The Cold War
The Beginning
1945 – 1950
There are now two great nations in the world, which starting from different points,
seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans.
. . . Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its
hands the destinies of half the world.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)
Roots of the Cold War
Munich Conference
Summer 1938 – Tensions between Germany and Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, and
France escalated as Adolph Hitler insisted the Sudetenland be transferred from
Czechoslovakian to German control.
Representatives from France, Britain, Germany and Italy meet at Munich in
September to discuss Hitler’s demands.
Edouard Daladier
(France)
Neville Chamberlain
(Britain)
Adolph Hitler
(Germany)
Benito Mussolini
(Italy)
Chamberlain informed Czechoslovakia England and France were unwilling to go to
war over the issue of the Sudetenland but also informed Hitler that German
occupation was unacceptable.
Roots of the Cold War
Hitler realized both Britain and France were unwilling to go to war or form an
alliance with the USSR because of the totalitarian system they hated more than
they hated Hitler’s fascist government.
Mussolini recommended that Hitler hold a four power conference including Britain,
France, Germany and Italy but excluding Czechoslovakia and the USSR. This
would increase the likelihood of an agreement AND undermine the solidarity that
was beginning to develop against Germany.
Frantic to evade hostilities, and eager to escape an alliance with the USSR
Chamberlain and Daladier agreed to German control of the Sudetenland.
Hitler in turn pledged not to make any further territorial
demands in Europe.
Eduard Benes, the Czechoslovakian head of state, protested the
agreement but was informed by Chamberlain that Britain was
unwilling to go to war over the Sudetenland.
Roots of the Cold War
APPEASEMENT
Chamberlain returned to England proclaiming “peace in our time.”
Many, including Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden attacked the agreement
claiming Chamberlain – and therefore the British government had acted
dishonorably and had lost the respect of the Czechoslovakians and their military
which was one of the best in Europe at the time.
When Germany seized Czechoslovakia in March 1939Hitler broke the Munich
Agreement and Chamberlain finally understood Hitler could not be trusted and
his (Chamberlain’s) appeasement policy had been waste of time.
Throughout the Cold War US and British politicians and policy makers continually
pointed back to the Munich Agreement as an example of what NOT TO DO in
their relations with the USSR.
The led to several policies including the Truman and Eisenhower Doctrines.
War Conferences
Atlantic
August 1941
Moscow
September/October 1941
Arcadia
Dec. 1941 – Jan. 1942
Casablanca
January 1943
Cairo
November 1943
Bretton Wood
July, 1944
Dumbarton Oaks
August 1944
2nd Quebec
September 1944
4th Moscow
October 1944
Malta
January/February 1945
Yalta
February 1945
United Nations
April – June 1945
Conference on International Organization
Potsdam
July/August 1945
Britain and the US
Britain, the US and the USSR
Britain and the US
Britain, the US and France
Britain, the US and China
44 Nations
39 “United Nations”
Britain and the US
Britain, the US and the USSR
Britain and the US
Britain, the US and the USSR
50 Nations
Britain, the US and the USSR
The World - 1945
Roosevelt’s Three Part Plan
Economic Liberalization
Collective Security
Political Self-determination
International Monetary Fund – Bretton Woods Conference
World Bank
– Bretton Woods Conference
United Nations
– United Nations Conference
Together these organizations would lessen the probability of future depressions by:




lowering tariff barriers
stabilizing currencies
coordinating government planning with the workings of markets
provide the means to:


contain future aggressors
if necessary defeat future aggressors.
The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations provided
for economic liberalization and collective security: political self-determination
would have to wait until after the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The Yalta Conference
4 to 11 February 1945
GB – Winston Churchill
US – Franklin D. Roosevelt
USSR – Joseph Stalin
Key Issues:
 Dividing Germany
 The formation of the United Nations
 German war reparations
 The entry of Soviet forces into the Far-Eastern front (Japan)
 The final, and most difficult issue, the future of Poland
Declaration of Liberated Europe
 Establish conditions of internal peace
 Carry out measures for the relief of distressed peoples
 Form internal governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic
elements in the population and pledged to the earliest possible establishment
through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people.
 Facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections.
The Potsdam Conference
"The Governments of the United Kingdom, the United
States and the U. S. S. R. consider it necessary to begin
without delay the essential preparatory work upon the peace
settlements in Europe. …”
 THE PRINCIPLES TO GOVERN THE TREATMENT OF
GERMANY IN THE INITIAL CONTROL PERIOD
 POLITICAL PRINCIPLES
 ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES
 REPARATIONS FROM GERMANY
 DISPOSAL OF THE GERMAN NAVY AND MERCHANT
MARINE
 WAR CRIMINALS
 POLAND
The Iron Curtain
Winston Churchill – March 1946
Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri
The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power.
It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with
this primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring
accountability to the future. As you look around you, you must
feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel
anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement.
Opportunity is here now, clear and shining, for both our
countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring
upon us all the long reproaches of the aftertime.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain
has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the
capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe.
Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest
and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around
them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are
subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but
to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control
from Moscow.
The Transformation
War aims translated into a wartime alliance between what would become known as
the western democracies and the Soviet block because both, in Nazi Germany,
faced a common enemy.
As the war drew to a close the future enemies came into conflict over the nature of
the post war world.
US Vision
• Self-determination
• Territorial Integrity
• Free Trade
• Traditional Western Freedoms
USSR Vision
• Secure borders
• Control over those nations closest to Russia
• Refashion Eastern Europe in its own image
Critical Issues of the
Transformation
GERMANY
POLAND
GREECE, ROMANIA AND OCCUPIED EASTERN
EUROPE
ATOMIC ENERGY
ECONOMIC RECONSTRUCTION
Critical Issues of the
Transformation
GERMANY
Should Germany be de-industrialized?
Should Germany be permanently divided among the allies?
How much must Germany pay in war reparations?
Critical Issues of the
Transformation
POLAND
USSR
 Poland had been used on three occasions by European powers to invade
Russia – once by France and twice by Germany.
 A Polish government subservient or at the very least friendly to the
Soviets was an overriding aim of Soviet leadership – especially Stalin.
Western Allies
 The very reason for the war was the right of Poland concerning the
matter of self-determination.
 The right of Poland to democratically elect its own government was a
basic test of the principle of the Atlantic Charter.
Critical Issues of the
Transformation
EASTERN EUROPE, GREECE and ROMANIA
USSR
The Soviet Union, fearing for its security, strongly desired to
control its neighbors.
Western Allies
Envisioned a postwar world of capitalists democracies.
The US specifically had dreams of a US-led coalition.
When England could not live up to commitments made to Greece,
President Truman challenged the US – the Congress, and the
people, that,
“We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are
willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions
and their national integrity against aggressive movements
that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes.”
Critical Issues of the
Transformation
ATOMIC ENERGY
USSR
The US monopoly over atomic weapons represented an American effort to
intimidate the Soviet Union.
Western Allies
The US refused to relinquish control of its nuclear secrets.
Soviets would be able to share in nuclear weaponry only if they agreed to a
comprehensive system of control and inspection by a United Nations
agency.
The Atom Bomb
Hiroshima
Nagasaki
"Seldom if ever has a war ended leaving the victors with such a sense of uncertainty and fear, with such a realization that
the future is obscure and that survival is not assured."
Critical Issues of the
Transformation
ECONOMIC RECONSTRUCTION
Who should receive rehabilitation loans?
Who should finance rehabilitation loans?
What should be the terms and limitations of rehabilitation loans?
Capitalism vs. Socialism
The Marshall Plan
 The most serious threat to western interests in Europe was not
Soviet military intervention but the risk that hunger, poverty and
despair might cause Europeans to elect communists to office.
 Elected communists would then obey the desires, wishes and
directions of Moscow.
 American economic assistance would produce immediate
psychological benefits and later material benefits.
 The Soviet Union would not accept such aid.
 The Soviet Union would not allow its satellites to accept aid
straining the relationship between the USSR and the satellites.
 Once this occurred the US could sieze both the geopolitical and the
moral initiative in the emerging Cold War.
The Berlin Blockade
 Stalin responded to the Marshall Plan by tightening the Soviet Grip wherever
he could.
 Stalin announced the formation of Cominform in September, 1947:
Cominform was a post-war version of the prewar Comintern whose task had
been to enforce socialist orthodoxy within the international communist
movement.
 Stalin approved a plan by Czechoslovakian communists to seize power in
that country which remained the only Eastern European state with a
democratic government – with the coup the prospects of any independence
within Stalin’s sphere of influence disappeared.
 Stalin found Tito of Yugoslavia – who had come to power in his own right –
to be outside the realm of Soviet power and by June, 1948, following several
attempts to subject Tito to Cominform Tito broke with Moscow.
 Tito began to receive aid from the US.
 Dean Atcheson that while Tito might be a true “son-of-a-bitch” he was “our
son-of-a-bitch.”
 During all this, Stalin began the blockade of Berlin.
The Marshall Plan
Country
1948/49
1949/50
1950/51
Austria
232
166
70
488
Belgium and Luxembourg
195
222
360
777
Denmark
103
87
195
385
1,085
691
520
2,296
Germany
510
438
500
1,448
Greece
175
156
45
366
Iceland
6
22
15
43
Ireland
88
45
—
133
Italy and Trieste
594
405
205
1,204
Netherlands
471
302
355
1,128
Norway
82
90
200
372
Portugal
—
—
70
70
Sweden
39
48
260
347
Switzerland
—
—
250
250
Turkey
28
59
50
137
United Kingdom
1,316
921
1,060
3,297
Totals
4,924
3,652
4,055
12,741
France
Cumulative
Containment
Containment was a strategy used by the United States during the early
years of the Cold War.
The basic policy of containment was to prevent the supposed
domino effect.
According to the so called domino effect nations, especially
eastern European nations, were moving politically towards
Soviet Union-based communism, rather than EuropeanAmerican-based capitalism.
The idea was to “contain” the spread of communism.
George F. Kennan maintained the principal objective of the
United States was to stop the spread of communism – to contain
communism with the borders in which it already existed.
Containment, along with the Marshall Plan became integral
policies of the overall Truman Doctrine.
NSC-68
 When Truman signed National Security Council Report 68 in
April 1950 containment became the paramount aim of the
overall US national security policy.
 NSC-68 shaped US government actions in the Cold War
becoming a “blueprint” well into the 1970s.
 The document described the US and the USSR two powers
existing in a polarized world.
 The USSR wished to “impose its absolute authority over the
rest of the world.”
 The US was “the center of power in the free world …”
 NSC-68 called for significant peacetime military spending, in
which the US possessed “superior overall power.”
 The report strongly encouraged and later formed the basis for
the US military buildup that occurred during the Cold War.
Communism in 1940 to 1954
Characteristics of the Cold War
 High degree of tension between the United States and the
Union of Soviet Socialists Republic (USSR)
 Costly and dangerous arms race
 Polarization of domestic and international politics
 Division of the world into economic spheres
 Competition and conflict in the third world
The Cold War
 The Cold War shaped the foreign policies of the United
States and the Soviet Union and deeply affected their
societies and their political, economic, and military
institutions.
 By providing a justification for the projection of US power
and influence all over the world, the Cold War facilitated
the assumption and assertion of global leadership by the
United Sates.
 By providing Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and his
successors with an external enemy to justify their
repressive internal regime, the Cold War helped legitimate
an unrepresentative government and maintain the grip of
the Communist Party on the Soviet Union.