PP

Update APUSH Reading quiz 7

  • Atlantic Charter

    • Agreement which outlined the future, signed in 1941 and emphasized the idea of countries resolving ideological differences through diplomatic means, using a governing diplomatic body (UN)

    • UK and USSR signed it, but they favored a system of owning territories and countries than benefitted them more

  • Brinksmanship

    • John Foster Dulles’ system of tense confrontations, pushing to the brink of war to exact concessions from the US

  • Containment

    • Rather than trying to create a unified open world, the US would instead focus on “containing” the threat of soviet expansion

    • US commitment to containment policy was demonstrated by a series of decisions intended to keep US military strong, including military draft which revived the selective service system, and continuing research into nuclear bombs

  • Dien Bien Phu

    • French were facing resistence in Vietnam from revolutionaries, they were cornered in a siege at Dien Bien Phu, and needed the American’s help

      • Despite advice from many of his advisors, Eisenhower refused to let the US intervene, saying Congress and the US’ other allies wouldn’t support it

  • Douglas MacArthur

    • Appointed to lead American/UN forces in Korean war fighting against the communists

    • Dominated communist forces, pushing them back into their own territory, before the Chinese intervened and pushed the UN the opposite direction, and then eventually the UN regained territory up to the 38th parallel

    • MacArthur and Truman disagreed heavily, as Truman wanted compromise and MacArthur wanted complete and total victory

    • MacArthur was fired from his position when he indicated his unhappiness with truman in a letter to House Republican leader Joseph W. Martin (the Martin Letter)

      • Many in the public were outraged, and large amounts of people supported MacArthur

  • Fidel Castro

    • Cuba was previously extremely closely tied to the US, as their leader, Fulgencio Bautista, had American assistance in coming to power and American corporations dominated the country

      • On January 1, 1959, with Batista needing to flee to Spain, Castro formed a new government

    • Castro instituted radical programs of land-reform and other communist-aligned systems, weakening US-Cuba relations before they were eventually fully severed

  • George F. Kennan

    • Influential American diplomat who said that the only appropriate approach to dealing with the USSR was long term, patient but firm containment of the spread of communism

    • Truman used these ideas to form the basis of the Truman Doctrine, stating that it was the US responsibility to support people resisting “armed subjugation” by outside pressures

  • John Foster Dulles

    • Dulles was one of the dominant faces of American foreign policy during the 1950s, and was an artistocratic corporate lawyer who was appaled by communism

    • Dulles used the idea of “massive retaliation” to respond to communist threats, hovering the idea of nuclear warfare to scare opponents 

  • Korean War

    • Before the end of WW2, both the US and USSR sent forces into Korea to weaken Japanese occupation, and they split the country in half, one side communist one side capitalist

      • Capitalist side led by Syngman Rhee, who was anti-capitalist but barely democratic, using his small military to repress internal oppositon

    • North Koreans invaded and tried to reunite the country, but UN intervened and pushed them back

      • War went back and forth multiple times with each side forcing the other into their own territory before the war ended in a virutal stalemate

  • Mao Zedong

    • Chiang Kai-Shek was leading the Chinese government, and was generally friendly to the US, but his government was corrupt and clearly doomed to fail in a rivalry with the communist armies of Mao Zedong

    • The president sent George Marshall to study the China problem, but he ended up concluding the only thing that would deter the communists was all-out war, and he didn’t recommend the president to accept this situation

  • Marshall Plan

    • Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced a plan to provide economic assistance of all European countries, which was rejected by Russia and it’s satellite states but accepted by many other European countries

    • Created Economic Cooperation Administration which channeled US aid to Europe and helped rebuild their economy to prosperous levels

  • National Security Act

    • National Security Act of 1947 reshaped the organization of the nation’s military organizations

    • Formed Department of Defense to oversee all branches of the armed services

      • Combined functions previously performed by War and Navy Department

    • National Security Council operating out of the white house would oversee foreign and military policy, CIA formed to collect information and complete secrete operations

  • NATO

    • US, England and France formed a plan to reunite parts of Germany, Stalin responded by blockading the Western areas of Berlin, isolating the people of the city

      • US airlifted supplies in a successful operation that led to Stalin eventually lifting blockade, and Germany formally splitting in two

    • After this crisis, an already brewing alliance was accelerated, and on April 4, 1949 twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization stating that an attack on one nation would be considered an attack on all

      • They also maintained a standing military force in Europe to defend against the threat of soviet invasion

  • NSC-68

    • Truman called for a thorough review of American foreign policy, resulting in a National Security Council report titled NSC-68

    • Previous documents, like the Truman Doctrine, had encouraged America to share the burden of fighting communism with allies. However, this document said that the US could no longer rely on others, and now needed to stop communism anywhere it spread, as well as increasing the defense budget

  • Truman Doctrine

    • In the medditeranean, communist forces were overtaking important areas and posing challenges to pro-Western governments

    • In response, Truman decided to outline foreign policy in the Truman Doctrine

    • Gave a speech where he used Kennan’s ideas to support the US helping people threatened by communist revolts, and in this speech he requested and received $400 million to help Greece and Turkey

  • United Nations

    • At the Yalta Conference, negotiators agreed to a plan for a new international organziation which would contain a general assembley with every country and a security council with the five major powers (US, UK, France, Russia, China) as permanent representatives

    • United Nations charter was drafted April 25, 1945 in San Francisco, CA and ratified 80-2 in the senate

  • Warsaw Pact

    • Formation of NATO caused the USSR to form their own version with the communist governments of eastern europe

    • In 1955, Warsaw Pact formed

  • Yalta Conference

    • In Febuary 1945, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met for a peace conference in Yalta, a city in the USSR

    • USSR agreed to enter the Pacific war, and Roosevelt agreed he’d give them some previously lost territory from the 1904 Russo-Japanese War

    • At the Yalta conference Roosevelt and Churchill disagreed with Stalin on multiple issues including the fate of Poland

      • Roosevelt/Churchill wanted a Western style government with free elections, Stalin wanted communist control like the “Lublin” government he had already installed

      • Stalin loosely compromised and said some westerners could be in the government as well as saying there would be free elections in Poland in the future, even though they didn’t happen for another 50 years

    • They also disagreed on Germany, as US wanted reunited, reconstructed Germany whereas Stalin wanted to split it up and cripple them with reparations

      • They eventually decided that US, UK, France and USSR would each have a “zone of occupation” in Germany which they would control, and they’d split Berlin into four quarters

        • Germany was to be reunited at an unspecified time

    • Yalta accords were less important that each leader hoped, as they mostly made loose temporary fixes and side-stepped main issues, allowing USSR to quickly ignore much of it


Chapter 29: Post-War America

  • Alger Hiss

    • HUAC investigated charges of disloyalty against Alger Hiss, a former high ranking member of the state department

    • Whittaker Chambers accused Hiss of passing confidential documents to the soviets through him in 1937 and 1938, and produced the “pumpkin papers” which were evidence against Hiss

    • Despite the statue of limitations expiring, meaning Hiss couldn’t be tried for espionage, the relentless efforts of a young senator named Richard Nixon led to his conviction for perjury

    • This helped discredit many liberal Democrats, and also made many Ameircans believe that communists had already infiltrated the government

  • Allen Ginsberg

    • Member of the “beats”, wrote a poem called “Howl” criticizing sterile American life and technology

  • “Beats”

    • Also known as the Beatniks, young group of poets, writers, and artists who were critics of bureaucracy and middle class society in general

    • Visible evidence of a widespread restlessness among American youth in the 1950s

      • Growing sense among young people of limitless possibilities, and raised to expect a life of fulfillment and prosperity, but faced challenges to fulfilling these possibilities

    • Public attention was drawn toward the phenomenon of “juvenile delinquency”, as movies and writings made it seem like America’s youth were becoming increasingly criminal, when crime rates didn’t dramatically increase

  • Echo Park

    • Americans began traveling to national parks increasingly frequently during the 1950s, camping, hunting and fishing

    • Echo park was a valley near the border of Utah and Wyoming, and the federal government proposed creating a dam there on the river

      • Sierra club, which had been relatively quiet since Hetch Hetchy, got involved

    • Bernard DeVoto published an essay called “Shall We Let Them Ruin Our National Parks?” which arose anger against the government for the idea of constructing the dam

      • Sierra Club, under their new aggressive leader David Brower, joined a coalition to oppose dam construction and in 1956 congress caved to pressure and canceled the project

  • Elvis Presley

    • Presley became a symbol of youthful rebellious nature and desire to push boundaries of society

    • This new generation of rock had strong roots in traditionally black music genres, adapting their soulful rhythmn

    • The rise of presley was partly because of an unwillingness of white audiences to accept black musicians, so once they found someone with similar musical style he became popular

  • Fair Deal

    • Days after the Japanese surrendered, Truman submitted a twenty one point domestic program outlining the “Fair Deal”

    • Called for expanding social security benefits, raising minimum wage, public housing, ensuring full employment, nationalization of atomic energy, and other various ideas

      • One of the most important was national health-care

    • Unfortunately many of these ideas fell victim to intensifying conservatism, as republicans gained more political power

  • HUAC

    • House Un-American Affairs Comittee (HUAC) conducted investigations to try to prove that under democrat control, the government had tolerated and even encouraged communist subversion

    • Turned focus to Hollywood, and suspected many of them of being communists, when ten of them refused to testify on their political beliefs (Hollywood Ten), they were jailed for contempt 

      • Some suspected communists were put on blacklists

  • J.D. Salinger

    • Wrote the novel catcher in the rye about a student who was unable to feel any area of society where he felt secure

  • Jack Kerouac

    • Produced an important novel the “Beat” generation with his novel, “On the Road”, which was an account of a cross-country road trip depicting the classic idealized lifestyle of the time

  • Jonas Salk 794
    Joseph McCarthy 807
    Julius and Ethel Rosenberg 807
    Levittown 798
    McCarthyism 807
    Michael Harrington 804
    Saul Bellow 802
    Sputnik 796
    Taft-Hartley Act 787
    Thomas E. Dewey 788
    UNIVAC 795
    Whittaker Chambers 807
    William H. Whyte Jr. 802
    William Levitt 798