G11: The Cold War Begins: United States

World War II transformed the United States from a midlevel global power to the leader of the “free world.”

The Cold War shaped American foreign policy and political ideology, impacted the domestic economy and the presidency, and affected the personal lives of Americans creating a climate of expected conformity and normalcy

This website will:
Describe the steps taken by the U.S. government to oppose Communist expansion in Europe and Asia
Discuss the government’s efforts to root out Communist influences in the United States

Office of the Historian

How did World War II change the direction of US international involvement?
What policies guided US action during the Cold War and the Vietnam War?

In a June 5, 1947, speech to the graduating class at Harvard University, Secretary of State George C. Marshall issued a call for a comprehensive program to rebuild Europe

Due to the slow progress of Europe’s economic development following WWII, Truman devised another plan to offer aid called the Marshall Plan.

The Containment Policy would adopt two approaches. One approach was military; the other was economic.

First laid out by George F. Kennan in 1947, the policy stated that communism needed to be contained and isolated, or else it would spread to neighboring countries.

JSTOR article

JSTOR A close look at the history reveals that these ideological arguments fail to explain key aspects of U.S. policy.

Doctoral disseration. Chapters 4/5 deal with American FP from start of the Cold War to the Korean War

from the Encyclopedia of American Foreign Relations

In 1949, the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic device, ending the United States' short reign as the sole atomic power on Earth. The entry of the Soviets into the atomic club made Americans nervous, not to mention a little suspicious: how did the USSR get the bomb so fast?

Americans worried about postwar costs: How much would they have to pay to help rebuild allies, like Great Britain and France, and former enemies, especially Germany and Japan? Would these postwar projects undermine investments in the American economy at home?

Truman's economic program

JSTOR 1953 article examining the intersection of cold war "necessities" and domestic issues.

For in the early years of the Cold War, amid the uncertainties brought about by World War II and its aftermath, the home seemed to offer a secure private nest removed from the dangers of the outside world. The message was ambivalent, however, for the family also seemed particularly vulnerable. It needed heavy protection against the intrusions of forces outside itself

The intense rivalry between the two superpowers raised concerns in the United States that Communists and leftist sympathizers inside America might actively work as Soviet spies and pose a threat to U.S. security.

Harry Truman supported the civil rights movement. He believed in political equality, though not in social equality, and recognized the growing importance of the black urban vote.

To what extent did individuals and institutions concerned with civil rights and the Cold War intersect?

Is Senator Joseph McCarthy's effort to root out communists from government and entertainment institutions a legitimate response to a communist threat? Or is his campaign a baseless political witch hunt?

The Rosenberg case remains among the most controversial in American history. Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg were put to death for espionage on June 19, 1953 at the height of the Cold War. Considering the social and political climate of the early 1950s, it is important to ask whether justice
was fairly served.

he North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union.

Conflict between the Western nations (including the United States, Great Britain, France and other countries) and the Communist Eastern bloc (led by the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics or USSR) began almost as soon as the guns fell silent at the end of World War II.

From PBS: Students will examine President Harry Truman’s decision to send U.S. troops to Korea without a declaration of war.

provides student booklet and moderate guide.

Office of the Historian

LONG document! use the Table of Contents!