Unit+17+Reading+Objectives+and+Notes

= Chapter 28 Learning Objectives = After mastering this chapter, you should be able to: = = = Chapter 30 Learning Objectives = After mastering this portion of the chapter, you should be able to:
 * 1) Explain the origins of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union following World War II.
 * 2) Evaluate the responses of the Truman administration to the onset of the Cold War.
 * 3) Discuss the origins, developments, and results of the Korean War.
 * 4) Assess Truman's action in the Berlin Crisis. What were his alternatives? Did he make the right choice?
 * 5) Discuss the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine. How effective were they as foreign policies?
 * 6) Explain the reasons for Truman's surprise reelection as president in 1948.
 * 7) Evaluate Truman's success in extending the New Deal policies of FDR.
 * 8) Explain the rise and fall of McCarthyism in the United States from 1950 to 1954.
 * 9) Account for the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president in 1952 and 1956.
 * 10) Evaluate Eisenhower's success or failure in waging the Cold War.
 * 11) Explain the expansion of the Cold War in the 1950s into Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

= = = Chapter 28 Summary = Postwar antagonism gradually led the United States and the Soviet Union into the Cold War. The contrasts between the countries were dramatically represented in their leaders—Truman, who believed in the innate goodness of America, and Stalin, the hard-headed realist who was determined to protect Russia’s wartime conquests. //**The Cold War Begins**// The two countries split over three issues: control of Europe, postwar economic aid, and the control of atomic weapons. The Allies first disagreed over the division of Europe, with each side intent on imposing its values in the areas liberated by its military. The division of Germany between West (where the U.S., Britain, and France exercised authority) and the East (under the Soviets) was most crucial. Had the West regarded Stalin simply as a cautious leader who was trying to protect Russia rather than an aggressive dictator leading a communist drive for world domination, the tension between the two sides might not have escalated into the Cold War. Though the United States knew of the enormous damage done to Russia during the war, Truman and Congress ended lend-lease aid and ignored a Soviet request for a loan that would help them rebuild. This American refusal to provide aid convinced Stalin of Western hostility and contributed to a growing antagonism between the Soviet Union and the United States. The United States proposed only a gradual abolition of nuclear arms in the Baruch Plan, thus preserving America’s atomic monopoly, while the Soviets proposed immediate nuclear disarmament. Because both proposals were based on each nation’s self-interest, attempts to agree on mutual reduction of atomic weapons failed. //**Containment**// U.S. foreign policy leaders initiated a major departure in American foreign affairs from the traditional policy of isolationism to one of containment, arguing that only strong and sustained resistance could halt Soviet expansionism. In 1947 President Truman asked Congress for economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey to prevent possible communist revolutions. In providing this aid, the United States assumed what had been Great Britain’s role—that of leading Western power in the eastern Mediterranean—and established that the United States would support any nation that was resisting communist takeover. This, the issuance of the Truman Doctrine, marked the beginning of the Cold War. The American government also decided to contain Soviet influence by financing postwar European recovery as a check on communist power. Through the Marshall Plan, the United States paid for the industrial revival in Western Europe and ended the threat that all Europe might drift into the communist orbit because of economic desperation. In 1949, the United States entered into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a pact for collective self-defense, with ten European nations and Canada. The move represented an overreaction to Soviet aggression, and tensions between the former allies escalated as NATO intensified Russian fears of the West. When the Russians blockaded the western access to Berlin, the Truman government responded with an airlift, which maintained the American position in that German city and contributed to Truman’s surprising reelection victory in 1948. The Berlin crisis signaled the end of the initial phase of the Cold War—Europe was divided and the rivalry between the Soviets and Americans was about to spread to the rest of the world. //**The Cold War Expands**// In the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the Cold War expanded. Both sides built up their military might, and diplomatic competition spread from Europe to Asia. Committed to winning the growing conflict with Russia, the American government unified its armed services and initiated a massive military buildup, especially in its air force. The National Security Act created the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council. A new national defense policy—NSC-68—took form that was based on the premise that the Soviet Union sought “to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world” thereby “mortally challenging the United States.” In Asia, the United States consolidated its Pacific sphere, but failed to avert the Chinese civil war in which Mao Tse-tung and the Communists drove Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists from the mainland to Formosa (renamed Taiwan). The United States refused to recognize the legitimacy of the communist government of China and turned its focus to Japan as its main ally in Asia. The showdown of the Cold War in Asia came in June 1950 when the North Koreans invaded South Korea, perhaps without Soviet approval, leading to war. The United States secured UN support for a police action to defend South Korea. An attempt to drive the Communists out of North Korea failed, however, and the war settled into a stalemate near the 38th parallel. The most significant result of the war might have been the massive rearming of America and the implementation of NSC-68. //**The Cold War at Home**// President Truman tried, for the most part unsuccessfully, to revive the New Deal reform tradition after World War II. The Cold War controlled American attention, and the Republicans used dissatisfaction with the postwar economy and fear of communism in the United States to revive its political fortunes. Truman’s apparent lack of political vision and his fondness for appointing cronies to high office were major weaknesses. Also, the postwar mood of the country was not conducive to further reform. As the economy settled into postwar normality, Truman found himself caught in the middle between union demands for higher wages and the public demand that consumer prices be kept down. Facing pressure from within his own party (Southern Democrats bolted over a proposed civil rights measure to form the Dixiecrat Party) as well as Republican attacks on his domestic policies, Truman’s reelection hopes in 1948 seemed dubious. The president benefited, however, from Thomas Dewey’s passive campaign and the indecisiveness of the Republican Congress. Reminding the voters of the past successes of the New Deal and of his aggressiveness in the Cold War, Truman confounded the pollsters by winning a decisive victory. Fear of Communists led to a government loyalty program and unrelenting investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Former State Department official Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury after allegations of espionage. Thousands of government workers were dismissed by the Loyalty Review Board for dubious loyalty, and following Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for conspiring with the Soviets. Playing on heightened American fears, Senator Joseph McCarthy engaged in tireless pursuits of communist conspirators. He received great support among the American populace because he offered a simple solution to the complicated problems of the Cold War. McCarthy directed his accusations everywhere, from the State Department to the U.S. Army, and would-be critics, fearful of arousing suspicion, remained quiet. Promising to clean up corruption and to bring the Korean War to an honorable end, Republican Dwight Eisenhower won election as president in 1952. In 1953 Eisenhower succeeded in reaching an agreement with the North Koreans for an armistice. McCarthy eventually overreached himself when he accused the upper echelons of the Army of communist ties, leading to his public humiliation and censure following Senate hearings in 1954. //**Eisenhower Wages the Cold War**// Together with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower tried to bring the Cold War under control. In particular, Eisenhower was motivated by outrageous defense expenditures and the sober realization of the destructive possibilities of nuclear warfare. Having provided aid to the French in the maintenance of their colony in Indochina against communist guerillas led by Ho Chi Minh since 1950, Eisenhower refused to provide increased American assistance in 1954 when the French were on the brink of defeat. Following an international conference dividing Vietnam at the 17th parallel with the provision for a general election by 1956, the United States gradually took over from the French support of the anti-communist government of Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon. While Senate Republicans blamed Truman’s Democratic administration for the “loss” of China, Eisenhower signed a security treaty with Chiang Kai-shek’s government in Formosa and hinted at the use of nuclear retaliation to forestall Chinese attacks on the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. Eisenhower’s policies were aimed at driving a wedge between the Russians and the Chinese by convincing the Chinese that the Soviet Union could not protect them from the United States should they overstep their boundaries. When Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal in 1956, England and France retaliated with an invasion of Egypt. Both the United States and the Soviet Union supported a UN resolution calling for their withdrawal, establishing the United States as the main western influence in the region and setting up yet another Cold War battleground with the Soviets. In 1958, the United States intervened temporarily in Lebanon to secure establishment of a stable government. During the 1950s, the Unites States used the CIA to work behind the scenes on many fronts: to place the Shah of Iran in control of that country, to overthrow a leftist regime in Guatemala, and to oppose the Castro regime in Cuba. The corrupting belief that the ends justify the means would later come back to haunt the United States. Eisenhower’s repeated efforts to end the nuclear arms race failed although a temporary suspension of testing did occur for the remainder of his presidency. The Soviet launching of //Sputnik//, however, contributed to an intensification of Americans’ fears. In 1960 Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor, agreed to a summit conference with Eisenhower, but later refused to attend after an American spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory. //**Conclusion: The Continuing Cold War**// Disappointed with the breakup of the Paris summit, Eisenhower made one last attempt to moderate the Cold War when he warned Americans of the unwarranted influence of a growing military-industrial complex. = Chapter 30 Summary = The 1960s was an era of angry protests, violent demonstrations, and sweeping social change. Under both Kennedy and Johnson, significant domestic reforms occurred while the continued American involvement in Vietnam led to escalation and eventually stalemate. //**Kennedy Intensifies The Cold War**// Despite a campaign that focused on domestic issues, foreign affairs took center stage upon John Kennedy’s election. The new administration supported containment and authorized a massive buildup of nuclear weapons in an effort to win the Cold War. Kennedy surrounded himself with the “best and brightest,” young, aggressive advisors determined to invoke a hard-line approach to the Soviet Union. Kennedy aggressively built up not only the nation’s nuclear arsenal but also the strength of the armed forces. The purpose was to create an alternative to Eisenhower’s massive resistance. Kennedy and his advisors wanted the United States to have the capability of a flexible response, meaning that America could choose to use nuclear force or employ the military should the need arise. A “superpower” stalemate that developed in Berlin left Germany physically divided between the East and the West with the construction of the Berlin Wall. Kennedy ordered further military spending for weaponry and called 150,000 reservists to active duty to demonstrate American determination to honor its international commitments. Kennedy reacted to Soviet statements promising support for “wars of national liberation” by a combination of financial aid, technical assistance, and counterinsurgency in order to build strong, stable, Western democracies in the less-developed areas of Asia. The most obvious result of this support was the increase of American advisors to South Vietnam from less than 1,000 in 1961 to more than 16,000 in 1963. Kennedy gave his approval to a CIA plan developed under Eisenhower to topple Castro by using Cuban exiles as invasion troops. The Bay of Pigs landing proved to be an utter disaster, and Kennedy took full responsibility for the failure. In 1962, the United States faced a much more serious issue regarding the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba. Kennedy refused to bargain on the missiles and boldly ordered a quarantine of Cuba as the world braced for a possible nuclear showdown. Premier Khrushchev eventually backed down, but the Russians went on a crash nuclear buildup to achieve parity with the United States. Some positive results followed: a limited test ban treaty was signed in 1963; a hot line to speed communication between the nuclear antagonists was installed, and a policy of conciliation replaced that of confrontation. Those gains were offset by a dramatic escalation in the arms race. In Vietnam the United States had supported the South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem against communist insurgents. Kennedy had sent military advisors and substantial military and economic aid. Full-scale American involvement began under Johnson in 1965, after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by Congress gave the president the power to take the offensive. Refusing to call for an invasion of the North, Johnson opted for steady military escalation. As his “open-ended commitment” to force a diplomatic solution on Hanoi intensified, American combat missions in the South and air strikes against the North increased. Johnson refused to admit, however, that he had committed the United States to full-scale military involvement, and the situation in Southeast Asia worsened. Despite massive American escalation, the war remained stalemated in 1968. Westmoreland’s wanton use of American firepower to destroy the Vietnamese countryside, wiping out villages and killing civilians, discredited the American cause and increased criticism of the war on the homefront.
 * 1. Analyze Kennedy's attitude toward the Cold War and nuclear armaments and the possible long-term consequences vis-à-vis the Soviet Union.
 * 2. Summarize the main events and results of the Bay of Pigs landing and the Cuban missile crisis.
 * 3. Compare and contrast the arguments for continued confrontation or conciliation with the Russians in the context of the Cuban missile crisis.
 * 4. Understand the reasons for America's buildup of military strength in Vietnam and how this escalation undermined the Johnson administration.
 * 5. Describe the escalation of America's involvement in the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1968.
 * 6. Explain why and how the year 1968 seemed to mark a turning point in the Vietnam War.
 * The Division of Europe**
 * Withholding Economic Aid**
 * The Atomic Dilemma**
 * The Truman Doctrine**
 * The Marshall Plan**
 * The Western Military Alliance**
 * The Berlin Blockade**
 * The Military Dimension**
 * The Cold War in Asia**
 * The Korean War**
 * Truman’s Troubles**
 * Truman Vindicated**
 * The Loyalty Issue**
 * McCarthyism in Action**
 * The Republicans in Power**
 * Entanglement in Indochina**
 * Containing China**
 * Turmoil in the Middle East**
 * Covert Actions**
 * Waging Peace**
 * Flexible Response**
 * Crisis Over Berlin**
 * Containment in Southeast Asia**
 * Containing Castro: The Bay of Pigs Fiasco**
 * Containing Castro: The Cuban Missile Crisis**
 * The Vietnam Dilemma**
 * Escalation**
 * Stalemate**