Chapter 25: The Cold War and the Fair Deal (1945-1952)

Berlin airlift (1948-1949)

Effort by the US and GB to fly massive amounts of food and supplies into West Berlin in response to the Soviet land blockade of the city

Taft-Hartley Labor Act (1947)

Congressional legislation that banned "unfair labor practices" by unions, required union leaders to sign anti-Communist "loyalty oaths," and prohibited employees from going on strike

Fair Deal (1949)

President Truman's proposals to build upon the New Deal with national health insurance, the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, new civil rights, legislation, and other initiatives; most were rejected by the Republican-controlled Congress

NCS-68 (1950)

Top-secret policy paper approved by President Truman that outlined a militaristic approach to combating the spread of global communism

iron curtain

Term coined by Winston Churchill to describe the cold war divide between Western Europe and the Soviet Union's Eastern European satellite nations

containment

US cold war strategy to exert political, economic, and, if necessary, military pressure on global Soviet expansion as a means of combating the spread of communism

Truman Doctrine (1947)

President Truman's program of "containing" communism, in Eastern Europe and providing economic and military aid to any nations at risk of Communist takeover

Marshall Plan (1948)

Secretary of State George C. Marshall's post-World War 2 program providing massive US financial and technical assistance to war-torn European countries

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Defensive political and military alliance formed in 1949 by the US, Canada, and ten Western European nations to deter soviet expansion in Europe

National Security Act (1947)

Congressional legislation that created the Department of Defense, and the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency

Dixiecrats

Breakaway faction of White southern Democrats who defected from the national Democratic party in 1948 to protest the party's increased support for Black civil rights and to nominate their own segregationist candidates for elective office

House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)

Committee of the US House of Representatives formed in 1938; originally tasked with investigating Nazi subversion during the Second World War and later focused on rooting out Communists in the government and the motion-picture industry

McCarthyism

Anti-Communist hysteria led by Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch hunts attacking the loyalty of politicians, federal employees, and public figures, despite a lack of evidence