Chapter 15 The Cold War Begins

1. Chapter 15The Cold War Begins

2. Section 1The origins of the Cold War Main Idea: At the end of World War II, tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States deepened, leading to an era known as the Cold War. What do you think the Cold War was?

3. Section 1The origins of the Cold War • Philosophical differences between the Soviet Union and the United States reached back to the 1920s. • Soviet Union: communism, totalitarian dictatorship • United States: free-enterprise capitalism, republic Philosophical Differences • Allies during the war, but not truly friends • Soviets wanted British and Americans to open a second European front earlier in the war. • U.S. atomic bomb plans worried Soviet Union. World War II Conflicts • The Soviet Union refused to let Eastern Europe hold elections as promised at Yalta. • The United States resisted Soviet expansion. Postwar Conflicts

4. The origins of the Cold War • Stalin wanted to retain political and economic control over Eastern Europe. • The Soviets managed to install Communist governments throughout Eastern Europe. • Stalin outlawed political parties or newspapers that opposed the Communists. • The Soviets jailed or killed some political opponents. • The Soviets rigged elections to ensure the success of Communists. • Yugoslavia was the one Eastern European nation that was not under the direct control of Stalin and the Soviet Union. • Josip Broz Tito, a Communist, refused to take orders from the Soviet Union. • The Soviet Union relocated Germans living in Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe.

5. The Yalta Conference • In February 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta to plan the postwar world. • Although the conference seemed to go well, several agreements reached at Yalta later played a role in causing the Cold War.

6. The Yalta Conference • The three leaders made the following agreements: • Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to recognize the Polish government set up by the Soviets. • Stalin agreed that the government would include members of the prewar Polish government and that free elections would be held as soon as possible.

7. The Yalta Conference • They also agreed to issue the Declaration of Liberated Europe. • They decided to divide Germany into four zones, each of which would be controlled by either Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, or France.

8. Why do you think the French were Only given a small parcel of Germany?

9. The Yalta Conference • Tensions began to rise between the United States and the Soviet Union for several reasons: • Stalin demanded that Germany pay war reparations and was not content with the ideas Roosevelt had to offer. • The Soviets pressured the king of Romania into appointing a Communist government.

10. The Yalta Conference • The Soviets refused to allow more than three non-Communist Poles to serve in the 18-member Polish government. • There was no indication that they intended to hold free elections in Poland. • The increasing hostility between the Soviet Union and the United States led to an era of confrontation and competition known as the Cold War. It lasted from about 1946 to 1990.

11. The Yalta Conference • The Soviet Union and the United States had different goals: • The Soviets were 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. • The Soviets also were concerned about encouraging communism in other nations; they were suspicious of capitalist nations.

12. The Yalta Conference • The United States was focused on economic problems: • Many American officials believed that the Depression had caused World War II. • By 1945, Roosevelt and his advisers were convinced that economic growth, democracy, and free enterprise were the key to peace.

13. The Iron Curtain Western Views of the Iron Curtain • Winston Churchill attacked the Soviet Union for creating an Iron Curtain. • The term reflected Churchill’s belief that communism had created a sharp division in Europe. • Harry S Truman urged his secretary of state to get tough with the Soviets. Soviet Views of the Iron Curtain • Stalin believed that the Iron Curtain was necessary to protect the Soviet Union from western attacks. • Stalin used Churchill’s words to help persuade his people that the United States and Great Britain were their enemies. • He also used this as an excuse to rebuild the military.

16. Truman Takes Control Main Idea: Although President Truman took a firm stand against Soviet aggression, Europe remained divided after the war.

17. Truman Takes Control • Eleven days after confronting the Soviets about Poland, FDR died and Harry S. Truman became president. • Truman did not want to appease Stalin as Britain had appeased Hitler. • He told Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov that Stalin must hold free elections, as he had promised at Yalta. • This meeting marked an important shift in Soviet-American relations.

18. Truman Takes Control • In July 1945 Truman finally met Stalin at Potsdam. • Truman was convinced that the rest of Europe could only recover if Germany’s economy was allowed to revive. • Meanwhile, Stalin wanted more reparations from Germany.

19. Truman Takes Control • Stalin did not like Truman’s proposals for reparations. • However, American and British troops controlled Germany’s industrial heartland, and there was no way for the Soviets to get any reparations except by cooperating. • The Soviets refused to make any stronger commitments to uphold the Declaration of Liberated Europe.

20. Truman Takes Control The Communist countries of Eastern Europe—Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia—came to be called satellite nations. With the Iron Curtain separating the Communist nations of Eastern Europe from the West, the Cold War era was about to begin.

21. End Section 1

22. Containing Communism Main Idea: The Truman Doctrine offered aid to any nation resisting communism; the Marshall Plan aided European countries in rebuilding.

23. Containing Communism • Increasingly exasperated by the Soviet’s refusal to cooperate, officials at the State Department asked the American Embassy in Moscow to explain Soviet behavior. • Diplomat George Kennan responded with what became known as the Long Telegram. • Kennan proposed “a long term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies”—the basic policy followed by the United States throughout the Cold War.

24. Containing Communism • After World War II, instead of withdrawing as promised, the Soviet troops remained in northern Iran. • Stalin then began demanding access to Iran’s oil supplies; he also helped local Communists establish a separate government in northern Iran. • The secretary of state sent Stalin a strong message demanding that they withdraw from northern Iran. • Coupled with the threat of the USS Missouri sailing into the eastern Mediterranean, Stalin withdrew.

25. Containing Communism In August 1946 Stalin demanded joint control of the Dardanelles with Turkey. After Britain informed the United States that they could no longer afford to help Greece, Truman gave a speech to Congress outlining a policy that became known as the Truman Doctrine.

26. Containing Communism In June 1947 Secretary of State George Marshall proposed the European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan, which would give European nations American aid to rebuild their economies. In response to the Soviet attempt to undermine Germany’s economy, the United States, Great Britain, and France announced that they would merge their zones in Germany.

27. Containing Communism

28. Containing Communism • Truman ordered the air force to fly supplies into Berlin instead—known as the Berlin airlift. • By April 1949, an agreement had been reached to create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—a mutual defense alliance. • For the first time in its history, the United States had committed itself to maintaining peace in Europe.

29. Containing Communism

30. The Korean War Main Idea: Attempts to keep South Korea free from communism led the United States to military intervention.

31. The Korean War • After World War II, Communist forces led by Mao Zedong and the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek started fighting again. • The United States sent the Nationalist government $2 billion in aid beginning in the mid-1940s, but they squandered the money through poor military planning and corruption. • The victorious Communists established the People’s Republic of China in October 1949.

32. The Korean War In September 1949 the Soviet Union announced that it had successfully tested the first atomic weapon. Then, in the early 1950s, the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of friendship and alliance

33. The Korean War • At the end of World War II, General Douglas MacArthur had taken charge of occupied Japan. • 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.

34. The Korean War • 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. • Soviets controlled the north, while American troops controlled the south.

35. The Korean War • On June 25, 1950, North Korean troops invaded the south, rapidly driving back the poorly equipped South Korean forces. • With the pledge of UN troops, Truman ordered General MacArthur to send American troops from Japan to Korea. • He pushed the North Koreans north to the border with China.

36. The Korean War • China then drove the UN forces back across the 38th parallel and MacArthur demanded approval to expand the war against China. • Truman declined, but MacArthur persisted, even criticizing the president. • Truman fired MacArthur for insubordination in April 1951.

37. The Korean War Truman’s concern—that an all-out war in Korea might lead to nuclear war—was the main reason why he favored limited war. In November 1951 peace negotiations began, but an armistice would not be signed until July 1953.

38. The Korean War • The Korean War marked an important turning point in the Cold War: the United States embarked on a major military buildup after the war began. • The Korean War also helped expand the Cold War to Asia.

39. The Korean War In 1954 the United States signed defense agreements with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Australia, forming the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

40. End Section 2

42. Big Idea: Science and Technology Nuclear technology enabled Eisenhower to change U.S. military policy, while new missile technology marked the beginning of the space age. Main Idea: Eisenhower fought the Cold War by increasing the U.S. nuclear arsenal and using the threat of nuclear war to end conflicts in Korea, Taiwan, and the Suez.

43. Massive Retaliation General Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidential election in 1952 against the Democrat, Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower was convinced that the key to a victory in the Cold War was a strong economy.

44. Massive Retaliation • He used a policy called massive retaliation to prevent more wars from happening. • Eisenhower’s willingness to threaten nuclear war to maintain peace worried some people. • Critics called this brinkmanship and argued that it was too dangerous.

45. Massive Retaliation • Eisenhower threatened Korea with a nuclear war, and in July 1953 negotiators signed an armistice. • The battle line, very near the 38th parallel, became the border between North Korea and South Korea. • American troops are still based in Korea, helping to defend South Korea’s border.

48. Massive Retaliation • Eisenhower once again threatened nuclear attack when China tried to seize two small islands, as well as Taiwan, from the Nationalists. • China backed down soon afterward.

49. Massive Retaliation • Because Egypt bought weapons from Communist Czechoslovakia, Secretary of State Dulles withdrew aid from Egypt that would help finance the construction of a dam on the Nile River. • Egyptian troops seized the Suez Canal from the Anglo-French company that had controlled it. • In October 1956 British and French troops invaded Egypt.

50. Massive Retaliation • The Soviet Union threatened rocket attacks on Britain and France and offered to send troops to help Egypt. • Under strong pressure from the United States, the British and French called off their invasion. • Soon afterward, the Arab nations began accepting Soviet aid, a diplomatic victory for the Soviets.