Download Chapter 26 Class Notes

Mr. Schaber - US History - Ch. 26 (Cold War) Class Notes
*Section 1 - Origins of the Cold War
- “I know you will not mind my being brutally frank when I tell you that I can personally handle
Stalin,” President Roosevelt told Winston Churchill during WWII
- By 1944, FDR was sure of Stalin’s cooperation - Churchill, though, clearly understood the
situation
- “Germany is finished...The real problem is Russia. I can’t get the Americans to see it.” Churchill
- The wartime cooperation between the US and the Soviet Union was a temporary arrangement
- As wartime allies, the Soviets disagreed bitterly with their American and British partners over
battle tactics and postwar plans - as the end of the war approached, relations grew increasingly
tense
- February 1945 - FDR met with Stalin and Churchill at Yalta to work out the future of Germany
and Poland
- They agreed on the division of Germany into American, British, French, and Soviet occupation
zones
- (Later, the American, French, British zones were combined to create West Germany, while the
Soviet zone became East Germany)
- FDR and Churchill rejected Stalin’s demand that Germany pay the Soviet Union $10 billion in
war damages
- FDR pressed Stalin at Yalta to declare war on Japan
- Poland proved the most difficult issue to address at Yalta - the Red Army had occupied that
country and supported the Communist-dominated government - Stalin opposed the return of
Poland’s prewar government
- The meeting stalled until Stalin agreed on elections to let Poles choose their own type of
government
- Disputes over Poland would continue to strain American-Soviet relations
- One item on which the leaders all agreed at Yalta was creation of the United Nations (UN), a
new international peacekeeping organization
- The League of Nations, founded after WWI, had failed largely because the US refused to join
- This time, policy makers got congressional support for the UN, and the US was on board
- In April 1945, delegates from 50 nations met in San Francisco and adopted a charter statement
for the UN
- The charter stated that members would try to settle their differences peacefully - it vowed to try
to stop wars from starting and to end those that did break out
- All member nations belonged to the UN’s General Assembly
- Representatives of 11 countries sat on a Security Council - the US, Soviet Union, Great Britain,
France, and China had permanent seats on the council and a veto over proposed policies
- FDR never lived to see his dream of the United Nations fulfilled - he died on April 12, 1945
- His unexpected death shocked the nation - no one was more surprised than VP Harry S.
Truman, who suddenly found himself President
- Few Vice Presidents have been less prepared to become President - while he’d spent 10 years
in Congress, Truman had been VP for just 83 days
- FDR had never involved him in major foreign policy discussions - Truman at first adopted
FDR’s willingness to compromise with the Soviets - but before long, his attitude hardened
- Shortly after Truman took office he scolded Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov for
the Soviet Union’s failure to allow Polish elections
- Molotov was offended by Truman’s bluntness - “I have never been talked to like that in my
life,” Molotov protested - Truman responded by saying, “Carry out your agreements and you
won’t get talked to like that.”
- Tensions over Poland illustrated American and Soviet leaders’ differing views of the world Americans had fought to bring democracy and economic opportunity to the conquered nations of
Europe and Asia
- The US hoped to see these goals achieved in the postwar world
- After losing more than 20 million people during the war and suffering widespread destruction,
the Soviet Union was determined to rebuild in ways that would protect its own interests
- One way was to establish satellite nations (countries subject to Soviet domination) on the
western borders of the Soviet Union - these governments would be friendly to Communist goals
- Stalin was all about installing or supporting totalitarian Communist governments in Eastern
Europe
- The Soviet Union quickly gained control over Eastern European nations freed from the Nazis
- The promised elections in Poland did not take place for nearly two years - Poland’s Sovietinstalled government eliminated all political opposition
- In Albania, Communist guerilla forces had driven out the Germans by 1944
- Soviet troops rolled into Bulgaria in 1944, and the Communists secured their hold on the
country by 1948
- The Czechs tried to hold on to their democratic multiparty political system - by 1948 it was a
satellite naton
- After Communist candidates lost elections in Hungary in late 1945, Soviet troops remained in
that country and demanded Communist control of the police - by 1947, they were there to stay
- The Red Army also stayed in Romania - by 1947 it was in Soviet hands too
- While the Western Allies wanted a strong, rebuilt Germany at the center of Europe, Stalin was
determined that Germany would never threaten his nation again
- He established national control of all East German resources and installed a brutal totalitarian
government there
- In 1949, under the Communist government, the country became known as the German
Democratic Republic
- Two other countries managed to maintain a degree of independence from the Soviet Union Finland signed a treaty of cooperation with the Soviets in 1948
- In Yugoslavia, Communists gained control in 1945 under the leadership of Josip Broz, better
known as Tito
- A fiercely independent dictator, Tito refused to take orders from Stalin, who unsuccessfully
tried to topple him in 1948 - for the next three decades Tito would pursue his own brand of
communism free from Soviet interference
- In a February 1946 speech, Stalin predicted the ultimate triumph of communism over
capitalism
- In the meantime, Stalin called on Communists to spread their system by other means
- The month after Stalin’s speech, Winston Churchill responded - in his speech, Churchill called
on Americans to help keep Stalin from closing the iron curtain of Communist domination and
oppression around any more nations
- These two speeches set the tone for the cold war (the competition that developed between the
US and the Soviet Union for power and influence in the world)
- For nearly 50 years, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the cold war was
characterized by political and economic conflict and military tensions
- The rivalry stopped just short of a “hot” war (a direct military engagement) between the two
competing nations
- However, the US military forces did engage in combat in other nations in efforts to defeat the
Soviet-supported uprisings and invasions
- In a secret telegram to the State Department in early 1946, George Kennan, a top American
diplomat stationed in Moscow, analyzed Soviet behavior and policy
- Like Stalin, Kennan saw the Soviet Union’s weaknesses - soon thereafter, he publicized his
observations in an anonymous magazine article
- From Kennan’s analysis, the policy of containment emerged - the policy recognized the
possibility that Eastern Europe was already lost to communism - it called for the US to resist
Soviet attempts to form Communist governments elsewhere in the world
- Critics saw containment as too moderate an approach to Soviet-American relations
- They called for action to push the Communists out of Eastern Europe, Russia, and anywhere
else
- Kennan, however, argued that the Soviet system “bears within it the seeds of its own decay”
and would eventually crumble - thus, although containment remained controversial, it became
the cornerstone of America’s cold war foreign policy
- Since 1945 the Soviet Union had been making threats against Turkey - in addition, a civil war
had broken out in nearby Greece in the closing days of the war
- There Communists fought to overthrow the government that had returned to power after the
Axis invaders withdrew
- Britain announced in 1947 that it could no longer afford to provide aid to Greece and Turkey the British suggested that the US take over responsibility for defending the region
- State Department officials developed a plan to provide American aid to Greece and Turkey
- “Only two great powers remain in the world...the United States and the Soviet Union.”
- In March 1947, in a speech before a joint session of Congress, Truman called on the US to take
a leadership role
- He gave a statement of principles known as the Truman Doctrine
- “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are
resisting attempted subjugation (conquest) by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe
that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.” - President
Truman
- Responding to Truman’s plea, Congress approved $400 million in aid for Greece and Turkey
- In addition, the US soon established military bases in both countries
- During the next four decades, the Truman Doctrine and the policy of containment continued to
guide US foreign policy - these principles would lead the US into controversial involvements in
“hot” and “cold” conflicts around the world
*Section 2 - The Cold War Abroad and at Home
- WWII had devastated the continent to a degree never seen before
- About 21 million people had been made homeless
- In Poland, some 20 percent of the population had died
- Nearly 1 out of 5 houses in France and Belgium had been damaged or destroyed - across
Europe, industries and transportation were in ruins
- In France alone, damage equaled three times the nation’s annual income
- American policymakers were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the post-WWI era - this
time the US would help restore the war-torn nations so that they might create stable democracies
and achieve economic recovery
- The Truman Doctrine was one of two fundamental shifts in postwar foreign policy intended to
fulfill these goals
- The other was the Marshall Plan, which called for the nations of Europe to draw up a program
for economic recovery from the war - the US would then support the program with financial aid
- The plan was unveiled by Secretary of State George C. Marshall in 1947
- The Marshall Plan responded to the concern of American policymakers that Communist parties
were growing stronger across Europe and the Soviet Union might intervene to support more of
these movements
- The plan also reflected the belief that US aid for European economic recovery would create
strong democracies and open new markets for American goods
- The Soviet Union was invited to participate in the Marshall Plan, but it refused the help and
pressured its satellite nations to do so as well
- Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov called the Marshall Plan a vicious American
scheme for using dollars to “buy its way” into European affairs
- Seventeen Western European nations joined the plan
- In 1948 Congress approved the Marshall Plan, which was formally known as the European
Recovery Program
- Over the next 4 years, the US sent some $13 billion in grants and loans to Western Europe - the
region’s economies were quickly restored, and the US gained strong trading partners in the
region
- One of the nations that benefitted from the Marshall Plan was West Germany - by 1948
American, British, and French leaders had become convinced that Stalin was not going to allow
the reunification of Germany
- Therefore the Western Allies prepared to merge their three occupation zones to create the
Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany
- The western part of Berlin, which lay in the Soviet zone, was to become part of West Germany
- Capitalist West Berlin and Communist East Berlin became visible symbols of the developing
cold war struggle between the Soviet Union and the Western powers
- Hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans left their homes in Communist-dominated
nations, fled to East Berlin, and then crossed into West Berlin
- From there they booked passage to freedom in the US, Canada, or Western Europe
- Stalin decided to close this escape route by forcing the Western powers to abandon West Berlin
- All shipments to the city through East Berlin were also banned
- The blockade threatened to create severe shortages of food and other supplies needed by the 2.5
million people in West Berlin
- Truman did not want to risk starting a war by using military force to open the transportation
routes - nor did he want to give up West Berlin to the Soviets
- Instead Truman began the Berlin 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
- At the height of the Berlin airlift, nearly 13,000 tons of goods arrived in West Berlin daily
- The Soviets finally gave up the blockade in May 1949, and the airlift ended the following
September
- By this time the Marshall Plan had helped achieve economic stability in the capitalist nations of
Western Europe, including West Germany
- Berlin, however, remained a focal point of East-West conflict
- In the early post-war period, the international community pinned its hopes on the United
Nations
- The Soviet Union’s frequent use of its veto power in the Security Council prevented the UN
from effectively dealing with a number of postwar problems
- Western Europe would have to look beyond the UN in protecting itself from Soviet aggression
- In April 1949, Canada and the US 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 - it created the Warsaw Pact (a
military alliance with its satellite nations in Eastern Europe)
- In 1949 the Soviet Union had successfully tested an atomic bomb - then, just a few weeks later,
Communist forces took control of China
- New York, Los Angeles, and other American cities now risked the horrible fate of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki
- Truman’s response to the Soviet atomic threat - he gave approval for development of a
hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb, which was many times more destructive than the atomic
bomb
- 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 included plans for building bomb shelters and instructions for holding air raid drills in
schools
- As WWII drew to a close, the fighting between the Communists and government forces
resumed in China
- By 1947 Mao’s forces had occupied much of China’s countryside, and its northern cities had
begun to come under their control
- In early 1949 China’s capital of Peking (now Beijing) fell to the Communists
- A few months later, Mao proclaimed the creation of the People’s Republic of China
- The defeated Chiang Kai-shek and his followers withdrew to the island of Taiwan, off the
Chinese mainland
- There they continued as the Republic of China, claiming to be the legitimate government of the
entire Chinese nation
- Throughout the Great Depression, tens of thousands of Americans had joined the Communist
party, which was a legal organization
- Many were desperate people who had developed serious doubts about the American capitalist
system
- Others were intellectuals who joined and supported the Communists
- After WWII however, improved economic times, as well as the increasing distrust of Stalin,
caused many people to become disappointed with communism - most American communists quit
the party
- During the presidencies of Truman and his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, concern about
the growth of world communism raised fears of a conspiracy to overthrow the government
- These fears launched a widespread anti-Communist crusade that violated the civil liberties of
many Americans
- Government officials launched programs to root out any element of communism that might
have infiltrated the US - exposure of a number of wartime spy rings in 1946 increased
Americans’ anxiety
- A federal employee loyalty program was started in 1947
- Under this program, all new employees hired by the federal government were to be investigated
- In addition, the FBI checked its files for evidence of existing government employees who might
be engaged in suspicious activities
- Those accused of disloyalty were brought before a Loyalty Review Board, where their case was
reviewed
- While civil rights were supposed to be safeguarded, in fact those accused of disloyalty to their
country often had little chance to defend themselves
- Rather than being innocent until proven guilty, they found that the accusation alone made it
difficult to clear their names
- The loyalty program added to a climate of suspicion taking hold in the nation
- The House Un-American Activities Committee, referred to as HUAC, had been established in
1938 to investigate disloyalty on the eve of WWII - now it began as a postwar probe of
Communist infiltration of government agencies and, more spectacularly, a probe of the
Hollywood movie industry
- While HUAC carried out its work, Democrat Pat McCarran headed a Senate hunt for
Communists in the movie industry, labor unions, the State Department, and the UN
- Senator McCarran became convinced that the most disloyal Americans were immigrants from
Communist-dominated parts of the world
- At his urging, in 1952 Congress passed the McCarran-Walter Act - this law established a quota
system for each country, discriminating against potential immigrants from Asia and Southern
and Central Europe
- President Truman vetoed McCarran’s bill, calling it “one of the most un-American acts I have
ever witnessed in my public career”
- Congress, however, passed the bill over the President’s veto
- Two famous spy cases helped fuel the suspicion that a conspiracy within the United States was
aiding the Communists overseas in their military and political successes
- Alger Hiss, who had been a high-ranking State Department official before he left government
service, was investigated by HUAC
- Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist who had become a successful Time magazine
editor, accused Hiss of having been a Communist in the 1930s
- After two trials, Hiss was convicted of perjury for lying in the slander case - in 1950 he went to
prison for 4 years
- Not all Americans were convinced he was guilty, and for many years thereafter the Hiss case
was hotly debated
- Several months after Hiss’s conviction, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple who held
radical views, were accused of passing atomic secrets to the Soviets during WWII - after a highly
controversial trial, the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage and executed in 1953
- The case was another event that inflamed anti-Communist passions and focused attention on a
possible internal threat to the nation’s security