The Cold War

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The Cold War
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• The Cold War
• The competition between the US and the Soviet
  Union for power and influence in the world
• Political, economic, and military tension without
  direct military conflict

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• From Allies to Enemies?
• The US opposed communism and the brutality of
  Stalins purges.
• Soviets resented that the US had chosen to
  instead support western Europe in Africa, then
  Italy, then France, before them.
• The US resented the non-aggression pacts signed
  between the Soviets and Germany and Japan.
  Didnt trust them.

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• Conflict 1
• How to divide Germany after WWII?
• The agreement is that Western Germany goes to the
  Democratic Allies, Eastern goes to Communist
  Russia.

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• Conflict 2
• The Berlin Airlift
• Immediately after splitting Germany, Stalin would
  not allow citizens fleeing the Communist side to
  leave
• Truman decides that rather than create a military
  conflict, the US would fly in supplies to those
  people waiting to leave
• Over 13,000 tons of goods daily, for 15 mos.,
  until May 1949 when Stalin finally allows them to
  leave

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The Berlin Wall

• Ultimately, in August 1961, the Soviets completed
  construction of the Berlin Wall, permanently
  dividing Communist East Berlin from Democratic
  West Berlin

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• Conflict 3
• Satellite Nations
• To further create a buffer against western ideas
  of democracy, Russia moved to secure Communist
  control over the other countries they had moved
  through on their way to Germany
• Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
  Romania, Yugoslavia

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• The Iron Curtain
• Refers to the satellite nations of Communism
  throughout eastern Europe. No Western influences
  were allowed in.

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• Containment
• The US response to the Iron Curtain was a policy
  of stopping the spread of Communism throughout
  the world from beyond its current standing. Keep
  what you have but you cant have any more !!

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• Conflict 4
• The first tests of containment came in Turkey and
  Greece.
• Stalin wanted Turkey and Greece as ports on the
  Mediterranean. The US pledged 400 million
  dollars, supplies and a permanent US military
  base in each country to keep communism out. This
  type of aid was referred to as The Truman
  Doctrine.

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• The Marshall Plan
• In addition to military supplies as aid to
  struggling countries, the US approved 13 billion
  in economic aid to countries to rebuild their
  economies, infrastructures, and governments after
  WWII. Loyal to the US now as well?

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• NATO An armed attack against one of more of
  themshall be considered an attack against them
  all
• April, 1949
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization
• The nations of western Europe and many in the
  Western Hemisphere (incl. Canada) created their
  own organization to support democracy and to
  protect against Soviet aggressions around the
  world

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• The Warsaw Pact
• 1955
• The Soviets answer to NATO.
• A military alliance between the Soviet Union and
  their satellite nations in Eastern Europe

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• September, 1949, the Soviet Union successfully
  tests its own atomic bomb
• The US responds by developing, and successfully
  testing, the worlds first thermonuclear bomb in
  1952
• The Arms Race has begun?

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• Sputnik and U-2
• When the Soviet Union launched the first
  artificial satellite into space in 1957, and shot
  down an American spy plane in 1960, it proved
  Russia had the potential for technology to launch
  missiles at the US

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• In response to the Soviets new atomic
  capabilities, Truman creates the Federal Civil
  Defense Administration.
• Its purpose is to educate the country about what
  to do in case of a nuclear war
• Bomb shelters, air raid drills

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• Under Mao Zedong, the Communists took over
  mainland China in 1949
• The former, pro-US government, was exiled to the
  island of Taiwan under Jiang Jieshi and was
  referred to as The Republic of China

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The Korean War

• During WWII, Japan had occupied Korea
• The war ended before their independence had been
  negotiated
• Soviet troops occupied Korea above the 38th
  parallel at the end of the war, while the US
  occupied Korea below

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• Communism grew in North Korea, while a
  pro-American government was established in South
  Korea.
• The US and the Soviets both withdrew by 1949

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• In June, 1950, Communist North Korea invaded
  South Korea
• The US chose not to appease the spread of
  Communism, especially since China had already
  fallen under Communist rule
• The US sent naval and troop reinforcements to
  support South Korea, along with UN forces from 16
  other countries

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• Under command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, US
  forces drove South Korea back over the 38th by
  September, 1950
• MacArthur proclaimed that South Korea would
  advance through North and make Korea democratic

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• As US forces pushed through North Korea, and
  alarmed Communist China sent an army to push the
  US back to a stalemate at the 38th
• Fighting along the border led to a stalemate
  through 1953 until a a treaty was signed that
  left the border as it was
• 54,000 US soldiers had died in the conflict

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• From this point forward, the US kept a mobilized
  army ready to intervene, fight, or contain
  Communism around the globe
• Military spending tripled as the threat of
  Communism loomed

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The Bay of Pigs Invasion

• Fidel Castro overthrew the US backed dictatorship
  in Cuba in 1959
• Took government control of the large plantations
  and US business on the island, based on his
  political ties to the Soviet Union
• If he could do it, could the rest of Latin
  America do it as well?

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The Bay of Pigs Invasion

• The US government, under Kennedy, decided to use
  CIA trained Cubans from Guatemala to launch a
  co-US overthrow of Castro on April 17, 1961
• The US military failed to destroy the Cuban
  airforce, provided no air support, and the troops
  were slaughtered

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The Cuban Missile Crisis
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The Cuban Missile Crisis
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The Cuban Missile Crisis

• In response to the US attempt to overthrow
  Castro, the Soviet Union pledged support to Cuba
• In late 1962, US spy planes documented multiple
  missile bases being built in Cuba, a mere 90
  miles from Key West, FL

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The Cuban Missile Crisis

• This seemed to be a direct effort to intimidate
  Kennedy. What should he do?
• What are the upsides and downsides to each of the
  following choices
• Negotiate with Khrushchev
• Invade Cuba
• Blockade Cuba
• Bomb the missile sites

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The Cuban Missile Crisis

• Eisenhower and Kennedy Discuss Options
• Against the Blockade
• A Blockade Debate
• Nuclear War?
• A US Nuclear Response
• JFK's Address to the Nation

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The Cuban Missile Crisis

• Kennedy decides that a quarantine of the island
  is the best plan of action
• Why a quarantine and not a blockade of the
  island?
• The path we have chosen for the present is full
  of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom
  is always high, but Americans have always paid
  it. And one path we shall never choose, and that
  is the path of surrender, or submission.

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The Cuban Missile Crisis

• The world waited to see what would happen when
  Soviet ships met the US quarantine.
• The first Soviet ship to engage the quarantine
  was allowed through (carrying oil)
• The next convoy of twelve ships carrying
  cargo.turned back without incident when it met
  the quarantine

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The Cuban Missile Crisis

• On October 26, Khrushchev and Kennedy negotiated
  a settlement.
• The Soviet Union would remove their missiles from
  Cuba if the United States would remove the
  quarantine, stay out of Cuba, and remove their
  missiles from Turkey

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Rising International Tensions?
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• Financial aid to France to help contain Communism
  in their colony of Vietnam, which like Korea
  became divided into a Communist North and
  pro-Democracy South

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• The Middle East
• Both Jews and Arabs claimed Palestine as their
  ancestral birthplace, so after WWII the UN split
  the country into two parts
• Arab Palestine
• Jewish Israel
• Tension between Jews and Arabs rages in the area
  still today

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• Latin America
• Through US troop and financial supports,
  pro-democracy governments were propped up in
  places like Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala
• The OAS (Organization of American States) formed
  to keep Communism out of the Western Hemisphere

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Communism at HomeDomestic Response to Communism
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The Loyalty Program

• Federal Loyalty Program, 1947
• All potential and current employees of the
  federal government would be investigated for
  possible links to the Communist Party, and those
  with suspicious backgrounds would fired

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HUAC

• House Un-American Activities Committee
• Probed Hollywood for Communist activities, based
  on the belief that movies and television could
  influence viewers

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The Hollywood Ten

• In September and October of 1947, prominent
  actors and directors in Hollywood were brought
  before the courts and accused of being
  Communists. Ten declined to make statements or
  answer questions, and were jailed for up to a
  year for contempt.
• Blacklisting the movie studios compiled lists
  of suspected Communists and refused to work with
  them

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The McCarran-Walter Act, 1952

• Re-affirmed a quota system for each country,
  based on the 1924 census
• Asia, Southern and Central Europe were especially
  restricted

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Spy Cases

• Alger Hiss (1948), a former State Dpt. official,
  had been accused of being a Communist while in
  office in the 1930s. He denied the accusations,
  though in 1948 he was convicted of perjury and
  sentenced to four years in prison.

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Spy Cases

• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of
  espionage in 1953 for supplying secrets to the
  Soviets, and executed for their crimes.

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McCarthyism

• Joseph McCarthy, Senator (1950), famously accused
  the government of allowing 250 Communists to work
  in the State Department

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• In the early part of the Cold War, an accusation
  of Communist activity was enough to turn the
  public fearful
• McCarthy used the publics fear to accuse anyone
  who opposed him, and manipulated or doctored
  evidence to attempt to prosecute cases

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• In 1954, he accused the Army of having been
  infiltrated by Communists
• In April 1954, in televised court proceedings,
  McCarthy v. the US Army played out
• The public saw his bullying techniques, the
  governments secret investigations, and flagrant
  disregard for the law in the governments hunt for
  Communists and his credibility was shot