1950'S Presentation
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Truman’s Fair Deal: • 81st Congress did not embrace his deal • Did raise minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents/hr • Repeal of Taft-Hartley Act: a law that restricted labor unions • Approved expansion of Social Security coverage and raised Social Security benefits • Passed National Housing Act of 1949; provided housing for low-income families and increased Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance. • Did NOT pass national health insurance or to provide CHAPTERS 18 & 19 subsidies for farmers or federal aid for schools 1 2 Truman’s Fair Deal: GI Bill: • Fair Deal was an extension of FDR’s New ’ Deal but he did not have the support in • Official name: Servicemen s congress FDR did. Readjustment Act • Congress felt they were too expensive, too • Provided generous loans to veterans to restrictive to business and economy in help them establish businesses, buy general. homes, & attend college • Majority of both houses for Congress were • New housing was more affordable Republican; Truman is a Democrat during the postwar period than at any other time in American history. • Still in use today!! 3 4 1 22nd Amendment to the U.S. THE COLD WAR Constitution 1951 •CONFLICT BETWEEN THE U.S.S.R. & THE • No person shall be elected to the office of the UNITED STATES WHICH BEGAN AFTER WWII President more than twice, and no person who IN RESPONSE TO COMMUNIST EXPANSION. has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to •COMMUNISM WAS SEEN AS A MORTAL which some other person was elected President THREAT TO THE EXISTENCE OF THE shall be elected to the office of the President WESTERN DEMOCRATIC TRADITION. more than once. •THE COLD WAR WAS FOUGHT IN POLITICAL, • President can only serve 2 four year terms; and SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC BATTLES AS no more than 10 years if a VP assumes a OPPOSED TO WAR. presidency. 5 6 Origins of the Cold War The Cold War • The cold war began with mistrust between the Soviet Union (red) and the western democracies (blue). 2 Soviet Distrust of the West 1. Western Opposition to Bolsheviks • The Soviet Union • In 1919, Russia’s felt it had good former World War I cause to distrust the allies (Britain, France west. and the United States) joined the "White Russians" to fight off the Bolsheviks following the revolution. 2. The Result: USSR Suspicious of 3. Disregard for Soviet Diplomatic Goals West – This intervention – The western failed and the Red democracies did not Army of the invite the Soviet Bolsheviks secured Union to participate in the power of the new the World War I Soviet state. The peace talks or the young USSR League of Nations. government never quite trusted the western democracies after that. 3 4. West Did Not Aid in Spanish Civil 5. USSR Not Invited to Munich Conference War – The west did not aid • The west did not invite the Republicans the Soviets to the fighting the fascists in Munich Conference the Spanish Civil which decided the fate War. of Czechoslovakia in the years leading up to World War II, even though the Soviet Union had a security pact with Czechoslovakia. Western Distrust of the Soviets 1. Fear of Socialism • The west, for its part, never trusted the Soviet – The avowed purpose of Union. the International Communist Party was to secure world wide communist revolution. There was a great fear of socialism in Europe and America. 4 2. Soviet Annexation of Eastern 3. Soviet Designs on Eastern Poland Europe – The Soviets – By the end of the war negotiated an Britain and the United agreement with States distrusted the Hitler and annexed Soviet motives in eastern Poland. eastern Europe. Uneasy Alliance During World War II Western Delay in Opening 2nd Front • This mutual distrust was • Stalin believed that suppressed during the western allies World War II when for were dragging practical reasons (the their feet in opening up the common enemy of "second front" in Hitler's Germany) the Europe, so western allies and the necessary to take Soviet Union became the pressure off uneasy allies. the struggling Soviet forces in the east. 5 Soviet Desire for Friendly Decisions at Yalta Governments • The physical structure of the • Stalin was open about wanting "friendly cold war was put into place governments" in Eastern Europe to protect at the end of World War II. his country's western frontier from another • Winston Churchill, Franklin invasion like the invasion so recently Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin agreed in experienced by Germany. February of 1945 at Yalta to • All of this was in the air when Stalin, divide Germany into four Churchill and Roosevelt met at the end of occupation zones. World War II. • Compromise of allowing the Polish government to be set up by the Soviets but allow free elections Soviet Influence in Eastern Europe • It was agreed that the Soviet Union would have the greatest influence in eastern Europe, where Soviet troops were concentrated. – They already occupied Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and parts of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and it would have been difficult to come to an agreement which involved removing these troops. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Yalta – Roosevelt agreed because he had little choice. 6 Governments Friendly to Strained Relations at Potsdam Soviets • Finally, it was agreed that independent • When the allies met again at Potsdam in July of governments would be established in 1945, relations were more strained. • Roosevelt had been replaced by Truman, who these lands, and that elections would be was not inclined to humor Stalin once he found free, but the governments would be out that there had been a successful test of the "friendly to the Soviet Union." atomic bomb. • This is the beginning of what Winston • America no longer desperately needed Soviet help in the war against Japan. Churchill would later call the "Iron Curtain" • America had halted aid to the Soviet Union which divided Europe for 45 years. because of concerns over Russian behavior in the East. Potsdam Conference Cold War 1945- 1991 • The leaders arrived at various agreements on • USA vs. USSR the German economy, punishment for war criminals, land boundaries and reparations. • No direct conflicts but plenty indirect • US against heavy reparations, & for the overall • Ideological struggle between the revival of Germany’s economy Soviet Union and The United States • Soviets wanted reparations and make it • Capitalism vs. Communism impossible for Germany to be able to invade them again • Also agreed to on an unconditional surrender from Japan 27 28 7 Soviet Consolidation of Power • Between 1945-1948 the Soviets under Stalin consolidated their power in Eastern Europe. – Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary became part of the "Soviet Bloc" – or "satellite system." – Within the communist parties of these countries there were purges to remove national communists - one in four were removed. Truman and Stalin at Potsdam The Iron Curtain Iron Curtain • As early as 1946, Winston Churchill saw what was happening. • Gave a speech in Fulton, Missouri “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and eastern Europe . All are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence, but to a very high and increasing measure of control from Moscow.” • Separated: Communists of Eastern Europe from then non-communist of Western Europe 32 8 Cold War Politics: • Long Telegram: Feb. 26, 1946 • George Kennan was a U.S. diplomat that helped establish the first American embassy in the Soviet Union in 1933, sent a 5,540 word cable message explaining his view of Soviet goals • asserted that the Soviet Union could not foresee “permanent peaceful coexistence” with the West. • Soviets have a “neurotic view of world affairs” was a manifestation of the “instinctive Russian EASTERN EUROPEAN NATIONS TAKEN OVER BY THE sense of insecurity.” USSR AFTER WW II • Kennan was convinced that the Soviets would YUGOSLAVIA, WHILE COMMUNIST, REMAINED INDEPENDENT33 try to expand their sphere of influence 34 Origins of the Truman Doctrine Truman Doctrine: • In 1947 The United States responded to • Went before Congress to ask for what appeared to be a $400 million to fight Communism clear Soviet attempt to aggression in Greece & Turkey spread communism into Eastern Europe. It • Goal in long run to pledge the US declared the Truman to fight communism worldwide Doctrine aimed at stopping the further spread of communism. • AKA CONTAINMENT 36 9 Provisions of the Truman The Marshall Plan Doctrine • In June 1947, US Secretary of State • "I believe that it must be the policy of the United proposed European Recovery Program States to support free peoples who are resisting – provided economic aid to European countries, attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by both east and west by the United States in outside pressures. 1947 to rebuild their economies • I believe that we must assist free peoples to – Truman saw Marshall Plan & Truman Doctrine work out their own destinies in their own way. as “two halves of the same walnut” (self-determination) – Both were essential for containment! • I believe that our help should be primarily – caused Stalin further doubt about the Western through economic and financial aid which is Allies' intentions. essential to economic stability and orderly – It was in this atmosphere that the Berlin crisis political processes." arose. Berlin Unification of Western Zones • Berlin was located completely within the eastern • Britain, France, and the United States unified the side of Germany which was occupied by the western zones of Berlin in 1948, and announced a Russians. new currency there.