America in the 20th-Century: The Cold War



America in the 20th-Century: The Cold War

Notes and Video Guide

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Post War Problems

• Soviet Union wants to establish satellite nations & spread communism

• United States wants to spread democracy & develop capitalist nations

• Poland becomes hot issue and worsens postwar United States and Soviet Union relationship

United Nations

• Continuing idea of League of Nations but now U.S. is key figure

• 50 countries adopt charter with 5 permanent members : US, Britain, France, Soviet Union, China

• Purpose to still prevent future wars and maintain global peace

US Foreign Policy

• America accepted Eastern European shift to communism but wanted to “contain” it elsewhere

• Policy of Containment

o Truman Doctrine declared US support to any free peoples who resisted communist conquest

o Marshall Plan-1947 recovery plan to help Europe rebuild and recover after war

▪ 17 European nations joined plan

▪ Soviet Union refused help

▪ $13 billion given in aid

Iron Curtain

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• Churchill gave speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri

• “an iron curtain has descended across the continent”

• Geographic and political division between Communist and capitalist nations in Europe

Berlin Airlift and NATO

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Communist Advances

• 1949 Soviet Union successfully test atomic bomb and US begins developing hydrogen bomb

• US government distributes information on how to survive a nuclear threat

• China falls to Communism and domino theory becomes justification for containment

Korean Conflict and Domino Theory

• No plan for independence of Korea from Japan after the war

• Divided at 38th parallel---pro-American government formed in South Korea and Communist government formed in North Korea

• War broke out in 1950 when North troops invaded South trying to unite nation by force

• United Nations resolution called on members to defend South Korea and restore peace

• 80% of troops were American

• General Douglas MacArthur gained advantage by attacking North supply lines

• Limited war---Limited victory

• Increased power of the military---establishes links with corporate and scientific communities---beginning of military-industrial complex

• Integration of the military---first war where blacks and whites fight together

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• Congress never voted a declaration of war which set a precedent---a war order by president rather than a vote by Congress

• Truman also expanded U.S. troops in NATO----261,000 troops by 1952

• Truman also increases help to French in Indo-China (start of America’s growing involvement in Vietnam)

• Truman removes MacArthur and troops moved back to original line where truce is declared in 1953

The Cold War at Home

• During the late 1940s and early 1950s, fear of communism leads to reckless

charges against innocent citizens.

American Sentiments

• Communist takeover of Eastern Europe &China fuel fear of its spread

• 100,000 in U.S. Communist Party; some fear may be loyal to U.S.S.R.

Loyalty Review Board

• Truman accused of being soft on Communism

• Sets up Federal Employee Loyalty Program to investigate employees

• 1947–1951 loyalty boards investigate 3.2 million, dismiss 212

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

• HUAC investigates Communist ties

• Investigates Communist influence in movie industry

• Hollywood Ten refuse to testify, sent to prison

• Hollywood blacklist—people with Communist ties, cannot get work

The McCarran Act

• Act—unlawful to plan action that might lead to totalitarianism

• Truman vetoes, says violates free thought; Congress overrides veto

|Should the government investigate the political messages of movies in America? |

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Spy Cases Stun the Nation

Alger Hiss

• Alger Hiss accused of spying for Soviet Union; convicted of perjury

• Congressman Richard Nixon gains fame for pursuing charges

The Rosenbergs

• 1949, Soviets explode atomic bomb sooner than expected

• Physicist Klaus Fuchs admits giving information about U.S. bomb

• Ethel, Julius Rosenberg, minor Communist Party activists, implicated

• Rosenbergs sentenced to death in 1953; Supreme Court upholds conviction

|Respond to Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote about the Rosenbergs: “Your country is sick with fear. You’re afraid of the shadow of your own bomb.” |

McCarthy Launches His “Witch Hunt”

• Senator Joseph McCarthy a strong anti-Communist activist

• Ineffective legislator; needs issue to win reelection

• McCarthyism—attacking suspected Communists without evidence

• McCarthy claims Communists in State Department

• Few Republicans speak out; think he has winning strategy for 1952

• McCarthy encourages a widespread fear of communism in American society

McCarthy’s Downfall

• 1954, McCarthy accuses members of U.S. Army

• Televised hearings show him bullying witnesses

• Loses public support; Senate condemns him for improper conduct

Other Anti-Communist Measures

• States, towns forbid speech favoring violent overthrow of government

• Millions forced to take loyalty oaths, are investigated

• People become afraid to speak out on public issues

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|Explain how Senator McCarthy fit the definition of a demagogue: “a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by|

|using rational argument.” |

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The Cold War Takes to the Skies

The Space Race

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|Explain how the military – industrial complex has become an integral part of the U.S. economy and how it affects the U.S. government? |

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Cracks in the Curtain & Rising Middle East & U.S. Interventions

• 1953 East German uprising

• 1956 Hungarian Revolution

• 1956 Rise of Arab nations in Middle East under Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser

• 1953 U.S. CIA engineered a coup in Iran

• 1954 U.S. involvement in Vietnam begins to keep nation from falling to communism (lasts until 1975)

President John F. Kennedy and Cold-War Crises

• Inherited an “all or nothing” defense (foreign) policy

Do nothing and let diplomats work it out

Launch out an all-out nuclear attack against communist nations

• Kennedy wanted new policy---middle ground (flexible response)

Designed to avoid total war

Bay of Pigs

• CIA attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba (90 miles off coast of Florida)

• Help Cuban exiles to revolt but Kennedy won’t provide air support

• Castro learns of attempt and stops coup

• Kennedy is humiliated and takes full responsibility

Berlin Wall

• Khrushchev issues ultimatum about Germany

• Kennedy refuses to be intimidated

• Soviets build wall in 1961 to stop fleeing East Germans and avoid confrontation over East Berlin

Cuban Missile Crisis

• Soviet Union secretly constructing missile sites in Cuba

• U.S. military advisors urge air strikes

• Kennedy did not want to trigger nuclear war

• Imposes quarantines to stop Soviet ships from reaching Cuba

• Agreement is reached after almost bringing the U.S. and Soviet Union to brink of war:

Soviets remove missiles from Cuba

U.S. promises not to invade Cuba and secretly agree to destroy missile bases in Turkey

• The Kennedy-Khrushchev attempt to reign in arms control came to an end when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and Khrushchev was dismissed as leader of Soviet Union because he humiliated the Soviet Union

Kennedy & Vietnam

• President Eisenhower claimed that once one Pacific nation fell to communism it would be like dominoes and they would all start to fall if the U.S. did not get involved (domino principle)

• Increases U.S. involvement in Vietnam sending more “military advisers”

• President Johnson escalates war sending 536,000 troops by 1968

• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution expands President authority to take all “necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of U.S. and to prevent further aggression”

Détente in the Cold War

• By 1969, Superpowers chose to agree to disagree and seek areas of mutual interest instead of plunging the world into nuclear war

• President Nixon and National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger called it Détente (a relaxing of tensions)

• Nixon goes to Communist China and then meets with Leonid Brezhnev and sign first ever agreement to limit nuclear weapons (S.A.L.T.—Strategic Arms Limitation Talks)

• Nixon would play a role in ending American involvement in the Vietnam War when in 1973 an agreement was reached

• President Ford carried on nuclear limitation talks after Nixon resigned and he became President

• Jimmy Carter continued to work to bring an end to the Cold War after he was elected President but events in the Middle East would cause greater tensions. S.A.L.T II was signed in 1979, the same year the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan

Reagan Doctrine on Cold War

• Shift of power during 1970s favored the Soviet Union and president Ronald Reagan wanted to change that

• National Security Directive 75 outlined strategy to reinvigorate military defense and encourage political change within the Soviet Union would let Reagan engage in diplomacy

• Reagan called for $1.5 trillion over 5 years to build-up military—greatest build-up in peacetime ever

• Reagan Doctrine:

“the U.S. provided overt and covert aid to anti-communist guerrillas and resistance movements in an effort to "rollback" Soviet-backed communist governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America”

• In March 1983, Reagan proposed Strategic Defense initiative (dubbed “star wars”)---satellites patrolling the heavens zapping incoming missiles

• Soviets saw it as an immediate threat; they had neither the money or

technological know-how to keep up with Reagan’s arms buildup

New Soviet Leader

• In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of Soviet Union

• In 1987, nuclear explosion in Chernobyl caused Gorbachev to make

immediate and radical change

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• In 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev signed an agreement to eliminate intermediate-range missiles in Europe

• Later that same year Reagan traveled to West Germany and in front of the Berlin Wall made his appeal:

“…come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

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Fall of Communism

• In 1988, Gorbachev began to put in place a policy to end the Soviet military threat to repress Eastern Europe

• In June 1989, citizens of one country after another rose up against communism :

Hungary

East Germany

Poland

Czechoslovakia

Bulgaria

Romania

• In 1990, the Berlin Wall came down and Germany was reunited after nearly 30 years

• Elections were held and a democratic government was established for the united nation

• On Christmas Day in 1991, Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union

• For almost 50 years the Cold War was a series of political conflicts and military tensions

The Cold War was over. [pic]

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Discuss the postwar goals of the United States and the Soviet Union and how each nation went about fulfilling those goals.

• Yalta Conference divided Germany and also divided Berlin (capital)

• West Berlin became capitalist and East Berlin became communist

• Stalin blockades West Germany shutting on West Berlin

• Allies begin Berlin Airlift to supply West Berlin

• Berlin would remain a focal point of Cold War conflict

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• North Atlantic Treaty Organization formed in April 1949

• Nations pledged to support one another against attack—“collective security”

• Soviet Union the creates the Warsaw Pact between itself and its satellite nations (nations dominated by Soviet Union)

How did the policy of containment and the Truman Doctrine complement each other?

Why was the Korean War considered a stalemate?

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• October 1957, Soviets launch Sputnik, first artificial satellite

• Shocked Americans pour money into own space program

A U-2 Is Shot Down

• CIA makes secret high-altitude flights with U-2 to spy on Soviets

• Eisenhower wants flights discontinued before Khrushchev summit

• Francis Gary Powers shot down on last flight over Soviet territory in 1960

Renewed Confrontation

• Eisenhower first denies, and then concedes U-2 was spying

• Agrees to stop flights, refuses to apologize as Khrushchev demands

• U-2 incident renews tension between superpowers; summit cancelled

• August 1960, Powers was convicted by the Soviets for espionage and sentenced to 10 years (3 years in prison, 7 years at hard labor).

• The U.S. develops a military-industrial complex (influence of defense contractors on Congress) that drastically changes the U.S. economy

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Summarize the events that almost brought the Soviet Union and the United States to the brink of nuclear war.

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What did President Reagan do at beginning of his presidency to defend American interests in the Cold War and what did his foreign policy call for?

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