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THE COLD WAR BEGINS
The Cold War developed gradually when the United States and Russia failed to resolve
three crucial issues-control of postwar Europe, economic aid, and, most important,
nuclear disarmament.
A. The Division of Europe
In 1945, Russian troops occupied eastern Europe and American troops occupied
western Europe. The Soviet Union, concerned about national security, was determined
to establish regimes in eastern Europe that would be friendly or subservient. The
United States did not appreciate Russia’s concern and insisted on national selfdetermination through free elections throughout Europe. The result was that Stalin
converted eastern Europe into a system of satellite nations through harsh and brutal
means.
B. Withholding Economic Aid
World War II devastated Russia, and some Americans saw that ruin as an advantage
because the Soviet Union would need U.S. aid. As mutual suspicion grew, however,
the United States refused to extend aid to Russia and abruptly ended Lend-Lease,
thus losing leverage in shaping Soviet policy.
C. The Atomic Dilemma
The most crucial postwar question concerned the atomic bomb. When the Russians
discovered that the United States and England were working secretly on the bomb,
Stalin ordered his scientists to start work on the same weapon. Thus, the nuclear
arms race began in 1943, before the war ended.
After the war, the United States proposed a gradual elimination of all nuclear
weapons, but the plan (the Baruch Plan) was so gradual that it would have preserved
the U.S. atomic monopoly for years. The Soviet Union, with a larger conventional army
than America, proposed the immediate abolition of all atomic weapons.
CONTAINMENT
The United States, hoping to take England’s place as the supreme arbiter of world
affairs, decided to deal with the Soviet Union from a position of strength. The resulting
policy was called “containment.”
A. The Truman Doctrine
The first application of the containment doctrine came in 1947, when Truman asked
Congress to supply funds to keep Greece and Turkey within the western sphere of
influence. The Truman Doctrine marked an informal declaration of cold war against
the Soviet Union.
B. The Marshall Plan
The United States also acted to prevent the spread of Communist influence in wartorn western Europe. In 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall proposed an
economic aid package to enable Europe to reconstruct her industries. Russia refused
this aid because it had political conditions, but the Marshall Plan, adopted by
Congress in 1948, did foster prosperity in western Europe that in turn stimulated the
American economy.
C. The Western Military Alliance
The third and final step in the first phase of the containment policy was the formation
of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance that included the
United States, Canada, and most of western Europe. The Senate approved the treaty
in 1949, and soon after, U.S. troops were stationed in Europe. NATO was an
overreaction to the Soviet danger and simply intensified Russia’s fear of the Western
powers.
D. The Berlin Blockade
The Russians responded to containment by cutting off access to Berlin in June 1948.
Truman refused to withdraw the American troops stationed there, and instead ordered
an airlift to supply the city. After Truman’s unexpected re-election in 1948, the
Russians retreated and ended their blockade in 1949. The crisis, which took the world
to the edge of war, ended with an American political victory, but served to illustrate
the division of Europe between the two superpowers. This division soon spread beyond
the European scene.
THE COLD WAR EXPANDS
The United States and Russia began arming themselves to the teeth in the late 1940s,
and they finally divided Asia as they had divided Europe.
A. The Military Dimension
The United States improved its security after World War II. The 1947 National Security
Act established the Department of Defense to unify the armed forces, the Central
Intelligence Agency to coordinate intelligence-gathering activities, and the National
Security Council to advise the president on security matters. For the most part, the
United States put most of its growing defense budget into building up the air force.
After Russia developed an atomic bomb, the United States began work on a hydrogen
bomb. The Truman administration was determined to win the Cold War regardless of
cost.
B. The Cold War in Asia
In 1945 both Russia and America occupied large areas of Asia. The United States
moved quickly to consolidate its hold over Japan and the Pacific Islands that were
once ruled by Japan. China, however, lay between the American and Russian spheres
of influence and was torn between pro-Western Chiang Kai-shek and Communist Mao
Tse-tung. When Mao won and China entered the Soviet orbit, the Truman
administration, attacked by Republicans for losing China, refused to recognize
Communist China and began building up Japan.
C. The Korean War
The Cold War turned hot in June, 1950, when Communist forces from North Korea,
with Russian approval and Chinese support, invaded South Korea, part of the
American sphere of influence. Whether Russia ordered the invasion is unknown, but
Truman believed it had. He made the defense of South Korea a United Nations effort,
but the brunt of the fighting was borne by Americans. When North Korean forces were
routed, Truman decided to unify Korea by force, despite Chinese warnings. When
China did enter the war, American troops were pushed back into South Korea, and the
war became a stalemate.
The most significant result of the war was massive American rearmament.
America was now ready to stop Soviet expansion, anywhere in the world, by force of
arms.
THE COLD WAR AT HOME
The Cold War made it difficult for Truman to continue the economic policies of the
New Deal and led to fears of Communist subversion. The Republicans used these fears
to revive their party.
A. Truman’s Troubles
Surrounded by ineffective cronies and prone to stubborn self-righteousness, Truman
faced an apathetic public, inflation, and labor unrest as he attempted to extend New
Deal reforms. His increasing unpopularity allowed the Republicans to win a majority
of Congress in the 1946 elections.
B. Truman Vindicated
By 1948, it seemed impossible that Truman could be re-elected. The Republican
candidate, Thomas Dewey, took victory for granted while southern Democrats and
northern liberals deserted Truman. Nevertheless, the president was re-elected by the
old Roosevelt coalition, which still felt a sense of gratitude for New Deal programs, and
which resented such Republican policies as the Taft-Hartley Act, perceived as antiunion. The Republicans had not made foreign policy an issue in the election, but now
looked for ways to challenge Truman’s handling of the Cold War.
C. The Loyalty Issue
Not for the first time in their history, the American people feared that the nation was
being attacked from within. A few sensational spy cases and Truman’s own overheated
rhetoric gave some credence to irrational fears. The Truman administration itself tried
to calm the public by violating civil rights in a campaign against “subversives,” but the
Democrats were generally blamed for “losing” China to Communism and for Russia’s
development of a hydrogen bomb.
D. McCarthyism in Action
In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, exploited the fear of
Communism within the government. Using the technique of the multiple lie, by
making so many accusations that the innocent never had an opportunity to respond,
McCarthy frightened the Senate, bedeviled the Administration, and even attacked the
Army. His rough treatment of privileged bureaucrats attracted wide support, most
especially from midwest Republicans and Irish, Italian, and Polish workers.
E. The Republicans in Power
The Republican party won the presidency in 1952 by nominating the enormously
popular Dwight Eisenhower, who promised to end the Korean War. Once elected,
Eisenhower settled for a stalemate in Korea. Rather than face McCarthy head-on,
Eisenhower waited for the senator to make a fool of himself, which he did by trying to
prove that the United States Army was a hotbed of treason.
EISENHOWER WAGES THE COLD WAR
Eisenhower, supremely self-confident and in firm control of his administration,
decided to relax tensions with Russia as much as politically possible. He feared both
the crushing debt imposed by defense spending and the real possibility of atomic
warfare.
A. Entanglement in Indochina
Eisenhower rejected proposals to give France active military aid in her struggle to
retain Indochina as a colony, but when the forces under Ho Chi Minh, a Communist,
defeated the French, Eisenhower prevented an election almost certain to result in the
establishment of Ho’s government over the entire nation. Eisenhower preferred a
divided Vietnam, with the southern part under a puppet government dependent upon
the United States.
B. Containing China
Eisenhower adopted a tough line against China, not to provoke her, but to prove to the
Chinese leaders that they could not rely on Russia in a pinch. The strategy worked,
but the benefits of the rift between China and Russia were not immediately realized.
C. Turmoil in the Middle East
In 1956, the Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Despite
Eisenhower’s objections, France and England then invaded Egypt. Eisenhower applied
pressure on both allies and forced them to withdraw their troops before the Russians
could take advantage of the situation. America became a trusted nation in the region
and was invited by Lebanon to send troops to maintain order there in 1958.
D. Covert Actions
Eisenhower used the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to achieve objectives that he did
not want to make public. In Iran, the CIA restored the shah to power; in Guatemala,
the CIA ousted a leftist government; in Cuba, the Agency tried to kill Castro.
E. Waging Peace
Eisenhower worried about the destructive potential of hydrogen bombs and long-range
missiles. From 1953 to 1956 he made several offers to the Soviet Union to reduce
tensions. Both sides agreed to stop nuclear testing in the atmosphere, but the rise of
Nikita Khrushchev led to renewed confrontation. When Eisenhower handled
Khrushchev’s threat to Berlin with firm moderation, the two leaders agreed to a summit
in May 1960. Unfortunately, an American spy plane was shot down over Russia just
before the meeting, which was then cancelled.
CONCLUSION: THE CONTINUING COLD WAR
Eisenhower feared the effect of permanent war on American society. He warned that a
“military-industrial complex” was developing, with the potential of distorting a
peaceful, prosperous way of life. Although he left office convinced that he had failed to
end the Cold War, he had actually begun the process of co-existence.