From the Grand Alliance to ContainmentCold War Politics and Truman

Marshall Plan“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

General George C. Marshall, Secty of State

“Iron Curtain”• Term coined by Winston Churchill in 1946• “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron

curtain has descended across the Continent.”

Containment• The foreign policy of the US to hold in check the power and

influence of the Soviet Union and others espousing communism.

• The strategy first articulated by diplomat George F. Kennan in 1946-47.

• Kennan believed that Stalin exaggerated foreign press to maintain power in his own country, because it was increasingly politically and economically unstable

• Kennan predicted that The Soviet Union would only retreat from expansionist efforts “in the face of superior force.” [containment]

Truman containment policy had six-pronged defense strategy:

1. Development of atomic weapons2. Strengthen traditional military power3. Military alliances with other nations4. Military and economic aid to friendly nations5. An espionage network and secret means to

subvert Soviet expansion6. a propaganda offensive to win popular

admiration for the US around the world.

Truman Doctrine• Truman’s claim that American security depended on stopping

any Communist government from taking over any non-communist government, anywhere in the world. This approach became the cornerstone of American foreign policy during the Cold War.

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

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

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy

House Un-American Activities Committee

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

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/KoreanWarRefugeeWithBaby.jpg

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.”

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

Consequences of the Cold War• Shifted priorities of the federal government from

domestic to foreign affairs• 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• Anti-communist hysteria which stifled debate,

politically or socially