The Cold War



The Cold War (1945-1962)

VUS.13 ~ What were the outcomes of World War II, including political boundary changes, the

formation of the United Nations, and the Marshall Plan?

~ What were the origins of the Cold War, the Truman Doctrine and the policy of

containment of communism, the American role of wars in Korea and Vietnam, and the role

of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe?

In 1945, near the end of World War II, the Allies founded the United Nations as an international organization to promote world peace and progress. The United Nations replaced the League of Nations as a means for the world’s nations to try to prevent future global wars. The United States immediately joined the United Nations. After World War II the American people believed the United States had an important role to play in maintaining the peace. This belief contrasted sharply with the American feeling after World War I, when the United States refused to join the League of Nations.

American forces occupied Japan after its surrender in August 1945. Under American direction, Japan soon adopted a democratic form of government, resumed self-government (governed itself), and became a strong ally (friend) of the United States.

At the end of World War II, Europe lay in ruins. Soviet forces occupied most of Eastern and Central Europe and the eastern portion of Germany. American, British, and French forces occupied West Germany. The Allies partitioned (divided) Germany into East and West Germany. In a few years West Germany became democratic and resumed self-government. East Germany remained under the domination of the Soviet Union and adopted a communist instead of a democratic government.

Soon after World War II ended, the Cold War began. The Cold War was an uneasy peace after World War II, marked by a fierce rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. One might call the Cold War a war of words between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lasted from the end of World War II until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War set the framework for global politics for forty-five years after the end of World War II. It also influenced American domestic politics (issues inside the U.S.), the conduct of foreign affairs, and the role of the American government in the economy after 1945.

The Cold War was basically a competition between two very different ways of organizing government, society, and the nation’s economy. The United States and the Soviet Union possessed very different fundamental values. The American-led western nations believed in democracy, individual freedom, and a free market economic system based on private ownership of property. In contrast, the Soviet Union and its allies believed in a totalitarian government (dictatorship) ruled by the communist party and a communist (socialist) economic system. Socialism is an economic system in which the government owns and controls the means of production. For example, in a socialist nation the government might own the power plants, transportation and communication companies, mines, and steel mills.

Soon after World War II, the United States adopted the anti-communist policy of containment. Containment was the post-World War II American foreign policy that sought to check the expansion of the Soviet Union and communism through diplomatic, economic, and military means. In short, under the containment policy the United States tried to contain or restrict communism to those countries of the world where it already existed.

After the Soviet Union had spread communism to the nations of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman announced the Truman Doctrine. Truman set forth this policy in a 1947 speech to Congress in which he called for military and economic aid to prevent a communist takeover of Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine was President Truman’s promise that the United States would defend free peoples from subversion (overthrow of the government) or outside pressure. Thereby, the Truman Doctrine set precedent that the “containment of communism” would serve as the guiding principle of American foreign policy throughout the Cold War. Under containment, the United States would not try to roll back communism, but rather keep communism from spreading and to resist communist aggression (attacks) into other countries.

The Truman administration followed the announcement of the Truman Doctrine with the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was a massive American financial aid program, also announced in 1947, to help European nations recover economically from World War II. Yet, its purpose was not only to rebuild European economies, but also to prevent the spread of communism. To place military force behind the containment policy the United States and its allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, commonly known as NATO. NATO acted as a defensive military alliance between the United States and Western European countries to prevent a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Since the creation of NATO in 1949, it has served as an alliance of the United States, a group of European nations, and Canada to provide mutual aid in the event of armed attack. In 1955 after West Germany became a member of NATO, the Soviet Union and other communist nations in Eastern Europe formed an opposing alliance called the Warsaw Pact. For nearly fifty years both sides, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, maintained large military forces facing each other in Europe.

Communism spread to Asia in 1949 when Chinese communist forces under Mao Zedong overthrew the anti-communist government of Chiang Kai-shek. Mao forced Chaing to flee China for the island of Formosa, where Chiang set up the government of Taiwan. The communist takeover of China increased American fears of communist domination of most of the world. In addition, before 1949 ended, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb.

The fear of communism and the threat of nuclear war affected American life throughout the Cold War. The trials of both Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs caused many Americans to fear that communist spies held important positions in the federal government. Hiss was accused of passing secret documents to the Soviets during the late 1930s. Although Hiss claimed his innocence he was convicted of perjury (lying under oath), and many Americans believed he was guilty of treason. In 1950 the United States learned that a spy ring had sent technical secrets to the Soviets, which had allowed them to develop an atomic bomb so quickly. This information led to the arrest of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who had gained information about the United States’ atomic project. In 1951, after a long and widely publicized trial, a jury found the Rosenbergs guilty of espionage (spying). The United States government executed the Rosenbergs in 1953.

American fears of communism in the early fifties advanced the political career of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Senator McCarthy played on American fears of communism by recklessly accusing many American governmental officials and citizens of being communists. He based these charges on flimsy (very weak) evidence or no evidence at all. McCarthy’s rapid rise to power led to the coining of the term McCarthyism, or unfairly accusing others of disloyalty, especially of pro-communist activity, without convincing proof or even solid evidence. American culture continues to use the term McCarthyism to refer to situations where someone has made false accusations based on rumor or guilt by association.

In 1954 the Army-McCarthy hearings were televised. These Senate hearings investigated alleged communist influence in the United States army. When the army’s attorney stood up to McCarthy at these hearings, McCarthy showed himself to be a liar and bully rather than a heroic defender of American democracy. The Senate then voted to censure Senator McCarthy or condemn his behavior, and he quickly lost his influence. Thereby, the Army-McCarthy hearings ended the power of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

A major test for the containment policy came in 1950 when communist North Koreans invaded non-communist South Korea. American military forces led a United Nations counterattack that drove deep into North Korea itself. Communist Chinese forces then came into the war on the side of North Korea, and the war threatened to widen. In 1952 former World War II hero Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidential election, after he had promised to go to Korea. In 1953 the Korean War ended in stalemate with South Korea free of communist occupation. Because the United States had prevented South Korea from falling under communist control, the nation’s confidence in the containment policy increased.

As part of containment, President Eisenhower adopted a policy of “massive retaliation” to deter (prevent, discourage) any nuclear attack by the Soviets. Massive retaliation was the Eisenhower administration’s threat of swift, all-out military action against a nation committing aggression (attack). Later presidents backed away from this policy, although the United States refused to promise it would not make a first strike nuclear attack.

At the end of the 1950s and in the early 1960s, the Cold War focused on Cuba. In 1959 Fidel Castro led a communist revolution that took over Cuba. Many Cubans fled to Florida to escape communist rule. President Eisenhower encouraged the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop a secret plan to overthrow Castro. The CIA is a federal agency that coordinates the spy activities of the United States government. The CIA decided to train and equip a group of anti-communist Cuban exiles, who were living in the United States. With United States assistance this force would land at the Bay of Pigs on the Cuban coast and lead the Cuban people in an uprising against Castro. When President John F. Kennedy entered office in 1961, he approved the CIA’s plans to go ahead with the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Bay of Pigs invasion proved a complete disaster. The expected popular uprising against Castro never happened. Within two days, Castro’s army had captured or killed most of the American-supported invaders.

In 1962 an even more serious Cold War crisis occurred in Cuba, when President Kennedy learned the Soviet Union had placed nuclear missiles there. American spy-plane photographs showed these missile sites to President Kennedy. After six days of discussion with his advisers, President Kennedy appeared on television to tell the American public about the Soviet missiles. He announced that the United States was blockading Cuba. American naval vessels would stop all approaching ships and search them for weapons. In addition, Kennedy ordered the Soviets to remove their missiles from Cuba or he would take further steps. For several days the world was on the brink (edge) of nuclear war. Eventually the Soviets “blinked,” as President Kennedy worked out a private agreement with Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union. The Soviets agreed to remove their missiles from Cuba, and in exchange the United States would remove its outdated missiles from Turkey.

Nevertheless, the Cuban Missile Crisis heightened the threat of nuclear war. In fact, the Soviet Union matched the United States in nuclear weaponry in the 1950s. For the remainder of the Cold War the threat of nuclear conflict that would destroy both countries was ever-present. During the 1950s and 1960s, American schools regularly held drills to train children regarding what to do in case of a nuclear attack. The federal government encouraged American citizens to build bomb shelters in their own basements. However, by the mid-sixties Vietnam replaced the threat of nuclear war as the chief concern of America’s containment policy.

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