cold war+1945 1953 - studythepast · 1 The Dawn of the Cold War, 1945-1954 The Dawn of the Cold War, 1945-1953 Topics of Consideration 1. Roots of the Cold War 2. Containment and

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The Dawn of the Cold War, 1945-1954


Topics of Consideration

1. Roots of the Cold War

2. Containment and the Truman Doctrine

3. The Marshall Plan

4. The Berlin Blockade and NATO

5. Tools of Containment

6. 1949: China and the Bomb

7. 1950-1953: The Korean War

8. 1950-54: The McCarthy Scare

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Roots of the Cold War

1. World War I: Russian Revolution (1917)

2. Ideological differences between US and USSR

3. 1917-1921: Red Scare in US

4. 1918-1920: US aided White armies

5. 1917-1933: US does not recognize USSR

6. 1939-41: Hitler-Stalin pact; Soviets invaded Finland

7. During WWII, Soviet frustration over second front



8. US shared nuclear secrets with UK, but not USSR

9. Conflict over Poland: US liberal - USSR communist

10. After FDR‘s death, Truman more confrontational

11. At Potsdam conference, distrust obvious

12 US develops and uses atomic bomb12. US develops and uses atomic bomb

13. End of World War II -- power vacuum -- US and USSR

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"Coryphaeus of Science," "Father of Nations," "Brilliant Genius of Humanity " "Great Architect of Humanity, Great Architect of Communism," "Gardener of Human Happiness“

Historians working after the Soviet Union's dissolution have estimated victim totals ranging from approximately 4 million to nearly 10 million, not including those who died in famines.



14. Conflict over influence in former German territory.

15. USSR established satellite states in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

16. US feared Soviet designs on Western Europe.

17. Churchill‘s Iron Curtain speech, 1946.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8_wQ-5uxV4

18. George F. Kennan‘s Long Telegram, 1946

19. Lessons of Munich appeasement

20. US fought WWII to prevent totalitarian control of Europe.

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Answer to Dept’s 284, Feb. 3,11 involves questions so intricate, so delicate, so strange to our form of thought, and so important to analysis of our international environment that I cannot compress answers into single brief message without yielding to what I feel would be a dangerous degree of oversimplification. I hope, therefore, Dept will bear with me if I submit in answer to this question five parts . . . I apologize in advance for this burdening of telegraphic channel; but questions involved are of such urgent importance, particularly in view of recent events, that our answers to them, if they deserve attention at all, seem to me to deserve it at once.

Kennan proceeded (in the first two sections) to posit concepts that became the foundation of American Cold War policy:

The USSR perceived itself at perpetual war with capitalism; Socialism and social democracy are enemies, not allies; The USSR would use controllable Marxists in the capitalist world as allies; Soviet aggression was fundamentally not aligned with the views of the Russian people or with economic reality, but in historic Russian xenophobia and paranoia; The Soviet government's structure prohibited objective or accurate pictures of internal and external reality.

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Containment and Truman Doctrine

1. 1947: Greece and Turkey, UK asked US for help.

2. However, Congress inclined to cut back on spending

3. Truman Doctrine: “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmQD_W8Pcxg

4. Global containment against USSR anywhere

5. Kennan -- Mr. X Article – elaborated on containment: “unalterable counterforce at every point.”

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“The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies... Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the Western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and manoeuvers of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence.”

Mr. X, [George Kennan], The Sources of Soviet Conduct, Foreign Affairs, 1947


The Marshall Plan

1. Europe was the original theatre of the Cold War and containment.

2. Marshall Plan 1947 to stabilize struggling Western European economies.

3. Also offered to Eastern Europe, but rejected under Soviet pressure.

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The Marshall Plan


Berlin Blockade and NATO

1. Berlin Blockade 1948.

2. Creation of Fed. Rep. of Germany 1949.

3. Foundation of NATO 1949

4. Rearmament of Germany 1952

5. Soviet Reactions: German DemocraticRepublic 1949; Warsaw Pact 1955

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Berlin Blockade and NATO

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Tools of Containment

1. 1947 National Security Act:yNational Security CouncilCIA (fully established 1951)Department of Defense

2. House Un-American Activities Committee, 1938, 1947

3.Cultural Policies, academic exchanges to propaganda efforts. Fulbright program to promote democracy. Radio Free Europe to reach Eastern Europeans.

4. Memorandum NSC-68 (1950) called for massively enlarged military budget: “the Kremlin seeks to bring the free world under its dominion by the methods of the cold war. The preferred technique is to subvert by infiltration and intimidation.”

Allan Dulles, second

director of the CIA


1949: China and the Bomb

1. 1949: China become a Communist state

2. Monolithic communist threat?

3. 1949: Soviets get the A-Bomb

Mao Zedong (1893-1976)

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1950-1953: The Korean War

1. Korea divided after WWII: North and South Korea

2. North Korean invasion of South, 1950

3. Due to Soviet boycott of UN, security council backing for “police action.”

4. UN Forces -- Douglas MacArthur lands at Inchon and re conquers lost territoryand re-conquers lost territory

5. Decision to cross 38th parallel in an attempt to reunify Korea under US aegis

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1950-1953: The Korean War

6. As MacArthur came close to Yalu river, massive Chinese intervention.

7. Stalemate fighting near 38th parallel

8. MacArthur criticized strategy of limited war, demanded all-out war vs China

9 Truman fired MacArthur; Korean War stalled until 9. Truman fired MacArthur; Korean War stalled until settlement in 1953

10. Truce Line remains de facto border between South and North Korea.


1950-1954: The McCarthy Scare

1. Republican Senator, Wisconsin (1947-1957)

2. Investigated claims that there were Communist and Soviet spies inside the federal government

3. Lincoln Day speech (Feb 9, 1950), Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia.

4. Became most visible public face of anti-Communism.

5. McCarthyism coined in 1950 to condemn the senator's methods, which were based on unsubstantiated accusations.

6. 1953, McCarthy chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

7. Takes on Army, 1954; Edward R. Murrow, 1954

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McCarthy's Support in Gallup Polls

Date Favorable No Opinion Unfavorable Net Favorable1951-August 15 63 22 -71953 April 19 59 22 -31953 June 35 35 30 51953 August 34 24 42 -81954-Jan 50 21 29 211954-March 46 18 36 101954-April 38 16 46 -81954-May 35 16 49 -141954-June 34 21 45 -111954-August 36 13 51 -151954-Nov 35 19 46 -11

Source: Nelson W. Polsby, "Towards an Explanation of McCarthyism," Political Studies, Vol. 8 (Oct 1962), p. 252

Documents

cold war+1945 1953 - studythepast · 1 The Dawn of the Cold War, 1945-1954 The Dawn of the Cold War, 1945-1953 Topics of Consideration 1. Roots of the Cold War 2. Containment and