 Towards the end of the war, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (The World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund were established to help rebuild and stabilize the postwar economy; the US would have the greatest influence over policy  The Soviet Union refused to ratify the agreement because the US wanted to rebuild under capitalism—thus it cut off the possibility of bringing aid to its people and Eastern Europe

 At the end of the war, occupied Europe was divided into spheres of influence between the Allies and the Soviet Union  Germany was divided into 4 zones each controlled by an Allied power  The United Nations was created in 1945 by the Allies to mediate disputes between members and impede aggressors  The UN achieved great success with humanitarian programs (relief to Europe and Asia)  The Western nations allied with the US and held the balance of power against the Soviets in a “cold war” that would last until 1989

 Though FDR favored diplomacy and compromise, Harry Truman was committed to a “get-tough” policy with the Soviets  In 1946, Winston Churchill gave a speech in Fulton Missouri about the “Iron Curtain” splitting Europe into democracy and communism, and that the US needed to ally with Britain to stop the spread of communism  Civil war in Greece and Turkey, with the threat of communist victory, Truman provided $400 million in aid to defeat the rebels  The Truman Doctrine simply committed the US to a policy of “containment” (stopping communism from spreading)

 Known as the European Recovery Program, the Secretary of State George Marshall’s plan to rebuild Europe by revitalizing a European capitalist economy  The plan placed the US in a decisive role to rebuild Europe as Europeans were introduced to US goods  The plan further cemented the policy of containment and drove a deeper wedge between the West and the Soviet East

 When the western zones of Germany merged, Stalin reacted by cutting off land access to West Berlin (the Berlin Blockade)  The US and Royal Air Force responded by around- the-clock airlifts to supply West Berliners with nearly 2 million tons of food and supplies  The Berlin crisis resulted in the creation of a democratic West Germany and communist East Germany  Furthermore, ten European nations, the US, and Canada formed an anti-Soviet military alliance known as NATO in April, 1949; West Germany was incorporated in 1955  The Soviet Block responded in kind, creating the Warsaw Pact, including East Germany

The Division of Europe

 Truman’s policy of containment rested on the US’s monopoly of atomic weapons  In August, 1949, the Soviet Union conducted their first nuclear test  By the mid-1950s, both sides had amassed lethal stockpiles of hydrogen bombs, an arms race that further drove the East and West into the depths of the Cold War

 Truman’s tough stand against communism did not stop his approval rating to be as low as Hoover’s  Congress blocked Truman’s proposals to extend the New Deal  Americans were tired of rationing and the demand for goods created steep inflation rates  Strikes paralyzed the nation  In 1946, the Republican Congress began to undo the New Deal, and overrode Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, which limited the tools available to labor unions, and required all union officials to swear that they were not communists

 Truman had to deal with splitting Democrats: Henry Wallace challenged Truman by running as a “Progressive” (Truman denounced him as a communist) Strom Thurman represented the South as the States’ Rights Party, or Dixiecrats, split with Democrats over civil rights legislation Truman discredited a “Do-Nothing Congress” and called a special session, ordering the desegregation of the federal workforce and military Truman held onto the “New Deal coalition” (see ch. 24) and defeated Republican Thomas Dewey

 After the election, Truman proposed a package of reforms hoping to give every individual a “fair deal”  Truman was able to a few things through a hostile Congress (National Housing Act, minimum wage raise, SS expansion) but little else  Truman helped to define “cold war liberalism” as promoting economic growth through expanded foreign trade and federal expenditures (chiefly on defense),  Anti-communism was another key element in both his foreign and domestic policies

 The cold war triggered a massive reordering of governmental power, to keep the nation in a steady state of preparedness during an uneasy peace  The National Security Act established the Department of Defense (replacing War), and the National Security Council (the policy-making body for national defense appointed by president)  The National Science Foundation pursued scientific research, especially in physics  The OSS was transformed into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that gathers and evaluates foreign intelligence  The federal government quadrupled in size, with most of the payroll focused on national security (75%)  Defense accounted for 10% of the total GNP

 President signed an executive order (9835) establishing a loyalty program for all federal employees; any employee could be dismissed if found to have “subversive” ideas on national security, communist sympathies, and lifestyles  The Internal Security Act of 1950 (the McCarran Act) required Communist organizations to register with the Subversive Activities Control Board and it authorized the arrest of suspected persons during national emergencies  The Immigration and Nationality Act (1952) allowed the government to ban any person deemed “subversive” from visiting the US  The organization stayed active until 1973

 The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) launched investigations into communist influence, especially in Hollywood  Friendly witnesses like Gary Cooper (of Frank Capra’s Americana movies) and Ronald Reagan testified to America’s greatness and the evils of communism  Some gave names of suspected former friends so that they themselves would be cleared and able to work  Some attacked HUAC and argued for their rights under the 1 st, 5 th, and 6 th Amendments, some went to prison for contempt, and many were blacklisted  Hollywood films would be under heavy censorship during this period

Ronald Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, testified stating that a small minority of actors within the union were communist agitators trying to influence labor decisions in Hollywood. Other actors like Humphrey Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall lead a protest of actors against HUAC. They made small headlines compared with the testifiers.

 State Department advisor Alger Hiss was accused of being a communist spy  Richard Nixon, a California representative pursued the charges and Hiss went to jail for perjury  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused of stealing and providing the Soviets with atomic secrets; and despite a weak case, the Rosenbergs were found guilty and then executed despite worldwide protests in 1953

Congressman Nixon inspecting the evidence known as “the Pumpkin Papers” Nixon later revealed that the case was “won in the papers” before it reached the courts Alger Hiss at his hearing Though he was convicted of perjury; whether or not he was a communist spy is still debatable to this day…

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, civilians executed for espionage. It is evident that Julius was a spy, but the case against his wife is very thin…at most she typed up his notes. In terms of what the Russians got from the Rosenbergs is questionable at best. Did their crime warrant the death penalty? Like the Hiss case, it was decided by the newspapers. President Eisenhower refused clemency requests from the pope, and other world leaders, scientists, and celebrities.

 Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy played to the anti- commie hysteria in America by declaring that 205 communists worked for the State Department  He refused to name names and the lack of evidence discredited him, but he did succeed in undermining Truman, New Deal Democrats, and most importantly, he captured the peoples’ attention towards the “Red Menace:”  Better Dead Than Red!  His tactics were inquisitional, media-hyped, and infuriatingly passionate  McCarthy attacked women’s organizations and homosexuals  TV, which helped McCarthy initially, also initiated his downfall when he went on to attack prominent military figures  On TV he appeared deranged, and finally was asked: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”  His career ruined, censured by Congress, McCarthy died of alcohol-related hepatitis three years later

Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?

 Post-war prosperity did not dispel any anxiety over the reality and rhetoric of the Cold War, as the nation remained on “permanent alert”  Movies focused on the adjustment of soldiers returning home, The Best Years of Our Lives, showcased a lonely, isolated homecoming of soldiers reuniting with their families  Film noir was a new genre that grew out of the cynicism, crime, hysteria, and frustration of the era in hard-boiled classics like Out of the Past  Sci-fi films became popular, sometimes disguising headlines: Invasion of the Body Snatchers is REALLY about the brainwashing of communism, not pod people  Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye explore materialism and shallowness, as well as failure

 The move to the suburbs, high levels of consumption, the rush towards marriage and parenthood, these behaviors illustrate a “defense” against the fears and anxieties of the Cold War era  Younger couples and a “baby boom,” combined with high consumer spending changed middle-class family dynamics  Married, middle-class women sought employment to support larger families and their rate of consumption  The GI Bill helped many returning GI’s by sending them to college, and helping them get jobs, but it also led to a decline in female graduation and enrollment  The conservative trend in America bemoaned the destruction of the traditional family (linking it to communism), and high-profile experts studied the dangers of women abandoning their role as wife and mother

The “Idealized” image of 1950s post-war America

 Defense spending stimulated the economy more in the West, especially in California, than any other region—by the end of the 1950s, 1/3 of workers in Los Angeles were employed by the defense industry  The availability of land, space made western states attractive to military planners  To accommodate the burgeoning population, new highway systems were built that created housing sprawl, traffic congestion, air pollution, and strains on local water supplies

 Postwar patriotism was seen as a way to combat communism  The Pledge of Alligiance was said with hand over heart, rather than salute  Public education stressed the “zeal for democracy” as American ideals were stressed (as communist ideals were stressed in the Soviet Union)

 Under an interim government under Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Japan underwent a reconstruction program that brought reforms in land distribution, trade unions, woman suffrage, an end to feudal marriages, demilitarization, and finally a constitutional democracy: “The MacArthur Constitution”  The US worked to include Japan in their anti-Soviet Bloc economically and militarily  The Nationalist government fell to Mao Zedong and the communists on October 1, 1949  The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was not recognized initially by the West, and the Nationalist government occupied Taiwan  1950 the Soviet Union and China joined a formal alliance, putting the pressure on Truman’s administration that he had “lost China”

 After WWII, the Soviets occupied North Korea and backed Kim Il Sung; The US occupied South Korea and backed Syngman Rhee; Korea was divided at the 38 th Parallel  June 25, 1950: N. Korea attacked S. Korea; Truman asked the UN for authorization to send troops; with the Soviet Union boycotting the UN, they agreed  Gen. Douglas MacArthur commanded the theater and pushed them back across the 38 th Parallel  The Chinese saw this as a threat to their security and attacked, driving the UN forces back to the 38 th Parallel where a costly stalemate settled in  MacArthur, insistent on attacking and perhaps provoking a war with China, criticized Truman; Truman flew to Korea and fired MacArthur

MacArthur observing the Marines landing at Inchon, September 15, 1950

Though MacArthur was easily the most recognized military hero: the Philippines, the surrender of Japan, and the rebuilding of Japan, you can’t speak out against the Commander-in-Chief. Truman fired him despite a lot of criticism. Truman handled it beautifully as he let MacArthur address Congress and retire: “An old soldier never dies, they simply fade away.” …And that’s what MacArthur did.

 Criticized for bypassing Congress, Truman explained that his authority for a peacetime draft in 1948 and the military intervention in Korea was justified under NSC-68 that consolidated decision making on containment to the executive, and advocated a massive buildup of military power  The policy of containment was just that, it stated little on the idea of “liberation” but it now placed America in a difficult position in terms of WHERE to contain communism  The stalemate in Korea left many Americans disillusioned with the Truman administration

 The Korean War ruined any chance of Truman running—he dropped out and the Democrats put Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, an unimposing intellectual, as their frontrunner  Former General Dwight D. Eisenhower ran as a moderate Republican, with VP Richard Nixon  Nixon waged a relentless attack on Stevenson, calling him an “appeaser,” using TV to  Eisenhower pledged to settle the war  Ike won a solid election, and the Republicans took control of Congress

Not without controversy, Richard Nixon went on TV to defend accusations of receiving illegal campaign contributions. He defended his family’s modest lifestyle, but did say he accepted one gift. A puppy. “Our little girl Tricia named it Checkers, and like all kids, loves dogs, and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re going to keep it!” It diffused the issue, without confronting it.