The Cold War

The Cold War was an ideological contest between the Western democracies (especially the United States) and the Communist countries. At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union established “friendly” governments in the Eastern European countries it occupied behind an iron curtain of totalitarian control and secrecy

Containment

President Truman responded to the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe with the policy of containment, the aim of which was to halt the spread of communism by opposing it wherever it emerged. With the Truman Doctrine (1947), he proposed giving economic and military aid to countries facing Communist insurgencies, such as Greece and Turkey; he also convinced Congress to approve the National Security Act, which reorganized the U.S. armed forces and created the Central Intelligence Agency. With the Marshall Plan, Truman offered redevelopment aid to all European nations. In 1948, the Berlin airlift overcame a Soviet blockade of supplies to West Berlin. In 1949, the United States became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance of Western democracies united primarily against the Soviet Union.

Truman’s Fair Deal was proposed to expand the New Deal despite intense Republican opposition in Congress. Truman could not stop the Taft-Hartley Act, a Republican-backed measure to curb the power of labor unions. Truman was more successful in expanding Social Security and, through executive orders, desegregating the military and banning racial discrimination in the hiring of federal employees. After winning a second term in 1948, he proposed a civil rights bill, national health insurance, federal aid to education, and new farm subsidies. Despite the Democrats’ majority in Congress, however, conservative Republicans and southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) joined forces to defeat these initiatives.

Containment policies proved less effective in East Asia, as Communists won a long civil war in China in 1949 and ignited a war in Korea. In response, Truman authorized NSC-68, a comprehensive blueprint for American foreign and defense policies that called for a dramatic increase in military spending and nuclear arms. When North Korean troops invaded South Korea in June 1950, Truman quickly decided to go to war under the auspices of the United Nations. After a year of major gains and reverses by both sides and then two years of stalemate, a truce concluded in July 1953, established a demilitarized zone in Korea.

The onset of the cold war inflamed another Red Scare. Investigations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) sought to find “subversives” within the federal government. Starting in 1950, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy exploited fears of Soviet spies infiltrating the highest levels of the U.S. government. McCarthyism flourished in the short term because the threat of a world dominated by Communist governments seemed all too real to many Americans.

The Cold War was an ideological contest between the Western democracies (especially the United States) and the Communist countries. At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union established “friendly” governments in the Eastern European countries it occupied behind an iron curtain of totalitarian control and secrecy

President Truman responded to the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe with the policy of containment, the aim of which was to halt the spread of communism by opposing it wherever it emerged. With the Truman Doctrine (1947), he proposed giving economic and military aid to countries facing Communist insurgencies, such as Greece and Turkey; he also convinced Congress to approve the National Security Act, which reorganized the U.S. armed forces and created the Central Intelligence Agency. With the Marshall Plan, Truman offered redevelopment aid to all European nations. In 1948, the Berlin airlift overcame a Soviet blockade of supplies to West Berlin. In 1949, the United States became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance of Western democracies united primarily against the Soviet Union.

Truman’s Fair Deal was proposed to expand the New Deal despite intense Republican opposition in Congress. Truman could not stop the Taft-Hartley Act, a Republican-backed measure to curb the power of labor unions. Truman was more successful in expanding Social Security and, through executive orders, desegregating the military and banning racial discrimination in the hiring of federal employees. After winning a second term in 1948, he proposed a civil rights bill, national health insurance, federal aid to education, and new farm subsidies. Despite the Democrats’ majority in Congress, however, conservative Republicans and southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) joined forces to defeat these initiatives.

Containment policies proved less effective in East Asia, as Communists won a long civil war in China in 1949 and ignited a war in Korea. In response, Truman authorized NSC-68, a comprehensive blueprint for American foreign and defense policies that called for a dramatic increase in military spending and nuclear arms. When North Korean troops invaded South Korea in June 1950, Truman quickly decided to go to war under the auspices of the United Nations. After a year of major gains and reverses by both sides and then two years of stalemate, a truce concluded in July 1953, established a demilitarized zone in Korea.

The onset of the cold war inflamed another Red Scare. Investigations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) sought to find “subversives” within the federal government. Starting in 1950, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy exploited fears of Soviet spies infiltrating the highest levels of the U.S. government. McCarthyism flourished in the short term because the threat of a world dominated by Communist governments seemed all too real to many Americans.