Period 8

• WW2 Big Three - USA, Great Britain, Russia
• Yalta Conference

  • FDR, Churchill, Stalin
  • War's not over yet, pre-meeting to prepare for end of war and treaties
  • USA and GB want free elections and Republics in liberated countries but Stalin doesn't want that (dictator)
  • They can't take Stalin out of Big Three because they need them to fight war

  Potsdam Conference

  • Harry Truman, Clement Attlee, Stalin
  • Don't have a previous relationship with Stalin
  • Since war is over they don't need to appease Stalin (as much)
  • Now that Hitler's out the West sees Stalin as the biggest threat
• • USSR leads the rebuild of Eastern Europe - Communism
  • USA and GB leads the rebuild of Western Europe - Republic
  • Germany falls in-between the line so they split it up into four zones which go to four countries (USA, GB, USSR, France)
• Capital of Germany is Berlin

  • Since Germany is split into four zones, countries don't want only one country to have control over the capital
  • They decide to split Berlin into four parts, this means that to get to Berlin you will have to cross another country's territories
  • GB and France tap out and give their land to US and USSR
  • USSR controls Eastern Germany and US controls Western Germany (Border - Iron Curtain)
• USA and USSR are superpowers
• US doesn't have much civilian loss or damage from the war
• US makes a profit from WW2

  • GI-Bill - anyone who's ever been in the armed forces can have government loans for life after the war, low-interest loans
• • Before the war people either lived in rural or urban areas
  • After the war, suburban communities started forming
  • Helped by the accessibility of the car
  • White, middle class families predominantly move to suburban areas
  • Most GI-money goes to white soldiers, minorities are unable to live in suburban areas due to finances
• Mass production of housing

  • First suburban development Levittown, Long Island (William Levitt)
  • Build all of the houses at once, overnight sensation
• 1945-1960 - Baby Boom

  • 4 mil. babies
  • Caused by global economic stability
  • Nuclear Family - mom and dad who live in the home
• • Home deeds are written to exclude minorities so they can't move into suburban areas
  • White Flight - white people moving out of cities and into suburban developments
• Sun Belt - Southern NC to Southern CA

  • Immigration to the Sun Belt because it is less populated so it has lower taxes and prices
  • People move to south for weather, and the new invention of AC makes the summer weather more bearable 


  Higher state populations, more representatives and political power
• Fair Deal - Truman's domestic agenda

  • Everyone should have the financial resources they need
  • Employment Act - raise minimum wage, establish national health insurance, creates counsel to guide economy, similar to European economics
  • Truman doesn't have as many friends as FDR so he's bad at getting laws passed, he gets parts of the Employment Act passed but not all of it
• Truman

  • No Republicans like him and only half of Democrats like him
  • Doesn't advocate for labor unions
  • Integrates the armed forces
• Taft-Hartley Act - Restricts union freedoms

  • Right to Work - gives businesses more discretion in who they hire/fire, promote/demote, etc. Don't have to give answers as to why they fire people 


  Truman vetoes it but Congress overrides his veto
• Truman alienated white nationalists Democrats by supporting Civil Rights

  • Split from Democrats and form Dixiecrats



  Truman wins election anyway, weakens Democratic party but doesn't break it
• Cold War

  • USA and USSR
  • Nothing happens
  • No one declares war
  • Semi-Quasi War
  • Hotspots (Korean War, Vietnam)
• USA and USSR are the two superpowers but they don't trust each other

  • USA is a little ahead because they have less post-war damage
  • USA is only country with atomic bombs
• 1945, League of Nations is dissolved and replaced with United Nations

  • US is actually part of the UN
  • UN has more responsibility, organization, and power
  • Big Five - France, GB, USA, China, Russia
  • Security Council - Big five, needs unanimous vote to make decisions (troops, diplomacy, etc.)
• • GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) - keep tariffs low to increase international trade
  • World Bank - gives loans to any country (so the US stops giving away money)
  • International Monetary Fund - emergency loan
• USA and USSR don't get along

  • Everything USA does is capitalist plot
  • Everything USSR does is communist plot 


  US' Foreign Policy is to prevent Communism

  • Containment - Truman's foreign policy, contain Communism
• Truman Doctrine - 1947, Truman announced that the US would provide military aid to countries that were threatened by communism

  • Greece, Turkey
• Marshall Plan - US will give countries their split of the (total) $22 bil. if they come listen to their Ted Talk about amazing capitalism

  • Also invite Eastern Europe to help dissuade communism
  • Eastern Europe has the most precarious financial situation
  • Stalin threatens to kill them if they go, only one country goes (Yugoslavia)
• USA offers to give Eastern Europe a different currency to make a global currency

  • Stalin doesn't want it but some of the other countries do
  • On the day of the trade Stalin doesn't let the US cross USSR territory to get to the US part of Berlin
  • US can't get through so they have to start airlifting items to Berlin (food, supplies, etc.)

  September 1949, Stalin finally agrees to reopen roads (1948-1949)
• NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

  • USA, GB, France, etc.
  • US creates Nato, group of anti-communists, incase they go to war with USSR
  • Countries in Nato cannot fight against each other, if one country goes to war the other countries have to provide aid 


  Warsaw Pact

  • USSR, Hungary, Poland, etc.
  • USSR creates anti-capitalist group, forces other countries to join
• SEATO (Southeast Asian Treaty Organization)

  • NATO, but in Asia
  • (US, GB, France), Thailand, Philippines, etc.

  CENTO (Central Treaty Organization)

  • NATO, but in Middle East
  • (US, GB, France), Turkey, India, etc.
• The US involved everyone so if there's a conflict between US and USSR it will turn into a World War
• 1949, USSR successfully tested their own atomic bomb

  • Mutually Assured Destruction - if US bombs USSR then the USSR will bomb the US and vice versa 


  US starts making more bombs (intimidation) and USSR follows suit

  • Leads to Arms Race
  • They (combined) make enough bombs to blow up the world 770 times
• Big Four split up Asia similarly to how they split Germany 


  Split Korea in half (38th parallel), USSR gets North Korea, USA gets South Korea
• Korea throughout history was constantly invaded by Japan and China
• North Korea

  • owned by USSR
  • Communist government

  South Korea

  • owned by USA
  • Capitalist Republic
• Kim Il Sung

  • Communist revolutionary in NK
  • Wanted Korea to be United again (like most Koreans)
  • SK didn't want to be taken over by communism


  1950, NK invades SK (Korean War)

  • USA asks UN to send troops to SK, UN agrees
  • technically the USA isn't an official part of war
  • UN pushes NK back behind the 38th parallel
  • China comes to NK aid and pushes UN back to 38th parallel
  • For the bulk of the war there is a stalemate
• Douglas MacArthur is leading the UN troops in Asia

  • Some of the bloodiest fighting since Island Hopping Campaign (1941-1944)
  • MacArthur asks Truman for more soldiers, Truman refuses
  • MacArthur wants to nuke NK, Truman refuses
  • MacArthur goes to the press and calls Truman a wuss because he won't nuke NK, Truman fires MacArthur, ruins Truman's reputation
• Election of 1952

  • Harry Truman v. Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike)
  • Ike's campaign is to get USA out of NK


  Ike wins

  • Once he is inaugurate, he meets with NK to discuss armistice
  • USA doesn't need peace treaty with NK, only need armistice
  • 1954: USA, China, NK, SK sign armistice that ends UN involvement
  • NK and SK never sign peace treaty, they stop fighting but are still technically at war
  • After war, NK becomes hermit country (don't trade or communicate)
• After war USA stops caring about NK (till 2000s), but NK has not stopped thinking about USA

  • NK claims that USA wanted to control NK so they got SK to invade them and start the war
  • NK's isolationism and censorship allowed them to become totalitarian regime
• • When Kim Il Sung dies his son, Kim Jong Il, takes power
  • When Kim Jong Il dies his son, Kim Jong Un takes power


  North Korea is the only dynastic totalitarian regime to ever exist
• DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) - 38th Parallel, no man's land

  • No soldiers are allowed in the DMZ so the borders directly outside it are the most heavily armed and protected

  DMZ is hardest area to cross/escape

  • If NK's make it across to SK then SK will harbor them and help them migrate anywhere
  • If NK's goes to China instead then they need to escape or else China will deport them
• 2nd Red Scare

  • Less fear of immigration, scared that your neighbor is a Soviet Spy
  • Some people were Soviet spies and this turns into a witch hunt

  Start

  • People are interviewed and discriminated against based on their political belief
  • Truman issues EO that communists cannot work for the US govt
• Hollywood Ten - screenwriters, sent to court for (allegedly) being communists

  • If they cooperated they would think they're communists and be blacklisted, if they refused then they would be charged for obstructing justice and blacklisted
  • Alan Trumbo - refused to cooperate and was charged for obstructing justice
• HUAC

  • Whitaker Chambers (USSR spy) said that he got his Intel from Alger Hiss who worked for Foreign Affairs
  • Throughout the case it seemed like Chambers named Hiss just to get a lighter sentence
  • Chambers says he has proof, leads govt. to Pumpkin farm, he hid classified docs that he got from Hiss in a pumpkin, Hiss actually was a spy