Download APUSH Chapter 36 - Morton High School

Chapter 36
AP focus
• At the end of WWII, The U.S. economy suffers from a variety of maladies,
but once the economy rebounds, the nation experiences an economic
boom that will last until the early 1970s.
• Between 1945 and 1960, the nation witnesses a huge “baby boom”.
• A major housing shortage is eased, as suburban communities are
developed. The fastest growing region is the Sunbelt, stretching from
Florida to California. Drawn by jobs, a temperate climate, and lower taxes,
many Americans relocate from the industrial Northeast. (Map on page
858) Demographic changes is an AP theme.
• Tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States intensify after
the war, as the former allies now eye each other with growing (and
dangerous!) mistrust, which turns into the cold war.
• The Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine are put in place to contain
communism in Eastern Europe. Map on page 870 shows the flows of U.S.
Foreign aid.
AP Focus
• When the Soviets test their first nuclear
weapon in 1949, the United States loses it
atomic monopoly. The Cold War spreads to
China, Korea, and other areas in Asia.
• Believing that communist sympathizers are
imbedded in American public and private
institutions, the House Un-American Activities
Committee launches an investigation designed
to find them.
AP Notes
• Historians debate the causes and responsibility for starting the Cold War.
Some claim that hostility and tension were prevalent even before WWII
was over.
• Historians also debate the use of atomic weapons in Japan. Some contend
that President Truman's decision, in the long run, saved both American
and Japanese lives. Critics contend that dropping the bombs was the first
act of the Cold War, one designed to intimidate the Soviets, and that given
Japan’s willingness to surrender, using the bombs was not necessary.
• In 1948, the Soviets blocked access roads into West Berlin in an effort to
absorb it into communist East Berlin, and therefore, the Soviet sphere of
influence. President Truman thwarted the move by ordering that supplies
be airlifted to the city, The Berlin airlift lasted for a year.
• Suburban development meant that middle- and lower-middle-class
Americans could have the American Dream of owning a home, removed
from the congestion and problems associated with urban life. Critics
complained that suburban communities were off limits to blacks, bred
conformity, and exacted a high ecological toll in the form of lost farms and
undeveloped land.
Making Modern America
• World War II broke the Great Depression and ended American
isolationism.
• The United States emerged unscarred, economically healthy
and diplomatically strengthened giving us a national selfconfidence.
• From the 1950s to the 1960s all our President’s were liberal
Democrats; Truman, Kennedy, Johnson; except Eisenhower.
• They pushed the New Deal at home, and an activist foreign
policy which with it’s peak in 1960 brought Lyndon Johnson’s
“Great Society Reforms.”
• Economic growth flattened in the 1970s and a second-wave of
feminism began asking the government to help them.
• After 1968 our presidents became mostly Republican except
for Carter and Clinton.
• Abroad we had fierce competition in the Soviet Union and
Communist China. The fear of communists unleashed the
McCarthyism in the 1950s.
• United States fought in two shooting wars in Korea (1950)
and Vietnam (1960), which was also the only war where
the U.S. was defeated.
• During the cold war, we built an arsenal of nuclear
weapons, air and missile fleets, and a two-ocean navy, and
a large conscription army.
• After the cold war America turned towards working on the
Global economy but after a 21st century terrorist assault
questions were raised on national defense and
international security.
Postwar Economic Anxieties
• The 1930s left deep scars; joblessness and insecurities.
• War banished this depression, but observers were
warning that it was a temporary fix.
• Faltering economy: Real gross national product
slumped in 1946-47 as well as the removal of wartime
price controls which went up 33%.
• Epidemic of strikes hit with about 4.6 million laborers
involved with fear of not being able to afford the goods
they manufactured.
• Organized labor annoyed many with their revenge on
New Deal gains in 1947 when a Republican controlled
congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act.
Taft-Hartley Act 1947
• Passed over President Truman’s veto.
• Sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred
Hartley, Jr.
• It was condemned as a “slave-labor law.” Truman claimed it
to be “a dangerous intrusion on free speech.”
• Designed to amend the National Labor Relations Act of 1935
and discontinue parts of the Federal Anti-Injunction Act of
1932.
• Monitored the activities and power of labor unions.
Outlawed the “closed” shop and made unions liable for
damages that came from disputes among themselves, and
required the leaders to take an noncommunist oath.
• Allowed the president to appoint a board of inquiry to
investigate union disputes, as well as forbidding unions from
contributing to political campaigns.
Postwar cont..
• CIO’s “Operation Dixie” aimed at unionizing southern textile
workers and steelworkers, it failed miserably to overcome fears
of racial mixing.
• Union membership would peak in the 1950s and then decline.
• Democratic administration took steps to forestall another
economic downfall.
-sold war factories and other government installations to private
businesses.
-secured passage in 1946 of the Employment Act
-passage of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (GI bill
of rights)
-enabled the Veterans Administration to guarantee about $16
billion in loans for buying homes, farms, and small businesses.
The Long Economic Boom,
1950-1970
• Gross National Product began to climb in 1948.
• In 1950 the American economy plateau-ed for
two decades.
• National income doubled in the 1950s and again
in 1960s. It shot through the trillion dollar mark
in 1973.
• Prosperity paved the way for success in civil rights
movements by funding vast new welfare
programs like Medicare, and exercise
international leadership.
Long Economic Boom cont..
• The standard of comfort went from a chicken in every pot
to two cars, swimming pools, and vacation homes.
• Middle class earnings were between $3,000 and $10,000.
• Most families owned cars, washing machines, and
televisions made in 1920s.
• Female workers were provided with urban offices and
shops, and accounted for a quarter of the American work
force at the end of WWII, and for nearly half five decades
later.
• Yet the clash between the demands of suburban
housewifery and the realities of employment brought forth
a feminist revolt in 1960.
The Roots of Postwar Prosperity
• The United States used WWII to fire up smokeless factories
and rebuild it’s economy, that had been stricken by the
depression.
• America dominated the ruined global landscape of the
postwar period.
• The prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s was due to colossal
military budgets which critics spoke of as a “permanent war
economy”.
• Economic upturn was fueled in 1950 by the Korean War,
and defense spending that made up about 10% of the GNP.
• Pentagon dollars helped in high technology industries:
aerospace, plastics, and electronics.
• Military budget also financed scientific research and
development. “R and D”. Gave the name to the Rand
Corporation.
• Cheap energy fed the economic boom such as controlling
the flow of abundant petroleum from the middle East with
low prices.
• Americans doubled consumption of oil, and low priced fuel,
which led to the construction of endless highways, air
conditioned homes, and a sixfold increase in country’s
electricity-generating capacity between 1945- 1970.
• Electric cables went up and carried the power for oil, gas,
coal, and falling water for the factory floor. This made for
high productivity.
• Two decades after the Korean War in 1950,
productivity increased on average 3% per year.
• Productivity was gained by increasing educational level
of the work force.
• By 1970 nearly 90% of school-age population was
enrolled in educational institutions.
• By being better educated and equipped production
nearly doubled in an hour’s labor in 1970 then in 1950.
• Rising productivity doubled the average American’s
standard of living in the postwar quarter-century.
• The nation’s basic economic structure was also changing. The work
force was shifting in of agriculture.
• Agribusinesses that could employ costly machines replaced family
farms.
• With mechanization and new fertilizers plus government subsidies
and price supports, one farmworker could produce food for over
fifty people.
• We went from plowing sod with oxen or horses to air-conditioned
tractor cabs, listening to the stereophonic radios.
• Farmers were once the backbone of the agricultural Republic and
about 15% of the labor force at the end of WWII, but by the 1990s
only made up about 2%, and still fed most of the world.
Dixiecrats
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Aka State’s Rights Democratic Party
Part of 1948 election
opposed racial integration, Jim Crow
laws, and white supremacy
They had little impact in politics, but
had large impact on weakening of
Solid South (the Democratic Party's
total control of presidential elections
in the South)
Nominated Governor of South
Carolina J. Strom Thurmond
Fielding L. Wright, governor of
Mississippi, for VP
1,169,021 popular votes and 39
electoral votes
The Smiling Sunbelt
• Economic changes of post-1945 period shook and shifted the
American people
• Americans had always been on the move, but they were
astonishingly footloose in the postwar years
• 1945 and 3 decades on, an average of 30 million people changed
residences every year
• During this time, the popularity of advice books on child-rearing
was extremely strong
• Dr. Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child
Care
– Instructed millions of parents like grandparents to parents to
children
• Friendships also hard to sustain; mobility could exact a high human
cost in loneliness and isolation
The Smiling Sunbelt
• Growth of the “Sunbelt”- fifteen-state area stretching
in a smiling crescent from Virginia through Florida and
Texas to Arizona and California
• This region increased its population at a rate nearly
double that of the industrial zones of the Northeast
(the Frostbelt)
• 1950’s California accounted for one-fifth of US
population
• By 1953 CA outdistanced New York as most populous
state
– Held this position early into the 21st century, with more
than 35 million people, or 1 out of every 8 Americans
The Smiling Sunbelt
• South and Southwest were a new frontier for
Americans after World War 2
• Jobs, better climate, lower taxes
• California: electronics industry
• Florida/Texas: aerospace complexes
• Huge military installations that powerful
southern congressional representatives
secured for their districts
The Smiling Sunbelt
• A lot of money accounted for the Sunbelt’s prosperity, though,
ironically, southern and western politicians led the cry against
government spending
• 1990’s: South and West annually receiving $125 billion more in federal
funds that Northeast and Midwest
• New economic war between states seemed to be shaking up
• Northeasterners and hard-hit heavy-industry region of the Ohio Valley
(the Rustbelt) tried to rally political support with sarcastic slogan: “The
North shall rise again”
• Dramatic shifts of population and wealth further broke the historic grip
of the North on the nation’s political life
• Every elected occupant of the White House since 1964 has hailed from
the Sunbelt, and the region’s congressional representation rose as the
population did
• Sunbelters redrawing US’s political map with their frontier ethic of
individualism and economic growth
Sunbelt
Frostbelt
Rustbelt
The Rush to the Suburbs
• America’s modern migrants- if they were white- fled from the
cities to the burgeoning new suburbs
• Government policies encouraged this momentous movement
• Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veteran
Administration (VA) made it more economically attractive to
own home in suburbs vs. renting an apartment in the city
• Tax deductions for interest payments provided additional
incentive
• Government-built highways made transportation and mass
migration much more easier and efficient
• By 1960, one in every 4 Americans lived in suburb
• Suburbs held more than half of the nation’s population as the
twentieth century neared its end
The Rush to the Suburbs
• Construction industry in 1950’s and 1960’s was booming
• Pioneered by innovators like the Levitt brothers, “Levittown”
sprouted on New York’s Long Island in the 1940’s which
revolutionized techniques of home construction
• Hundreds or thousands of dwellings in a single project, in
record time with cost-cutting efficiency
– Specialized crews working from standardized plans laid
foundations, while others assembled framing modules, put
on roof, strung wires, installed plumbing, and finished the
walls
• Critics didn’t like the monotony, but eager home buyers
nevertheless moved into them by the millions
The Rush to the Suburbs
• “White flight” left inner cities (Northeast and
Midwest) black, brown, and broke
• Migrating blacks from the South filled up the
urban neighborhoods that white middle class left
behind
• Incoming blacks imported the grinding poverty
from the south to inner cores of northern cities
• Many businesses switched from having shops in
the city to having shops in the suburb malls
The Rush to the Suburb
• FHA administrators, citing the “risk” of making
loans to blacks and other “unharmonious
racial or nationality groups” often refused
them mortgages for private homes
• Limited black mobility out of inner cities,
driving many minorities into public housing
projects
• This solidified racial segregation
The Postwar Baby Boom
• Of all upheavals in postwar America, none was more
dramatic than the “baby boom”- huge leap in birthrate
in the 15 years after 1945
• Young men and women got married and filled the
nation’s empty cradles
• Added more than 50 million babies by the end of 1950s
• Stopped in 1957, followed by deepening birth dearth
• 1963 fertility rates dropped below point necessary to
maintain existing population figures
• If this trend continued, only immigration could uplift
the US population above its 1996 level of some 264
million
The Postwar Baby Boom
• This boom-or-bust cycle of births begot a bulging wave along the
American population curve
• As this generation grew older, it had to strain and distort many aspects of
American life
• Elementary-school enrollments were nearly 34 million in 1970… began
steady decline and left schools closed with unemployed teachers
–
–
–
–
–
Big business made when dealing with boomers
Baby products/canned food
Clothes/recorded rock music
Jeans
jobs
• Led to “secondary boom” when boomers were middle-aged, echoed the
postwar population explosion
• When these boomers get to retirement, it will place enormous strains on
the Social Security system
Baby Boom
• estimated 77.3 million
Americans who were born
during this demographic boom
in births
• Cause: men came back from
the war wanting to start
families, so they got married
and had kids… lots of them
• Baby boom officially ended in
1964, after which there was a
significant drop in births
• Lowest was 3.14 million in
1973, highest was 4.3 million
between 1959-1961
Makers of America: The Suburbanites
• “American dream” to millions of families
• Baby boom, new highways, government guarantees for mortgage
lending, and favorable tax policies all made suburbia blossom
• VA and FHA both made it easier on veterans to assimilate back into
American life
• Majority of suburbanites were white and middle-class
• 1967 sociologist Herbert Gans The Levittowners described suburban
families as predominantly 3rd/4th generation Americans with some
college education and atleast 2 children
• Men had white-collar jobs or upper-level blue-collar positions while
women worked in the home (later symbolized domestic confinement
that feminists had in 1960s and 1970s)
• Television, home improvement projects, barbecues on the patio
• social centers in the city- clubs, frats, taverns- had tough time
attracting patrons
Makers of America: The Suburbanites
• Cars became a requirement; second car, once a luxury,
now became a necessity for families constantly “on the
go”
• Drive-thru restaurants and drive-in movies, roadside
shopping centers, interstate highway system
• Though many still had jobs in the city, suburbs
themselves were places of employment
• Fought to maintain their communities as secluded
retreats, independent with their own taxes, schools and
zoning restrictions to keep out public housing and poor
• Names matched new way of life: Poplar Terrace,
Mountainview Drive
Makers of America: Suburbanites
• Cities lost their political clout
• Poverty, drug addiction, and crime became cities’
main problems
• Middle-class African Americans moved to suburbs
by 1980’s, but failed to alter the racial divide of
metropolitan America
• Rolling Oaks outside Miami/Brook Glen near
Atlanta
• By end of twentieth century, suburbia as a whole
was more racially diverse than at midcentury
Truman: The “Gutty” Man From
Missouri
• Presiding over the Opening of the Post war period was the
“accidental president”- Harry S. Truman
• Truman was known as “The average man’s average man”
• He was the first president in many years without a college
education
• He had been a farmer, served as an artillery officer during
World War I, and had served as a failed haberdasher.
• A haberdasher is a person who sells small articles for
sewing, such as buttons, ribbons, zippers, and other things.
• Next he moved on to notoriously known Missouri politics,
where he somehow managed to keep his hands clean.
Harry Truman
Truman: The “Gutty” man from
Missouri
• The problems of the postwar period were staggering and
the suddenly burdened new president approached his tasks
with humility.
• But gradually he changed his ways.
• When the Soviet foreign minister complained “I have never
been talked to like that in my life,” Truman shot back “Carry
out your agreements and you wont get talked to like that.”
• Truman permitted old associates of the “Missouri gang” to
gather around him and was stubbornly loyal to them when
scandals surfaced about them.
• On occasion he would send critics hot tempered and
profane “S.O.B” letters.
Truman: The “Gutty” Man from
Missouri
But if he was sometimes small in the small
things, he was just as big in the big things.
• He had down home authenticity, few
pretensions, rock-solid probity, and a lot of
moxie.
• “The buck stops here” and “If you can’t stand the heat get out
of the kitchen” were two of his most famous sayings
Yalta: Bargain or Betrayal
• Vast and silent, the Soviet Union continued to
be the Great enigma.
• The conference at Teheran in 1943, where
Roosevelt had first met Stalin, had done
something to clear the air but much had
remained unresolved- especially questions
about the post war fates of Germany, Eastern
Europe, and Asia.
Yalta: Bargain or Betrayal
• The final conference of the Big Three had taken place in
February 1945 at Yalta.
• At this conference, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt had
reached momentous agreements.
• Final plans were laid for smashing the buckling German
lines and assigning occupation zones in Germany to the
victorious powers.
• They agreed that Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania should
have a representative governments based on free elections.
• Stalin later broke this agreement.
• Also out of the conference, came the Big Three’s
announcement that it had plans for a new international
peacekeeping organization known as the United Nations.
Yalta: Bargain or Betrayal
The most controversial decision to come out of the Yalta
Conference concerned the Far East.
• The Atomic bomb had not yet been tested and
Washington strategists expected frightful American
casualties in the projected assault on Japan.
• Roosevelt wanted Stalin to send his troops instead but
Soviet casualties had already been enormous and
Moscow presumably needed inducements to bring it
into the Far Eastern conflagration.
• Stalin was in a position at Yalta to exact a high price.
Yalta: Bargain or Betrayal?
• He agreed to attack Japan within three months after the
collapse of Germany, and in return the Soviets were promised
the Southern half of Sakhalin island (Lost by Russian to Japan
in 1905), as well as Japan’s Kurile Island.
• They were also granted joint control over the railroads of
China’s Manchuria and special privileges in the two key
seaports, Dairen and Port Arthur.
• These concessions would give Stalin control over vital
industrial centers of America’s weakening Chinese Ally.
• As it later turned out, Stalin did not need all this to knock out
Japan.
• Critics charged that Roosevelt had sold Jiang Jieshi down the
river when he conceded control of china’s Manchuria to Stalin
Yalta: Bargain or Betrayal?
• Roosevelt’s defenders countered that Stalin
could have had much more of China if he had
really wanted to and that the Yalta conference
really set limits on his ambitions.
• The truth is that the Big Three at Yalta were
not drafting a peace settlement; at most they
were sketching generational intentions and
testing one another’s reactions.
Yalta Conference
The United States and the Soviet
Union
• History provided little hope that the U.S and the Soviet Union
would reach cordial understandings about the shape of the
post war world.
• Communism and Capitalism were historically hostile social
philosophies.
• It didn’t help that the U.S had refused to recognize the
Bolshevik Revolutionary Government until it was 16 years old,
also they froze their soviet ally out of the project to develop
atomic weapons and when terminated the vital lend-lease aid
to a battered USSR in 1945, and when they spurned Moscow’s
plea for a $6 billion reconstruction loan-while approving a
$3.75 billion loan to Britain.
• They also had different visions on how the post war world
should look like.
The United States and the Soviet
Union
• Stalin aimed above all else to guarantee the security of the Soviet
Union.
• Stalin made it clear from the outset of the war that he was
determined to have friendly governments along the Soviet western
border.
• By maintaining an extensive Soviet Sphere of influence in Eastern
and central Europe, the USSR could protect itself and consolidate its
revolutionary base as the world’s leading communist party.
• To many Americans the “Sphere of influence” looked like an illgained “Empire” and they doubted that the Soviet’s goals were
purely defensive.
• Stalin’s emphasis on “Spheres” clashed with FDR’s Wilsonian dream
of an open world.
The United States and the Soviet
Union
• Even the ways in which the two countries resembled each
other were troublesome.
• Both countries had been largely isolated from world affairs
before WWII and both countries had a history of conducting a
kind of “Missionary” Diplomacy- of trying to export to all the
world the political doctrines precipitated out of their
respective revolutionary origins.
• They soon found themselves staring eyeball to eyeball over
the prostrate body of battered Europe.
• In these sort of circumstances, some sort of confrontation was
unavoidable.
• The wartime “Grand Alliance” of the United States and Soviet
Union was only kept alive until the mutual enemy fell. With
Hitler gone, there was no need for an alliance.
The United States and The Soviet
Union
• When Hitler fell, suspicion and rivalry between
communistic , despotic Russia and capitalistic,
democratic America were all but inevitable.
• In a progression of events, the two powers
provoked each other into a tense standoff known
as the Cold war.
• Lasting 45 years, the cold war not only shaped
Soviet-American relations but also it also
overshadowed the entire postwar international
order in every corner of the globe.
Shaping the Postwar World
• Despite some obstacles, the United States did manage at
war’s end to erect some of the structures that would
support Roosevelt’s vision of an open world.
• When they met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1944,
the Western Allies established the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) to encourage world trade by regulating currency
exchange rates. They also founded the International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) to
promote economic growth in war ravaged and
underdeveloped areas.
• The United States took the lead in creating these important
international bodies and supplied most of their funding.
While, Soviets declined to participate.
Shaping the Postwar World
• The United Nations Conference opened on
schedule despite Roosevelt’s death 13 days
before.
• The U.N was a successor to the old League of
Nations but the two organizations were
United Nation’s flag
different in many ways.
League of nations Vs. United
nations
League of Nations
United Nations
Designed to prevent another great power
war. The league had adopted rules
denying the veto power to any party to a
dispute.
Provided that no member of the security
council (dominated by the five powers)
could have actions taken against it
without its consent
Designed to stop wars between the big
powers,
Designed to foster cooperation between
the big powers
http://www.history.com/videos/united-nations-founded#united-nationsfounded
Shaping a Postwar World
• Unlike the League of Nations, the Senate
overwhelmingly approved the U.N Charter on July 28th,
1945 by a vote of 89-2 because it provided safeguards
for American sovereignty and freedom of action.
• The U.N set up it’s permanent home in New York city.
• It helped to preserve peace in Iran, Kashmir, and other
troubled spots. It also played a large role in creating
the new Jewish State of Israel. It also guided former
colonies to independence and brought benefits to
people all over the world.
UNESCO
• It stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization.
• UNESCO’s stated aim is "to contribute to the building of peace, the
eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue
through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information”
• Other priorities of the Organization include attaining quality education for
all and lifelong learning, addressing emerging social and ethical challenges,
cultural diversity, a culture of peace and building inclusive knowledge
societies through information and communication.
• The constitution of UNESCO, signed on 16 November 1945, came into
force on 4 November 1946 after ratification by twenty countries
• Some countries withdrew from the Organization for political reasons at
various points in time, but they have today all rejoined UNESC
Shaping a Postwar World
• The new technology of the Atom put an early test to the spirit of
cooperation on which the U.N had been founded.
• U.S delegate Bernard Baruch in 1946 called for a U.N agency with
worldwide authority over atomic energy, weapons, and research. As
a result the Soviet delegate countered that the possession of
nuclear weapons be outlawed by every nation.
• President Truman said “it would be a folly to throw away our guns
until we are sure the rest of the world can’t arm against us.”
• The suspicious soviets felt the same way and they used their veto
power to stop the proposals that would put an end to atomic
weapons.
• And with that, a priceless opportunity to tame the nuclear
movement in its infancy was lost.
United Nations Security Council
1940’s
The Problem of Germany
• The Allis could only agree that the cancer of Nazism had to be cut out
of the German body politic
• This involved punishing Nazi Leaders for war crimes
• But besides punishing top Nazis the Allies couldn’t hardly agree on
anything else about Post War Germany
• American Hitler Haters wanted to dismantle German factories and
reduce the country to a potato patch
• The Soviets denied American economic assistance wanted to rebuild
on their own and were going to use enormous reparations from the
Germans
• One thing was clear: An industrial, healthy German economy was
indispensable to the recovery of Europe.
• Americans appreciated that fact, but the Soviets resisted all efforts to
revitalizes Germany
The Nuremberg Trials
• November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946
• They were held in Nuremberg ,Bavaria, Germany.
• The first and best known of the trials was the Trial of Major War
Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT)
• first session was presided over by the Soviet judge, Nikitchenko
• 24 major war criminals and seven criminal organizations were tried
– the leadership of the Nazi party, the Reich Cabinet, the Schutzstaffel (SS),
Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Gestapo, the Sturmabteillung (SA) and the
"General Staff and High Command“
– Out of the 24 12 were hung, 7 were sentenced to long jail terms
– http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/65th-anniversary-of-nurembergtrials/PmAF1VS2a233TF00V5C0NQ
Martin Bormann Karl Dönitz
10 years
Death
Hans Frank Wilhelm Frick Hans Fritzsche
Walther Funk
Death
Acquitted
Life Imprisonment
Death
Alfred Jodl Ernst Kaltenbrunner Wilhelm Keitel
Hermann Göring Rudolf Hess
Death
Death
Death
Death Life Imprisonment
Robert Ley Barond Konstantin
Not Charged von Neurath
15 years
Gustav Krupp von
Bohlen
Not Charged
Franz von Papen Erich Raeder Joachim vonAlfred Rpsenberg
Ribbentrop
Acquitted
Life Imprisonment
Death
Death
The Problem of Germany
• Along with Austria, Germany had been divided at war’s end into four
military occupation zones
• Each was assigned to one of the big four powers (France, Britain,
USSR, America)
• The western Allies wanted to promote the idea of a reunited
Germany
• While the communists responded by tightening their grip on their
Eastern zone.
• Germany would remain indefinitely divided
• West Germany would become an independent country and East
Germany would join the other Soviet-dominated Eastern European
Countries and become a “satellite” state bound to the Soviet Union
• Eastern Europe disappeared from sight behind the “iron curtain”
The Problem of Germany
• Germany was split in two and there was the problem of the city of
Berlin.
• It was deep in the Soviet zone, but was broken up into sectors
occupied by troops just like the country itself
• In 1948 the soviets abruptly choked off all rail and highway access to
Berlin
• Berlin became a symbol of the test of wills between Moscow and
Washington.
• Americans used some of the same planes they used to bomb Berlin
and were now dropping needed supplies to the Berliners
• Western Europe took to heart this demonstration of America’s
determination to honor its commitments in Europe
• The Soviets lifted their blockade in May 1449
Berlin Airlift
• Was from June 27, 1948 to May 12, 1949
• At the end of World War II, a defeated Germany had been divided into
four sectors, controlled by the United States, the Soviet Union, Great
Britain, and France. The capitol city of Berlin had been divided in half, with
West Berlin controlled by the western Allies and East Berlin by the Soviets.
• As part of the soviet desire to make all of Europe communist, Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin ordered his ground troops and air force to "harass" the
supply traffic to Berlin. Then, on June 22, 1948 all ground traffic to Berlin
was stopped, halting 13,500 tons of daily supplies to Berlin.
• The United State’s only option now was to fly over Berlin and drop the
supplies onto western Berlin. The cargo needed to keep Berlin going
included coal, food, medical supplies, steamrollers, power plant
machinery, soap, and newsprint.
Berlin Airlift
• The United State’s only option now was to fly over Berlin and drop the
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supplies onto western Berlin. The cargo needed to keep Berlin going
included coal, food, medical supplies, steamrollers, power plant
machinery, soap, and newsprint.
On May 12, 1949, after more than 2.3 million tons of cargo, and 277,685
flights, the Soviets relented and reopened the ground routes.
In an effort to end western presence in their territory, they had succeeded
only in embarrassing themselves.
The airlift officially ended on September 30, 1949.
During the entire operation 17 American and 7 British planes were lost
due to crashes.
The Cold War Congeals
• Stalin probed the West’s resolve in oil-rich Iran
• He did this by breaking his agreement in 1948 by refusing to remove
his troops from Iran’s northern most province.
• He used his troops to aid a rebel movement, but Truman sent off a
stinging protest and Stalin backed down.
• Moscow’s hard line policies in Germany, Eastern Europe, and the
Middle East wrought a psychological Pearl Harbor
• Any good will between America and the USSR was gone
• Truman’s piecemeal responses to various Soviet challenges took on
intellectual coherence in 1947 with the formulation of the
“containment doctrine”
• Which was crafted by George F. Kennan and basically said that Russia
whether tsarist or communist, was relentlessly expansionary.
The Cold War Congeals
• Truman adopted a “get-tough-with-Russia” policy in 1947
• His first move was to help Britain defend Greece against communist
pressures
• Truman went before congress on March 12, 1947 and asked for $400
million to bolster Greece and Turkey which was granted quickly
• This became known as the Truman Doctrine
• Truman said that “it must be the policy of the United States to
support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by
armed minorities or by outside pressures”
• Truman overreacted by promising unlimited support to any tinhorn
despot who claimed to be resisting “Communist aggression”
• Critics complained that the Truman Doctrine needlessly polarized the
world into Pro-Soviet and Pro-American
The Cold War Congeals
• In France, Italy, and Germany they were still suffering from the
hunger and economic chaos spawned by war.
• They were in grave danger of being taken over from the inside by
Communist parties that could exploit these hardships.
• President Truman’s Secretary of State, George C. Marshall, invited the
Europeans to get together and work out a joint plan for their
economic recovery
• If they did the U.S. would provide substantial financial assistance.
• This forced a nudge down the road to European Community
• The democratic nations of Europe rose enthusiastically to the
Marshall plan
• This plan was also offered to the Soviet Union and its allies if they
would change their political reforms and accept outside controls.
• The Soviets denounced the “Marshall Plan” as one more capitalist
trick
The Cold War Congeals
• They met in Paris in July 1947
• The Marshall Plan called for spending $12.5 billon over four years in
sixteen cooperation countries
• Congress was at first balked at this because it was on top of the
nearly $2 billion the States had already contributed to European relief
through the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
(UNRRA)
• But a Soviet sponsored communist coup in Czechoslovakia got the US
into gear and they voted the initial appropriations on April 1948
• Congress said if the US didn’t get Europe back on its feet then Europe
would not get off the US’s back
• The Marshall Plan was a success and within a few years Western
European nations were exceeding their prewar out puts.
• The communist parties in France and Italy lost ground which were
two key countries that were saved
The Cold War Congeals
• There was another fateful decision made by Truman in 1948
• Access to Middle Eastern oil was crucial to the European recovery
program and to the health of the US economy as domestic American
oil reserves dwindled
• Arab countries didn’t want the Jewish state of Israel in the British
mandate territory of Palestine
• If Israel was born a Saudi Arabian leader warned Truman the Arabs
would lay siege to it until it dies of famine
• Truman defied them and his own State and Defense Departments
and European allies and he officially recognized the state of Israel.
America Begins to Rearm
• The cold War was not a war yet it wasn’t peace
• The soviet menace spurred the unification of the armed services as
well as the creation of a huge new national security apparatus
• 1947 the National Security Act, which created the Department of
Defense was passed by Congress
• It was going to be in the Pentagon and be headed by a new cabinet
officer which was called the Secretary of Defense
• In the Joint Chiefs of Staff the uniformed heads of each service were
brought together because they were replaced by the Secretary of
Defense
– This included the Army, Navy, and Air Force
National Security Act
• This was an act passed by
Congress and signed by Truman
that realigned and reorganized the
US Armed Forces, foreign policy,
and Intelligence Community after
the effects of WWII.
• The act combined the Department
of War and the Department of the
Navy into the National Military
Establishment, headed by the
Secretary of Defense.
• It also takes credit for creating the
Department of the Air Force, the
National Security Council, and the
Central Intelligence Agency.
America Begins to Rearm
• The National Security Act also established the National Security
Council (NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
• NSC was to advise the president on security matters
• CIA was to coordinate the government’s foreign fact gathering
• Also in 1948
– the “Voice of America” broadcasted behind the iron curtain
– The draft was resurrected
America Begins to Rearm
• The Soviet threat was also forcing the democracies of Western
Europe in to an unforeseen degree of unity.
• 1948 Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg
signed a treaty of defensive alliance at Brussels.
• They invited the US
• So the US had a decision. If they said yes it would strengthen the
policy of containing the Soviet Union, it would provide a framework
for the reintegration of Germany into the European family, and it
could reassure jittery Europeans that a traditionally isolationist Uncle
Sam was not abandoning them
• The US joined it and it was called the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO)
• NATO was signed on April 4th 1949
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
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For the first few years, the treaty was
little more than a political association.
The Korean War galvanized the
member states and an integrated
military structure was built.
The first NATO Secretary General, Lord
Ismay, stated in 1949 that the
organization’s goal was “to keep the
Russians out, the Americans in, and
the Germans down.
NATO is still in effect today. It has 28
member states, with the headquarters
in Brussels, Belgium.
An additional 22 countries participate
in their Partnership for Peace.
The combined military spending for all
of all NATO members makes over 70%
of the world’s defense spending.
America Begins to Rearm
• The 12 original signatories pledged to regard an attack on one as an
attack on all and promised to respond with “armed force”
• The Senate approved the treaty on July 21, 1949
• NATO became the cornerstone of all Cold War American policy
toward Europe
• NATO’s threefold purpose was to keep the Russians out, the German’s
down, and America in.
Reconstruction and Revolution in
Asia
• It was easier in Japan for reconstruction than Germany because Japan
was more of a one-man show
• Under General Douglas MacArthur the Us went inflexibly ahead with
his program for the democratization of Japan
• Top Japanese “ war criminals” were tried in Tokyo much like
Nuremburg
• 18 were sentenced to prison terms and 7 were hung
• The Japanese cooperated to an astonishing degree
• They cooperated because they thought that would make the US leave
faster
• The MacArthur dictated constitution was adopted in 1946 and it
renounced militarism, provided women’s equal equality, introduced
western style democratic government
Reconstruction and Revolution in
Asia
• Japan was a success story for American Policy makers but China was
the opposite
• Civil war had raged for years between Nationalists and Communist
and Washington halfheartedly supported the Nationalist government
of Jiang Jieshi
• The communists were lead by Mao Zedong
• In late 1949 Jiang was forced to flee to the island of Formosa
• It was depressing for the Americans because in one swoop around
1/4 of the world’s population was swept into the communist camp
• Blame was passed around for losing China, but Truman said that he
did not lose China, because he never had China to lost. Jiang himself
had never controlled China.
Reconstruction and Revolution in
Asia
• More bad news came in September of 1949 when news came that
the Soviets had exploded an atomic bomb three years ahead of
expected
• To outpace the Soviets Truman ordered the “H-Bomb” (Hydrogen
Bomb) which was 1, 000 times stronger than the atomic bomb.
• J Robert Oppenheimer was the former scientific director of the
Manhattan project and was now the current chair of the Atomic
Energy Commission and led a group of scientists in an attempt to stop
making the thermonuclear weapons
• Truman went on without listening to critics and the first H-bomb
exploded on a South Pacific atoll in 1952
• The Soviets responded in 1953 with their own H-bomb
• It was a Nuclear arms race
• But Peace through mutual terror brought a shaky stability to the
http://archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava11109vnb1
super power standoff
H-Bomb
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Also known as the Hydrogen Bomb.
First developed by the United States in the early 1950s, the hydrogen or
thermonuclear bomb is perhaps a thousand times more powerful than a uraniumor plutonium-based fission bomb, making it the strongest nuclear weapon.
We developed the H-Bomb because we wanted to have a more powerful weapon
than the Soviet Union.
After the Soviet Union and Britain followed the U.S. in developing thermonuclear
bombs, there was worry that conflict involving them would mean the end of the
world.
No one has used these weapons against another country since they were invented.
This is because of the concept known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). If
the US were to launch an attack against Russia, the Russians would immediately
retaliate by launching their missiles, and not only would the US be destroyed, but
Russia would as well.
Both countries knew that if they used these bombs, they would both lose.
Robert Oppenheimer
• April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967
• theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the
University of California
• Father of the Atomic Bomb, big role in Manhattan project
(made H-Bomb)
• Los Alamos: Lab near Santa Fe, New Mexico where he,
along with other great scientists, developed atomic bomb
• Led a scandalous romantic life
• diagnosed with throat cancer in late 1965, underwent
unsuccessful radiation treatment and chemotherapy late in
1966.fell into a coma on February 15, 1967, and died on
February 18, aged 62
Ferreting Out Alleged Communists
• Most active Cold War fronts was at home, new anti-red
chase was in full cry
• Nervous citizens feared that communist spies, paid
with Moscow gold, were undermining the government
and treacherously misdirecting foreign policy
• 1947: Truman launched massive “loyalty” program
– Drew list of 90 “disloyal” organizations, none of which was
given the opportunity to prove its innocence
– Loyalty Review Board investigated more than 3M federal
employees;
– 3,000 either resigned or were dismissed, non under formal
indictment
Ferreting Out Alleged Communists
• Individual states became security-conscious
• Loyalty oaths demanded by employees, especially
teachers
• Question became: Could the nation continue to enjoy
traditional freedoms-speech, thought, right of political
dissent- in a Cold War climate?
• 1949: 11 communists violated the Smith Act of 1940,
the first peacetime antisedition law since 1798
• Convicted of advocating the overthrow the American
government, defendants sent to prison
• Supreme Court upheld their convictions in Dennis vs.
United States (1951)
Ferreting Out Alleged Communists
• House of Representatives established the Committee
on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1938 to
investigate “subversion”
• 1948 committee member Richard Nixon, ambitious
red-catcher, led the chase after Alger Hiss, a prominent
ex-New Healer and distinguished member of the
“eastern establishment”
• Hiss was accused of being a communist agent in the
1930s. He demanded the right to defend himself.
• Met with HUAC in 1948. Hiss denied everything but
was caught in embarrassing falsehoods, convicted of
perjury in 1950, and sentenced to five years in prison
Richard M. Nixon
• Born January 9th , 1913
• Died April 22nd 1994
• 37th president of the United
States
• The only President to resign
from office
• Served in the United States
Navy in WWII
• Running Mate of Dwight D.
Eisenhower for the
Republican Party in 1952
• He served for 8 years as Vice
President
Ferreting Out Alleged Communists
• Was America really riddled with Soviet spies?
• Soviet agents did infiltrate certain government agencies, though
without severely damaging consequences, and espionage may have
helped the Soviets to develop an atomic bomb somewhat sooner
than they would have otherwise.
• For many ordinary Americans, hunt for communists wasn’t just
about fending off the military threat.
• Conservative politicians at state/local levels discovered that all
manner of real or perceived social changes- declining religious
sentiment, increased sexual freedom, and agitation for civil rightscould be tarred with a red brush
• Anti-communist crusaders ransacked school libraries for
“subversive” textbooks and drove debtors, drinkers, and
homosexuals- all alleged to be security risks, from their jobs
Ferreting Out Alleged Communists
• President Truman realized that the red hunt was
turning into a witch hunt
• In 1950, Truman vetoed the McCarran Internal
Security Bill, which among other provisions
authorized the president to arrest and detain
suspicious people during an “internal security
emergency”
• Critics: bill smacked of police-state concentrationcamp tactics
• Congressional guardians of the Republic’s
liberties enacted the bill over Truman’s veto
Ferreting Out Alleged Communists
• Much of the success attributed to the Soviet’s
development of the atomic bomb was due to
communist spies.
• Two notorious figures who “leaked” information to
Moscow were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
• They were convicted of espionage in 1951 and went to
the electric chair in 1953. They were the only people in
US history to ever be executed in peacetime for
espionage.
• The sensational trial and electrocution, along with
sympathy for their two orphaned children, began to
calm people down on the red hunt.
Joseph McCarthy
• Republican senator who shared Nixon’s beliefs
in searching for communists in Washington.
• A Wisconsin Senator from 1947 until his death
in 1957 he was known for his claims on the
large number of Communists and Soviet spies in
the United States government.
• The term McCarthyism is derived from him and
refers to McCarthy’s practice and other anticommunist activities.
• Eventually the President voted to censure
McCarthy in 1954 after his Army-McCarthy
hearings.
Democratic Divisions in 1948
• Republicans had won control of Congress in the
congressional elections of 1946.
• Prospects were looking good for them when they
chose NY governor, Thomas E. Dewey, as their
presidential candidate in 1948.
• Democrats were not enthralled about reentering
Truman. There was no choice after war hero, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, refused to be drafted.
• Southern delegates were strongly opposed, but
alienated by his strong stand for civil rights, who now
mustered many votes in the big-city ghettos of the
North.
Democratic Divisions in 1948
• Truman’s nomination split the party.
• Southern Democrats, or “Dixiecrats,” met in
Birmingham, Alabama to nominate Governor J. Strom
Thurmond of SC on a States’ Rights party ticket.
• To make things even more confusing, former VP Henry
A. Wallace joined the race by running on the
Progressive ticket.
• Wallace was a vigorous liberal, assailing Uncle Sam’s
“dollar imperialism.” His apparently pro-Soviet line
gave him plenty of rotten eggs in hostile cities, but to
many Americans, Wallace raised the only hopeful voice
in the gloom of the Cold War.
Democratic Divisions in 1948
• With the division of the Democratic party and the previous
Republican congressional victory, Dewey seemed set for
victory. Dewey lead massively in public-opinion polls, but
that bloated his confidence.
• Truman seemed doomed, relying solely on his “gut-fighter”
instincts and folksy personality, having little money or
supporters.
• He traveled the by train and gave around 300 “give ‘em
hell” speeches. He attacked the Taft-Hartley “slave labor”
law and the “do-nothing” Republican Congress.
• At the same time, he was garnering support for his program
of civil rights, improved labor benefits, and health
insurance.
Democratic Divisions in 1948
• Truman won!
• He won 303 electoral votes to Dewey’s
189. Truman’s votes mainly came from
the South, Midwest, and West. Dewey’s
primarily came from the East.
• Truman won the popular vote too with
24,179,345 votes to Dewey’s 21,991,291
votes.
• To make victory even sweeter, Democrats
regained control of Congress too.
• Truman’s victory had rested on farmers,
worker, and blacks. Many also voted for
him because they admired his “guts.”
• Dewey struck many voters as arrogant,
evasive, and wooden. One commenter
said, “he comes out like a man who has
been mounted by casters and given a
tremendous shove from behind.”
Democratic Divisions in 1948
• Truman announced his “Point Four” program in his inaugural
address.
• The plan was to lend U.S. money and technical aid to
underdeveloped lands. The idea was to spend millions to keep
underprivileged peoples from becoming communists rather than
spend it to shoot them after they’d become communists.
• The program was officially launched in 1950, bringing badly needed
assistance to impoverished countries, notably in Latin America,
Africa, the Near East, and the Far East.
• Back home, Truman called for a “Fair Deal” program to Congress in
1949. It called for improved housing, full employment, a higher
minimum wage, better farm price supports, new TVAs, and an
extension of Social Security.
• Much of it fell through due to Republicans and southern Democrats.
The only major successes came in raising minimum wage, the
Housing Act of 1949, and the Social Security Act of 1950.
The Korean Volcano Erupts (1950)
• After WWII, Korea was split between on the thirtyeight parallel, with the North given to Russia, and the
south given to the U.S. Both professed to want
reunification and independence of Korea, but as in
Germany, each helped set up rival regimes.
• By 1949, when both Soviets and American had
withdrawn their forces, the entire peninsula was a
bristling, armed camp.
• Secretary of State Acheson avoided the dispute early in
1950, when he declared in a speech the Korea was
outside the essential U.S. defense perimeter in the
Pacific.
Thirty-Eighth Parallel
• It was first created as a dividing line for Korea
in 1896 while Russia was trying to take over
Korea from Japan who had just secured it’s
rights from Britain.
• It was later used to define the newly
independent countries of North and South
Korea after the liberation of Korea from
Russia.
• In 1950 North Korea crossed the parallel and
invaded South Korea starting the Korean war.
• MacArthur crossed the 38th parallel into the
North, and this raised the stakes of war.
• Around 200,000 Chinese “volunteers” helped
push back southward at the 38th parallel. The
war finally ended in 1953 which made the
38th parallel now serve as the Military
Demarcation Line.
The Korean Volcano Erupts (1950)
• The fighting exploded on June 25, 1950. North Korea
came with Soviet-made tanks across the parallel. South
Korea was shoved back toward a tiny defensive area
around Pusan.
• Truman quickly joined the fight.
• The Korean invasion provided the occasion for a vast
expansion of the American military. A previous
suggestion by the National Security Council was
brought forth to quadruple the defense spending.
• The U.S. soon has 3.5 million men under arms and was
spending $50 billion per year on the defense budget,
which was some 13% of the GNP.
The Korean Volcano Explodes (1950)
• Truman took advantage of a temporary Soviet absence
from the United Nations Security Council on June 25, 1950
to obtain a unanimous condemnation of North Korea as an
aggressor.
• The Council called upon all U.N. members to “render every
assistance” to restore peace.
• Truman ordered American air and naval units to support
South Korea without Congress’s approval. He also ordered
General Douglas MacArthur’s Japan-based occupation
troops into action before the week was out.
• Officially, the U.S. was just following a U.N. “police action.”
The U.S. was in fact the main force helping in Korea.
General MacArthur was U.N. commander but took orders
from Washington, no the Security Council.
The Military Seesaw in Korea
• General MacArthur launched a brilliant and daring
invasion behind enemy lines at Inchon on September
15, 1950. They successfully drove the North Koreans
back behind the parallel.
• The original plan to restore Korea to it’s original
boundaries, but the South Koreans had already passed
the boundary and there seemed little point in letting
the North Koreans regroup and come again.
• The U.N. authorized a crossing by MacArthur, whom
Truman ordered northward, providing no intervention
in force by Chinese or Soviets.
The Military Seesaw in Korea
• MacArthur got overconfident and said that he’d “have the boys home by
Christmas.”
• Obviously, this was false. In November of 1950, thousands of Chinese
“volunteers” attacked his overextended lines and forced U.N. forces back
down the peninsula.
• There became a stalemate near the thirty-eighth parallel.
• MacArthur was humiliated and called for drastic retaliation. He wanted to
blockade the Chinese coast and bombard Chinese bases in Manchuria.
• Washington refused to enlarge the conflict, holding wary eyes on Moscow.
Europe was the first concern, and the Soviet Union, not China, was the
more sinister foe.
• MacArthur sneered at the concept of a “limited war” and began to take
issue publicly with presidential policies. Truman was then left with no
choice but to remove MacArthur from command on April 11, 1951.
• MacArthur was welcomed back a hero while Truman was condemned as a
“pig,” and “imbecile,” and a “Judas.”
• In July 1951, truce discussions began but were almost immediate snagged
on the issue of prison exchange. Talks dragged on unproductively for
nearly two years while the fighting ensued.
• http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war/videos#truman-sacksgeneral-macarthur
Focus Questions
• What were some of the reasons for the postwar
anxieties and prosperity brought about after WWII?
• What were the reasons for the standoff between the
US and the Soviet Union?
• What major issues needed to be resolved in the
postwar year in Europe and Japan?
• What role did each of the following play with regard to
the Cold War; Berlin Airlift, containment policy,
Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine, NATO, and the Korean
War?
• What domestic concerns were brought about as a
result of the Cold War?