750 times
more powerful than the atomic bomb that had been
dropped on Nagasaki in World War II. Japanese
fishermen 90 miles from the blast suffered severe
radiation burns.
Cold War in the Skies
• To carry hydrogen bombs to their targets, American
military planners relied mainly on airplanes. Unable to
match this strength, the Soviets focused on long0range
rockets known as intercontinental ballistic missiles, or
ICBMs. Americans also worked to develop ICBMs.
However, the U.S. lagged behind the Soviet Union in
missile development.
• The size of this technology gap became apparent in
1957, when the Soviets used one of their rockets to
launch Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth.
The realization that the rocket used to launch Sputnik
could carry a hydrogen bomb to American shores added
to the Americans fear.
Cold War in the Skies cont.
• In May 1960, the Soviet military again
demonstrated its arms capabilities by using a
guided missile to shoot down an American U-2
spy plane over Soviet territory. Because these
spy planes flew more than 15 miles high,
American officials had assumed they were
invulnerable to attack. The U-2 incident made
Americans more willing to expend considerable
resources to catch up to and surpass the Soviet
Union.
Ch.20, Sec.1- The Postwar
Economy
Businesses Reorganize
• In 1954, a man named Ray Kroc
purchased the idea of assembly line food
production and he acquired the
restaurants name: McDonald’s.
Franchises would eventually make it very
difficult for small businesses to make it.
• Automation is the process of new
machines performing jobs previously
performed by people.
Moving to the Suburbs
• The baby boom began in the 1940s, with its
peak year being 1957.
• WWII veterans expanded their opportunities with
the help of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act
of 1944, or GI Bill of Rights, which gave them
low-interest mortgages to purchase new homes
and provided them with educational stipends for
college or graduate school.
Cars and Highways
• Growth in the car industry created a need
for more and better roads. The 1956
Federal-Aid Highway Act, sometimes
called the Interstate Highway Act, provided
$25 billion to build an interstate highway
system more than 40,000 miles long. This
would allow for an evacuation of major
cities in the event of a nuclear attack.
The Growth of Consumer Credit
• With all the cars on the road, gasoline
companies began offering credit cards to
loyal customers. Lending agencies then
picked up on the credit card idea in the
1950s.
Sec.2- The Mood of the 1950s
Youth Culture
• The strong economy of the 1950s allowed
more young people to stay in school rather
than having to leave early to find a job. By
the end of the decade, half of all teenage
girls were employed as part-time
babysitters. By 1954, close to half of all
brides were in their teens.
A Resurgence in Religion
• In the 1950s, people began going back to
church, especially with the threat of a
nuclear war. In 1954, Congress added the
words “under God” to the Pledge of
Allegiance, and the next year, they added
the phrase “In God We Trust” to all
American money. By the end of the 1950s,
95% of all Americans said they felt
connected to some formal religious group.
Men’s and Women’s Roles
• Men were expected to go to school and
then find jobs to support wives and
children. Women were expected to play a
supporting role in their husbands’ lives.
They kept house, cooked meals, and
raised children. Dr. Benjamin Spock had a
very popular book on child-care advice
called The Common Sense Book of Baby
and Child Care in 1946.
Youthful Rebellions
• In 1951, disc jockey Alan Freed began hosting a radio
show playing what was called black rhythm and blues
music for mainly black audiences. Both black and white
teenagers began listening to his show called “Moondog
Rock ‘n’ Roll Party”. This type of music came to be called
rock and roll. Many adults didn’t like the new music,
fearing it would cause a rise in immorality. For some
people, opposition to the music had to do with race.
Because rock and roll appealed to both blacks and
whites, and it had black origins, this would lead to
teenagers of different races going to the same concerts
and dancing to the same music. Rock and roll still
became very popular.
Youthful Rebellions cont.
• Members of the “Beat Generation” called
beatniks, promoted spontaneity, or acting
on a moments notice without planning.
Beatniks shocked Americans with their
open sexuality and use of illegal drugs.
Sec.3- Domestic Politics and Policy
Truman on Civil Rights
• In July 1948, Truman banned
discrimination in the hiring of federal
employees , and he ordered an end to
segregation and discrimination in the
armed forces.
The Election of 1948
• Even though it was expected that Thomas
Dewey would win this election, Truman
won the election instead.
• In 1951, the 22nd Amendment was adopted
limiting the amount of terms a president
can serve to two.
Meeting the Technology Challenge
• President Eisenhower, nicknamed Ike, cut government
spending and caused the economy to slump, having 3
recessions during his presidency . However, in 1958, the
U.S. government created the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) as an independent agency
for space exploration. The same year, Congress passed
and President Eisenhower signed into law the National
Defense Education Act. The measure was designed to
improve science and math instruction in the schools so
that the U.S. could meet the scientific and technical
challenge from the Soviet Union.