Unit Intro: Modern America& Origins of the Cold War

Please check your new seat and pick up the handouts:*Unit Guide: Modern America

*Focus #29: Modern American Presidents, 1933-2001

*SOL Review Packet

Take the first 5 minutes of class to complete Focus #29 on your own – use the descriptors as clues

We will: *preview the unit & SOL review

*identify post-WW II presidents

*analyze how and why the Cold War began

American Presidents, 1933-2001

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Harry S. Truman

Dwight D. Eisenhower

John F. Kennedy

Lyndon B. Johnson

Richard Nixon

Gerald Ford

Jimmy Carter

Ronald Reagan

George H.W. Bush

Bill Clinton

In your opinion, who was the best president after FDR?

What details stand out? What is the message?

The Cold WarClash of the Superpowers, 1945-1991

Why did the U.S. and the USSR compete with each other in the Cold War?

Causes of the Cold War• Ideological: Despite the WW II alliance,

U.S. and Soviet ideologies presumed the eventual collapse of the other system

• American Illusions: FDR assumed that post-war U.S.-Soviet cooperation & international organizations (the United Nations) would preserve peace and security

• Soviet Motives: Stalin sought greater security through control of Eastern Europe, but also sought to justify repression at home by maintaining an external threat (capitalism instead of fascism)

• Breakdown of the Yalta Agreement: Stalin failed to keep his pledge to FDR and Churchill in February 1945 to respect Eastern European sovereignty (e.g., Poland) and to work with the allies to restore Germany as a sovereign nation; FDR has been accused of going “soft” on communism by conservative critics

Karl Marx

V.I. Lenin

Right: The “Big Three” at Yalta, February 1945

Views of the “Iron Curtain”

What is the central message?• The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is

a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with this primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. As you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement…

• It is my duty, however, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow…

• I repulse the idea that a new war is inevitable -- still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our fortunes are still in our own hands and that we hold the power to save the future, that I feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and the opportunity to do so. I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries. Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement.

The Birth of Containment• Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech (“Sinews of

Peace”, March 1946) awoke Americans to the new reality of the “iron curtain” and to America’s new role as unchallenged leader of the “free world”

• Continued Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, support for communist rebels in Greece, and Soviet diplomatic-military pressure on Turkey and Iran convinced Western leaders that Stalin could not be trusted

• George Kennan’s “X” article (“The Sources of Soviet Conduct”, 1947) convinced many of the need for a long-term strategy of containment to deal with Soviet expansion; Kennan predicted that the Soviet system could not maintain itself in the face of consistent, extended pressure and would collapse quickly when the pressure became too great (1989-91 proved him right)

Cold War Conflicts at Home and Abroad

• Please pick up Focus #30 materials from the cart – you can begin working on this (pick up colored pencils as needed)

• Take out Class Notes #29 and turn in your SOL practice test to the box on the back table.

We will:

*map the Cold War conflict in Europe and Asia

*score the SOL practice test

*analyze conflicts in the early years of the

Cold War

The Cold War in Europe

The Cold War in East Asia

Cold War Conflicts & The Fifties

• Please take out your SOL review packet –we will take 10 minutes to review before the first SOL review quiz

• When you finish the quiz, turn it in to the box and pick up Focus #31 – you can begin working on the Baby Boom reading and questions (part II)

• Also take out Class Notes #29 (The Cold War, Part I)

We will: *take SOL review quiz #1

*analyze conflicts of the early Cold War era

*focus on the Fifties

Pillars of Containment• The Truman Administration (1945-53)

established the basic framework of U.S. Cold War policy in the face of intense domestic criticism (both from Republican isolationists and McCarthyites)

• Political: the Truman Doctrine (1947) pledged U.S. assistance to nations fighting against communist movements (e.g., Greece & Turkey)

• Economic: Marshall Plan (1947) offered over $13 billion in aid to Western European nations to rebuild the region and prevent Communist Party victories

• Military: NATO (1949) created as a response to the Berlin Crisis; NSC-68 (1950) proposed increased defense spending, increase of the nuclear arsenal, and development of the H-bomb (1952)

National Security Act of 1947• Based on calls for reform after WW II and the

needs of an expanded federal bureaucracy, Congress authorized the creation of a new national security structure:

• Department of Defense united the old War and Navy departments and added the Department of the Air Force; Joint Chiefs of Staff united the four major services (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) at the senior-most level of the military

• Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) succeeded the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as the nation’s intelligence gathering and special operations arm

• National Security Council (NSC) created to advise the President on national security matters (4 members – POTUS, VP, SecState, and SecDef); advised by the Director of Central Intelligence (now the DNI), JCS Chairman, and the National Security Advisor (since 1961)

What is the message?

McCarthyism: “The Red Scare”By the late 1940s, many Americans were concerned about the possibility of Communist subversion at home

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated Communist influence in government and other areas of society

In Hollywood, producers blacklisted actors, directors, and writers suspected of Communist ties

Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) led a “witch hunt” against accused Communists in the government and gained widespread support; he fell from power after accusing the U.S. Army of harboring Communists in its ranks but not before doing irreparable damagehttp://10.120.2.41/SAFARI/montage/play.php?keyindex=120406&location=005849&filetypeid=7

The Cold War in East Asia• Chinese Communist Revolution (1949)

brought Mao to power and changed the Cold War dynamic; Truman accused of “losing” China by political opponents

• North Korea’s invasion of South Korea (1950) prompted UN intervention and eventually led to Communist Chinese involvement in the Korean War

• U.S. faced with a “limited war” for the first time; General MacArthur argued for expansion of the conflict and use of Taiwan and atomic weapons; Truman wisely fired him in 1951 but at great political cost

• Cease fire agreed to in 1953 after Stalin died and President Eisenhower threatened to use nukes

Eisenhower & Brinkmanship• The Eisenhower Administration (1953-61) sought

to reduce defense spending while maintaining containment policy “on the cheap”

• Relied heavily on nuclear deterrence – embraced concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and willingness to “go to the brink” in any confrontation with the Soviets; almost happened in the 1956 Suez Crisis (U.S. & USSR policy instead converged against Britain, France, and Israel)

• Used CIA covert operations to overthrow anti-U.S. regimes (ex: Iran – 1953, Guatemala – 1954) and spy on the USSR (U-2 spy planes)

• Sputnik (1957) provoked concerns that the U.S. was losing the “space race” – led to National Defense Education Act (NDEA) and creation of NASA (both in 1958)

• Eisenhower Doctrine (1958) broadened U.S. support specifically to the Middle East; matched with U.S. intervention in Lebanon

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60