Cold War Historical Overview Archives - Page 3 of 10

1946: The Cold War Accelerates

April 23, 2019 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

In a previous post, I mentioned that America had just dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and that the Soviets were responding by pushing forward with an effort to produce their own atomic weapon. In other words, the arms race was on. In this post we’ll be focusing more on the threat of conventional military confrontation.

You can listen to Cold War Studies podcast on “More Causes of the Cold War” here. But you may want to take a look at the Timeline first.

1946: Churchill and Stalin Declare Cold War – Truman Hesitates

End of WW2: The communists control one-fifth of China and more than 105 million people. The Nationalist President, Chiang Kai-Shek squanders more than a billion dollars of American aid.

1945: Stalin demands a partnership with the Turks to control the strategic Dardanelles Straits.

1945: Russian armies move into Manchuria to disarm the Japanese. They remain to loot industrial machinery for the rebuilding of Russian industrial capacity. Mao and Chiang race to control Manchuria.

August 1945: Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist Chinese government and Stalin agree to a Treaty of Friendship and Alliance.

October 1945: A plebiscite is held in Outer Mongolia. Voting under Soviet supervision, the country decides to become independent of China and to move closer to Russia. The vote count is 483,291 to 0.

1946: American and Russian military forces confront each other in Manchuria, Iran, Turkey, and Europe. The situation in China is critical.

Early 1946: Most British and American forces have withdrawn from Iran. The Russians refuse to leave, demanding oil concessions. Washington takes the Iranian case to the UN Security Council.

February 1946: Stalin brings charges in the UN Security Council against the British repression of the Greek rebellion and British and Dutch attempts to suppress revolution in Indonesia.

February 9, 1946: In an appearance at the Boshoi Theater, Stalin announces that war is inevitable as long as capitalism exists.

March 1946: The US releases a plan for the control of the atom called the Acheson-Lilienthal Proposal.

March 5, 1946: In a speech in Fulton, Missouri, Britain’s Prime Minister Churchill claims that “an iron curtain has descended across the continent” allowing a “police government” to rule Eastern Europe. What the Soviets want, he says, is “the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrine.” The speech is not well received.

Late March 1946: Iran and Russia announce that the Red Army will leave Iran.

March and April 1946: Soviet occupation troops suddenly withdraw from Manchuria and Mao’s troops move in.

April 1946: Bernard Baruch is named the first American delegate to a new UN Atomic Energy Commission. He distrusts the Acheson-Lilienthal Proposal and comes up with his own plan, the Baruch Plan. His plan focuses on eliminating any Soviet power to veto inspections or sanctions. This is unacceptable to the Russians.

Summer 1946: Europe is in the limelight. Germany, and the control of atomic weapons, emerge as the central issues.

June 1, 1946: The American Congress establishes a US Atomic Energy Commission under the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. The act prohibits any exchange of information on the use of atomic energy with any nation.

July 1946: Bikini Atoll. You can read more about it here.

August 1946: Stalin sends a note to Turkey which the US interprets as a Soviet attempt to dominate that nation, threaten Greece, and intimidate the rest of the Middle East.

Autumn 1946: Truman’s task now centers on the rebuilding of wartorn Western Europe. The West isn’t threatened by the Red Army, but by internal collapse.

If you haven’t already done so, be sure to listen to Cold War Studies podcast on “More Causes of the Cold War.” You’ll find a lot more information there about early Cold War events. (Unfortunately, the text of the podcast is no longer available)

Photograph by Andrew Milligan sumo (Flickr)

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Terms You Should Know

TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP AND ALLIANCE: A treaty between the Soviet government and (Nationalist or ‘Old’) China signed in August 1945. According to the terms of this treaty, Stalin received substantial territorial concessions in return for his agreement to deal with Chiang Kai-shek, not Mao Ze-dong. You can read the Treaty of Friendship and Alliance here.

DOMINO THEORY: In 1946, the theory was based on the assumption that Stalin, like Hitler, was intent on unlimited conquest. The theory was (later) formally defined by President Eisenhower who said:

You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have the beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.

ACHESON-LILIENTHAL PROPOSAL: Released in March 1946 as a plan for the control of the atom. The report suggested a series of stages through which the world could pass to international control of atomic weapons. It outlines a plan for international control of atomic energy. You can read the full report here.

The report represented an attempt by the United States to maintain its superiority in the field of atomic weapons while also trying to avoid a costly and dangerous arms race with the Soviet Union.

BARUCH PLAN: Presented to the United Nations on June 15, 1946, the Baruch Plan proposed that atomic energy be controlled through international management of the necessary raw materials and inspection by international agencies. The Russians were opposed, and the plan failed to gain acceptance, setting the stage for the Cold War arms race.

ATOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY: As part of his plan, Baruch proposed the establishment of an international atomic development authority. This group would control all activities dangerous to world security and possess the power to license and inspect all nuclear projects. Once such an authority was established, no more bombs should be built and existing bombs should be destroyed. The authority was unacceptable to the Russians and was not established.

US ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION: The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established by the US Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology.

ATOMIC ENERGY ACT OF 1946: President Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective January 1, 1947. The agency was abolished by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974.

You can listen to our first podcast here: CAUSES OF THE COLD WAR.

W is for the War Powers Act of 1973

March 26, 2019 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Enacted over President Nixon’s veto in November 1973, the War Powers Act (Resolution) of 1973 required that “in every possible instance” the President must consult with Congress before sending troops into hostilities.

The law also required that, when the President commits forces, he must send a full explanation to Congress within two days. He must withdraw forces within sixty days unless Congress expressly gives him permission to keep them in battle. In reality, the act gives the President the power to wage war for sixty days without congressional approval.

Congress hoped the law could prevent future Vietnams. Actually, though, it reflected the political weakness of the presidency in the 1970s. Nixon saw the act as unconstitutional. So have all his successors, Democrat or Republican.

Photograph by John Sonderman (Flickr)

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U is for U-2

November 15, 2018 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

In 1956, the US Air Force bought 48 single-seater models of Lockheed’s U-2 spy plane, and five 2-seater models. The planes flew too high for Soviet anti-aircraft missiles or fighters, and had free reign after 1957. They flew from bases in Japan, Turkey, and Britain, staying in the air for 12 hours, and mapping and photographing the Russian land mass, air and missile bases, and factories.

In 1960, as President Eisenhower prepared for a summit with Russia’s Khruschev in Paris, the CIA pressed for one last U-2 mission over the Soviet Union to establish whether there was a missile plant or base near the Urals. It was one mission too many.

On May 5 as the summit was about to begin, Khruschev announced that a U-2 had been shot downover Soviet territory. The Americans denied that the plane had been on a spy mission, but Khruschev produced the pilot, Gary Powers, along with his suicide needle, cameras, and other evidence.

Eisenhower accepted responsibility and declared in Paris that the spy flights had taken place with his full knowledge. Khruschev insisted on an American apology, a promise not to do it again, and that ‘the criminals be punished’.

Ike refused.

France’s DeGaulle pointed out that modern technology was making sovereignty over a state’s higher airspace a more and more elusive concept. He pointed out that a Soviet satellite was orbiting over France.

In the end, the Paris summit never took place. A month later the Soviet delegation walked out of the Geneva disarmament talks.

By late 1961, the U-2 flights and the first of the American spy satellites made it clear that the US had overwhelming superiority in the ability to deliver nuclear weapons, even if not in warheads.

In 1962, U-2 flights played a critical role in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

T is for Truman Doctrine

May 24, 2018 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

President Truman made a dramatic address on March 12, 1947, to both Houses of the US Congress. In the speech (known as Truman’s Declaration of Cold War), the president asked Americans to join in a global commitment against communism. He asked for $400 million in emergency aid and for the right to send US troops to administer reconstruction and train local forces in Greece and Turkey. These measures were necessary, he said, to save those countries from imminent Communist takeover. The Truman administration feared that the Greek Communists would align Greece with the Soviet Union.

The president said the US had no choice but to step in with an extensive program of economic and military assistance:

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

This became known as the Truman Doctrine. It appeared to apply globally, not only to southeastern Europe.

Congress, in an unprecedented show of bipartisan responsibility, voted an aid program for Greece and Turkey in May. The congressional action confirmed the end of Britain’s role as a dominant world power and the beginning of America’s role as principle guardian of the postwar peace. It also set forth the basic postwar philosophy of containment of Soviet aggression. (For more on containment, see Letter C.) Senator J. William Fulbright declared:

More by far than any other factor the anti-communism of the Truman Doctrine has been the guiding spirit of American foreign policy since World War II.

Noted historian Walter LaFeber says the Truman Doctrine was a milestone in American history for at least 4 reasons:

1) It marked the point at which Truman used the American fear of communism both at home and abroad to convince Americans they must embark upon a Cold War foreign policy;

2) Congress gave the President great powers to wage the Cold War as he saw fit;

3) For the first time in the postwar era, Americans massively intervened in another nation’s civil war; this intervention was justified on the basis of anticommunism;

4) Truman used the doctrine to justify a gigantic aid program to prevent a collapse of the European and American economies; later such programs were expanded globally.

The Truman Doctrine became an ideological shield behind which the US marched to rebuild the Western political-economic system and counter the radical left. From 1947 on, any threats to the Western system could be explained as communist-inspired, not as problems arising from difficulties within the system itself.

Watch the speech in its entirety below.

Photograph Courtesy of Harry S. Truman Library & Museum.

Q is for Quemoy

January 31, 2018 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

A challenge that would trigger action by the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was successfully blunted in 1954 and 1955 when the Chinese Communists threatened the offshore islands of Quemoy, Matsu, and the Tachens, islands which lay between Mainland China and Taiwan. As the communists shelled the islands and then announced the imminent “liberation” of Taiwan, Eisenhower warned that any “liberation forces” would have to run over the American Seventh Fleet stationed in the Formosa Straits.

US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, flew to Taiwan in December and signed a mutual defense pact with Chiang Kai- shek, pledging that the US would defend Chiang in return for his promise not to try to invade the mainland without American approval. The treaty was signed on December 2, 1954, and went into effect on March 3, 1955. Nothing was said in the pact about the offshore islands.

On January 18, 1955, the communists took the small northernmost island of the Tachen group. Eisenhower declared that, because this island had no relationship to the defense of Taiwan, the attack required no counteraction. Within five days, however, he asked Congress for authority “to assure the security of Formosa [Taiwan] and the Pescadores [Matsu and the rest of the Tachen group]” and, if necessary, “closely related localities.” Congress whipped through the resolution by a vote of 409 to 3 in the House and 85 to 3 in the Senate.

On August 23, 1958, just as China was embarking on the Great Leap Forward (goal: to concentrate 20 years of Soviet-style development into a single year), China began shelling the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu which were occupied by the forces of Taiwan. The American Seventh Fleet shipped Taiwanese reinforcements to the islands, and provided extra artillery capable, at least in theory, of firing atomic shells. Mao appealed for Soviet nuclear weapons, but Khruschev responded only with assurances that the Soviet Union would come to China’s support if the Americans actually attacked. For China this was betrayal. Khruschev said:

We didn’t want to give them the idea we were their obedient slaves, who would give them whatever they wanted, no matter how much they insulted us.

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Photograph of the USS Midway by Herb Neufeld (Flickr)

1968: 50 Years Later

January 10, 2018 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

This year, 2018, marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most turbulent years in recent American history: 1968. Here is a selected listing of that year’s most talked about happenings.

January 1: The New Year’s Day Battle of 1968, a military engagement during the Vietnam War involving units assigned to the US 25th Infantry Division and a regiment of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA).

Want to learn more about the battle? Watch the 1986 Oliver Stone film Platoon. Stone was serving in one of the American units during the battle. The final battle scene in the movie is a dramatization of the real battle as experienced by Stone.

January 23: North Korean patrol boats capture the USS Pueblo, a US Navy intelligence vessel along with its 83 man crew on charges of violating the communist country’s twelve-mile territorial limit. This crisis will dog the US foreign policy team for 11 months, with the crew of the Pueblo finally released on December 22.

January 31: At half-past midnight, the North Vietnamese launch the Tet Offensive at Nha Trang. Nearly 70,000 North Vietnamese troops will take part in this action, taking the battle from the jungles to the cities, attacking more than 100 towns. The offensive lasts for weeks and is seen as a major turning point in American attitudes toward the war. At 2:45 that morning, the US Embassy in Saigon is invaded. It’s held until 9:15 AM.

February 2: Richard Nixon, a republican from California, enters the New Hampshire primary and declares his presidential candidacy.

February 18: The US State Department announces the highest US casualty toll of the Vietnam War. The previous week saw 543 Americans killed in action, and 2547 wounded.

March 16: Senator Robert Kennedy, brother of former president John F. Kennedy (1961-1964), announces that he will enter the 1968 Presidential race.

March 16: The My Lai Massacre: US ground troops from Charlie Company rampage through the hamlet of My Lai killing more than 500 Vietnamese civilians including infants and the elderly. The massacre is not public knowledge for more than a year.

March 22: In Czechoslovakia, Antonin Novotny resigns the Czech presidency, alarming Moscow, and setting the stage for the Prague Spring.

April 4: Martin Luther King’s assassination in Memphis shocks and outrages the nation, sparking rioting in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Washington DC, and elsewhere. 46 deaths with be blamed on the riots.

April 11: The Civil Rights Act of 1968 (also known as the Fair Housing Act) is enacted during the King Assassination Riots.

April 23: Protestors angered over Columbia University‘s links to the Department of Defense occupy university buildings for more than a week to protest the Vietnam War. Police storm the buildings and violently remove the protestors at the Columbia administration’s request.

May 3: US and North Vietnamese delegations agree to begin peace talks in Paris on May 19.

May 6: In France, “Bloody Monday” marks one of the most violent days of the Parisian student revolt. 5,000 students march through the Latin Quarter. Riots ensue.

June 3: Andy Warhol is shot in his New York City loft by Valerie Solanis.

June 4/5: Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles at 12:13 AM after addressing a large crowd of supporters. The shooter, Sirhan Sirhan, was apparently angered by several pro-Israeli speeches given by Kennedy during his campaign.

June 6: Kennedy, age 42, dies in the early morning.

June 27: The Prague Spring continues in Czechoslovakia with President Ludvik Vaculi releasing his manifesto “Two Thousand Words.” The essay criticizes Communist rule in Czechoslovakia and concludes with a threat to “foreign forces” trying to control the government of the country. The Soviets (who conducted ongoing military exercises in the the country and who are planning an invasion later in the summer see this as a direct challenge).

July 7: Abbie Hoffman‘s “The Yippies are Going to Chicago” is published in The Realist. The Yippies will be in the center of the action six weeks later at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

July 24: Folk singer Arlo Guthrie performs the 20 minute long Alice’s Restaurant at the Newport Folk Festival. He gets rave reviews.

August 8: Republicans nominate Richard Nixon to be their presidential candidate at the Party convention in Miami Beach.

August 20: The Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia with over 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops, putting an end to the Prague Spring.

August 26: Mayor Richard Daley opens the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Demonstrations are widespread, but generally peaceful. The city’s police attempt to enforce an 11 o’clock curfew.

August 28: Chicago police take action against crowds of demonstrators. At least 100 people are sent to emergency rooms and 175 are arrested.

September 1: Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey kicks off his presidential campaign in New York City.

September 7: Women’s Liberation Groups target the Miss America Beauty Contest in Atlantic City. Protestors engage in a “symbolic bra-burning.”

October 2: Police and military police in Mexico City react violently to a student led protest. Hundreds of demonstrators are killed or injured.

October 11: Apollo 7 is launched from Florida for an 11 day journey. It will orbit the earth 163 times.

October 18: Tommie Smith and John Carlos, US athletes and medalists, disrupt the Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City by performing the Black Power Salute.

October 31: President Johnson announces a total halt to US bombing in North Vietnam.

November 5: Election Day. Nixon wins 43.4% of the total vote, Humphrey brings in 42.7% of the total, and Wallace gets 13.4% (o.4% goes to other candidates).

November 14: National Turn in Your Draft Card Day is observed with rallies and protests on collage campuses country wide.

November 26: The South Vietnamese government agrees to join in the Paris Peace talks.

December 21: Apollo 8 begins the first US mission to orbit the moon.

1968 was an eventful year for Popular Culture too. Here are a few of the things that happened:

April 29: “Hair” — known for its nudity and drug use — opens on Broadway. This may be the quintessential “period piece” of 1968.

August 1968: The Beatles release “Hey Jude.”

September: The first Big Mac is served in Pittsburgh by a McDonald’s franchise owner named Jim Delligatti. It cost 49 cents.

September 24: “60 Minutes” debuts on CBS.

November 1: A new movie ratings system was introduced with four categories: G, M, R and X.

December 3: The Elvis “comeback special” airs on TV. It’s widely considered one of the great rock ‘n’ roll moments.

The Rolling Stones stage a comeback also with their recording of “Jumping Jack Flash.” Here was the year’s real rock ‘n’ roll comeback.

As the year progresses, Cold War Studies will post frequently on this year of RESISTANCE and PROTEST. I hope you’ll check back often. If you want to make sure not to miss a post, why not SUBSCRIBE using the form below. We’ll never share your information. Meanwhile, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

P is for Pact Building

October 17, 2017 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Perhaps the most famous pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Pact, was signed on April 4, 1949. Its underlying premise was that European defense could not be entrusted to the United Nations. NATO, therefore, was designed to “create not merely a balance of power, but a preponderance of power” to deal with the Russians from “positions of strength.”

Twelve nations signed the pact including the US, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Norway, Great Britain, and the Benelux. These nations pledged to use force only in self-defense and to develop “free institutions,” particularly through the encouragement of “economic collaboration between any or all” of the parties. Article 5 of the agreement was central.” It stated:

The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all, and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them . . . will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.

Article 11 modified this commitment by adding that the pact’s provisions “shall be carried out in accordance with each nation’s constitutional processes.’” $11.2 billion for European military aid was the immediate financial price for the NATO commitment.

In the years following NATO’s signing, President Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, devoted a considerable amount of diplomatic energy to further constructing a worldwide network of alliances to block Soviet expansion. In Latin America, they reinforced the Rio Pact which had been signed on September 2, 1947; in Southeast Asia, the Manila Pact of 1954; in the western Pacific, mutual defense treaties in 1954 with the Republic of Korea and the Republic of China; in the Near East, the 1955 Baghdad Pact, and, in 1960, the security treaty with Japan. Some called these efforts pactomania.

So far as the Soviets were concerned, Khruschev safeguarded Soviet security both ideologically and militarily by developing the Warsaw Pact — a bloc military alliance, patterned after NATO, which could allow Soviet military control of Eastern Europe after the political controls were relaxed. It was signed on May 14, 1955, in Warsaw. By the end of 1956 the Soviets had engaged in 14 economic and military agreements with nations in Asia and the Middle East. North Vietnam and Indonesia were favored in Southeast Asia. In the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Egypt were targets of the Soviet economic offensive.

Russia vs. America

September 27, 2017 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

RUSSIA vs AMERICA

Stalin’s compulsion to protect Russian interests dictated his actions. He was determined to prevent foreign domination of territories contiguous to his nation’s borders. Stalin’s obsession is not difficult to understand given Soviet losses in World War II.

According to Bruce R. Kuniholm, the United States suffered 291,557 battle deaths and the British 373,372. The Soviets, on the other hand, lost in the neighborhood of 11,000,000 military personnel and 7,000,000 civilians. Seventy thousand villages and 1,710 towns were reduced to rubble.

Fearing foreign encroachment, as early as February 1946, Stalin described a ‘capitalist encirclement of the Soviet Union’ and depicted the capitalist economy as ‘setting the stage for war.’

Stalin’s comments were analyzed by George Kennan in what became known as the “long telegram.” In this 8,000 word cable dated February 22, 1946, Kennan speaks of Russia’s insecurity and of her persistent efforts to extend her borders. He recommends that the United States adopt a “policy of containment.” Containment strategy was first used in the Iranian crisis of 1946.

In sum, while the Soviets were committed to defending themselves against potentially hostile interests in China and a resurgent Japan, American leaders were concerned with expanding their economic markets and rebuilding Japan as a thwart to Soviet expansionism.

A strong, stable China was the cornerstone of American postwar Far Eastern policy. In fact, the Americans believed that China would take Japan’s place as the West’s prime Asian commercial partner.

When the Russians abrogated their Sino-Soviet treaty obligations, and allowed arms and ammunition to fall into the hands of the CCP, President Truman attempted to help the Nationalists by moving 100,000 American troops into China. However, as LaFeber notes, it soon became apparent that “If Americans tried to save Chiang they would ‘virtually [have] to take over the Chinese government.’”

By February 1949, the Nationalists had lost nearly half their troops, mostly by defection. Eighty percent of the American equipment given Chiang had fallen into Communist hands.

In effect, Stalin held Manchuria hostage. Buhite argues that the province was “the most important area of China,” containing the country’s only “nearly developed industrial complex,” and was “the only CCP source for the machinery required for industrial development.”

So far as American interests in China were concerned, since Communist China could not achieve economic progress without Manchuria, Mao had no flexibility for a rapprochement with the United States.

The Soviets successfully influenced the Chinese Communists using material and technical aid as leverage. The pattern of assistance employed in Manchuria would be replicated repeatedly during the half century Cold War as the Soviets expertly allocated economic and military aid to the less developed world in their attempts to broaden their sphere of influence.

Importantly, with Mao’s final victory in 1949, over a million KMT government and army personnel were forced to flee their homeland, most of them settling in Taipei on the island of Formosa (Taiwan).

Meanwhile, a Western campaign for the military encirclement of the Soviet Union known as “the containment of international communism” had begun.