Transcript The Cold War (1946-1990)

The Cold War (1946-1990)
• The Splitting of the “Grand Alliance” in the
months after WWII in Europe
• Origins and responsibility remain controversial
One Cause of the Cold War: The Policies of
Joseph Stalin and the Fate of Eastern Europe
• Stalin no longer content with the ideology of
“socialism in one country”
• Stain totally inflexible in maintaining absolute
control over Eastern European Territory
But Roosevelt and Truman also had
some Responsibility
• FDR was lenient in dealing with Stalin during
WWII – at the Tehran Conference in 1943 –
• “I have just a hunch that Stalin doesn’t want
anything for his country, and I think that if I
gave him everything I possibly can and ask
nothing from him in return,…, he won’t try to
annex anything and will work for a world of
peace and democracy.”
Yalta,Conference, 1945
• Roosevelt trusted Stalin at Yalta, when he
agreed that Eastern European governments
would be pro-Russian but freely elected.
Stalin took it to mean one thing and the
Americans another. Above all, for Stalin, he
wanted a buffer against any future aggression
from the west, as his mind was still fixed on
the Nazi invasion of may, 1941.
Harry Truman and the Cold War
• At the Potsdam Conference, July 1945,
Truman was inflexible, overly aggressive, and
demanded free elections in Eastern Europe. It
was reasoned that America had the power of
the Atomic Bomb, and that if pushed, America
could use it like a six-shooter.
Probes East vs. West during the Cold
War
• Greece, 1947 – led to the Truman Doctrine of
assisting democracies with military aid if
challenged by communist insurgents.
• Berlin Blockade, 1948 – all major highways cut
from the west to Berlin in an attempt to force
allies to hand over the city to the Russians.
Airlift followed – 2.3 million tons of supplies in
six months.
Korea, 1950-1953 -- Cold War Turns Hot
• Initial North Korean Invasion
• General McArthur and the Inchon Landing
• China’s entrance in the conflict at the Yalu
River
• Truman, MacArthur and the Use of the
Nuclear Bomb
• A Bloody Stalemate
Other Early Cold War Conflicts
Included:
• Hungary, 1956
• Berlin, 1959
• Cuba, 1962
Nikita Krushchev –
“the Thaw”
Nikita Krushchev – “the Thaw”
The Thorny Issue of Berlin
• 2 million citizens in Berlin
• Soviets wanted formal recognition of East
Germany
• By 1961, thousands of East Germans each day
are leaving via Berlin
• A wall is built – the symbol of a government
that had to imprison its own people
• Escapes, captures, and shootings would take
place for decades
East and West Atmospheric Nuclear
Testing – Soviets Announced it
would Resume in April 1961
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
• Summer of 1962 Khrushchev moved to place missiles
with nuclear warheads in Cuba
• Castro in alliance with Soviets after the Bay of Pigs
incident in 1961
• Chief threat was political as it would have allowed
Khrushchev to blackmail US over Berlin
• Discovered by U-2 aircraft over Cuba
• Air strike would have triggered a new world war
• Embargo resorted to by US
• Compromise with removal of missiles in Turkey allowed
Khrushchev to save face
In the wake of the Cuban Crisis
• Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Signed
• Installation of Hot line between White House
and Kremlin
• But in November 1963, Kennedy Assassinated
The Vietnam War
• A World Upside Down – at the heart of
massive social change was the Vietnam War –
it left Americans questioning not only the
American government and the military, but
fundamental traditional values
• American involvement in Vietnam began after
the French left the area in 1956
• North and South Vietnam
Vietnam
• North Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) –
Marxist revolutionary
• South Vietnam led by Catholic nationalist leader
Ngo Dinh Diem (1901-1963)
• By 1961 North Vietnamese insurgents roamed
freely in South Vietnam – murdering, burning,
looting
• After the CIA endorsed murder of Diem in 1963,
Vietnam was led by Nguyen Van Thieu and
Nguyen Cao Ky
The Vietnam War – Frustration and Social
Change
1.
2.
3.
4.
Escalation of the war under
Lyndon Johnson -- 500,000
troops between 1965-7
Stalemate – air force bombing
North Vietnam
Magnified problems at home
Student protest and violence
The Loss of a President and the Loss of
a War
• Hawks vs. Doves
• Burglary of the Headquarters of the
Democratic Party
• Assistance of FBI and CIA in Cover-up
• Vice president Spiro Agnew resigns in face of
income-tax invasion and bribery
• Nixon resigns, August 9, 1974
Cold War America during the 1950s
and 1960s – Civil Rights
• The legacy of slavery – poverty and racism
• The general failure of American society to provide
blacks with equal opportunities for education and
jobs
• True not only in the south but also the north
• “separate but equal” education – declared
unconstitutional bin Brown vs. Board of
Education
• Most parts of the south were determined to
disobey the Court
Martin Luther King (1926-1968)
• Voter registration drives in the south during the 1950s
and 1960s
• Efforts to liberalize real-estate practices in the North
• Some whites responded with intimidation and Terror
• M.L. King and the boycott of segregated buses in
Montgomery, AL, in 1955
• Non-violence: schools, lunch counters, mass meetings
• Passage of Civil Rights Act in 1964
• Black Power, summers of 1965-67 – Los Angeles,
Newark, Detroit
• King and Robert Kennedy assassinated in 1968
The Vietnam War and Rising Social
Unrest
• “Opting Out” – LSD, marijuana, heroin, and
cocaine – Timothy Leary
• Draft board issues
• University violence – SDS – disruption of
classes, take over of administration buildings
1968
• Chicago and the Democratic National
Convention
• France – Worker and Student Unrest –
occupation of University of Paris campus, the
result of an oppressive enviroment
• Czechoslovakia and Prague – “socialism with a
human face” – a challenge to Stalinism
repressed
1970 – Kent State and Jackson State
• A reflection of a Western Civilization that was
becoming increasingly violent, including on an
international scale
• Charles Manson
• Richard Speck
• The Munich Olympics, 1972
• John Lennon
• Anwar Sadat
Oil Shock I and II – 1973 and
1979
Six Stages of the Energy Crisis
• Between 1955 and 1971, demand in the U.S.
was outstripping supply
• 1972 rise in oil prices – OPEC
• 1973-74 – Embargo and panic
• 1975-78 -- President Ford – focus almost
entirely on supply – no long term policy
• 1979 – Iran and a Second Oil Crisis
• 1980-84 – Regan Era – OPEC overproduction
and new sources
Nye – pp.222-3: “The oil shock of 1973-74 was a
symptom, not a cause. The shortages revealed the
energy dependence and the vulnerability that the
United States had been building up for decades. The
high-energy middle-class standard of living was not a
victim of the energy crisis; it was the source of the
crisis. Compared with equally affluent Europeans,
Americans used roughly twice as much energy per
capita. Half the difference was directly attributable to
their transportation systems, and much of the rest was
due to their preference for widely spaced detached
houses.
We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber."
--Secretary of the Interior James Watt