From the Grand Alliance to
Containment
• The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall
Plan
• Building a National Security State
• The Cold War Begins
• Superpower Rivalry around the Globe
Marshall Plan
• General George C. Marshall, Secty of
State,
• “European Recovery Plan”, US spent $13
billion to restore the economies of 16
Western European nations [which in turn
helped the US economy];
• Soviet Union did not participate because it
objected to free enterprise
Truman Doctrine
• Truman’s claim that American security
depended on stopping any Communist
government from taking over any noncommunist government, anywhere in the
world. This approach became the
cornerstone of American foreign policy
during the Cold War.
Containment
• The foreign policy of the US to hold in
check the power and influence of the
Soviet Union and others espousing
communism.
Truman containment policy had sixpronged defense strategy:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Development of atomic weapons
Strengthen traditional military power
Military alliances with other nations
Military and economic aid to friendly nations
An espionage network and secret means to
subvert Soviet expansion
6. a propaganda offensive to win popular
admiration for the US around the world.
What was the Cold War?
• Cold War: the hostile and tense
relationship between the Soviet Union and
the US (and other Western nations) from
1947 until 1989
• “cold” because it stopped short of armed
conflict, warded off by the strategy of
Nuclear Deterrence
Deterrence
• the strategy of the US that it would
maintain a nuclear arsenal so substantial
that the Soviet Union would refrain from
attacking the US and its allies out of fear
that the US would retaliate in devastating
proportions. The Soviets pursued a similar
strategy.
Superpower Rivalry Around the
Globe
• “third world” a term referring to about forty
countries which had won independence
but were not in the Western (first) world,
nor the Soviet (second) world.
• 1949, communists under Mao Zedong
took China, chasing Nationalists under
Chang Kai-shek to Tiawan
• People’s Republic of China under Mao
signed a treaty with Soviets
Rivalry, cont’
• Japan rebuilt with American dollars, sides
with US
• State of Israel established in Palestine,
endorsed by US
Election 1948
Truman and the Fair Deal at
Home
• Reconverting to a Peacetime Economy
• Blacks and Mexican Americans Push for
Their Civil Rights
• The Fair Deal Flounders
• The Domestic Chill: McCarthyism
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
Second “Red Scare”
• “Red Scare” happens after a war
• After the collapse of the Soviet-American
alliance
• Suspicions of espionage
• “red baiting” = attempts to discredit people
by associating them with communism
The Cold War Becomes
Hot: Korea
• A Military Implementation of Containment
• First time Americans go to battle for
containment
• A militarization of American foreign policy
Korean War
Costs of the War
• Total civilians killed/wounded:
– 2.5 million
South Korea: 990,968
– 373,599 killed
– 229,625 wounded
– 387,744 abducted/missing
• North Korea: 1,550,000
• US: 36,000 killed, 100,000 wounded
US and USSR
US and USSR
• Stalin died in 1953
• New Soviet premier
is Nikita Khrushchev
• Eisenhower and
Khrushchev meet in
1955 in Geneva, the
first time leaders
from these two
countries have met
since WWII
Nuclear Arms Race and
Space Race
Nuclear Arms Race
• 1957, Soviets tested ICBM
(intercontinental ballistic missile)
• Fears emerged that the US was lagging
behind the Soviets
• Signed the National Defense Act (student
loan and scholarships for math science).
• Civil Defense Administration
recommended home bomb shelters
Space Race
• 1957, Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to
circle the earth
• The American first satellite was dubbed
“Flopnik” because it exploded
• 1958, Eisenhower established National
Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA)
“Brinksmanship” and “MAD”
• Secty of State John Foster Dulles,
America’s willingness to go to the “brink”
of war as a threat
• “MAD” Mutually assured destruction =
nuclear stand-off
1959 “kitchen debate” Nixon and
Khrushchev
• Nixon: “ to make
things easier for our
women.”
• Khrushchev: we do
not have the
“capitalist attitude
toward women.”
Consequences of the Cold War
•
•
•
•
•
•
Shifted priorities of the federal government
from domestic to foreign affairs
Expanded budget
Increased the power of the president
Defense contracts encouraged economic
population booms in the West and Southwest
The Nuclear Arms races consumed dollars
and resources, skewed the economy toward
dependence on military projects
Created anti-communist hysteria which stifled
debate, politically or socially
Cold War had created a warfare
state
• “military-industrial complex”
– A term coined by Eisenhower in his farewell
address
– the power and influence of the military and
defense contractors who now controlled the
economy
– nearly one of every three California workers
held a defense-related job.
– one in every ten American jobs depended on
defense spending
Interstate Highway and Defense
System Act of 1956
Costs and Benefits
Benefits
• Greater public travel
• Improved transportation
of goods
• Suburban expansion
• Growth in fast food
• Growth in motel industry
• Most growth in trucking,
construction, and auto
industries
Costs
• paid costs through
increased fuel and
vehicle taxes
• Air pollution
• Energy consumption
• Decline in the railroads
and mass transit
• Decay in central cities
Sun Belt
Culture of Abundance
• Increased prosperity and complacency
• Baby boom (higher birth rate), peaking in 1957
with 4.3 million births
• Traditional family and gender roles
• More religious observance, Baptist Billy Graham
• Congress adding “under God” to the pledge of
allegiance in 1954 and “In God We Trust” on
currency in 1955.
• Television widespread
Television
• Eisenhower’s 1952
Presidential campaign
used TV ads for the first
time and
• by 1960, television played
a key role in election
campaigns
• Television came to
dominate American’s
leisure time, influence
their consumption
patterns, and shape their
perceptions of the
nation’s leadership.
Just Below the Surface
The apparent consensus and tranquility of
the 1950s never grappled with
•
•
•
•
a 20% poverty rate
entrenched racism
urban decay
a self-conscious youth generation.
Racism in America
Women
• Betty Friedan wrote The
Feminine Mystique,
• Critique of the idealization
of women’s domestic
roles and women basing
their identity on their
children and husbands.
• it “ignited the
contemporary women's
movement
• It is widely regarded as
one of the most influential
nonfiction books of the
20th century
Native Americans
• Under Eisenhower, departed from the 1934 Indian
Reorganization Act which attempted to preserve Indian
culture.
• Three part program, compensation, termination, and
relocation
• It Beginning in 1953, Eisenhower signed bills transferring
jurisdiction over tribal lands to state and local
governments
• The loss of federal hospitals, schools devastated Indian
tribes
• A new militancy arose as a result of the urbanization of
Native Americans
Hispanics, one example
• Hernandez vs Texas, 1954
– first Mexican American civil rights case of the
post WWII era;
– Pete Hernandez convicted of murder in
Texas; it was appealed to the US Supreme
Court and overturned
– ruling that Mexican Americans had been
excluded systematically from the jury pool and
service, and was a violation of the
Constitutional guarantee of equal protection.
Bracero Program
– Begun during WWII where Mexican laborers
were allowed entry into the US to work for a
limited period of time but not to gain
citizenship or permanent residence. The
program officially ended in 1964.
– About 100,000 came each year.
– In 1954 “Operation Wetback” designed to
ferret out illegals and deport; mistook many
legal residents too
Eisenhower “New Look”
foreign policy
• Did not want to spend money on large
army
• Relied on nuclear weapons and giving
traditional weapons to allies
US Interventions in Latin
America
• 1954, Guatemala, Eisenhower authorized
CIA to assist in a coup
• 1959, after Castro revolt, Eisenhower
broke of diplomatic relations with Cuba
and authorized CIA to train Cuban exiles
for an invasion
US Interventions in the Middle East
• 1951, Iran, prime minister had nationalized oil
fields and refineries; in 1953 Eisenhower
authorized CIA to instigate a coup (1953) and
paid Iranians to demonstrate against the
government;
• the Shah (traditional hereditary leader who
favored US oil interests) was reinstated) [this
whole maneuver would back fire in 1979 with
anti US backlash]
• Egypt and the Suez Crisis
Vietnam
• Vietnam, 1945, under communist Ho Chi Minh,
the Vietminh declared independence from
France
• Eisenhower looked at Vietnam as Truman had
seen Turkey and Greece, that to let them go
communist would set off a domino reaction
• US supplied money to France to fight insurgents.
French lost in 1954
• Vietnam was partitioned at the seventeenth
parallel
Eisenhower response to situation in
Vietnam
• Send weapons and military advisors to
South Vietnam
• Assign CIA to destabilize the North
• Supported South Vietnamese Prime
Minister Ngo Dinh Diem and his refusal to
hold an election to unify Vietnamese
governments
Vietnam, cont’.
• Between 1955 and 1961, the US provided $800
million to the South Vietnamese Army
• US joined SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization), 1954, with Britain, France,
Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan and
the Philippines
• To defend Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam
• This legacy was left to Eisenhower’s successor