The Cold War1945-1991

COLD WAR ORIGINS

• Ideological Differences• Rebuilding the World• Western front in Europe• Teheran Conference, Nov. 1943

– Disagreements over postwar Poland

• Yalta, February, 1945– Disagreements/Compromise over Germany

Peace Collapses

• Truman vs. FDR• Potsdam Failure, April 1945

– Germany remains divided

• Truman Doctrine, 1947 (George Kennan)– “It must be the policy of the U.S. to support free

peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”

• The Marshall Plan (George, Sec. of State)– $12 billion American aid to Europe

Peace collapse, cont.

• Berlin Airlift, 1948

• NATO (1949) vs. Warsaw Pact (1955)

• Soviets first atomic bomb (1949)

• China “lost”, 1949

• NSC-68, 1950

American Society, post WWII

• GI Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act)

• Effect on women, blacks, Hispanics??

• Fear of Nuclear War

American Politics, post-WWII

• 1946 Congressional Elections

• Taft-Hartley Act, 1947

• Election of 1948– Truman (Dem) - surprising victory

• Truman’s “Fair Deal” revived

• Shelley v Kraemer (1948)

The Korean War, 1950-1953

• North invasion, U.N. response

• Chinese intervention and threat of a WORLD WAR III.

• Truman / Mac Arthur Controversy

Battle vs. Subversion

• Origins of American Fears– “Loss” of China– Stalemate in Korea– Soviet atomic capabilities

• HUAC, 1947– Investigates Hollywood– Conviction of Alger Hiss (Nixon)

• Rosenberg Case• Joseph McCarthy, “McCarthyism”