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Strom Thurmond
Dixiecrats' 1948 presidential nominee; cocky white supremacist who had secretly fathered a child with a black housekeeper; paid hush money to his biracial daughter, denounced civil rights initiatives, and championed states' rights
Dixiecrats
States' Rights Democratic Party - nominated Strom Thurmond in 1948 election while waving Confederate flags and singing Dixie; rebellious southern Democrats who did not support Truman
Thomas E. Dewey
Republican nominee in 1948 election; promised to run things more efficiently and promote civil rights for all
Cold War
ideological competition between America's democratic capitalism and the Soviet Union's totalitarian communism; Soviet Union violated promises made at the Yalta Conference and wartime alliance dissolved; USSR imposed military control and set up a Communist political system in Eastern European nations; US tried to use atomic bombs to pressure Soviets - had little effect; inconclusive war
Harry Truman
FDR's vice president - became president when Roosevelt died; largely unknown outside of Washington; short-tempered, profane, and dismissive; actually did better in office than anyone expected
Immigration and Nationality Act
1952; McCarran-Walter Act; while reducing the number of immigrants admitted each year, it renewed the national origins quota system; allocated 85% of the annual visas to people from northern and western Europe; introduced a system of preferences based on skills and family ties; removed the ban on Asian immigrants; barred suspected subversives
McCarran Internal Security Act
1950; passed over Truman's veto because of fears of Soviet spies working with American sympathizers; made it unlawful to interact with anyone or anything that had anything to do with a totalitarian dictatorship; proposed by Nevada Democratic senator Pat McCarran; required Communist organizations to register with the Justice Department
Joseph R. McCarthy
surfaced in 1950 as the most ruthless manipulator of anti-Communist anxieties; made many irresponsible accusations against political figures who he claimed were Communists; never uncovered a single Communist withing the federal government; went largely unchallenged until the end of the Korean War
Alger Hiss
president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; accused of giving Soviets secret documents - convicted in 1950 on perjury; most damaging spy case to the Truman adminstration
Arthur Miller
part of the Hollywood Ten; HUAC investigation inspired him to write The Crucible - award-winning play produced in 1953; his dramatic account of the Salem Witch Trials was intended to alert audiences to the dangers of anti-communists hysteria
Hollywood Ten
ten witnesses who refused to testify at the HUAC hearings in LA; argued that the questioning violated their First Amendment rights; all ten were cited for contempt of Congress, given prison terms, and blacklisted from the film industry
House Committee on Un-American Activities
HUAC; claimed that Communist agents were actively trying to subvert the federal government; sparked another Red Scare in the United States; launched a full-blown investigation into Hollywood
Loyalty Order
March 21, 1947; executive order signed by Truman; sought to blunt conservative Republicans' attacks on the patriotism of left-wing Democrats; required all 2 million federal government workers to undergo a background investigation to endure they had no ties to Communists or other subversive groups; revoked in 1953 by Eisenhower
Korean War
North Korean and Soviet Union vs. South Korean and UN forces; featured brutal combat in terrible conditions punctuated by heavy casualties and widespread destruction; inconclusive war - Korea remained divided
38th parallel
original dividing line between North and South Korea; all parties agreed to a cease-fire along this line; no official peace treaty ever signed - Korea remained divided
Douglas MacArthur
named supreme commander of UN forces during Korean War; staged surprise landing behind North Korean lines; hatched plan to get rid of communists influence in Korea, provoking the Chinese; undermined Truman by issuing an ultimatum for China - got fired for it
NSC-68
1950; top secret report by the National Security Council; called for an even more robust effort and revealed the major assumptions that would guide US foreign policy for the next 20 years; endorsed George Kennan's containment strategy; called for massive military build-up and a policy of coercion against Soviet expansionism everywhere; written by Paul Nitze; became a guidebook for future American policy
Fair Deal
Truman's programs that would build upon the efforts of Roosevelt's New Deal; first goal was to ensure civil rights for everyone; proposals to increase federal aid to education, expand unemployment and retirement benefits, create a comprehensive system of national health insurance, enable more rural people to connect to electricity, and increase the minimum wage
Hector Perez Garcia
US Army major who had served as a combat surgeon; organized the GI forum in Texas in 1948 to fight poor-treatment of Mexican Americans; stressed the importance of formal education; initially focused on veterans' issues but soon expanded the organization's scope to include fostering equal treatment for all people
Jackie Robinson
first African American to play major league baseball; Dodgers 1947; first athlete in UCLA history to letter in 4 sports (baseball, football, basketball, and track); began playing baseball in the Negro Leagues after serving in WW2 - recruited to play in the major league; terrific player of incomparable courage capable of looking the other way when provoked
To Secure These Rights
report by Commission on Civil Rights; called for an anti-lynching federal bill, abolition of poll taxes targeting poor black people, a voting rights act, an end to racial segregation in the armed forces, and a ban on racial segregation in public transportation; infuriated southern Democrats
Taft-Hartley Labor Act
1947; intended to curb the power of unions; officially called the Labor-Management Relations Act; gutted many of the provisions of the NLRA by allowing employees to campaign against efforts to form unions; outlawed unions from coercing workers to join or refusing to negotiate; required union leaders to take loyalty oaths against the Communist party; allowed state legislatures to pass laws that ended the practice of majority votes for unionizing
National Labor Relations Act
1935; helped ensure the rights of workers to form and join unions; resulted in 1/3 of the workforce unionizing; mostly voted Democratic by very against Truman in 1946 elections - House and Senate turned Republican
National Security Act
1947; reorganized the armed forces and intelligence agencies; created a Department of Defense, a Joint Chiefs of Staff to oversee military branches, established the National Security Council; established the Central Intelligence Agency to coordinate global intelligence - gathering activities; prompted by the onset of the Cold War and the emergence of nuclear weapons
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
April 4, 1949; NATO; signed by representatives from 12 nations to align and act together to stop further Communist expansion into Western Europe; United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Norway, and Portugal; Greece, Turkey, and Spain joined later; largest defensive alliance in the world; attack against any member was an attack against them all - US abandoned isolationism; high point of efforts to contain Soviet expansion
Berlin airlift
US and British efforts to provide food and supplies to West Berliners; flying 7,000 tons of food, fuel, medicine, coal, and equipment to Berlin each day by October 1948; went on for 321 days without shots being fired until Soviets lifted their blockade on May 12, 1949; first major victory for the West in the Cold War
Marshall Plan
intended to reconstruct the European economy, neutralize Communist insurgencies, and build up foreign markets for US products; proposed by Secretary of State George Marshall - massive US program to provide financial and technical assistance to rescue Europe; part of Truman's efforts to contain the expansionist tendencies of the USSR; officially called the European Recovery Plan; worked as hoped - most successful peacetime diplomatic initiative in history
Truman Doctrine
announced via radio broadcast on May 12, 1947; Truman asked Congress for $400 million to provide aid for economic and military assistance in Greece and Turkey; doctrine would guide American foreign policy for the next two decades; exaggerated the danger of Communism to ensure Congressional support; declared war on Communism everywhere
containment
Kennan's suggested policy for the US in dealing with the USSR; could best be achieved through patient, persistent, tactical efforts to undermine the appeal of Soviet communism
Long Telegram
February 22, 1946; 5000-word telegram from Kennan to the State Department; predicted the Soviets wouldn't allow socialist and capitalist worlds to exist; explained that the Soviet Union was founded on a rigid ideology which saw a fundamental global conflict between Communist and capitalist nations; Soviet goal was to build military strength while subverting the stability of capitalist democracies; recommended containment
George Frost Kennan
best-informed expert on the Soviet Union; was working in the US embassy in Moscow when the State Department; asked him for an analysis of Soviet communism - responded with Long Telegram
iron curtain
political barrier between Soviet Russia and the countries it occupied and the rest of Europe; Churchill asked Truman "what is to happen about Eastern Europe? An _ _ is drawn down upon the Russian front. We do not know what is going on behind it"; Churchill and Truman wanted to lift it and help those nations develop democratic governments
