CHAPTER 23 The United States and the Cold War, 1945–1953
This chapter concentrates on the history of the early Cold War period and the Truman administration. The chapter opens with the na-
tional tour of the Freedom Train, which celebrated the freedom of America in contrast to the tyranny of Hitler. The chapter continues
by explaining the origins of the Cold War and the roots of containment as outlined by George Kennan and as implemented through the
Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Berlin Airlift, and Korean War. Many critics, including Walter Lippmann, questioned the wisdom of
viewing the Cold War through the narrow lens of “free versus slave.” Next, freedom and the Cold War are explored by comparing
freedom with totalitarianism. The quest for an international human rights movement begins with the United Nations’ Universal Decla-
ration of Human Rights, a document that the United States has still not completely ratified. Truman’s domestic policy, the Fair Deal,
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Introduction: The Freedom Train
II. Origins of the Cold War
A. The Two Powers
1. The United States emerged from World War II as the world’s greatest power.
B. The Roots of Containment
1. It seemed all but inevitable that the two major powers to emerge from the war would come into conflict.
2. Many Americans became convinced that Stalin was violating the promise of a free election in Poland agreed to at the Yalta
conference of 1945.
D. The Truman Doctrine
1. Truman soon determined to put the policy of containment into effect.
2. To rally popular backing for Greece and Turkey, Truman rolled out the heaviest weapon in his rhetorical arsenal—the
E. The Marshall Plan
1. George Marshall pledged the United States to contribute billions of dollars to finance the economic recovery of Europe.
2. The Marshall Plan offered a positive vision to go along with containment.
F. The Reconstruction of Japan
1. New, democratic constitution
a. Women’s suffrage
G. The Berlin Blockade and NATO
1. In 1945, the Soviets cut off road and rail traffic from the American, British, and French zones of occupied Germany to
Berlin.
a. An eleven-month Allied airlift followed.
H. The Growing Communist Challenge
I. The Korean War
1. In June 1950, the North Korean army invaded the south, hoping to reunify the country under communist control.
3. Korea made it clear that the Cold War, which began in Europe, had become a global conflict.
4. Taken together, the events of 1947 to 1953 showed that the world had been divided in two.
J. Cold War Critics
1. Casting the Cold War in terms of a worldwide battle between freedom and slavery had unfortunate consequences.
2. Walter Lippmann objected to turning foreign policy into an “ideological crusade.”
K. Imperialism and Decolonization
1. Although America granted independence to the Philippines in 1946, much of Europe intended to keep their empires.
III. The Cold War and the Idea of Freedom
A. The Cultural Cold War
2. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Department emerged as unlikely patrons of the arts.
B. Freedom and Totalitarianism
1. Works produced by artists who considered themselves thoroughly nonpolitical became weapons in the cultural Cold War.
2. Along with freedom, the Cold War’s other great mobilizing concept was totalitarianism.
3. Totalitarianism left no room for individual rights or alternative values and therefore could never change from within.
a. McCarran Internal Security Act
4. Just as the conflict over slavery redefined American freedom in the nineteenth century, and the confrontation with the
Nazis shaped understandings of freedom during World War II, the Cold War reshaped them once again.
C. The Rise of Human Rights
1. The idea that rights exist applicable to all members of the human family originated during the eighteenth century in the
D. Ambiguities of Human Rights
1. The American and French Revolutions had introduced into international relations the concept of basic rights belonging to
IV. The Truman Presidency
A. The Fair Deal
2. He moved to revive the stalled momentum of the New Deal.
B. The Postwar Strike Wave
2. In 1946, nearly 5 million workers went on strike.
3. President Truman feared the strikes would seriously disrupt the economy.
C. The Republican Resurgence
1. Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress in 1946.
D. Postwar Civil Rights
2. The Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 added Jackie Robinson to their team.
E. To Secure These Rights
2. In 1948, Truman presented an ambitious civil rights program to Congress.
3. The Democratic platform of 1948 was the most progressive in the party’s history.
F. The Dixiecrat and Wallace Revolts
1. Dixiecrats formed the States’ Rights party.
a. Strom Thurmond
2. A group of left-wing critics of Truman’s foreign policy formed the Progressive Party.
G. The 1948 Campaign
2. Truman’s success represented one of the greatest upsets in American political history.
V. The Anticommunist Crusade
A. Loyalty, Disloyalty, and American Identity
1. The fear inspired by communism became a catalyst for reconsidering American identity in the mid-twentieth century.
3. The McCarren-Walter Act of 1952 made it possible to revoke citizenship and deport an American born abroad if he or she
refused to testify about “subversive” activity.
4. In 1954, fear of communism broadened to fear of any outsiders, as evidenced by Operation Wetback, a federal program
that used the military to deport 1 million undocumented Mexican-American aliens.
6. At precisely the moment when the United States celebrated freedom as the foundation of American life, the right to
dissent came under attack.
1947.
9. At the same time, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began its search for communists in Hollywood.
It finally focused on what became known as the Hollywood Ten.
B. The Spy Trials
1. HUAC investigated Alger Hiss.
2. The Rosenbergs were convicted of spying and were executed in 1953.
C. McCarthy and McCarthyism
1. Senator Joseph McCarthy announced in 1950 that he had a list of 205 communists working for the State Department.
2. McCarthy’s downfall came with the nationally televised Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.
D. An Atmosphere of Fear
1. Anticommunism was as much a local as a national phenomenon.
2. Local anticommunist groups forced public libraries to remove “un–American” books from their shelves.
3. The courts did nothing to halt the political repression.
E. The Uses of Anticommunism
1. Anticommunism had many faces and purposes.
2. Anticommunism also served as a weapon wielded by individuals and groups in battles unrelated to defending the United
States against subversion.
F. Anticommunist Politics
1. The McCarran Internal Security Bill of 1950
G. The Cold War and Organized Labor
1. Every political and social organization had to cooperate with the anticommunist crusade or face destruction.
H. Cold War Civil Rights
1. The civil rights movement also underwent a transformation.
2. The Cold War caused a shift in thinking and tactics among civil rights groups.
4. After 1948, little came of the Truman administration’s civil rights flurry, but time would reveal that the waning of the
civil rights impulse was only temporary.
SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• What caused the Cold War?
• How was the language of freedom used to justify American foreign policy in the early Cold War? What were the conse-
quences of viewing the Cold War in such narrow terms as “free” and “slave”?
• What was the core principle of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
• Analyze Truman’s Fair Deal. In what way(s) was it an extension of the New Deal?
• How was labor affected by McCarthyism?
SUPPLEMENTAL WEB AND VISUAL RESOURCES
Civil Rights
Cold War International History Project
Frontline Diplomacy
The Korean War and Its Origins, 1945–1953
The Korean War
The Marshall Plan
President Harry Truman
SUPPLEMENTAL PRINT RESOURCES
Beisner, Robert. “The Secretary, the Spy, and the Sage: Dean Acheson, Alger Hiss, and George Kennan.” Diplomatic History 27, no. 1 (2003): 1–14.
Canaday, Margot. The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011.
de Luna, Phyllis Komarek. Public versus Private Power during the Truman Administration: A Study of Fair Deal Liberalism. New York: Peter Lang
Publishing Group, 1997.
Dudziak, Mary L. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Frederickson, Kari. The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Fried, Albert. McCarthyism: The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York: Penguin Press, 2005.
Gaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
INTERACTIVE INSTRUCTOR ACTIVITIES
1. Organize the class into the U.S. Senate during the McCarthy hearings. As the instructor, you play the part of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Choose
the anticommunist victim: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Alger Hiss, the Hollywood Ten, and Paul Robeson. The students act as senators from
2. Pull up some of the political cartoons surrounding the surprising and dramatic presidential election between Thomas Dewey and Harry Truman in
1948. The following site has much information: www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/cartoons/cartoon_central.htm.
As you flash each cartoon on screen, ask the students what the main points of the artist might be. Also ask the students how the cartoons relate to