Name ________________________________________
Due Fri., March 20
Worth 24 Points
Questions on Post-War America, 1950’s
Directions: Write out answers to the following questions on notebook paper, torn out of your notebook, with
these questions stapled to the front of your notebook paper. If you want to work on these questions with a
partner(s) and turn-in one set of answers, you can do that.
** This assignment will focus upon the Cold War and the politics of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower,
textbook pages 549 to 571.
(1) How did Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin (though true Wisconsinites do not claim him) rise to
power and fame in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s?
(2) What led to the downfall of Senator McCarthy?
(3) According to experts, for every person killed by a nuclear blast, how many more would die later from
nuclear fallout, and what is nuclear fallout?
(4) What themes and ideas are contained within the books Tomorrow! and Hiroshima, and how are these
works examples of Cold War themes?
(5) What do the terms “massive retaliation” and “brinkmanship” mean, and what is your opinion about the
wisdom of this type of policy or tactic being employed by our president?
(6) Summarize how the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) used covert tactics to overthrow the governments
of Iran and Guatemala?
(7) Briefly summarize the U-2 incident (this does not involve the lead singer Bono, but this is the incident
which gave the Irish rock group its name), and how did this increase tensions between the U.S.S.R. and
the United States?
(8) What was the G.I. Bill, and how did this help our nation’s economy adjust to a peacetime economy?
(9) What are some examples that the “Do-Nothing Congress” actually did many things?
(10) Summarize the effects of the National Security Act of 1947.
(11) What are some examples of President Eisenhower’s “dynamic conservatism?”
(12) Summarize the Federal Highway Act of 1956.