The Cold War
Notes – Chapters 36-38
Truman: The “Gutty” Man
“the average man’s average man”
First president without a college education
Used the phrase “If you cant stand the
heat, get out of the kitchen”
Mettle would be tested as tensions with
Russia heated up
Former Allies Clash
Yalta Conference – Feb 1945
“Big Three” FDR, Churchill, Stalin
Assign Occupation zones in Germany to the victors
Free Poland-representative government
UN
Discussion about Stalin entering the Asian war
Soviets enter war against Japan in exchange for
land
Post-war World
Key Point
“The fact is that the Big Three at Yalta
were not drafting a comprehensive peace
settlement, at most they were sketching
general intentions and testing one
another’s reactions”
Former Allies Clash
US and USSR emerged as rival
superpowers
Bitter rivalry
USSR – communist country
State controlled all property
Totalitarian government – no opposing
parties
US – capitalist country
Private citizens control property
Democratic – vote with free political parties
Former Allies Clash
Stalin had only joined the Allies after Hitler
invaded the USSR
US suspicious
Stalin resented Allied delay in creating the
second front in WW2
US ended lend-lease to USSR
US had kept atomic bomb a secret
USSR wanted sphere of influence
for protection
Historical Thinking Skill
Open to page 822 in your textbook
Answer:
How has the New York Daily News
made the USSR appear more
menacing?
Why did the New York Daily News
do this?
COLD WAR
Conflicts in interest
Tense standoff
Four and a half decades
Shaped Soviet-American relations
Overshadowed the entire postwar
international order in every corner of the
globe
United Nations
Hopes for world peace
50 Nations met to establish UN in April 1945
US and USSR used UN as a forum to spread
their influence
Historical Thinking
Create a T chart
One side of the chart listing similarities
and differences in the US and USSR as
evidence into categories such as religious,
political, economic and social
Similarities
Differences
The Problem of Germany
Allies joined in trying 22 top culprits at
the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial
Accusations included: crimes against he
laws of war and humanity and plotting
aggressions
7 sentenced to long term jail terms
Victims were tried for crimes that were
not clear cut crimes when war began
The Iron Curtain
Europe was divided
Communist Eastern Europe v. Democratic
Western Europe
Churchill coins the phrase iron curtain
Metaphor for the division of Europe
Cold War
US v. USSR –neither nation confronted the
other on the battlefield
Dominated global affairs from 1945-1991
Truman Doctrine
The US will “support free peoples who are
resisting attempted subjugation by armed
minorities or by outside pressures”
US spends $400 million in aid to Greece and
Turkey
• Prevent communist take over
National Security Act – 1947
Set up Dept of Defense, CIA (keep draft)
Germany?
Issue of German reunification
Germany was divided into four zones after
WW2
US, UK, and France combined their zones in 1948
USSR held East Germany
City of Berlin was split into the two zones
Western Berlin was occupied by Allies, but
surrounded by Soviet territory
Stalin closed off routes into West Berlin
Berlin Airlift
Berlin became a hugely symbolic issue for
both sides
Americans organized the BERLIN AIRLIFT
American pilots dropped tons of supplies
America honored its commitments in
Europe
Soviets lifted their blockade May 1949
Berlin Airlift
No fuel or food could reach
W. Berlin
US and UK flew food and
supplies to Berlin
W. Berlin survived
USSR lifted blockade and
US prestige
was raised
Containment
Stalin installed communist governments in
countries of Eastern Europe
Satellite nations – countries dominated by the USSR
War was inevitable?
US moves to contain the Soviet threat
George Kennan proposed policy of containment
Prevent the extension of communism to other
countries
Containment Doctrine
Marshall Plan
Sec. of State George Marshall
US provides aid to all European nations that
needed it
Revived European hopes
16 countries received $13 billion in aid
Communist party lost its appeal to voters in
Western Europe
National Defense Budget [1940-1964]
NATO
12 nations signed the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization
Pledged military support
First time US entered a military
alliance during peacetime
NO isolationism for US!
Soviets respond with
Warsaw Pact
Nuclear Arms Race
Began during Truman’s Presidency
Soviets exploded atomic bomb in 1949
US entered into race for Hydrogen Bomb
Even more destructive – immoral?
US explodes H-Bomb in 1952
Soviets exploded H-Bomb 1953
Brinkmanship
John Foster Dulles – Ike’s Secretary of State
ANTI-COMMUNIST
A moral crusade against communism
Brinkmanship – willingness to go to the edge
of all-out war
US trimmed army and navy to focus on its air force
Built up nuclear weapons
Chinese Civil War – 1946-1950
Chiang Kai-Shek (nationalist) v. Mao Zedong
(communist)
US supports nationalists with aid, but no
troops
Nationalists lose and flee to Taiwan
Mainland China becomes communist
Democrats accused of being soft on
communism
Korean War
[1950-1953]
Korean War
North Korea attacked the South
USSR absent from UN
UN votes to restore peace
US aids South – MacArthur’s troops
China intervenes for North
MacArthur presses for retaliation/invasion of
China/use of nuclear weapons
Publicly complains
FIRED!
Korean War
[1950-1953]
Kim Il-Sung
Syngman Rhee
“Domino Theory”
The Shifting Map of Korea
[1950-1953]
The Cold War Home Front
International events deeply shaped
American political and economic
developments
Loyalty review Board investigated more
than 3 million federal employees with
“communist” ties
HUAC-House Un-American Activities
Committee
HUAC
Alger Hiss-accused of being a communist
agent/convicted of perjury in 1950, and
sentenced to 5 years in prison
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg-convicted of
1951 of espionage (only people in history
executed in peacetime for espionage)
Joseph McCarthy-Republican senator
from Wisconsin
McCarthyism-bold accusations
Army-McCarthy hearings
Postwar Economic Anxieties
Joblessness and insecurity pushed up the
suicide rate and dropped the marriage
rate
GNP slumped
Taft Hartley Act
Employment Act of 1946
GI Bill-colleges and universities increased
enrollment
Democratic Divisions in 1948
Republicans won control of Congress in the
congressional elections of 1946
Dewey vs Truman
Truman outlined the Fair Deal
Improved housing, full employment, national
health insurance, higher minimum age, better
farm supports, new TVA’s and extension of
social security
The Long Economic Boom 1950-1970
1950s economic surge:
• U.S. economic performance became envy of world
• National income nearly doubled in 1950s
• Nearly doubled again in 1960s
• Shoot through trillion-dollar mark in 1973
• Americans, 6% of world's population, enjoyed
about 40% of planet's wealth
• Fantastic eruption of affluence
• Prosperity underwrote social mobility
• Paved way for success of civil rights movement
• Funded vast new welfare programs (e.g., Medicare)
• Gave Americans confidence to exercise
unprecedented international leadership
Americans drank deeply from gilded goblet:
• Made up for sufferings of 1930s
• Determined to “get theirs” while getting was good
• “Middle class” households (earn between $3,000
and $10,000 a year) doubled to include 60% of
Americans by mid-1950s
• 60% of families owned their own homes in 1960,
compared to 40% in 1920s
• 1960: nearly 90% of families owned a television
• Women reaped great rewards:
– Urban offices and shops provided bonanza of
employment
– Great majority of new jobs created went to women
– Especially as service sector outgrew manufacturing
sector
– Women accounted for ¼ of U.S. workforce at end of
WWII and nearly ½ by 1990s
– Yet popular culture glorified traditional feminine roles of
homemaker and mother
– Clash between demands of suburban housewifery and
realities of employment eventually sparked feminist
revolt in 1960s
The Roots of Postwar Prosperity
What propelled economic growth:
Second World War itself:
• USA used war to fire up factories and rebuild
economy
Much rested on underpinnings of colossal
postwar military budgets (see Figure 35.2)
• Fueled by massive appropriations for Korean War
and defense spending (10% of GNP)
• Pentagon dollars primed pumps of hightechnology industries—aerospace, plastics, and
electronics
Roots of Postwar Cont
• Military budget financed much scientific
research and development (“R and D”)
– Unlocking secrets of nature key to unleashing
economic growth
Cheap energy fed economic boom:
• Americans and Europeans controlled flow of
abundant petroleum of Middle East to keep
prices low
• Americans doubled oil consumption (1945-'70)
as they:
– Built endless ribbons of highways
– Installed air-conditioning in homes
– Engineered sixfold increase in country's electricitygenerating capacity between 1945-'70
Roots of Postwar Cont
Spectacular gains in worker productivity
• 1950s: on average productivity increased 3% per year
• Enhanced by rising educational level of work force
– By 1970, nearly 90% of school age population
enrolled in educational institutions
– Better educated and better equipped workers in
1970 could produce twice per hour as much as in
1950
– Rising productivity in 1950s and 1960s virtually
doubled average American's standard of living in
postwar years
Changes in nation's basic economic structure
– Accelerating shift of work force out of agriculture
Roots of Postwar Cont
• Consolidation produced giant agribusinesses
able to employ costly machines
• With mechanization, new fertilizers,
government subsidies and price supports:
– One farmworker could now feed 50 people,
compared to 15 people in 1940s
– Farmers now plowed fields in air-conditioned tractor
cabs, listening to stereophonic radios
– By end of 1900s, farmers made up only 2% of
working Americans—yet fed much of world
The Smiling Sunbelt
Population redistribution begun by WWII:
• Americans had always been a people on the move
• After 1945, on average 30 million people changed
residences every year
• Families especially felt strain of separation
• Popularity of advice books on child-rearing:
– Dr. Benjamin Spock's The Common Sense Book of Baby
and Child Care
• In fluid postwar neighborhoods, friendships hard
to sustain
• Mobility exacted high human cost in
loneliness/isolation
The Smiling Sunbelt Cont
Growth of Sunbelt—15-state area:
• From Virginia through Florida, Texas, Arizona,
California
• Had population growth rate twice that of Northeast
• California by 1963 = most populace state in USA
• South and Southwest a new frontier
• Distribution of population increase, 1958 (see Map
35.4)
• Federal funds key to prosperity of South and West
states:
– Annually received $444 billion more than North
and Midwest by 2000s
– New economic war between states shaped up
• Big effects on presidency and House of
Representatives
The Rush to the Suburbs
In all regions, whites fled cities for new
suburbs (see Makers of America)
Government policies encouraged movement
away from urban centers
• Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans
Administration (VA) offered home-loan guarantees
• Tax deductions for interest payments on home
mortgages a financial incentive
• Government-built highways sped commuters to
suburban homes; facilitated mass migration
Rush to the Suburbs Cont
• Home construction industry boomed in 1950s and 1960s
– Levittown revolutionized techniques of home
construction
– Helped people move to suburbs
– Critics wailed at monotony of suburban “tract”
development
• “White flight” to suburbs left inner cities black, brown,
and broke (see Makers of America in Chap. 36)
• Businesses (and their taxes) left cities for new suburban
malls
• Government policies aggravated pattern of residential
segregation by often denying FHA mortgages to blacks
– Limited black mobility out of city, sent them to urban
public housing projects— thus solidifying racial
separation
– Blacks missed out on huge increase in value of
suburban homes
The Postwar Baby Boom
Baby boom:
Huge leap in birthrate in fifteen years after
1945:
• Record number of marriages at war's end
• Began immediately to fill nation's empty cradles
• Touched off demographic explosion adding 50
million to nation by end of 1950s
• Crested in 1957
• By 1973, fertility rates dropped below point
necessary to maintain existing population without
immigration
Post War Baby Boom Cont
Boom-or-bust cycle of births begot bulging
wave along American population curve
• For example, increased elementary school
enrollments to nearly 34 million by 1970
• Then a closing of elementary schools and
unemployment of teachers in late 1970s
By 1960s, economic shift of baby products
to youth products (“youth culture”)
Baby boomers continued to affect culture
and economy as they aged