Download Chapter Thirty-Six

Cover Slide
The American
Pageant
Chapter 36
The Cold War
Begins, 1945-1952
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
American Food for Hungry Europe
American Food for Hungry Europe
Grateful English mothers line up for orange juice sent by the United States to assist
Europeans devastated by the Second World War. (National Archives)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Berlin Air Lift--German children watching American planes bring food, 1948
Berlin Air Lift--German children watching American planes bring food, 1948
German children watching an American plane in "Operation Vittles" bring food and
supplies to their beleaguered city. The airlift kept a city of 2 million people alive for
nearly a year and made West Berlin a symbol of the West's resolve to contain the
spread of Soviet communism. ((c) Bettmann/Corbis)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Churchill and Truman, "Iron Curtain Speech," March 5, 1946
Churchill and Truman, "Iron Curtain
Speech," March 5, 1946
On March 5, 1946, former British prime
minister Winston S. Churchill (1874–
1965) delivered a speech, which he
intended for a worldwide audience, at
Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri. President Harry S. Truman
(right) had encouraged Churchill
(seated) to speak on two themes: the
need to block Soviet expansion and the
need to form the Anglo-American
partnership. Always eloquent and
provocative, Churchill denounced the
Soviets for drawing an "iron curtain"
across eastern Europe. This speech
became one of the landmark statements
of the Cold War. (Harry S. Truman
Library)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Communist hysteria in the media: Red Menace poster
Communist hysteria in the media: Red Menace poster
Although Hollywood generally avoided overtly political films, it released a few dozen
explicitly anticommunist films in the postwar era. Depicting American communists as vicious
hypocrites, if not hardened criminals, Hollywood's Cold War movies, like its blacklist, were an
effort to protect its imperiled public image after HUAC's widely publicized investigation of the
movie industry. (The Michael Barson Collection/Past Perfect)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Map: Cold War Germany
Cold War Germany
This map shows how Germany and Berlin were divided into occupation zones. Meant as temporary divisions, they became
permanent, transformed by the Cold War into East and West Germany. In 1948, with the Berlin airlift, and again in 1961,
with the erection of the Berlin Wall, Berlin became the flash point of the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War, the
division of Germany also ended. In 1989, the Berlin Wall was torn down, and in 1990 the two Germanies were re-unified.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Map: The Global Cold War
The Global Cold War
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union faced each other as enemies. The United States attempted to
construct a ring of containment around the Soviet Union and its allies, while the Soviets worked to expand their influence
and power. This map shows the nature of this military confrontation - the bases, alliances, and flash points of the Cold War.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Couple looking at house
Couple looking at house
In postwar America, millions of families shopped for new houses in the country's burgeoning suburbs. In the
first decade after the Second World War, 4.3 million veterans used GI Bill loan provisions to purchase singlefamily residences. Many of these men and women were members of what Tom Brokaw, NBC's news anchor,
has called "the greatest generation." They survived the Great Depression, served in the war, and became
parents of America's baby boomers. (H. Armstrong Roberts)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Girl in front of dome atomic bomb shelter
Girl in front of dome atomic bomb shelter
As the Cold War intensified and the Soviets became a nuclear power, the government
began to consider methods to survive a nuclear war. One "solution" was to encourage
people to build backyard bomb shelters. Pictured here is one family's atomic bomb
shelter that slept six. The cost was $1,250 in 1951. (Corbis-Bettmann)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was one of ebb and
flow, advances and retreats--the
movement of troops up and down the
rugged Korean peninsula. Here,
American troops advance while Korean
women and children march in the
opposite direction hoping to avoid the
destruction of war. Over 33,000
Americans lost their lives in Korea
during the conflict. (Corbis-Bettmann)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
MacDonald, Weizmann, and Ben-Gurion
MacDonald, Weizmann, and Ben-Gurion
America's first ambassador to Israel, James G. MacDonald (1886-1964) (left) meets in 1948
with Israel's President Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) (right). The historian Michelle Mart has
written that "Jews in the postwar world first symbolized a complete lack of masculinity for
their role as victims and then masculine resurgence in their survival and construction of a new
state"--a change in the image that conditioned American leaders to respect the new Israeli
leaders. (National Archives)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Marshall Plan poster of ship
Marshall Plan poster of ship
The goal of the Marshall Plan was to
provide American economic support for
the rebuilding of Europe's economy. By
the time the plan ended, the United
States had provided over $12.5 billion
dollars to those European nations
participating in the European Recovery
Program. This poster demonstrated that
with cooperation, Europe would soon be
moving forward again. (Courtesy of
George C. Marshall Foundation)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
New West: Wing production on the Boeing B-52 assembly line, Seattle, 1950s
New West: Wing production on the Boeing B-52 assembly line, Seattle, 1950s
Symbolic of the defense spending and investment that helped the West's economy
flourish, Seattle's Boeing plant in 1951 began production of the first of the B-52
Stratofortress heavy bombers. They would continue rolling off the Boeing assembly
line until the end of the decade. (Courtesy Boeing Defense & Space Group)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Soldiers of 11th Airborne Division watch atomic bomb explosion, 1951 tests in Nevada
Soldiers of 11th Airborne Division watch atomic bomb explosion, 1951 tests
in Nevada
Soldiers of the 11th Airborne Division watch as an atomic explosion mushrooms
into the sky during 1951 testing maneuvers in Nevada. ((c) Bettmann/Corbis)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Truman with "Dewey Defeats Truman" headlines, 1948
Truman with "Dewey Defeats Truman" headlines, 1948
So few pollsters predicted that President Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) would win
the 1948 presidential election that the Chicago Tribune announced his defeat before
all the returns were in. Here a victorious Truman pokes fun at the newspaper for its
premature headline. (Corbis-Bettmann)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Map: Continued Shift to the Sunbelt
Continued Shift to the Sunbelt
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Americans continued to leave economically declining areas of the North and East in
pursuit of opportunity in the sunbelt. States in the Sunbelt and in the West had the largest population increases.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Map: Divided Europe
Divided Europe
After the Second World War, Europe broke into two competing camps. When the United States launched the Marshall Plan in
1948, the Soviet Union countered with its own economic plan the following year. When the United States created NATO in
1949, the Soviet Union answered with the Warsaw Pact in 1955. On the whole, these two camps held firm until the late 1980s.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Map: End of the Cold War
End of the Cold War
When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union in 1985, he initiated reforms that ultimately undermined the
communist regimes in eastern Europe and East Germany and led to the breakup of the Soviet Union itself, ensuring an end to
the Cold War.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Map: Presidential Election, 1948
Presidential Election, 1948
In 1948 Harry S Truman won perhaps the biggest upset in a presidential election, defeating not only the Republican
candidate but also challengers from the States' Rights Democratic (Dixiecrat) and Progressive Parties.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Map: Rise of the Sunbelt, 1950-1960
Rise of the Sunbelt, 1950-1960
The years after the Second World War saw a continuation of the migration of Americans to the Sunbelt states of the
Southwest and the West Coast.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Map: The Korean War, 1950-1953
The Korean War, 1950-1953
Beginning as a civil war between North and South Korea, this war became international when the United States, under the
auspices of the United Nations, and the People's Republic of China intervened with their military forces.
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.