U.S. Hist. Ch 13 – Flashcards

nations politically and economically dominated or controlled by another more powerful country

the political and military barrier that isolated Soviet-controlled countries of Eastern Europe after World War II

a war fought with limited commitment of resources to achieve a limited objective, such as containing communism

a systematic attempt to overthrow a government by using persons working secretly from within

a policy established by President Truman that authorized the screening of all federal employees to determine their loyalty to the U.S. government

radioactive particles dispersed by a nuclear explosion

In 1944, at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., delegates from 39 countries met to discuss the new organization, which was to be called the United Nations (UN). The delegates at the conference agreed that the UN would have a General Assembly, in which every member nation in the world would have one vote. The UN would also have a Security Council with 11 members. Five countries would be permanent members of the Security Council: Britain, France, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States. These five permanent members would each have veto power. On April 25, 1945, representatives from 50 countries came to San Francisco to officially organize the United Nations and design its charter. The General Assembly was given the power to vote on resolutions and to choose the non-permanent members of the Security Council. The Security Council was responsible for international peace and security. It could ask its members to use military force to uphold a UN resolution.

In February 1945, with the war in Europe nearly over, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta—a Soviet resort on the Black Sea—to plan the postwar world. Several agreements reached at Yalta later played an important role in causing the Cold War. A key issue discussed at Yalta was Poland. Shortly after the Germans had invaded Poland in 1939, the Polish government fled to Britain. In 1944, however, Soviet troops drove back the Germans and entered Poland. As they liberated Poland from German control, the Soviets encouraged Polish Communists to set up a new government. As a result, two governments claimed the right to govern Poland: one Communist and one non-Communist. President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill both argued that the Poles should be free to choose their own government. Stalin, however, quickly pointed out that every time invaders had entered Russia from the west, they had come through Poland. Eventually, the three leaders compromised. Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to recognize the Polish government set up by the Soviets. Stalin agreed it would include members of the prewar Polish government, and free elections would be held as soon as possible.

After reaching a compromise on Poland, the three leaders agreed to issue the Declaration of Liberated Europe. The declaration echoed the Atlantic Charter, asserting "the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live." The Allies promised that the people of Europe would be allowed "to create democratic institutions of their own choice" and to create temporary governments that represented "all democratic elements." They pledged "the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people."

The conference then focused on Germany. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed to divide Germany into four zones. Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France would each control one zone. The same four countries would also divide the German capital city of Berlin into four zones, even though it was in the Soviet zone. Although pleased with the decision to divide Germany, Stalin also demanded that Germany pay heavy reparations for the war damages it had caused. An agreement was reached that Germany could pay war reparations with trade goods and products, half of which would go to the Soviet Union. The Allies would remove industrial machinery, railroad cars, and other equipment from Germany as reparations. Later arguments about reparations greatly increased tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The Yalta decisions shaped the expectations of the United States. Two weeks after Yalta, the Soviets pressured the king of Romania into appointing a Communist government. The United States accused the Soviets of violating the Declaration of Liberated Europe. Soon afterward, the Soviets refused to allow more than three non-Communist Poles to serve in the 18-member Polish government. There was also no indication that they intended to hold free elections in Poland as promised. On April 1, President Roosevelt informed the Soviets that their actions in Poland were not acceptable. Yalta marked a turning point in Soviet-American relations. President Roosevelt had hoped that an Allied victory and the creation of the United Nations would lead to a more peaceful world. Instead, as the war came to an end, the United States and the Soviet Union became increasingly hostile toward each other. The Cold War, an era of confrontation and competition between the nations, lasted from about 1946 to about 1990.

As the war ended, Soviet leaders became concerned about security. They wanted to keep Germany weak and make sure that the countries between Germany and the Soviet Union were under Soviet control. Soviet leaders also believed that communism was a superior economic system that would eventually replace capitalism. They believed that the Soviet Union should encourage communism in other nations. They accepted Lenin's theory that capitalist countries would eventually try to destroy communism. This made them suspicious of capitalist nations.

While Soviet leaders focused on securing their borders, American leaders focused on economic problems. They believed that the Great Depression became so severe because nations reduced trade. They also believed that when nations stop trading, they are forced into war to get resources. By 1945, Roosevelt and his advisers were convinced that economic growth through world trade was the key to peace. They also thought that the free enterprise system, with private property rights and limited government intervention in the economy, was the best route to prosperity.

In response to the atrocities of World War II, the United Nations held a General Assembly in December 1946. They passed a resolution that made genocide punishable internationally. The text of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide became the first UN human rights treaty. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt chaired a UN Commission on Human Rights in 1948. The international commission drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which promoted the inherent dignity of every human being and was a commitment to end discrimination.

Eleven days after confronting the Soviets on Poland, President Roosevelt died and Harry S. Truman became president. Truman was strongly anti- Communist. He believed World War II had begun because Britain had tried to appease Hitler. He did not intend to make that mistake with Stalin. Ten days later after his election at a meeting with the Soviet foreign minister Molotov, Truman immediately brought up Poland and demanded that Stalin hold free elections as he had promised at Yalta. Molotov took the unexpectedly strong message back to Stalin. The meeting marked an important shift in Soviet-American relations and set the stage for further confrontations.

In July 1945, with the war against Japan still raging, Truman finally met Stalin at Potsdam, near Berlin. Both men had come to Potsdam to work out a deal on Germany. Truman was now convinced that industry was critical to Germany's survival. Unless its economy was allowed to revive, the rest of Europe would never recover, and the German people might turn to communism out of desperation. Stalin and his advisers were convinced they needed reparations from Germany. The war had devastated the Soviet economy. Soviet troops had begun stripping their zone in Germany of its machinery and equipment for use back home, but Stalin wanted Germany to pay much more. At the conference, Truman took a firm stand against heavy reparations. He insisted that Germany's industry had to be allowed to recover. Truman suggested the Soviets take reparations from their zone, while the Allies allowed industry to revive in the other zones. Stalin opposed this idea since the Soviet zone was mostly agricultural. It could not provide all the reparations the Soviets wanted. To get the Soviets to accept the agreement, Truman offered Stalin a small amount of industrial equipment from the other zones, but required the Soviets to pay for part of it with food shipments. He also offered to accept the new German-Polish border the Soviets had established. Stalin did not like the proposal. At Potsdam, Truman learned of the successful U.S. atomic bomb tests. He hinted to Stalin that the United States had a new, powerful weapon. Stalin suspected Truman of trying to bully him into a deal. He thought the Americans wanted to limit reparations to keep the Soviets weak. Despite his suspicions, Stalin had to accept the terms. American and British troops controlled Germany's industrial heartland, and there was no way for the Soviets to get any reparations without cooperating.

Although Truman had won the argument over reparations, he had less success on other issues at Potsdam. The Soviets refused to make stronger commitments to uphold the Declaration of Liberated Europe. The presence of the Soviet army in Eastern Europe ensured that pro-Soviet Communist governments would eventually be established in the nations of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. The Communist countries of Eastern Europe came to be called satellite nations because they were controlled by the Soviets, as satellites are tied by gravity to the planets they orbit. Although not under direct Soviet control, these nations had to remain Communist and friendly to the Soviet Union. They also had to follow policies that the Soviets approved. After watching the Communist takeover in Eastern Europe, the former British prime minister Winston Churchill coined a phrase to describe what had happened. On March 5, 1946, in a speech delivered in Fulton, Missouri, Churchill referred to an "iron curtain" falling across Eastern Europe. The press picked up the term, and for the next 43 years, it described the Communist nations of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. With the Iron Curtain separating Eastern Europe from the West, the World War II era had come to an end. The Cold War was about to begin.

Despite growing tensions with the Soviet Union, many American officials continued to believe cooperation with the Soviets was possible. In late 1945 the foreign ministers of the former Allies met first in London, then in Moscow, to discuss the future of Europe and Asia. Although both British and American officials pushed for free elections in Eastern Europe, the Soviets refused to budge.

Increasingly exasperated by the Soviets' refusal to cooperate, officials at the U.S. State Department asked the American Embassy in Moscow to explain Soviet behavior. On February 22, 1946, diplomat George Kennan responded with what became known as the Long Telegram—a message, thousands of words long, explaining his views of the Soviets. According to Kennan, the Soviets' view of the world came from a traditional "Russian sense of insecurity" and fear of the West, intensified by the communist ideas of Lenin and Stalin. Because Communists believed they were in a historical struggle against capitalism, Kennan argued, it was impossible to reach any permanent settlement with them. Kennan proposed what became basic American policy throughout the Cold War: "a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies." In Kennan's opinion, the Soviet system had major economic and political weaknesses. If the United States could keep the Soviets from expanding their power, it would only be a matter of time before their system would fall apart, beating communism without going to war. The Long Telegram circulated widely in Truman's administration and became the basis for the administration's policy of containment—keeping communism within its present territory through diplomatic, economic, and military actions.

While Truman's administration discussed Kennan's ideas, a series of crises erupted during the spring and summer of 1946. These crises seemed to prove that Kennan was right about the Soviets. The first crisis began in Iran. During World War II, the United States had troops in southern Iran while Soviet troops held northern Iran to secure a supply line from the Persian Gulf. After the war, instead of withdrawing as promised, the Soviet troops remained in northern Iran. Stalin then began demanding access to Iran's oil supplies. To increase the pressure, Soviet troops helped local Communists in northern Iran establish a separate government. American officials saw these actions as a Soviet push into the Middle East. The secretary of state sent Stalin a strong message demanding that Soviet forces withdraw. At the same time, the battleship USS Missouri sailed into the eastern Mediterranean. The pressure seemed to work. Soviet forces withdrew, having been promised a joint Soviet-Iranian oil company, although the Iranian parliament later rejected the plan.

Frustrated in Iran, Stalin turned northwest to Turkey. There, the straits of the Dardanelles were a vital route from Soviet ports on the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. For centuries Russia had wanted to control this strategic route. In August 1946, Stalin demanded joint control of the Dardanelles with Turkey. Presidential adviser Dean Acheson saw this move as part of a Soviet plan to control the Middle East. He advised Truman to make a show of force. The president ordered the new aircraft carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt to join the Missouri in protecting Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, Britain tried to help Greece. In August 1946, Greek Communists launched a guerrilla war against the Greek government. British troops helped fight the guerrillas, but in February 1947, Britain informed the United States that it could no longer afford to help Greece due to Britain's weakened postwar economy.

Shortly after, Truman went before Congress to ask for $400 million to fight Communist aggression in Greece and Turkey. His speech outlined a policy that became known as the Truman Doctrine. Its goal was to aid those who worked to resist being controlled by others. In the long run, it pledged the United States to fight the spread of communism worldwide.

Meanwhile, postwar Western Europe faced grave problems. Economies were ruined, people faced starvation, and political chaos was at hand. In June 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed the European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan, which would give European nations American aid to rebuild their economies. Truman saw both the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine as essential for containment. Marshall offered help to all nations planning a recovery program. Although the Marshall Plan was offered to the Soviet Union and its satellite nations, the Soviets rejected it and developed their own economic program. This action further separated Europe into competing regions. The Marshall Plan pumped billions of dollars in supplies, machinery, and food into Western Europe. The region's recovery weakened the appeal of communism and opened new markets for trade.

In his 1949 Inaugural Address, Truman proposed assistance for underdeveloped countries outside the war zone. The Point Four Program aimed to provide them with "scientific advances and industrial progress" for their improvement and growth. The Department of State administered the program until its merger with other foreign aid programs in 1953.

Truman and his advisers believed Western Europe's prosperity depended on Germany's recovery. The Soviets, however, still wanted Germany to pay reparations. This dispute brought the nations to the brink of war. By early 1948, American officials had concluded that the Soviets were trying to undermine Germany's economy. In response, the United States, Britain, and France merged their German zones and allowed the Germans to have their own government, creating the Federal Republic of Germany, which became known as West Germany. They also agreed to merge their zones in Berlin and make West Berlin part of West Germany. The Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany. West Germany was mostly independent but not allowed to have a military.

The creation of West Germany convinced the Soviets they would never get the reparations they wanted. In June 1948, Soviet troops blockaded West Berlin hoping to force the United States to reconsider its decision or abandon West Berlin. Truman sent bombers capable of carrying atomic weapons to bases in Britain. Hoping to avoid war with the Soviets, he ordered the air force to fly supplies into Berlin rather than troops. The Berlin Airlift began in June 1948 and continued through the spring of 1949, bringing in more than two million tons of supplies to the city. Stalin finally lifted the blockade on May 12, 1949. The airlift symbolized American determination to contain communism and not give in to Soviet demands.

The Berlin blockade convinced many Americans that the Soviets were bent on conquest. The public began to support a military alliance with Western Europe. By April 1949, an agreement had been made to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—a mutual defense alliance. NATO initially included 12 countries: the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, and Iceland. NATO members agreed to come to the aid of any member who was attacked. For the first time, the United States had committed itself to maintaining peace in Europe. Six years later, NATO allowed West Germany to rearm and join its organization. This decision alarmed Soviet leaders. They responded by organizing a military alliance in Eastern Europe known as the Warsaw Pact.

The Cold War eventually spread beyond Europe. Conflicts also emerged in Asia, where events in China and Korea brought about a new attitude toward Japan and sent American troops back into battle in Asia less than five years after World War II had ended.

In China, Communist forces led by Mao Zedong had been struggling against the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek since the late 1920s. During World War II, the two sides suspended their war to resist Japanese occupation. With the end of World War II, however, civil war broke out again. Although Mao and the Communist forces made great gains, neither side could win nor agree to a compromise.

To prevent a Communist revolution in Asia, the United States sent the Nationalist government $2 billion in aid beginning in the mid-1940s. The Nationalists, however, squandered this advantage through poor military planning and corruption. By 1949 the Communists had captured the Chinese capital of Beijing, while support for the Nationalists declined.

In August 1949, the U.S. State Department discontinued aid to the Chinese Nationalists. The defeated Nationalists then fled to the small island of Formosa (now called Taiwan). The victorious Communists established the People's Republic of China in October 1949.

China's fall to communism shocked Americans. To make matters worse, in September 1949 the Soviet Union announced that it had successfully tested its first atomic weapon. Then, early in 1950, the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of friendship and alliance. Many Western leaders feared that China and the Soviet Union would support communist revolutions in other nations.

The United States kept formal diplomatic relations with only the Nationalist Chinese in Taiwan. It used its veto power in the UN Security Council to keep representatives of the new Communist People's Republic of China out of the UN, allowing the Nationalists to retain their seat.

The Chinese revolution brought about a significant change in American policy toward Japan. At the end of World War II, General Douglas MacArthur had taken charge of occupied Japan. His mission was to introduce democracy and keep Japan from threatening war again. Once the United States lost China as its chief ally in Asia, it adopted policies to encourage the rapid recovery of Japan's industrial economy. Just as the United States viewed West Germany as the key to defending all of Europe against communism, it saw Japan as the key to defending Asia.

At the end of World War II, American and Soviet forces entered Korea to disarm the Japanese troops stationed there. The Allies divided Korea at the 38th parallel of latitude. Soviet troops controlled the north, while American troops controlled the south.

As the Cold War began, talks to reunify Korea broke down. A Communist Korean government was organized in the north, while an American-backed government controlled the south. Both governments claimed authority over Korea, and border clashes were common. The Soviets provided military aid to the North Koreans, who quickly built an army. On June 25, 1950, North Korean troops invaded the south, driving back the poorly equipped South Korean forces.

Truman saw the Communist invasion of South Korea as a test of the containment policy and ordered American naval and air power into action. He then called on the United Nations to act. Because the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council over its China policy, Truman succeeded. With the pledge of UN troops, he ordered General MacArthur to send American troops from Japan to Korea.

The American and South Korean troops were driven back into a small pocket of territory near the port of Pusan. Inside the "Pusan perimeter," troops stubbornly resisted the North Koreans, buying time for MacArthur to organize reinforcements.

On September 15, 1950, MacArthur ordered a daring invasion behind enemy lines at the port of Inchon. The Inchon landing took the North Koreans by surprise. Within weeks they were in full retreat back across the 38th parallel. Truman then gave the order to pursue the North Koreans beyond the 38th parallel. MacArthur pushed the North Koreans north to the Yalu River, the border with China.

The Communist People's Republic of China saw the advancing UN troops as a threat and warned them to halt their advance. When warnings were ignored, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu River in November. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops flooded across the border, driving the UN forces back across the 38th parallel.

As his troops fell back, an angry MacArthur demanded approval to expand the war against China. He asked for a blockade of Chinese ports, the use of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces, and the bombing of Chinese cities with atomic weapons.

President Truman refused MacArthur's demands because he did not want to expand the war into China or to use the atomic bomb. MacArthur persisted, publicly criticizing the president and arguing that it was a mistake to keep the war limited. Determined to maintain control of policy and show that he commanded the military, an exasperated Truman fired MacArthur for insubordination in April 1951.

MacArthur, who remained popular despite being fired, returned home to parades and a hero's welcome. Many Americans criticized the president. Congress and military leaders, however, supported his decision and his Korean strategy. American policy in Asia remained committed to limited war.

By mid-1951, UN forces had pushed the Chinese and North Korean forces back across the 38th parallel. The war settled into a series of relatively small battles over hills and other local objectives. In July 1951, peace negotiations began at Panmunjom. As talks continued, the war became increasingly unpopular in the United States. After Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected to the presidency in 1952, the former general traveled to Korea to talk with commanders and their troops. He became determined to bring the war to an end.Eisenhower quietly hinted to the Chinese that the United States might use a nuclear attack in Korea. The threat seemed to work. In July 1953, negotiators signed an armistice. The battle line between the two sides in Korea, which was very near the prewar boundary, became the border between North Korea and South Korea. A "demilitarized zone" separated them. American troops are still based in Korea, helping to defend South Korea's border. There has never been a peace treaty to end the war. More than 33,600 American soldiers died in action, and over 20,600 died in accidents or from disease.

The Korean War marked a turning point in the Cold War. Until 1950, the United States had preferred to use political pressure and economic aid to contain communism. After the Korean War began, the United States embarked on a major military buildup. The war also helped expand the Cold War to Asia. Before 1950, American efforts to contain communism focused on Europe. With the Korean War, the nation became more militarily involved in Asia. By 1954 the United States signed defense agreements with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The United States also formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization with seven other countries in 1954. Aid also began flowing to French forces fighting Communists in Vietnam.

During the 1950s, rumors and accusations spawned fears that Communists were trying to take over the world. The Red Scare began in September 1945, when a clerk named Igor Gouzenko walked out of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, Canada, and defected. Gouzenko carried documents showing a Soviet effort to infiltrate government agencies in Canada and the United States, with the specific goal of obtaining information about the atomic bomb. The case stunned Americans. It implied that spies had infiltrated the American government. Soon the search for spies escalated into a general fear of Communist subversion.

In early 1947, President Truman established a loyalty review program to screen all federal employees. Truman's action seemed to confirm suspicions that Communists had infiltrated the government and so added to fears that communism was sweeping the nation. Between 1947 and 1951, more than six million federal employees were screened for loyalty—a term difficult to define. A person might become a suspect for reading certain books, belonging to various groups, traveling overseas, or seeing certain foreign films. The Federal Bureau of Investigation scrutinized some 14,000 people. About 2,000 quit their jobs, many under pressure. Another 212 were fired for "questionable loyalty," despite a lack of actual evidence.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover remained unsatisfied. In 1947 he went before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Formed in 1938 to investigate subversive activities in the United States, HUAC had been a minor committee before Hoover's involvement. He urged HUAC to hold public hearings on Communist subversion to expose not just Communists but also "Communist sympathizers" and "fellow travelers." Under Hoover's leadership, the FBI sent agents to infiltrate groups suspected of subversion and wiretapped thousands of telephones.

One of HUAC's first hearings in 1947 focused on the film industry as a cultural force that Communists might manipulate to spread their ideas and influence. Future American president Ronald Reagan was head of the Screen Actors Guild at the time and, when called before HUAC, he testified that there were Communists in Hollywood. During the hearings, ten screenwriters, known as the "Hollywood Ten," used their Fifth Amendment right to protect themselves from self-incrimination and refused to testify. The incident led producers to blacklist, or agree not to hire, anyone who was believed to be a Communist or who refused to cooperate with the committee. The blacklist created an atmosphere of distrust and fear.

In 1948 Whittaker Chambers, a magazine editor and former Communist Party member, told HUAC that several government officials were also former Communists or spies. One official Chambers named was Alger Hiss, a diplomat who had served in Roosevelt's administration, attended the Yalta Conference, and helped organize the United Nations. Hiss sued Chambers for libel, but Chambers testified that, in 1937 and 1938, Hiss had given him secret State Department documents. Hiss denied being either a spy or a member of the Communist Party, and he also denied ever having known Chambers. The committee was ready to drop the investigation until California representative Richard Nixon convinced his colleagues to continue the hearings to determine who had lied. Chambers produced copies of secret documents, along with microfilm that he had hidden in a hollow pumpkin. These "pumpkin papers," Chambers claimed, proved Hiss was lying. A jury agreed and convicted Hiss of perjury, or lying under oath.

Another spy case centered on accusations that American Communists had sold secrets about the atomic bomb to the Soviets to help them produce a bomb in 1949. In 1950 the hunt for spies led the FBI to arrest Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a New York couple who were members of the Communist Party. The government charged them with spying for the Soviets. The Rosenbergs denied the charges but were condemned to death for espionage. Many people believed that they were simply victims caught in the wave of anti-Communist frenzy. Appeals and pleas for clemency failed, however, and the Rosenbergs were executed in June 1953.

In 1946 American and British cryptographers, working for a project code-named "Venona," cracked the Soviet Union's spy code, enabling them to read approximately 3,000 messages between Moscow and the United States collected during the Cold War. These messages confirmed extensive Soviet spying and ongoing efforts to steal nuclear secrets. The government did not reveal Project Venona's existence until 1995. The Venona documents provided strong evidence that the Rosenbergs were indeed guilty.

Many state and local governments, universities, businesses, unions, churches, and private groups also began efforts to find Communists. The University of California required its faculty to take loyalty oaths and fired 157 who refused. Many Catholic groups became anti-Communist and urged members to identify Communists within the Church. The Taft- Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to take oaths saying that they were not Communists. Many union leaders did not object. Instead, they launched efforts to purge their own organizations, eventually expelling 11 unions that refused to remove Communist leaders.

In 1949 the Red Scare intensified as the Soviet Union successfully tested an atomic bomb, and China fell to communism. To many Americans, these events seemed to prove that the United States was losing the Cold War. In February 1950, little-known senator Joseph R. McCarthy gave a speech to a Republican women's group in West Virginia. Halfway through his speech, McCarthy made a surprising statement when he claimed: "While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department." McCarthy proclaimed that Communists were a danger at home and abroad. He distributed a booklet accusing Democratic Party leaders of corruption and of protecting Communists. McCarthy often targeted Secretary of State Dean Acheson, calling him incompetent and a tool of Stalin. He also accused George C. Marshall, former army chief of staff and secretary of state, of disloyalty. The prevailing anxiety about communism made many Americans willing to accept McCarthy's claims. McCarthy's tactic of damaging reputations with vague, unfounded charges became known as McCarthyism.

In 1950, with McCarthy and others arousing fears of Communist spies, Congress passed the Internal Security Act, also called the McCarran Act. The act made it illegal to attempt to establish a totalitarian government in the United States, and required all Communist-related organizations to publish their records and register with the United States attorney general. Communists could not have passports and, in cases of a national emergency, could be arrested and detained. Unwilling to punish people for their opinions, Truman vetoed the bill, but Congress easily overrode his veto in 1950. Later Supreme Court cases limited the act's scope.

In 1953 McCarthy became chairman of the Senate subcommittee on investigations, which forced government officials to testify about alleged Communist influences. Investigations became witch-hunts—searches for disloyalty based on weak evidence and irrational fears. McCarthy's sensational accusations put him in the headlines, and the press quoted him often and widely. He badgered witnesses and then refused to accept their answers. His tactics left a cloud of suspicion that he and others interpreted as guilt. People were afraid to challenge him.

In 1954 McCarthy began to look for Soviet spies in the United States Army. During weeks of televised hearings, millions of Americans watched McCarthy question and bully officers, harassing them about trivial details and accusing them of misconduct. His popular support began to fade.

Finally, to strike back at the army's lawyer, Joseph Welch, McCarthy brought up the past of a young lawyer in Welch's firm who had been a member of a Communist-front organization while in law school. Welch, who was fully aware of the young man's past, exploded at McCarthy for possibly ruining the young man's career. Spectators cheered. Welch had said what many Americans had been thinking. Later that year, the Senate passed a vote of censure, or formal disapproval, against McCarthy. Although he remained in the Senate, McCarthy had lost all influence. He died in 1957.

Americans were shocked when the Soviets successfully tested the more powerful hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, in 1953. The United States had tested its own H-bomb less than a year earlier. Americans prepared for a surprise Soviet attack. Schools created bomb shelters and held bomb drills to teach students to "duck-and-cover" to protect themselves from a nuclear bomb blast. Although "duck-and-cover" might have made people feel safer, it would not have protected them from nuclear radiation. Experts have noted that for every person killed outright by a nuclear blast, four more would die later from fallout, the radiation left over after a blast. To protect themselves, some families built backyard fallout shelters.

As worries about nuclear war and Communist infiltration filled the public imagination, Cold War themes soon appeared in films, plays, television, the titles of dance tunes, and popular fiction. Matt Cvetic, an FBI undercover informant who secretly infiltrated the Communist Party, captivated readers with reports in the Saturday Evening Post in 1950. His story was later made into the movie I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951). Another film, Walk East on Beacon (1952), features the FBI's activities in a spy case. In 1953 Arthur Miller's thinly veiled criticism of the Communist witch-hunts, The Crucible, appeared on Broadway. The play remains popular today as a cautionary tale about how hysteria can lead to false accusations. In 1953 a weekly television series, I Led Three Lives, about an undercover FBI counterspy who was also a Communist Party official, debuted. Popular tunes such as "Atomic Boogie" and "Atom Bomb Baby" played on the radio. The next year, author Philip Wylie published Tomorrow!, a novel describing the horrific effects of nuclear war on an unprepared American city. Wylie wrote his novel to educate the public about the horrors of atomic war. One of the most famous and enduring works of this period is John Hersey's nonfiction book Hiroshima. Originally published as the August 1946 edition of The New Yorker magazine, the book provides six firsthand accounts of the United States dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Not only did it make some Americans question the use of the bomb, but Hiroshima also underscored the real, personal horrors of a nuclear attack.

By the end of 1952, many Americans were ready for a change in leadership. The Cold War had much to do with that attitude. Many people believed that Truman's foreign policy was not working. The Soviet Union had tested an atomic bomb and consolidated its hold on Eastern Europe. China had fallen to communism, and American troops were fighting in Korea. Tired of the criticism and uncertain he could win, Truman decided not to run again. The Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson, governor of Illinois. The Republicans chose Dwight D. Eisenhower, the general who had organized the D-Day invasion. Stevenson had little chance against a national hero who had helped win World War II. Americans wanted someone they could trust to lead the nation in the Cold War. Eisenhower won in a landslide.

The Cold War shaped Eisenhower's thinking from the moment he took office. He was convinced that the key to victory was not simply military might but also a strong economy. The United States had to show the world that the free enterprise system could produce a better society than communism. At the same time, economic prosperity would prevent Communists from gaining support in the United States and protect society from subversion. As a professional soldier, Eisenhower knew the costs associated with large-scale conventional war. Preparing for that kind of warfare, he believed, was too expensive. President Eisenhower's willingness to threaten nuclear war to maintain peace worried some people. Critics called this brinkmanship and argued that it was too dangerous. During several crises, however, President Eisenhower felt compelled to threaten nuclear war.

The Korean War had convinced Eisenhower that the United States could not contain communism by fighting a series of small wars. Such wars were unpopular and too expensive. Instead, wars had to be prevented in the first place. The best way to do that seemed to be to threaten to use nuclear weapons. This policy came to be called massive retaliation. The new policy enabled Eisenhower to cut military spending from around $50 billion to about $34 billion by reducing the size of the army, which was expensive to maintain. He then increased the U.S. nuclear arsenal from about 1,000 bombs in 1953 to about 18,000 bombs in 1961.

Shortly after the Korean War ended, a new crisis erupted in Asia. Although Communists had taken power in mainland China, Chinese Nationalists still controlled Taiwan and several small islands along China's coast. In the fall of 1954, China threatened to seize two of the islands. Eisenhower saw Taiwan as part of the "anti-Communist barrier" in Asia that needed to be protected at all costs. When China began shelling the islands and announced that Taiwan would be liberated, Eisenhower asked Congress to authorize the use of force to defend Taiwan. He then warned that an attack on Taiwan would be resisted by U.S. naval forces and hinted that they would use nuclear weapons to stop an invasion. Soon afterward, China backed down.

The following year, a serious crisis erupted in the Middle East. Eisenhower wanted to prevent Arab nations from aligning with the Soviet Union. To build support among Arabs, Secretary of State Dulles offered to help Egypt finance the construction of a dam on the Nile River. The deal ran into trouble in Congress, however, because Egypt had bought weapons from Communist Czechoslovakia. Dulles was forced to withdraw the offer. A week later, Egyptian troops seized control of the Suez Canal from the Anglo-French company that had controlled it. The Egyptians intended to use the canal's profits to pay for the dam. In October 1956, British and French troops invaded Egypt. Eisenhower was furious with Britain and France. The situation became even more dangerous when the Soviet Union threatened rocket attacks on Britain and France and offered to send troops to help Egypt. Eisenhower immediately put U.S. nuclear forces on alert. Pressured by the United States, the British and French called off the invasion. The Soviet Union had won a major diplomatic victory by supporting Egypt. Soon other Arab nations began accepting Soviet aid.

President Eisenhower relied on brinkmanship on several occasions, but he knew it could not work in all situations. It could prevent war, but it could not prevent Communists from staging revolutions within countries. To do this, Eisenhower decided to use covert, or hidden, operations conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency. Many of the CIA's operations took place in developing nations. Many of these countries blamed European imperialism and American capitalism for their problems. Their leaders looked to the Soviet Union as a model of how to industrialize their countries. They often threatened to nationalize, or put under government control, foreign businesses operating in their countries. One way to stop developing nations from moving into the Communist camp was to provide them with financial aid, as Eisenhower had tried to do in Egypt. In some cases, however, in which the threat of communism seemed stronger, the CIA ran covert operations to overthrow anti-American leaders and replace them with pro-American leaders.

By 1953 Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. He seemed ready to make an oil deal with the Soviet Union. The pro-American shah of Iran tried to force Mossadegh out of office but failed and fled into exile. The CIA quickly sent agents to organize street riots and arrange a coup that ousted Mossadegh and returned the shah to power.

The following year, the CIA intervened in Guatemala. In 1950, with Communist support, Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán was elected president of Guatemala. After Arbenz Guzmán assumed office in 1951, his land-reform program took over large estates and plantations, including those of the American-owned United Fruit Company. In May 1954, Communist Czechoslovakia delivered arms to Guatemala. The CIA responded by arming the Guatemalan opposition and training them at secret camps in Nicaragua and Honduras. Shortly after these CIA-trained forces invaded Guatemala, Arbenz Guzmán left office.

Covert operations did not always work as Eisenhower hoped. Stalin died in 1953, and a power struggle began in the Soviet Union. By 1956, Nikita Khrushchev had emerged as the Soviet leader. That year Khrushchev delivered a secret speech to Soviet officials. He attacked Stalin's policies and insisted that there were many ways to build a communist society. Although the speech was secret, the CIA obtained a copy of it and distributed copies of it throughout Eastern Europe and the world.

Many Eastern Europeans had long been frustrated with Communist rule. Hearing Khrushchev's speech further discredited communism. In June 1956, riots erupted in Eastern Europe. By late October, a full-scale uprising had begun in Hungary. Although Khrushchev was willing to tolerate greater freedom in Eastern Europe, he had never meant to imply that the Soviets would tolerate an end to communism in the region. Soon after the uprising began, Soviet tanks rolled into the capital of Hungary and crushed the rebellion.

The United States was not the only nation using covert means to support its foreign policy. President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt had emerged from the Suez crisis as a hero to the Arab people, and by 1957 he had begun working with Jordan and Syria to spread pan-Arabism—the idea that all Arab people should be united into one nation.

Eisenhower and Dulles worried about Nasser's links to the Soviets and feared he was laying the groundwork to take control of the Middle East. In late 1957, Eisenhower asked Congress to authorize the use of military force whenever the president thought it necessary to assist Middle East nations resisting Communist aggression. The policy came to be called the Eisenhower Doctrine. It essentially extended the Truman Doctrine and the policy of containment to the Middle East. In July 1958, Eisenhower's concerns appeared to be confirmed when left-wing rebels, believed to be backed by Nasser and the Soviets, seized power in Iraq. Fearing his government was next, the president of Lebanon sought help. Eisenhower ordered 5,000 marines to Beirut, the Lebanese capital. Once the situation stabilized, the U.S. forces withdrew.

Khrushchev demanded the withdrawal of Allied troops from West Berlin. Secretary of State Dulles rejected Khrushchev's demands. If the Soviets threatened Berlin, Dulles announced, NATO would respond, "if need be by military force." Brinkmanship worked again, and Khrushchev backed down. Eisenhower invited Khrushchev to visit the United States in late 1959. The visit's success led the two leaders to agree to hold a summit in Paris.

Shortly before the summit was to begin in 1960, the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 spy plane. At first Eisenhower claimed that the aircraft was a weather plane that had strayed off course. Then Khrushchev dramatically produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Eisenhower refused to apologize, saying the flights had protected American security. In response, Khrushchev broke up the summit.

In this climate of heightened tension, Eisenhower prepared to leave office. In January 1961, he delivered a farewell address to the nation in which he pointed out that a new relationship had developed between the military establishment and the defense industry. He warned Americans to be on guard against the influence of this military-industrial complex in a democracy. Although he had avoided war and contained communism, Eisenhower was frustrated. He had sent military advisers to South Vietnam to train a South Vietnamese army and also saw Fidel Castro establish a communist regime in Cuba.