The Rise of the Cold War 

• World War II devastated the entire world. The world struggled to rebuild itself after the end of the war. 

• In place of Germany, France, and England, the US and the USSR emerged as the new global superpowers. Both countries became rivals. 

• The US ended the war with a booming economy, a massive military establishment, and atomic bombs. Much of the USSR was in ruins. 

Americans Fear Soviet Intentions 

• The defeat of Germany and Japan left no power to block the Soviet army. Many Americans feared that many war-weary people would find communism irresistible. 

• The years of 1945 and 1946 persuaded many American citizens that Stalin didn’t have a plan to extend the USSR’s dominion. 

Roots of the Cold War 

• Even before postwar events, an ideological gulf separated the US and the USSR. 

• The Communists used violence and terror to achieve what they desired. The Marxists rejected both religion and the notion of private property. 

• Soviet propagandists made it clear that they wanted to export revolution throughout the world, including the US. 

• Many Americans were scared, suspicious, and loathed by Lenin’s Bolshevik revolutionaries. 

Munich Analogy 

• An event leading to the start of WWII led leaders to stop using appeasement. 

• Neville Chamberlain’s attempt to stop Hitler from expanding Germany by giving Hitler a part of Czechoslovakia only provoked the Nazis to expand even further. 

• James Forrestal believed that appeasement was a bad thing. 

• To Truman’s advisors, Stalin seemed as much bent on conquest as Hitler had been. 

Communist Expansion 

• During the war, Stalin made several demands to control territory along the Soviet borders. 

• He asked for a role in controlling the Dardanelles, the narrow strait linking Soviet ports on the Black Sea with the Mediterranean Sea. 

• In Greece, locals Communists were fighting to overturn the traditional monarchy. 

• Asia also became a target for Communist ambitions. 

• Russian troops controlled the northern part of Korea, and Russian forces were turning over captured Japanese arms to China. 

• Historians said that American policy makers overexaggerated Stalin’s ambitions. 

• American corporations owned or controlled vast oil fields in the Middle East. The US had a strong presence in Southeast Asia. 

• Historians believed that Stalin decided to become defensive because he believed that an American European alliance would threaten the USSR. 

• Recent evidence suggests that despite the ravages of war, Stalin recognized that the USSR was an emerging superpower. With Germany and Japan defeated, the borders to the east and west couldn’t be invaded. 

• Stalin knew that the people of Britain and the US were tired of war. They were not going to attack the USSR. 

• Soviet spies found out that the US had a few atomic bombs. Stalin used this to advance the interests of the USSR and his regime. 

• In February 1946, Stalin announced that the USSR would act vigorously to protect its security. He warned that future wars were inevitable. 

The Move to “Get Tough” 

• Although some Americans thought Stalin was rallying Russian support, others agreed that he was advocating for a “get tough” policy. 

• Truman’s advisors talked about the political advantages of taking the tough line towards the USSR. 

• In March, Churchill warned about the USSR dropping the Iron Curtain between their satellite nations and the free world. 

• Poland, East Germany, Romania, and Bulgaria lay behind it. The rest of Europe was at risk. 

Containment 

• The State Department received a diplomatic cable as policy makers were trying to deal with containment. 

• George Kennan argued that Russian leaders were so paranoid that it isn’t possible to reach accommodations with them. 

• Russian insecurity and Marxist ideology that saw capitalism as the enemy created a force for expansion. 

George Kennan Defines Containment 

• Kennan recommended containment. He wanted the US to apply counterforce to points where Stalin was expanding the USSR. 

• Leaders in Washington used Kennan’s analysis to create a framework for analyzing Soviet behavior. Truman adopted containment. 

The Truman Doctrine 

• At first, it appeared that Iran would be a key test. It seemed like Iran was crucial in protecting rich fields of petroleum. 

• Stalin promised to remove troops from Iran, but he kept them, hoping to force Iran to grant the Soviets economic and political concessions. 

• James Byrnes went to the UN in March 1946. He was determined to force a showdown over Soviet occupation of northern Iran. 

Aid to Greece and Turkey 

• The face-off in Iran intensified American suspicions. 

• In Europe, severe winter storms and a terrible postwar economy meant domestic Communist movements. 

• In 1947, Great Britain declared that it could no longer support Greece and Turkey. The Communists seemed destined to win critical victories. 

• When Truman said that the US should provide $400 million in military and economic aid, the world started to divide into 2 hostile camps. 

• The rationale for aid to Greece and Turkey would later become the Truman Doctrine. This marked a new commitment to the Cold War. 

• Truman linked communism with rebel movements around the globe. This committed Americans to a relatively open-ended struggle. 

• At some points, Congress would regret giving the executive branch too much power. By 1947, anticommunism had become the dominant theme in American domestic and foreign policy. 

The Marshall Plan 

• The Truman Doctrine did not address the primary concerns in Western Europe. People scrounged for food and coal to heat their homes. The streets were dark at night. 

• American diplomats warned that without aid to help the European economy, Communists would seize power in Germany, Italy, and France. 

• In June 1947, George C. Marshall stepped before a Harvard commencement audience and declared a national recovery plan for Europe. He invited all European nations to receive assistance. 

• Marshall’s massive aid plan was designed to eliminate conditions that produced the discontent that Communists exploited. 

• As Europe recovered, so would its ability to buy American goods. 

Communism in Czechoslovakia 

• At first, neo-isolationists argued that the US couldn’t afford such generosity. 

• When Communists expelled non-Communists from Czechoslovakia’s government, the cold war started to spread. 

• Congress approved the Marshall Plan. The Soviets blocked the efforts of Czechoslovakia and Poland to participate. 

The Fall of Eastern Europe 

• American efforts to stabilize Europe made Stalin take countermeasures. The most shocking step was him consolidating Soviet political and military domination over Eastern Europe. 

• In February 1948, Communists toppled the government of Czechoslovakia. Shortly after, news came out that Jan Masaryk had fallen to his death. 

• In response to the Marshall Plan, the Soviet foreign ministry began a series of trade agreements tightly linking the Soviet and Eastern European economies. The Cominform was established to assert greater political control. 

Berlin Airlift 

• The spring of 1948 brought a clash between the Soviets and the Germans. The US, Britain, and France transformed their occupation zones into West Germany. 

• On June 24, the Soviets reacted by blockading land access to Berlin. 

• Instead of shooting through the blockade, the US began a massive airlift of supplies that lasted nearly a year. 

NATO Formed 

• Stalin’s aggressive actions made the US use military means to contain Soviet ambitions. 

• By 1949, the US, Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg worked together to establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 

• For the first time since Goerge Washington had warned against the practice in his Farewell Address, the US during peacetime entered entangling alliances with European nations. 

Israel Recognized 

• Truman’s first handling of the Berlin crisis won him recognition from Democrats and Republicans. 

• Truman recognized the country of Israel minutes after Israel declared their independence in May 1948. 

• Despite the opposition of oil-rich Arab states and diplomats in the State Department, Truman supported the emigration of Jews into Palestine. 

• Truman faced a tough campaign in 1948 in which Jewish voters were crucial. 

Atomic Energy Commission 

• Truman’s response to the possibility of war was firm. 

• In 1946, Congress was in favor of Truman when the McMahon Act was passed. This act created the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), with control of all fissionable materials. 

• Leslie Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project, worked behind the scenes to give the military a voice in atomic policy. 

• Because of leaked information about a Canadian atomic spy ring delivering secrets to the USSR, Groves persuaded Congress to allow the military to review civilian decisions. 

Baruch Plan 

• The idea of international control of the atomic bomb fell victim to Cold War fears. 

• Originally, a committee proposed to Truman that mining and use of the world’s atomic raw materials should be supervised because the US would be more secure in the long run. 

• Truman chose Baruch to draw up recommendations instead. Baruch’s plan ensured that the US would dominate any international atomic agency. 

• The Soviets countered the Baruch Plan with a plan calling for destruction of all nuclear bombs and a ban on their use. 

• The Truman administration never considered giving up the American nuclear monopoly. 

• Stalin made the atomic weapons program his #1 priority. 

Nuclear Deterrence 

• As the Cold War intensified, American military planners had to adopt a nuclear strategy. 

• The Soviet army had over 260 divisions. This US reduced its forces to little more than a single division. 

• The strategy of nuclear deterrence was little more than a doomsday scenario. 

• Pincher, a 1946 war plan, proposed obliterating 20 Soviet cities if the USSR attacked Western Europe. 

• By 1949, the Joint Chiefs of Staff fully committed themselves to a policy of nuclear deterrence in an indefinitely extended Cold War. Western Europe was on its way to an economic recovery. 

• The USSR wasn’t just a major power seeking to protect its interests and expand where opportunity permitted. To many Americans, the USSR was determined to overthrow the US. 

• The Cold War was being fought in America and around the globe. The mentality would shape the lives of Americans at home much as it did American policy abroad. 

Postwar Prosperity 

• Many leaders feared that a sudden drop in government purchases would bring back the Great Depression. 

• Instead, Americans entered a very long period of prosperity. It lasted until the 1970s. Even the fear of communism didn’t hurt the joy of getting and spending. 

Sources of Prosperity 

• There were 2 forces that drove the postwar economic boom: one was unbridled consumer and business spending, and the other was government expenditures at the local, state, and federal levels. 

• High war wages piled up in savings and war bonds. Consumers began to find new cars, appliances, and food. 

• The 2 major growth industries after WWII were healthcare, education, and government programs. The federal government poured so much money into the military-industrial sector. 

• These factors led to a growing economy. 

Energy and the Environment in Postwar America 

• WWII made planners aware that modern economies depended on fossil fuels, especially coal and petroleum products. 

• Rather than considering alternative energy sources, planners looked to the Middle East, which had cheap and unlimited supplies. The problem was that the region was unstable as nationalists challenged colonial rulers. 

• In the US, manufacturers began producing consumer goods, as well as taking advantage of a whole new variety of materials and technologies developed during the war. 

• Pesticides, such as DDT, hybrid seeds, and synthetic fertilizers were developed. 

• The ideal of a full-blown consumer society ignores the impact that synthetic goods and the burning of fossil fuels would have on the environment. Factories that were producing automobiles, homes, and appliances emitted toxic substances into the air, water, and land. 

• During a five-day period, an inversion layer over Donors, Pennsylvania, trapped a toxic brew of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and metal dust. Around 20 people died, and 7,000 were hospitalized. 

• Industry officials viewed the accident as unfortunate. A few cities charged that such ideas ignored the principles of ecology. 

• Our Plundered Planet (1948) warned that humans had to recognize life and cooperate with nature, rather than dominate it. Most Americans were not ready to heed such warnings. 

Peacetime Adjustments 

• Millions of veterans were looking for peacetime jobs. Workers on the home front found themselves out of work because of the veterans. 

• Almost 75% of women said they wanted to continue their jobs. However, male social scientists said it was important for women to accept “more than the wife’s usual responsibility for her marriage.” 

• Congress debated over how much it should do to ease the transition to peace. Organized labor argued that all Americans should have the right to seek work and have a job. Congress wasn’t willing to go that far. 

• The Employment Act of 1946 created the Council of Economic Advisors to guide the president’s policies. The bill established that the government was responsible for managing unemployment. 

• For minorities, the end of the war brought the turn of “last hired, first fired.” At the height of the war, over 200,000 African Americans and Hispanics worked in shipbuilding. 

• The influx of Mexican Americans under the Bracero program temporarily halted. In the South, wartime labor shortages became surpluses, leaving few jobs available. 

American G.I. Forum 

• At the same time, minorities who fought for their country returned to a deeply segregated society. 

• When a funeral director refused to open its segregated cemetery for the burial of Felix Longoria, his supporters grouped together. 

• The American GI Forum was founded in 1948 to campaign for civil rights. 

Black Veterans and Civil Rights 

• Back veterans had a similar impact on the civil rights movement. 

• They were frustrated by the slow pace of desegregation and violence. They created the NAACP and CORE. 

• Other black leaders fought for improved education. 

To Secure These Rights 

• In the countryside, segregationists used economic intimidation, violence, and murder to preserve the Jim Crow system. 

• In December 1946, Truman appointed a Committee on Civil Rights, which published its report, To Secure These Rights, a year later. 

• The committee exposed a system that denied African Americans employment opportunities, equal education, voting rights, and decent housing. 

• Truman couldn’t appeal to Congress because southern senators threatened to filibuster. He had to resort to executive authority. 

• In July 1948, Truman issued an executive order that banned discrimination in the armed forces. 

Organized Labor 

• For organized labor, reconversion brought a drop in hours worked and overtime paid. Strikes began to spread as a result. 

• In 1946, some 5 million workers were on strike. Antiunion sentiment soared. The crisis peaked in May 1946 with a national rail strike. 

• Truman initially wanted to seize the railroads and then request Congress the power to draft striking workers into the military. The strike managed to settle down before his threat was carried out. 

• Few people approved of the idea of using the draft to punish political enemies. 

Truman Under Attack 

• In September 1945, Harry Truman announced that he was going to extend the New Deal into the postwar era. 

• He wanted legislation that guaranteed full employment, subsidized public housing, national health insurance, and a peacetime version of the Fair Employment Practices Commission. 

• Labor unrest was one of many sources of trouble. The demand for consumer goods temporarily triggered sharp inflation. For 2 years, prices rose by 15% annually. 

• Conservative Republicans and Democrats blocked Truman’s attempts to extend the new deal. As the 1946 election neared, Republicans pointed to production shortages, strikes, and the mismanagement of the economy. 

• The Republican Party gained control of both houses of Congress. The Democrats hadn’t failed so poorly since 1928. 

Taft-Hartley Act 

• Bob Taft not only wanted to halt the spread of the New Deal – he wanted to dismantle it. Taft also wanted to limit the power of unions. 

• In 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 was passed. In the event of a strike, the bill allowed the president to order workers back on the job during a 90-day cooling-off period while collective bargaining continued. 

• Union leaders criticized the Taft-Hartley Act as a slave-labor act. They realized they could live with it, although it hurt union efforts to organize. 

The GI Bill 

• Despite Republicans dominating, most Americans still supported the New Deal’s major accomplishments: Social Security, a minimum-wage law, and a more active role for government in reducing unemployment. 

• Social Security was broadened to cover an additional 10 million workers. A growing list of welfare programs benefitted the poor, veterans, middle-income families, the elderly, and students. 

• The GI Bill of 1944 was designed to reward soldiers for their service during the war. 

• The GI Bill of Rights created unparallel opportunities for veterans. Those with more than 2 years of service received all tuition and fees and living expenses for 3 years of college. 

• Increased educational levels encouraged a shift from blue-to-white-collar work and self-employment. 

• Veterans received low-interest loans to start businesses or farms of their own and to buy homes. 

• The bill didn’t do much to help minorities and females. Few women received benefits under the bill. African Americans and Hispanics were hampered by Jim Crow restrictions even if they were eligible for benefits. 

Henry Wallace and the Progressives 

• As the 1948 election approached, the New Dal coalition seemed to be coming apart. 

• Henry Wallace waws a progressive who was vice president under FDR and he wanted to pursue New Deal reforms more vigorously. 

Dixiecrats 

• Within the southern conservative wing, arch segregationists resented Truman’s civil rights proposals for a voting rights bill and an antilynching law. 

• Delegates from several Deep South states banded together to create the States’ Rights Party. J. Strom Thurmond was their candidate. 

• Republicans took advantage of the division of Democrats. They rejected Taft in favor of Thomas Dewey. He inspired scant enthusiasm. 

• Most observers assumed that Dewey would walk away with the race. 

Truman Fights Back 

• Truman didn’t give up. He launched an attack against the “reactionaries” in Congress. 

• From the rear platform of his campaign train, he made almost 400 speeches in 8 weeks. 

• Dewey was favored to win the popular vote. However, Truman won by over 2 million popular votes. Democrats got majorities in the House and the Senate. 

The Fair Deal 

• As Harry Truman began his new term, he explained how every is entitled to a “Fair Deal” from the government. He called for many programs such as national health insurance and regional TVA-style projects. 

• Truman hoped to keep his working coalition together by forging stronger links between farmers and labor. 

• The conservative coalition of Democrats and Republicans in Congress blocked any significant new initiatives. 

The Cold War at Home 

• Bob Raymondi was so feared that he dominated the inmate population at Dannemora Prison. He began to make acquaintances with Communists who were jailed for trying to overthrow the government. 

• Most Americans judged it risker to associate with Communists than with criminals. 

• Out of 150 million people, the Communist Party could claim a membership of only 43,000 (some of them were FBI undercover agents). 

• Conscientious citizens were appalled by party members who excused Stalin’s violence against his own people. Millions of Russians were either executed or sent to Siberian labor camps. 

Conservative Anticommunism 

• Conservatives were outspoken about the Communist menace. Some feared the New Deal as “creeping socialism.” 

• The president’s advisors were either Communist agents or their unwitting dupes. 

• Leftists believed in controlling labor unions. 

• Conservative outrage grew as Stalin extended Soviet control in Eastern Europe and Asia. Many conservatives believed that a conspiracy in FDR’s administration sold out America to its enemies. 

The H-Bomb 

• Truman won in 1948 because of his strong leadership in foreign affairs. 

• In August, scientists reported that rainfall in the Pacific had traces of nuclear waste. People believed that the USSR exploded its own atomic bomb. 

• Congress debated whether to spend $1.5 billion for military aid to NATO. The House stopped debating and passed the bill, while Truman decided to accelerate research for the hydrogen bomb. 

• Arthur Vandenberg summed up the reaction of many officials to the end of the American nuclear monopoly: “This is now a different world.” 

China Falls to Communists 

• Chiang Kai-shek had fled mainland China to Formosa (now Taiwan). By January, Communists troops under Mao Zedong were swarming into Bejing. 

• China’s defeat wasn’t a surprise to State Department officials. They regarded the Nationalists as corrupt and inefficient. 

• Despite efforts to save Chiang’s regime, civil war broke out in 1947. Mao’s triumph was unexpected. 

• Republicans began to break ranks. For some time, many conservatives resented the administration’s preoccupation with Europe. 

• When Chiang collapsed, Henry Luce’s Americans backers charged that Democrats let the Communists win. 

The Hiss Case 

• Alger Hiss was brought to trial in 1949 for perjury. He was accused by Whittaker Chambers of passing secrets to the USSR during the 1930s. 

• Hiss’ trial created worries that subversives had sold out the country. 

• The jury convicted Hiss for lying about his association with Chambers. 

• Klaus Fuchs was a high-ranking British physicist who was caught spying for the Russians while working on the Manhattan Project. 

The Loyalty Crusade 

• President Truman sought to blunt accusations that he was “soft” on communism. 10 days after the Truman Doctrine was passed, he signed an executive order that established a Federal Employee Loyalty program. 

• The Federal Employee Loyalty program was desinged to guard against the possible disloyalty of phonies. 

• Since the FBI didn’t have time to examine all 2 million employees, the order required supervisors to review and certify the loyalties of those who worked below them. 

Loyalty Review Board 

• The system got out of hand. 

• Seth Richardson believed that the government could discharge those for reasons which seem sufficient to the government. 

• After many years, the difficulty of proving that employees were disloyal became clear. Truman allowed the board to remove those who were disloyal. 

• After around 5 million investigations, the program identified a few hundred employees who had been associated with suspect groups. 

HUAC, Hollywood, and Unions 

• The House Un-American Committee (HUAC) began to investigate Communist influence in the film industry. 

• Hollywood had long aroused a mixture of attraction and suspicion among traditional Americans. 

• During the Depression, some Hollywood figures had developed ties with the Communist Party. 

• To get support for the Allies during the war, Hollywood produced films with a positive view of the USSR. 

Hollywood Ten 

• HUAC called movie stars, screenwriters, and producers to sit in the glare of its public hearings. 

• Some witnesses were friendly because they would supply names of suspected leftists. 

• 10 uncooperative witnesses refused on First Amendment grounds to say whether they were or are Communists. They served prison terms. 

Blacklisting 

• HUAC never offered convincing evidence that filmmakers were subversive. The most damning evidence was that one eager left-leaning extra hummed a few bars of the “Internationale.” 

• Investigations inspired Hollywood producers to make I Was a Communist for the FBI (1950). 

• Hollywood studios adopted a blacklist that prevented accused or admitted Communists from finding work. Victims of false charges, rumors, or accusations found it hard to clear their names. 

McCarran Act 

• Suspicion of aliens and immigrants led to the McCarran Act. It required all Communists to register with the attorney general, forbade the entry of any who belonged to a totalitarian organization, and allowed the Justice Department to detain suspect aliens indefinitely during deportation hearings. 

• During 1950, a Senate committee began an inquiry designed to root out homosexuals holding government jobs. 

• The campaign had effects beyond government offices: the armed forces stepped up their rates of dismissal for sexual orientation, while city police more frequently raided gay bars and social clubs. 

The Ambitious Senator McCarthy 

• By 1950, anticommunism had created a climate of fear where concerns mixed with irrational hysteria. 

• Joseph R. McCarthy saw inside the fear an issue which he used to build his political fortunes. In February 1950, he waves a sheaf of papers in the air and said he had a list of 205 Communists in the State Department. 

• McCarthy had penetrated the iron curtain of the State Department. 

• It didn’t matter to McCarthy that he never substantiated his charges. When examined, his lists contained names of those who left the State Department long before or who were cleared by the FBI. 

• When McCarthy was forced into a corner, he simply lied and went onto another accusation. No one seemed beyond reach. 

• In the summer of 1950, a Senate committee concluded that McCarthy’s charges were “a fraud and a hoax.” 

• McCarthy served as a blunt instrument that conservative Republicans used to damage Democrats. Without the support, McCarthy would have little credibility. 

• McCarthyism was the bitter fruit that Truman and the Democrats reaped from their attempts to exploit the anticommunism mood. 

• Catholic leaders, conservatives, and neo-isolationists saw McCarthy and his allies as the protectors of a deeply felt spirit of Americanism. 

• By the time Truman left office in 1953, 32 states had laws that required teachers to take loyalty oaths. 

• A library in Indiana banned Robin Hood because the idea of stealing from the rich to give to the poor seemed leftist. 

From Cold War to Hot and Back 

• As the Cold War heated up in 1949, the Truman administration searched for a more assertive foreign policy. 

• The National Security Council (NSC), an agency created in 1947 as part of a plan to help the executive branch respond more efficiently to Cold War crises, was responsible for developing assertive foreign policy. 

• In the 1950s, the NSC sent a document to Truman, NSC-68, which served as the framework for American policy for the next 20 years. 

NSC-68 

• NSC-68 called for an immediate increase in defense spending from $13 billion to $50 billion. 

• Most of the funds would go to rebuild conventional forces, but the NSC urged that the hydrogen bomb be developed to offset the Soviet nuclear capacity. 

• Efforts to carry out NSC-68 led to opposition because it was too expensive, too simplistic, and too militaristic. All reservations were swept away on June 25, 1950. 

Police Action 

• In 1950, Korea was the last place Americans imagined themselves fighting a war in. 

• Since WWII, Korea was divided along the 38^th parallel. The North was controlled by the Communist government of Kim Il Sung. The South was controlled by the dictatorship of Syngman Rhee. 

• When Acheson discussed American policy in Asia before the National Press Club in January 1950, he never mentioned Korea. 

North Korean Invasion 

• On June 24, Harry Truman received a call from Acheson. North Korean troops crossed the 38^th parallel. A full-scale invasion was in progress. 

• Truman flew back to DC, believing that Stalin and his Chinese Communists were responsible for ordering the invasion. The threat of a third world war seemed real. Truman wanted to respond without starting another global conflict. 

• American troops would fight the North Koreans, although the US would not declare war. 

• On June 27, the National Security Council passed a US resolution to send UN forces to Korea. The move succeeded because the Soviet delegate walked out 6 months earlier in protest over the council’s refusal to seat China. 

• Stalin approved North Korea’s attack, but he promised only supplies. 

• Americans of almost all political persuasions supported Truman’s forceful response. Congress quickly voted for the increase in defense funds needed to carry out NSC-68. 

• Although 16 nations contributed to the war effort, the US provided half of the ground troops, 86% of the naval forces, and 93% of the air force. 

• By the time North Korean soldiers pinned South Korean soldiers within a small defensive perimeter in Pusan, Douglas MacArthur launched a huge attack behind North Korean lines at Inchon. 

The Chinese Intervene 

• MacArthur’s success led Truman to a fateful decision. MacArthur got permission to cross the 38^th parallel, push the Communists out of the North, and reunite the country under Syngman Rhee. 

• By Thanksgiving, American troops had rounded defeated northern forces and were advancing to several fronts. MacArthur promised that everyone would be home by Christmas. 

• Throughout the fall offensive, Zhou Enlai warned that China wouldn’t tolerate any American presence on its border. 

• Mao Zedong was assumed to be a Soviet puppet. Stalin said that the war was merely a “civil war” and off-limits. 

• Some 400,000 Chinese troops poured across the Yalu, smashing through lightly defended UN lines. 

• Within 3 weeks, UN forces were driven back behind the 38^th parallel. Truman wondered publicly about using the atomic bomb. 

Truman vs. MacArthur 

• The stalemate in Korea brought a simmering feud between MacArthur and Truman. 

• Truman was eager to bomb Chinese and Russian supply bases across the Korean border. On March 23, he issued a personal ultimatum. 

• Truman believed that MacArthur’s plan would threaten the tradition that military policy remained under clear civilian control. His plan also appeared to be an open invitation to another war. 

• On April 11, Truman dismissed MacArthur after learning that MacArthur was threatening to resign. This was the biggest mistake of Truman’s career. 

The Global Implications of the Cold War 

• Behind the scenes, Truman was winning the personal clash. He was worried about the outcome of MacArthur’s plan, which would determine the future direction of American foreign policy. 

• The Cold War crisis forced American leaders to think globally. 

• To avoid being swept aside, the US should make an all-out effort to contain the Communist onslaught and play a major role throughout Asia. 

• Many conservative Republicans and groups like the China Lobby shared MacArthur’s view. 

Europe, Not Asia, First 

• Truman and his advisors continued to see Europe as the key to American foreign policy. Western Europe remained the center of the world’s economic and military power. 

• Eurocentric Americans believed that the cultural difference between the US and Asia were so big that the battle for Asia couldn’t be won by military might. 

• Acheson agreed with the Eurocentrists. 

• The wider war in Asia that MacArthur proposed would threaten American interests in Europe because American resources would be stretched too thinly. 

• Bradley believed that a war in Asia would lead to the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy. 

• Congressional leaders agreed with Truman that the Korean war should remain limited and that American resources should be used to rebuild Europe’s defenses. 

• The Korean War bogged down in stalemate. 

• The US suffered another 32,000 casualties in an ugly war of attrition while peace negotiators argued over how to reunify Korea. 

• By March 1952, Truman’s popularity had sunk so low that he lost to Estes Kefauver. He announced that he would not run for reelection. 

The Election of 1952 

• The Republicans were determined to win the 1952 election with Truman out of the race, the war in stalemate, and the Fair Deal agenda blunted by anticommunist crusades. 

• The Republican Party chose Dwight D. Eisenhower, a WWII hero, to be their presidential candidate. 

• Although Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate, was an eloquent speaker, he lacked Eisenhower’s common touch. 

• Eisenhower said that if he won, he would go to Korea personally to end the conflict. 

• Eisenhower’s broad smile and confidence won him more than 55% of the popular vote. A carefully staged TV advertising campaign revealed the power of the new media to influence political outcomes. 

• Most Americans who voted for Eisenhower were comforted to think that was just where they were headed: the straight road down the middle. 

Eisenhower in Korea 

• Even before taking office, Eisenhower traveled to Korea to negotiate a peace treaty. 

• Once Eisenhower was in office, he renewed negotiations but warned that unless the talks were speedy, the US might retaliate. 

• On July 27, 1953, the Communists and the UN forces signed an armistice, ending the war altogether. Korea remained divided. 

The Fall of McCarthy 

• It was less clear whether domestic anticommunism could be contained. 

• Eisenhower bragged about being a “modern” Republican, distinguishing himself from the “hidebound” members of the GOP. 

• McCarthy’s reckless tactics began to hit Republican targets. By the summer of 1953, he began a rampage. 

• McCarthy dispatched Roy Cohn and David Schine to investigate the State Department’s overseas information agency and the Voice of America radio studios. 

• Both Roy Cohn and David Schine began to behave like college students. They conducted a whirlwind 18-day witch hunt through Western Europe, getting rid of “subversive” books. 

• Eisenhower denounced “book burners,” though soon afterward he reassured McCarthy’s supporters that he didn’t advocate free speech for Communists. 

The Rosenbergs Executed 

• The administration’s own behavior led to the hysteria in which McCarthy thrived. The president launched a loyalty campaign. 

• A well-publicized spy trial had led to the conviction of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, a couple accused of passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. Both were sentenced to the electric chair. 

McCarthy vs. The Army 

• In a climate where Democrats remained silent for fear of being called a leftist, McCarthy lost all sense of proportion. 

• After being denied his aide David Schine special treatment, McCarthy investigated communism in the army. The American Broadcasting Company Network televised the hearings. 

• For 3 weeks, the public could see McCarthy badger witnesses and make a mockery of Senate procedures. After his popularity began to slide, the anticommunist hysteria ended as well. 

REFLECTION: The Cold War elaborated on the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that was born at the end of World War II. The Cold War exposed the ideological conflict between capitalistic and communist theories, showing that fear and mistrust are the characteristics of the U.S. perception of Soviet intent. Policies of containment and Truman's doctrine, among others, have been instrumental in determining the course America's foreign policy would take. The events that showed the commitment of the U.S. were the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, and the establishment of NATO. Domestically, the Red Scare worked up anticommunist sentiment and led to loyalty programs and blacklists, with figures such as Joseph McCarthy using fear for political gain. The Korean War epitomized the Cold War as a truly worldwide event; the U.S. and UN forces were involved in the war to contain communism in Asia. At the same time, civil rights movements and post-war economic shifts underlined social change within the United States. The Cold War shaped international relations and domestic policies over the mid-20th century. 

The Rise of the Suburbs 

• Suburban growth accelerated sharply at the end of WWII. 

• During the 1950s, suburbs grew 40 times faster than cities. The return of prosperity brought a baby boom and a need for new housing. 

• Cities suffered as the middle class fled urban areas. The lack of planning regulations saddled suburbanites with the pollution and congestion they hoped to escape. 

A Boom in Babies and in Housing 

• The Depression forced many couples to delay starting a family. In the 1930s, the birthrate reached its lowest point in American history. 

• In 1946, Americans married in record numbers, twice as many as in 1932. The new brides were also younger. 

• By 1952, the birthrate passed 25 live births per 1,000, and it didn’t peak until 1957. 10 years later, the birthrate dropped to 18 live births per 1,000. 

The Boom Worldwide 

• Historians and demographics were hard pressed to explain the baby boom. 

• The baby boom was not limited to the US. In Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and West Germany, the fertility rates soared. 

• Fertility rates peaked in Australia and New Zealand in 1961. 3 years later, the same rates peaked in Britain and West Germany. Therefore, the baby boom stands as an anomaly. 

• Rising income in the US allowed more people to afford marriage and children. But they should have caught up by the early 1950s. 

• Worldwide, urbanization and higher living standards have reduced the birthrate. In the most urban nations, the birthrate was 21.8, while in LDCs it was about 50. 

• The factors that contributed to the baby boom had both immediate and long-term consequences for American society. 

• The boom in marriages and families increased demand for housing. The GI Bill and rising prosperity allowed more families to own a house. 

• The suburbs offered a detached single-family house with a lawn and garden, a residence most idealized in American culture. 

Levittown, USA 

• William Levitt learned how to use mass-production techniques. In 1947, he used those techniques to construct a 17,000-house community in Hempstead. 

• The materials for Levitt’s homes were assembled in a factory and moved to the site for assembly. 

• The new community was so successful that Levitt made developments in Bucks Conty and Willingboro. 

• A typical Levitt house had a living room, kitchen, bath, and 2 bedrooms on the ground floor and an expansion attic. All of this cost $7,990. 

• Levitt discouraged owners from changing colors or adding distinctive features. Buyers had to cut the grass each week during the summer and not hang out the wash on weekends. 

• African Americans were excluded. Other suburban communities excluded Jews and ethnic Americans. 

• Suburbs bloomed across the landscape in California. By 1962, it was the most populus state in the US. 

• Eventually, 1/3 of the LA area was covered with highways, parking lots, and interchanges. 

Interstate Highway Act of 1956 

• The Eisenhower administration proposed a 20-year plan to build a massive interstate highway system of some 41,000 miles to prevent congested traffic. 

• Eisenhower said that the new interstate highway system would ease evacuation of cities in case of a nuclear attack. 

• The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 set up the largest public works project in history. It had an enormous impact on American life. 

• The federal government picked up 90% of the cost through a Highway Trust Fund. 

• Average annual driving increased by 400%, shopping centers sprang up, and almost every community had at least one highway strip with drive-in movies, stores, bowling alleys, gas stations, and fast-food joints. 

Declining Cities 

• The interstate highway system created problems for cities. The new highway system contained beltways, which allowed motorists to drive around the center city. 

• 75% of all government transportation dollars went to subsidize travel by car and truck. 

• At the same time that middle-class homeowners were moving to the suburbs, many low-paying jobs began to disappear. This forced the urban poor into reverse commuting. 

• City governments lacked the tax base to finance public services because of fewer well-to-do taxpayers to draw on. 

• African Americans and Hispanics replaced the white population that left cities for suburbs. 

• Most newcomers headed for the Middle Atlantic, Northeast, upper Midwest, and the Far West regions to search for work. 

• By 1960, half of all black Americans were living in central cities. 

• Earlier waves of European immigrants were absorbed by the expanding urban economy. 

Minorities and Suburbs 

• The suburbs remained beyond the reach of most minorities. Since few black or Hispanic families could afford the cost of suburban living, they made up less than 5% of the suburban population. 

• Black families that lived in the suburbs were poorer, held lower-status jobs, lived in more ramshackle housing, and had less education. 

• The developers of Levittown didn’t sell directly to African Americans until 1960. 

Suburban Blues 

• During the suburban boom, homebuilders took the environment into account until in late summer of 1956, some residents of Portuguese Bend discovered that their homes were on the move. 

• Over time, the effluent from septic systems slicked the underlying shale that tilted towards the Pacific Ocean. 

• During the 1950s, new homes that were built in LA were built on the region’s hills. This was very popular in California. 

• The periodic landslides soon provoked a move towards stricter building codes. Suburbs in DC, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh suffered similar disasters. 

• Even if homes were built on dry level ground, cheap septic systems failed, leaving homeowners will large repair bills, sewage stench, and a possibility of infectious disease. 

• The disappearance of open space confronted many suburbanites with a threat of no sweeps of green. 

• Habitats for birds, small mammals, fish, and amphibians were gone as well. Years later, homeowners would contribute to the movement to protect the environment. 

Suburban Culture 

• A new appetizer named the California Dip became popular. 

• The Lipton Company came up with the California Dip, searching for a new way to market its dehydrated onion soup. 

• Sour cream was a mainstay in ethic dishes, such as blintzes and borscht. Sour cream’s ethic associations were left behind with the name of “California Dip.” 

• The evolving culture of the suburbs reflected a shucking off ethnic associations. 

• In many city neighborhoods, immigrant parents and grandparents lived on the same block or even in the same apartment. 

• The restrictive immigration policies of the 1920s reduced the number of newly arrived foreign-born Americans. Suburban culture reflected the tases of the mostly assimilated middle class. 

Suburbs and Social Class 

• Class distinctions were more pronounced between suburban communities than within them. The upper middle class clustered in older developments. 

• Within suburbs, a more homogenous suburban culture evolved. 

• Working-class suburbs sprouted on the outskirts of manufacturing centers, where blue-collar families eagerly escaped the city. 

The Religious Division 

• Communities with no obvious class distinctions were sometimes deeply divided along religious lines. 

• Many Catholics attended parochial schools, formed their own clubs, and didn’t socialize with Protestants. Protestant and Catholic members of the same country club didn’t play golf or tennis in the same foursomes. 

• Although some religious boundaries remained distinct, religion was central to American life. 

• Church membership rose to more than 50%. By 1957, the Census Bureau reported that 96% of Americans cited a specific affiliation. 

• Cold War fervor led to the phrase “under God” being added to the Pledge of Allegiance. 

• Patriotic and anticommunist themes were strong in the preaching of clergy. Billy Graham first attracted national attention at a tent meeting in LA in 1949. 

• Though no revivalist, Fulton J. Sheen became a popular TV celebrity. In his weekly program, he extolled traditional values and attacked communism. 

• The growing consensus among Americans was that having religious beliefs was better than having none. 

“Homemaking” Women in the Workaday World 

• The growth of a suburban culture revealed a contradiction in the lives of middle-class women. 

• Most housewives realized that suburban homes and growing families meant increasing time and energy. Mothering became full-time work. 

• The traditional role as a housewife was never so central to American society. 

• In the 1920s, grocers or milkmen delivered their good from door to door; in the 1950s, they were being replaced by housewives doing “errands.” 

Working Women 

• Between 1940 and 1960, the percentage of wives working outside the home doubled from 15% to 30%. 

• Middle-class married women went to work as often as lower-class wives. Women with college degrees were most likely to get a job. 

• Women found status and self-fulfillment in their jobs, as well as a chance for increased social contracts. 

• Although more women were going to college, it didn’t translate into economic equality. The percentage of women holding a professional job dropped between 1950 and 1960. The median wage for women was less than half that for men. 

• When women possessed leverage, they reshaped traditional work roles. Many nurses left their jobs after WWII to start families. 

• In heavily female jobs such as teaching, stenography, and retail clerking, women didn’t achieve comparable gains until much later. 

A Revolution in Sexuality? 

• Throughout the 20^th century, a trend was deemphasizing the tradition that marriage’s purpose was to have children. 

• Ben Lindsey promoted the idea of “companionate marriage” during the 1920s. He wanted personal happiness and satisfaction as the primary goals of marriage. 

• The suburban home of the 1950s encouraged companionate marriage. Unlike city apartments, the suburban single-family homes provided greater privacy. 

The Kinsey Reports 

• Social scientists found out that sexual pleasure was a part of successful marriage. That idea received attention in 1948. 

• Alfred Kinsey began his research career as a zoologist with the intention of classifying data. During the 1940s, he began collecting information on sexual behavior. He reached conclusions that were unorthodox to this day. 

• About 10% of the US population was homosexual. 

• Publicly, Kinsey maintained a posture of scientific objectivity. He said that he published a report “on what people do.” 

• Biographers revealed that Kinsey was as much interested in social change as in scientific research. Kinsey’s views provoked controversy. 

• According to opinion polls, most Americans disagreed with the fact that Kinsey was a menace to society. They accepted the fact that these behaviors were widely practiced. 

The Flickering Gray Screen 

• In the glow of postwar prosperity, most Americans found themselves with more leisure time and more income. 

• The new medium of television fits perfectly into suburban lifestyles. It was used as a form of entertainment for families and a way to sell families consumer goods. 

• Television viewership boomed after WWII. By 1949, Americans had bought a million sets. That number jumped to 46 million by 1960. 

• Home viewing transformed American entertainment habits. In cities around the country, more than 4,000 neighborhood theaters closed. Many were replaced by popular drive-ins. 

Television and Politics 

• In 1948, TV began to affect politics, covering both the Democratic and Republican Conventions. 2 years, it combined entertainment, politics, and news by televising a series of organized crime. 

• TV demonstrated the potential to shape the political life of American citizens. By the mid-1950s, controversy over news coverage of issues like McCarthyism led the networks to downgrade public affairs programs. These networks turned to Hollywood firm studios. 

• By switching to Hollywood studios, the networks gained ultimate control over program content. By 1959, live television was a thing of the past. 

Eisenhower’s Modern Republicanism 

• Eisenhower was raised in a large Kansas farm family. Although his parents were poor, he was provided with a warm, caring home. 

• In an era of organization men, Eisenhower succeeded by mastering the military’s bureaucratic politics. Coordinating the D-Day invasion required a gifted organizer. 

• Eisenhower was such a promising candidate that the Democratic and Republican parties tried to recruit him for the 1948 presidential race. 

• Eisenhower resisted conservative demands to remove New Deal programs. He agreed to increases in Social Security, unemployment insurance, and the minimum wage. 

• As a conservative, Eisenhower didn’t like a gib government. He rejected liberal proposals on housing and universal healthcare through the Social Security program. 

• The success of the Eisenhower administration depended on how well it managed the economy. The Democrats established a tradition of activism. 

• Eisenhower’s goals were to reduce federal spending and the government’s role in the economy. When a recession struck in 1953-1954, the administration spent more time balancing the budget and holding inflation in line. 

• Eisenhower was pragmatic in other areas. For example, he supported the Highway Act. He signed the St. Lawrence Seaway Act of 1954, which joined the US and Canada in an engineering project to open the Great Lakes to ocean shipping. 

Eisenhower Reelected 

• Eisenhower remained popular despite the 1953-1954 recession and suffering a major heart attack in 1955. 

• A poor economic performance took a toll on the Republican Party. 

• In 1958, there was a second recession. This allowed the Democrats to secure a 68-seat majority in the House and a 12-vote advantage in the Senate. 

The Conglomerate World 

• Large corporations welcome Eisenhower’s administration with probusiness attitudes. 

• Wages for the average worker rose over 35% between 1950 and 1960. At the same time, the distress of the 1930s made corporate executives find new ways to minimize economic downturns. 

Diversification 

• Diversification was one expansion strategy. 

• A giant General Electric concentrated largely on equipment for generating electric power and light in the 1930s. That market evaporated when the Depression struck. The company responded by entering markets for appliances. 

• In the postwar era, General Electric diversified so much it became a conglomerate, expanding into nuclear power, jet engines, and TV. Conglomeration turned small companies into giants. 

• Diversification was practical for large industrial firms. Its size allowed them to support extensive research. 

• Over a 20-year period, International Telephone and Telegraph branched out from its basic communications business into baking, hotels and motels, car rental, home building, and insurance. 

• Corporations became multinational by expanding their overseas operations or buying out potential foreign competitors. 

• Many large corporations decided that they could profit from cooperating with labor unions. 

• Unions negotiated higher wages and generous benefits, while their members avoided losing wages to strikes. 

• The advent of electronic data processing was one aid to managing modern corporate giants. 

• During the 1950s, banks and insurance companies used computers to manipulate huge quantities of records and statistical data. Manufacturers used computers to monitor their production lines, quality control, and inventory. 

• Corporations that manufactured consumer goods depended on advertising to reach potential customers. 

• John Kenneth Galbraith believed that advertising can “create desires.” 

• Coca-Cola and Pepsi created the great “cola war.” While the 2 cultivated alternative images to generative market share, they didn’t attack each other. 

• Pepsi’s decision to target the young and women transformed its corporate fortunes. From 1940 to 1959, Coke’s gross profits rose about 50%, but Pepsi's rose 500%. 

Critics of Mass Culture 

• In Levittown, a woman who invited her neighbors awaited them dressed in Capri pants. 

• An early-arriving couple noticed her through a window. They saw her wearing pajamas. 

• The couple had enough courage to go into the woman’s house after questioning what she wore. Levittown wasn’t ready to see a change in fashion. 

David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd 

• Other critics charged that the skyscrapers and factories of giant conglomerated housed an all-too-impersonal world. 

• Skilled laborers seemed little more than caretakers of machines in large, automated workplaces. 

• Large corporations require middle-level executives to submerge their personal goals. 

• David Reisman argued that it was American citizens’ own consciences that formed their values and drove them to seek success. Modern workers had developed a personality shaped not so much by inner convictions. 

• The new “other-directed” society of suburbia preferred security to success. 

William Whyte’s The Organization Man 

• William Whyte carried Riesman’s critique from the workplace to the suburbs in The Organization Man. He found rootless families. 

• Whyte sought to keep up with the Joneses and how many consumer goods they owned. 

• Whyte lived in a suburban “split-level trap.” 

• Some critiques indicated the problems of adjustment faced by people working within large bureaucratic organizations. 

Juvenile Delinquency 

• Young Americans were among suburbia’s sharpest critics. 

• Several behaviors, such as danse crazes, outlandish clothing, strange jargon, and rebelliousness towards parents challenged middle-class respectability. 

• More than a few parents and public figures warned that America created a generation of rebellious juvenile delinquents. 

• The center of the new teen culture was high school. The large, comprehensive high schools of the 1950s were often melting points where middle-class students were exposed to the style of the lower classes. 

• School administrators often complained of juvenile delinquents who wore jeans and T-shirts, challenged authority, and smoked cigarettes. 

• In many ways, the argument about juvenile delinquency was an argument about social class. Adults who complained about delinquent teenagers were voicing the same arguments traditionally used to denigrate other outsiders. 

The Rise of Rock and Roll 

• Before 1954, popular music was divided into pop, country and western, jazz, and rhythm and blues. 

• A handful of record companies with white singers dominated the pop charts. 

• Country and western was divided up into cowboy musicians such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. 

• The music industry treated rhythm and blues as “race music.” 

• By the mid-1950s, the distinctiveness of these styles began to blur. Singers on the white pop charts began to record a few country and blues songs. 

• Lyrics still reflected the pop field’s preoccupation with young love, marriage, and happiness. 

The “Beat” Generation 

• Beyond the rhythm of rock and roll and the pale of suburban culture, the “beat” generation flourished. 

• In run-down urban neighborhoods and college towns, the collection of artists, intellectuals, musicians, and middle-class students dropped out of mainstream society. 

• Cool urban hipsters were the models of many artists, intellectuals, musicians, and middle-class students. 

• Teh beats viewed John Coltrane and Sony Rollins as being driven to the margins of society. 

• In the 1955 poem Howl, Allen Ginsberg protested that the best minds of his generation were being driven by the pressures of conformity. 

• Jack Kerouac tapped the frenzied energy beneath the beats’ cool facade in On the Road (1957). 

Nationalism in an Age of Superpowers 

• The beats couldn’t ignore the atomic menace that overshadowed the world. 

• Along the Iron Curtain of Eastern Europe and the battle lines of northern Asia, Soviet American rivalry had settled into a stalemate. 

• The American public shared with most foreign policy makers a view of the globe as divided between the “free world” and the “Communist glob.” 

• The Eisenhower administration continued Truman’s policy of containing the Soviets. 

John Foster Dulles 

• Eisenhower was no stranger to politics, considering he was a general who fought in a global war. 

• He shared the conduct of foreign policy with John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state. 

• Dulles viewed the Soviet American struggle in religious terms: a fight of good against evil between 2 superpowers. Admirers praised his vision. 

• The Eisenhower administration was determined to make Truman’s containment strategy more forceful. 

• Dulles wanted the US to aid in liberating the “captive peoples” of Eastern Europe and other Communist nations. Eisenhower was determined to cut back military spending in order to keep a balanced budget. 

• Eisenhower understood well how the military services and defense industries competed for government money. 

The New Look in Foreign Policy 

• Eisenhower and Dulles hit on a less costly strategy. They would contain Soviet aggression by using the threat of massive nuclear retaliation instead of relying on conventional forces. 

• Dulles insisted that Americans shouldn’t shrink from the threat of nuclear war. 

• Behind the militant rhetoric lays an ongoing commitment to containment. 

Taiwan and Mainland China 

• Moving from brinkmanship to concrete action wasn’t easy. 

• When Dulles announced American intentions to get Chiang Kai-shek to attack Mainland China, China threatened to invade Taiwan. Eisenhower ordered the Seventh Fleet into the area to protect Chiang. 

• Nuclear weapons figured in the American response to a crisis in Southeast Asia. 

• Between 1950 and 1954, the US provided France with more than $1 billion in military aid to Vietnam. Eisenhower worried that if Vietnam fell to a communist revolutionary, other nations of Southeast Asia would follow. 

Vietnamese Victory at Dien Bien Phu 

• In 1954, the French tried to force a showdown with Ho’s forces at Dien Bien Phu. The French couldn’t have chosen a worse place to do battle. 

• A desperate French government pleaded for more American aid and the Joint Chiefs of Staff volunteered to relive the French forces with a massive American raid. Eisenhower pulled back. 

• After the Korean war, the idea of American involvement in a war in Asia created opposition from allies and domestic political leaders. 

United States Backs Diem 

• Collapsing under the siege, the French garrison surrendered in May 1954. At a peace conference in Geneva, HO Chi Minh agreed to withdraw his forces north of the 17^th parallel. 

• Ho’s widespread popularity guaranteed an easy victory in the elections that the peace conference agreed would be held in 2 years. 

• Dulles viewed any communist victory as unacceptable, even if the election was democratic. He convinced Eisenhower to support a South Vietnamese government. 

• Dulles insisted that Diem wasn’t bound by the agreements signed in Geneva. 

Overthrowing Mossadeq 

• Dulles and Eisenhower sometimes authorized the CIA to use covert operations against those they saw as sympathetic to Moscow. 

• For example, in Iran in 1951 a nationalist government under Mohammed Mossadeq seized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. 

• Dulles worried that Mossadeq would turn to the USSR for aid. Eisenhower approved a secret CIA operation to overthrow the Mossadeq government. 

• Operation Ajax ousted Mossadeq and returned Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to his throne in August 1953. 

Intervention in Guatemala 

• Dulles looked to use another mission in Guatemala. Unlike Iran, Guatemala had an elected democratic government under Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. He was determined to reduce poverty by giving peasants farmland. 

• When Arbenz seized 400,000 from United Fruit, the company’s agents called him a communist. Arbenz was no communist, however. 

• A week after a CIA-trained band of Latin American mercenaries entered the country, the leader of the Guatemalan rebels replaced Arbenz’s democratic government with a dictatorship. 

• Success in Iran and Guatemala convinced American policy makers that covert operations could achieve drastic results at a low cost. 

• The US gained a reputation in many Third World countries as a foe of national liberation, popular democracy, and social reform. 

• Angry crowds in several Latin American countries attacked Richard Nixon’s car, spat at him, and pelted him with eggs and stones. 

Rising Nationalism 

• Korea, Indochina, Iran, and Guatemala have crises that could be traced back to the USSR. 

• As nationalists in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia fought to gain independence from their masters, new nations like India proclaimed themselves independent of the USSR and the US. 

• As the USSR and the US competed for the allegiance of the new emerging nations, the US sought to counter the moves of the new Soviet leader who replaced Stalin. 

Nikita Khrushchev 

• Stalin died in March 1953 after becoming isolated, vengeful, and mad. Nikita Khrushchev soon gained power. 

• In some ways, Khrushchev resembled Harry Truman. Both were unsophisticated yet shrewed, earthy in their senses of humor, energetic, short-tempered, and largely inexperienced in international affairs. 

• At home, Khrushchev established a more moderate regime, shifting the economy towards producing consumer goods. Internationally, he sought to ease tensions and reduce forces in Europe. 

• When Khrushchev began to ease Stalin’s iron ways, nationalists pushed for greater independence. Riots broke out in Poland, while students took to the streets in Hungary. 

• In October 1956, Soviet tanks rolled back into Budapest to crush the uprising. The US State Department did nothing to help liberate the “captive nations.” 

• The New Look foreign policy recognized that the Soviets possessed a sphere of influence in which the US wouldn’t intervene. 

• Eastern Europe wasn't the only nationalist crisis Eisenhower faced in 1956. In Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser was trying to modernize his country. 

• When Nasser formed an Arab alliance against Israel and continued to pursue economic ties with the Warsaw bloc, Dulles decided to remove his offer to build the Aswan Dam. 

• Alarmed at Nasser’s Arab alliance, Israel invaded the Sinal peninsula on October 29^th. It was the same day that Hungary announced it was leaving the Warsaw Pact. 

• French and British troops seized the canal to restore their own interests and prestige. Eisenhower saw it as colonialism reborn and joined the USSR in supporting a UN resolution condemning Britain, France, and Israel. 

• Nationalist forces were in ferment in Latin American countries, where 2% of the people controlled 75% of the land. 

• Given the unequal distribution of wealth and a growing population, tensions grew in Cuba. 

Castro’s Revolution in Cuba 

• Americans owned 80% of Cuban utilities and operated a naval base at Guantanamo Bay. 

• Fulgencio Batista, a Cuban dictator has closed ties with the US government and with major crime figures who controlled gambling, prostitution, and drug rings in Havana. 

• Fidel Castro gained the support of impoverished peasants in Cuba’s mountains and in January 1959 drive Batista from power. 

• Many Americans initially applauded the revolution. However, Eisenhower was distinctly cool to Castro. 

• In retaliation of Castro filling key positions with communists, Eisenhower placed an embargo on Cuban sugar. 

A Missile Gap? 

• No one understood how the USSR managed to catch up with US technology so quickly. 

• In 1958, Eisenhower and Congress passed a National Defense Education Act, designed to strengthen education and the teaching of science, math, and foreign languages. 

• The Eisenhower administration created a crash program to build basement fallout shelters as protection in case of a nuclear attack. 

Thaws and Freezes 

• Throughout the series of crises, each superpower couldn’t interpret the other’s motives. 

• Khrushchev said, “We will bury you.” It was unclear whether he meant through peaceful competition or military confrontation. 

• Rather than adopt a more belligerent course, Eisenhower determined to improve Soviet American relations during the final 18 months of his presidency. 

• It was easier to improve Soviet American relations after Dulles died and Eisenhower learned from American intelligence that the missile gap was not real. 

• Eisenhower invited Khrushchev to visit the US in September 1959. Khrushchev undertook a tour across America. 

The U-2 Incident 

• Eisenhower’s plans to go to the USSR were cancelled after the Russians shot down a U-2 American spy plane. 

• Eisenhower initially claimed that the plane strayed off course when doing weather research. However, the USSR captured Gary Powers, the CIA pilot, alive. 

• After admitting that he authorized U-2 overflights for national security purposes, it ended his hopes. 

• Eisenhower wasn’t impressed by the promises of new weapons systems. He left office with a warning that too much military spending would lead to unwarranted influence. 

The Civil Rights Movement 

• American society as in ferment, from the schoolrooms and lunch counters of the South to the college campuses of the North. At the center of the ferment was a battle for civil rights. 

• Turbulence and activism overturned stability and consensus. The events of the 1960s grew naturally out of the social conditions that preceded these years. 

• The civil rights movement was brought about by ordinate people who sought change, despite the reluctance or opposition of people in power. 

• After WWII, grassroot organizations like the NAACP for African Americans and the AMerican GI Forum for Latinos acted with a determination to achieve equality. 

• The booming postwar economy held out the possibility of better lives for minorities, yet discrimination and racism prevented prosperity. Activists challenged the political system to deal with what the 1950s had done. 

• By the time barriers to legal segregation began to fall in the South, millions of black families were leaving for regions where discrimination was easily challenged. 

• The South that most African Americans left was in the stages of an economic boom. The cities that African Americans went to were in a period of decline. 

The Changing South and African Americans 

• After WWII, the southern economy grew faster than the national economy. 

• WWII brought so much federal dollars to build and maintain military bases and defense plants. The South attracted new businesses because it offered a “clean state.” 

• There was a matter of climate, which later caused the name Sun Belt to rise. 

• The South grew more attractive to skilled professionals, corporate managers, and affluent retirees. The South had few unions, little regulation and bureaucracy, and low wages and taxes. 

Mechanized Cotton Farming 

• Before WWII, 80% of African Americans were living in the South. Most were sharecroppers and tenant farmers. 

• Because of the labor shortage during WWII, cotton growers began to mechanize cotton picking. 

• Tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and hired laborers left the countryside for the city. 

• When federal minimum-wage laws forced lumber mills to raise their pay scales, they couldn’t expand. Steel and other industries with strong national unions set wages by national standards. 

• As the southern economy grew, what had been a distinct regional economy became more diversified and more integrated. 

• Job opportunities for black southerners declined with the increase in wages and disappearance of unskilled jobs. 

• The lumber industry provided the largest number of jobs for young black men. The number of black teenagers hired by lumber mills dropped 74% between 1950 and 1960. 

• Black laborers poured out of the South in search of work. They went to cities that showed scant tolerance for racial differences. 

Thurgood Marshall 

• Thurgood Marshall became the NAACP’s leading attorney. He went to law school at Howard University in the 1930s. 

• Charles Houston, the law school’s dean, was revamping the school and trying to create sharp, dedicated lawyers. 

• During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Marshall toured the South doing multiple things. For example, defending blacks accused of murder in a Klan-infested County in Florida and getting teachers to sue for equal pay. 

• Marshall was not shy and was friendly with everyone. 

• For years, NAACP lawyers did everything they could to organize local chapters, to support those willing to risk their jobs, property, and lives to challenge segregation. 

• The NAACP demonstrated that a black college or school can be separate, but it was hardly equal if it lacked a law school or indoor plumbing. 

The Brown and Plessy Decisions 

• In 1950, the NAACP decided to attack the “separate but equal” doctrine. 

• Oliver Brown objected because his daughter had to walk past an all-white school to catch the bus to her segregated school. His suit was rejected because the schools of Topeka met the court’s test of equality. 

• 2 years later, the NAACP convinced the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). 

Overturning Plessy 

• Marshall and his colleagues succeeded because of a change in the Supreme Court. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren as chief justice. 

• The Court ruled unanimously that separate facilities were unequal. 

• At the time of the Brown decision, 21 states and the District of Columbia operated segregated school systems. All of them had to decide how to cooperate. 

• A second ruling on Brown was issued, where the Court required that desegregation be carried out “with all deliberate speed.” 

• In 1956, 91 US senators and 81 representatives issued a “Southern Manifesto,” which declared their intent to use “all lawful means” to keep segregation. 

Delgado and Segregated Schools 

• In Mendez et al. V. Westminster School District of Orange County, the courts ordered several California school districts to integrate. 

• The superintendent in the town of Bastrop refused a request to enroll a first grader in a nearby all-white school. 

• Before Delgado et al. V. Bastrop et al. Went to rial, a Texas judge ordered an end to segregated schools beyond first grade. 

• Delgado served notice that Mexicans wouldn’t accept second-class citizenship. This was used as precedent in the Brown case. 

• Latinos faced a peculiar Jim Crow system that left them segregated not by law, but by practice. 

• The dividing line (blacks and whites were recognized in the Southwest states) left Mexican Americans in legal limbo. 

• Mexican Americans had to establish themselves as a distinct class of people in court. 

Hernandez and Desegregation 

• Pete Hernandez was convicted of murder by an all-white jury in Jackson County, Texas. The problem was that no Mexican served on a Jackson jury in the last 25 years. 

• Gus Garcia, a Mexican American lawyer and one of the leaders of the American GI Forum, used the tactics of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP to use the Hernandez case to extend to Mexicans the benefits of the Equal Protection Clause. 

• The state argued that because Mexicans were white, a jury without Mexicans would still be a jury of peers. 

• This and similar examples of discrimination led the Supreme Court to throw out the state’s argument. 

• Latinos in south Texas were held to be a discrete group whose members deserve equal protection under the law. 

• Earl Warren’s reasoning allowed Latinos to seek redress as a group. 

Rosa Parks 

• The Brown and the Hernandez case didn’t end segregation, but they created a new era of southern race relations. 

• In December 1955, Rosa Parks was riding the bus home in Montgomery, Alabama. When the driver ordered her to give up her seat to a white man, she refused. Police arrested her. 

• Thousands of copies of a letter of protest circulated. The Monday boycott was so successful it was extended indefinitely. 

• The white community resorted to various forms of legal and physical intimidation. 

• After a failed attempt to explode a bomb in MLK’s house, 90 black leaders were arrested for organizing an illegal boycott. 

• On November 23, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was illegal. 

Martin Luther King Jr. 

• The triumph was sweet for MLK, whose leadership brought him national fame. 

• MLK grew up in a middle-class black community in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of one of the city’s most prominent black ministers. 

• Before entering the doctoral program at Boston University, MLK attended Morehouse College and Crozer Theological Seminary. 

• King was inspired by the nonviolence by Mohandas Gandhi and the activism of Christian reformers of the Progressive era. 

Nonviolence as a Strategy 

• As a boycott leader, King had the responsibility of rallying black support without triggering violence. 

• King offered his audience 2 visions. First, he reminded them about the many injustices that they had to endure. Then he encouraged his followers to avoid the actions of their oppressors. 

• King believed that protests must be grounded in dignity, love, and nonviolence. If they were, it would mean that African Americans had the courage to stand up for their rights. 

• The African Americans of Montgomery did stand up and set an example of moral courage. 

Little Rock and the White Backlash 

• The civil rights movement moved to Little Rock. White officials there had planned to integrate schools with a lack of speed. 

• 9 black students were scheduled to enroll in September 1957 at the all-white Central High School. Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard to protect the 9 students. 

• The Justice Department couldn’t let Faubus defy the federal courts. It won an injunction against Faubus. 

• National attention of 1,000 abusive whites greeting the 9 black students was so big that Eisenhower wanted to send in federal troops and take control of the National Guard. 

• The Guard preserved order for a year until Faubus closed the schools. In 1959, the schools reopened and the plan for gradual integration resumed. 

• Segregationist resistance increased in the wake of King’s Montgomery success. From 1955 to 1959, civil rights protestors had to face over 200 acts of violence in the South. 

• Black leaders couldn’t achieve momentum on a national scale until 1960. It took some demonstrations from a couple of young people to change everything. 

REFLECTION: Post-World War II America was a time of many social transformations and political developments, from the emergence of suburban culture promoted by the baby boom, economic prosperity, and government programs like the GI Bill, which made it possible for middle-class families to buy homes. The other challenges of suburban growth were environmental degradation, urban decline, and continued racial segregation. Though women's traditional roles as homemakers were still quite prevalent in suburban households, the number of working women increased markedly during this period, often within gender-based inequities. Other cultural changes included increased television, rock and roll, and critiques of suburban conformity, perhaps most effectively by William Whyte. The Eisenhower administration worked toward balancing economic growth with conservative governance as a means of dealing with the tension of the Cold War through containment and covert operations. It was during this period that the civil rights movements were in their very nascent stage; Brown v. Board of Education, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. protested segregation and racial injustice. during this period, when the civil rights movements were in their very nascent stage, Brown v. Board of Education, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. protested segregation and racial injustice. It is with these changes that bigger changes in society started getting an opening in the 1960s.