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Mr. Huffman’s U.S. History
U4C16S3 The Cold War Expands (pgs. 500-506)
1) The Korean War- Korea was divided into occupation zones along the 38th
parallel after WWII, even though it had been invaded by the Japanese
a) Soviets liberated & occupied the N, while US liberated & occupied the S
i) Both nations withdrew in the late 1940s, each leaving a gov’t based upon
its own model: a com’t gov’t in N and a pro-American regime in S
b) In Jun of ‘50, North Korea launched a major offensive across the border,
attempting to unify the country under Kim Il Sung
i) The UN, which would have faced a Soviet veto on any action had they
been present, voted to intervene while the Soviets were boycotting
c) The US, which contributed the bulk of UN forces, was given overall
command, & Truman assigned Gen. Douglas MacArthur to lead
d) By the time the UN was ready to go, the war was going badly for S Korea
i) Only the part of the country near the port city of Pusan was still resisting
ii)MacArthur split his forces, sending some troops to defend Pusan while he
landed the majority of his forces behind the front lines at Inchon
iii) From Inchon, he was able to threaten the N Korean rear & supply lines
iv) N Koreans were forced to retreat, & were pursued by UN troops
v) UN victory seemed so likely that the PRC threatened intervention
Mr. Huffman’s U.S. History
U4C16S3 The Cold War Expands (pgs. 500-506)
vi) MacArthur ignored the warning, & the Chinese intervened in force,
sending thousands of troops into Korea to help the N Koreans
vii) PRC pushed the UN back to the 38th parallel, but were halted there
viii) MacArthur wanted to send in Taiwanese Nat’t forces & return PRC to a
non-Com’t government, but Truman didn’t want to spread war
ix) In an attempt to force Truman to act according to his own plan,
MacArthur sent a letter of complaint to the House minority leader
x) The letter became public, & Truman fired MacArthur for insubordination
xi) A truce was signed in 1953, & the war ended, with the new borders
located almost exactly where the old had been
2) The McCarthy Era- In the US, we were in the grip of the latest Red Scare, &
were concerned that the Com’ts seemed to be gaining everywhere
a) A Wisconsin senator named Joseph McCarthy took the opportunity to
launch himself into the forefront of American politics by announcing that he
had a list of over 200 known Com’ts working in the State Department
i) His list was actually a list of those who had been wrongly accused of
disloyalty under Truman’s federal loyalty program, but it scared people
Mr. Huffman’s U.S. History
U4C16S3 The Cold War Expands (pgs. 500-506)
ii)He charged many with being Com’t, usually with little actual evidence, &
his accusation was often enough to ruin careers
iii) As his following increased, he accused more prominent targets, even
accusing Sec State George Marshall of being the center of a Com’t plot
b) McCarthy’s fall came when he took on the Army, accusing the leadership of
being rife with Com’ts- This was too much, & the senate investigated
i) The hearings were televised, & McCarthy was seen as a raving, paranoid
madman by most of the population- He was condemned by the senate
3) The Cold War in the 1950s
a) Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower won the ‘52 election, entering the office in
1953- He appointed the rabidly anti-Com’t John Foster Dulles to be
SecState, but was moderate himself, knowing the horrors & costs of war
b) He was challenged right away, as Soviets crushed rebellions in E Germany,
Poland, & Hungary- Fearing a nuclear confrontation, he was forced to allow
the Soviet repression, even though Dulles and others wished to intervene
i) Stalin died in ‘53, & Eisenhower was able to get a peace treaty in Korea
ii)Despite his moderation, Eisenhower did subscribe to the “domino
theory,” the idea that if one nation fell to Com’m, others would do so
Mr. Huffman’s U.S. History
U4C16S3 The Cold War Expands (pgs. 500-506)
iii) Because of this, he started sending aid to the French as they fought to
regain control of their former colony in French Indochina, which was
fighting for independence under a com’t leader named Ho Chi Minh
iv) After a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the French
withdrew, & the nation became divided into a Com’t N & conservative S
v) US, fearing expansion of Com’m, supported the Republic of S Vietnam
c) There were also tensions in ME, some of them stemming from the same
basic source- the collapse of colonial empires in Britain & France
i) The primary difficulty was in the area of Palestine/Israel
ii)In 1947, the British yielded control of the region to the UN, which
decreed that there should be 2 separate states established there
iii) In May ‘48, the UN left Israel, & the Israelis announced independence
iv) War erupted almost immediately between the U.S.-supported Israel &
the surrounding Arabic nations, generally supported by the Soviet Union
v) Israelis won, & seized much of the disputed territory, leaving only the
Gaza Strip & the West Bank under Palestinian control
vi) Another concern for the United States was continued access to oil, and
so Eisenhower courted the Arabic nations even as he supported Israel
Mr. Huffman’s U.S. History
U4C16S3 The Cold War Expands (pgs. 500-506)
vii) Eisenhower often intervened in internal affairs, as was done in Iran.
When a pro-com’t leader (Mogadesh) became PM in ‘52, the CIA
orchestrated his overthrow, & returned the Shah (king) to power
viii) In ‘56, a conflict erupted between the Egyptians & the UK, when
Egyptian President Nasser nationalized the British-owned Suez Canal
ix) The British & French sent in troops to retake the canal, but the US
convinced them to withdraw when the Soviets backed the Egyptians
x) To show US resolve in ME, Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower
Doctrine in Jan ’57- that the US would use force to aid any MEn nation
threatened by the Soviet Union
d) Truman had been active in LA, setting up first the Rio Pact in ‘47 & later
creating the Organization of American States (OAS) in ‘48
i) Eisenhower was also active in LA, ousting leftist regimes in Guatemala &
Chile in favor of pro-US dictatorships which looked after US businesses
ii)In Cuba, when the Fidel Castro overthrew the corrupt dictator Batista,
Eisenhower responded by cutting off Cuba from all American trade
iii) In response, Cuba turned exclusively to the Soviets, who supported
them until the end of the Cold War
Mr. Huffman’s U.S. History
U4C16S3 The Cold War Expands (pgs. 500-506)
4) The Arms Race
a) As the Cold War became more intense, the US & the USSR continued to
develop more & more powerful conventional & nuclear weapons
i) This preparation led to an arms race, where each state attempted to create
more fearsome weapons, only to have the other one respond in kind
ii)In 1953, the Soviets exploded their own hydrogen bomb
iii) In response, the Eisenhower admin. engaged in two separate strategies:
(1)
Proposed “Atoms for Peace,” a program to jointly develop
peaceful uses for nuclear power which the Soviets rejected
(2)
A series of nuclear tests at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean
b) SecState John Foster Dulles espoused a “brinkmanship” strategy, in which
you pushed right to the brink of war without getting into an actual war
i) Object was to show that you couldn’t be scared off w/o starting a war
c) Both sides developed nuclear delivery systems, with the US focusing on
long range bombers, while the Soviets built intercontinental ballistic
missiles (ICBMs)
i) Americans were stunned when the Soviets launched Sputnik, a simple
satellite, since we had assumed them to be our technological inferiors