JohnsonK2013+INO-+Cold+War+Notes+Chaps+1-18+April+16+2011

=Roots of Cold War= toc

=Awesome=

=Notes=

1. Bolsheviks

 * 1917 2 revolutions in Russia
 * March, coalition of antitsarist groups overthree Nicholas II
 * Established a provisional government, Prince Georgy Lvov and Alexander Kerensky
 * November, the Kerensky government was overthrown by Vladimir Lenin’s Communist party, Soviets
 * Lenin’s followers = **Bolsheviks**
 * **Bolshe** = more, imply Lenin’s faction represented the majority of Russian socialists
 * US government didn’t care about the Bolsheviks
 * 1924, Lenin’s death, Joseph Stalin took over
 * Relationship between the 2 countries were off to a bad start
 * March 1918 US entered WWI, while the Soviets left the war
 * American capitalism vs Russian communism, suspicion and distrust
 * Bolsheviks wanted to replace capitalism with an international communist state
 * March 1919, established the **Comintern** (Communist International)
 * to work “by all means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie
 * Russian civil war, US joined other Western nations (White) against Bolsheviks (Red)
 * Soviets established the USSR in late 1922, after finishing off the White Army
 * US govt. supported Russian famine in the 1920s and establishing commercial relations with the Soviet govt. during the NEP
 * But didn’t recognize the Soviet Union formally until 1933

2. The Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact

 * Under NEP, the Soviet state controlled all of the nation’s large economic enterprises
 * Stalin’s **5 Year Plan**, greater economic control
 * eg. forcibly collectivized the peasantry and compelled the rapid development of new heavy industry
 * Stalin: “USSR was 50-100 years behind advanced countries”
 * Franklin Roosevelt realized that the US policy of nonrecognition no longer made sense
 * difficult to obtain Soviet cooperation about international issues
 * November 17, established formal diplomatic relations
 * WWII, Stalin distrusted the French and British, and they would allow USSR to face Germany alone
 * Germany and USSR secretly negotiated the **Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact**
 * NSNA-Pact = delaying tactic
 * USSR wasn’t ready for war
 * Hitler wanted to avoid fighting in the East until Germany was victorious in the west
 * Wanted to invade Britain first then USSR but Britain held out longer

3. A Marriage of Convenience

 * 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the **Lend-Lease Pact**: authorized military aid to countries fighting the Axis
 * USSR joined the war in 1941, Roosevelt treated them as allies and send them aids as well
 * After US joined the war, efforts were made to improve their relationships
 * Propaganda, portrayed Russians as good
 * 1942, Stalin sent Foreign Minister Vyacheslav M. Molotov to Washington to urge Roosevelt to take some action to relieve German pressure on the Soviet front
 * the president promised to invade France before the ned of the year
 * Churchill disagreed, persuaded US not to invade France prematurely
 * Britain’s plan: late invasion of N.Africa
 * Upset Stalin
 * Churchill traveled to Moscow trying to calm Stalin

4. The Big Three at Tehran

 * Stalin disappointed again 1943
 * Postponed invasion of France
 * Stalin became suspicious when he saw Churchill apparently pursuing imperial self-interest at the expense of Russian lives
 * Big 3 meeting Nov. 1943
 * Although Roosevelt never met Stalin before, he was told that Stalin was “the most inscrutable and contradictory character”
 * but also “better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic than Churchill, and in some ways the most effective of the war leaders...sometimes a murderous tyrant”
 * Status of a defeated Germany and the postwar borders of Poland were discussed
 * main focus was **Operation Overlord** (cross channel invasion)
 * Churchill had no choice but to agree
 * Roosevelt left Tehran frustrated
 * no personal connection with Stalin
 * Stalin was pleased
 * learned that the president already understood that “whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system.”

5. Yalta

 * Big 3 met for the 2nd time and final time in Feb. 1945 Yalta, Black Sea
 * ** 4 issues **
 * creation of an organization to succeed then disbanded LoN
 * future of Europe
 * status of Germany
 * Soviet entry into the Pacific War
 * Stalin knew his mind and strength however, Roosevelt was dying, made difficult for him to resist Stalin’s demands
 * UN, Stalin wanted veto power for permanent members of the Security Council and separate General Assembly for Belorussia and Ukraine
 * Poland, he wanted recognition for the Communist government he had set up in Lubin over the govt-in-exile that had been operating in London since Sept. 1939
 * Wanted 10 billion dollars of industrial equipment from Germany for war reparations
 * Exchange for a secret commiment to declare war on Japan after Germany’s suurender
 * annex the Kurile Islands while taking back all of the territory lost to Japan
 * Roosevelt and Churchill conceded nearly all of these demands
 * Red Army’s 4 years of fighting placed the Soviets in a commanding military position
 * last political gains
 * Soviets occupied almost till Berlin
 * British and Americans had yet to cross the Rhine

6. The Division of Germany

 * Once American and British Forces crossed the Rhine in March 1945 Eisenhower pursued 3 main goals
 * capturing the Ruhr Valley
 * Prevent Nazi withdrawal to the Bavarian Alps
 * Avoiding unintentional clash with Soviet troops heading west
 * Eisenhower sent Stalin a cable about their plans
 * angered Churchill, ceding Berlin to the Soviets
 * Eisenhower wanted to end the war as soon and with as few casualties as possible
 * April 16 Soviets attacked Berlin
 * April 30 Hitler committed suicide
 * May 2 Adm. Karl Donitz wanted to surrender to the western Allies so they could continue on fighting the Soviets
 * Harry Truman refused and insisted that the Germans surrender simultaneously on all fronts
 * Surrender: May 7 Germany divided into 4 occupation zones
 * Soviet, British, US and French

7. The Manhattan Project

 * Roosevelt died on April 12 1945, Truman was shocked to hear what Roosevelt had been up to in N.Mexico
 * Truman considered too low-level to be briefed on the **Manhattan Proj**.
 * Briefed on April 25 by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson
 * Idea of the Manhattan Proj in 1939, from Einstein
 * US atomic effort supervised by Maj. Gen. Leslie R. Groves of the Army Corps of Engineer
 * 1942, first controlled nuclear chain reaction
 * Manhattan Proj. was Los Alamos, NMexico
 * design and testing took place on the grounds of a private school

8. Knowledge of the Bomb

 * Truman learned that the British knew about the Manhattan Project, Soviets didn’t know
 * Niels Bohr urged Churchill and Roosevelt in separate meetings to tell Stalin
 * They chose not to tell so the nuclear arms race was not ameliorated
 * Truman adopted Roosevelt’s policy have had to had to decide whether or not to tell the Soviets
 * **Interim Committee** (top secret, scientists & govt. officials)
 * considered the Soviets nearly as important an audience as the Japanese
 * Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not bombed heavily so the destruction of the atomic bombs could be demonstrated
 * Japanese didn’t surrender = justifying the use of the bombs
 * Nobel laureate Arthur Compton: “if the bomb were not used in the present war, the world would have no adequate warning as to what was to be expected if war should break out again...”
 * Oppenheimer: “offer to exchange information with the Soviets before the bomb was actually dropped, our moral position would be greatly strengthened.”
 * Dismissed
 * Flaunting the bomb = best way to ensure its usefulness

9. Potsdam

 * July 1945 Truman traveled to Berlin to meet Churchill and Stalin
 * German occupation
 * Invasion of Japan
 * Manhattan Project
 * Stalin was forthcoming
 * reaffirmed his promise to enter the Pacific War
 * receiving peace overture from the Japanese
 * USA knew, but Stalin didn’t know
 * Truman believed that Japan will surrender before the Soviets come in
 * July 18 first atomic test successful
 * US could end the war quickly and without Soviet involvement
 * Truman did not tell Stalin until a week later, informally
 * “Russian premier showed no special interest”
 * Stalin knew from Soviet spies within the Manhattan Project
 * Secret Soviet atomic program was under way
 * Truman and Churchill confirmed Stalin’s fear: atomic bomb for Moscow next

10. Containment

 * After dropping the bombs, US-USSR co-op broke down completely
 * Soviets rearranged the map of E.Europe
 * Poland remained independent but USSR annexed the Baltic states
 * 2 weeks earlier, George F. Kennan, the charge d’affaires at the US embassy in Moscow, sent a 5300 word cable to Secretary of State Byrnes on the same topic
 * In Kennan’s view, USSR had 2 goals
 * Establishing a security corridor around its homeland
 * exporting Communism
 * Kennan discussed 4 regions of interest to the US
 * W.Europe, W. Hemisphere, Japan and the Middle East
 * Each unlikely target for Soviet invasion
 * No need to militarize the Cold War

11. The Truman Doctrine

 * Truman realized that there was nothing he could do to liberate territory under Soviet rule
 * defeat of Germany + Decline of Britain and France = USSR strongest military power in Europe
 * Soviet expansionism
 * Greece civil war
 * Communist-led insurgency was gaining group against the pro-Western govt.
 * Turkish govt. under pressure, Soviets share of control over the Dardanelles
 * Black Sea access to the Mediterranean
 * British aid would have stabilized both governments
 * British govt. informed the US State Department that it could no longer afford to help either Greece or Turkey
 * Truman concluded that American aid was needed
 * **Domino Theory**:
 * if Turkey and Greece were allowed to fall, other countries would too
 * Republicans who controlled Congress agreed to appropriate 400mil in economic and military aid for Greece and Turkey
 * Truman agreed: Truman Doctrine

12. Disarray in Postwar Europe

 * Jan. 1947 US, British, French, and Soviet foreign ministers gathered in Moscow to discuss the future of Germany
 * **Yalta & Potsdam**: agreed that Germany would be reunified under a central, freely elected govt.
 * French scared that Germany might be a threat again, Soviets too
 * Level of industry that should be permitted in a reunited Germany
 * Should be placed under international control
 * No agreement was reached
 * George C. Marshall (new US secretary of state) convinced that the Soviets wanted a deadlock because of political stalemate
 * Economic and political situation in W.Europe was becoming dire
 * 6 years of bombing turned most large cities into rubble, destroying Europe’s economic infrastructure
 * unemployment and food were severe and short
 * Economic turmoil was having on the political situation in Europe could be seen by everyone, not only Soviets
 * British withdrawal from Greece and Turkey
 * France and Italy: Communist movements were gaining electoral ground
 * Germany: widespread poverty, undermining govt. authority
 * Marshall decided that something more would have to be done if the US was indeed to contain the Soviets within its current borders
 * Instructing Kennan to investigate the economic situation in Europe and determine what assistance the US might be able to provide.

13. The Marshall Plan

 * June 5 1947 Secretary of State Marshall outlined the foreign policy problems that USA was facing in Europe (Harvard graduating speech)
 * Europe’s requirements, much greater than preset ability, must have additional help
 * Marshall’s solution: joint recovery plan, self-help, resource sharing
 * Marshall’s offer was quickly taken up by the British and French foreign ministers
 * conference at Paris, 16 invitees
 * USSR not part
 * Stalin opposed
 * free movement of goods and people
 * might grow into international tension
 * Europe’s plan = **Europe Recovery Program 1947**
 * ** 17 billion dollars **
 * Events abroad settled the matter
 * After a Soviet-backed coup d’etat ousted the democratically elected government in Czechoslovakia 1948, opposition to the bill was gone
 * US 13.3 billion on ERP aid
 * most expensive foreign policy in US history
 * **Truman Doctrine** = America, global leader

14. The Berlin Airlift
-1948 French joined, **Trizonia** = West Germany
 * Soviet preference for a disintegrated, unstable Germany was clear
 * 1947, withstanding Soviet objections, merged their occupation zones, Bizonia
 * US and British tried more to create an independent state in West Germany
 * new currency: **Deutsche marck**
 * Currency reform, crucial to the economic recovery of W.Germany
 * Nazi Reichsmark was worthless
 * No more black market trades
 * Soviets cut off all road, rail and water access to West Berlin
 * western Allies protested, right of access
 * Capitulation, massive airlift
 * Task seemed hopeless
 * W.Berlin need 45hundred tons of supplies per day
 * C-47 planes, 3tons per flight
 * Truman sent 100 large capacity C-54
 * April 16-17 1949, 13 thousand tons of cargo
 * May 12 Soviets lift blockade
 * West Berlin = symbol of US resolving Soviet aggression without direct conflict

15. NATO and the Warsaw Pact

 * Kennan’s Theory: Militarization of the Cold War, unwise and unnecessary
 * Soviets weren’t likely to deploy armed force beyond their E.European corridor
 * economic and political pressure
 * If US make military alliances, Soviets will do the same
 * After WWII, Allies demobilized but USSR still retained both a massive army and an extensive military infrastructure
 * Allies signed the Treaty of Brussels (1948) mutual defense
 * they still need US to help in order to counter the USSR
 * **Blockade of Berlin** underlined this point
 * **North Atlantic Treaty 1949**, **North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO**.
 * USA, Brussels States, Canada, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Portugal
 * Last 3 were initially resisted, too geographically, politically and culturally disparate
 * Same for Greece and Turkey, offered membership 1952
 * Addition of W.Germany was too difficult
 * NATO could not possibly field enough conventional forces to resist a Soviet invasion without German manpower
 * 1955 W.Germany’s formal admission to NATO caused the Soviets to create a rival military alliance
 * **Warsaw Treaty Organization**, USSR, E.Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania

16. The Hiss Case

 * August 3 1948 Times senior editor Whittaker Chambers, called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee HUAC
 * Chambers told the congressmen that he had once been part of a secret Communist cell in DC
 * Alger Hiss, former State Dept. official who had accompanied FDR to Yalta and involved in the creation of the UN
 * Was questioned but denied everything
 * People though Chambers was lying, but Nixon said he was telling the truth when he questioned him in private
 * Another hearing was held on August 25 1948, Live hearing
 * Hiss lost his cool and his stories began to unravel
 * Chamber defended himself by showing the State Dept. documents from 37-38 written in Hiss’s hand and typed on his personal typewriter
 * Hiss had committed espionage
 * Hiss was sentenced 5 years but served 44 months
 * Whether Hiss was guilty or not, it was a psychological impact
 * People felt anxious
 * If Hiss had been a spy, what did that imply about what had been done and who could be trusted?

17. McCarthyism

 * Nixon became so famous he was able to secure a Senate nomination after just 3 years in the House
 * Helen Gahagan Douglas quit the campaign
 * Nixon dubbed the Pink Lady in order to call attention to her alleged softness on Communism
 * according to Nixon, the entire Truman admin suffered
 * Nixon’s most effective tactics that year was the distribution of pink sheets comparing Douglas’s liberal voting record
 * Nixon joined the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee chaired by Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, aggressive anticommunist
 * 1950 McCarthy held up a paper and declared that it contains 205 people who were members of the Communist party who were still working and shaping policy in the State Dept.
 * Launched a wave of anticommunist hysteria, dominated domestic politics of the next decade
 * McCarthy, frequent use of misrepresentation and innuendo in which he specialized
 * McCarthy couldn’t keep his accusation’s straight
 * 4 years of investigation, not a single case of disloyalty
 * Hiss case, 1949 Soviet atomic bomb, Mao’s Communists ensured McCarthy a wide and compliant audience

18. NSC-68

 * Lessons learned during WWII and developing Soviet threat, Congress passed the **National Security Act** of 1947
 * Reorganized the govt.’s military and foreign policy establishments
 * Streamlined the armed forces by consolidating the War and Navy Dept. into a single Dept. of Defense
 * Created **Central Intelligence Agency CIA**
 * Successor to the wartime Office of Strategic Services and the **National Security Council NSC**.
 * NSC: president, VP, secretary of state, secretary of defense, director of central intelligence and other sub-cabinet officials
 * Jan. 1950 Truman told the NSC to conduct a comprehensive review of US national security strategy
 * 58 pages memorandum designated NSC-68 and delivered on April 7
 * By the State Dept.’s policy planning staff under the direction of Paul Nitze
 * Nitze’s group began with **2 premises**:
 * Defeat of Germany and Japan and the decline of Britain and France had left the US and the USSR as the only 2 world powers
 * USSR was animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own and sought to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world
 * only way to meet Soviet threat was with a massive military buildup
 * Others, led by Kennan, disagreed
 * the Soviet bomb did not shaken Kennan’s conviction that the threat was political
 * Criticized Nitze’s assertion that the Soviets were bent on world domination through use of force, military buildup is advocating
 * Destabilizing arms race
 * Kennan was winning the argument until June 25, North Korea invaded South Korea
 * Republicans said Truman was soft on Communism
 * In response, the Truman administration tripled defense spending, 5%-14%

=Summary= During the end of WWII, US and USSR were allies and the US sent aid to USSR because of the Lend-lease pact. However, after WWII, their cooperation broke down immediately. USSR gradually spread its Communist ideas around Eastern Europe. WHen the US was working on the Manhattan Project, they decided not to tell Stalin however, he already knew. McCarthyism started because of people's hysteria over Communism in USSR and China. The US and many other allies created NATO while the USSR responded with the creation of Warsaw Treaty Organization. The NSC conducted the NSC-68, which was the US national security strategy and the US foreign policy for the next 20 years.

=Questions= 1. What events improved the relationship between USA and USSR? 2. What are the NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Organization? 3. Explain what is McCarthyism 4. What caused the Berlin Airlift? 5. Why didn't the US tell Stalin about the Manhattan Project?