The Policy of Containment

Chapter 26 Section 2

6.0 Notes

Objectives…

• Contrast and compare the leadership styles of President Roosevelt and Truman

• Explain the overall goal of the Containment Policy

• Identify and explain the individual components of the Containment Policy

• Evaluate the success of Truman’s enforcement of the Containment Policy

Who would lead the U.S. during the Cold War?

President Harry Truman– Honest and willing to

make tough decisions– Not in the inner circle– No – nonsense

approach with Soviets– Plain speaker

Truman taking the oath of office…

Truman as President?

• Time to stop “babying the Soviets”

• Replaced FDR’s diplomatic advisers with hard-line team

• Goals:

–Maintain U.S. military superiority

–Prevent communism from spreading

What was the Truman Doctrine?

“It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure” - HST

What was the situation in Greece and Turkey?

• Greece – civil war

• Turkey – insurgents coming across the border

• Great Britain announced withdrawal of economic and military aid to Greece

• U.S. feared Soviet involvement

• Senator Vandenberg’s advice to Truman…

How and where was the Truman Doctrine applied?

• $400 million

• Greece and Turkey

• Economic and military aid

• Truman warned the American people of the serious threat to national security posed by Soviet influence

• Committed the U.S. to the role of world policeman

What was the significance of the Truman Doctrine?

• Generated distrust against the Soviet Union and popular support for the campaign against communism at home and abroad

• Truman would be able to wield executive power to control legislation – similar to wartime power

• U.S. declared the right to intervene to save other countries from communist subversion

Who was George Kennan?

• U.S. diplomat in Moscow

• Said we should draw the line with Moscow

• Described the inevitability of conflict with the Soviet Union

What were the conditions in Europe after WWII?

• Western Europe in chaos

• Factories were bombed and looted

• Refugee – displaced persons camps

• Winter of 1946-7 – worst in over a century

• “a rubble heap – a charnel house, a breeding ground for pestilence and hate” - Churchill

What was the Marshall Plan?

• European Recovery Program• Secretary of State George Marshall• $13 billion in economic aid to 17 countries

1948-1951• Britain, France, and W. Germany received

over half• Ratified GATT – reduced commercial

barriers among member nations and opened trade to U.S.

The Marshall Plan becomes law

Why should the U.S. give $13 billion in aid?

• Fear of political consequences of total disintegration of Europe’s economy

• Aimed at turning back socialist and communist bids for power in northern and western Europe

How successful was the Marshall Plan?

• Created a climate favorable to capitalism

• Industrial production up 200% 1947-1952

• Standard of living rose• Western Europe became a major

center of American trade and investment

What was Stalin’s reaction?

• Stalin denounced the plan

• Said Marshall Plan was an American scheme to rebuild Germany and to bring it into an anti-Soviet bloc

What was the Iron Curtain?

• Winston Churchill – Fulton, Missouri -1946

• Declared the “iron curtain”

– New battlefront of the Cold War

– Divided the capitalist West from the communist East

• Stalin called the speech a declaration of war

How was Germany treated after WWII?

• Germany divided into 4 zones– U.S., British, French, and Soviet

• Berlin divided in the same way• 1948 – U.S., G.B., and France combined

their zones in Germany and Berlin creating the Federal Republic of West Germany

• W. Berlin was surrounded by Soviet occupied territory

• Threatened Stalin closed all highway and rail routes into W. Berlin

What was the significance of the Berlin Airlift – Operation Vittles?

• 2.1 million residents of Berlin had enough food and fuel for 5 weeks

• America and Britain flew in food and supplies

–2.3 million tons of food, fuel, medicine, even Christmas presents

–277,000 flights over 327 days

“Candy Bomber”

Berlin Airlift

• May, 1949 – Soviet Union gave up

–Formed in East Germany a rival government in the German Democratic Republic

NATO

• Blockade increased W. European fears of Soviet aggression

• April 1949 – 12 members pledged military support to one another in case any member was attacked– U.S., Canada + 10 European nations

• 1st peace-time military alliance for the U.S.

• $1.3 billion in military aid and creation of U.S. bases overseas

What policies shaped the Cold War?

• Truman Doctrine – ideological basis of containment

• Marshall Plan – economic

• NATO – military enforcement

How was Japan treated after the war?

• Military occupation – General Douglas MacArthur

• Interim government reforms– Land reform– Creation of independent trade unions– Abolition of contract marriages– Women’s suffrage– Demilitarization– Constitutional democracy – barred communists

What were the consequences of these reforms?

• Rebuilt Japanese economy - capitalist

• Integrated Japan into the anti-Soviet bloc

• 1952 – Japan received sovereignty and agreed to house U.S. troops and weapons

• Cultivated new business leaders

• Japan could not trade with the Soviet Union or later with Red China

What about the Philippines?

• 1946 – formal independence

• U.S. retained major naval bases

• U.S. kept influence over Filipino foreign affairs

What were the origins of the conflict in China?

• Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai Shek) – Nationalist leader

• Mao Zedong – Communist leader• Civil war for 20 years• Jiang supported by the U.S. but corrupt

and did not win the favor of the peasants and city dwellers

• When WWII ended fighting resumed between the nationalists and communists

Nationalist leader Jiang Jieshi

Communist leader Mao Zedong

China….

• U.S. tried to help negotiate a settlement between the two factions – Advised Jiang to institute reforms– Gave $3 billion in aid to Nationalists

• Mao had the support of 85% of the people• Mid 1949 – majority of Jiang’s troops

surrendered• Jiang retreated to Taiwan (Formosa)

What was the reaction to the “loss” of China?

• Shock – dismay

• “the worst defeat the United States has suffered in its history” John Foster Dulles

• Republicans blamed Truman

• Truman blamed Jiang

• Conservatives who thought the future lay in Asia blamed the State Department – said they were “pro-communist”

What was our atomic policy?

• Truman relied on our monopoly of atomic weapons to pressure the Soviets to cooperate

• After the war many wanted control of atomic power by the U.N.

• An American plan was submitted and rejected by the Soviets

• America put aside plans for international cooperation

U.S. atomic energy policy?

• 1946 Atomic Energy Act

– Atomic Energy Commission control of all research and development according to strictest standards of national security

• U.S. stockpiled weapons and conducted tests – 50 bombs

• Believed Soviets nowhere close to nuclear capability

Buster Dog Test, NV

Then what happened?

• August, 1949 – the Soviet Union tested their first A-bomb

• Then we both tested hydrogen bombs– 1000x greater than Hiroshima

• Stockpiled more bombs and put nuclear warheads on missiles nuclear arms race

• “loss” of China + Russian bomb = Hysteria

Castle Bravo, Bikini Atoll – March 1956

Nuclear Test Sites in the 1950s