Chapter 25: The Cold War and the Fair Deal, 1945–1952
CORE OBJECTIVES
1. Explain why and how the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union
TRUE/FALSE
1. Harry Truman was inexperienced in many political areas when he became president in
1945.
2. In the closing days of World War II, Truman threatened to bomb the Soviets if they did not
abandon Poland.
3. The Truman Doctrine announced that the United States would challenge the spread of
communism worldwide.
4. Israel’s creation in 1948 was followed immediately by a war with its Arab neighbors.
5. As a result of shrinking military production, a deep recession followed the end of World
War II.
6. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act was also known as the GI Bill of Rights.
7. The most severe economic problem Truman faced after World War II was deflation.
8. Within a few months of the end of World War II, there were strikes and other labor disputes
in many key industries.
9. In the Far West, schools no longer segregated Mexican American children from whites after
World War II.
10. The Fair Deal was President Truman’s name for his approach to foreign policy in the early
days of the cold war.
11. Left-wing Democrats formed the Progressive party in 1948 and ran Henry Wallace as their
candidate.
12. In the presidential election of 1948, Republicans saw little hope for victory.
13. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union organized a communist “North Korea” and
the United States established a democratic “South Korea.”
14. In the early months of the Korean War, UN forces encountered little resistance until they
reached the Chinese border.
15. Truman’s firing of General MacArthur in 1951 was one of the most popular actions of his
presidency.
16. The Korean War showed that after the devastation of World War II, Japan would remain
America’s enemy and would not play a role in America’s military presence in Asia.
17. Former Soviet spy Whittaker Chambers accused Alger Hiss, who had worked for several
U.S. government agencies, of supplying U.S. secret documents to the Soviets.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Which of the following statements describes the challenges President Truman faced as he
took office after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death?
a. Waging a “cold war” against communism and helping to rebuild Europe
b. Attempting to end the New Deal to appease cost-cutting Republicans
c. Reversing another major stock market crash
d. Rebuilding the numerous American cities that were destroyed in World War II
e. Funding a health care system for all Americans
2. According to the textbook, revisionist historians contend that __________ was responsible
for the start of the Cold War.
a. Harry S. Truman
b. George MacArthur
c. George Patton
d. Joseph Stalin
e. Franklin D. Roosevelt
3. In 1945, the Soviet Union violated promises made at the Yalta Conference when they began
to occupy
a. Western European nations.
b. Eastern European nations.
c. England.
d. Italy.
e. North Africa.
4. What did Winston Churchill compare the boundary between Soviet-occupied Eastern
Europe and Western Europe to?
a. A day of infamy
b. An iron curtain
c. A steel trap
d. A concrete ship
e. A blast furnace
5. Which of the following was part of the process the Soviet Union used when they invaded
Eastern European nations after World War II?
a. They wrote constitutions and held elections.
b. They formed a number of new political parties that promoted democracy.
c. They forced the monarchies to acknowledge Stalin as head of their governments.
d. They created secret police and took control of the media.
e. They replaced the official Protestant religions with the Roman Catholic Church.
6. What did Secretary of State James Byrnes try to convince President Truman to use as
leverage to force the Soviets to honor their agreements after World War II?
a. Financial assistance
b. The United States’ wheat surplus
c. Nuclear weapons
d. The enormous Japanese army that could invade Russia
e. The ambitions of the Chinese government over those of the Soviets
7. Why were the Soviets unconcerned about the threat of nuclear war with the United States?
a. They had regained the favor of the United States by allowing non-Communists to
participate in the political process.
b. They did not understand how much destruction nuclear war would cause.
c. They were spying on U.S. scientific progress and developing their own nuclear
weapons.
d. They knew the American public would never approve of such an action as nuclear war
in the future.
e. They were not concerned about the amount of lives lost in nuclear war.
8. What was the name of the policy proposed by George F. Kennan to combat the growing
Soviet threat after World War II?
a. Containment
b. Brinksmanship
c. Mutually assured destruction
d. McCarthyism
e. Mercantilism
9. A divisive concern within the Truman administration was whether “containment” should be
a __________ approach or a __________ approach.
a. right-wing; left-wing
b. social; economic
c. military; political
d. capitalist; communist
e. fascist; communist
10. The Truman Doctrine was announced in response to turmoil in
a. Greece and Turkey.
b. Ethiopia and Somalia.
c. Macedonia and Crete.
d. Montenegro and Casablanca.
e. Dalmatia and Rhodesia.
11. In what way did Truman establish the foundation of U.S. policy for the next forty years?
a. He adopted the “domino theory” in regard to the spread of communism, stressing the
need for an aggressive strategy to limit it to Eastern Europe.
b. He sought to spread communism by supporting armed minorities who were attempting
to subjugate Eastern Europeans.
c. He emphasized the need to use isolationism instead of interventionism when responding
to the growth of communism.
d. He continued and expanded Roosevelt’s efforts to collaborate with Stalin and the Soviet
government rather than feeding into tensions.
e. He believed the United States only needed to address communism within Russia, not in
other countries around the world.
12. What was the name of the financial and technical assistance package provided to war-
ravaged Europe after World War II?
a. The Truman Doctrine
b. The Marshall Plan
c. The Containment Plan
d. The Iron Curtain
e. The Olney Corollary
13. What was the effect of the Marshall Plan?
a. It temporarily restored good relations between the United States and the Soviet Union
for several years.
b. It caused a major drop in the industrial production of Western and Eastern Europe,
hurting international trade.
c. It was an unsuccessful military strategy that culminated in the largest battle and loss of
life since the end of World War II.
d. It drew the nations of Western Europe further apart from one another, dissolving several
of their alliances.
e. It greatly increased agricultural output and industrial production in Western Europe but
heightened tensions with the Soviet Union.
14. What nations controlled portions of a divided Germany after World War II?
a. Austria and Hungary
b. The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union
c. Italy, Poland, and Czechoslovakia
d. Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
e. Belgium and the Netherlands
15. What did Joseph Stalin do in Berlin to try to force the United States to leave?
a. He dropped a hydrogen bomb on the city.
b. He ordered a blockade of West Berlin.
c. He tried to buy the city from the Americans.
d. He assassinated the mayor.
e. He fomented a rebellion against American forces.
16. For eleven months, __________ provided food and supplies to the people of West Berlin
while it was blockaded by Soviet forces.
a. the iron curtain
b. the Berlin airlift
c. the British Navy
d. Operation Sea Lion
e. Operation Overlord
17. In 1949 the United States became part of the __________, the largest collective defense
alliance in the world.
a. Warsaw Pact
b. North Atlantic Treaty Organization
c. East-West Cooperative
d. Iron Curtain Alliance
e. Anti-Soviet Pact
18. Why was the National Security Act of 1947 significant?
a. It discontinued the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thereby making it more difficult for leaders of
different American military branches to communicate.
b. It created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to address deteriorating alliances
among Western European nations.
c. It centralized control of the military establishment in the United States and formed
institutions such as the Central Intelligence Agency.
d. It provided $13 billion to American World War II veterans to use for costs such as
medical treatment and education.
e. It banned strikes by labor unions and lowered all wages and prices in the years after
World War II.
19. Which of the following was part of the terms of the Service Readjustment Act of 1944?
a. Education benefits such as vocational training
b. The guarantee that women in defense industries would keep their jobs after the war
c. Free housing for all veterans who served throughout the war
d. Equal pay for male and female veterans
e. Outlawing the use of military drafts in future conflicts or wars
20. Congress curbed the power of unions after World War II by passing the
a. Taft-Hartley Labor Act.
b. Hawt-Smootly Act.
c. Mongrel Tariff.
d. Service Readjustment Act.
e. GI Bill.
21. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 prohibited labor practices such as
a. the “right–to–work” laws.
b. the “closed shop.”
c. the import tariff.
d. anti-Communist “labor oaths” by union leaders.
e. rules preventing federal employees from going on strike.