MS. MEEKSEXETER HIGH SCHOOL

1950s Unit

Former Allies Clash

United States and Soviet

Union’s economic and

political systems were

incompatible.

Communism vs. Capitalism

U.S. vs. Soviet Union

United Nations

Truman Becomes President

Unprepared to be President of the United States Met with Roosevelt only twice in the 82 days Truman

was Vice President Roosevelt left him uninformed about:

Military matters Peace negotiations Atomic Bomb

Truman Meets Stalin at Potsdam

Potsdam Conference – final

wartime conference of the Big

Three

First time meeting the Big

Three

Stalin refuses Truman’s push

to allow free elections in

Eastern European nations that

were under Eastern EuropeanThis American cartoon of 1945 shows the Atomic Bomb overshadowing the peace-makers at the Potsdam Conference.  

Tensions Mount

Truman wanted to spread democracy to nations that were previously under Nazi rule

He and advisors want to avoid another world warCreate a new world order where nations had a right of self-

determination through free elections

Truman was cautious of giving into too many of Stalin’s demands for territory and war reparations

Allies would take reparations from the part of Germany it occupied

New British prime minister Clement Attlee, U.S. president Harry Truman, and the Soviet state and party leader Joseph

Stalin

Soviets Tighten Their Grip on Eastern Europe

Soviet Union felt justified in staying in Eastern Europe

Communist governments in the satellite nations: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland.

War is inevitable

United States Establishes A Policy of Containment

Stop “babying the Soviets”

Policy of containment

The Iron Curtain…

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”

Winston Churchill

Cold War in Europe

Conflicts in U.S. and Soviet aims in Eastern Europe

Cold War: The state of hostility short of direct military confrontation that developed between the two superpowers.

Dominates global affairs and U.S. foreign policy

“Battle” by spreading their political and economic influences wherever they could

Spread to Asia, Africa, and Latin America

Truman Doctrine and The Marshall Plan

The Controversial Truman Doctrine

Britain running out of aid, United States to the rescue

$400 million in economic and military aid for Greece and Turkey

The United States should support free peoples throughout the world who were resisting takeovers by “armed minorities” or “outside pressures.”

Created controversy interfering with internal affairs of other nations U.S. power would be spread too thin if country carried on global

crusade against communism Opposed helping any dictators, even if they were anti-

Communist

Marshall Plan to the Rescue

Western Europe was in economic chaosWinter of 1946-1947 was harsh in several

countries Damaged crops Froze rivers – cut off water transportation and causing fuel

shortage

June 1947 – General George Marshall – U.S. secretary of state proposed that the United States provide aid to all European countries that needed it “Not directed against any country or doctrine, but against

hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos”

Superpowers Struggle Over Germany

Allies and Soviets clash over German reunification

Divided into four zones

1948 – recombined the three western zones into one nation

Berlin Airlift and the Formation of NATO

The Berlin Airlift

Soviet Union retaliated by holding West Berlin hostage

Berlin was also divided into four sections even though it was deep in Soviet territory

Cut off all highway, water, and rail traffic into the western zones of Berlin

Peacetime Alliance - NATO

Increased fear of Soviet aggressionTen European nations joined with the U.S. and

Canada on April 4, 1949 to forma defensive military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO

Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal

Attack on one equals attack on allCold War had ended U.S. isolationism