COLD WAR AMERICA

Lecture #6

Cold War at Home

Loyalty Review Board- created to investigate gov’t employees to see if they were loyal to the US.

HUAC- investigated Hollywood films for communist propaganda

Hollywood 10- did not cooperate with the investigation and so were sent to jail

Blacklist- Hollywood created list that if on, would destroy a career

Spy Cases Alger Hiss- accused of being Soviet spy Pursued by Richard Nixon Claims innocence but is sent

to jail for perjuryThe Rosenbergs-

Accused of giving A-bomb information to Soviets

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg claim innocence and plead the 5th

Found guilty and sentenced to death

The Venona Project

American and British cryptographers cracked the Soviet spy code

Enabled the US to read over 3,000 secret messages

Not released until 1995 and proved the Rosenbergs were guilty

McCarthyism Senator Joseph McCarthy launches a ‘witch’ hunt for Communists

McCarran Act- unlawful to plan any action that could create a totalitarian dictatorship

Idea of accusing people without evidence Led to his accusations

against US Army that alienated the public and led to his downfall

On the Edge The Arms Race- who has the bigger, badder weapon

Race for the H-bomb

Hydrogen bomb- thermonuclear weapon with 67x the power of the A-Bomb

US first to create in 1952USSR in 1953

Eisenhower steps in

People were uncertain of Truman’s success with containment

led him to make a decision not to run again

Democrats chose Adlai Stevenson to run against the Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower (a national hero)

Eisenhower wins in a landslide

Massive Retaliation

Eisenhower decides that a smaller army with a threat of nuclear weapons was the best way to deter military actionThis changes the face of the Cold War

Develops the Nuclear TriadLong-range bombers, land-based missiles, missile-carrying submarines

B-52 bomberICBMs- Atlas missilePolaris submarine

Brinkmanship Policy created under Eisenhower’s presidency by Sec. of State John Foster Dulles Threat of H-bomb war against

US aggressorsFear of nuclear war will last

next 30 years Used against China in Taiwan

Suez War 1955 Egypt wanted to build a dam on the Nile so it played the US and USSR to increase loans

US finds out and withdraws loans

In response Egypt seizes Suez Canal and nationalizes it

GB, France, and Israel invade and retake canal

UN steps in and makes peace but leaves the canal in the hands of Egypt.

Cold War around the Globe

Creation of the CIAOps in ME and LA:

Iran and the Shah Guatemala and land

Warsaw Pact- Soviet version of NATO (created in reaction to West Germany joining NATO)

Geneva Summit- tried to create an ‘open skies’ policy

Hungarian Uprising 1956: Hungary calls for a

democratic governmentSoviet response swift:

tanks roll in and kill 300,000 Hungarians

US and UN do nothing to help despite the Truman Doctrine and numerous resolutions in the UN

Eisenhower Doctrine

US would defend the Middle East against an attack by a communist country

Nikita Khrushchev

Succeeded Stalin as leader but differed in his opinion of how Communism would take over the world

He believed in peaceful coexistence

The Space Race Oct. 4, 1957: Soviets launch Sputnik

US responds by pouring money into a space program

Create NASA

U-2 is Shot Down Since 1955 the US had sent high-altitude U-2 planes to take infrared photos

Eisenhower wants to stop flights in order to have a summit with Khrushchev One last flight occurs and

Francis Gary Powers is shot down

US denies at first but eventually admits to flights

Khrushchev cancels summit and demands apology

Eisenhower refuses leading to renewed tensions into the 60s