A Survey of USA: ----- Post-WWII Years

Prof. Niangen Huang

Post-WWII Years

The creation of the United Nations in 1945 aroused hope that a new and better world would emerge from World War II.

But the hope was soon broken by the conflict of the two superpowers, Russia and the United States. In the post war period the differences between the two powers increased and later led to a new kind, of war ---a war without fighting which was called the Cold War.

Post-WWII Years

Facing the fast development of Communism in many parts of Europe and Asia, American President Truman became worried. He wanted to preserve the dominant position of the U. S. in world affairs and contain the development of Communism.

Post-WWII Years In March 1947, Truman asked Congress

to appropriate $ 400 million for economic aid and military supplies for Greece and Turkey. He said: "it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugations by armed minorities or by outside pressure. Our help (he stressed) should be primarily through economic and financial aid.

Post-WWII Years “This was the Truman Doctrine which

successfully prevented the communist takeover in Greece. The economic equivalent of the containment policy was presented by Secretary of State George C. Marshall in a speech at Harvard University in June 1947. Called the Marshall Plan, it proposed massive and systematic American economic aid to Europe.

Post-WWII Years

The plan had two major aims: (1) to keep Communists out of political power in Europe, and (2) to stabilize the international economic order in a way favorable to capitalism.

Post-WWII Years

By the end of Truman's presidency, more than $13 billion in American aid had been given in Europe under the Marshall Plan. Another step in the evolution of the policy of containment was to form a military alliance with the European countries.

Post-WWII Years In 1949, the United States, in company

with 11 other powers, entered into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty stated that an attack on any one of NATO members would be construed as an attack on all of them. Under the treaty, the United States provided the bulk of troops and equipment; and General Eisenhower became the first supreme commander of the NATO forces.

Post-WWII Years in the 1950s and 1960s, at her own home br

oke out the civil rights movement. It is true that Lincoln had proclaimed the emancipation of the blacks in 1860s, but one hundred years later discrimination against the blacks was still being practised in many parts of the country. This made the blacks become increasingly intolerable to the unjust treatment.

Post-WWII Years During the 1950s and 196Os, black leaders

fought against the segregation laws in the South. In 1954, they succeeded in getting the Supreme Court of the United States to declare segregation in public school illegal. Rosa Parks, a black woman from the South, started a movement to end segregation on public transportation. A black minister from Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led many demonstrations against the mistreatment of black citizens throughout the South.

Post-WWII Years

In 1955, he organized the blacks in Montgomery to stop riding the city's buses as a protest against having to sit in the back. This kind of protest is called a boycott. Later the sit-ins spread throughout the country.

Post-WWII Years

In 1963, more than 200,000 people, led by Martin Luther King, marched to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D. C. where King addressed the public 'his dream'. He was honored for his effort to fight discrimination. In 1964, he won the Noble Prize for peace.

Post-WWII Years In 1964 and 1965, Congress passed civil

rights laws that made discrimination illegal in jobs, education, voting, and public facilities.

Unfortunately, white racialists retaliated and King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, which date has been made an official holiday, Martin Luther King Day, in many states.

Post-WWII Years In 1960s and 1970s, American foreign

policy underwent some important changes. During the Eisenhower administration, American military "advisers" had been sent to South Vietnam to bolster its anti-communist government. Kennedy had expanded the American involvement, but Johnson sent in 500,000 American fighting men and ordered massive air attacks on North Vietnam's strategic positions.

Post-WWII Years

Heavy casualties and the expenditure of billions failed to win a victory. Opposition to the war mounted, especially among college students. Although Nixon was elected President in 1969 partly on vague assurances about a plan to end the war in Vietnam the fighting continued four more years.

Post-WWII Years In his most surprising reversal of

foreign policy goals, Nixon opened the door to China.

In his State of the World message on February 26, 1971, he cited the "People's Republic of China." by name and proposed more trade and the beginning of "serious dialogue". After months of preparation, President Nixon finally landed in Beijing on February 20, 1972.

Post-WWII Years After several meetings with Zhou En-lai and

Mao Tse-tung, the two governments: issued a joint communiqué pledging peaceful coexistence and recognizing Taiwan as an "internal" Chinese problem. In effect, Nixon had granted the fact of a single China; he even promised eventual withdrawal of American forces from Taiwan.

Post-WWII Years Domestically, Nixon was less successful. His

largest problem was an economy threatened by inflation and by increasing deficits in the balance of payments. Yet his fatal trouble was the disclosure of the Watergate scandal in the presidential election year 1972, five men of the Committee for the Reelection of the President broke into the Democratic, national headquarters at the Watergate Hotel, Washington, D.C, where they planted taps or bugs in order to gain information for the Committee. But unluckily they were arrested.

Post-WWII Years Although it was never approved that Nixon

planned the Watergate break-in that he ever knew about it beforehand, he was eventually forced Out of office because he was found guilty for his effort to avoid the investigation and disclosures. Faced with impeachment, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. He was succeeded by Gerald R. Ford, who very soon gave Nixon a "full, free and absolute pardon.”

Post-WWII Years

Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, whose administration covered four eventful years.

On the economy, the administration's initial focus on employment was soon replaced by concern with the highest peacetime inflation rates in the nation's history.

Post-WWII Years

The inflation, caused mainly by OPEC oil price rises, wage boosts, and large budget deficits, was never successfully countered. Carter formally recognized the People's Republic of China in 1979 and won approval of a treaty giving Panama sovereign control over the Panama Canal by 2000 A. D.

Post-WWII Years

His major foreign policy triumph was achieved at Camp David, where his mediation efforts succeeded in bringing Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President An-war el-Sadat to settle long-standing differences growing out of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Post-WWII Years

But his failure in dealings with the hostage crisis of the American embassy in Teheran spoiled his figure among the Americans. As the general election came in 1980, Carter was defeated by his opponent, Ronald Reagan.

Post-WWII Years

Reagan proposed a wide-ranging program of legislation.

His announced major goals were a reduction in federal spending and the size of government, Cuts in taxes, and a strengthening of the U.S. defense establishment.