The Cold War
Foreign Policy From Truman
To Eisenhower, 1945-1960
The Origins of the Cold War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPQeJu14wqY
Today’s Lecture
• Cold War
Presidents
• Truman
• Harry S. Truman
•
• Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Nuclear
Weaponry
• Berlin Airlift
• Liberation Vs.
Containment
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•
•
•
Doctrine
Marshall Plan
NATO
Warsaw Pact
NSC-68
Foreign vs
Domestic
Harry S. Truman
• Born in Missouri in 1884 to a farming family
• Served as a Captain during the First World War and
saw action in France.
• Worked as a haberdasher.
• Last US President not to have a college degree.
• Became the County Judge in 1922
• Re-elected in 1926
• Supported FDR in the New Deal as the Missouri
Director for the Federal Re-employment Program.
• Became a Senator in 1934, backed by Tom Pendergast.
Harry S. Truman
• 1940 election: FDR & Henry Wallace: 1944 election:
FDR & Harry S. Truman
• Roosevelt’s declining health
• Elected to the Vice Presidency in 1944 in a landslide
victory
• FDR dies, April 12th 1945; Truman becomes President.
• OK’d the use of the Atomic Bomb in order to end the
war with Japan in August 1945.
• Recognised Israel on May 14th 1948.
• Unexpectedly re-elected to the Presidency in 1948
• Pro-civil rights stance played significant role in this.
• Also oversaw McCarthyism and began the Korean War.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Born in Texas in 1890, but moved to Kansas in 1892.
• Known as ‘Ike’.
• Served in both WWI and WWII and was a ‘career
soldier’.
• Both the Democratic and Republican parties asked him
to run on their ticket in the 1952 election.
• Eisenhower/ Nixon won a resounding victory on the
Republican ticket
• During his presidency he:
• Ended the Korean War and sought to scale back the Cold War
generally
• Began the Space Race, and, eventually escalated the Cold War.
• Created the Interstate Highway system.
Nuclear Weaponry
• Created by the Top Secret Manhattan Project
• Spurred on by intelligence provided by Einstein that Germany
was building a nuclear weapon.
• The first successful test took place in July 1945, after
V.E. day.
• First bomb deployed over Hiroshima on August 6th 1945;
Second Bomb dropped on Nagasaki 3 days later.
• Caused approximately 200,000 deaths.
• Changed the world and the nature of warfare overnight.
• Major reason for the nature of the Cold War
• The Soviet Union developed an Atomic bomb in 1949,
significantly escalating the seriousness of the Cold War.
Berlin Airlift
• After WWII, Germany was divided into 4 zones,
which were shared by the Allied Powers.
• Berlin was also divided accordingly, despite being entirely
within the Soviet Zone.
• In 1948, the Soviet Union attempted to force Britain
France and the USA out of Berlin
• The ‘Berlin Blockade’ prevented communications with
western powers.
• The US and Britain instituted an airlift to deliver
supplies and remove exports
• The airlift continued for 11 months before the Soviet Union
lifted the blockade.
• Total cost: $224 Million.
• Both sides increased military presence in Germany,
but war did not break out.
Containment and Liberation
• The Long Telegram – George F. Kennan
• 1946: Formed the basis of US Foreign Policy
• Kennan claimed that the Soviet government was
intent on spreading Communism throughout the
world. Kennan stated that “in this dogma, with its
basic altruism of purpose, they found
justification for their instinctive fear of the
outside world”
• Remarkably accurate predictions of the Soviet
Union’s intentions
• Believed war was avoidable but action was not.
• Policy of containment and liberation
• The US would defend any nation under threat of
being ‘turned’ to Communism, but not interfere
with already Communist nations for fear of hot
war.
Truman Doctrine (1947)
• Weakened by a failing post-war economy, Britain
decided to pull troops out of the Mediterranean.
• Particularly problematic for the USA as a Communist
inspired civil war was raging in Greece and nearby Turkey
was strategically important.
• Truman persuaded Congress to enact the Truman
Doctrine in order to prevent Greece and Turkey from
falling to Communism
• The plan called for the USA to appropriate $400 million in aid
• Represented part of the policy of ‘containment’.
• Established a precedent whereby the USA supported
any country or regime which was not Communist,
regardless of what it was.
Marshall Plan (1948)
• Greece and Turkey were not the only European countries
which were in financial need after WWII.
• Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Poland etc.
• The USA believed that whilst these nations were struggling,
they were vulnerable to Communism.
• The Marshall Plan was established in 1948 in order to
rebuild both the economies and the spirits of the war torn
nations.
• Officially named the European Recovery Program (ERP)
• 16 European nations in all took part in the Marshall Plan.
• Almost $13 billion US dollars had been provided for aid by
the close of the program.
• The plan was a success and the European economy grew
at an unprecedented rate after 1948.
The United
Nations
• Established after the close of WWII to replace
the League of Nations
• Intended as a peacekeeping organisation
• 51 Nations joined in the beginning
• Established Israel as separate from Palestine
(1947)
• Soviet Union’s founder member status kept it
largely ineffectual during the Cold War
NATO (1949)
• North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
• Treaty signed in April 1949
• Original members: United States, United
Kingdom, France, Canada, Italy, Holland,
Belgium, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Iceland
and Luxembourg.
• System of ‘collective defense’
• Intended to keep “the Russians out, the Americans in
and the Germans down” – Lord Ismay, the NATO
Secretary General.
• West Germany joined NATO in 1955, after the
Soviet Union had offered to join, but had been
rejected.
1949
• Soviet Union successfully test the
bomb
• Irrevocably changes the nature of
the Cold War conflict
• Mutually Assured Destruction
• China falls to Communism
• Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-Shek,
•
•
lost to Chairman Mao-Zedong’s Communist forces
Portrayed as a surprise, and an avoidable foreign policy mistake
Known as the ‘loss of China’
NSC-68
• National Security Council Report no.68, issued in April 1950.
• Identified the Soviet Union as the opposite of the USA in every way.
• Accused the Soviet Union of attempting to extend its sphere of influence, which challenged the US’s
policy of containment and claimed that, if left unchecked, the Soviet Union would become a force so
strong that no army could overcome its advances.
• Truman was opposed to the cost, but signed it after the Korean War broke out
• Successor to the Long Telegram
• Moved on from reactionary containment to a policy which advocated the use of military force to
destabilise and undermine the Soviet Union before expansion could occur.
• Early example of the ‘Cold War Imperative’: language used was incendiary and the
document was intended to spark fear and panic in order to ensure the vast increase in
military spending which was required to implement these programs would be approved.
The Korean War (1950-1953)
• Broke out in June 1950
• Capitalist US forces fought on behalf of South Korea/ Communist China on behalf
of North Korea
• Soviet Union occupied Korea north of 38th Parallel when declared war on Japan in WWII
• US agreed to initial occupation as were allies
• Two separate governments were established after the war; each claimed dominance
• Soviet North invaded US-South; UN Security Council declared hostile act
• Early success for Northern forces; fought back by Southern; spurred involvement of
China
• Majority of the rest of the war focused on the 38th parallel
• Majority of South forces were US; 22 separate UN Nations involved
Warsaw Pact
• The ‘Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual
Assistance’.
• Signed in May 1955 as a response to West Germany joining
NATO.
• ‘Communist NATO’
• Original members: The Soviet Union, East Germany,
Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Hungary and
Czechoslovakia.
• Supreme Commander of the Warsaw Pact also the
Minister of Defence for the USSR.
• Governments of each country had the right to choose military or
non-military assistance, but all governments were controlled by
the Soviet Union.
• Only time that the Warsaw Pact was invoked was to crush the
Prague Spring.
Foreign Policy vs. Domestic Policy
• The USA’s foreign policy also affected domestic policy
• Policies like containment required the USA to uphold a certain kind of global image,
which its domestic politics had to support.
• This impacted upon race politics, consumerism, sexual politics, the education system
and a host of other areas seemingly unconnected with the Cold War.
• The USA’s need to establish itself as fiercely anti-communist also impacted
upon domestic life in the USA during the 1950s and 1960s.
• McCarthyist witch hunts; the Rosenbergs; W.E.B. Du Bois etc.
Conclusion
• Policy of containment at all costs brought the USA to the brink of destruction, culminating
in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• The USSR broke the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1965, but it was largely ignored by the USA.
• Containment and liberation continued however, which lead to the US’s involvement in
Vietnam.
• Based upon an unshakeable belief not only that the USA’s outlook was correct, but that the
Soviet Union was wrong, which lead to a lack of judgement which placed the USA in
jeopardy.
Next Week…
The American Century: The US in the 1950s