The US and the Cold War, 1945-1953

Key Themes• WWII ends with the atomic bomb –

terrifying impact

• WWII ends with hostility between the US and the USSR, both part of the Allies

•  The Cold War begins – US vs. USSR, but no direct fighting

•  Fear of communism leads to repression of freedom at home in the US

End of WWII and the Cold War

•  Hostility between USSR and other Allies at war’s end sets the tone for Cold War

•  An era of nuclear weapons ratchets up climate of fear

•  Cold War is “hot” - fought through proxy wars, like Korean War

•  Impact on U.S.:

•  Increasing militarization

•  Climate of suspicion: suppression of left

•  Some positive impact on civil rights

End of the War

•  December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge in France: 70,000 American casualties

•  FDR reelected 1944, dies April 12, 1945

•  May 8, 1945: V-E Day

http://www.defense.gov/home/Specials/bulge/images/indexb_10a.jpg

The Atomic Bomb

•  The Manhattan Project - 1940

•  July 1945 successful test, New Mexico

•  August 6, 1945: Hiroshima

•  August 9, 1945: Nagasaki

Planning the Postwar World

•  “Big Three” meetings during war at Tehran (1943); Yalta (1945); and finally Potsdam (July 1945) - Churchill, Truman, Stalin

•  Yalta: USSR expands control; US tries to pressure Britain to surrender colonies

•  Bretton Woods (NH): July 1944, replaces British pound with dollar as main currency for international transactions

•  The United Nations forms

Peace, but not Harmony•  US and Soviet Union as

world powers

•  Atomic bombs and a legacy of fear

•  Four freedoms as foundation for human rights in postwar world

•  Disputes over freedom of colonial peoples, non-whites in the United States

•  How does the end to WWII set up the Cold War?

Postwar Economy•  1942-1943: National Resources

Planning Board - plan for peacetime economy

•  FDR: Economic Bill of Rights - not passed in Congress

•  Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, a.k.a. GI Bill of Rights

•  1946: 1 million veterans to college under GI Bill

•  4 million veterans get home mortgages: the suburbs are born

Changes in Postwar America

•  Integrating pop culture: Jackie Robinson (1947)

•  Rights based on military service

•  Another Red Scare weakens CIO, unions

• Many women head home

Redefining National Security

•  Broad scope of definition - creating and preserving “free-trading capitalist world order” (p. 317)

•  Economic interests as well as national defense

•  US activism in the world to defend

Growing Tensions in Europe(again)

Postwar Europe•  Vacuum of power in Germany, control by

victors of WWII

• Map 1945: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/europe/04/changing_borders/html/1945.stm

• Map 1949: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/europe/04/changing_borders/html/1949.stm

In response to changes in Europe, Winston Churchill gives what becomes known as the “Iron Curtain Speech” –

says the US must stand up to Russia. See the video clip on the next slide:

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…. It is

necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and

the grand simplicity of decision shall rule and guide the conduct

of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war.

Winston Churchill, excerpt from Iron Curtain Speech, 1946

Conflict with the USSR

•  Containment: preventing the spread of communist rule and Soviet influence

•  Truman Doctrine: new international role for the US - audio clip on the next slide

US Leadership in the Cold War

• Marshall Plan: $13 billion between 1948-1952 for Europe’s reconstruction

•  Funds also to reconstruct Japan

•  But no Marshall Plan for other regions affected by war - and Cold War cools American support for decolonization

“Losing” China

•  1949: Mao Zedong’s communists win Chinese civil war

•  U.S.: Republican criticism of Truman for “losing” China

•  U.S. refuses to recognize new government; won’t let it sit at U.N.

• NSC-68: permanent military build-up for fight against communism

Korean War

•  Divided 1945: Soviet and US-controlled zones

•  June 1950, N. Korean army invades south to reunify country

•  UN Security Council authorizes use of force

Korean War

Check out maps of the conflict at:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/maps/

koreatxt.html

Conclusions: Cold War to 1953

•  Series of communist “victories” make U.S. feel threatened

• Military build-up and rhetoric of good vs. evil, us vs. them

•  External tensions will lead to internal pressures

At Home in the Fifties, Part 1: Anticommunism

Anticommunist Crusade

•  Cold War ideology: anti-Communist Hollywood, CIA-funded art and culture

• New language: “totalitarian” and “socialized”

•  Cold War transformations: science, immigration, segregation, patriotism

Don’t look for physical differences when you try to spot a Communist. Communists are all kinds of people in all walks of life and of all races. A Communist is anyone who believes in the Russian system of government, whereby those who govern own everything and control all the activities of all the people…. When a Communist goes to work on you, tell him that you are on to him and his dirty game. Tell him, further, that you think it your patriotic duty to make his activities known to others and to the police. Tell him that you know no tactics are too low for a Communist: lying, cheating, betrayal, ruin, and even murder. But be sure to tell him, too, that America is on the alert and that his scheme for world domination is doomed to failure.

Loyalty and Disloyalty•  Begins before Sen.

McCarthy comes on scene

•  President’s loyalty program (1947)

•  House Un-American Activities Committee (1947)

•  Hollywood Ten: refuse to testify - jail terms; blacklisted

Ronald Reagan testifies at HUACImage source: http://theomahaproject.org/module_display.php?mod_id=44&review=yes

Spy Trials

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1951)New York World-Telegram & Sun

Accessed via ARTStor, Series: Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States (Library of Congress)

•  Alger Hiss, State-Dept. official - accused by Whittaker Chambers, editor at Time

•  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - accused by Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, who worked at Los Alamos

McCarthy and McCarthyism

•  WI senator, elected 1946

•  List of communists in State Department (1950)

•  Nationally televised Army-McCarthy hearings made McCarthy look like a bully (1954)

...that we here highly resolve that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom... A. Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1954) Leslie Illingworth, published in Punch

News anchor Edward R. Murrow pronounces Joseph McCarthy’s epitaph

after the Army-McCarthy hearings. Check out the video clip:

Anticommunism•  Loyalty oaths from professionals; bans on licenses to communists; library censorship

•  Ethnic groups: Polish-Americans and American Catholics

•  FBI: files on thousands of citizens

• White supremacists and upholders of traditional gender roles

Anticommunist Politics

• McCarran Internal Security Bill of 1950

• McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 - quotas, deportation of communist immigrants

• Operation Wetback 1954

•  1950: Truman gets domestic workers and self-employed included in Social Security

Conclusions

•  Cold War led to increasing militarization, climate of fear

•  Korean War is an example of the “hot” proxy wars fought during Cold War

•  Fear turns inwards in the U.S., leads to climate of suspicion