It was apparent to the Allied powers they would be the victors as World War II drew to a close. Franklin D. Roosevelt met with his Allied counterparts, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin, to plan for a post war Europe. Problems began to arise at the Yalta Conference. Roosevelt, not well, was unable to stand firm against Stalin as he had in the past. Stalin and the Soviet Union were concerned with the security of the nation. Germany had invaded and laid ruin to the country twice in the past thirty years. The Soviet Union lost over 22 million people over the course of the war. Stalin’s greatest concern was keeping Germany weak and unable to invade again. Churchill and Roosevelt, on the other hand, looked at Germany as the key to a strong and economically stable Europe. They wanted to allow Germany to recover as quickly as possible and get back to being a valuable trade partner. This difference in view, paired with the ideological differences between Communism and Capitalism, led to the start of the Cold War. This was a time of competition and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The conflict strengthened with FDR’s death and Harry S. Truman’s presidency. Truman had no trust for Stalin or for Communists. At the conference in Potsdam Truman told Stalin about the successful testing of the atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Stalin felt as if he was being threatened himself. He was angry that Great Britain knew of the Manhattan Project, and the Soviet Union had not been told. The United States refused to grant a loan to the USSR that was smaller than the loan to Great Britain. Stalin felt the United States was trying to keep him weak and defenseless.
The Soviet Union was anxious to have a buffer zone of friendly nations protecting the nation from Germany. Therefore, Poland and other nations on the border of the USSR were “strongly encouraged” to form governments with ties to the USSR. Great Britain promised Polish exiled leaders that it would help their government be restored to power. Conflict intensified when Stalin refused to comply with his earlier agreement to allow free elections in Poland.
Other issues arose in areas around Europe. The message from the Unites States was “containment.” The United States of America wanted to keep communism within its present territory through the use of economic, diplomatic, and military actions. Conflicts between the United States and the USSR involved Turkey, Iran, and Eastern Europe. Truman issued the Truman Doctrine when Great Britain turned to the United States to help support Greece in its fight against Communist takeover. The Truman Doctrine stated the United States would “support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” George Marshall, Truman’s Secretary of State, pushed what became known as the Marshall Plan. This consisted of economic aid to western European nations to help them rebuild following the war. A recovered Europe would be a strong trading partner to the United States. The United States’ commitment to containment became evident when the Soviet Union blockaded roads, rivers, and railroads into the western half of Berlin. The Soviet Union attempted to force the city to turn to the Communist East Germany and the Soviet Union for survival. Truman and Great Britain ordered the Berlin Airlift; over an eleven-month period the two nations provided over 200,000 flights of needed supplies, food, coal, and medical supplies. When the Soviet Union lifted the blockade, the allies supplied more goods to West Berlin than they had received previously.
A second Red Scare frightened the United States. Joe McCarthy discovered Communists everywhere he looked, including Hollywood and the State Department. His televised accusations of United States military members were his downfall; it exposed his bullying tactics and lack of solid evidence. The government passed the GI Bill to keep returning troops from flooding the job market all at the same time. The GI Bill was a wide-sweeping law that changed and increased the size of the United States middle class. President Truman tried to expand many of FDR’s New Deal programs with his Fair Deal, but was thwarted by Congress in most areas. He ended segregation in the military, which made the Democratic Party the party of Civil Rights. Many of the Southern Democrats objected and formed the States’ Rights Party or the Dixiecrats, which supported continued segregation. Truman was blamed for a failed containment policy and not being harder on the Communists when China was taken over by Communists. This happened after Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb. Truman decided to send the first troops in support after North Korea invaded South Korea. The war hit a stalemate because the United States and United Nations troops supported the South Koreans, and the Chinese supported North Korea. An armistice was soon agreed upon when Eisenhower was elected president and threatened use of atomic weapons.
The containment policy was extended into Southeast Asia with the threat of Vietnam falling to Ho Chi Minh, the Communist nationalist leader. The United States supported France in its bid to regain its colonial control over Vietnam. When France withdrew, the United States was South Vietnam’s only defense against the Chinese-supported Communist North. Eisenhower sent military advisors to aid the South Vietnamese. Those advisors grew in number through the next two presidencies until the United States began actively fighting in the war following Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
Eisenhower ordered the federal highway system to be built to aid the nation in case of an attack. This system of interstate highways added to the United States’ love affair with the automobile. This industry helped spur the growth of the middle class. A fear gripped the United States that the Soviet Union was passing it technologically when the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1959; a large educational push was made for science, math, and foreign language education to insure the supremacy of the United States. The growth of the military and its underlying support industries led Eisenhower to warn against a military-industrial complex in the United States. Cuba underwent a revolution led by Fidel Castro which led to both the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis. These were the low and high points of John F. Kennedy’s short presidency. Kennedy announced an expanded space program with the goal of landing a man on the moon within ten years. His goal was to strengthen United States resolve and to maintain its superiority over the Soviets. Kennedy was not around to witness the moon landing, because he was assassinated in the third year of his presidency. Much of the nation’s idealism disappeared at the time of his assassination.
John F. Kennedy was a strong supporter of Civil Rights during his short term in office. He ordered the integration of bus stations throughout the South with the Interstate Commerce Act. He prepared a strong Civil Rights Act to present to Congress prior to his death. Martin Luther King, Jr, the nation’s foremost Civil Rights leader, staged a March on Washington to show support for the act. This is where he delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. Kennedy was unable to pass the Civil Rights Bill. His vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, made it his memorial to JFK; it passed the year following Kennedy’s assassination. Johnson extended Civil Rights with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. With his Great Society domestic programs, Johnson made the most sweeping changes in domestic policy since Roosevelt’s New Deal. His escalation of the Vietnam War, following the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, provoked an outcry in the nation; Johnson decided not to run for his remaining term in office. Richard Nixon won the next election by using his southern strategy, which pulled the strongly Democratic south into the Republican Party. Nixon pushed for “law and order” and less strenuous enforcement of civil rights laws.
Nixon oversaw the United States withdrawal from Vietnam after expanding United States attacks into Cambodia and Laos. He softened the hard line foreign policy in dealing with communist countries by rapprochement and détente. Nixon became the first United States president to visit the communist People’s Republic of China and recognize it as a nation. By easing relations with China, Nixon hoped to better United States-Soviet relations. This led to détente, or an easing of relations with the Soviet Union. Nixon made progress in his foreign policies, but in the United States he faced the fallout of the Watergate affair. This was an illegal break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters planned by members of Nixon’s re-election committee. The House of Representatives began looking at impeachment proceedings when it became apparent that Nixon was aware of what had happened and had encouraged its cover-up. Richard M. Nixon became the first United States president to resign from office when he realized that he did not have the support in the Senate to stay in office. His vicepresident, Gerald Ford, was appointed president when the elected vice-president, Spiro Agnew, resigned after being charged with extortion, bribery, and tax fraud. Ford was the only person to become president of the United States having not been elected to either the Presidency or the vicepresidency. Ford was faced with the specter of Vietnam, despite United States withdrawal, when North Vietnam overran South Vietnam. Ford refused to send any troops to the nation and withdrew all Americans there. The southern half of the nation was taken over and became communist. Gerald Ford lost his first election to the Democrat Jimmy Carter. Citizens were unhappy that he had quickly pardoned Nixon of all crimes; Richard Nixon would never stand trial, and the public would never know the extent of his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
Both Ford and Carter were plagued by a United States economy saddled with inflation and unemployment. Carter’s presidency was framed by two events involving the Middle East. The first was his greatest triumph, the Camp David Accords, in which the Egyptian president, Anwar El Sadat, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Meacham Begin, signed a peace treaty, the first of its kind. The downfall of Carter’s presidency was the Iranian Hostage Crisis; fifty-five United States citizens were held hostage in Iran for over 14 months. Carter was unable to obtain their release. Carter lost popularity as a result of the continued hostage crisis. Ronald Reagan ran for president on a platform of a return to Conservatism, and defeated Jimmy Carter by a large margin. The hostages were freed the day Reagan took office. Reagan cut taxes but increased military spending at the same time in attempt to shrink the government. He moved away from détente and heated up the Cold War once again. Reagan changed the United States policy of containment to the Reagan Doctrine. This stated the United States of America would help any nation attempting to overthrow a Communist regime. The United States supported groups in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and El Salvador in attempts to get rid of their communist leaders. Reagan’s hard line against the Soviet Union lessened with new Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, took power. Gorbachev attempted to ease the communist stance in the Soviet Union through glasnost and perestroika. Reagan’s strong military build-up was too much for the Soviet Union because they were also fighting a war in Afghanistan. Gorbachev’s actions led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the removal of many communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The costs of war in Afghanistan and keeping up with the United States militarily proved too much for the Soviet Union. It collapsed, and ended the Cold War. The United States emerged as the only remaining superpower as the Cold War drew to a close.
The United States had to adjust to the realities of a new international alignment after the Cold War. Its concerns quickly turned from the relationship with the Soviet Union to relationships with Middle East nations. The first true war since Vietnam occurred after Iraq invaded Kuwait. The United States, along with a coalition of many nations, defended Kuwait’s sovereignty and drove the Iraqis out. Problems in the Middle East increased as fundamentalist Muslims resented a western presence in their region of the world. This culminated in the terrorists’ attacks of 9/11 on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The United States started the War on Terror to retaliate and drive the terrorists out of Afghanistan. This war later expanded against Saddam Hussein of Iraq. These two wars occupied much of the United States foreign policy during the first decade of the Twenty-first century.
Primary Sources for Era 8
- Letter from Jackie Robinson to President Eisenhower on the need to quick action on civil rights.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/jackie_robinson_letter/ - Photos taken prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, which show the equipment and missiles on Cuba.
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc_large_image.php?doc=94 - Images from the Orangeburg Massacre
http://www.orangeburgmassacre1968.com/index.php?option=com_rsgallery2&Itemid=11&gid=1 - Interview with Charlestonian Mary Moultrie, graduate of Burke High School, on the MUSC strike for better pay and working rights for African Americans.
http://lowcountrydigital.library.cofc.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/AOH&CISOPTR=203&CISOBOX=1&REC=1 - New York Times account of the shootings at Kent State on May, 4, 1970
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0504.html#article