ch 36 outline

Ch 36

Postwar Economic Anxieties

--->During the 1930s, unemployment and insecurity had pushed up the suicide rate and decreased the marriage rate

--->In the initial postwar years, the economy struggled; prices elevated 33% from 1946-1947 after the wartime price controls were removed

--->In 1947, the Republican Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President Truman's veto

--->It outlawed the "closed" (all-union) shop, made unions liable for damages that resulted from jurisdictional disputes among themselves, and required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath

--->The CIO's "Operation Dixie," aimed at unionizing southern textile workers and steelworkers, failed in 1948 to overcome lingering fears of racial mixing

--->Congress passed the Employment Act in 1946 to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power

---> It also created a 3-member Council of Economic Advisers to provide the president with the data and the recommendations to make that policy a reality.

--->The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 made generous provisions for sending the former solders to school

The Long Economic Boom, 1950-1970

--->In the 1950s, the American economy entered a twenty-year period of tremendous growth

--->The size of the middle class doubled from pre-Great Depression days, including 60% of the population by the mid 1950s

--->The majority of new jobs created in the postwar era went to women, as the service sector of the economy dramatically outgrew the old industrial and manufacturing sectors

The Roots of Postwar Economy

--->The economic upturn of 1950 was fueled by massive appropriations for the Korean War and defense spending

---> The military budget helped jumpstart high-technology industries such as aerospace, plastics, and electronics

---> Cheap energy also fueled the economic boom

---> American and European companies controlled the flow of abundant petroleum from the expanses of the Middle East, and they kept prices low

--->Gains in productivity were enhanced the rising educational level for the work force

---> By 1970, nearly 90% of the school-age population was enrolled in educational institutions

The Smiling Sunbelt

--->In the 30 years after WWII, an average of 30 million people changed residence every year

--->The "Sunbelt", a 15-state area stretching from Virginia through Florida and Texas to Arizona and California, increased it population at a rate nearly double than that of the old industrial zones of the Northeast

---> In the 1950s, California alone accounted for 1/5 of the nation's population

The Rush to the Suburbs

---> The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration (VA) made home-loan guarantees, making it more economically attractive to own a home in the suburbs rather than to rent an apartment in the city

--->"White flight" to the suburbs and the migration of blacks from the South left the inner cities, especially those in the Northeast and Midwest, to become poverty-stricken

The Postwar Baby Boom

--->In the decade and a half after 1945, the birth rate in the United States exploded as the "baby boom" took place

--->More than 50 million babies were born by the end of the 1950s

--->By 1973, the birth rates had dropped below the point necessary to maintain existing population figures

Truman: The "Gutty" Man from Missouri

--->The first president without a college education in many years, President Harry S Truman was known as "average man's average man"

Yalta: Bargain or Betrayal?

--->February 1945, the Big Three (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) met in Yalta to discuss the war's end

--->The most controversial decision concerned the Far East

---> The Soviet Union was also granted control over the railroads of China's Manchuria and special privileges in the two key seaports of that area, Dairen and Port Arthur

The United States and the Soviet Union

--->The United States terminated vital lend lease aid to a battered USSR in 1945 and ignored Moscow's plea for a $6 billion reconstruction loan-while approving a similar loan of $3.75 billion to Britain in 1946

---> By maintaining a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern and Central Europe, the USSR could protect itself and consolidate its revolutionary base as the world's leading communist country

--->Unaccustomed to their great-power roles, the Soviet Union and the United States provoked each other into a tense, 40-year standoff known as the Cold War

Shaping the Postwar World

--->In 1944, the Western Allies met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire and established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to encourage world trade by regulating currency exchange rates

---> They also founded the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) to promote economic growth in war-ravaged and underdeveloped areas

--->The United Nations Conference opened on April 25, 1945

---> Meeting at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, representatives from 50 nations made the United Nations charter

---> It included the Security Council, dominated by the Big Five powers (the United States, Britain, the USSR, France, and China)

--->UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization), and WHO (World Health Organization), the U.N. brought benefits to people around the world

---?In 1946, Bernard Baruch called for a U.N. agency, free from the great-power veto, with worldwide authority over atomic energy, weapons, and research

---> The plan quickly fell apart as neither the United States nor the Soviet Union wanted to give up their nuclear weapons

The Problem of Germany

--->At Nuremberg, Germany from 1945-1946, Nazi leaders were tried and punished for war crimes

--->At the end of the war, Austria and Germany had been divided into 4 military occupation zones, each assigned to one of the Big Four powers (France, Britain, America, and the USSR)

---> In 1948, following controversies over German currency reform and four-power control, the Soviet Union attempted to starve the Allies out of Berlin by cutting off all rail and highway access to the city --->In May 1949, after America had flown in many supplies, the blockade was lifted

--->In 1949, the governments of East and West Germany were established

Crystallizing the War

--->In 1946, Stalin, seeking oil concessions, broke an agreement to remove his troops from Iran's northernmost province

--->In 1947, George F. Kennan formulated the "containment doctrine"

--->President Truman embraced the policy in 1947 when he stated that Britain could no longer bear the financial and military burden of defending Greece against communist pressures

--->On March 12, 1947, President Truman came before Congress and requested support for the Truman Doctrine

--->In 1947, France, Italy, and Germany were all suffering from the hunger and economic chaos caused in that year

---> Secretary of State George C. Marshall invited the Europeans to get together and work out a joint plan for their economic recovery

---> The Marshall Plan led to the eventual creation of the European Community (EC)

--->Truman officially recognized the state of Israel on May 14, 1948

America Begins to Rearm

--->In 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense

---> The department was headed by a new cabinet officer, the secretary of defense

--->The uniformed heads of each service were brought together as the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

--->The National Security Act also established the National Security Council (NSC) to advise the president on security matters and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate the government's foreign fact-gathering

--->In 1948, the United States joined the European pact, called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

---> The Senate passed the treaty on July 21, 1949.

Reconstruction and Revolution in Asia

--->General Douglas MacArthur took control of the democratization of Japan

--->In 1946, a MacArthur-dictated constitution was adopted

---> It renounced militarism and introduced western-style democratic government

--->1949, the Chinese Nationalist government of Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi was forced to flee the country to the island of Formosa (Taiwan) when the communists, led by Mao Zedong, swept over the country

--->In September 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, 3 years before experts thought possible

--_>H-bomb (Hydrogen Bomb) was exploded in 1952.  The Soviets exploded their first H-bomb in 1953, and the nuclear arms race entered a dangerously competitive cycle

Feeling Out Alleged Communists

--->In 1947, President Truman launched the Loyalty Review Board to investigate the possibility of communist spies in the government

--->In 1949, 11 communists were sent to prison for violating the Smith Act of 1940

--->Dennis v. United States (1951)

--->In 1938, the House of Representatives established the Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to investigate "subversion"

---> In 1948, Congressman Richard M. Nixon led the hunt for and eventual conviction of Alger Hiss, a prominent ex-New Dealer and a distinguished member of the "eastern establishment"

--->In 1950, Truman vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Bill

---->authorized the president to arrest and detain suspicious people during an "internal security emergency”

--->In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted and sentenced to death for stealing American atomic bomb plans and selling them to the Soviet Union

Democratic Divisions in 1948

---->In 1948, the Republicans chose Thomas E. Dewey to run for president

--->Democrats chose Truman

--->Progressive party nominated Henry A. Wallace.  Expected to lose, but not ready to give up, Truman traveled the country, giving energetic speeches

--->President Truman called for a "bold new program" ("Point Four")

---> The plan was to lend U.S. money and technical aid to underdeveloped lands to help them help themselves

--->At home, Truman outlined a "Fair Deal" program in 1949

--->raising the minimum wage, providing for public housing in the Housing Act of 1949

--->extending old-age insurance to many more beneficiaries in the Social Security Act of 1950

The Korean Volcano Erupts (1950)

--->When Japan collapsed in 1945, Korea had been divided up into two sections

---> the Soviets controlled the north above the 38^th parallel and the United States controlled south of that line

--->On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army invaded South Korea

--->NSC-68 was a key document of the Cold War because it not only marked a major step in the militarization of American foreign policy, but it reflected the sense of almost limitless possibility that encompassed postwar American society

--->On June 25, 1950, President Truman obtained from the United Nations Security Council a unanimous condemnation of North Korea as an aggressor

The Military Seesaw in Korea

--->On September 15, 1950, General MacArthur succeeded in pushing the North Koreans past the 38^th parallel

---> On November 1950, though, hordes of communist Chinese "volunteers" attacked the U.N. forces, pushing them back to the 38^th parallel

--->Due to General MacArthur's insubordination and disagreement with the Joint Chiefs of Staff about increasing the size of the war, President Truman was forced to remove MacArthur from command on April 11, 1951

--->In July 1951, truce discussions dragged out over the issue of prisoner exchange