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Chapter 17: The Uneasy Peace Section 3: Cold War in the Atomic Age. The American odyssey. Main Idea of the Section. Soviet nuclear tests and the launching of a Soviet satellite made the arms race more deadly – and made peace more imperative – than at any time in history.
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Chapter 17: The Uneasy Peace Section 3: Cold War in the Atomic Age The American odyssey
Main Idea of the Section • Soviet nuclear tests and the launching of a Soviet satellite made the arms race more deadly – and made peace more imperative – than at any time in history.
Vocabulary of the Section • Massive retaliation • Brinkmanship • Military-industrial complex
Key Historic Figures of the Section • Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) • Harry Truman • John Foster Dulles • Nicolay Bulganin • Nikita Khrushchev
Living With Fear (p.577-578) • The dawn of the atomic age terrified Americans. To help calm the public’s jangled nerves, Truman organized the Federal Civilian Defense Administration to show people they could survive a nuclear war. • Americans learned how to build bomb shelters, how to keep from panicking, how to cope with radiation injuries, and more.
Living With Fear • Scary as nuclear bombs were, most Americans thought the best way to prevent nuclear war was to have more and better bombs than the Soviets • After a heated debate, Truman ordered scientists to develop a deadly hydrogen bomb. • A superbomb
Eisenhower Elected (p.578-579) • Eisenhower walked into the presidency at the height of cold war tensions: China had just fallen, the Korean War dragged on, and the H-bomb heated up the arms race. • The American still believed “Ike” would lead the country through dangerous times. • Does anybody know Adlai Stevenson was?
Eisenhower Elected • Stalin died in 1953. • With the death of Stalin and Eisenhower’s bluffs about a nuclear attack led Communist delegates to seek a resolution to the Korean War. • Veiled threat • Eisenhower found in John Foster Dulles a secretary of state who equaled his own fierce anti-communism and command of world affairs.
John Foster Dulles Eisenhower and Dulles working together John Foster Dulles
A New Strategy (p.579-580) • Instead of depending on costly armies and navies to limit wars as Truman did, Eisenhower relied on cheaper air power and nuclear weapons. • He reduced the manpower of the army and navy, while increasing the number of air force personnel.
A New Strategy • To reinforce the scaled down military, Eisenhower and Dulles pledged to meet any aggression with massive retaliation – an instant nuclear attack. • To back up this tough stance, they circled the Soviet Union and China with American military bases and allies.
A New Strategy • Eisenhower’s new foreign policy came with criticism. • Critics called the new foreign policy brinkmanship – the art of never down from crisis. • The policy posed two dangers: • It gave the United States only two choices – either fight a nuclear battle or do nothing. • It also led the Soviets to develop more powerful bombs • This created what Churchill created a “balance in terror.”
Eisenhower Wages Peace (p.580-581) • The Russians were developing an H-bomb of their own at this time in 1953. • Ike felt it was necessary for us to develop an even stronger version of the H-bomb • The Bravo H-Bomb • On March 1, 1954, the Bravo H-Bomb was tested in the South Pacific. • It sent radioactive ash over 7,000 square miles. • It accidentally killed 23 Japanese w/ radiation poisoning.
Eisenhower Wages Peace • The radioactive fallout from H-Bomb tests led people worldwide to clamor for a halt in the arms race. • Eisenhower met with Soviet leaders Nikolay Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss disarmament. • Although the conference yielded few results, the two powers were talking again.
The Deep Freeze Returns (p.581-583) • The thaw in relations was short-lived • Two events revived tensions: • In 1956 Khrushchev ordered troops to crush an uprising in Hungary. • Hungary had attempted to leave the Warsaw Pact. • In 1957 the Soviets launched Sputnik, leading the United States to launch the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – the start of the space race. • Sputnik was the first orbital satellite. • The U.S. put a greater emphasis on math and science in schools and for the training of more scientists and engineers.
The Deep Freeze Returns • Pressure to rein in arms production remained strong. In 1957 a group of business, scientific, and publishing leaders organized SANE – the Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy – to lobby for arms reductions. • That same year the publication of On the Beach whipped up public support for a halt in H-bomb tests.
The Deep Freeze Returns • On the beach described a nuclear war between the United States and Russia that made the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable and sent radioactive dust into the Southern Hemisphere. • By 1957, 63% of Americans wanted an end to H-bomb testing
The Deep Freeze Returns • In 1963 the United States and the Soviet Union bowed to a growing world outcry and signed a test-ban treaty prohibiting nuclear testing in the atmosphere. • The treaty permitted test underground and in outer space.
The Deep Freeze Returns • By the end of his presidency, Eisenhower had become deeply concerned about the power of the military-industrial complex – the vast, interwoven military establishment and arms industry. • Ike saw it as a potential threat both to civil liberties and democracy itself.
