A.P.
U.S. History Notes
Chapter 37: “The Cold War Begins”
~
1945 – 1952 ~
I.
Postwar
Economic Anxieties
1.
The
Americans cheered the end of World War II in 1945, but many worried that with
the war over, the U.S. would sink back into another Great Depression.
i.
Upon
war’s end, inflation shot up with the release of price controls while gross
national product sank, and labor strikes swept the nation.
2.
To
get even with labor, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which
outlawed “closed” shop, made unions liable for damages that resulted from
jurisdictional disputes among themselves, and required that union leaders take
non-Communist oaths.
3.
Labor
tried to organize in the South and West with “Operation Dixie,” but this
proved frustrating and unsuccessful.
4.
To
forestall an economic downturn, the Democratic administration sold war
factories and other government installations to private businesses cheaply,
passed the Employment Act of 1946, which made it government policy to
“promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power,” and created the
Council of Economic Advisors to provide the president with data to make
that policy a reality.
i.
It
also passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as
the GI Bill of Rights, which allowed all servicemen to have free college
education once they returned from the war.
II.
The
Long Economic Boom, 1950-1970
1.
Then,
in the late 1940s and into the 1960s, the economy began to boom tremendously,
and folks who had felt the sting of the Great Depression now wanted to
bathe in the prosperity.
i.
The
middle class more than doubled while people now wanted two cars in every
garage; over 90% of American families owned a television.
2.
Women
also reaped the benefits of the postwar economy, growing in the American work
force while giving up their former roles as housewives.
3.
However,
much of the prosperity of the 50s and 60s rested on colossal military projects.
i.
Massive
appropriations for the Korean War, defense spending, industries like
aerospace, plastics, and electronics, and research and development all were
such projects.
4.
Even
though this new affluence did not touch everyone, it did touch many.
5.
Cheap
energy paralleled the popularity of automobiles, and spidery grids of
electrical cables carried the power of oil, gas, coal, and falling water into
homes and factories alike.
6.
Workers
upped their output tremendously, as did farmers, due to new technology in
fertilizers, etc… in fact, the farming population shrank while production
soared.
III.
The
Smiling Sunbelt
1.
With
so many people on the move, families were being strained, which explained the
success of Dr. Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and
Child Care (1945).
2.
Immigration
also led to the growth of a fifteen-state region in the southern half of the
U.S. known as the Sunbelt, which dramatically increased in population.
i.
In
fact, in the 1950s, California overtook New York as the most populous state.
3.
Immigrants
came to the Sunbelt for more opportunities, such as in California’s electronics
industry of the aerospace complexes of Texas and Florida.
i.
Federal
dollars poured into the Sunbelt (some $125 million), and power grew there as
well, as ever since 1964, every U.S. president has come from that region.
ii.
Sunbelters
were redrawing the political map, taking the economic and political power out
of the North and Northeast.
IV.
The
Rush to the Suburbs
1.
Whites
in cities fled to the suburbs, encouraged by federal agencies such as
the Federal Housing Authority and the Veteran’s Administration,
whose loan guarantees made it cheaper to live in the suburbs than in cramped
city apartments
i.
By
1960, one out of ever four Americans lived in the suburbs.
2.
Innovators
like the Levitt brothers, with their monotonous but cheap housing plans,
built thousands of houses in single projects, and the “White flight” left the
cities full of the poor and the African-Americans.
i.
Federal
agencies aggravated this by often refusing to make loans to Blacks due to the
“risk factor” involved with this.
V.
The
Postwar Baby Boom
1.
After
the war, many soldiers returned to their sweethearts and married them, then had
babies, creating a “Baby Boom” that is still being felt today.
2.
As
the children grew up collectively, they put strains on respective markets, such
as manufacturers of baby products in the 1940s and 50s, teenage clothing
designers in the 60s, and the job market in the 70s and 80s.
3.
In
the future, they will place enormous strains on the Social Security
system.
VI.
Truman:
the “Gutty” Man from Missouri
1.
Presiding
after World War II was Harry S. Truman, who had come to power after
Franklin Roosevelt had died from a massive brain hemorrhage.
i.
The
first president in a long time without a college education, Truman at firs
approached his burdens with humility, but he gradually evolved into a
confident, cocky politician.
ii.
His
cabinet was made up of the old “Missouri gang,” which composed of
Truman’s friends from when he was a senator from Missouri.
iii.
Often,
Truman would stick to a wrong decision just to prove his decisiveness and power
of command.
2.
However,
even if he was small on the small things, he was big on the big things, taking
responsibility very seriously and working very hard.
VII.
Yalta:
Bargain or Betrayal?
1.
A
final conference of the Big Three had taken place at Yalta in
February 1945, where Soviet leader Joseph Stalin pledged that Poland
should have a representative government with free elections, as would Bulgaria
and Romania, but he broke those promises.
2.
At
Yalta, the Soviet Union had agreed to attack Japan three months after the fall
of Germany, but by the time the Soviets entered the Pacific war, the U.S. was
about to win anyway, and now, it seemed that the USSR had entered to the sake
of taking some spoils.
i.
The
Soviet Union was also granted control of the Manchurian railroads and received
special privileges to Dairen and Port Arthur.
3.
Critics
of FDR charged that he sold China’s Chiang Kai-shek down the river,
while supporters claimed that the Soviets could have taken more of China had
they wished, and that the Yalta agreements had actually limited the Soviet
Union.
VIII.
The
United States and the Soviet Union
1.
With
the USA and the USSR as the only world superpowers after WWII, trouble seemed
imminent, for the U.S. had waited until 1933, to recognize the USSR; the U.S.
and Britain had delayed to open up a second front during World War II; the U.S.
and Britain had frozen the Soviets out of developing nuclear arms; and the U.S.
had withdrawn its vital lend-lease program from the USSR in 1945 and spurned
Moscow’s plea for a $6 billion reconstructive loan while approving a similar
$3.75 one to Berlin.
2.
Stalin
wanted a protect sphere around western Russian, for twice earlier in the
century, Russia had been attacked from that way, and that mean taking nations
like Poland under its control.
3.
Even
though both the USA and the USSR were recent newcomers to the world stage, very
advanced, and had been isolationist before the 20th century, now,
they found themselves in a political stare down that would turn into the Cold
War and last for four and a half decades.
IX.
Shaping
the Postwar World
1.
However,
the U.S. did manage to establish structures that were part of FDR’s open world.
i.
Meeting
at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944, the Western Allies
established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to encourage world
trade by regulating the currency exchange rates.
2.
The
United Nations opened on April 25, 1945.
i.
The
member nations drew up a charter similar to that of the old League of
Nations, formed a Security Council to be headed by five permanent
powers (China, USSR, Britain, France, and USA) that had veto powers, and was
set up in NYC.
ii.
The
Senate overwhelmingly approved the UN by a vote of 89 to 2.
3.
The
UN kept peace in Kashmir and other trouble spots, created the new Jewish
state of Israel, formed such groups as UNESCO (U.N. Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization), FAO (Food and Agricultural
Organization), and WHO (World Health Organization), bringing benefits to
people all over the globe.
4.
However,
when U.S. delegate Bernard Baruch called in 1946 for a UN agency free
from great power veto that could investigate all nuclear facilities and
weapons, the USSR rejected the proposal, since it didn’t want to give up its
veto power and was opposed to “capitalist spies” snooping around in the Soviet
Union.
X.
The
Problem of Germany
1.
The
Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46 severely punished 22 top culprits of the Holocaust.
2.
America
knew that an economically healthy Germany was indispensable to the recovery of
all of Europe, but Russia, fearing another blitzkrieg, wanted huge reparations
from Germany.
3.
Germany,
like Austria, was divided into four occupational zones controlled by the Allied
Powers minus China, but as the U.S. began proposing the idea of a united
Germany, and as the Western nations prevented Stalin from getting his
reparations from their parts of Germany, it became obvious that Germany would
remain indefinitely divided.
i.
In
1948, when the USSR choked off all air and railway access to Berlin, located
deep in East Germany, they thought that such an act would starve the Allies
out, since Berlin itself as divided into four zones as well.
4.
However,
the Allies organized a massive airlift to feed the people of Berlin, and in May
1949, the Soviets stopped their blockade of Berlin.
XI.
Crystallizing
the Cold War
1.
When,
in 1946, Stalin used his troops to aid a rebel movement in Iran, Truman
protested, and the Soviet backed down.
2.
Truman
soon adopted the “containment policy,” crafted by Soviet specialist George
F. Kennan, which stated that firm containment of Soviet expansion would
halt Communist power.
3.
On
March 12, 1947, Truman requested what would come to be called the Truman
Doctrine: $400 million to help Greece and Turkey from falling into
Communist power.
i.
So
basically, the doctrine said that the U.S. would aid any power fighting
Communist aggression, an idea later criticized because the U.S. would often
give money to dictators “fighting communism.”
4.
In
Western Europe, France, Italy, and Germany were still in terrible shape, so
Truman, with the help of Secretary of State George C. Marshall,
implemented the Marshall Plan, a miraculous recovery effort that had
Western Europe up and prosperous in no time.
i.
This
helped in the forming of the European Community (EC).
ii.
The
plan sent $12.5 billion over four years to 16 cooperating nations to aid in
recovery, and at first, Congress didn’t want to comply, especially when this
sum was added to the $2 billion the
U.S. was already giving to European relief as part of the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).
iii.
However,
a Soviet-sponsored coup that toppled the government of Czechoslovakia finally
awakened the Congressmen to their senses, and they passed the plan.
5.
Truman
also recognized Israel on its birthday, May 14, 1948, despite heavy Arab
opposition and despite the fact that those same Arabs controlled oil supplies
in the Middle East.
XII.
America
Begins to Rearm
1.
The
1947 National Security Act created the Department of Defense,
which was housed in the Pentagon and headed by a new cabinet position,
the secretary of defense, under which served civilian secretaries of the
army, navy, and air force.
2.
The
National Security Act also formed the National Security Council (NSC) to
advice the president on security matters and the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) to coordinate the government’s foreign fact-gathering (spying?).
3.
The
“Voice of America,” a radio broadcast, began beaming in 1948, while
Congress resurrected the military draft, (Selective Service System),
which redefined many young people’s career choices and persuaded them to go to
college.
4.
In
1948, the U.S. joined Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg
to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which considered an
attack on one member an attack on all, despite the U.S.’s traditionally not
involving itself in entangling alliances.
i.
In
response, the USSR formed the Warsaw Pact, its own alliance system.
ii.
NATO’s
membership grew to fourteen with the 1952 admissions of Greece and Turkey, and
then to 15 when West Germany joined in 1955.
XIII.
Reconstruction
and Revolution in Asia
1.
General
Douglas MacArthur, head of reconstruction in Japan, tried the top
Japanese war criminals, dictated a constitution that was adopted in 1946, and
democratized Japan.
2.
However,
in China, the communist forces, led by Mao Zedong, defeated the
nationalist forces, led by Chiang Kai-shek, who then fled to the island
of Formosa (Taiwan) in 1949.
i.
With
this defeat, one-quarter of the world population (500,000 people) plunged under
the Communist flag.
ii.
Critics
of Truman assailed that he did not support the nationalists enough, but Chiang
Kai-shek never had the support of the people to begin with.
3.
Then,
in September of 1949, Truman announced that the Soviets had exploded their
first atomic bomb—three years before experts thought was possible, thus
eliminating the U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons.
i.
The
U.S. exploded the hydrogen bomb in 1952, and the Soviets followed suit a year
later; thus began the dangerous arms race of the Cold War.
XIV.
Ferreting
Out Alleged Communists
1.
An
anti-red chase was in full cry in the U.S. with the forming of the Loyalty
Review Board, which investigated more than 3 million federal employees.
i.
The
attorney general also drew up a list of 90 organizations that were potentially
not loyal to the U.S., and none was given the opportunity to defend itself.
2.
In
1949, 11 communists were brought to a New York jury for violating the Smith
Act of 1940, which had been the first peacetime anti-sedition law since
1798.
i.
They
were convicted, sent to prison, and their conviction was upheld by the 1951
case Dennis vs. United States.
3.
The
House of Representatives had, in 1938 established the Committee on
Un-American Activities (“HUAC”) to investigate “subversion,” and in 1948,
committee member Richard M. Nixon prosecuted Alger Hiss.
4.
In
February 1950, Joseph R. McCarthy burst upon the scene, charging that
there were scores of unknown communists in the State Department.
i.
He
couldn’t prove it, and many American began to fear that this red chase was
going too far; after all, how could there be freedom of speech if saying communist
ideas got one arrested?
ii.
Truman
vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Bill, which let the president
arrest and detain suspicious people during an “internal security emergency.”
5.
The
Soviet success of developing nuclear bombs so easily was probably due to spies,
and in 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were brought to trial,
convicted, and executed.
i.
Their
sensational trial, electrocution, and sympathy for their two children began to
sober America zeal in red hunting.
XV.
Democratic
Divisions in 1948
1.
Republicans
won control of the House in 1946 and then nominated Thomas E. Dewey to
the 1948 ticket, while Democrats were forced to choose Truman again when
war-hero Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to be chosen.
i.
Truman’s
nomination split the Democratic Party, as Southern Democrats (“Dixiecrats”)
nominated Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina on a State’s
Rights Party ticket.
ii.
Former
vice president Henry A. Wallace also threw his hat into the ring,
getting nominated by the new Progressive Party.
2.
With
the Democrats totally disorganized, Dewey seemed destined for a super-easy
victory, and on Election Night, the Chicago Tribune even ran an early
edition proclaiming “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN,” but Truman shockingly won, getting
303 Electoral votes to Dewey’s 189, and to make things better, the Democrats
won control of Congress again.
3.
Truman
received critical support from farmers, workers, and blacks.
4.
Truman
then called for a new program called “Point Four,” which called for financial
support of poor, underdeveloped lands and keep underprivileged peoples from
becoming communists.
5.
At
home, Truman outlined a sweeping “Fair Deal” program, which called for
improved housing, full employment, a higher minimum wage, better farm price
supports, new Tennessee Valley Administrations, and an extension of
Social Security.
i.
However,
the only successes came in raising the minimum wage, providing for public
housing in the Housing Act of 1949, and extending old-age insurance to
more beneficiaries with the Social Security Act of 1950.
XVI.
The
Korean Volcano Erupts (1950)
1.
When
Russian and American forces withdrew from Korea, they had left the place full
of weapons and with rival regimes (communist North and democratic South).
2.
Then,
on June 25, 1950, North Korean forces suddenly invaded South Korean, taking the
South Koreans by surprise and pushing them dangerously south toward Pusan.
i.
Truman
sprang to action, remembering that the League of Nations had failed from
inactivity, and ordered U.S. military spending to be quadrupled, as wanted from
National Security Council Memorandum Number 68, or NSC-68.
a.
This
document was key because it reflected the almost limitless possibility that
pervaded American society.
3.
Truman
also used a Soviet absence from the UN to label North Korea as an aggressor and
send UN troops to fight against the aggressors.
i.
He
also ordered General MacArthur’s Japan-based troops to Korea.
XVII.
Military
Seesaw in Korea
1.
General
MacArthur landed a brilliant invasion behind enemy forces on September 15,
1950, and drove the North Koreans back across the 38th parallel,
towards China and the Yalu River.
i.
An
overconfident MacArthur boasted that he’d “have the boys home by Christmas,”
but in November 1950, Chinese volunteers flooded across the border and pushed
the South Koreans back to the 38th parallel.
2.
MacArthur,
humiliated, wanted to blockade China and bomb Manchuria, but Truman didn’t want
to enlarge the war beyond necessity, but when the angry general began to
publicly criticize President Truman, Harry had not choice but to remove him
from command on grounds of insubordination.
i.
MacArthur
returned to cheers while Truman was scorned as a “pig,” an “imbecile,” an
appeaser to Communist Russian and China, and a “Judas.”
ii.
In
July 1951, truce discussions began but immediately snagged over the issue of
prisoner exchange.
a.
Talks
dragged on for two more years as men continued to die.
