Transcript Post WWII California

Post WWII
The Cold War and Rise of the
Civil Rights Movement
Questions
• What was the “Cold War”? How would you
define and characterize the Cold War?
• What were Tactics of the Cold war?
• What are examples of cold war standoffs
and/or United States intervention and
occupation?
Identifications
• The “Red Menace” & the Communist
Conspiracy
• Covert Action and economic leverage
• Policy of Containment
• Domino Theory and McCarthyism
• Korean war and the 38th Parallel
• U.S. Information Agency
• School of the Americas
• Nasser's Policy of non-alignment and the
Eisenhower Doctrine of 1957
Cold War
• Standoff between US and Soviet union on
division of post WWII world,
– both sides wanted to see their way of life
spread to gain power and wealth at home
and aboard
• Decolonization complicated this
Cold War Era
• De-colonization world wide
– Anti communist – “Red Menace”
• Repressive Government – Conformity
• Rhetoric of Democracy, self determination and
save the American Way of Life
– CIA & Truman
• Covert Action and economic leverage replaced
military confrontation
• Policy of containment – full scale offensive to
enlarge power of US
– endorsed covert action, propaganda, military build up,
economic pressure and framed as national security
issues and measures
The Truman Doctrine
• The United States would provide economic
and military aid to any country that claimed
they were threatened by communist
expansion
• “Domino Theory”
– Threat of communist conspiracy will spread
through the world
• Soviet expansion, de colonization movements a threat
to US investments and business interests.
– Framed as a national security issue and justified such
measures
Containment at Home
• 1940-50s debate on how to counter alleged
communist influences in the US.
• Labor movement – unprecedented wave of labor
strikes
– Target for anti-communist legislators
– Liberalism = communism (progressive orgs, individual
or organized liberal causes, civil rights leaders)
– Taft Hatley Act 1947 reversed gains made by labor
unions, required union officials to sign affidavits
stating they had no connection to communist party
Communist Conspiracy
• Truman focused on fighting the soviets
• Used Menace of International Communist
Conspiracy to justify National Security
measures and domestic policies
• Emotional and therefore multi-applicable
argument
“The Great Fear”
• Truman’s final years:
• public atmosphere of anxiety about communist
subversion with ceaseless warnings about hidden
enemies at home and abroad
• Republican Senator of WI Joseph
McCarthy
• McCarthyism
– Targeted wantonly and without substantiation
– Political tool
First Target = “Hollywood 10”
• Major industry strike
– Argued they harbored left wing sympathies
• House Committee on Un-American
Activities
– Hearings on Communist Party USA
• Dossiers
• Black listed
– (WEB Dubois and Ernest Hemingway)
– New Immigration laws restricted immigration from people
outside areas of North Western Europe – considered a
national security threat
– UC system- Loyalty Oath – state legislature passed a
From Truman to Eisenhower
• Emphasis on anti communism and
containment continued into the presidency
of Republican Dwight Eisenhower.
– In 1954 McCarthy discredited
– Eisenhower expansion of national security
• programs of domestic surveillance, wire tapping,
and covert action overseas
Korean War or “Police Action”
• Imperialist History
– Originally a Chinese Sphere of Influence or tributary
state
– Japanese defeated Russians in 1905
– Japanese sphere of influence until 1945
• Removing Japanese influence from Korea, stated
objective of allies during WWII
– 1945 Soviet Union and U.S. divided Korea at the 38th
Parallel
– U.S. Occupation of the South, Soviet occupation in
the north
– Promise to allow democratic elections to re-unify
Korea under one government
Korean Nationalism
• During Japanese occupation, Korean
Nationalism became a potent force
• Both north and south - “peoples
committees”
• Worked against the Japanese and had
strong socialist inclinations.
U.S. & Rhee
• The US mistrusted these committees due to
their socialist bent, especially in the north where
they carried out land reform programs.
• Handpicked a leader for the South Syngman
Rhee.
• Emerging leader in the north Kim Sung was
socialist and had close ties with the soviet
armies based there.
Kim became the northern branch
of the Korean Communist Party
• Led a successful land reform program.
• 1948 the US sponsored elections for
Rhee, and he won, due to the lack of
support of the elections of the Korean
people, many people did not turn out to
vote.
1949, Soviet and US troops
• North invaded the south in June 1950.
• Truman assumed the involvement of the
Soviets and China and sought and gained
UN sanctions to send in troops against the
north.
• China feared US invasion and sent troops
to aid the north.
Containment
• By 1951 Truman sought negotiation
settlements
• adopted the stance of containment
– defined the boundaries of the North as
socialist and the south as democratic.
First Classic Cold War Standoff
• The war dragged on for two years during
the negotiations
• Dividing line remained where it had started
at the 38th parallel.
• 4.5-5 million civilians and troops dead.
Review
• Truman administration pursued policies that
expanded the power of the executive branch of
government
• The militarization of foreign policy intensified with
the Korean war
• At home anticommunism focused on containing both
the activities and ideas of alleged subversives.
– These initiatives raised difficult issues about how to protect
legitimate national security interests while still
safeguarding constitutional liberties
Shift of Foreign Policy
• By 1954 the strident anticommunist rhetoric
began to subside
– The dominant assumptions of cold-war policy – that
the US must protect the “free world” and fight
communism everywhere remained unchanged
– Focus shifted to more subtle and complex power
plays in the Third world, middle east, Asia, Latin
America, and Africa.
– One reason for the shift was a change of leadership
in Moscow
• Nikita Khrushchev talked peaceful co-existence
2nd Reason for Shift
• Eisenhower the military budget was reduced,
relying on nuclear capabilities and covert action.
– Elevated psychological warfare and informational
programs into major cold war weapons
– Radio broad castes globally and programmed in more
languages
• The US Information Agency
– Coordinate anti communist informational and
propaganda campaigns.
Covert Action and economic
leverage
• Shift of focus to 3rd world
– CIA covert action and economic leverage replaced
overt military confrontation as its primary foreign
policy
• Less expensive, less visible, less likely to provoke public
controversy.
• Elevated psychological warfare and Information programs
into weapons
• Funded radio free Europe
Middle East Intervention, Iran
• In 1953, the CIA helped execute a coup to
overthrow Mohammad Mossadeghs
constitutional government in Iran, restoring
to power the Shah Reza Pahlavi
• A firm ally of the US and Oil interests
Latin Intervention, Guatemala
• In 1954 the CIA worked with the United Fruit
Company to topple president Jacobo Arbenz
Guzman’s elected government in Guatemala
– Guzman sought to nationalize and redistribute large
tracts of land owned by United Fruit
• By 1960 15,000 agents around the world
Trade & Aid
• Eisenhower also employed economic strategies
– trade and aid- to fight communism and win
converts in the 3rd world.
• US policy makers came to identify freedom with
“free market”
• Regarded efforts of 3rd world nations to break old
colonial bonds by creating government directed
economies and nationalized industries as a
threat to freedom.
School of the Americas
• US offered 3 billion dollars in economic aid
to friendly nations a year
• Trained 225,000 representatives from
nations in anticommunism and police
tactics
– Contributed to the development of military
dictatorships
Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt
• Overthrew a corrupt monarchy in Egypt
• Promised to rescue Arab nations from
imperialist domination
• Policy of non-alignment or neutralism
Nasserism & the “Eisenhower
Doctrine”
• Feared the spread of Nasserism throughout the
oil rich middle east
• In 1957 the “Eisenhower doctrine” pledged to
defend Middle eastern Countries “against overt
armed aggression from any nation controlled by
international communism.
– Anti communist rhetoric supplied the justification for
maintaining governments that supported the west’s
need for oil.
US Response
• Marines to Lebanon to set up an antiNasser government in Beirut
• Britain restored King Hussein to the
throne in Jordan.
– Eisenhower’s policies to support friendly
conservative governments in the middle east
– Western military intervention intensified Arab
nationalism and anti Americanism.
CIA International Repression
• 1958 President approved a plan for the
CIA to support uprisings around the world
– Attempted assassinations of Castro
– Patrice Lumumba, a black nationalist in the
Congo 1961 (debated)
• Set the stage for fateful foreign policy
intervention
Chile and Allende
• National Liberation movement
– Chile’s economy – dependency, export of copper .
Wanted national liberation to free self from
dependency rather than outright colonialism
• Allende – an elected socialist president, formed
a broad coalition of leftist and radical groups
called Unidad Popular
– Nationalized Industries and supported worker take
over of factories such as Ford
– Carried out agrarian reform
US intervention
• September 11, 1973
• DINA & Operation Condor
– Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile
– Installment of Pinochet with CIA support
• Military Junta lasted until 1990
– Tortured over 40,000 Chileans who had supported
Allende
– 4,000 people disappeared all together
Cold War at Home: Suburbia
• Baby Boom – by 1962 500,000/year
• Unregulated Sprawl
• Redistribution of population and Tax base
• Rise of Suburbia
– “California Life Style”
– Discriminatory real estate and housing
practices
– Locked minorities out
– Rise of Suburbia = segregation
Gender and Suburbia
• “A Comfortable Concentration Camp” that
fostered depression, isolation, loneliness and
quiet desperation of women
• Conformity – ideal of stay at home mom
• “conveniences” reallocation of time (not less work)
• California dream – 2 incomes needed
• Employment discrimination
• jobs did not match educational level – press for change
• Career women – labeled “maladjusted, guilt
ridden and man hating”
Women’s Changing Roles
• By 1948 25% of married women –
employed
• End of 1950s 50%+
• Well defined gender segregation
– 90% nurses women
– Telephone operators
– Secretaries
– Elementary school teachers
Cultural Gender Difference
• White magazines perpetuated the stay at
home mom image
– Carried ambiguous messages about
domesticity
• “family wage” justified disparity of pay and
opportunity
• Ebony Magazine –
– Celebrated black women’s success in
combining work and family
African Americans
Housing and employment legislation and
de facto school segregation
By 1950s
40% unemployed,
 low wages,
 dilapidated housing,
poor recreation facilities,
 limited shopping and medical establishments
(free way projects)
Urban Renewal Program
• Addressed Ghetto-ization
– Destroyed neighborhoods – replaced with low
income projects
– “Negro Removal” razed blocks of affordable
housing
– Black activists embraced civil rights –
advancement hinged on full integration into
mainstream
Mexican Americans
• Operation Wetback (1953-55)
– 2 million deported
– Barrios unified rather than divided by anti
immigrant hysteria
– Potential for effective political action against
same conditions of prejudice and
discrimination shared by African Americans
– Urban Renewal – Chavez Ravine
Community Activist
Organizations
• ANMA Association National Mexican
Americans
– Attacked as communists and subversives by
FBI and US attorney General
Asian Americans
• Population growth
• Repealed Alien Land Law Act 1956
• Walter McCarren Act
– Dismantled anti-Asian policies
– called for detention and deportation of citizens
suspected of Acts of Espionage or sabotage
– Imposed tougher restrictions on illegal
immigrations (result Operation Wetback)