The Fair Deal & ContainmentCH 29

Demobilization under Truman

Truman’s Uneasy Start

Truman did not have college degree

Officer in WWI

Local political experience

Business failures

Elected to U.S. Senate in 1934

Acceptable to Southern Democrats

Converting to Peace

1945-1947 American demobilization

12 million active to 1.5 million

How to house, educate, employ veterans

Demobilization under Truman

Controlling Inflation

Prices skyrocketed when government lifted price controls

Wages did not go up

Strikes

Partisan Cooperation and Conflict

Council of Economic Advisors

1946: Republicans took control of Congress

Taft-Hartley Labor Act

Banned closed shops; permitted union shops if permitted by state law

Truman’s veto overturned

The Cold War

Building the United Nations

U.N. Charter drawn up two weeks before Germany surrendered

General Assembly: all member nations

Security Council

Permanent session

Charged with “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”

5 permanent members: U.S. Great Britain, France, Republic of China (to 1971), Soviet Union (Russia after 1991)

11 (15 after 1965) member states elected to 2 year terms

The Cold War

Differences with the Soviets

Who started it?

Stalin: Paranoid Communist

Quest for global domination

Defend Western Europe against Communism

United States

Truman administration adopted aggressive, confrontational foreign policy

American vs. Soviet “Spheres of Influence”

Both Sides

Engaged in heated rhetoric and military arms race

Nuclear nightmare

Signs of trouble in 1945

February 1: Polish Committee of National Liberation

March: Puppet Prime Minister in Romania

German overtures of peace with Great Britain and U.S.

The Cold War Churchill: “What is to happen about Europe? AN iron

curtain is drawn down upon the Russian front. We do not know what is going on behind it.”

Truman argued with Soviet Foreign Minster over Poland.

“I have never been talked to like that in my life” –Molotov

“Carry out your agreements and you won’t get talked to like that.” –Churchill

Soviets viewed control of Eastern Europe as being no different from U.S. control of Japan and Pacific Islands and U.S., Britain and France occupation of West Germany

Secretary of State: James F. Byrne (D) South Carolina

Little experience with international relations but got on well with Truman

Argued for brandishing “atomic weapon” to intimidate the Soviets

The Cold War

Tensions between State Department and President

James F. Byrnes-- State Department made decisions without informing the President before taking action

Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers

Korea: joint control between U.S. and Soviet Union in a trusteeship with spheres on control demarcated along 38th parallel

Did not include Iran in final communique which angered Truman

Iran Crisis of 1946

1941 Iran occupied by both Soviet Union and Great Britain

1946 Soviet Union refused to give up territory in Iran, stepping back only after UN resolution

The Cold War

Stalin’s speech February 1946

International peace impossible under “present capitalist development of the world economy”

Interpreted by George F. Kennan in U.S. Embassy in Moscow in “The Long” Telegram.

Containment Patient, persistent, prolonged efforts to contain Soviet

expansion over the long term.

Truman Doctrine

March 12, 1947 radio broadcast

Truman asks for 400 million in economic aid to Greece and Turkey

“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.”

“Cold War” term coined by Bernard Baruch in 1947 speech to South Carolina legislature

President Truman attendsChurchill’s “Iron Curtain”Speech, March 5, 1946Harry S. Truman Memorial Library AccessionNo. 59-1101

The Marshall Plan

Part of the Truman Doctrine

General George C. Marshall now Secretary of State to President Truman

Provide aid to any European Nation that requested it

USSR called the plan “imperialist”

1948 U.S. Great Britain and France united their occupation zones in Germany and presided over democratic elections

USSR considered the union of the three occupation zones a threat to USSR

Berlin Blockade

June 24, 1948-May 12, 1949

USSR blocked rail, road access to Berlin

Allies had to re-supply Berlin through an airlift

200,000 flights in one year

The Cold War

The Cold War

The Cold War

The Cold War

NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Treaty signed April 4, 1949

Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland

The members agreed that an armed attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all.

Collective Security

Comecon and The Warsaw Pact

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

USSR, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia

January 8, 1948

Transnational Central Planning

Russian Oil for Eastern Bloc manufactured goods

Warsaw Pact

Berlin Conference of 1954

USSR, Great Britain, France and U.S. foreign ministers

USSR attempts to join NATO

German reunification rejected

West Germany admitted to NATO—October 1954

Warsaw Pact established in 1955 as a military response to NATO

The Cold War

Civil Rights during the 1940s

Jackie Robinson

First African American to play major league Baseball

What did Jackie Robinson’s success mean?

Shaping the Fair Deal

Correlation between theories of race in Germany and Japan and American attitudes toward African Americans

1948 Truman banned racial discrimination in hiring federal employees

Fair Deal

Securing human rights of U.S. citizens

Protecting Human Resources

Extending social safety net for unemployed and retirees

Civil Rights During the 1940s

Civil Rights during the 1940s

The Election of 1948

Truman (D) vs. Dewey (R)

Dixiecrats: Strom Thurmond (South Carolina governor)

Civil Rights During the 1940s.

Civil Rights During the 1940s.

The Cold War Heats Up

“Losing” China

Nationalists: Chiang Kai-Shek vs. Communists: Mao Tse-Tung

Civil war before invasion by Japan

Joined forced to oppose Japanese occupation

Civil War resumed at the end of WWII

Chiang government corruption

Military victory by Mao’s forces resulted in Chiang’s forces retreating to Taiwan

Vietnam

French attempted to keep Indochina as a colony following WWII

Ho Chi Minh not supported by French

U.S. sided with French to bolster alliances in Europe

Soviets get “The Bomb” 1st successful test of Atomic bomb by USSR: August

29, 1949

The Cold War Heats Up

War in Korea

Japanese occupied Korean Peninsula 1910-1945

Soviets advanced into northern peninsula and accepted surrender of Japanese forces north of the 38th parallel

U.S. accepted surrender of Japanese forces south of the 38 th parallel

1948 Separate governments existed North of 38th parallel and South of the 38th parallel

June 25, 1950: 80,000 N. Korean troops crossed into S. Korea

Seoul captured in 3 days

Mao and Stalin encouraged invasion

Truman assumed Stalin attempting to consolidate power in Asia

U.N Security Council Developments

Soviet delegate to U.N. Security Council boycotted the Security Council session on June 26 & 27 over whether to seat Peoples’ Republic of China

Emergency Session: Security Council censured North Korean aggression without a veto

June 27: Security Council authorized UN members “to furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area.”

Truman ordered air, naval and ground forces into action and placed General Douglas MacArthur in charge

Truman Assumptions

Mistakenly viewed Korean conflict as a diversion for a Soviet Invasion of Western Europe and ordered a major expansion of U.S. troops to Europe

Increased American assistance to French troops fighting against independence movement in Indochina (Vietnam).

Korean War developments

September 15, 1950 Gen. MacArthur orders a surprise amphibious landing at Inchon

Surprise landing caused a rout of North Korean forces.

MacArthur persuaded Truman to agree to allow invasion of North Korea to Chines border

October 15 meeting between Truman and MacArthur on Wake Island

October 20 U.N. forces entered Pyongyang

October 26 U.N. forces reached Yalu River on North Korea’s border with China

November 26: 260,000 Chines volunteer army attacked U.S. forces

MacArthur’s Demands of Truman

34 atomic bombs

Naval blockade

Invasion of People’s Republic of China by Nationalist forces

January 1951 900,000 U.N. troops counterattack under General Matthew Ridgway

Truman offered to begin negotiations with North Koreans

MacArthur issued ultimatum for China to make peace or suffer an attack on China

On floor of Congress, Republican Minority Leader read a letter from MacArthur, critical of Truman: “there is no substitute for victory”

April 11, 1941 Truman removes MacArthur from post.

U.S. Soldiers retake Seoul

The Cold War Heats Up

Another Red Scare

Anti-communist fears

Alger Hiss trial

McCarthy’s Witch Hunt

McCarthy: Senator from Wisconsin from 1947-1957

Alleged that large numbers of Communists had infiltrated U.S. government and social institutions

Lavender Scare

Tydings Committee: Subcommittee on the Investigation of the Loyalty of State Department Employees

Lee list: persons deemed “security risks” for various reasons but who were cleared by subsequent investigation

McCarthy was never able to prove charges

Herbert Block first coined“McCarthyism” March 29, 1950 Washington Post

McCarthy’s Targets General George C. Marshall

Impeach Truman for firing MacArthur

Irving Peress & American Labor Party

“Who promoted Peress?”

Joseph Welch & Fred Fisher

Welch: Chief legal representative for the U.S. Army

Fisher: worked in Welch’s law office had once belonged to the National Lawyer’s Guild

"Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?“

Edward. R. Murrow See it Now

What is the Legacy of the early Cold War?

Assessing the Cold War

Was the Cold War inevitable?

Who benefitted from the Cold War?

Western Allies

Warsaw Pact Countries

Third World impacts

Asia: Vietnam; Cambodia; Laos

Africa: South Africa; Rhodesia (Zimbabwe); Angola, Congo

South America: Chile; Argentina; Nicaragua; El Salvador

Who lost the Cold War?