The+Cold+War+Notes+2

THe Manhattan Project
 * After the death of President Roosevelt on April 12 1945, Vice President Truman was shocked to learn what was going on in New Mexico.
 * He never knew of the Manhattan Project before because he was considered too low-level to be informed about the development of the atomic bomb.
 * He was not fully briefed until April 25 when Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson said that in 4 months, they would have built probably the most terrible weapon in human history.
 * Stimson was disturbed by this fact, afraid that modern civilization would be completely annihilated
 * The Manhattan Project began in August 1939 when a Hungarian emigre called Leo Szilard convinced Albert Einstein to send a letter to FDR on troubling developments in nuclear physics.
 * Leo Szilard was the first physicist to think up of the idea of nuclear chain reaction and had been monitoring the German research on neutron bombardment.
 * It was stated in a secret German War Office report that the new developments in nuclear physics would probably make it possible to create even more powerful ones, the first to create such a weapon would have a significant advantage.
 * The atomic effort in the US was supervised by Major General Leslie R. Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer who directed the scientific work.
 * First major step taken in December 1942 when Italian emigre Enrico Fermi created the first controlled nuclear chain reaction.
 * Meanwhile, other scientists in the project worked on refining uranium and plutonium into nuclear fuels.
 * The most famous Manhattan Project site was Los Alamos where the design and testing of the bombs took place.

KNowledge of the Bomb
 * Part of Truman's April 25th atomic bomb briefing resulted in him being informed that the British knew all about the Manhattan Project while the Soviets did not.
 * In the summer of 1944, physicist Niels Bohr urged Churchill and FDR to tell Stalin about the project as Soviet cooperation was needed for postwar atomic control.
 * FDR and Churchill did not listen and chose to keep it a secret from him, undermining many efforts to win Stalin's trust.
 * Had they followed Niels Bohr's advice, the Cold War could have been avoided.
 * Although Truman continued to hide the bomb efforts from the Soviet, the final decision was discussed by the Interim Committee.
 * Established in May 1945 to advise the president on atomic policy.
 * The members of this committee believed that dropping the bomb would demonstrate its immense power to the world, and they considered the Soviets nearly as important an audience as the Japanese.
 * Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not intentionally left untouched to demonstrate the bombs power against pristine urban landscapes.
 * Furthermore, top US officials like secretary of state James F. Byrnes influenced the language of the surrender term so that Japan would keep on fighting, allowing the use of the bombs.
 * The examination by the Interim Committee shows that the groups had much wider goals besides the defeat of Japan.
 * During one committee meeting, Oppenheimer suggested that if they were to offer information to the Soviets before the bomb was used, the moral position would be greatly strengthened.
 * But this idea was quickly dismissed as Byrnes wanted to demonstrate their strength and claimed using the bomb was the best way to ensure its usefulness in postwar cooperation.

POtsdam
 * In July 1945, Truman went to Berlin to meet with Churchill and Stalin. Mostly involved the German occupation, but also included two subjects. Invading Japan and the Manhattan Project.
 * Stalin was remarkably prepared in the conference, saying that he would enter the Pacific war for sure, even giving a date.
 * President Truman was initially happy with the date. However, the next day, his attitude changed, believing that the Japanese would surrender at the atomic bomb.
 * The event that changed his mind was the successful atomic test and the US could now end the war quickly without the Soviet's help.
 * Truman did not mention the bomb to Stalin only until a week later, and even then, he only told him him informally.
 * Stalin showed no special interests, this was because he already knew about it from spies in the Manhattan Project.
 * He had begun his own Soviet atomic program. In this case, Bohr's advice may have change the Soviet's behavior.
 * The fact that this secret was kept from Stalin only allowed him to confirm his worst fear, that the bomb was meant for both Japan and the USSR.

Containment
 * After Hiroshima and Nagasaki was bombed, the Soviet-American cooperation completely fell apart.
 * Soviets rearranged the map of Eastern Europe, allowing Poland to remain nominally independent but annexed the Baltic states.
 * Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania all became Soviet satellites.
 * Two weeks before this on February 22, George F Kennan, the charge d'affaires at the US embassy in Moscow sent a 5300 word cable to secretary of state Byrnes which woud soon be known as the Long Telegram.
 * The Long Telegram outlined the strategy of containment that soon became the base of postwar US foreign policy.
 * After returning to Washington ins April 1946, Kennan published his reasoning in a landmark July 1947 Foreign Affairs article that he only signed as X.
 * Kennan stated that they needed adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a different geographical and political points following the changes in Soviet policy.
 * In his view, the postwar USSR had two goals, establishing a security around its homeland and exporting Communism.
 * The first point could not be resisted peacefully but the second could be contained since Marxist-Lennist ideas mattered much less to Russia than safe borders.
 * Even if efforts to recover Eastern Europe were to fail, firmness in political expansion can be effective.
 * Kennan claimed that the four most important regions to the US is the Western Europe, Western Hemisphere, Japan and the Middle East since they would be an unlikely target for Soviet invasion.
 * He was certain that the USSR would limit its political expansion to avoid usurping the leaders which can be countered by creating unstable pro-Western regimes.
 * As long as the US applied enough pressure against the Russians, there would be no need for fighting in the Cold War.

The Truman Doctrine
 * Truman trusted Kennan's information on the situation and realized that he could not do much to free territory under Soviet control.
 * With the defeat of Germany and decline of Britain and France, the Soviets grew to become the dominant force in Europe, and in Eastern Europe they could do anything they wanted.
 * The nonaligned countries on the borders of the Soviet Union were increasingly pressured to join them.
 * For example, the Communist led revolt in the civil war was gaining ground against the pro-Western government.
 * The Turkish government was weak and under pressure to share control of the Dardanelles, giving Soviet's Black Sea fleet access to the Mediterranean.
 * If the British still had power, the would have sent aid and stabilized both government. But in February 1947, the British informed the US that they could no longer afford to help Greece or Turkey.
 * After speaking to the Greek president, it was concluded by Truman that only substantial American aid could keep Greece and Turkey out of the Soviet sphere.
 * To achieve this, the US looked to bipartisan support.
 * He instructed Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson to meet with the congressional leadership.
 * In this meeting, Acheson said what was known as the domino theory, that if Greece and Turkey fell, other countries would fall, from Iran in the south to India in the east.
 * The Republican who controlled Congress agreed to appropriate 400 million dollars in economic and military aid for Greece and Turkey provided that the President personally explain the severity of the crisis in a national broadcast before a join session of Congress.
 * Truman agreed and this speech on March 12 was known as the Truman Doctrine, the commitment of the US to aid economically or militarily any nation threatened by Communism.

Disarray in Postwar Europe
 * Two months before the Truman Doctrine speech the US, British, French and Soviet foreign ministers gathered in Moscow to discuss the future of Germany.
 * At Yalta and at Potsdam, it has been agreed that Germany would be reunified under a central and freely elected government.
 * French and Soviets were proving quarrelsome over this decision.
 * More disputes rose on war reparations and the amount of industry Germany should be allowed, wether the coal and steel industries of Ruhr should be under international control and how centralized the new German government should be.
 * No agreement was reached in the end and new US secretary of state George C. Marshall was convinced that Soviets wanted a deadlock since political stalemate worsened the economy in Germany and Western Europe.
 * The economic and political situation was getting serious in Western Europe.
 * 6 years of Allied bombing had turn many large cities into rubble, destroying much Europe's of economic infrastructure.
 * The businesses and factories that survived lacked many industrial supplies to be productive, unemployment was severe and those with jobs were demoralized by constant shortages.
 * Food in particular was scarce and millions were on the verge of starvation.
 * The economic turmoil was also affecting the political situation in Europe.
 * The British withdrew from Greece and Turkey.
 * France and Italy had serious shortages, and Communist movements were gaining electoral ground.
 * In Germany, poverty was undermining governmental authority.
 * After returning from Moscow, army chief of staff during the war, Marshall, decided that something needed to be done if they were to contain the USSR in their own borders.
 * He began instructing Kennan who was recently appointed the State Department's new director of policy, to investigate the economic situation in Europe and what assistance could be provided.