Cold War

Legacies of WWII

Politics

Left-Liberal - Democrat

Right-Conservative - Republican

Liberals: felt the abundance justifies the Keynesian notion (deficit spending) and Brinkley argues many liberals seized the moment to expand social and economic agenda (do more with the new deal)

Conservatives: Many Republicans and Democrats who did not embrace these notions started to take over congress. The end of the Depression took away the need for New Deal programs - and one by one they were eliminated and reduced. Abundance meant there was no need for socialist programs.

United Nations

FDR and Churchill met prior to end of war and discussed a United Nations based on LoN

After the war leaders met in San Francisco to lay out the structure of the United Nations, aiming to create a more effective organization that could prevent future conflicts and promote international cooperation.

United Nations had a Security Council (US, UK, China, Soviet Union, France). They decide whether or not the UN should intervene in conflicts around the world, with the power to impose sanctions or authorize military action to maintain peace and security.


Origins of the Cold War

Post WWII led to the following

  • UN agencies helped refugees

  • Germany was occupied by Soviets and the US

  • Japan surrendered after AB dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  • The Allies would persecute Nazi Leaders at Nuremberg

Grand Alliance (US, UK, Soviet Union, France, China) was strained, but started during the war.

Strains of the Grand Alliance

Second Front: The largest issues that confronted the Alliance was the invasion of Europe, which would open a “Second Front” and help Russia fight against Germany

Tehran Conference, 1943: The Big Three met and set out war aims. FDR proposed his notion of the UN. They agreed to wait until 1944 to open up a second front in Europe. Stalin was upset and though the US and Britain were teaming up against Russia

Yalta, January 1945: The Big Three met for the last time. The largest issue was Poland and Eastern Europe. Stalin agreed to free elections (did not happen) which led to the creation of satellite states.

Potsdam Conference, July 1945: FDR died in April and Churchill was voted out of office. Truman met with Stalin and Clement Atlee. Truman referred to a new weapon, but did not tell Stalin about the Bomb. This deepend Stalin’s distrust of the Anglo-American Alliance. “Operation Unthinkable”

The Bomb: The bomb had a tremendous impact on the Grand Alliance. Stalin was afraid that the US would use it against them. “Confronting the Implications of the Atomic Bomb”. US had an Atomic Monopoly for 4 years, meaning they could do whatever they wanted.

Satellite States: The Red Army did not leave Eastern Europe. They set up governments that were linked to Moscow and had communist governments. As they did that the United States brought manufacturing to Western Europe.

The Cold War

The National Security Act of 1947: This act by congress tried to define how to confront the “soviet threat” by restructuring out defense.

  • Created the Department of Defense as well as renamed the Secretary of War to Secretary of Defense'

  • Established the Joint Chiefs of Staff - which are military advisors to the president from all the branches with a chairman overseeing them.

  • Established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which started in WWII

  • Established the National Security Council and National Security Advisor’


The Berlin Airlift 1948: After World War II Germany and Berlin were divided among four powers. Berlin had sectors that combined into an “allied zone”. Berlin was located in East Germany- part of the “Iron Curtain”

Stalin wanted to get western powers out of East Germany and Berlin so in June 1948 he blockaded all the roads going into the Allied sections. Truman ordered Nuclear bombers to England in response. The US led an airlift of goods unto Berlin to support the Allied sections. It lasted over a year Stalin did not interfere with it, which demonstrated US resolve.

NATO: 10 nations in Western Europe, the United States and Canada signed a collective security agreement in 1949. It included article 5 of the agreement where if one nation was attacked then all of them were attacked. This treaty has since been expanded since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Divisions of Germany: Germany was divided in two separate nations:

  • Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the West - ties to US

  • German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the East - ties to USSR

Incompatible Visions of the Post War Era

Leffler Essay

Thesis: The Cold War was not inevitable. Agreement was still possible. Conditions in the International system created RISKS they could not accept and OPPORTUNITIES they could not resist.

Evidence

Fear of Encirclement: The Soviets were afraid of the west attacking them again as they did in BOTH WWI and WWII. They wanted to create a buffer to stop any attack (Putin claims the same about NATO today) Leffler argues that the Atomic Bomb was a TURNING POINT in this thinking. “Stalin distrusted capitalists.”

Fear of “Communist Aggression”: The United States and Great Britain claimed that the Russians were trying to take over Europe and bring communism to all nations, which was a threat to democracy. Why did the US/UK think they had these plans?

Bolshoi Speech, February 9, 1946: Stalin gives a speech that stated there will be a conflict between communists and capitalists and that the communists would win. This scared the West - as Leffler argues, FEAR became a pervasive part of policy.

Long Telegram, February 1946: George Kennan argued in his telegram that the communist IDEOLOGY was something that would be difficult to defeat. He laid the groundwork for the CONTAINMENT policy, which he argued in an article in Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym X

Threats and Agreement: There were threats to Russia according to Leffler. Famine, unrest in annexed lands, low scale insurgencies and guerilla fighting. Despite his speech on 2/9/46 ‘Stalin did not rift with Western powers’. His aim was a demilitarized Germany. The West was unwilling to allow that. The status of Germany was a major cause of the Cold War.

Iron Curtain Speech, March 1946: Winston Churchill gave a speech in Fulton, Missouri that said the communist aggression in Eastern Europe has led a division in Europe where totalitarianism was a threat to the world. He called the Satellite states the “Iron Curtain.”

Truman Doctrine, March 1947: Truman decided to take a stand against communism the next year. Greece and Turkey were fighting a civil war where the communists were trying to take over the government. The British supported the Nationalists, but ran out of money. The US took over. Truman pledged that the US would “support free peoples” all over the world and asked Congress for 400 million dollars in aid for Greece and Turkey. Truman argued that if the US did not do this those countries would fall into the communist sphere. “Leader of the Free World”


Conclusion on Leffler essay: The Cold War was not inevitable. Fear drove policy. That fear was pervasive in the leaders and the rhetoric of the Cold War. The US believed that Russia would capitalize on the anarchy of the international system.

Henry Wallace: Conciliatory Approach

  • Russia had been attacked

  • The US has been aggresive witgh the A Bomb and defense of Western Europe

  • Russia believes that it is entitled to a new status after war

The US should change its thinking to international Matters

Nikolai Novikov: The US wants world supremacy

  • The US is moving its capital overseas

  • Increases in military and establishment of bases overseas

  • They do not want to eliminate the remnants of German facsim.

Then the US followed up with the Marshall Plan and National Security Act.


The Marshall Plan

George Marshall: The Secretary of State at the time, Marshall outlined his plan at Harvard in Jun 1947. It was an extension of the Truman Doctrine. The plan outlined a policy where the US would send money overseas to help rebuild Europe. “The whole world hangs in the balance,” he argued. He believed that poverty would lead to communist takeover of Europe and extended aid to Western Europe. Germany was one of the largest recipients.




The Twin Shocks of 1949

China: China was dealing with a civil war after WWII. Mao Zedong led the Communists, who were backed by the Soviets against the Nationalists who was led by Jiang Jieshi and supported by the US. Between 1945 and 1949 the US provided over 2 billion dollars in aid.

The nationalists lost and fled to the island of Formosa (Taiwan) in 1949. Truman looked weak and a lot of people felt he could have done more to help the Nationalists.

Truman decided not to recognize the Communist Chinese government. He did, however, recognize the government in Taiwan. This is still a major source of tension in Us-China relations. The US. would eventually reopen trade with China in 1972.

Soviet Detonation of the Atomic Bomb: The Soviet Union tested the atomic bomb in 1949. This has huge implications on the world and the US lost its atomic monopoly.

NSC-68 (Ch 1 Doc 7): This document was written by the National Security Council to assess how to deal with the Soviet Union.

  • The survival of America was at stake

  • The Cold war was real

  • The Soviets would achieve superiority and destroy us in a few years

  • Called for a massive build up of forces

  • Led to a rise in the defense budget to 50 billion dollars

  • Legitimized containment and the domino theory

  • ARMS RACE!!!!

The Korean War

WWII Aftermath: On June 25, 1950 the North invaded the South to bring the continent together under on communist nation. Kim received permission from Stalin and the Chinese concurred.

  • North: Kim Il Sung (Communist)

  • South: Syngman Rhee (Western)

Truman: Saw it as the same aggression that started WWII. He went to the UN for help and they voted to send a force led by US General Douglas MacArthur. After a succesful landing at Inchon and an advance of UN forces, containment gave way to liberation by the West'

China: Warned them if we got too close to their border that they would send in troops - 300,00 of them. The US pushed back creating a seesaw effect on the region. MacArthur wanted to use nuclear weapons, Truman said no. MacArthur disagreed publicly and was fired.

This became an issue in the Election of 1952, where Eisenhower said he would push for peace. Omar Bradley had famously said that fighting the Chinese would be the “wrong war at the wrong time”. July 27, 1953 after Eisenhower threatened expansion, the war ended, leaving 50,000 troops there.


Politics in the 40s and 50s

Red Scare: House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC) and the Senate were used to invesitgate people who were suspected communists. These committees were created in the early 1920s during the First Red Scare where Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer went after “anarchists” and “communists” in 1919.

“Cold Warriors”: Politicians used these committes in the wake of deterioration of realtions with Soviets and the fear that communists would someday take over democratic nations. It slowly built up to a hysteria that Senator Joe McCarthy would later capitalize on to attain power

Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers: Hiss was State Dept. official Chambers accused him in HUAC. Chambers was a known courier for a spy ring. Hiss sued Chambers who then produced microfilm of documents that Hiss allegedly passed him in the 1930s. The documents were linked to Hiss and his wife, they were then convicted of perjury.

Nixon and SAG: Nixon launched an investigation into Hollywood. Reagan appeared before HUAC to defend these actors and writers. The Hollywood 10 were brought before the committee and eventually blacklisted as a result. They refused to answer questions and were sent to prison for contempt. Others such as Elia Kazan and Burl Ives named names for the Committee. About 250 were black listed in the end.

Loyalty Programs: Labor Unions were also under attack and many linked their cause with the Communists, There was a history of socialism in this movement. There was also the PTA, Boy Scouts of America

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg: Klaus Fuchs was arrested and confessed that he gave secrets to spies Harry Gold and David Greenglass. They implicated the Rosenbergs. They were tried and executed. Roy Cohn came to national stardom as a result

Joseph McCarthy: A Senator from Wisconsin gained a great deal of power in the 1950s going after people who he claimed were linked to the Soviet Union through their communist affiliations. We see this especially in his speech (Doc 6) where he claimed that there were communists in the government Edward R. Murrow challenged him on CBS news.