Nation of Nations 3/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff
	Online Learning Center

THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE

The postwar era in two critical ways marked a departure from Americans' past. For one, isolationism ended. In an attempt to contain Communism and Soviet expansion, the United States entered into the sort of "entangling alliances" that George Washington had once warned against. On the domestic scene, the country entered a period of economic growth that lasted around twenty-five years. Although dampened by occasional recessions, this economic expansion was not punctured by the sort of boom-and-bust depressions that had characterized earlier business cycles. Despite these departures from the past, connections to earlier experiences remained critical. Chapter 27 discussed both the appeasement of Hitler at Munich and Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Those events helped determine the postwar generation's attitude toward national security. And when President Truman sought to in his Fair Deal to extend the New Deal programs discussed in Chapter 26, a sharp national debate occurred over the legacy of the Roosevelt era.

OVERVIEW

In many ways the history of the immediate postwar years was as much about adjusting to the past as to the present or future. This chapter thus begins with two individual stories of people making their peace with their war experience and then getting on with their lives. Much, of course, would never be the same. In particular, the growing antagonism between the Soviet Union and the United States shaped the way the nation adjusted to the postwar world.

The Rise of the Cold War

The Cold War had its roots in the unresolved issues of World War II, especially the questions of German reparations and boundaries, Poland's government, the future of China, and the relationship of the Soviet Union to its bordering nations. As president, Truman felt compelled to take a hard line with the Russians, lest Stalin underestimate his resolve to strike tough bargains. Early tensions arose over Greece and Turkey.

For Americans, old hostilities to the Bolsheviks and new fears raised by Stalin's aggressive posture toward Eastern Europe aroused profound suspicions about the Soviets' postwar territorial ambitions. Persuaded that those ambitions were global, the Truman Administration adopted a policy of containment, outlined in George Kennan's 1946 "long telegram" from Moscow. Events in Iran helped persuade government officials of the importance of Kennan's views. Containment had its first real test when Truman persuaded Congress to support aid for Greece and Turkey. Political and economic turmoil in both Eastern and Western Europe made the case for the Truman Doctrine's theory of bipolar conflict compelling. Congress in 1948 authorized massive aid to Europe under the Marshall Plan. Stalin's effort to consolidate the Soviet sphere in Eastern Europe encouraged reluctant members of Congress to support economic and military initiatives in Europe. After the fall of Hungary and Czechoslovakia and a crisis in Berlin, the United States formed NATO. All of this took place under the shadow of the atomic bomb. The United States rejected any UN oversight that might compromise the nuclear monopoly. Military planners viewed the expansion of that monopoly as a way to deter possible Soviet aggression.

Postwar Prosperity

The end of the war brought wrenching readjustments as the government, industry, and individual citizens converted from war to peace. Women and minorities often lost their jobs. Inflation, shortages, layoffs, strikes, and a host of inconveniences created political headaches for the Truman Administration. Voters took their revenge against Democratic candidates in the 1946 elections and the new Congress resisted any attempts to revive the New Deal. One exception was the "G.I. Bill of Rights" that gave generous benefits to former soldiers.

Prosperity did not automatically spell political success for Harry Truman, as a new conservative spirit threatened to splinter the once-dominant New Deal coalition. Yet the defection of northern liberals and southern segregationists from the Democratic Party actually helped Truman defeat Thomas Dewey in the 1948 election. After his shocking upset win, Truman tried to revive social reform with his Fair Deal program. Congress blocked the way, forcing Truman to use executive authority to make gains on civil rights, such as the desegregation of the armed forces.

The Cold War at Home

A combination of conservative and liberal anti-Communists brought the atmosphere of the cold war home. The communist overthrow of Chiang Kai-Shek, Soviet detonation of an atom bomb and the espionage cases of Alger Hiss and Klaus Fuchs, all fed the growing hysteria. Fear of domestic subversion led the government to launch a massive loyalty review program while the House Un-American Activities Committee investigated the Hollywood film industry. In 1950 Congress passed the McCarran Act to bar subversives.

Senator Joe McCarthy captured the tide of anticommunism and lent his name to the postwar "Red Scare." The Wisconsin Senator made spectacular, if unsubstantiated, charges, but McCarthyism owed some of its credibility to Truman's own anti-red crusade.

From Cold War to Hot War and Back

Frustrated at home, Truman looked to foreign policy to assert his leadership. The National Security Council proposed to accelerate national defense spending under the doctrines of NSC-68 but Congress resisted the huge costs until war erupted when North Korea invaded South Korea.

Truman did not hesitate to commit American forces to the United Nations effort. General Douglas MacArthur reversed the initial North Korean successes with a brilliant amphibious operation at Inchon. But the decision to move across the 38th parallel to reunite North and South Korea brought China into the war. Truman eventually fired MacArthur for insubordination, as the Korean stalemate undermined the President's political position at home. In the election of 1952, war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower and his anticommunist running mate, Richard Nixon, used the formula of "K1C2" (Korea, Communism, and Corruption) to defeat Adlai Stevenson.

Ike's popularity complicated Senator McCarthy's efforts to extend his crusade but some of Eisenhower's actions actually encouraged McCarthy, especially the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the security case against nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer. McCarthy went too far, however, in attacking the United States Army. When the Senate finally condemned him in 1954, the Red Scare began to wane.

Throughout it all, Eisenhower claimed to be leading the country down the "middle road." Yet, it became clear that the "middle road" did not mean a return to the laissez-faire economics and isolationist politics of the pre-war years. Republicans and Democrats supported social welfare programs like Social Security and granted the federal government the power to manage the economy in a variety of ways. Furthermore, Americans understood that the nation’s economy and defenses were tied more than ever to a global order.

Copyright ©1998 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies.
For further information about this site contact mhhe_webmaster@mcgraw-hill.com.