From the Grand Alliance to Containment

• The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan

• Building a National Security State

• The Cold War Begins

• Superpower Rivalry around the Globe

Marshall Plan

• General George C. Marshall, Secty of State,

• “European Recovery Plan”, US spent $13 billion to restore the economies of 16 Western European nations [which in turn helped the US economy];

• Soviet Union did not participate because it objected to free enterprise

Truman Doctrine

• Truman’s claim that American security depended on stopping any Communist government from taking over any non-communist government, anywhere in the world. This approach became the cornerstone of American foreign policy during the Cold War.

Containment

• The foreign policy of the US to hold in check the power and influence of the Soviet Union and others espousing communism.

Truman containment policy had six-pronged defense strategy:

1. Development of atomic weapons2. Strengthen traditional military power3. Military alliances with other nations4. Military and economic aid to friendly nations5. An espionage network and secret means to

subvert Soviet expansion6. a propaganda offensive to win popular

admiration for the US around the world.

What was the Cold War?

• Cold War: the hostile and tense relationship between the Soviet Union and the US (and other Western nations) from 1947 until 1989

• “cold” because it stopped short of armed conflict, warded off by the strategy of Nuclear Deterrence

Deterrence

• the strategy of the US that it would maintain a nuclear arsenal so substantial that the Soviet Union would refrain from attacking the US and its allies out of fear that the US would retaliate in devastating proportions. The Soviets pursued a similar strategy.

Superpower Rivalry Around the Globe

• “third world” a term referring to about forty countries which had won independence but were not in the Western (first) world, nor the Soviet (second) world.

• 1949, communists under Mao Zedong took China, chasing Nationalists under Chang Kai-shek to Tiawan

• People’s Republic of China under Mao signed a treaty with Soviets

Rivalry, cont’

• Japan rebuilt with American dollars, sides with US

• State of Israel established in Palestine, endorsed by US

Election 1948

Truman and the Fair Deal at Home

• Reconverting to a Peacetime Economy

• Blacks and Mexican Americans Push for Their Civil Rights

• The Fair Deal Flounders

• The Domestic Chill: McCarthyism

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy

Second “Red Scare”

• “Red Scare” happens after a war

• After the collapse of the Soviet-American alliance

• Suspicions of espionage

• “red baiting” = attempts to discredit people by associating them with communism

The Cold War Becomes Hot: Korea

• A Military Implementation of Containment

• First time Americans go to battle for containment

• A militarization of American foreign policy

Korean War

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/KoreanWarRefugeeWithBaby.jpg

Costs of the War

• Total civilians killed/wounded: – 2.5 million

South Korea: 990,968– 373,599 killed– 229,625 wounded– 387,744 abducted/missing

• North Korea: 1,550,000

• US: 36,000 killed, 100,000 wounded

US and USSR

US and USSR

• Stalin died in 1953• New Soviet premier

is Nikita Khrushchev• Eisenhower and

Khrushchev meet in 1955 in Geneva, the first time leaders from these two countries have met since WWII

Nuclear Arms Race and Space Race

Nuclear Arms Race

• 1957, Soviets tested ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile)

• Fears emerged that the US was lagging behind the Soviets

• Signed the National Defense Act (student loan and scholarships for math science).

• Civil Defense Administration recommended home bomb shelters

Space Race

• 1957, Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to circle the earth

• The American first satellite was dubbed “Flopnik” because it exploded

• 1958, Eisenhower established National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

“Brinksmanship” and “MAD”

• Secty of State John Foster Dulles, America’s willingness to go to the “brink” of war as a threat

• “MAD” Mutually assured destruction = nuclear stand-off

1959 “kitchen debate” Nixon and Khrushchev

• Nixon: “ to make things easier for our women.”

• Khrushchev: we do not have the “capitalist attitude toward women.”

Consequences of the Cold War• Shifted priorities of the federal government

from domestic to foreign affairs• Expanded budget• Increased the power of the president• Defense contracts encouraged economic

population booms in the West and Southwest• The Nuclear Arms races consumed dollars

and resources, skewed the economy toward dependence on military projects

• Created anti-communist hysteria which stifled debate, politically or socially

Cold War had created a warfare state

• “military-industrial complex”– A term coined by Eisenhower in his farewell

address– the power and influence of the military and

defense contractors who now controlled the economy

– nearly one of every three California workers held a defense-related job.

– one in every ten American jobs depended on defense spending

Interstate Highway and Defense System Act of 1956

Costs and Benefits

Benefits• Greater public travel• Improved transportation

of goods• Suburban expansion• Growth in fast food • Growth in motel industry• Most growth in trucking,

construction, and auto industries

Costs• paid costs through

increased fuel and vehicle taxes

• Air pollution• Energy consumption• Decline in the railroads

and mass transit• Decay in central cities

Sun Belt

Culture of Abundance

• Increased prosperity and complacency• Baby boom (higher birth rate), peaking in 1957

with 4.3 million births• Traditional family and gender roles• More religious observance, Baptist Billy Graham • Congress adding “under God” to the pledge of

allegiance in 1954 and “In God We Trust” on currency in 1955.

• Television widespread

Television

• Eisenhower’s 1952 Presidential campaign used TV ads for the first time and

• by 1960, television played a key role in election campaigns

• Television came to dominate American’s leisure time, influence their consumption patterns, and shape their perceptions of the nation’s leadership.

Just Below the Surface

The apparent consensus and tranquility of the 1950s never grappled with

• a 20% poverty rate

• entrenched racism

• urban decay

• a self-conscious youth generation.

Racism in America

Women

• Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique,

• Critique of the idealization of women’s domestic roles and women basing their identity on their children and husbands.

• it “ignited the contemporary women's movement

• It is widely regarded as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century

Native Americans

• Under Eisenhower, departed from the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act which attempted to preserve Indian culture.

• Three part program, compensation, termination, and relocation

• It Beginning in 1953, Eisenhower signed bills transferring jurisdiction over tribal lands to state and local governments

• The loss of federal hospitals, schools devastated Indian tribes

• A new militancy arose as a result of the urbanization of Native Americans

Hispanics, one example

• Hernandez vs Texas, 1954– first Mexican American civil rights case of the

post WWII era; – Pete Hernandez convicted of murder in

Texas; it was appealed to the US Supreme Court and overturned

– ruling that Mexican Americans had been excluded systematically from the jury pool and service, and was a violation of the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection.

Bracero Program

– Begun during WWII where Mexican laborers were allowed entry into the US to work for a limited period of time but not to gain citizenship or permanent residence. The program officially ended in 1964.

– About 100,000 came each year.– In 1954 “Operation Wetback” designed to

ferret out illegals and deport; mistook many legal residents too

Eisenhower “New Look” foreign policy

• Did not want to spend money on large army

• Relied on nuclear weapons and giving traditional weapons to allies

US Interventions in Latin America

• 1954, Guatemala, Eisenhower authorized CIA to assist in a coup

• 1959, after Castro revolt, Eisenhower broke of diplomatic relations with Cuba and authorized CIA to train Cuban exiles for an invasion

US Interventions in the Middle East

• 1951, Iran, prime minister had nationalized oil fields and refineries; in 1953 Eisenhower authorized CIA to instigate a coup (1953) and paid Iranians to demonstrate against the government;

• the Shah (traditional hereditary leader who favored US oil interests) was reinstated) [this whole maneuver would back fire in 1979 with anti US backlash]

• Egypt and the Suez Crisis

Vietnam

• Vietnam, 1945, under communist Ho Chi Minh, the Vietminh declared independence from France

• Eisenhower looked at Vietnam as Truman had seen Turkey and Greece, that to let them go communist would set off a domino reaction

• US supplied money to France to fight insurgents. French lost in 1954

• Vietnam was partitioned at the seventeenth parallel

Eisenhower response to situation in Vietnam

• Send weapons and military advisors to South Vietnam

• Assign CIA to destabilize the North

• Supported South Vietnamese Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem and his refusal to hold an election to unify Vietnamese governments

Vietnam, cont’.

• Between 1955 and 1961, the US provided $800 million to the South Vietnamese Army

• US joined SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), 1954, with Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Pakistan and the Philippines

• To defend Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam• This legacy was left to Eisenhower’s successor