History Research Paper

World War II and the Cold War, Part 2

9. Changes on the Home Front: Working Women and Manzanar

The war caused many changes in American society.

Some were positive and others were not.

A positive change was that more women begin working in factories, private industry, and government bureaucracy, to replace male workers.

The number of women in the workforce grew by fifty percent, reaching 19.5 million in 1945.

Because of the need for female workers, the stigma for working women receded.

A negative change was the targeting of Japanese Americans for discrimination by the public and the government.

The attack on Pearl Harbor only added fuel to long-term racist sentiments toward the Japanese; they were the only group target for “internment”.

In early 1942 President Roosevelt signed executive order 9066.

It empowered the government and local agencies to deport nearly 130,000 persons of Japanese descent (about half of who were US citizens) to holding areas in the desert on the west coast near California.

The official justification was that all Japanese were a security threat because America was at war with Japan.

They were often given little warning and had only a few days to leave their homes; the loss of ethnic Japanese businesses and homes was valued at $500 million.

Once deported they were kept in military camps in the California desert for the duration of the war; at the end most could return home.

However they were held without trial and typically no legal defense.

In 1973 American society gained greater awareness when Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston wrote a book titled Farewell to Manzanar.

In it she told of her experiences being held in a military camp during World War II when she was a child, because her parents were Japanese.

“Manzanar” was the name of the camp she was detained in during the war; there were hundreds like it in the California desert filled with ethnic Japanese detainees both American citizens and Japanese immigrants.

10. The Cold War

What Was the Cold War?

The Cold War was a period of extended ideological, economic, and sometimes military struggle between the United States, Soviet Russia, and their allies from 1945-1991.

The United States claimed they embodied democracy and the free market economy…Soviet Russia claimed they embodied Communism (fair distribution of money and goods), and universal rights for all workers.

It set up America as a global supwerpower and its history continues to affect world events today, in places like Europe, Asia and also the Middle East.

11. Beginnings: Potsdam

The earliest manifestations of the “Cold War” can be detected quite early, during the closing days of WW II, when the US, England, and Soviet Russia began discussing how to divide up Germany and Europe.

In July-August 1945, millions of American and English troops occupied western Europe, and millions of Soviet “Red Army” troops occupied eastern Europe.

(These were territories seized from the Nazis when they were defeated.)

Since the fighting in Europe was ended, in late July of 1945 President Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met to discuss the partitioning of post-war Europe.

They were called the “Big Three”, the most powerful men in the world at the time since they were the leader of America, England, and Soviet Russia, respectively.

The “Big Three” at Potsdam in July 1945, l-r, Stalin, Truman, and Churchill

At Potsdam, Stalin told Churchill and Truman that the Soviet Red Army, which numbered millions of troops and tanks in 1945, intended to stay in territories formerly occupied by the Nazis in eastern Europe.

This included places like Poland, Romania, Hungary, the Baltics, and the Baltics, and the Balkans.

Churchill and Truman said “ok”, and Stalin gave the order to officially “annex” Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, on the Baltic Sea.

(In April 1945 FDR died, and his Vice President Harry Truman took over; at an earlier meeting in February of 1945 when FDR was still alive, FDR decided with Churchill and Stalin to fracture Germany into several military zones with the intention of preventing Germany from achieving unification.)

12. Beginnings: West and East Germany

At Potsdam Truman, who was now president of the USA, seeing that Stalin had no intention of ordering the Red Army to vacate eastern Europe, met with Churchill to hash out a plan to unite the areas of western Germany under American and British control, to act as a buffer zone in the event that Stalin tried to expand further westward.

This eventually became a nation called Western Germany.

The eastern half of Germany occupied by the Red Army became the nation of Eastern Germany.

Truman, Stalin, and Churchill further agreed that the city of Berlin, as the former capital of the Nazi empire, would be split up into 4 zones of occupation, one each by the US, Britain, France, and the Soviets.

Berlin was located deep in the eastern half of Germany; later on, we will see why this is important.

Further evidence that Truman was thinking ahead about the post-war global situation: at Potsdam he told Stalin about the successful “Trinity” atomic bomb test in the New Mexico desert.

The US had been working on the super-secret “Manhattan Project” to design the first nuclear weapon and they detonated a small nuclear device in the desert on July 16, 1945.

(Stalin already knew about the test because there were Russian spies in the US bomb program.)

The repositioning of US, English, and Soviet territorial interests in Europe together with the fact that Truman told Stalin about the successful Trinity Test both demonstrate that, even before WW II ended, both sides were thinking about the coming struggle for global control after 1945.

13. The Truman Doctrine: “Containment”

After WW II ended Truman as president had to decide how to oppose/challenge Soviet Russia without engaging in open warfare.

The problem was—how does ones superpower (America) challenge another (Soviet Russia) without shooting any weapons so that WW III does not begin?

Truman knew that a “hot” war with Soviet Russia would soon turn into a nuclear war, with many deaths and massive destruction on both sides.

As a solution Truman designed a plan which others at the time called “the Truman Doctrine”.

It was simple yet effective—the idea was that the US would intervene economically, politically, and if need be militarily (in a support manner) to “contain” Soviet Russia’s influence.

“Containment” of Soviet Russian influence was the key; if any actual fighting between American and Soviet troops took place, then the Truman Doctrine would fail, and WW III would begin.

The stakes very high and risked global destruction; on the other hand, if America won, they would control global markets, shape political trends, and ensure American supremacy around the world for generations to come.

14. Early Containment: The Greek Civil War

So the question became--how to actually enact “containment” ?

Truman saw his opportunity with the Greek Civil War of 1947.

Greece and Turkey had been undergoing a civil war since the end of WW II, fought between communist and anti-communist forces.

(In the eyes of Truman and most Americans, all “communism” was linked to Soviet Russia.)

In February of 1947 Truman convinced Congress to send four hundred million dollars for military assistance to Greece, to help the anti-communist forces.

Truman managed to convince Congress to send the money by arguing that if communism was not crushed in Greece and Turkey, because of their geographic nearness to the Middle East, then perhaps other parts of the Middle East would become communist.

If this happened, then the world’s largest oil reserves would get cut off from the rest of the world.

Because of US intervention the Greek anti-communist forces crushed the communists and Greece became a constitutional monarchy.

This was America’s first experiment in “containment”; no actual US troops were killed, and in the end, communism did not spread to Greece.

15. Economic Containment: The Marshall Plan

Soon after the victory in Greece Truman embarked on another form of containment in western Europe.

After WW II most European nations were in ruins; Allied bombings and fighting in the cities and countryside had demolished the economies.

Truman was concerned that the lack of economic stability would allow communism to make inroads into western Europe, since Stalin and other communist leaders claimed that under communism money and goods would be distributed fairly and the rights of all workers would be protected.

Another issue that worried Truman was that the conditions in post-war Europe resembled the conditions in Germany in 1918, which had empowered Hitler and the Nazis to take over.

Truman’s Secretary of State George C. Marshall designed a plan to send massive amounts of money to western Europe to rebuild the economy and prevent the rise of communism.

The Marshall Plan pumped millions of US dollars into rebuilding countries like western Germany, as well as establishing trade networks between the US and 17 other nations in Western Europe.

The plan was costly to American taxpayers; in its first year in 1948 it accounted for 12 percent of the American federal budget…overall it cost something like $15 billion dollars…it continued until 1952.

On the surface, the Marshall Plan was about helping Europeans rebuild a viable climate for capitalist markets and democratic governments, to prevent the emergence of communism or another Hitler-like figure.

It worked and western Europe never became a territory of Soviet Russia, all without firing a shot.

16. The Creation of NATO

An example of military containment was the creation of NATO in 1948.

One month before Stalin ended the Berlin Blockade, ten European nations, Canada, and the US formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also known by the acronym NATO.

This was a military alliance that was supposed to be ready to fight Soviet Russia if Stalin gave the orders to invade western Europe.

America was the backbone of NATO for many ears, establishing bases in West Germany, Iceland, and England.

Historians today debate the effectiveness of NATO because if WW III between American and Russia had started it would have quickly escalated to a nuclear conflict which means tanks, troops, and airplanes would have not been very useful.

(Eventually Stalin created something called the Warsaw Pact which became a Soviet version of NATO made of several eastern European nations under Soviet control.)

For the next 50 years the United States relied on containment to set up areas of influence around the globe to oppose the spread of Soviet power.

Even today the United States relies on variations of containment to oppose the spread of terrorism and the influence of nations that still have communist governments, such as North Korea.

Responses (Due Friday April 30):

Please upload your responses on eCampus in a Word file format and write your responses to the following questions in your own words. Do not copy and paste your response from the class notes.

1. What was isolationism in America before World War II?

2. How did American society change during World War II? Provide two specific examples.

3. Describe “containment” during the Cold War. Provide one specific example? Why did both sides (USA and USSR) want to avoid World War III?

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