APUSH Unit 12

Early Cold War

APUSH 8.1 – APUSH 8.3
VUS.13a – VUS.13c, VUS.15c

Truman: Foreign Policy

Truman set the stage for U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War by pledging to stop the spread of communism through diplomatic, economic and military means.

  • The United States responded to an uncertain and unstable postwar world by asserting and attempting to defend a position of global leadership, with far-reaching domestic and international consequences.
  • After World War II, the United States sought to stem the growth of Communist military power and ideological influence, create a stable global economy, and build an international security system.
  • The United States sought to “contain” Soviet-dominated communism through a variety of measures, including military engagements in Korea and Vietnam.
  • The United States developed a foreign policy based on collective security and a multilateral economic framework that bolstered non-Communist nations.
  • As the United States focused on containing communism, it faced increasingly complex foreign policy issues, including decolonization, shifting international alignments and regional conflicts, and global economic and environmental changes.
  • Postwar decolonization and the emergence of powerful nationalist movements in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East led both sides in the Cold War to seek allies among new nations, many of which remained nonaligned.
  • Americans debated the merits of a large nuclear arsenal and the appropriate power of the executive branch in conducting foreign and military policy.

PotsdamConference

Hiroshima & Nagasaki

United Nations

U.N. Security Council

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Nuremberg & Tokyo Tribunals

State ofIsrael, 1948

Second Geneva Convention, 1949

Cold War

Superpowers
Iron Curtain

George F. Kennan

Containment policy

Organization of American States (OAS)

National Security Act of 1947

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

NSC-68

“Permanent war economy”

Naval and air bases in Hampton Roads, VA

Pentagon in Arlington, VA

Private military contractors in northern Virginia

Truman Doctrine

Turkey & Greece

Marshall Plan

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Mutual defense

Collective security

Balance of power

“Peacetime” alliance

Berlin Blockade

Berlin Airlift

Chinese Civil War

Jiang Jeishi (Chiang Kai-Shek)

Kuomintang (KMT)

Taiwan

Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)

Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

People’s Republic of China (PRC)

“Truman lost China”

Korean War

38th Parallel

Landing at Inchon

Chinese intervention in Korea

“Limited war”

“Police action”

Firing of Douglas MacArthur

Civilian control over the military

Development of the hydrogen bomb

Deterrence

Truman: Domestic Policy

Truman faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike over his positions on healthcare, labor, civil rights and the threat of domestic disloyalty but overcame a major schism in his party by winning the election of 1948.

  • Americans debated policies and methods designed to root out Communists within the United States even as both parties tended to support the broader Cold War strategy of containing communism.
  • Cold War policies led to continued public debates over the power of the federal government, acceptable means for pursuing international and domestic goals, and the proper balance between liberty and order.
  • Postwar economic, demographic, and technological changes had a far-reaching impact on American society, politics, and the environment.
  • Seeking to fulfill Reconstruction-era promises, civil rights activists and political leaders achieved some legal and political successes in ending segregation, although progress toward equality was slow and halting.
  • Rapid economic and social changes in American society fostered a sense of optimism in the postwar years, as well as underlying concerns about how these changes were affecting American values.
  • A burgeoning private sector, continued federal spending, the baby boom, and technological developments helped spur economic growth, middle-class suburbanization, social mobility, a rapid expansion of higher education, and the rise of the “Sun Belt” as a political and economic force.

“Fair Deal”

“The buck stops here”

GI Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act)

Levittowns (suburbs)

Baby boom

Middle class

Sunbelt

Universal health care

Taft-Hartley Act

Double-V Campaign

Committee on Civil Rights

To Secure These Rights

Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC)

Integration of the armed forces

Election of 1948

States’ Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats)

Second Red Scare

“Reds,” ”pinkos,” “communist sympathizers” & “fellow travelers”

Truman’s Loyalty Board

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

The “Hollywood Ten”

Blacklist

Dennis v. U.S., 1951

McCarran-Walter Act (Immigration & Nationality Act), 1952

National origins immigration quotas

Espionage

Alger Hiss

Julius & Ethel Rosenberg

McCarthyism

Roy Cohn

Margaret Chase Smith

Army-McCarthy Hearings

Arthur Miller’sThe Crucible

22nd Amendment

Eisenhower: Foreign Policy

The Eisenhower administration placed an emphasis on the importance of nuclear weapons while continuing the Cold War policy of containment in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

  • The United States sought to “contain” Soviet-dominated communism through a variety of measures, including military engagement in Korea and Vietnam.
  • Americans debated the merits of a large nuclear arsenal, the “military-industrial complex,” and the appropriate power of the executive branch in conducting foreign and military policy.
  • The United States developed a foreign policy based on collective security and a multilateral economic framework that bolstered non-Communist nations.
  • Ideological, military, and economic concerns shaped U.S. involvement in the Middle East, with several oil crises in the region eventually sparking attempts at creating a national energy policy.
  • As the United States focused on containing communism, it faced increasingly complex foreign policy issues, including decolonization, shifting international alignments and regional conflicts, and global economic and environmental changes.
  • Postwar decolonization and the emergence of powerful nationalist movements in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East led both sides in the Cold War to seek allies among new nations, many of which remained nonaligned.
  • Cold War competition extended to Latin America, where the U.S. supported non-Communist regimes with varying levels of commitment to democracy.

Korean War armistice, 1953

Viet Minh

U.S. aid tothe French

Battle of Dien Bien Phu

17th Parallel

Domino theory

U.S. advisors to South Vietnam

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)

Warsaw Pact

Eastern bloc

Satellite nations

Hungarian Uprising of 1956

Eisenhower Doctrine

Mohammed Mossadegh

Nationalization of oil industry

Iranian coup, 1953

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Nationalization of transportation

Suez Crisis, 1956

United Fruit Company

John Foster Dulles & Allen Dulles

Guatemalan land reform

Guatemalan coup, 1954

FulgencioBastista

Fidel Castro

Cuban Revolution, 1958-59

Nikita Khrushchev

“We will bury you”

Nuclear weapons vs. conventional forces

Deterrence

“Massive retaliation” policy

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)

Brinkmanship

Nuclear submarines

Strategic Air Command

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)

U-2 Incident

Francis Gary Powers

Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (“Military-industrial complex”)

Eisenhower: Domestic Policy

A moderate conservative, Eisenhower embraced some aspects of “big government” activism that harkened back to the New Deal.

  • Cold War policies led to continued public debates over the power of the federal government, acceptable means for pursuing international and domestic goals, and the proper balance between liberty and order.
  • Postwar economic, demographic, and technological changes had a far-reaching impact on American society, politics, and the environment.
  • Seeking to fulfill Reconstruction-era promises, civil rights activists and political leaders achieved some legal and political successes in ending segregation, although progress toward equality was slow and halting.
  • Rapid economic and social changes in American society fostered a sense of optimism in the postwar years, as well as underlying concerns about how these changes were affecting American values.
  • A burgeoning private sector, continued federal spending, the baby boom, and technological developments helped spur economic growth, middle-class suburbanization, social mobility, a rapid expansion of higher education, and the rise of the “Sun Belt” as a political and economic force.
  • Postwar economic, demographic, and technological changes had a far-reaching impact on American society, politics, and the environment.

“Modern Republicanism”

“I Like Ike”

Interstate Highway System

Suburban sprawl

Automobile ownership

“Atoms for Peace” speech

Nuclear power plants

Department of Health, Education & Welfare (HEW)

Brown v. Board of Education I, 1954

“Separate is inherently unequal”

Brown v. Board of Education II, 1955

“All deliberate speed”

“Massive resistance”

OrvalFaubus

Little Rock Nine

101st Airborne escorts

Alaska & Hawaii statehood

Sputnik, 1957

Space Race

National Air & Space Administration (NASA)

(Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA/DARPA)

National Defense Education Act

Math, science & foreign language education

Technology & the Space Race

Scientific research increased both the power and prestige of the United States in the Cold War.

  • Research with potential military applications was supported byfederal funding.
  • Scientific advancesbrought benefits to the lives of ordinary people while also creatingnew political, economic and ethical dilemmas.

Manhattan Project

Atomic bomb

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Hydrogen bomb

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)

Nuclear submarines

Strategic Air Command

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)

Brinkmanship

“Mutual Assured Destruction”

Dr. Strangelove

“Atoms for Peace”

Nuclear power

Television

Transistors & microchips

Computers

U-2 spy plane

Commercial jet travel

German V2 rocket program

“Operation Paperclip”

Sputnik, 1957

Space Race

National Air & Space Administration (NASA)

National Defense Education Act

Yuri Gagarin, 1961

Alan Shepard, 1961

John Glenn, 1962

JFK: “We choose to go to the moon,” 1962

Apollo 11 mission, 1969

Neil Armstrong

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”

Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous, 1975

Detente

Voyager program, 1977

Carl Sagan: “Pale blue dot”

Space Shuttle program

Sally Ride

ChallengerColumbia disasters

Hubble telescope

International Space Station

Mars rovers

Cancellation of space shuttle program

Science fiction films & novels

Microwaves

Robotics & automation

Growth of service industries

Medical diagnostic and imaging technologies (MRIs)

Satellites

Global positioning systems (GPS)

“Information Age”

Instantaneous global communication

Telecommuting

ARPANET

Internet

Online course work

Outsourcing and offshoring

Economic interdependence

Kennedy: Foreign Policy

JFK had only limited success in the realm of foreign policy as he faced major Cold War crises in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

  • The United States sought to “contain” Soviet-dominated communism through a variety of measures, including military engagement in Korea and Vietnam.
  • The United States developed a foreign policy based on collective security and a multilateral economic framework that bolstered non-Communist nations.
  • As the United States focused on containing communism, it faced increasingly complex foreign policy issues, including decolonization, shifting international alignments and regional conflicts, and global economic and environmental changes.
  • Postwar decolonization and the emergence of powerful nationalist movements in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East led both sides in the Cold War to seek allies among new nations, many of which remained nonaligned.
  • Cold War competition extended to Latin America, where the U.S. supported non-Communist regimes with varying levels of commitment to democracy.
  • Groups on the left also assailed liberals, claiming they did too little to transform the racial and economic status quo at home and pursued immoral policies abroad.

Movements for nationalism, independence & decolonization

Nonaligned Movement

Berlin Wall

Alliance for Progress

Fidel Castro

Cuban immigration to the United States

U.S. embargo on Cuba

Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1961

Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

Blockade

Negotiations with Khrushchev

U.S. missiles in Turkey

Partial Test Ban Treaty, 1963

Ngo Dinh Diem

U.S. advisors to South Vietnam

South Vietnamese coup, 1963

Kennedy: Domestic Policy

JFK painted an optimistic vision for America’s future, but his presidency was cut short by an assassin’s bullet

  • Rapid economic and social changes in American society fostered a sense of optimism in the postwar years, as well as underlying concerns about how these changes were affecting American values.
  • Liberalism, based on anticommunism abroad and a firm belief in the efficacy of governmental and especially federal power to achieve social goals at home, reached its apex in the mid-1960s and generated a variety of political and cultural responses.
  • Seeking to fulfill Reconstruction-era promises, civil rights activists and political leaders achieved some legal and political successes in ending segregation, although progress toward equality was slow and halting.
  • Groups on the left assailed liberals, claiming they did too little to transform the racial and economic status quo at home and pursued immoral policies abroad.

“New Frontier”

Election of 1960

Kennedy-Nixon debates

Television

Catholicism

“Camelot”

Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (“Ask not what your country can do for you…”)

Peace Corps

Apollo Program

Federal Marshals (Freedom Riders & James Meredith)

23rd Amendment

Lee Harvey Oswald

Unit Review: Essential Questions

  • Why did the Cold War emerge in the wake of World War II?
  • How did the United States respond to the threat of communist expansion?
  • How successful was the U.S. in countering communist influence in Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa?
  • How did the development of nuclear weapons and the rise of nationalist/decolonization movements affect the strategies of Cold War adversaries?
  • How did the Cold War affect domestic debates over order, liberty and justice?
  • How have improved technology and communications affected American culture?