HIST 1312 1st Edition Lecture 5 Outline of Last Lecture I Visions of Postwar Freedom a Toward an American Century b The Way of Life of Freedom c The Road to Serfdom II The American Dilemma a Patriotic Assimilation b The Bracero Program c Indians during the War d Asian Americans in Wartime e Japanese American Internment f Blacks and the War g Blacks and the Military Services h Birth of the Civil Rights Movement i The Double V j The War and Race k An American Dilemma l Black Internationalism III The End of the War a The Most Terrible Weapon b The Dawn of the Atomic Age c The Nature of the War d Planning the Postwar World e Yalta and Bretton Woods f The United Nations g Peace but Not Harmony Outline of Current Lecture IV Origins of the Cold War a The Two Powers b The Roots of Containment c The Truman Doctrine These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute d The Marshall Plan e The Reconstruction of Japan f The Berlin Blockade and NATO g The Growing Communist Challenge h The Korean War i Imperialism and Decolonization V The Cold War and Idea of Freedom a Freedom and Totalitarianism b The Rise of Human Rights c Ambiguities of Human Rights Current Lecture Origins of the Cold War The Two Powers o US emerged from WWII as by far the world s greatest power US accounted for half the world s manufacturing capacity It alone possessed the atomic bomb American leaders believed that the nation s security depended on the security Europe and Asia and that American prosperity required global economic reconstruction o The only power that in any way could rival the United States was the Soviet Union whose armies not occupied most of eastern Europe o Soviet government remained determined to establish a sphere of influence in eastern Europe The Roots of Containment o It seems all but inevitable that the two major powers to emerge from the war would come into conflict o Born of common foe rather than common long term interests values or history the wartime alliance between US and Soviet Union began to unravel almost from the day peace was declared o The first confrontation of the Cold War took place in the Middle East At the end of WWII Soviet troops occupied parts of northern Iran Soviet Union hoped to be granted access to the rich oil fields through pressuring the Iranian government However under British and American pressure Stalin withdrew his forces but installed procommunist governments in Poland Romania and Bulgaria o Long Telegram early 1946 American diplomat George Kennan advised the Truman administration that the Soviets could not be dealt with as a normal government Communist ideology drove them to try and expand their power throughout the world He claimed only US could stop them His telegram laid the foundation for what became known as containment US committed itself to preventing any further expansion of Soviet power o Winston Churchill declared that an iron curtain had descended across Europe partitioning the free west from the communist east The Truman Doctrine o Truman was convinced that Stalin could not be trusted and that the US had responsibility to provide leadership to the world o Early in 1947 Britain informed US that because its economy had been shattered by WWII it had no choice but to end military and financial aid to two crucial governments Greece a monarchy threatened by a communist led rebellion and Turkey from which the Soviets were demanding joint control of the straits linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Britain asked US to fill their spot o Senate leader Arthur Vandenberg told Truman that the only way to get the public and Congress on board was to scare the hell out of American people Truman said as the leader of the free world the US must now shoulder the responsibility of supporting freedom loving peoples wherever communism threatened them Truman succeeded in getting Congress to support him which began a long period of bipartisan support for the containment of communism o Truman s speech set a precedent for American assistance to anticommunist regimes throughout the world o Soon followed the creation of new national security bodies immune from democratic oversight Atomic Energy Commission National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency CIA The Marshall Plan o Secretary of State George C Marshall in June 1947 pledged the US to contribute billions of dollars to finance the economic recovery of Europe o Two years after the war the continent still lay in ruins with widespread food shortages and rampant inflation Economic chaos had strengthened the communist parties in France and Italy o Marshall Plan offered a positive vision to go along with containment Marshall insisted that the policy was directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger poverty desperation and chaos o The plan proved to be the most successful foreign aid programs in history o US worked out with twenty three other Western nations the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GATT which proposed to stimulate freer trade among the participants creating an enormous market for American goods The Reconstruction of Japan o Under the guidance of supreme commander in Japan General Douglas MacArthur the country adopted a new democratic constitution o The new constitution gave women the right to vote for the first time in Japan s history o Article 9 of the new constitution said that Japan would renounce forever the policy of war and armed aggression and would maintain only a modest selfdefense force o By the 1950s thanks to American economic assistance the adoption of new technologies and low spending on the military Japan s economic recovery was in full swing The Berlin Blockade and NATO o The Cold War intensified and despite the Marshall Plan increasingly took a militaristic turn o At the end of WWII each of the four victorious powers assumed control of a section of occupied Germany In June 1948 the US Britain and France introduced a separate currency in their zones a prelude to the creation of a new West German government that would be aligned with them in the Cold War In response The Soviets cut off road and rail traffic from the American British and French zones o When Stalin lifted the blockade in May 1949 the Truman administration had won a major victory o Soon two new nations emerged West and East Germany it would not be solidified until 1991 o 1949 Soviet tested