HISTORY PAPER
Samik Amin
ColdWarNotes1945-1960.docx6
The Cold War 1945-1955
Global Insecurities at the end of World War II
WW II created an international interdependence that no country could ignore. As a 1945 opinion poll indicated, most Americans believed that prospects for peace rested mainly on Soviet-American harmony.
At Potsdam, Germany, between July 17 and August 2, 1945, representatives of the "Big Three" nations—the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Stalin, Churchill, and Truman) gathered to discuss the terms of peace and postwar arrangements. This included issuing the "Potsdam Declaration," demanding Japan's unconditional surrender.
Financing the Future
Fears of a second depression led the United States to take a much more active international stance than following the First World War. In addition to aggressively promoting foreign trade, the U.S supported the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to promote economic growth and capitalism. The tension between the United States and the Soviet Union became apparent when the Communists refused to accept aid from the World Bank and I.M.F., fearful of becoming another Western economic colony.
The Division of Europe in the postwar helped shape the postwar world
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's realism allowed him to recognize that some kind of "spheres of influence" was inevitable for the winning powers. At the Potsdam Conference, Truman and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who replaced Winston Churchill on July 26, 1945, found little ground for agreement with Russia's Joseph Stalin. Disagreements over the future of Germany led to competing zones of occupation and the end of allied cooperation with the Soviet Union.
Nazi occupation left Greece in economic ruin with widespread hunger and malnutrition. The American Marshall Plan would provide Greek children with food. However, initially postwar foreign aid first went to fortify the military struggle against Communism. By 1949, after the civil war ended, government officials directed foreign aid to civilian needs.
The United Nations and Hopes for Collective Security
In October of l945, the Allies created the United Nations to replace the failed League of Nations. A world organization, the U.N. promoted international cooperation, hoping to prevent a repeat of World War II. The National Security Council, one of the United Nations' five major bodies, was charged with maintaining international peace and security. Each of the original five permanent members of the council, the United States, U.S.S.R., Great Britain, France, and China, were given veto power over major security proposals and the admission of new members. Countries and critics of the Security Council condemned the veto power of permanent members as undemocratic.
The Policy of Containment
During a speech in March 1946, delivered in Fulton, Missouri, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared that an iron curtain [Soviet Union] had descended across the [European] continent. He called upon the United States, standing at the pinnacle of world power to recognize its "awe-inspiring accountability to the future" and, in alliance with Great Britain, act aggressively to turn back Soviet expansion. Thus the policy of containment was born.
The Truman Doctrine
While F.D.R. favored diplomacy and compromise, President Harry Truman, as early as l944, indicated he tired of "babying" Stalin and wanted to pursue a "get tough" policy with the Soviet Union. Stalin's comments capitalism and Communism were incompatible and suggested war was inevitable, pushed Truman further.
The crisis in Greece and Turkey during 1946 proved to be a turning point for Truman. During the Greek civil war, President Truman worried that the communist threatened to topple the monarchy, and in Turkey, control the Dardanelles Straits. Convinced Communism was a worldwide threat, went to the Republican-controlled Congress requesting 400 million dollars to defeat the communist-backed rebels. Truman declared the events were part of a struggle between "free people and totalitarianism." Using the Marshall Plan, Truman issues a declaration of the Cold War against Communism.
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan provided aid to rebuild Europe to stop Soviet expansion while securing markets for American goods. Truman's request for 13 billion dollars for Europe was the most significant aid ever given to non-American people. Truman's move proved very popular in America. It not only supported free people but was profitable farming, labor, and manufacturing in America.
Not surprisingly, Stalin refused to participate in the Marshall Plan. The plan had the long-term impact of revitalizing the European capitalist economy while driving a further wedge between the West and the Soviet Union.
The Berlin Crisis (June 27, 1948, to May 12, 1949) and the Formation of NATO
Stalin saw the economic merger of the western zones of Germany as a direct threat and cut off American access to West Berlin. In a long and magnificent move, the U.S. airlifted supplies to the city.
The United States also created an alliance of anti-Soviet nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. The original members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States in April, l949. The Soviets responded with the Warsaw Pact in l955(comprised of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union). U.S. support for French control of Indochina during this time eventually led to the Vietnam War.
Atomic Diplomacy
The American foreign policy of containing Communism rested on the ability to stop its expansion by military means. After the Soviets developed nuclear weapons, both sides amassed lethal stockpiles. Unfortunately, the United States and the Soviet Union could not come up with a plan to control them. Within a few years, both sides had a stockpile of hydrogen bombs. Atomic diplomacy diverted Truman from his domestic agenda.
The Cold War at Home
In 1947, HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) interviewed forty-one writers, directors, and actors, demanding they provide names of other workers in the Hollywood motion picture industry who were Communists. Claiming their rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution, a group known as the Hollywood Ten refused to answer any questions and found guilty of contempt of Congress.
Attorney General J. Howard McGrath warned America in 1949 that, "Communists. . . are everywhere—in factories, offices, butcher shops, on street corners, in private businesses . . . plotting to destroy the liberties of every citizen". F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover warned against "the diabolic machinations of sinister figures engaged in un-American activities."
The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) was actually in decline and the threats from subversive activities of American-bred Communists small. Still, fearful Americans supported an anti-subversive crusade, trading security for liberty.
Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947. It did the following:
Streamlined and unified the nation's military establishment, bringing the Navy and War departments under a new Department of Defense. It also established the National Security Council (N.S.C.) to serve as a coordinating agency to provide the president with detailed reports on diplomatic and intelligence information.
Finally, the act set up the Central Intelligence Agency, the first peacetime spy agency in American history. It coordinated intelligence gathering for the various military branches and the Department of State. During the Cold War, the C.I.A. grew in size, scope, and budget. It became a separate agency, not only gathering intelligence but carried out covert operations in foreign nations. Its budget dwarfed those of small countries. By 1952, government payrolls grew to 4 million people, and defense expenditures accounted for 10% of America's Gross Domestic Product.
The Loyalty-Security Program
Communist hysteria created divisions among Americans and the Republican and Democratic parties. The Republicans charged that "Commies" were in the Democratic Truman administration, and had been there during Franklin Roosevelt's administration.
Reacting to Republican demands, Truman rid the government of the "Commies, Truman issued an Executive Order establishing a loyalty program in March of l947. Government workers and federal employees had to pledge they were not Communists, subject to investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The attorney general published a list of potentially subversive organizations.
Many groups disbanded, and membership in them destroyed individuals' careers. Congress passed a wide range of restrictions on alleged subversives. New legislation stigmatized communists, barring them and "homosexuals" from immigrating to America.
The Second Red Scare
The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) continued investigations into communist influence in Hollywood. Actor and future American President Ronald Reagan testified against fellow actors. Friendly witnesses denounced the communists, with many providing names of former friends so that they would be able to work again. A few witnesses (many blacklisted later) attacked HUAC, with a handful going to prison for contempt of Congress.
The Spy Cases
Public anxieties over communists heightened when former State Department advisor Alger Hiss was accused of being a communist spy. Hiss went to jail for perjury, damaging Truman and the Democrats' reputation. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Americans who had spied for the Soviets sending information on the atomic bomb, were executed despite worldwide protests.
McCarthyism
Such communist paranoia reached its peak in the late forties and early fifties when Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph P. McCarthy charged that 205 communists worked for the State Department, setting off a new Red Scare. The absence of evidence did not stop him from striking a chord with many Americans. Indeed, many Americans believed it was better to "be dead than Red." McCarthy's attacks spread to many quarters of American society, including women's organizations, civil rights organizations, and individuals thought to be "homosexual."
McCarthy's crusade crumbled in l954 after appearing deranged on national television, making wild charges of communist infiltration in the Army. Finally, the Senate censured him, and he faded into the "dustbin" of history.
American Culture during the Cold War
The Cold War did not necessarily depend on military confrontation or defined by a quest for economic supremacy. Americans saw it as a contest of values. Americans needed to contain Communism and rededicate themselves to the birthright values of freedom and democracy. American prosperity failed to dispel anxieties over fears of nuclear war and potential economic depression. Western films often reflected cold war anxieties, alienation, and anti-communism. Moving to the suburbs, high levels of "conspicuous" consumption, declining numbers of women college graduates, and even the rush toward marriage and parenthood reflected the fears of a world on the brink of nuclear destruction.
The Military-Industrial Communities in the West
The Cold War impacted the West more than in other regions and countries. New military-industrial communities arose, especially in California, and older communities benefited from federal spending. New highway systems accommodated the burgeoning population, new highway systems creating housing sprawl, traffic congestion, air pollution, and strains on local water supplies.
"The American Way"
The revitalization of patriotism during World War II continued long after peace. The American Way became a popular theme of public celebrations, and patriotic messages spread through public education.
Stalemate for the Democrats
With Cold War tensions festering in Europe, neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could have predicted events in Asia would bring them to the brink of a war that threatened world destruction. The "loss" of China and Truman's decision to send troops to fight to a stalemate in the Korean War (1950) also destroyed Democratic political dominance and ended the era of reform.
Democratizing Japan and "Losing" China
The United States achieved its greatest Asian success in Japan, where a host of reforms brought an unprecedented degree of democracy and where they received valuable military bases. In China, Mao Zedong's communist revolution overthrew the corrupt, pro-American regime of Jiang Jeishi. The Democrat Truman administration was saddled with the blame for having "lost" China.
The Korean War June 25, 1950 – July 27, 1953
North Koreans attempted a forced reunification of the peninsula. President Truman called it an act of Soviet aggression and felt compelled to act. With the Soviets boycotting the United Nations, the Security Council authorized sending in troops (mostly American). American forces, commanded by Douglas MacArthur, first pushed North Koreans back to their side of the dividing line, the 39th Parallel, and then went farther north. Chinese troops pushed the U.N. forces back until a costly stalemate settled in.
Under the Cold War's Shadow and the Election of l952
Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican presidential candidate, ran a moderate campaign short on specifics. His running mate, Richard Nixon, waged a relentless attack on Stevenson. Eisenhower won the Presidency, pledging to settle the Korean war. Not only did he win the White House, but the Republicans also gained control of both houses of Congress.
Eisenhower took office in 1953 as the confrontation with Communism dominated America's foreign relations. Eisenhower developed new Cold War strategies, from just a reliance on nuclear weapons to using the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) to forestall an all-out nuclear conflict.
He ended the Korean War and avoided military involvement in Indochina. As Eisenhower left office following the defeat to Democrat John. F. Kennedy in l960, he felt compelled to warn the nation of the growing dangers posed by the American "military-industrial complex," ironically mainly of his own making. Soon, President John F. Kennedy discovered how difficult it was to escape dealing with the Cold War mentality shaping American foreign policy.
A quick assessment of foreign policy during the Eisenhower Administration included inspiring confidence and the adoption of a middle-of-the-road style. Eisenhower also ran the government in a businesslike, cooperative manner, pursuing policies that helped private companies and allowed practices that harmed the environment. Nevertheless, he rejected calls from Republican conservatives to dismantle aspects of the welfare state. Generally speaking, the welfare state supported a form of government that protected and promoted the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It was also based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for citizens unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a decent life.
Eisenhower ended the Korean War but kept up the anti-Communist rhetoric, treating the Cold War as a permanent fixture of life. Since the war ended with an armistice, technically, America is still at with North Korea. Although President Truman's Presidency included two brief recessions, he presided over a substantial increase in real wages.
