1. Chapter 23

2. Post-War Economy
 Baby boom throughout the 1950s
 Rapid process of reconverting factories
back to producing consumer goods
 Result: Americans begin to spend more
freely and the economy recovers

3. Post-War Economy
 GI Bill: Servicemen’s Readjustment Act
 Provided low interest home loans and money for
college education
 Still in use today, extremely important and
provides opportunity for many to get a college
education
 Part of the movement of readjustment back to
peace in America
 Resulted in a housing shortage that mass
produced remedied
 Helped reinforce the typical “middle class
values” that were revered throughout the 1950s

4. The Cold War: Soviet
Containment
 Post-war period ushers in years of
tension between the US and the Soviet
Union known as the Cold War
 As Stalin tried to expand to Eastern
Europe, Soviet expert George Keenan
outlined a policy of “Soviet Containment”
 Blocking the expansion of communism at all
costs

5. The Cold War: Soviet
Containment
 Post-War Strategy
 Russians occupy Eastern Europe –
greatly concerned about national security
○ The invasion of Poland by Germany was the
primary reason for occupation
○ Wanted to establish regimes that were friendly
and/or subservient to Russia
○ Russia is frightened of the U.S. utilizing an
atomic bomb and retaining them
 Begins to build their own, starts the arms race

6. The Cold War: Soviet
Containment
 Post-War Strategy
 US troops occupy Western Europe
○ Did not like Russia’s national security emphasis
through occupation
 They wanted to keep free elections throughout Europe
and promote democracy
○ U.S. already utilized an atomic bomb
 They were stockpiling and beginning to build the
hydrogen bomb to keep up in the arms race
 Civil war in Greece and Turkey provide an
opportunity for the U.S. to try out their policy
of containment

7. Truman Doctrine
 First application of the containment
doctrine – written in 1947 as a result of the
civil war in Greece and Turkey
 Truman asks Congress to supply funds to
keep Greece and Turkey within the western
sphere of influence
 Used the defense of freedom as reasoning
 Also an informal declaration of Cold War
against the Soviets
 Truman’s rhetoric suggested that the U.S
had assumed a permanent global
responsibility

9. The Marshall Plan
 U.S. attempted to prevent the spread of
Soviet/Communist influence in western
Europe by economic means
 1947 – Secretary of State George Marshall
proposed an economic aid package to help
Europe rebuild their industries
 Soviets decline this aid because of the
political agenda attached to it (democracy
for all)
 Fosters prosperity in Western Europe that
in turn helped stimulate the American
economy in the post-war period

11. NATO
 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
 Military alliance between the U.S., Canada,
and most of Western Europe
 Soviets and Communists were left out
 Pledged mutual defense against any future
Soviet attack
 Third and final step in the first large-scale
phase of containment
 U.S. troops began to be stationed in western
Europe in 1949
 Greatly enhanced the Russian fear of Western
expansion

12. Cold War Expansion
 Russians’ response is to cut off
access to Berlin
 Truman refuses to withdraw American
troops and orders an airlift to supply the
city
 Truman is reelected in 1948, Russia
retreats and ends their blockade in 1949
 This sets the stage for the West/East
Berlin animosity that lasts until the 1980s

14. Cold War Expansion
 US improves its security after WWII
 National Security Act of 1947 – unified
armed forces, CIA, National Security
Council (advisors to the President)
 U.S. puts their defense budget into the
Air Force
 U.S. seems determined to win the Cold
War at all costs

15. Cold War Expansion
 Problems in Asia
 Both the U.S. and Soviets have large stakes
in Asia after WWII
 U.S. moves to consolidate its influence over
Japan and the Pacific Islands
 China (between the U.S. and Soviet spheres
of influence) is torn between pro-Western
Chiang Kai-shek and pro-Soviet Mao Tse
Tung (future Chairman of China and
genocidal maniac throughout the 1960s)

16. Chairman Mao

17. Chiang Kai-shek

18. Cold War Expansion
 Problems in Asia
 Mao wins over in China, Chiang Kai-shek
is exiled from China for the rest of his life
 China is clearly within the influence of the
Soviets and Communism
○ Truman is attacked for losing China
○ As a result, he begins to build up U.S.
influence in post-war Japan

19. The Korean War
 America becomes involved with South
Korea in 1950 as Communist forces
in North Korea begin to invade the
south
 The 38th parallel becomes the dividing
line between the two groups

21. The Korean War
 General Douglas MacArthur pushed to
take the war into China after the U.S.
gets involved
 Wanted to achieve a total victory and to
demonstrate American military superiority
(much like Patton in WWII)
 Wanted to make future wars less likely
 Truman disagrees, feared Russia and
nuclear holocaust
 MacArthur pushes Truman too far and is
relieved of command in Korea

22. The Korean War
 U.S. involvement in South Korea
becomes a United Nations effort
 The majority of troops, supplies, and
strategy is supplied by the U.S. though
 The Korean War becomes a
stalemate due largely to guerilla
warfare on both sides

23. The Korean War
 The war continues into Dwight D.
Eisenhower’s presidency
 Most significant result of the war was
the massive American rearmament
 Americans felt they were now ready to
stop Soviet expansion anywhere in the
world

24. The Communist Threat
 The Cold War encouraged a culture of
secrecy and dishonesty
 Freedom of speech and dissent comes
under attack again in a new “Red Scare”
after America wins the war for freedom
 Those who could be linked to
communism (no matter how absurd the
link) were considered enemies of
freedom

26. The Communist Threat
 Essentially turned into another witch
hunt that had the potential to tear the
country apart
 The entire country became gripped in
this phenomena
 As much of a local threat as it was national
 Local anticommunist groups would readily
storm public libraries and destroy “un-
American” books
 The courts did nothing to stop this type of
behavior

28. The Communist Threat
 Why do we favor fascism over
communism?
 Traces its roots back to the Civil War
 Americans prefer order over anarchy
 We eerily respect the staunch militarism
(conservatism) of the Germans over the
idea of absolute social and economic
revolution

29. The Communist Threat
 Joseph McCarthy
 Announced in 1950 that he had a list of
205 communists working for the State
Dept.
 Really working for his own fame and
glory; didn’t care who he stepped on to
make sure he was #1

31. The Communist Threat
 Joseph McCarthy
 Gained a ton of support from Midwestern
Republicans, Irish, Poles, and Italians as
he lambasted privileged bureaucrats
 His demise (and embarrassment) finally
came as he tried to take on the US Army,
claiming that a great percentage of them
were communists in disguise
 The new “Red Scare” takes place
during the election of 1952