Ch. 26: Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1952

Douglas MacArthur

(1880-1964), U.S. general. Commander of U.S. (later Allied) forces in the southwestern Pacific during World War II, he accepted Japan's surrender in 1945 and administered the ensuing Allied occupation. He was in charge of UN forces in Korea 1950-51, before being forced to relinquish command by President Truman.

Mao Zedong

(1893-1976) Leader of the Communist Party in China that overthrew Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists. Established China as the People's Republic of China and ruled from 1949 until 1976.

22nd Amendment

(1951) Reacting against the election of Roosevelt as president four times, the Republican-dominated Congress proposed this constitutional amendment to limit a president to a maximum of two full terms in office.

US-Japanese Security Treaty

1951 - Japan surrendered its claims to Korea and the islands in the Pacific, and the United States ended formal occupation of Japan. One of the treaties also provided for US troops to remain in military bases in Japan for that country's protection against external enemies (e.g. communists)

Dennis et al. v. United States

1951, The Supreme Court upheld the conviction clearing the way for prosecution of other communist leaders. In July 1948, the administration charged eleven top communists with violating the Smith Act of 1940, which made it a crime to conspire to "advocate and teach" the violent overthrow of government. After ten months of trial and deliberation, a lower court declared the Smith Act constitutional and the communists guilty.

Soviet Union

A Communist nation, consisting of Russia and 14 other states, that existed from 1922 to 1991

Joseph McCarthy

A Republican senator from Wisconsin, used the growing concern over communism in his 1950 reelection campaign. He used a steady stream of unsupported accusations about Communists in government to keep the media focus on himself and to discredit the Truman administration.

Council of Economic Advisers

A board of three professional economists was established in 1946 (Truman) to advise the president on economic policy.

Wittaker Chambers

A former Communist who had broken with the party in 1938 and became the editor of Time Magazine, star witness for HUAC in 1948. He accused Albert Hiss of communist ties.

Henry Wallace

A former Democratic who ran on the New Progressive Party i 1948 due to his disagreement on Truman's policy with the Soviets. He caused the Democratic party to split even more during the election season.

George Kennan

A member of the State Department, he felt that the best way to keep Communism out of Europe was to confront the Russians wherever they tried to spread their power.

Winston Churchill

A noted British Prime Minister who led Britain throughout most of World War II and along with Roosevelt planned many allied campaigns. He predicted an iron curtain that would separate Communist Europe from the rest of the West.

Alger Hiss

A prominent official in the State Department who had assisted Roosevelt during the Yalta conference. He denied accusations that he was a Communist and had given secret documents to Chambers. In 1950, however, he was convicted of perjury and sent to prison. (are the highest levels of gov't infiltrated by spies?!)

Nuclear arms race

After the Berlin crisis, teams of scientists in both the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in an intense competition to develop superior weapons systems.

World Bank

Also known as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. The bank's initial purpose was to fund rebuilding of a war-torn world, but the Soviets declined to participate because they viewed it as an instrument of capitalism.

Iron Curtain

a metaphor, first coined by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, used throughout the Cold War to refer to the Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe. Churchill's speech called for a partnership between Western democracies to halt the expansion of communism.

Harry Truman

a moderate Democratic senator from Missouri, replaced the more liberal Henry Wallace as FDR's vice president in the 1994 election. He was thrust into the presidency after Roosevelt's death in April 1945, but matured into a decisive leader whose basic honesty and unpretentious style appealed to average citizens Truman attempted to continue the New Deal tradition of his predecessor

containment policy

adopted by Truman, Marshall, Kennan, and Acheson in 1947, policy introduced by Harry S. Truman after WWII that said the duty of the U.S. was to stop the spread of Totalitarianism (implying Communism); Defined the foreign policy for the period after WWII until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989

Syngman Rhee

conservative nationalist Korean leader who became president of South Korea after World War II and led South Korea during Korean War.

House Un-American Activities Committee

est. 1939 to seek out Nazis, was reactivated in the postwar years to find Communists. The committee not only investigated government officials but also looked for Communist influence in such organizations as the Boy Scouts and in the Hollywood film industry

United Nations

founded in 1945, created to provide representation to all member nations, while the 15 member Security Council was given the primary responsibility within the UN for maintaining international security and authorizing peacekeeping missions.

Chiang Kai-shek

leader of the Nationalist (Guomindang) party in China to control the central government. The US gave massive military aid to Chiang to prevent China from being conquered by communism.

Smith Act (1940)

made it illegal to advocate or teach the overthrow of government by force or to belong to an organization with this objective

McCarran Internal Security Act (1950)

made it unlawful to advocate or support the establishment of a totalitarian government, restricted the employment and travel of those joining Communist-front organizations, and authorized the creation of detention camps for subversives.

West Germany

the Federal Republic of Germany, a US ally, democratic

East Germany

the German Democratic Republic, a Soviet Satellite

UN police action

the United Nations starting a military action without declaration of war; against violators of international peace and order. Congress approved of using US troops in the Korean crisis but failed to declare war, accepting Truman's characterization of US intervention as merely "police action."

"soft on communism"

the stalemate in Korea and loss of China led Republicans to characterize Truman and the Democrats as this phrase.

historians: traditionalists vs. revisionists

the traditional view of the origins of the Cold War is that the Soviet government under Stalin started the conflict by subjugating countries of Eastern Europe in the late 1940s. Historians who share this view criticize FDR for failing to understand the Soviet's aggressive intentions and for the agreement at Yalta. Revisionist historians of 1960s began to argue that the US contributed to starting the Cold War, praising FDR and blaming Truman for antagonizing the Soviets.

Taiwan

Chiang and the Nationalists, after being defeated by the Communists in 1949, retreated to an island once under Japanese Rule, Formosa (Taiwan).

Kim Il Sung

Communist dictator of North Korea; his attack on South Korea in 1950 started the Korean War. He remained in power until 1994.

Joseph Stalin

Communist dictator of the Soviet Union

Occupation zones

Germany split into four between the USSR, the U.S., Britain, and France. Berlin split into four as well, with the USSR controlling the Eastern half (communist half) and the remaining half split between the remaining three nations (capitalist)

Dean Acheson

He was Secretary of State under Harry Truman. It is said that he was more responsible for the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine than those that the two were named for.

Hollywood blacklists

Individuals who were prevented from working in the film industry because of their suspected involvement with Communist interests.

new Progressive party

Liberal Democrats, who thought Truman's aggressive foreign policy threatened world peace, formed a new Progressive party that nominated former vice president Henry Wallace.

People's Republic of China

Mao Zedong's regime in Beijing (communist) beginning in 1949. The United States continued to support Chiang and refused to recognize this regime until 1979.

J. Storm Thurmond

Nominated as 1948 presidential candidate for Dixiecrat (states rights) party

National Security Act (1947)

Passed in 1947 in response to perceived threats from the Soviet Union after WWII. It established the Department of Defense to coordinate the operations of the army, navy, and air force; the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to employ spies to gather information on foreign governments; and National Security Council (NSC) to coordinate the making of foreign policy during the Cold War

Thomas Dewey

Republican nomination for the election of 1948, New York Governor, looked much like a winner from the outset that he conducted an overly cautious and unexciting campaign, although he lost to Truman.

States-Rights party (Dixiecrats)

Southern Democrats who bolted the party in reaction to Truman's support of civil rights, and chose Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as its 1948 presidential candidate

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Ten European nations joined the United States and Canada in creating the NATO, a military defense pact to protect Western Europe (1949), breaking US tradition of avoiding permanent alliances with European nations

freedom of expression in arts

The Second Red Scare made the arts more scrutinized. Arthur Miller came under attacks as anti-American, and Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical, South Pacific, was criticized, especially by southern politicians, as a communistic assault on racial segregation. Loyalty oaths were commonly required of writers and teachers as a condition of employment.

Cold War

This conflict dominated international relations from the late 1940s to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It centered around the intense rivalry between the two superpowers: the Communist empire of the Soviet Union and the leading Western democracy, the United States. Superpower competition usually was through diplomacy rather than armed conflict, but, in several instances, the Cold War took the world dangerously close to a nuclear war.

Committee on Civil Rights

Truman bypassed the southern Democrats in key seats in Congress and established this committee to challenge racial discrimination in 1946.

inflation and labor unions

Truman urged Congress to continue wartime price controls to hold inflation in check, but they didn't, so the US experienced almost 25% inflation during the first year and a half of peace. Workers and unions wanted wages to catch up after years of wartime wage controls, so over 4.5 million workers went on strike in 1946.

NSC-68

1950, a National Security Council document that recommended to quadruple the US government defense spending to 20 percent of GNP, form alliances with non-Communist countries around the world, and convince the American public that a costly arms buildup was imperative to the nations defense.

Korean War

1950-1953 Conflict that began with North Korea's invasion of South Korea and came to involve the United Nations (primarily the United States) allying with South Korea and the People's Republic of China allying with North Korea.

racial integration of military

1948 - Truman ordered the end of racial discrimination throughout the federal government, including the armed forces. The end of segregation changed life on military bases, many of which were in the South.

Berlin airlift

1948-1949 - Truman ordered US planes to fly supplies into West Berlin when the Soviets cut off all access by land to the German city until the Soviets opened up highways to Berlin.

Security Council

15 members of the UN given the primary responsibility for maintaining international security and authorizing peacekeeping missions. The five major allies of wartime, the United States, Great Britain, France, China, and the Soviet Union, were granted permanent seats and veto power in the UN Security Council.

Chinese civil war

1927-1949, War between communist Mao Zedong and nationalist Chaing-Kai Shek. The communists took over and forced the nationalists to retreat to Taiwan. The Chinese Communist Party were victorious.

Marshall Plan

1947 - A plan that the secretary of state George Marshall came up with to revive war-torn economies of Europe. This plan offered $17 billion in aid to western and Southern Europe.

Taft-Hartley Act (1947)

1947 - Congress passed this pro-business act to check the growing power of unions. It became a major issue dividing Republicans and Democrats. Its provisions included outlawing closed shop, permitting states to pass "right to work" laws outlawing union shop, outlawing secondary boycotts, and giving the president the power to invoke a 80-day cooling-off period before a strike endangering the national safety could be called.

Loyalty Review Board

1947 - created by the Truman administration under pressure from Republican critics to investigate the background of more than 3 million federal employees (for loyalty to America)

Truman Doctrine

1947, President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology, mainly helped Greece and Turkey

38th parallel

Dividing line between Communist North Korea and Democratic South Korea

Employment Act of 1946

Enacted by Truman, it committed the federal government to ensuring economic growth and established the Council of Economic Advisors to confer with the president and formulate policies for maintaining employment, production, and purchasing power

Communist satellites

From 1946-1948, communist dictators took power in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, all of these were satellites, or nations under the control of a great power; in this situation, the Soviet Union.

McCarthyism

The term associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy who led the search for communists in America during the early 1950s through his leadership in the House Un-American Activities Committee. Also known as the "witch hunt" for Communists.

Fair Deal

Truman's ambitious reform program (1949), urged Congress to enact national health care insurance, federal aid to education, civil rights legislation, funds for public housing, and a new farm program. Conservatives in Congress blocked most of the proposed reforms because of Truman's political conflict with Congress and the new pressing foreign policy concerns of the Cold War.