Download CHAPTER 29 The Cold War CHAPTER SUMMARY The mutual

CHAPTER 29
The Cold War
CHAPTER SUMMARY
The mutual suspicion, fear, and outright hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union
grew out of ideological differences and concrete actions stretching back to World War I and the
Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. These differences were briefly set aside for a portion of World
War II. Following the Nazi invasion of Russia in June 1941, Washington and Moscow entered
into what has been called a “strange alliance.” This anti-German union of convenience and
necessity temporarily muted the tensions between the two countries. But disagreement over such
issues as the timing of the second front and antagonistic visions of postwar Europe pushed the
United States and the Soviet Union into a “Cold War” within months of the end of World War II.
The immediate cause of the Cold War revolved around the fate of central Europe. Would it
remain within the Soviet orbit or would it be open to Western influence? In response to Soviet
aggression in the region, by 1947 the United States had developed the Truman Doctrine, in which
it would seek to “contain” communism at every turn. From this point on, the Cold War became
much more international in scope and was marked by occasional confrontation and an ongoing
fear of an actual military conflict.
Meanwhile, the American people, after a decade and a half of depression and war, were
not anxious to join in a new international struggle. But after being coaxed and cajoled by the
Truman administration, they did respond. Still, something had to give, and that was a
commitment to return to domestic reform. Instead of recharging the New Deal or advancing the
Fair Deal, the Truman administration and the American people grew increasingly worried about
communism. This was especially the case after the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb in
1949. American concerns soon shifted to Asia with the rise to power of Mao Zedong in China
and the North Korean invasion of South Korea. It seemed that something had to account for the
inability of a country as powerful as the United States to control international events. In answer
to their anxiety, many Americans latched onto charges of domestic communist subversion in
Hollywood, in education, even in the federal government. No American exploited these fears
more effectively than Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Through smears and insinuation,
McCarthy and the right wing of the Republican Party proved to be powerful enough to discredit
and weaken the Democrats. Although they could not seize control of a majority of the electorate,
their charges helped prepare the way for the 1952 triumph of the first Republican president in
two decades, Dwight Eisenhower.
OBJECTIVES
A thorough study of Chapter 29 should enable the student to understand:
1. The status of Soviet–American relations during World War II and the differences that
developed between them over their respective views on the postwar world
2. The origins of the Cold War, the meaning of the doctrine of containment, and the specific
programs that implemented containment
3. The problems of postwar readjustment in the United States, especially in employment,
strikes, and inflation
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4. The nature of the Fair Deal and its successes and failures
5. The significance of the communist revolution in China to America’s foreign policy in Asia
6. The circumstances that led to American participation in a “limited war” in Korea
7. President Truman’s conduct of the war in Korea, including his dismissal of General Douglas
MacArthur
8. The causes, nature, and extent of American fears of internal communist subversion during the
early Cold War years and the political consequences of those fears
MAIN THEMES
1. How the mutual mistrust between the United States and the Soviet Union combined with
critical events of World War II to cause the Cold War
2. How the American policy of containment led to an increasing American involvement in
crises around the world
3. How World War II ended the Great Depression and ushered in an era of nervous prosperity
4. How the Cold War contributed to a reluctance to return to domestic reform
5. That the immediate postwar era produced an anticommunist reaction, and how that reaction
affected domestic American politics
POINTS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Who was responsible for the development of the Cold War?
2. Does the story of American foreign policy toward central Europe after World War II tell us
that the United States placed principles above self-interest? Or was American foreign policy
grounded in national self-interest? As best we can tell, was corresponding Soviet foreign
policy based on national interest or on ideological interests?
3. Was the Cold War inevitable? What actions by the United States and/or the Soviet Union
might have prevented it?
4. What role did the wartime conferences involving Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin play in the
coming of the Cold War? Analyze those conferences from the standpoint of American
national interests.
5. How were the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO, support for Chiang Kai-shek in
China, and the American response to the North Korean invasion based on the foreign policy
of containment? Did any of them go beyond containment? What did that policy concede to
the Soviets? How did NSC-68 refine containment? What geopolitical realities limited
American options in Asia and Europe between 1945 and 1952?
6. What general factors contributed to the rise of anticommunist feeling between 1949 and
1953? What events helped pave the way for Senator Joe McCarthy? What did his hunt for
communists in the United States accomplish?
7. Evaluate the successes and failures of the Truman administration when it came to achieving
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the aims of its Fair Deal. How did the Fair Deal differ from the New Deal? Was Truman as
committed a reformer as Roosevelt? Why or why not?
8. Discuss the candidates, issues, and campaign strategies in the election of 1948. Why did
Truman win? Why was his win considered the most dramatic upset in modern presidential
politics? Why did Henry Wallace do so poorly? Who were the Dixiecrats? What issue led to
their rise? Why did they prove to be no more than a troublesome annoyance to Truman?
9. Describe the causes and results of the Korean War. Was the decision to involve the United
States in Korea a correct one? Why was it a frustrating war for the United States? How did
those frustrations manifest themselves?
10. Analyze the Republican revival in the late 1940s and early 1950s. How did that revival
contribute to Eisenhower’s victory in 1952? Why did moderate Republicans win out over
right-wing Republicans? What were the differences between the two?
MAP EXERCISES
1. Identify the countries in Europe after World War II.
2. Locate Berlin, the Warsaw Pact nations, and the NATO nations. Where is the Iron Curtain?
3. Identify the states carried by Truman, Dewey, and Thurmond.
4. Locate Pusan, Inchon, the Yalu River, Panmunjom, the 38th parallel, and the Korean War
armistice line.
INTERPRETATIVE QUESTIONS BASED ON MAPS AND TEXT
1. Why was the form of government in Poland such a difficult issue to resolve? What resulted?
2. Why was Germany divided and why was Berlin divided even though it lay in the Russian
zone? What caused the United States, Great Britain, and France to combine their zones into a
single unit?
3. Explain the policy of the Truman Doctrine. What was to be contained? Where? What
developments were the catalyst for Truman’s promulgation of the policy? What was the
economic manifestation of the idea?
4. Why was the Soviet Union so suspicious of the West and so insistent on control of East
Germany and the nations along the Soviet border? Were the Soviet concerns justified?
5. How did Truman manage to win the election of 1948 despite his loss of part of the Deep
South?
6. Why did four states of the supposedly solid Democratic Deep South go for Thurmond? What
implications for the future of the Democratic Party can be seen in this vote?
7. Why was Korea of such strategic importance? How did the nation get divided?
8. What combination of motive and opportunity spawned the North Korean invasion?
9. How did the UN forces (mainly South Korean and American) turn the tide of the invasion?
What did the UN forces moving north do when they reached the 38th parallel?
10. How did the entry of the Chinese change the war?
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11. How did the war finally end? What had the United States accomplished by its intervening?
ESSAY QUESTIONS
These questions are based on the preceding map exercises. They are designed to test students’
knowledge of the geography of the area discussed in this chapter and of its historical
development. Careful reading of the text will help students answer these questions.
1. What attitudes and events eroded the American commitment to the “One World” concept?
What vision of world affairs replaced it?
2. Just as the United States had fought a two-front war in World War II, the nation now seemed
faced with a two-front Cold War in Europe and Asia. What were the similarities and differences
in the early years of the Cold War in the two widely separated geographic spheres?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
H. W. Brands, The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War (1993)
Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War (1980)
Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (2000)
Richard Fried, Nightmare in Red (1990)
John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (1982)
Alonzo Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (1995)
Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan (1987)
Stanley Kutler, The American Inquisition (1982)
Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1967, 7th ed. (1993)
Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and
the Cold War (1992)
David McCullough, Truman (1992)
Wilson D. Miscamble, George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 19471950 (1992)
Victor Navasky, Naming Names (1980)
Thomas G. Paterson, Soviet-American Confrontation (1974)
Richard Pells, The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and
1950s (1985)
Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998)
William Steck, The Korean War: An International History (1995)
Allen Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (1978)
Allan M. Winkler, Life Under a Cloud: American Anxiety About the Atom (1993)
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