U.S. History II: the Cold War (Chapter 27)

Ace your homework & exams now with Quizwiz!

Cold War

A conflict that was between the US and the Soviet Union. The nations never directly confronted each other on the battlefield but deadly threats went on for years.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

A congressional committee that investigated Communist influence inside and outside the U.S. government in the years following World War II.

Alger Hiss

A former State Department official who was accused of being a Communist spy and was convicted of perjury. The case was prosecuted by Richard Nixon.

Marshall Plan

A plan that the US came up with to revive war-torn economies of Europe. This plan offered $13 billion in aid to western and Southern Europe.

What made the growing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union evolve into the Cold War?

America had kept the A-bomb a secret The Soviets had wanted us to invade Europe faster We supported countries who were trying to avoid communist rule, while they tried to expand it

The China Problem and Japan

American hopes for an open, peaceful world "policed" by the great powers required a strong, independent China. But those hopes faced a major obstacle: the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang was generally friendly to the United States, but his government was corrupt and incompetent, with feeble popular support. Ever since 1927, the nationalist government he headed had been engaged in a bitter rivalry with the communist armies of Mao Zedong. By 1945, Mao was in control of one-fourth of the population. Some Americans urged the government to try to find a "third force" to support as an alternative to either Chiang or Mao. Truman, however, decided reluctantly that he had no choice but to continue supporting Chiang. For the next several years, the United States continued to pump money and weapons to Chiang. Instead, the American government began to consider an alternative to China as the strong, pro-Western force in Asia: a revived Japan. Abandoning the strict occupation policies of the first years after the war (when General Douglas MacArthur had governed the nation), the United States lifted restrictions on industrial development and encouraged rapid economic growth in Japan.

1952

American occupation of Japan ends Eisenhower elected president

containment

American policy of resisting further expansion of communism around the world

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

An agency created after World War II to coordinate American intelligence activities abroad. It became involved in intrigue, conspiracy, and meddling as well.

Fair Deal

An economic extension of the New Deal proposed by Harry Truman that called for higher minimum wage, housing and full employment. It led only to the Housing Act of 1949 and the Social Security Act of 1950 due to opposition in congress.

The Marshall Plan

An integral part of the containment policy was a proposal to aid in the economic reconstruction of Western Europe. There were many motives: humanitarian concern for the European people; a fear that Europe would remain an economic drain on the United States if it could not quickly rebuild; and a desire for a strong European market for American goods. But above all, American policymakers believed that unless something could be done to strengthen the shaky pro-American governments in Western Europe, those governments might fall under the control of the growing domestic communist parties. In June 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced a plan to provide economic assistance to all European nations (including the Soviet Union) that would join in drafting a program for recovery. Whatever isolationist opposition there was in the United States largely vanished after a sudden coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, which established a Soviet-dominated communist government. In April, Congress approved the creation of the Economic Cooperation Administration, the agency that would administer the Marshall Plan, as it became known. Over the next three years, the Marshall Plan channeled $13 billion of American aid into Europe, helping to spark a substantial economic revival. By the end of 1950, European industrial production had risen 64 percent, communist strength in the member nations had declined, and opportunities for American trade had revived.

United Nations (UN)

An international organization formed after WWII to promote international peace, security, and cooperation.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Arrested in the Summer of 1950 and executed in 1953, they were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage by passing plans for the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

Sources of Soviet-American Tension

At the heart of the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1940s—in addition to the basic ideological, economic, and political distinctions between the two societies—was a fundamental difference in the ways the great powers envisioned the postwar world. One vision, first openly outlined in the Atlantic Charter in 1941, was a world in which nations abandoned their traditional beliefs in military alliances and spheres of influence and governed their relations with one another through democratic processes, with an international organization serving as the arbiter of disputes and the protector of every nation's right of self-determination. The other vision was that of the Soviet Union and, to some extent, Great Britain. Both Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill had signed the Atlantic Charter. But Churchill had always been uneasy about the implications of self-determination for Britain's own enormous empire. And the Soviet Union was determined to create a secure sphere for itself in Central and Eastern Europe as protection against possible future aggression from the West. Both Churchill and Stalin, therefore, tended to envision a postwar structure vaguely similar to the traditional European balance of power, in which the great powers would control areas of strategic interest to them. When the two sides competed for influence and power in this way, the Cold War began.

1946

Atomic Energy Commission established

1948

Berlin blockade Truman elected president Hiss case begins

NSC-68 (1950)

Blueprint for the Cold War in which the National Security Council (made up of President's top advisors on military and security matters) recommendation to quadruple defense spending for fighting communism and rapidly expand peacetime armed forces to address Cold War tensions; reflected a new militarization of American foreign policy ("Military Industrial Complex") and triggered the arms race

The Containment Doctrine

By the end of 1945, a new American foreign policy was slowly emerging. It became known as containment. Rather than attempting to create a unified, "open" world, or to destroy communism where it already existed, the United States and its allies would work to prevent Soviet expansion. The new doctrine emerged in part as a response to events in Europe in 1946. In Turkey, Stalin was trying to win control over the vital sea-lanes to the Mediterranean. In Greece, communist forces were threatening the pro-Western government. On March 12, 1947, Truman appeared before Congress and used Kennan's warnings as the basis of what became known as the Truman Doctrine. "I believe," he argued, "that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." In the same speech, he requested $400 million for aid to Greece and Turkey, which Congress quickly approved. The American commitment ultimately helped reduce Soviet pressure on Turkey and helped the Greek government defeat the communist insurgents and, in the process, establish containment as a basis for American policy that survived for more than forty years.

Loyalty Oaths: Pledging Patriotism

Civil Rights Groups under Attack: Began to purge themselves of left-wing members in order to avoid suspicion. Catholic Anti-Communism: Catholic organizations became hotbeds of anti-communism. Communism is opposed to religion and Eastern Europe was largely Catholic. Helps Catholics move into the mainstream of Protestant America. Loyalty Run Amok: Universities imposed loyalty oaths on faculty and state and local governments imposed them on employees. a. UCLA fired 157 professors who refused to sign the oath. b. After 1945, over 30 states required teachers and public employees to take a loyalty oath. c. Indiana required wrestlers to take a loyalty oath and NYC required the same of fishermen. d. Fear of communism leads to ideological conformity and group think. Taft-Hartley Act (1947): Outlawed the "closed shop" and allowed states to pass "right-to-work" laws. Required union leaders to swear a loyalty oath before the government would sanction union elections. Conservative assault on the Wagner Act of 1935.

Why did the U.S. government and the American people believe that there was a threat of internal communist subversion?

Communism had tangible shape, in Joseph Stalin and the soviet union America had encountered setbacks in its battle against communism: the Korean stalemate, the "loss" of china, the soviet development of an atomic bomb Searching for someone to blame, many people were attracted to the idea of a communist conspiracy within american borders Other factors include: the HUAC investigations, the Hiss trial, the loyalty investigations, the McCarran Act, the Rosenberg case

The Road to NATO

Convinced that a reconstructed Germany was essential to the needs of the West, Truman reached an agreement with England and France to merge the three western zones of occupation into a new West German republic (which would include the three non-Soviet sectors of Berlin, even though that city lay within the Soviet zone). Stalin responded quickly. On June 24, 1948, he imposed a tight blockade around the western sectors of Berlin. If Germany was to be officially divided, Stalin was implying, then the country's Western government would have to abandon the capital city in the heart of the Soviet-controlled eastern zone. Truman refused to do so. Unwilling to risk war through a military challenge to the blockade, he ordered a massive airlift to supply the city with food, fuel, and other needed goods. The airlift continued for more than ten months. On April 4, 1949, twelve nations signed an agreement establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—declaring that an armed attack against one member would be considered an attack against all. The NATO countries would, moreover, maintain a standing military force in Europe to defend against what they believed was the threat of a Soviet invasion. The formation of NATO eventually spurred the Soviet Union to create an alliance of its own with the communist governments in Eastern Europe, as formalized in 1955 by the Warsaw Pact.

The Fair Deal Rejected

Days after the Japanese surrender, Truman submitted to Congress a twenty-one-point domestic program outlining what he later named the "Fair Deal." It called for an expansion of Social Security benefits, the raising of the legal minimum wage from 40 to 65 cents an hour, a program to ensure full employment through aggressive use of federal spending and investment, a permanent Fair Employment Practices Act, public housing and slum clearance, long-range environmental and public works planning, and government promotion of scientific research. Weeks later he added other proposals: federal aid to education, government health insurance and prepaid medical care, funding for the St. Lawrence Seaway, and nationalization of atomic energy. Most of Truman's programs fell victim to the same public and congressional conservatism that had crippled the last years of the New Deal. Indeed, that conservatism seemed to be intensifying, as the November 1946 congressional elections suggested. Using the simple but devastating slogan "Had Enough?" the Republican Party won control of both houses of Congress, which quickly moved to reduce government spending and chip away at New Deal reforms. Its most notable action was its assault on the Wagner Act of 1935, in the form of the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft-Hartley Act. It made illegal the closed shop (a workplace in which no one can be hired without first being a member of a union). And although it continued to permit the creation of union shops (in which workers must join a union after being hired), it permitted states to pass "right-to-work" laws prohibiting even that. The Taft-Hartley Act also empowered the president to call for a ten-week "cooling-off " period before a strike by issuing an injunction against any work stoppage that endangered national safety or health. Outraged workers and union leaders denounced the measure as a "slave labor bill." Truman vetoed it. But both houses easily overruled him the same day. The Taft-Hartley Act did not destroy the labor movement. But it did damage weaker unions in relatively lightly organized industries such as chemicals and textiles, and it made much more difficult the organizing of workers who had never been union members at all, especially in the South and the West.

The Fair Deal Revived

Despite the Democratic victories, the Eighty-First Congress was little more hospitable to Truman's Fair Deal reform. Truman did win some important victories. Congress raised the legal minimum wage from 40 cents to 75 cents an hour. It approved an important expansion of the Social Security system, increasing benefits by 75 percent and extending them to 10 million additional people. And it passed the National Housing Act of 1949, which provided for the construction of 810,000 units of low-income housing accompanied by long-term rent subsidies. But on other issues—national health insurance and aid to education, among them— Truman made little progress. Nor was he able to persuade Congress to accept the civil rights legislation he proposed in 1949, legislation that would make lynching a federal crime, provide federal protection of black voting rights, abolish the poll tax, and establish a new Fair Employment Practices Commission to curb discrimination in hiring. Undeterred, Truman proceeded on his own to battle several forms of racial discrimination. He ordered an end to discrimination in the hiring of government employees. He began to dismantle segregation within the armed forces. And he allowed the Justice Department to become actively involved in court battles against discriminatory statutes. The Supreme Court, in the meantime, signaled its own growing awareness of the issue by ruling, in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), that courts could not be used to enforce private "covenants" meant to bar blacks from residential neighborhoods.

The Problems of Reconversion

Despite widespread predictions that the end of the war would return America to depression conditions, economic growth continued after 1945. Pent-up consumer demand from workers who had accumulated substantial savings during the war helped spur the boom. So did a $6 billion tax cut. The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill of Rights, provided housing, education, and job-training subsidies to veterans and increased spending even further. The GI Bill expressed the progressive hopes of many Americans who wanted to see the government do more to assist its citizens. But it also expressed some of the enduring inequalities in American life. Few GI Bill benefits were available to women, even though many women had assisted the war effort in important ways. And while the GI Bill itself did not discriminate against African Americans, its provisions giving local governments jurisdiction allowed southern states, in particular, to deny or limit benefits to black veterans. The flood of consumer demand contributed to more than two years of inflation, during which prices rose at annual rates of 14 to 15 percent. Compounding the economic difficulties was a sharp rise in labor unrest. By the end of 1945, major strikes had occurred in the automobile, electrical, and steel industries. In April 1946, John L. Lewis led the United Mine Workers out on strike, shutting down the coal fields for forty days. The nation's railroads suffered a total shutdown—the first in the nation's history—as two major unions walked out on strike. By threatening to use the army to run the trains, Truman pressured the strikers back to work after only a few days. Reconversion was particularly difficult for the millions of women and minorities who had entered the workforce during the war. With veterans returning home, employers tended to push women, African Americans, Hispanics, and others out of the plants to make room for white males. Some war workers, particularly women, left the workforce voluntarily, out of a desire to return to their former domestic lives. But as many as 80 percent of women workers, and virtually all black and Hispanic males, wanted to continue working. The postwar inflation, the pressure of a growing high-consumption society, the rising divorce rate (which left many women responsible for their own economic wellbeing)—all combined to create a high demand for paid employment among women.

The Cold War Emerges, 1945-1946

During this period the rhetoric gets sharper and more and more problems begin to emerge. Atomic Energy: Debate focuses on what kind of controls will be put into place regarding atomic energy. The US has spent a lot of money and does not want to share its secrets. The Soviets want to know the information in order to decrease tensions. They end up develop their own weapons and the arms race starts. Two Speeches: In February 1946, Stalin announces that capitalism and communism cannot coexist and that the two systems will be in perpetual conflict. In March 1946, during a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Churchill announces that "an iron curtain has descended across the continent." The statement becomes a metaphor for how Americans view the conflict. Crisis in Iran (1946): First crisis to be taken before the United Nations. Soviets refuse to withdraw from Iran after the war because they want access to oil controlled by the British. After UN negotiations, the Soviets reluctantly agree to withdraw.

Yalta Conference (1945)

FDR, Churchill and Stalin met at Yalta. Russia agreed to declare war on Japan after the surrender of Germany and in return FDR and Churchill promised the USSR concession in Manchuria and the territories that it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War

Harry Truman

February 1945 meeting between Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt in the Soviet city of Yalta to determine the shape of the postwar world. Last time the "Big Three" get along. US and Eastern Europe: The US concedes Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, which, militarily, is a forgone conclusion at this point. The two sides, however, do not agree on what the nature of Soviet influence will be. Future of Germany: Germany will be at the heart of Cold War issues; the two sides never agree. The US wants a strong pro-western, capitalist, united Germany, while the Soviets want to impose heavy reparations and ensure that a weak Germany will never be a threat again. A final agreement is not reached at Yalta; the Allies only decide that they will divide Germany into four "zones of occupation." The Soviet Role in Japan: The Soviets promise to enter the war with Japan three months after the defeat of Germany. The US wants this military aid and it makes it hard for them to push the Russians in negotiations. Roosevelt agrees that, in return for their military support, the Russians will be able to recover some of the territory they lost in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War. Poland: With the Russian army occupying Poland, a pro-communist government of "Lublin" Poles had been installed. Roosevelt and Churchill wanted the pro-Western "London" Poles to have a role in the government. Stalin would only agree to a vague promise to include democratic elements in the government. He also reluctantly agreed to hold "free and unfettered elections" at some future date, though these elections never took place. The US probably knew that these were empty promises but wanted some sort of public relations victory. Results: The Yalta accords did not resolve postwar issues; they merely articulated a set of general principles that sidestepped the most difficult issues.

Yalta Conference

From Invasion to Stalemate

For several weeks, MacArthur's invasion of North Korea proceeded smoothly. On October 19, the capital, Pyongyang, fell to the UN forces. Victory seemed near—until the Chinese government, alarmed by the movement of American forces toward its border, intervened. In early November, eight divisions of the Chinese army entered the war. The UN offensive stalled and then collapsed. Through December 1950, outnumbered American forces were forced into a rapid, bitter retreat in numbingly cold temperatures. Within weeks, communist forces had pushed the Americans back below the 38th parallel once again and had recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul. By mid-January 1951 the rout had ceased; and by March the UN armies had managed to regain much of the territory they had recently lost, taking back Seoul and pushing the communists north of the 38th parallel for the second time. From the start, Truman had been determined to avoid a direct conflict with China, which he feared might lead to a new world war. Once China entered the war, he began seeking a negotiated solution to the struggle. But General MacArthur had ideas of his own. The United States was really fighting the Chinese, MacArthur argued. It should, therefore, attack China itself, if not through an actual invasion, then at least by bombing communist forces massing north of the Chinese border with conventional or even atomic weapons. In March 1951, he indicated his unhappiness with Truman's reluctance to invade China. Sixty-nine percent of the American people supported MacArthur, a Gallup poll reported. When the general returned to the United States later in 1951, he was greeted with wild enthusiasm. Public criticism of Truman finally abated somewhat when a number of prominent military figures, including General Omar Bradley, publicly supported the president's decision. But substantial hostility toward Truman remained. In the meantime, the Korean stalemate continued. Negotiations between the opposing forces began at Panmunjom in July 1951, but the talks—and the war—dragged on until 1953.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

Founded in 1938: Became a permanent House committee in 1945 and began investigating all sorts of institutions for communist influences. Conducted highly publicized investigations intended to prove that Democrats had tolerated communist subversion in the government. It also investigated universities, churches and industry. Key members: J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey and Richard M. Nixon of California Attacks Hollywood: The committee garnered a lot of attention by investigating Hollywood which had a strong tradition of pro-union, progressive politics. Many important Hollywood figures in the 1930s and 40s were, or had previously been, connected to socialist and communist groups. Held hearings in 1947 where friendly witnesses, including actor Ronald Reagan named names. The "Hollywood Ten" a. Many worked on films celebrating America's working people; other made wartime films extolling Soviet-American cooperation and attacking facism. b. Refused to cooperate with HUAC by testifying about their own political beliefs and those of their colleagues. They based their defense on the First Amendment and maintained that HUAC violated the right to free speech while refusing to testify based on the Fifth Amendment. c. The political climate left their defense in tatters and ten well-known producers and writers went to jail for contempt of Congress. The "Blacklist": Adopted by Hollywood after 1951 to protect its public image. Over 300 individuals of "suspicious loyalty" were put on a list which banned them from working in the industry. Some writers were able to get around this ban by using "fronts" to sell their work. At the same time, the industry began making many aggressively anti-communist films.

Failure at Potsdam

Held in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam during July and August 1945. Truman, Stalin, and Churchill attend, but Churchill is replaced by the new British Prime Minister Clement Attlee. An Atomic Power: Truman finds out that the US has successfully tested an atomic bomb and takes an aggressive negotiating position against the Soviets. Results: Very little is accomplished. Truman complains of the lack of democracy in Poland and Stalin makes a few minor concessions. Truman reluctantly accepts the Soviet plan to move the Polish-German border westward. Germany will remain divided and Truman refuses to allow the Soviets to take reparations from the French, British, and American zones.

Mobilization at Home

In 1948, at the president's request, Congress approved a new military draft and revived the Selective Service System. In the meantime, the United States, having failed to reach agreement with the Soviet Union on international control of nuclear weapons, redoubled its own efforts in atomic research, elevating nuclear weaponry to a central place in its military arsenal. The Atomic Energy Commission, established in 1946, became the supervisory body charged with overseeing all nuclear research, civilian and military alike. And in 1950, the Truman administration approved the development of the new hydrogen bomb, a nuclear weapon far more powerful than those used in 1945. The National Security Act of 1947 reshaped the nation's military and diplomatic institutions. A new Department of Defense would oversee all branches of the armed services, combining functions previously performed separately by the War and Navy Departments. A National Security Council (NSC), operating out of the White House, would govern foreign and military policy. A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) would replace the wartime Office of Strategic Services and would be responsible for collecting information through both open and covert methods; as the Cold War continued, the CIA would also engage in secret political and military operations on behalf of American interests. The National Security Act, in other words, gave the president expanded powers with which to pursue the nation's international goals.

Reevaluating Cold War Policy

In September 1949, the Soviet Union successfully exploded its first atomic weapon. The Russian nuclear capacity came years earlier than predicted, shocking and frightening many Americans. So did the collapse of Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist government in China, which occurred with startling speed in the last months of 1949. Chiang fled with his political allies and the remnants of his army to the offshore island of Formosa (Taiwan), and the entire Chinese mainland came under the control of a communist government led by Mao Zedong that many Americans believed to be an extension of the Soviet Union. The fall of China to communism was one of the most traumatic events of the Cold War. It accelerated the fear of communism, and it persuaded many Americans that the defeat was a result of weakness, and even treason. As a result, American friends of China formed what came to be known as the China Lobby. Among its eminent leaders were members of Congress, high-level military figures, and powerful journalists. They believed that the United States had not done enough to prevent the communists from taking over mainland China. In this atmosphere of escalating crisis, Truman called for a thorough review of American foreign policy. The result, a National Security Council report, issued in 1950 and commonly known as NSC-68, outlined a shift in the American position. The first statements of the containment doctrine—the writings of George Kennan, the Truman Doctrine speech—had made distinctions between areas of vital interest to the United States and areas of less importance to the nation's foreign policy. The containment doctrine also called for sharing the military burden of protecting the Western nations. But NSC-68 argued that the United States could no longer rely on other nations to take the initiative in resisting communism. It must move on its own to stop communist expansion virtually anywhere it occurred.

McCarthyism

Joseph McCarthy was an undistinguished first-term Republican senator from Wisconsin until, in February 1950, in the midst of a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, he lifted up a sheet of paper and claimed to "hold in my hand" a list of 205 known communists currently working in the American State Department. No person of comparable stature had ever made so bold a charge against the federal government. In the months to come, as McCarthy repeated and expanded on his accusations, he emerged as the nation's most prominent leader of the crusade against domestic subversion. After 1952, with the Republicans in control of the Senate and McCarthy now the chair of a special subcommittee, he conducted highly publicized investigations of alleged subversion in many areas of the government. McCarthy never produced conclusive evidence that any federal employee was a communist. But a growing constituency adored him nevertheless for his coarse, "fearless" assaults on a government establishment that many considered arrogant, effete, even traitorous. Republicans, in particular, rallied to his claims that the Democrats had been responsible for "twenty years of treason" and that only a change of parties could rid the country of subversion. McCarthy, in short, provided his followers with an issue into which they could channel a wide range of resentments: fear of communism, animosity toward the country's "eastern establishment," and frustrated partisan ambitions. Eventually his assaults against such respected figures and institutions drove McCarthy from popular favor—but not before "McCarthyism" came to define an era of hysterical and often unfounded accusations.

Syngman Rhee

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

Subversive Organizations

List of "Subversive" Organizations: Developed by Attorney General Tom C. Clark. Using vaguely defined criteria, the list included any organization that was "hostile or inimical to the American form of government." Any group that opposed American policy or was hostile to the government could be investigated and prosecuted. The list effectively outlawed many political and social organizations. Many Civil Rights organizations were placed on the list, so were musical groups, and even left-wing summer camps. Consequences of Membership: Members of groups on the list could be dismissed from government and even private employment.

The Nuclear Age

Looming over the many struggles of the postwar years was the image of the great and terrible mushroom clouds that had risen over Alamogordo in July 1945 and over the ruined Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Americans greeted these terrible new instruments of destruction with fear and awe, but also with expectation. Postwar culture was torn between a dark image of the nuclear war that many Americans feared would result from the rivalry with the Soviet Union, and the bright image of a dazzling technological future that atomic power might help to produce. The fear of nuclear weapons appeared widely in popular culture, but it was often disguised. The late 1940s and early 1950s were the heyday of film noir, a kind of filmmaking that originated in France and had been named for the dark lighting characteristic of the genre. American film noir portrayed the loneliness of individuals in an impersonal world—a staple of American culture for many decades—but also suggested the menacing character of the age, the looming possibility of vast destruction. Schools and office buildings held regular air-raid drills to prepare people for the possibility of nuclear attack. Radio stations regularly tested the Emergency Broadcast System, which stood in readiness for war. Fallout shelters stocked with water and canned goods sprang up in public buildings and private homes. Though few Americans went about their daily lives in a state of panic, anxiety simmered below the surface. And yet, the United States was also an exuberant nation in these years, dazzled by its own prosperity and excited by the technological innovations transforming the nation, including nuclear power. The same scientific knowledge that could destroy the world, many believed, might also lead it into a glimmering future. That kind of optimism soon became widespread. The "secret of the atom," many Americans predicted, would bring "prosperity and a more complete life." A public opinion poll late in 1948 revealed that approximately two-thirds of those questioned believed that, "in the long run," atomic energy would "do more good than harm." Nuclear power plants began to spring up in many areas of the country and were welcomed as the source of cheap and unlimited electricity, their potential dangers scarcely even discussed by those who celebrated their creation.

The Rise of Joe McCarthy

McCarthy is the junior senator from Wisconsin who adopts anti-communism to further his political fortunes. "I have in my hand...": February 1950 speech in Wheeling, West Virginia where McCarthy held up a list which he claimed held the names of 205 known communists working in the State Department. In the following weeks, McCarthy repeated and extended his accusations and became the leading figure in the fight against domestic subversion. Targets of McCarthy's Attacks: In addition to communists, McCarthy targeted the eastern elite ("egg-sucking phony liberals"), civil rights organizations, Jews, immigrants, and homosexuals. McCarthy derided Secretary of State Dean Acheson as "a pompous diplomat in striped pants, with a phony English accent." Key Sources of Support: Republican Party: attacks have a highly partisan tone, especially in their early stages. Veterans groups (American Legion) Catholic Church Conservative union leaders and small business owners Local, rural elites and historically isolationist areas

The Fall of Joe McCarthy

McCarthy never produced any solid evidence that any federal employees had communist ties. Army-McCarthy Hearings: McCarthy attacks the US Army, accusing army officials of covering up subversives within the ranks, and triggers congressional hearings. The hearings are televised between April 22 and June 17, 1954; this marks the first entrance of television on the political stage. McCarthy looks bad during the hearings; he shows no respect for army officials, appears drunk, and generally behaves foolishly. McCarthy charged the army with harassing his committee staff. The hearings exposed his smear tactics and bullying for all to see. At the end of a long, acrimonious exchange Army lawyer, Joseph Welch asks: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" McCarthy Censured: In December 1954 McCarthy is censured by the Senate for actions unbecoming a Senator.

Yalta

More than a year later, in February 1945, Roosevelt joined Churchill and Stalin again, for a peace conference in the Soviet city of Yalta. In return for Stalin's renewed promise to enter the Pacific war, Roosevelt agreed that the Soviet Union should receive some of the Pacific territory that Russia had lost in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. The negotiators also agreed to a plan for a new international organization, one that had been hammered out during the previous summer at a conference in Washington, D.C. The new United Nations would contain a General Assembly, in which every member would be represented, and a Security Council, with permanent representatives of the five major powers (the United States, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China), each of which would have veto power. Basic disagreement remained about the postwar Polish government. Stalin, whose armies now occupied Poland, had already installed a government composed of the pro-communist "Lublin" Poles. Roosevelt and Churchill insisted that the pro-Western "London" Poles must be allowed a place in the Warsaw regime. Roosevelt envisioned a government based on free, democratic elections—which both he and Stalin recognized the pro-Western forces would win. Stalin agreed only to a vague compromise by which an unspecified number of pro-Western Poles would be granted a place in the government. He said he would hold "free and unfettered elections" in Poland on an unspecified future date. They did not happen until 1989. Nor was there agreement about Germany. Roosevelt seemed to want a reconstructed and reunited Germany. Stalin wanted to impose heavy reparations on Germany and to ensure a permanent dismemberment of the nation. The United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union would each control its own "zone of occupation" in Germany—the zones to be determined by the position of troops at the end of the war. Berlin, the German capital, was already well inside the Soviet zone, but because of its symbolic importance, it would itself be divided into four occupied sectors. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin returned home from the conference, each apparently convinced that he had signed an important agreement. But the Soviet interpretation of the accords differed so sharply from the Anglo-American interpretation that the illusion endured only briefly. In the weeks following the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt watched with growing alarm as the Soviet Union moved systematically to establish pro-communist governments in one Central or Eastern European nation after another and as Stalin refused to make the changes in Poland that the president believed Stalin had promised. Still believing the differences could be settled, Roosevelt left Washington early in the spring for a vacation at his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia. There, on April 12, 1945, he suffered a sudden massive stroke and died.

HUAC and Alger Hiss

Much of the anticommunist furor emerged out of the search by Republicans for an issue with which to attack the Democrats, and out of the efforts of the Democrats to take that issue away from them. Beginning in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) held widely publicized investigations to prove that, under Democratic rule, the government had tolerated (if not actually encouraged) communist subversion. The committee turned first to the movie industry. Writers and producers, some of them former communists, were called to testify; and when some of them (the "Hollywood Ten") refused to answer questions about their political beliefs and those of their colleagues, they were sent to jail for contempt. Others were barred from employment in the industry when Hollywood, attempting to protect its public image, adopted a "blacklist" of those of "suspicious loyalty." More alarming to the public was HUAC's investigation into charges of disloyalty leveled against Alger Hiss, a former high-ranking member of the State Department. In 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former communist agent, now a conservative editor at Time magazine, told the committee that Hiss had passed classified State Department documents to him in 1937 and 1938. When Hiss sued him for slander, Chambers produced microfilms of the documents (called the "pumpkin papers," because Chambers had kept them hidden in a pumpkin in his vegetable garden). Hiss could not be tried for espionage because of the statute of limitations. But largely because of the relentless efforts of Richard M. Nixon, a first-term congressman from California and a member of HUAC, Hiss was convicted of perjury and served several years in prison.

1949

NATO established Soviet Union explodes A-bomb Mao victorious in China

1950

NSC-68 Korean War begins McCarthy's anticommunism campaign begins

The Conservative Opposition to Containment

Not everyone believed that containment was the right way to deal with communism. Some Americans on the left believed that containment was an unnecessarily belligerent approach to the Soviet Union. Wider opposition to containment came from conservative Americans, who believed that containment was too weak a response to communism—that, indeed, it was a kind of appeasement. Among the conservatives who disdained containment were members of an anticommunist organization known as the John Birch Society. Its leader was Robert Welch, a man so fearful of communism that he believed that some of the most important leaders of American government were trying to undermine the United States and collaborating with the Soviets. Among the sources of treason, Welch claimed, was the creation of the United Nations and other international institutions. Many Americans considered the John Birch Society an extremist organization, but the belief that communism was the greatest danger facing the United States was widely supported. The opposition to containment reached some of the highest levels of the government. John Foster Dulles, who would soon become secretary of state in the Eisenhower administration, wrote the foreign policy plank in the Republican platform in 1952. Containment, they argued, was a policy of weakness that had allowed the communists to take over much of the world. Instead, those who opposed containment called for what was known as "rollback." Instead of containing communism, the United States should be pushing back the borders of communism, despite the possibility of another war. President Dwight Eisenhower, however, did not share Dulles's belief in rollback, and the government abided by the containment strategy throughout the 1950s and beyond—despite the fevered opposition to what some still considered to be treason.

Consider the Source: National Security Council Paper No. 68 (NSC-68)

On April 7, 1950, foreign policy experts in the Truman administration completed a top-secret report calling for an expansion of the American commitment to containing the Soviet Union. They based that call, as outlined in the selection below, on their dim view of Soviet character and on their understanding of international power relations in the previous four decades.

The Federal Loyalty Program and the Rosenberg Case

Partly to protect itself against Republican attacks and partly to encourage support for the president's foreign policy initiatives, the Truman administration in 1947 initiated a widely publicized program to review the "loyalty" of federal employees. The Federal Employee Loyalty Program helped launch a major assault on subversion throughout the government—and beyond. The attorney general established a widely cited list of supposedly subversive organizations. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, investigated and harassed alleged radicals. In 1950, Congress passed the McCarran Internal Security Act, which, among other restrictions on "subversive" activity, required that all communist organizations register with the government and publish their records. Congress easily overrode Truman's veto of the bill. The successful Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949 suggested to some that there had been a conspiracy to pass American atomic secrets to the Russians. In 1950, Klaus Fuchs, a young British scientist, seemed to confirm those fears when he testified that he had delivered to the Russians details of the bomb's manufacture. The case ultimately moved to an obscure New York couple, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, members of the Communist Party. The government claimed the Rosenbergs had received secret information from Ethel's brother, a machinist on the Manhattan Project in New Mexico, and had passed it on to the Soviet Union through other agents (including Fuchs). The Rosenbergs were convicted and, on April 5, 1951, sentenced to death. All these factors—the HUAC investigations, the Hiss trial, the loyalty investigations, the McCarran Act, the Rosenberg case—combined with other concerns by the early 1950s to create a fear of communist subversion that seemed to grip the entire country. State and local governments, the judiciary, schools and universities, labor unions—all sought to purge themselves of real or imagined subversives. It was a climate that made possible the rise of an extraordinary public figure.

GI Bill

Provided for college or vocational training for returning WWII veterens as well as one year of unemployment compensation. Also provided for loans for returning veterens to buy homes and start businesses.

The Republican Revival

Public frustration over the stalemate in Korea and popular fears of internal subversion combined to make 1952 a bad year for the Democratic Party. Truman, now deeply unpopular, withdrew from the presidential contest. Rejecting the efforts of conservatives to nominate Robert Taft or Douglas MacArthur, the Republicans turned to a man who had no previous identification with the party: General Dwight D. Eisenhower—military hero, commander of NATO, president of Columbia University—who won nomination on the first ballot. He chose as his running mate the young California senator who had gained national prominence through his crusade against Alger Hiss: Richard M. Nixon. In the fall campaign, Eisenhower attracted support through his geniality and his statesmanlike pledges to settle the Korean conflict. Nixon (after surviving early accusations of financial improprieties, which he effectively neutralized in a famous television address, the Checkers speech) exploited the issue of domestic anticommunism by attacking the Democrats for "cowardice" and "appeasement." The response at the polls was overwhelming. Eisenhower won both a popular and an electoral landslide. Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 1946.

Loyalty and Security Act, 1947 (Executive Order 9835)

Republican Criticism of Truman: GOP claims that communists have infiltrated the government and that Truman is soft on communism. Truman responds by vigilantly working to contain communism abroad and vigorously prosecuting it at home. Loyalty Boards: This act establishes Loyalty Boards to investigate the loyalty of federal employees, who could be dismissed on "reasonable grounds" including past or present membership in a "subversive" organization. Gave the FBI broad powers to scrutinize Americans; over 27,000 full-scale investigations were conducted. Over 2,000 federal employees lost their jobs and 5,900 quit rather than being subjected to investigation. Loyalty Boards in Practice: Creates a lot of guilt by association; informants do not have to reveal their identity. By December 1952, 6.6 million loyalty checks had been performed by Loyalty Boards across the country.

John Birch Society

Right-wing group named for an American missionary to China who had been executed by Communist troops. They opposed the liberal tendencies of the Great Society programs, and attempted to impeach Earl Warren for his liberal, "Communist" actions in the Supreme Court.

Wartime Tensions

Second Front: In 1942, FDR promises to open a second front in Europe. Militarily, this was impossible at the time and was a political blunder which created a great deal of distrust in the Soviet Union. Stalin was suspicious that the Allies primary concern was protecting British imperial interests. Atomic Bomb: Stalin knows the US is developing an atomic weapon and questions why the US is keeping it a secret. Spheres of Influence vs. Wilsonian Internationalism: The Soviets see Eastern Europe as their natural sphere of influence; they feel they have legitimate security interests and want to establish total control of the region. The US recognizes the legitimacy of the Soviet sphere but maintains that the Soviet Union should stay out of the domestic affairs of East European nations. The US wants to foster national self-determination, create free trade throughout the world, and establish an international organization to resolve disputes between nations. World Bank and International Monetary Fund—July 1944: The US views these organizations as the means to establishing strong capitalist economies throughout the world. The Soviets see them as a capitalist tool designed to create world domination.

Joe McCarthy at High Tide

Senate Investigations: Senate committee launches investigations of suspect organizations. A Senate report accuses McCarthy of "a fraud and a hoax" but is adopted on straight party lines. Senate is strongly divided along partisan lines over this measure. McCarthy and Korea: McCarthy's popularity grows during the Korean War; he attacks the limited objectives of the war and accuses Truman of losing China. McCarthy conducts highly public hearings of 17 different government agencies—Voice of America, International Information Agency. McCarthy and Public Opinion—1954 Survey: Most Americans were very happy with McCarthy's views; 91% think communist high school teachers should be fired, 77% think communists should lose American citizenship, 73% felt suspected communists should be reported to the FBI, and 51% thought communists should be jailed.

Wartime Diplomacy

Serious strains began to develop in the alliance with the Soviet Union in January 1943, when Roosevelt and Churchill met in Casablanca, Morocco, to discuss Allied strategy. The two leaders could not accept Stalin's most important demand—the immediate opening of a second front in Western Europe. In November 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill traveled to Tehran, Iran, for their first meeting with Stalin. By now, however, Roosevelt's most effective bargaining tool— Stalin's need for American assistance against Germany—had been largely removed. The Tehran Conference seemed in most respects a success. Stalin agreed to an American request that the Soviet Union enter the war in the Pacific soon after the end of hostilities in Europe. Roosevelt, in turn, promised that an Anglo-American second front would be established within six months. Roosevelt and Churchill were willing to agree to a movement of the Soviet border westward, allowing Stalin to annex some historically Polish territory. But they differed sharply on the nature of the postwar government in the portion of Poland that would remain independent. Roosevelt and Churchill supported the claims of the Polish government-in-exile that had been functioning in London since 1940; Stalin wished to install another, pro-communist exiled government that had spent the war in Lublin, in the Soviet Union.

Warsaw Pact (1955)

Soviet Allies that agreed to protect each other in the event of an attack

The Legacy of "McCarthyism"

Stifled Dissent and Promoted Ideological Conformity: Anti-communism became a way to defeat any liberal agenda. Fostered a Retreat from Civil Liberties: Civil libertarians did not make a strong stand against McCarthy. Repressive Legislation: McCarthy's Fall: McCarthy fell into disrepute, not because people rose to defend civil liberties, but because McCarthy came to be seen as a joke. Cold War Culture: The attack on dissent helped to strengthen the pervasiveness of Cold War culture.

Debating the Past: McCarthyism

The American Civil Liberties Union warned in the early 1950s, at the peak of what is now known as McCarthyism, that "the threat to civil liberties today is the most serious in the history of our country." It was expressing a view with which many Americans wholeheartedly agreed. But while there were unusually powerful challenges to freedom of speech and association in the late 1940s and early 1950s, there is wide disagreement about the causes and meaning of those challenges. The simplest argument—and one that continues to attract scholarly support—is that the postwar Red Scare expressed real and legitimate concerns about communist subversion in the United States. Most interpretations, however, have been less charitable. In the 1950s, in the midst of the Red Scare itself, an influential group of historians and social scientists began to portray the anticommunist fervor of their time as an expression of deep social maladjustment. There was, they argued, no logical connection between the modest power of actual communists in the United States and the hysterical form these scholars believed anticommunism was assuming. The explanation, therefore, had to lie in something other than reality, in a deeper set of social and cultural anxieties that had only an indirect connection with the political world as it existed. Extreme anticommunism, they claimed, was something close to a pathology; it expressed fear of and alienation from the modern world. Other scholars, writing not long after the decline of McCarthyism, rejected the sociocultural arguments of Hofstadter and others but shared the belief that the crusade against subversion was a distortion of normal public life. They saw the anticommunist crusade as an example of party politics run amok. Several scholars, finally, have presented an argument that does not so much challenge other interpretations as complement them. Anticommunist zealots were not alone to blame for the excesses of McCarthyism, they argue. It was also the fault of liberals— in politics, in academia, and, perhaps above all, in the media—who were so intimidated by the political climate, or so imprisoned within the conventions of their professions, that they found themselves unable to respond effectively to the distortions and excesses that they recognized around them.

A Budding Cold War

The Legacy of the Red Scare (1919-1920): Anti-socialist sentiments endured for the remainder of the century. The postwar situation: The intractable problems in Germany, the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe, atomic weapons, containment, and the events of 1949 all heighten fears of the USSR and communism. Partisan politics: The Republicans attack Truman as "soft on communism," and the President's "hard line" advisors begin to attack moderates. a. In June 1946, Attorney General Tom Clark argues that the U.S. is the target of a sinister communist plot to take over unions and cause strikes. b. Republicans make big gains in the 1946 off-year elections; for the first time since the Great Depression they take control of both Houses of Congress

What is the theory of containment, and how did it drive U.S. foreign policy and foreign interventions in the postwar era?

The US and its allies would work to "contain" the threat of further soviet expansion Truman presented the Truman doctrine Truman requested 400 million dollars - part of it to bolster the armed forces of Greece and Turkey, another part to provide economic assistance to Greece The american commitment ultimately helped ease soviet pressure on Turkey and helped the Greek government defeat the communist insurgents

Korean War

The conflict between Communist North Korea and Non-Communist South Korea. The United Nations (led by the United States) helped South Korea.

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.

Limited Mobilization

The war in Korea produced only a limited American military commitment abroad. It also created only a limited economic mobilization at home. Truman set up the Office of Defense Mobilization to fight inflation by holding down prices and discouraging high union wage demands. When these cautious regulatory efforts failed, the president took more drastic action. Railroad workers walked off the job in 1951, and Truman, who considered the workers' demands inflationary, ordered the government to seize control of the railroads. In 1952, during a nationwide steel strike, Truman seized the steel mills, citing his powers as commander in chief. The Korean War significantly boosted economic growth by pumping new government funds into the economy at a point when many believed it was about to decline. But the war had other, less welcome effects. It came at a time of rising insecurity about America's position in the world and intensified anxiety about communism. As the long stalemate continued, producing 140,000 American dead and wounded, frustration turned to anger. The United States, which had recently won the greatest war in history, seemed unable to conclude what many Americans considered a minor border skirmish in a small country.

The Election of 1948

Throughout 1948, Truman proposed one reform measure after another (including, on February 2, the first major civil rights bill of the century). To no one's surprise, Congress ignored or defeated them all, but the president was building campaign issues for the fall. There remained, however, the problems of Truman's personal unpopularity—the assumption among much of the electorate that he lacked stature and that his administration was weak and inept—and the deep divisions within the Democratic Party. At the Democratic National Convention that summer, two factions abandoned the party altogether (the States right party & the Progressive party). Many Democratic liberals who were unhappy with Truman were unwilling to leave the party. The Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a coalition of anticommunist liberals, tried to entice Dwight D. Eisenhower, the popular war hero, to contest the nomination. Only after Eisenhower refused did liberals concede the nomination to Truman. Only Truman seemed to believe he could win. As the campaign gathered momentum, he became more and more aggressive, turning the fire away from himself and toward Dewey and the "do-nothing, good-for-nothing" Republican Congress, which was, he told voters, responsible for fueling inflation and abandoning workers and common people. On election night, to the surprise of almost everyone, Truman won a narrow but decisive and dramatic victory: 49.5 percent of the popular vote to Dewey's 45.1 percent (with the two splinter parties dividing the small remainder evenly between them), and an electoral margin of 303 to 189. Democrats regained both houses of Congress by substantial margins.

1947

Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan proposed National Security Act Taft-Hartley Act

1951

Truman fires MacArthur

The Failure of Potsdam

Truman had been in office only a few days before he decided to "get tough" with the Soviet Union. On April 23, he met with Soviet foreign minister Molotov and sharply chastised him for violations of the Yalta accords. Russian forces already occupied Poland and much of the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. Germany was already divided among the Allies. The United States was still engaged in a war in the Pacific and was neither able nor willing to enter into a second conflict in Europe. Truman insisted that the United States should be able to get "85 percent" of what it wanted, but he was ultimately forced to settle for much less. He conceded first on Poland. To settle other questions, Truman met in July at Potsdam, in Russian-occupied Germany, with Stalin and Churchill (who, after elections in Britain in the midst of the talks, was replaced as prime minister by Clement Attlee). Truman reluctantly accepted the adjustments of the Polish-German border that Stalin had long demanded; he refused, however, to permit the Russians to claim any reparations from the American, French, and British zones of Germany. This stance effectively confirmed that Germany would remain divided. The western zones ultimately united into one nation, friendly to the United States, and the Russian zone survived as another nation, with a pro-Soviet, communist government.

The Context of the Postwar World

Wartime Devastation: Estimated 50 million deaths, 20 million in the Soviet Union. Death throughout Europe and Asia. Power Vacuums: Germany and Japan are devastated. Great Britain is badly damaged, France's power is greatly reduced, and the Middle East has become a hot spot. Only the US and USSR emerge still powerful. Political Turmoil within Nations: Italy and France experience sharp political divisions between the left and right. Turkey, Greece, Lebanon, and Syria face internal political turmoil. Disintegration of Colonial Empires: European empires throughout the world are collapsing; many newly emerging independent states. Ideological Differences: capitalism vs. communism; free market vs. planned economy; the US and Soviets simply do not believe in the same things. An Assertive United States: Wants to extend its influence around the globe, its GNP is three times that of its competitors.

The Divided Peninsula

When World War II ended, both the United States and the Soviet Union had troops in Korea fighting the Japanese; neither army was willing to leave. Instead, they divided the nation, supposedly temporarily, along the 38th parallel. The Russians finally departed in 1949, leaving behind a communist government in the north with a strong, Soviet-equipped army. The Americans left a few months later, handing control to the pro-Western government of Syngman Rhee. Anticommunist but only nominally democratic, he used his relatively small military primarily to suppress internal opposition. The relative weakness of South Korea offered a strong temptation to nationalists in the North Korean government who wanted to reunite the country, particularly after the American government implied that it did not consider Korea within its own "defense perimeter." Almost immediately, on June 27, 1950, the president ordered limited American military assistance to South Korea, and on the same day he appealed to the United Nations to intervene. The Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council at the time (to protest the council's refusal to recognize the new communist government of China) and was thus unable to exercise its veto power. As a result, American delegates were able to win UN agreement to a resolution calling for international assistance to the Rhee government. After a surprise American invasion at Inchon in September had routed the North Korean forces from the south and sent them back across the 38th parallel, Truman gave MacArthur permission to pursue the communists into their own territory. Hoping now to create "a unified, independent and democratic Korea," the president had moved beyond simple containment to an attempted rollback of communist power.

1945

Yalta and Potsdam Conferences United Nations founded

Massive Resistance

a. "All Deliberate Speed": The Court said that schools would integrate with "all deliberate speed," but left the planning for doing so up to local school boards. Supporters of civil rights interpreted this to mean immediately. Opponents, however, said that it implied that the decision does not have to be implemented immediately and that attitudes in the South need time to change. This gives opponents of the measure in the South the opening they need to resist desegregation. b. "Massive Resistance": Opposition to integration emerges throughout the South. This period witnesses the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan and the establishment of hundreds of White Citizens' Councils. · White Citizens' Councils were organizations of respectable, middle-class whites opposed to all forms of desegregation. They worked with state legislatures to strengthen segregation laws and put economic pressure on whites who accepted integration. · The South bases its opposition to desegregation on the theory of states' rights, arguing that the federal government has no right to interfere in a state's educational system. The federal government contends that segregated school systems violate the 14th Amendment and are illegal.

The "Southern Manifesto"

a. "Southern Manifesto," 1956: A document signed by 19 of 22 Southern Senators and 82 of 106 Representatives condemning the Brown decision and urging their constituents to resist it by any lawful means. The signors of the manifesto pledged to preserve segregation and the Southern way of life. The Manifesto contends that segregation is a state issue and that Brown represents an abuse of judicial power. Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas and Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee refused to sign the document. b. Southern Politicians Resist Brown: In the South, some counties simply shutdown their school systems others use state funds to finance private, all-white schools. School districts that do desegregate have their state funding cut and teachers willing to teach African-American students often lose their state licensing. The Confederate battle flag reappears in Southern life.

The Cold War and Civil Rights

a. Anti-communism and Black Rights: The Cold War is defined as a battle between freedom and slavery. It takes place during a period of decolonization while the US and the Soviet Union struggle to lead the newly emerging nations. US leaders realize that the existence of segregation in the South hurts their position in this fight. b. Truman and Civil Rights—To Secure These Rights, 1947: Truman establishes the Presidential Committee on Civil Rights and this is the committee's report. It recommends a federal anti-lynching law, an end to segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement, and the creation of a Fair Employment Practices Commission. c. Division of the Democratic Party: Truman's committee caused tremendous tension within the Democratic Party. Truman was pressured by the strength of Southern white Democrats and the growing influence of black Democratic voters in the North. In July 1948, Truman issued Executive Order #9981 ending segregation in the military. In the 1948 election, when the Democratic Party adopted a strong pro-civil rights plank, discontented Southerners formed the States' Rights, or Dixiecrat, Party which won four states in the Deep South (LA, MS, AL, and SC). This marks the start of the shift of Southern conservatives from the Democratic to the Republican Party.

The Response to Brown

a. Defenders: The response to the decision was enormous. African Americans hail it as a second emancipation. Northern liberals called it a milestone in the effort to improve race relations. Whites in the Border States (Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, Oklahoma, and Missouri) agreed to abide by the decision and began integrating their school systems. b. Opponents: The decision generates massive protests in the Deep South, unleashing racial violence and creating a polarization in politics. Between 1955 and 1958, lynch law reappears in the South. The lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till occurred in Mississippi in 1955. c. President Eisenhower's Response: Ultimately, the responsibility for enforcing the decision fell to the executive branch. Eisenhower opposed federal efforts to challenge the system of segregation and he refused to endorse the decision. He hoped the issue would simply go away. He once commented that the Brown decision set race relations back "at least fifteen years."

World War II and Civil Rights

a. Ideology: The ideological nature of the war demonstrates the difference in American beliefs and American reality. Overall, it has a loosening effect on American race relations. During the war African-American activists launch the "Double-V" campaign, an effort to defeat fascism abroad and racial inequality at home. b. A. Phillip Randolph and the "March on Washington Movement"—Summer, 1941: Randolph, the President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union and the National Negro Congress, began to demand that the government integrate the military and require defense contractors to integrate their workforces. To support his position, at the suggestion of a black female organizer in Chicago, he organized a march on Washington that he promised would bring 100,000 people to the capital to protest segregation. To avoid potential violence and national embarrassment, FDR issued Executive Order #8802 barring discriminatory hiring by war contractors on June 25, 1941. c. The Black War Effort: During the war over 500,000 African Americans served in the military and more than 2 million worked in defense industries.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)

a. In 1951, the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education fund, led by special counsel Thurgood Marshall, began a direct attack on the "separate but equal" doctrine. b. As a test case, Marshall combined five separate lawsuits challenging segregation in the public schools. Initial arguments took place before the Supreme Court in December 1952. c. Oliver Brown is World War II veteran who wants to send his eight-year-old daughter Linda to the new elementary school seven blocks from his home. Topeka's segregation laws, however, require that Linda Brown attend the African-American school over a mile away. d. In 1951, Barbara Johns led a student strike against segregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia. With the NAACP's support the students filed Davis v. Prince Edward County. e. In his arguments, Marshall drew on sociological and historical evidence to demonstrate the negative effects of segregation. Sociologist—Kenneth Clark f. In 1953, President Eisenhower appointed former California attorney general and three-term governor Earl Warren Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Warren agreed with Marshall's arguments and worked behind the scenes for a year to create support on the court for a unanimous decision. g. As California attorney general in early-1942, Warren served as one of the architects of Japanese internment. He later regretted his participation in this effort. h. In May 1954, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision overturning Plessy. The court ruled that separate facilities are inherently unequal because they create a sense of inferiority among those who are shutout. i. Language: "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." j. Significance: The decision eventually led to the dismantling of the entire Jim Crow system that had dominated Southern life, and was powerful in other areas as well, for decades. It also helped to advance the rights of women and other minorities by articulating equality before the law as a basic constitutional principle.

New Attitudes

a. Liberal Reform in the New Deal: During the New Deal era, African Americans profited from government programs and gained a voice in the Democratic Party. FDR created a "black cabinet" of leading blacks to advise him on race issues. b. The CIO and Blacks: The CIO was the first union to embrace and actively organize black workers. A half-million join the union during the Second World War and African Americans begin to move into powerful positions in organized labor. In unions like the United Auto Workers and the United Steel Workers, whites and blacks learned the value of racial cooperation and negotiating with employers. c. Ideological Challenges to Racism: The fight against Nazism puts American racial attitudes into stark relief and leads many Americans to question the justness of segregation. a. Franz Boas's (German and American anthropologist who died in 1942) influential work challenges scientific theories of racism and embraces cultural diversity. Boas argued that racial inequality was not biological, but social in its origins. i. Thomas Gossett: "It is possible that Boas did more to combat race prejudice than any other person in history." d. Smith v. Allwright (1944) a. State law in the South often prevented blacks from participating in Democratic primary elections. b. Terrell Law (1923-Texas): "In no event shall a Negro be eligible to participate in a Democratic primary election ... in ... Texas." c. The Supreme Court rules that the all-white primary violates the 15th Amendment and outlaws them. e. Shelley v. Kraemer (1948): The Supreme Court strikes down racial restrictive neighborhood covenants as a violation of the 14th Amendment.

The Little Rock Nine

a. Limited Progress: By the beginning of the 1957 school year, only 684 of 3,000 Southern school districts had taken any action to desegregate. The Brown decision, intended to end segregation, actually started a protracted battle between the federal government and state and local authorities, and between those who supported and those who opposed segregation. b. Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas: In September 1957, angry whites tried to prevent the implementation of a federal court order to desegregate the school. The ensuing battle became a test case of state versus federal power. c. Governor Orville Faubus, facing a tough re-election campaign, said that the school would never be integrated and used the National Guard to bar blacks from attending. d. In response to this blatant state defiance of federal authority, Eisenhower is forced to act. He nationalizes the National Guard and sends 1,100 army troops from the 101st Airborne and 270 National Guardsman to Little Rock to protect black students and enforce the court order. This is the first use of federal troops in the South since Reconstruction. e. On September 24, protected by U.S. Army troops with fixed bayonets, the Little Rock Nine finally integrated Central High School. f. The incident focuses the nation's attention on Southern efforts to defy the Brown decision. g. Eisenhower's actions proved that the power of the federal government would be critical to enforcing integration. h. Eisenhower argued that he forced to act to defend national prestige because Faubus was handing communists a huge propaganda victory. i. To prevent what he called "violence and disorder" Faubus ordered Little Rock high schools closed for the 1958-59 academic year. j. The high schools reopened the following year and eight of the Little Rock Nine eventually graduated from Central High. k. By 1961, however, only 6.4% of black students in the South attended desegregated schools.

The NAACP challenges segregation

a. NAACP and Plessy: The NAACP had been challenging the Plessy doctrine since the 1930s. The organization grew from 50,000 to 500,000 members during World War II. Its talented group of lawyers included Thurgood Marshall, William Hastie, and James Nabrit, who all trained at Howard University under the mentorship of Charles Houston. b. Antecedents—the Margold Strategy: Nathan Margold, a white attorney commissioned by the NAACP, developed a strategy of putting the Plessy decision to the test. Margold called for test cases to demonstrate that specially created education programs were not equal to the white institutions they were created to replace. Margold argued that separate educational facilities violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. c. Pearson v. Murray (1936): The strategy is first used to challenge segregation at the University of Maryland law school. Pearson was the president of the University. In 1935, Donald Murray, an African American from Baltimore who wanted to attend the only law school in his home state, sought admission to the University of Maryland Law School but was rejected because of his race. · The state offered to pay Murray's tuition to attend an out-of-state law school, but he wanted to practice law in Baltimore and would benefit from attending the University of Maryland. · Maryland's highest court, the Court of Appeals, ruled that since Maryland only provided one law school for students in the state, it had to be open to students of all races. d. Sweatt v. Painter (1950): Theophilus Painter was the President of UT and Sweatt was a Houston postman who applied for admission to the Texas law school, but was rejected because of his race. · UT tried to avoid Sweatt's resulting lawsuit by hurriedly creating a separate law school for blacks. · The separate school consisted of three rooms, a small law library, and a handful of instructors who would initially lecture to Sweatt alone. · The Supreme Court ruled that this deprived Sweatt of important aspects of a legal education and ordered UT Law to admit him. · The same day the court also rules in the case of McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. Together, the two cases outlaw segregation in graduate and professional education.

A Changing South

a. The Legacy of Reconstruction: On the surface, little had changed in the South since the beginning of the 20th century. There is widespread poverty, segregation, and disenfranchisement in the region. Segregation dominated Southern life and even though Plessy v. Ferguson called for "separate but equal" institutions, in reality, separate almost always meant inferior. In the 1940s, only 10% of African Americans voted in elections. The Civil Rights Movement is a Southern phenomenon. b. Changes in Southern Society and Culture: The old plantation culture of the region is breaking down. The South is becoming both more industrial and urban as national corporations, attracted by lower wages, moved in to open stores, factories, and offices. In 1940, 40% of Southerners lived on farms, by 1960, only 15% did. The leaders of this "New" South seek a more educated workforce, the establishment of a meritocracy, and a labor force not bound by segregation. c. Movement of Blacks out of the South: Almost 1 million African Americans left the region during the years of World War II. Forty-three Northern and Western cities saw their black population double in the 1940s. These emigrants urge people in the North and West to oppose racial segregation. Black voters gained influence in cities like New York, Chicago, and Detroit.

Taft-Hartley Act (1947)

anti-union law passed by increasingly conservative Congress over Truman's veto. Prohibited the closed shop (union only), permitted states to ban union-shop agreements (to become anti-union "right to work" states), forbade union contributions to candidates in federal elections, forced union leaders to swear in affidavits that they were not communists, and mandated an 80 day cooling off period before carrying out strikes. This enraged labor, who called it a "slave labor" law. Helped contribute to massive decline in unions.

Truman Doctrine (1947)

stated that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to resist internal left-wing (and therefore it was assumed "communist") movements and prevent them from falling into the Soviet sphere. Early example of application of "containment" doctrine - that the US would take action to stop spread of communism. Some see this as beginning of Cold War.

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 Jiang Jieshi and the Nationalists. Established China as the People's Republic of China and ruled from 1949 until 1976.

Origins of the Cold War - Historians' Interpretations

1. One of the most hotly contested topics of the twentieth century. 2. Orthodox Interpretation: The Soviet Union bears primary responsibility for the conflict. The Soviets wanted to extend their power in Eastern Europe and had designs on Western Europe. The US reacted to stop Soviet aggression. a. Example: Thomas A. Bailey 3. Revisionist Interpretation: The US was largely responsible for the conflict. As the world's only really powerful nation, it brought economic and military power to bear in an effort to dominate Europe. The Soviets reacted to protect their sphere of interest. This view gains credence with the failure in Vietnam but is articulated as early as 1959 by Williams. a. Examples: William Appleman Williams, Walter LaFeber 4. Mutual Responsibility and Inevitability (Post-revisionist): Both sides should share responsibility for the conflict. Each misinterpreted the other's intentions. a. Examples: John Lewis Gaddis, Melvyn Leffler

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

1949 alliance of nations that agreed to band together in the event of war and to support and protect each nation involved

Prelude to McCarthyism: 1949-50

1949: The loss of China to communism and the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb create a great deal of fear in the US. Alger Hiss Case: Hiss was a well-connected State Department and New Deal official who went to Yalta with FDR. He was accused of having passed classified State department documents to the Soviet Union in 1937 and 1938. Hiss could not be tried for espionage because of the statute of limitations but he was convicted of perjury and spent several years in prison. The case raised suspicions about the loyalty of liberal Democrats and convinced many that communists had infiltrated the US government. Atomic Spies: Klaus Fuchs, who worked on the Manhattan Project, was arrested in Britain and confessed that while at Los Alamos, he passed atomic secrets to the Soviets. Fuchs' confession led to the arrest of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The Rosenberg Case: Many Americans believed that US atomic secrets had been passed to the Soviets. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, members of the Communist Party, are convicted of doing so based on the testimony of Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, a machinist on the Manhattan Project. The couple is sentenced to death on April 5, 1951 and executed in the electric chair on June 19, 1953. They always maintained their innocence. The case adds to the fear of communist subversion that, by the early 1950s, seemed to engulf much of the country. McCarren Internal Security Act: Required all communist organizations to register with the government and publish their records. Denied communists passports, prevented them from working in defense industries, and empowered the President to place "dangerous radicals" in detention camps in case of a national emergency. Truman vetoed the bill but Congress overrode his veto.

U.S. History II: the Cold War (Chapter 27)

Related study sets

Animal quiz

Quiz for adn 235 ati

Ch. 2 The Nature and Extent of Crime

29 School Health

ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity: Pre and Post Course Assessment

UNIT 4 EXAM

How do we study geography and it's impacts?

Chapter 29

English pirates and scurvy

Quiz

Earth Science Quiz 1

MR Chapter 4

SQL - Manipulating Data

(FULL) Marx - Wage Labour and Capital

Brakes

Chapter 11

Missed Series 7 Questions

MIDTERM for ac 507

Conversion

Chapter 3 Exercise