McNeeze T. The Cold War and Postwar America 1946-1963 (Discovering U.S. History)

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The Cold War and Postwar America

existence of the Map Room prior to FDR’s death! Soon Tru-

man was up to speed. He felt he understood Stalin. He did

not believe in Stalin or any promises the Soviet leader might

make to him in the future. Truman did not consider Stalin

to be a reasonable man. He saw the Soviets as untrustworthy

and, while FDR had tried to remain warm with Stalin even

during harsh negotiations between the Big Three, Truman

viewed the old Communist leader with suspicion and per-

sonal dislike.

Thus the man from Missouri had only been Chief Execu-

tive for a few days before he announced to his advisors that it

was time “to stand up to the Russians.” Just 10 days follow-

ing FDR’s death, Truman met with the Soviet foreign minis-

ter, Vyacheslav Molotov, at the White House. The minister

“began to tell me what the Russians had to have.” Truman

responded by dressing down the Soviet minister about the

continuing occupation of Poland and other violations of the

Yalta accords. Molotov was indignant, responding: “I have

never been talked to like that in my life.” Truman’s response

was blunt and to the point: “Carry out your agreements, and

you won’t get talked to like that.”

The Meeting at Potsdam

Yet for all his bluster, Truman knew the United States was

still at war, not with the Soviets, but with Germany and

Japan. In the intervening weeks the war in Europe played

out, with the Germans surrendering in early May. Truman

was also aware that he had little to hold over the Soviets.

Russian armies were already in Poland and much of the

rest of Eastern Europe. Germany was divided by occupying

armies. But the president did take a ﬁrm step against the

Soviets by cutting off all wartime aid to the U.S.S.R. Almost

immediately afterward, Truman gained a new weapon—the

atomic bomb.

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Origins of the Cold War

He learned of the successful testing of the world’s ﬁrst

atom bomb on July 21, ﬁve days after its detonation, while

he was at a conference in the city of Potsdam, in Russian-

occupied Germany. There were lingering questions about

the postwar period, which brought him alongside Churchill

and Stalin for the ﬁrst time. At the conference Truman kept

his ﬁrm hand. He did concede to the adjustments in the Pol-

ish–German border that Stalin had demanded from FDR, but

he managed to persuade Stalin to agree that the Nationalist

leader Chiang Kai-Shek, whom the United States had sup-

ported through the war, was the legitimate ruler of China.

This was an important concession, since China was facing a

takeover by Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong.

Truman otherwise maintained his hard line with Stalin.

He refused to allow the Soviets to take reparations from the

United States, British, and French-occupied zones of Ger-

many, which angered Stalin greatly. As conﬂict widened

between the Big Three, the result was that Germany would

remain divided, perhaps permanently. The country’s three

Western sectors—the United States, British, and French

zones—would be united into a separate country from the

Russian zone, with its Communist government. Rebuffed

and unable to take from the Western zones, the Russians

were soon siphoning off assets and infrastructure from their

own zone at the rate of between $1.5 and $3 billion a year,

including dismantling whole factories and other facilities

and shipping them to Soviet soil.

A NEW U.S. POLICY

Within a matter of weeks of the Potsdam Conference, the

United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities

of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This shocking action brought

Emperor Hirohito to his knees and ended the war in the

Paciﬁc. As for the Grand Alliance of the United States, Great

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The Cold War and Postwar America

Britain, and the Soviet Union, wartime cooperation had end-

ed even before the war itself. Little hope remained for the

Atlantic Charter and FDR’s dream of self-determination for

the nations of the world. [The Atlanic Charter was an agree-

ment made between FDR and Churchill in August 1941 that

established

the goal

of the Allies throughout the war.] Mean-

while the Soviets further consolidated their stranglehold

over Eastern Europe.

In the spring of 1946 out-of-ofﬁce Winston Churchill

delivered a speech in Fulton, Missouri, where he spoke of

a symbolic “Iron Curtain” descending across Europe, one

“dividing a free and democratic West from an East under

totalitarian rule.” Churchill had ﬁrst used the analogy of the

“Iron Curtain” immediately following the end of the war in

Europe. He had sent Truman a telegram on May 12, 1945, in

which he asked the question: “What is to happen to Europe?

An iron curtain is drawn down upon [the Russian] front. We

do not know what is going on behind [it].” In the interven-

ing 10 months Stalin had extended the arm of Communism

to envelope several European countries.

Yet Truman did not simply sit still as the Soviets spread

their ideology to their neighbors. He and his advisors pur-

sued a policy based on holding the line on Communism, an

approach today referred to as the Truman Doctrine. His for-

eign policy centered on “containment.” Through the Truman

Doctrine, the deﬁnition of “national security” was enlarged

to include regions around the world, not just those closest

to home, such as Latin America. As Truman told Congress:

“Wherever aggression, direct or indirect, threatened the

peace, the security of the United States was involved.” It was

now the Americans who were prepared to draw their own

lines in the sand. It is here that the seeds of the Cold War

began to germinate.

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he ﬁ rst application of the Truman Doctrine came in the

spring of 1947, when the president spoke to Congress.

He called on Congress to provide $400 million in support of

the governments of Greece and Turkey, in an effort to bolster

their economies and their armed forces. The purpose was to

counter Stalin, who was trying to gain control, through Tur-

key, over signiﬁ cant sea lanes to the Mediterranean. In Greece,

Stalin was giving support to Communist forces that were

challenging the pro-Western government. It was America’s

job, said Truman, to “support free peoples who are resisting

subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”

The president described these “pressures” in terms of “ter-

ror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, ﬁ xed elec-

tions and the suppression of political freedoms.” Congress

agreed and approved the monies. This aid package proved

timely and effective. Truman’s “containment” approach sent

the Soviets packing in Greece and Turkey.

Truman’s

Cold War

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The Cold War and Postwar America

THE MARSHALL PLAN

Not only were Communist elements working to inﬂuence

Greece in 1947, but nations in Western Europe were begin-

ning to see Communist groups of their own taking root. One

concern that still remained, even two years following the

end of the war in Europe, was how shaky many European

countries still were. An important part of Truman’s contain-

ment policy was to provide enough economic aid to counter

the lure of Communism in the West. To that end, in June

1947, during a commencement speech at Harvard Univer-

sity, Truman’s Secretary of State George C. Marshall (who

had served as the U.S. Army Chief of Staff during World War

II) announced a new plan to provide assistance to all Euro-

pean countries that would participate in drafting a program

of further postwar recovery. Some referred to the plan as a

“New Deal for Europe.”

The European Recovery Program (ERP) was approved

by Congress in April 1948, creating the Economic Coopera-

tion Administration. The motives underlying the program

included 1) humanitarian concern for the people of Europe,

some of whom were still homeless from the war, 2) a general

concern that, if the United States did not help Europe get

back on its feet the continent might become a permanent

drain on America’s resources, 3) a desire to further link U.S.

goods with European markets, and, perhaps most important

of all, 4) to counter Communism. Despite its ofﬁcial name,

the program soon became known as the Marshall Plan. In

Marshall’s words, notes historian David Horowitz: “Our

policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but

against hunger, poverty, desperations, and chaos.” Although

the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc nations under its con-

trol were invited to participate in the program, Stalin refused,

unwilling to surrender any control over the economies of his

satellite states or of his own country’s economy.

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Truman’s Cold War

Seventeen Western European nations signed up for the

program, each drafting a four-year plan for their own eco-

nomic recovery. The nations were Austria, Belgium, Den-

mark, France, Great Britain, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden,

Switzerland, Turkey, and West Germany. The United States

handed out $12.4 billion ($93 billion in today’s money) in

Marshall Plan aid through the ﬁrst four years of the program.

Signiﬁcant food aid reached Europe, as ships unloaded car-

goes of U.S. farm produce that included grain, meat, fruits,

vegetables, and other foods. Through this economic inﬂu-

ence, Truman was able to convince both Italy and France to

ban the Communist Party from their governments.

AID FROM THE SKIES

About the same time as the Marshall Plan began investing

U.S. dollars in the future of Western Europe, the United

States was making parallel moves to bolster the military

capacity of those same countries. At the heart of that effort

was Germany, which Truman and other world leaders

believed needed to be reconstructed to recover from its deep

war wounds. Working alongside Britain and France, the

United States supported the merging of the three Western

zones of Germany, which the three powers occupied. A new

“West Germany” emerged as a German republic. Included

in this new state were the sectors controlled by the three

countries within the city of Berlin, which was itself situated

in the Soviet-controlled region of East Germany.

Stalin was not pleased with this move on the part of his

former allies, and he made an immediate counter move.

On June 24, 1948, the Soviet premier laid a tight blockade

around the three Western sectors of Berlin, not intending to

allow the Western powers to remain present in the old Ger-

man capital. All rail routes and automobile roads running

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The Cold War and Postwar America

Citizens of West Berlin watch a U.S. C-82 transport

aircraft carrying relief supplies come in to land at

Tempelhof Airport in 1948. The Berlin Airlift involved

more than 270,000 ﬂ ights.

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between Berlin and the three Western zones of Germany

were shut down. The move was merely a next step in separat-

ing the West Berliners from the outside world. Back in April

Stalin had declared that all trains moving into or out of Berlin

would be subject to Soviet inspection. His intention was to

force the Western powers to abandon their Berlin outposts,

so that the U.S.S.R. could hold absolute control over all the

territory within East Germany. Suddenly the West Berliners

were more isolated than ever before, even as Stalin offered

the hollow promise of removing all Soviet troops from East

Germany within a year.

Forging Links with Berlin

Truman’s “containment” approach would not allow him to

simply abandon West Berlin. He was not prepared, however,

to risk military action that might lead to a full-scale war with

the Soviets. Instead, he chose to address the new isolation of

the West Berliners by ordering a giant airlift through which

the oppressed Berliners could receive continued Western aid,

such as food, fuel, medical supplies, clothing, and blankets.

The “Berlin Airlift,” which involved British and U.S. planes,

continued for more than 10 months and delivered almost

2.5 million tons (2.3 million metric tons) of aid, helping to

keep a city of 2 million people alive. As Truman wrote in his

diary, “We’ll stay in Berlin—come what may.”

The Berlin Airlift was a non-military action, a humanitar-

ian effort that became a symbol of the differences between the

West and the Communist East. It also indicated the West’s

(as well as Truman’s) resolve to stand against the Soviets and

resist the harsh thumb of Communism. At the same time

the airlift provided an opportunity for the people of West

Berlin to take a stand and defy the Soviets. The U.S. mili-

tary commander stationed in Berlin, Colonel Frank Howley,

commended the West Berliners: “It was their Valley Forge.

Truman’s Cold War

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The Cold War and Postwar America

They bought their right as a people willing to suffer and die

for democracy.”

By the spring of 1949 a humiliated Stalin lifted the block-

ade, which had never been effective anyway. Then, the fol-

lowing October, the de facto separation of Germany became

an ofﬁ cial reality with the establishment of two countries,

the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) allied to

the West and the German Democratic Republic (East Ger-

many) allied to the East. For the next 40 years Germany

would remain a divided country and be a focal point in the

Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

reCoGnIZInG IsraeL

While the Cold War soon set the

stage for U.S. foreign policy following

World War II, there were other issues

that also pushed themselves to the

forefront of U.S. diplomatic efforts

during the last half of the 1940s.

One of these was the establishment

of a new nation in the Middle East,

Israel, to which the United States gave

strong support.

During the war Hitler’s Nazis

had tracked down and imprisoned

millions of European Jews, in a

campaign designed to eradicate

the race from the continent. In the

Holocaust that resulted, 6 million

Jews were killed in labor and

death camps that the Nazis set up

throughout Eastern Europe. Following

the war Jews around the world

sought the establishment of a Jewish

state, a homeland where members

of their race could live and protect

themselves from any such aggression

in the future.

In late 1947 the United Nations

General Assembly voted to divide the

Middle Eastern state of Palestine in

two, creating an Arab state, Palestine,

and a Jewish one, Israel. To Orthodox

Jews, the establishment of Israel

signiﬁ ed the return of the Jews to

lands they had once held historically.

The ancient state of Israel had been

set up following the Biblical Exodus,

between about 1400 and 1200

B.C.E.

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Truman’s Cold War

A NEW WESTERN ALLIANCE

Such confrontations as the Berlin blockade and airlift only

further frosted relations between these titans of the East and

West. As these nations drifted further apart, new alliances

symbolizing the unity between Western Europe and North

America were taking place. In March 1948 Great Britain,

France, and the “Benelux” countries (Belgium, the Nether-

lands, and Luxembourg) signed a 50-year treaty of alliance

and economic cooperation, called the Brussels Pact.

More than a year passed before Western diplomats birthed

a military alliance, called the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-

Although Arabs throughout the

Middle East protested the creation

of an independent Jewish state in

their midst, Israel was established on

May 14, 1948. To give the new state

further legitimacy, President Truman

ordered the immediate recognition

of Israel, making the United States

the ﬁ rst nation to do so. Truman

had supported a Jewish state since

the early days of his presidency. At

Potsdam, in the summer of 1945, he

talked with the British about allowing

the Jewish Holocaust survivors to

come to Palestine. He told an aide,

notes historian Michael Beschloss,

in his book Presidential Courage:

“Everyone else who’s been dragged

from his country has somewhere to

go back to. But the Jews have no

place to go.” The president now had

his opportunity to support them to the

fullest.

The new Israelis did not have

to wait long before it became

necessary to defend their infant

state. Arab nations immediately

went to war against Israel, yet the

Jewish defenders prevailed until the

United Nations worked out a truce

agreement, reestablishing peace by

May 11, 1949, just three days short of

the ﬁ rst anniversary of the creation of

the Jewish homeland.

The existence of Israel has

continued through the decades to

determine U.S. foreign policy in the

Middle East. The ties between the

United States and Israel remain strong

today, more than 60 years later.

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