Following World War II, the United States became a world power. The period was known as the Cold War, which was a struggle for political supremacy between the western democratic nations (mainly the United States) and the communist Soviet Union. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower established international and domestic policies that departed from the traditional isolationist worldview and segregated national perspectives. The technological advances that emerged during the Cold War era further escalated the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union as the space race and nuclear weapon development programs worked feverishly to better the opponent.
Truman and Eisenhower led the nation at the beginning of the Cold War. The Cold War began when the United States and the other Allies divided Germany into four occupation zones following World War II. Rivalries for influence over the German territories led to disagreements during the occupation of Germany by the French, British, Russians, and Americans. Over four decades, competition between the United States and the Soviet Union involved many other countries aligning with one of the two superpowers.
SSUSH20 – Analyze U.S. international and domestic policies including their influences on technological advancements and social changes during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. a. Analyze the international policies and actions developed as a response to the Cold War including containment, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and the Korean War.
The Soviet Union controlled the eastern half of Europe after World War II and, despite promises, showed no desire to allow free elections in the area that they controlled. In fact, the Soviets had not withdrawn their military forces back to their own frontiers. These implicit threats of force by the Soviet Union led to a state of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that became known as the Cold War, which lasted from 1945 through 1991.
The Cold War ushered in a new approach to foreign affairs by the United States. Until the Truman administration, the nation had followed the precedent and recommendation of George Washington to not get involved in entangling alliances. U.S. involvement in wars had, for the most part, been a reluctant last resort. The United States did not take a leadership role in foreign affairs until after World War II. President Truman recognized America's new responsibility to use its vast resources to combat the spread of communism, which would in turn provide greater security for the United States.
Europe was in ruins following World War II. Millions of homes had been destroyed. Factories lay bare to the sky and bombs or fire had destroyed machinery. Rail and road networks were blocked by destroyed bridges and viaducts. The specter of famine stalked much of Europe because of shortages of labor, seed, and farm machinery. The traditional European powers were physically, financially, and emotionally unable to reconstruct the continent.
The Truman Doctrine was a new United States foreign policy approach. It was an expression of the United States' belief that communism would infiltrate those areas of Europe that were left weakened by the effects of World War II. In 1946, a civil war broke out in Greece between the democratically elected government and a communist-backed insurgent movement. The British government, that had traditionally supported and protected the Greeks, informed the United States that they were no longer able to assist the Greeks in resisting the communist attempt to take over the nation. Truman then issued a warning to the Soviets that the United States was prepared to use any means necessary to contain communism. Funds were promised to Greece and Turkey to assist in resisting communist takeovers.
Truman's policy of containment became the United State's key foreign policy approach until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. While the policy was at first applied to Europe, it was later extended to the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. By pledging to protect the world from communist expansionism, the United States in effect became the world's protector from aggression. As a part of the Truman Doctrine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created to provide for the mutual defense of Western Europe amid fears of the newly atomic armed USSR. NATO-like treaties were also created with Asia and Pacific nations. This meant an expansion of America's military, economic, and diplomatic presence to all areas of the world.
Truman's Secretary of State, George C. Marshall, proposed a European Recovery Program (later known as the Marshall Plan) to combat the negative economic impacts of World War II in Europe. The plan had two major aims. First, the Marshall Plan aimed to prevent the spread of communism in Western Europe. The second aim was to stabilize the international political order in a way that was favorable for the development of political democracy and free-market economies. Over the Marshall Plan's four-year existence, Congress appropriated $13.3 billion for European recovery. The money aided 22 European nations in their economic recovery by providing much needed capital and assisted American businesses by opening up European markets to American goods. The Eastern European nations were prevented from receiving Marshall Plan money from the United States because they were satellite states of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union did not want American financial influence threatening their control over Eastern Europe. The Marshall Plan's relatively small injection of capital helped to stabilize European politics and enable Western European nations to resist communist infiltration.
The Truman Doctrine of containment was a success in Western Europe, but was not as effective when applied to Asia in the late 1940s. China was embroiled in an on-again, off-again civil war. The war was between the U.S.-backed Nationalist forces and the Soviet-backed Communist forces. Chiang Kaishek led the Nationalists and Mao Zedong led the Communists in China. In 1949, the Chinese civil war ended in a communist victory. The United States' support of the Nationalists earned the enmity of the Chinese communists, who then controlled the country. The creation of a communist state in Asia also altered the balance of power in the region. U.S. strategists believed that the communist Chinese and the Soviet Union would form a single monolithic communist state, which would threaten the remaining democratic states in Asia.
After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to administer the formerly Japanese ruled Korean peninsula under a joint-trusteeship. However, the leaders of the two dominant Korean political parties, the right-wing (U.S. backed) party led by Syngman Rhee and the left-wing (Soviet backed) party led by Kim Il-sung, objected to the trusteeship. Each leader quickly organized his own country with the objective of reunifying Korea under the image of either democracy or communism. When the United States publicly announced that South Korea was not in the defensive sphere of the United States, Kim Il-sung (with Soviet blessing) launched a war to re-unify South and North Korea in June of 1950.
The fear of a total communist takeover of Asia seemed to be confirmed when North Korea invaded democratic South Korea to begin the Korean War. President Truman and the United Nations extended the policy of containment to Korea. They launched a defense of South Korea. After three years of fighting, the United States and the United Nations forces stabilized the Korean frontier along the 38th Parallel (the original border before the fighting started). No peace treaty has been signed and the armistice is still in place. Hostilities between the two states continue today.
The Cold War brought a new approach to foreign policy. Instead of isolating itself, the United States began to take the lead in containing the spread of communism. The Truman Doctrine became the framework for America's role in international affairs for decades after World War II.
SSUSH20 – Analyze U.S. international and domestic policies including their influences on technological advancements and social changes during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.
b. Connect major domestic issues to their social effects including the G.I. Bill, Truman’s integration policies, McCarthyism, the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, and Brown v. Board of Education
Once World War II ended and the Cold War period began, the United States also had domestic issues that needed to be addressed. The containment policy to stop the spread of communism was taken to the extreme within the United States. The nation also needed to address the needs of soldiers returning home and re-entering the workforce. How could the country ensure that widespread unemployment did not cripple the nation once the war production demands of World War II were no longer driving manufacturing? Segregation was another domestic issue that did not fit with the post-war emphasis on preserving freedoms for people around the world. These key issues had significant effects on social change in the United States following World War II.
The G.I. Bill of Rights was passed by Congress to protect and reward returning servicemen. The provisions included giving low interest loans for homes and starting new businesses to former soldiers. Financial grants were also given to the returning soldiers who wanted to attend college. The stimulus of money into housing caused a housing boom characterized by the development of the first suburban housing developments, such as Levittown, New York. The financial investment in returning soldiers stemmed a potential post-war unemployment crisis. Instead, consumer spending expanded as new furniture, appliances, and other household goods were needed. Increased consumer demand became the driving force in the post-war economy and the G.I. Bill helped to foster the surge.
President Eisenhower also wanted to further secure the United States from any future attacks. A prime example of how this domestic issue had a social effect was the government-sponsored creation of infrastructure through the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, which was passed in 1956. The original purpose of the Act, as envisioned by President Eisenhower, was to create a system of highways for strategic transportation of troops and supplies. As the United States' population grew, the old two lane system of roads connecting communities was proving inadequate. New, wider, more direct routes built across the United States served to link population centers across the nation. As a result, the Interstate Highway Act not only shored up the nation's ability to move military defenses more efficiently, but it also forever changed population patterns and allowed for the growth of suburbia.
The fear of communism's infiltration of the United States was another domestic issue that had a significant effect on post-war society. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, was looking for an issue to focus on in his re-election campaign. He embraced the post-World War II fear of communism. McCarthy accused the Truman administration of being "soft on communism" and of losing China to the communists. McCarthy further claimed that communist sympathizers had infiltrated the United States’ Department of State. He went on to claim that these traitors were shaping U.S. foreign policy to favor the Soviet Union. Subsequent Senate hearings did not prove McCarthy's charges. In 1953, after Republican Dwight Eisenhower took office, McCarthy launched a wide-ranging series of investigations as the Chairman of the Internal Security Committee. Between April and June 1954, the McCarthy hearings were broadcast to a national audience, which the Senator hoped would propel his national political career. Instead, the hearings destroyed his career. McCarthy made accusations of disloyalty, subversion, and treason without proper regard for evidence. He belittled witnesses and constantly interrupted them to make points of order. "McCarthyism" became a derogatory term for baseless accusations that was popularized by the Senator's overbearing performance.
Another important domestic issue that had a tremendous social impact in the late 1940s and 1950s was segregation. In July 1948, President Harry Truman signed an executive order ending the segregation of the armed forces. Prior to that time period, Black and White soldiers served in separate units. Integration of the Black units with White units did not fully take place until the Korean War in the 1950s. In general, there were three reasons why integration took place. First, there was a growing recognition that segregation undercut the United States' moral stature during the Cold War. Second, there was a need to reduce racial tension within the military. And third, there were significant manpower needs produced by the Korean War. Later studies commissioned by the military found that both Blacks and Whites benefited from integration. Significantly, integration helped to break down stereotypes so that, as the Civil Rights Movement intensified in the mid-1950s, there was a broad spectrum of Americans who had developed relationships with other races.
The integration of federally contracted jobs and the federal civil service was an evolutionary process. First, in response to pressure from A. Philip Randolph, President Roosevelt issued an executive order in 1941 ending discrimination on jobs that were federally contracted. This measure opened minority employment in defense plants. Next, President Truman banned racial discrimination in the hiring of federal employees and ended segregation in the armed forces in 1948. President Eisenhower issued an executive order that required enforcement of non-discrimination in federal jobs. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally barred discrimination in any job and reinforced powers of the Civil Rights Commission to enforce non-discrimination laws.
The evolution of integration was boosted by the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The Supreme Court had ruled in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that "separate but equal" was the law of the land concerning segregation. In practice this meant that many states had created two systems of public accommodations - one White only, one Black only. In 1951, a Topeka, Kansas parent challenged segregation by suing his local school board. His daughter had to attend the Black elementary school that required her to walk a mile, even though the closest elementary school (White only) was only seven blocks away. The NAACP took on the case but lost on the Plessy precedent. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court. In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled, "...in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
The Supreme Court ordered that public education be de-segregated, but no timeline was issued and school systems were slow to comply. In response to the Brown decision, Southern states organized the "Massive Resistance" movement, which shut down state education systems rather than integrate the schools. A notable example of this type of action occurred in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 when Governor Orval Faubus attempted to use the National Guard to block integration of Central High School. President Eisenhower responded by federalizing the Guard and moving units of the 101st Airborne into Little Rock to enforce the law. Faubus countered by closing Little Rock's schools for a year.
SSUSH20 – Analyze U.S. international and domestic policies including their influences on technological advancements and social changes during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.
c. Examine the influence of Sputnik on U.S. technological innovations and education.
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first man-made earth satellite - Sputnik I. Sputnik I was not an unexpected development. United States intelligence had photographed the launch site using spy planes. However, the public and political outcry in America regarding the Soviet success over the United States led to several developments including the following:
1. dramatic increase in funding for science and math education
2. creation of a national space program - National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
3. inspired a generation of engineers and scientists to develop new technology, which in turn led to the eventual development of the Internet
4. contributed to the perception of a "missile gap" between the United States and the Soviet Union. The fear was that the Soviets could use sudden (perceived) superiority in missile technology to launch an attack on the U.S. and its allies.
5. Although he did not create the Cold War, President Eisenhower devised policies to counter the perceived Soviet military threat. His "domino theory" led to American intervention in Vietnam. His "massive retaliation" stance proclaimed that the United States would answer any military attack with all out military and atomic capacity.