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Source: US History. Authored by: P. Scott Corbett, Volker Janssen, John M. Lund, Todd Pfannestiel, Paul Vickery, and Sylvie Waskiewicz. Provided by: OpenStax College. Located at: http://openstaxcollege.org/textbooks/us-history. License: CC BY: Attribution. License Terms: Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11740/latest/

The Early Cold War Pt. 2

CONTAINMENT ABROAD

In February 1946, George Kennan, a State Department official stationed at the U.S.

embassy in Moscow, sent an eight-thousand-word message to Washington, DC. In what

became known as the “Long Telegram,” Kennan maintained that Soviet leaders believed

that the only way to protect the Soviet Union was to destroy “rival” nations and their

influence over weaker nations. According to Kennan, the Soviet Union was not so much

a revolutionary regime as a totalitarian bureaucracy that was unable to accept the

prospect of a peaceful coexistence of the United States and itself. He advised that the best

way to thwart Soviet plans for the world was to contain Soviet influence—primarily

through economic policy—to those places where it already existed and prevent its

political expansion into new areas. This strategy, which came to be known as the policy

of containment, formed the basis for U.S. foreign policy and military decision making for

more than thirty years.

As Communist governments came to power elsewhere in the world, American

policymakers extended their strategy of containment to what became known as

the domino theory under the Eisenhower administration: Neighbors to Communist

nations, so was the assumption, were likely to succumb to the same allegedly dangerous

and infectious ideology. Like dominos toppling one another, entire regions would

eventually be controlled by the Soviets. The demand for anti-Communist containment

appeared as early as March 1946 in a speech by Winston Churchill, in which he referred

to an Iron Curtain that divided Europe into the “free” West and the Communist East

controlled by the Soviet Union.

The commitment to containing Soviet expansion made necessary the ability to mount a

strong military offense and defense. In pursuit of this goal, the U.S. military was

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reorganized under the National Security Act of 1947. This act streamlined the

government in matters of security by creating the National Security Council and

establishing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct surveillance and espionage

in foreign nations. It also created the Department of the Air Force, which was combined

with the Departments of the Army and Navy in 1949 to form one Department of Defense.

The Truman Doctrine

In Europe, the end of World War II witnessed the rise of a number of internal struggles

for control of countries that had been occupied by Nazi Germany. Great Britain occupied

Greece as the Nazi regime there collapsed. The British aided the authoritarian

government of Greece in its battles against Greek Communists. In March 1947, Great

Britain announced that it could no longer afford the cost of supporting government

military activities and withdrew from participation in the Greek civil war. Stepping into

this power vacuum, the United States announced the Truman Doctrine, which offered

support to Greece and Turkey in the form of financial assistance, weaponry, and troops to

help train their militaries and bolster their governments against Communism. Eventually,

the program was expanded to include any state trying to withstand a Communist

takeover. The Truman Doctrine thus became a hallmark of U.S. Cold War policy.

The Marshall Plan

By 1946, the American economy was growing significantly. At the same time, the

economic situation in Europe was disastrous. The war had turned much of Western

Europe into a battlefield, and the rebuilding of factories, public transportation systems,

and power stations progressed exceedingly slowly. Starvation loomed as a real possibility

for many. As a result of these conditions, Communism was making significant inroads in

both Italy and France. These concerns led Truman, along with Secretary of State George

C. Marshall, to propose to Congress the European Recovery Program, popularly known

as the Marshall Plan. Between its implantation in April 1948 and its termination in 1951,

this program gave $13 billion in economic aid to European nations.

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Truman’s motivation was economic and political, as well as humanitarian. The plan

stipulated that the European nations had to work together in order to receive aid, thus

enforcing unity through enticement, while seeking to undercut the political popularity of

French and Italian Communists and dissuading moderates from forming coalition

governments with them. Likewise, much of the money had to be spent on American

goods, boosting the postwar economy of the United States as well as the American

cultural presence in Europe. Stalin regarded the program as a form of bribery. The Soviet

Union refused to accept aid from the Marshall Plan, even though it could have done so,

and forbade the Communist states of Eastern Europe to accept U.S. funds as well. Those

states that did accept aid began to experience an economic recovery.

Showdown in Europe

The lack of consensus with the Soviets on the future of Germany led the United States,

Great Britain, and France to support joining their respective occupation zones into a

single, independent state. In December 1946, they took steps to do so, but the Soviet

Union did not wish the western zones of the country to unify under a democratic, pro-

capitalist government. The Soviet Union also feared the possibility of a unified West

Berlin, located entirely within the Soviet sector. Three days after the western allies

authorized the introduction of a new currency in Western Germany—the Deutsche

Mark—Stalin ordered all land and water routes to the western zones of the city Berlin to

be cut off in June 1948. Hoping to starve the western parts of the city into submission, the

Berlin blockade was also a test of the emerging U.S. policy of containment.

Unwilling to abandon Berlin, the United States, Great Britain, and France began to

deliver all needed supplies to West Berlin by air. In April 1949, the three countries joined

Canada and eight Western European nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty

Organization (NATO), an alliance pledging its members to mutual defense in the event of

attack. On May 12, 1949, a year and approximately two million tons of supplies later, the

Soviets admitted defeat and ended the blockade of Berlin. On May 23, the Federal

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Republic of Germany (FRG), consisting of the unified western zones and commonly

referred to as West Germany, was formed. The Soviets responded by creating the

German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, in October 1949.

American C-47 transport planes (a) are loaded with staged supplies at a French airport before taking off for

Berlin. Residents of Berlin wait for a U.S. plane (b) carrying needed supplies to land at Templehof Airport in the

American sector of the city.

CONTAINMENT AT HOME

In 1949, two incidents severely disrupted American confidence in the ability of the

United States to contain the spread of Communism and limit Soviet power in the world.

First, on August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb—no longer

did the United States have a monopoly on nuclear power. A few months later, on October

1, 1949, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong announced the triumph of the

Chinese Communists over their Nationalist foes in a civil war that had been raging since

1927. The Nationalist forces, under their leader Chiang Kai-shek, departed for Taiwan in

December 1949.

Immediately, there were suspicions that spies had passed bomb-making secrets to the

Soviets and that Communist sympathizers in the U.S. State Department had hidden

information that might have enabled the United States to ward off the Communist victory

in China. Indeed, in February 1950, Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican,

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charged in a speech that the State Department was filled with Communists. Also in 1950,

the imprisonment in Great Britain of Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist who had

worked on the Manhattan Project and was then convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the

Soviets, increased American fears. Information given by Fuchs to the British implicated a

number of American citizens as well. The most infamous trial of suspected American

spies was that of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in June 1953 despite a

lack of evidence against them. Several decades later, evidence was found that Julius, but

not Ethel, had in fact given information to the Soviet Union.

Fears that Communists within the United States were jeopardizing the country’s security

had existed even before the victory of Mao Zedong and the arrest and conviction of the

atomic spies. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Truman’s Fair Deal were often criticized as

“socialist,” which many mistakenly associated with Communism, and Democrats were

often branded Communists by Republicans. In response, on March 21, 1947, Truman

signed Executive Order 9835(D.N.: This is also known as the Truman Loyalty

Program), which provided the Federal Bureau of Investigation with broad powers to

investigate federal employees and identify potential security risks. State and municipal

governments instituted their own loyalty boards to find and dismiss potentially disloyal

workers.

In addition to loyalty review boards, the House Committee on Un-American Activities

(HUAC), established in 1938 to investigate suspected Nazi sympathizers, after World

War II also sought to root out suspected Communists in business, academia, and the

media. HUAC was particularly interested in Hollywood because it feared that Communist

sympathizers might use motion pictures as pro-Soviet propaganda. Witnesses were

subpoenaed and required to testify before the committee; refusal could result in

imprisonment. Those who invoked Fifth Amendment protections, or were otherwise

suspected of Communist sympathies, often lost their jobs or found themselves on

a blacklist, which prevented them from securing employment. Notable artists who were

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blacklisted in the 1940s and 1950s include composer Leonard Bernstein, novelist

Dashiell Hammett, playwright and screenwriter Lillian Hellman, actor and singer Paul

Robeson, and musician Artie Shaw.

TO THE TRENCHES AGAIN

Just as the U.S. government feared the possibility of Communist infiltration of the United

States, so too was it alert for signs that Communist forces were on the move elsewhere.

The Soviet Union had been granted control of the northern half of the Korean peninsula

at the end of World War II, and the United States had control of the southern portion. The

Soviets displayed little interest in extending its power into South Korea, and Stalin did

not wish to risk confrontation with the United States over Korea. North Korea’s leaders,

however, wished to reunify the peninsula under Communist rule. In April 1950, Stalin

finally gave permission to North Korea’s leader Kim Il Sung to invade South Korea and

provided the North Koreans with weapons and military advisors.

On June 25, 1950, troops of the North Korean People’s Democratic Army crossed the

thirty-eighth parallel, the border between North and South Korea. The first major test of

the U.S. policy of containment in Asia had begun, for the domino theory held that a

victory by North Korea might lead to further Communist expansion in Asia, in the virtual

backyard of the United States’ chief new ally in East Asia—Japan. The United Nations

(UN), which had been established in 1945, was quick to react. On June 27, the UN

Security Council denounced North Korea’s actions and called upon UN members to help

South Korea defeat the invading forces. As a permanent member of the Security Council,

the Soviet Union could have vetoed the action, but it had boycotted UN meetings

following the awarding of China’s seat on the Security Council to Taiwan instead of to

Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic of China.

On June 27, Truman ordered U.S. military forces into South Korea. They established a

defensive line on the far southern part of the Korean peninsula near the town of Pusan. A

U.S.-led invasion at Inchon on September 15 halted the North Korean advance and turned

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it into a retreat. As North Korean forces moved back across the thirty-eighth parallel, UN

forces under the command of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur followed. MacArthur’s

goal was not only to drive the North Korean army out of South Korea but to destroy

Communist North Korea as well. At this stage, he had the support of President Truman;

however, as UN forces approached the Yalu River, the border between China and North

Korea, MacArthur’s and Truman’s objectives diverged. Chinese premier Zhou Enlai,

who had provided supplies and military advisors for North Korea before the conflict

began, sent troops into battle to support North Korea and caught U.S. troops by surprise.

Following a costly retreat from North Korea’s Chosin Reservoir, a swift advance of

Chinese and North Korean forces and another invasion of Seoul, MacArthur urged

Truman to deploy nuclear weapons against China. Truman, however, did not wish to risk

a broader war in Asia. MacArthur criticized Truman’s decision and voiced his

disagreement in a letter to a Republican congressman, who subsequently allowed the

letter to become public. In April 1951, Truman accused MacArthur of insubordination

and relieved him of his command. The Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed, calling the escalation

MacArthur had called for “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and

with the wrong enemy.” Nonetheless, the public gave MacArthur a hero’s welcome in

New York with the largest ticker tape parade in the nation’s history.

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After the initial invasion of South Korea by the North Korean People’s Democratic Army, the United Nations

established a defensive line in the southern part of the country. The landing at Inchon in September reversed

the tide of the war and allowed UN forces under General Douglas MacArthur to retake the city of Seoul, which

had fallen to North Korean troops in the early days of the war.

By July 1951, the UN forces had recovered from the setbacks earlier in the year and

pushed North Korean and Chinese forces back across the thirty-eighth parallel, and peace

talks began. However, combat raged on for more than two additional years. The primary

source of contention was the fate of prisoners of war. The Chinese and North Koreans

insisted that their prisoners be returned to them, but many of these men did not wish to be

repatriated. Finally, an armistice agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. A border

between North and South Korea, one quite close to the original thirty-eighth parallel line,

was agreed upon. A demilitarized zone between the two nations was established, and

both sides agreed that prisoners of war would be allowed to choose whether to be

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returned to their homelands. Five million people died in the three-year conflict. Of these,

around 36,500 were U.S. soldiers; a majority were Korean civilians.

As the war in Korea came to an end, so did one of the most frightening anti-Communist

campaigns in the United States. After charging the U.S. State Department with harboring

Communists, Senator Joseph McCarthy had continued to make similar accusations

against other government agencies. Prominent Republicans like Senator Robert Taft and

Congressman Richard Nixon regarded McCarthy as an asset who targeted Democratic

politicians, and they supported his actions. In 1953, as chair of the Senate Committee on

Government Operations, McCarthy investigated the Voice of America, which broadcast

news and pro-U.S. propaganda to foreign countries, and the State Department’s overseas

libraries. After an aborted effort to investigate Protestant clergy, McCarthy turned his

attention to the U.S. Army. This proved to be the end of the senator’s political career.

From April to June 1954, the Army-McCarthy Hearings were televised, and the

American public, able to witness his use of intimidation and innuendo firsthand, rejected

McCarthy’s approach to rooting out Communism in the United States. In December

1954, the U.S. Senate officially condemned his actions with a censure, ending his

prospects for political leadership.

One particularly heinous aspect of the hunt for Communists in the United States, likened

by playwright Arthur Miller to the witch hunts of old, was its effort to root out gay men

and lesbians employed by the government. Many anti-Communists, including McCarthy,

believed that gay men, referred to by Senator Everett Dirksen as “lavender lads,” were

morally weak and thus were particularly likely to betray their country. (D.N.: This is

often referred to as the “Lavender Scare.”) Many also believed that lesbians and gay

men were prone to being blackmailed by Soviet agents because of their sexual

orientation, which at the time was regarded by psychiatrists as a form of mental illness.

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The Early Cold War Pt. 2
The Early Cold War Pt. 2

CONTAINMENT ABROAD
CONTAINMENT ABROAD
The Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine
The Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan
Showdown in Europe
Showdown in Europe
CONTAINMENT AT HOME
CONTAINMENT AT HOME
TO THE TRENCHES AGAIN
TO THE TRENCHES AGAIN