In 1947,  New York City was able to avoid an epidemic of Smallpox. Unfortunately, the world hasn’t been so lucky this time around. Here are 8 health scares that occurred during the Cold War, some very different from the pandemic we’re facing in 2020.

#1: Small Pox (1947)

According to a post on Ephemeral New York (March 16, 2020), an American named Eugene Le Bar hopped on a bus in Mexico that was bound for Maine. Soon after boarding, he developed a headache and neck pain. Two days later he broke out in a rash. 

Le Bar got off the bus in New York, checked into a midtown hotel and, despite not feeling well, went out sightseeing with his wife. Four days later he was in Bellevue Hospital. Soon after, he was transferred to Willard Parker Hospital, a facility that specialized in communicable diseases. He died there on March 10, and during an autopsy doctors discovered that he had smallpox.

The disease spread to two other people, and then to a dozen more. 

The city took speedy action. First, hospital workers and anyone who had come in contact with the infected individuals were vaccinated or revaccinated. 

On April 4, New York’s mayor (William O’Dwyer) ordered that the entire city of 6.3 million people be vaccinated or revaccinated. New York didn’t have enough vaccine, so millions of vaccines were quickly manufactured.

A second person died on April 10, spurring the vaccination or revaccination of another 1.3 million people. The city’s slogan became: “Be sure, be safe, be vaccinated.”

In early May, the vaccination program was halted because the outbreak appeared to be contained. We’ll have to wait and see what May brings this time around.

#2: Polio (1950s)

Suspicions and conspiracy theories regarding vaccines have been around as long as vaccines themselves because they are a powerful and, frankly, a scary technology. They are based on placing a version of an often grave disease in the human body, to build up an immune response. In this sense, they carry the potential to create illness instead of preventing it. Most importantly, they are usually administered to a population that is most vulnerable in a physical, social and cultural sense . . .

Suspicions about the development and introduction of live polio vaccines in the 1950s have not only appeared retrospectively. The development of what became the tool of the current global polio eradication campaign was beset by distrust in scientific achievements and worries about intentional harm. 

Russian scientists feared that the Sabin vaccine and its trial in the Soviet Union was part of an American plot to sterilize or kill Soviet children by the millions, while American virologists were suspicious of the Russian claims regarding vaccine safety and efficacy based on field trials. 

Want to learn more? Check out our guest post by Dora Varga, a lecturer in medical humanities at the University of Exeter. The above information is drawn from that post.

#3: ASIAN FLU (1956-1958)

Death Toll: 2 million

Asian Flu was a pandemic outbreak of Influenza A of the H2N2 subtype, that originated in China in 1956 and lasted until 1958. In its two-year spree, Asian Flu traveled from the Chinese province of Guizhou to Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States. Estimates for the death toll of the Asian Flu vary depending on the source, but the World Health Organization places the final tally at approximately 2 million deaths, 69,800 of those in the US alone. (https://www.mphonline.org/worst-pandemics-in-history/)

For a first hand account of the ‘Asian Flu Epidemic’, you can check out Sally Edelstein’s blog post. It’s full of visuals that give you a first hand look at the press coverage at the time.

#4: Agent Orange (1960s)

Long a practice range for the US Navy, forests on the Isla de Vieques off the coast of Puerto Rico were also used to test the effects of Agent Orange, a defoliant used in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Studies show that the incidence of cancer among the island’s population is 26% higher than in the rest of Puerto Rico, and the island’s children register high levels of mercury and lead.

In South Vietnam, the President Ngo Dinh Diem was a strong proponent of using herbicidal warfare as a key component of counterinsurgency strategy. Over 1.3 million acres were sprayed in 1968 alone.

As late as 2010, many decades after the war, the question of the long-term effects of exposure to Agent Orange on human health remained controversial. Some scientists have observed a spike in the number of birth defects and stillbirths in areas known to have been heavily sprayed, but others have criticized the methodology used for studies. 

The government of Vietnam says that 4 million of its citizens were exposed to Agent Orange, and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses because of it. While the US government has challenged these figures as unreliable, the government has documented higher cases of leukemia, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and various kinds of cancer in exposed US veterans.

By April 1993, the Department of Veterans Affairs had compensated only 486 victims out of 39,419 claims by soldiers who had been exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.

Agent Orange was also used in Laos and Cambodia.

#5: FLU PANDEMIC (1968)

Death Toll: 1 million

A category 2 Flu pandemic sometimes referred to as “the Hong Kong Flu,” the 1968 flu pandemic was caused by the H3N2 strain of the Influenza A virus, a genetic offshoot of the H2N2 subtype. From the first reported case on July 13, 1968 in Hong Kong, it took only 17 days before outbreaks of the virus were reported in Singapore and Vietnam, and within three months it had spread to The Philippines, India, Australia, Europe, and the United States. While the 1968 pandemic had a comparatively low mortality rate (.5%) it still resulted in the deaths of more than a million people, including 500,000 residents of Hong Kong, approximately 15% of its population at the time. (https://www.mphonline.org/worst-pandemics-in-history/)

#6: HIV/AIDS (First identified in 1976)

Death Toll: 36 million

First identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976, HIV/AIDS has truly proven itself as a global pandemic, killing more than 36 million people since 1981. Currently there are between 31 and 35 million people living with HIV. The vast majority of those are in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 5% of the population is infected, roughly 21 million people. As awareness has grown, new treatments have been developed that make HIV far more manageable, and many of those infected go on to lead productive lives. Between 2005 and 2012 the annual global deaths from HIV/AIDS dropped from 2.2 million to 1.6 million. (https://www.mphonline.org/worst-pandemics-in-history/)

For a personal account of life during the AIDS crisis you might want to read this article in YES Magazine. It’s titled Love in the Time of Coronavirus: A Reflection on the HIV/AIDS Epidemic.

#7: Love Canal (1978)

Watch the video below for a good history of the Love Canal disaster and ramifications.

#8: Chernobyl

If you’re like me you like to take the easy way out sometimes, and I thought the easy way to learn about Chernobyl would be to watch the 5 part series on HBO. The important thing here – and one I didn’t always remember – is that this is a fictionalized recounting with not much to glean that’s actually accurate.

Here are some more factual things you should know:

• The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on Saturday, April 26, 1986, at the No. 4 nuclear reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR.
• According to the official, internationally recognised death toll, just 31 people died as an immediate result of Chernobyl. The UN estimates that 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster. In 2005, it predicted a further 4,000 might eventually die as a result of the radiation exposure.

(For more information you might want to read the BBC’s assessment of The True Toll of the Chernobyl Disaster. You can read it here.)

• According to an article in Wired (May 13, 2019), The Chernobyl Disaster May Have Also Built A Paradise. According to the article, “some scientists think the radioactive, human-free landscape might now be a haven for plants and animals.” You can read that article here.

You still might want to watch the HBO series to pick up on life in the Soviet Union at the time, and the atmospherics of the disaster. Just don’t use the information presented there in your research or on an exam.

Can you think of other scares? Let us know in the comments section below. I thought of the Bhopal disaster in India a bit too late for this post. (You can read about it on Wikipedia here.)

The photo by Amit Gupta (Flickr) is of the Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York City. It was abandoned in the middle of the last century.

Concern

It’s election season in the US and more than one of the Democratic primary contenders is touting one form or another of the following: “Our Democracy is in Danger; Our Democracy is at Stake; This Election is About the Future of our Democracy.”

I’ve had conversations with family members, close friends, and acquaintances, but the jury seems to be out on what damage — if any — Donald Trump is doing to our democracy. Some say “the foundations of our democracy are deep and strong. They can withstand four more years of the same.” Others, more reminiscent of Chicken Little, are almost shouting “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.” Still others suspect that “we’re crying wolf in a crowded theater.”

Since I don’t have a crystal ball and I can’t foresee the future, I decided to go back and take a look at the highly regarded 2018 book titled How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Professors of  government at Harvard University.

The Question

Here are some thoughts from the book’s Introduction starting with the question my friends and family have been trying to answer: “Is our (American) democracy in danger?”

The Cold War

The failure of democracy is not new. Democracies have failed before. During the Cold War, the authors note:

Coups d’etat accounted for three out of every four democratic breakdowns.

What happened in Chile provides a good example.

On September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende of Chile was the victim of a coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. Allende had been elected three years earlier ‘at the head of a leftist coalition’.

According to the authors:

Within hours, President Allende was dead. So, too, was Chilean democracy.

[For more information on Chile during the Cold War be sure to take a look at our Chile post here.]

Happening Now

Levitsky and Ziblatt go on to say, though, that in today’s world:

Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders — presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power . . . [often] democracies erode slowly in barely visible steps.

Venezuela is a good example of what’s happening today.

Hugo Chavez was popularly elected in 1998, coming to power as a political outsider promising to build a more “authentic” democracy, by using oil wealth to improve the lives of the poor. In April 2002, he was briefly toppled by the military, but he persevered. He maintained a democratic veneer even as his regime gained control over much of the media, arrested or exiled opposition politicians, and eliminated presidential term limits.

After Chavez’ death, his successor Nicolas Maduro won questionable reelection. By 2017, “nearly two decades after Chavez first won the presidency . . . Venezuela was widely recognized as an autocracy.”

According to Levitsky and Zeblatt:

This is how democracies now die. Blatant dictatorship — in the form of fascism, communism, or military rule — has disappeared across much of the world. Military coups and other violent seizures of power are rare. . . . Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves . . . .

10 Takeaways

Here are 10 more takeaways from the intro to the book.

1. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are “legal,” approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts.

2. People don’t immediately realize what is happening. Many continue to believe they are living under a democracy.

3. An essential test for democracies isn’t whether ‘extremist demagogues’ emerge, but whether political leaders, and especially political parties, work to keep them from gaining power in the first place.

4. When fear, opportunism, or miscalculation leads established parties to bring extremists into the mainstream, democracy is imperiled.

5. Institutions alone aren’t enough to rein in elected autocrats. Often these individuals use the institutions of democracy to kill it. For example, they pack the courts, buy off the media, and rewrite the rules of politics to ‘tilt the playing field’ against opponents.

6. Democracies work best where constitutions are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms. Good examples of these norms are mutual toleration and restraint.

7. Democratic norms in the US began to erode in the 1980s and 1990s and accelerated in the 2000s. Donald Trump may have built on this process, but he didn’t cause it.

8. The erosion of democratic norms in the US is rooted in extreme partisan polarization and conflict over race and culture.

9. There are reasons for alarm in the US today. But other countries’ experiences teach us that breakdown is neither inevitable or irreversible.

10. We need to learn from other countries to see the warning signs — and recognize the false alarms.

What’s Next

In sum, I don’t like what I’m reading,  but I’m not jumping to conclusions either. I’m anxious to read the book’s case studies to see what I can figure out. I hope you’ll join me. You can buy the book on Amazon by clicking on the image below. It’s my affiliate link.

Or you can check it out from your local library.

Let me know what you think of the author’s argument in the comments.

Photograph by djandyw.com aka nobody (Flickr): Venezuela protest, February 15, 2014.

Today, just as in 1947, American foreign aid is a very contentious topic. So contentious, in fact, that the handling of military assistance to the Ukrainian nation in the summer of 2019 is at the core of an ongoing impeachment debate in the United States Congress. At first, though, when the Truman Doctrine of 1947 “put us on the front line, supporting two small, weak European countries, Greece and Turkey,” there was broad bipartisan support. (p.61) Congress agreed with President Truman’s administration in perceiving a need for military and economic assistance that would strengthen these nations against the sorts of external and internal pressures that would erode their status as reliable free world partners.

More recently, foreign aid has provided political support to countries where the US has a stake, bolstering regional security and promoting America’s policy goals. Moreover, what started as a bipartisan concern has become more unfocused. Currently, for some, the idea of using foreign aid to further democratic ideals has morphed into an effort to force reform and dismantle statist structures.

In the late 1940s, though, the idea of assistance for economic development appealed to both Democrats and Republicans, especially as related to Europe and Japan. These two countries had a legacy of industrialization and capitalism and, in the wake of World War II, it was believed that these institutions could be brought back to life with an infusion of dollars.

Soon, however, the CIA had other ideas. A 1948 CIA assessment of the strategic implications of the breakup of colonialism noted:

[T]he good will of the recently liberated and emergent independent nations becomes a vital factor in the future strategic position of the US in the Near and Far East . . . [U]nless the US . . . adopts a more positive and sympathetic attitude toward the national aspirations of these areas and at least partially meets their demands for economic assistance, it will risk their becoming actively antagonistic toward the US. (p.62)

By the 1950s, some in Congress like John F. Kennedy (Democrat of Massachusetts), were pushing hard for legislation to provide more generous foreign assistance. The effort gained bipartisan support when John Sherman Cooper (Republican of Kentucky) joined with Kennedy to sponsor the Kennedy-Cooper Resolution, declaring that the US should organize an international mission to study the development needs of India.

At first the Eisenhower administration resisted, but they gave their support when the resolution was broadened to extend to all South Asian countries. Eisenhower’s opposition was based on his feeling that private investment, trade, and technical assistance were more important and “more reliable spurs to growth . . .” (p.63)

Eisenhower was not the only one committed to a relatively conservative philosophy. A full-fledged academic debate continued unabated throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s. In addition to economic concerns, there was disagreement about foreign policy objectives. Were we seeking to create democracies or did we just want to exert political influence over foreign governments? Still, by Eisenhower’s second term, political pressure to engage in the ‘aid business’ was overwhelming. This became apparent in Ike’s second inaugural address when he proclaimed:

We must use our skills and knowledge and, at times, our substance to help others rise from misery, however far the scene of suffering may be from our shores. For wherever in the world a people knows desperate want, there must appear at least the spark of hope, the hope of progress– or there will surely rise at last the flames of conflict. . . . (p.66)

Subsequently, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles unveiled the Development Loan Fund of April 1957 which was vigorously supported by Eisenhower. The fund would eventually distribute as much as $750 million a year, a move which Ike saw as a positive way to combat communism. He said:

The whole design of this defense against Communist conspiracy and encirclement cannot be with guns alone. For the freedom of nations can be menaced not only by guns but by the poverty that communism can exploit. (p.66)

Subsequently, the United States embarked on an ambitious program of foreign aid. Democrats supported the effort for its humanitarianism and on the basis of development theory. Republicans were motivated by fear of Soviet inroads into the Third World.

By the time the Cold War ended in 1991, “the net financial flow to aid-receiving countries since the mid-1950s, both commercial and concessional, had reached the phenomenal total of some $2 trillion in 1980s prices.” Interestingly, the results were mixed. (p.67)

Foreign assistance offered no assurance of political influence for the United States, and development showed no signs of ensuring either democracy or stability. According to Rodman:

. . . nothing seemed to work . . . The genuine generosity and anticolonialist intentions that lay behind much of the American contribution to Third World development seemed to be of no avail.(p.71)

Many Americans reacted by supporting a move toward neo-isolationism. While the popular book by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick titled The Ugly American (1958) told the story of an American ambassador in Southeast Asia “anguished by the insensitivity and clumsiness of much of our official presence abroad,” many in the US felt that “it was the foreigners who were ungrateful and undeserving, not the Americans who were guilty of insensitivity.” (p.72)

Currently, the US is facing the same dilemma. Americans are conflicted about the purpose of aid and the appropriateness of various behavior regarding its conveyance. These questions are not new. In 1986, a British writer, Barbara Ward, noted that some

Denounce the recipient people as ungrateful scoundrels who show no due appreciation of the magnificent generosity shown them . . . .

Yet is it logical to expect gratitude for steps taken openly and crudely in self-defense?

________________________________________

Photograph: Flickr/Creative Commons

Sources:

This post relies on information drawn from Peter W. Rodman’s book More Precious Than Peace (published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994, pp. 61-74.)

Barbara Ward, “For a New Foreign Aid Concept,” New York Times Magazine, March 11, 1956, P.42.

Background

Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 -1964, was responsible for the launching of a bold political offensive against the West in the Third World.

At the time of Stalin’s death in 1953, Soviet foreign policy had run out of steam. Instead of applying pressure, the Eisenhower administration extended an olive branch, expressing interest in solving lingering problems, especially the Korean conflict. The Kremlin seemed receptive to the opportunity and an armistice was reached in Korea in June 1953.

The Khrushchev Years

Shortly after, in July 1953, the Soviets announced a 4-million-ruble contribution to the United Nations program of technical assistance to the underdeveloped nations.

In September 1953, the Soviet government signed a 5 year trade agreement with India.

In 1954, Afghanistan became the first Third World nation to receive Soviet credits since World War II.

In 1954 also, in a major initiative toward the Arab world, the Soviet Union cast vetoes in the UN Security Council protecting the Arab position on several issues. One veto blocked a Western resolution on the division of Jordan River waters. Another blocked a New Zealand resolution that would have reaffirmed the 1951 condemnation of Egypt’s denial to Israel of access to the Suez Canal.

In February 1955, The Soviets and India announced a million-ton steel mill project at Bhilai. The Soviets gave a $100 million credit to India for this project.

In April 1955, a conference of nonaligned states was held in Bandung, Indonesia. The Soviets recognized the conference, and wrangled an invitation for their Chinese allies, thus undermining rigid adherence to Zdanov’s “two camp” strategy. Now, the nonaligned nations mattered.

In June 1955, India’s prime minister Nehru paid a visit to the Soviet Union.

In November and December of that same year, the Soviet’s new Premier, Nikolai Bulganin, and Party First Secretary Khrushchev visited India, Burma, and Afghanistan. The India trip was the first of Khruschev’s many Third World encounters.

The visit to India was the highlight of the officials’ month long journey. While there, the Soviets promised support for the Indian position on the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan and the Goa dispute with Portugal, scoring points at the expense of the British, the Americans, and the Chinese.

Later that same year, on September 27, the Soviets chalked up another success when Egypt’s leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, announced that his country would be purchasing advanced weapons from Czechoslovakia. Although Czechoslovakia was the supplier of record, Nasser soon admitted that the deal had been negotiated with the Soviets. The $200-$250 million barter deal (some say as high as $400 million) included Soviet MIG-15 and MIG-17 jet fighters in exchange for Egyptian rice and cotton.

The Soviets had moved from ceremonial visits, trade deals, and steel mills to massive arms supply in a region of vital strategic importance to the West. 

In these early years, the Soviet advantage seemed overwhelming. Khrushchev went so far as to declare that the new nations born of the breakup of the colonial empires were “natural partners of the socialist countries in a vast zone of peace . . . .”

Still, many of the emerging nations valued their independence, and only a handful — North Korea, Cuba, North Vietnam — declared themselves fully “Marxist-Leninist.”  Nevertheless, it would take the West 30 years to make significant headway.

The Eisenhower Years

In March 1956, on the heels of the Soviet tour of India, John Foster Dulles (the US Secretary of State) paid a visit to New Delhi. Since 1951, the United States had been shipping huge quantities of emergency wheat and rice to India to relieve famine.

According to Peter W. Rodman, in his book More Precious Than Peace:

From 1945 to 1956, U.S. economic aid delivered to India, including both loans and grants, totaled nearly $435 million. (Soviet aid delivered through 1956 totaled some $40 million, though over $300 million was pledged.) U.S. aid was predominantly in the form of grants; Soviet aid was then entirely credits. Yet when Dulles arrived at Palam Airport, Nehru was not there to greet him, on the grounds that he (Nehru) was not only foreign minister but also head of government and therefore their ranks were not equal.

Not surprisingly, Americans were quite sensitive about the treatment. It raised a number of questions about American’s role and prospects in the new nations.

President Eisenhower and his secretary of state acknowledged that the Soviets presented strategic challenges, and they devoted a great deal of diplomatic effort to constructing alliances to block Soviet expansion. “Pactomania” as it was called was a worldwide attempt to counter the Soviets.

In Latin America, the US reinforced the Rio Pact of 1948; in Southeast Asia, there was the Manila Pact of 1954; in the Western Pacific, there were mutual defense treaties in 1954 with the Republic of Korea and the Republic of China; in the Near East there was the Baghdad Pact of 1955; and in Japan, there was a security treaty in 1960.

Covert action was also on the table: the Eisenhower administration used CIA action in Iran in 1953 to remove Prime Minister Mosaddeq from office; there was action in Guatemala in 1954; and most embarrassingly, an American U-2 was shot down in May 1960 in a reconnaissance overflight of the Soviet Union.

Despite all the above activity, the administration was concerned about the monetary costs of opposing Soviet expansionism over a long period of time, fearing that it might pose an economic threat to the American way of life.

America’s leaders understood that they needed to have a positive program to respond to Soviet activities in the Third World. They wanted to distance the US from the colonial legacy and respond to the aspirations of the new nations for economic advance, social progress, and political independence. Soon the nation was engaged in a prolonged national debate over the purposes of foreign aid. As with many Cold War policy disagreements, this debate is continuing as we move into the 2020 election year.

Conversation Starters: Here are a couple of questions to consider. Feel free to add your opinion in the comments.

What do you think about “pactomania?” Are the agreements the United States signed during the Cold War still important today? 

How important is America’s leadership on the world stage?

Source: Peter Rodman, More Precious Than Peace (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994) pp.52-61. Please note that this is an affiliate link.

More Information:

The United States Overthrew Iran’s Last Democratic Leader

Soon after World War II ended, American and Russia took center stage in world affairs. Both of them declared war on the colonial system, and soon the Third World was caught up in a new ideological struggle.

The Third World was to be torn apart by its own dogmatic civil wars, mirroring the contest of the superpowers. As Peter W. Rodman notes in his book More Precious Than Peace:

Third World societies would often find themselves split between moderates and radicals, between the middle- or upper-class elites whose dream was to be part of the civilized world (the Habib Bourguibas and Leopold Senghors) and the revolutionaries who saw the Western-dominated ‘civilized world’ as still the main enemy (the Ho Chi Minhs and Fidel Castros).

Each superpower looked for clients and proxies among the developing nations as well as within them.

A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assessment in September 1948 expressed great concern:

. . . The USSR is effectively exploiting the colonial issue and the economic nationalism of the underdeveloped areas as a means of dividing the non-Soviet world, weakening the Western Powers, and gaining the good will of colonial and former colonial areas.

Stalin’s behavior in Europe only reinforced the fears. He was gradually absorbing Eastern Europe, violating wartime accords.

In Western Europe, the weakness of postwar democracies heightened America’s anxiety that the Communist parties would dominate the Western half of the continent as well.

The US President, Harry S. Truman, perceived that “America had no choice but to step in with an extensive program of economic and military assistance. On March 12,1947, he spoke before a joint session of commerce stating:

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 outside pressures.

Arguably, Truman’s statement applied globally, not just to southeastern Europe. Precedent was set when two months later (in May) Congress voted on an aid program for Greece and Turkey.

In June 1947, the Marshall Plan was announced in Secretary of State George Marshall’s commencement speech at Harvard. This was seen as a response to the advances of Communist parties and communist-led labor organizations in Western Europe.  Congress passed an initial appropriation in December 1947.

The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan were the Truman Administration’s efforts to contain the Soviet threat, reinforcing the belief that economic hardship would not provide a fertile environment for rebuilding the political and economic institutions damaged during the war.

Two years later, in April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington. This was seen as the West’s response to Stalin’s brutal suppression of Eastern Europe, especially the Czechoslovakia coup of 1948. The stability and recovery of Western Europe now required American’s participation in European Defense. Financial aid was not going to be enough.

Stalin’s pressure on Europe had provoked American intervention. The danger of political collapse in Western Europe was real, and the increasing brutality of Stalin’s actions in Eastern and Central Europe heightened the growing sense of danger.

Outside of Europe, the situation was a bit murkier. Truman had articulated a doctrine that could draw us into engagements all over the world. Meanwhile, Stalin’s policy was unclear.

At the first Cominform conference in September 1947, Stalin’s politburo colleague Andrei Zdanov argued that the world was now divided into two camps, an “imperialist and anti-democratic camp” and an “anti-imperialist and democratic camp.”

So far as the Soviets were concerned, the United States and its allies formed the core of the ‘imperialist camp’, while the Soviets made up the ‘anti-imperialist camp’. Some individual countries (Egypt, India, Indonesia, Vietnam) were sympathetic to the Soviets, while most nations in the Near East and Latin America were relegated to the imperialists.

According to Stalin, only the Communist parties were reliable champions of national liberation. Nationalists were not to be trusted and the idea that states could be neutral, or a “third force” between the two sides was “a rotten idea . . . that only served the interests of imperialism.”

1949 brought two game changers. First, the Soviets exploded an atomic bomb in August. Then, the Communists achieved victory in China in October.  These events were followed by Communist North Korea’s surprise invasion of South Korea in June 1950.

The Truman Administration decided that it would be dangerous to allow the Soviets to commit aggression in the Third World. There was now a new geopolitical reality, and a US policy fixated on Europe was no longer deemed adequate.

According to Rodman:

the  military buildup that the United States undertook after the North Korean attack was the most decisive step in its emergence as a global military power.

In April 1950, Truman and his National Security Council had approved NSC 68 which expressed alarm at recent Soviet advances — Europe, the bomb, China. A follow-up report, NSC 73/4 in August 1950 warned:

 . . . the invasion of South Korea ‘should be regarded not as an isolated phenomenon but possibly as part of a general plan which might involve correlated action in other parts of the world.

Korea provoked a response. America committed to a global role, including outside of Europe.

Total defense spending more than tripled in the first year of the Korean War.

The Cold War in the Third World had begun.

Conversation Starters: Here are a couple of questions to consider. Feel free to add your opinion in the comments.

How important are America’s alliances — are they still relevant in our world today?

Was it important for America to project military power around the world? Is it still important today?

Source: Peter Rodman, More Precious Than Peace (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994) pp.43-51. Please note that this is an affiliate link.

More Information: For more information on the early Cold War, be sure to listen to our podcasts.

The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan

NSC 68

Photograph by Juandev 

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!

Unlike the case of Manchuria, the United States and the Soviet Union had no longstanding rivalry in Iran. Instead, the Russians had long battled the British for concessions and influence in that country.

Although there had been an extensive foreign presence in Persia, in contrast to Manchuria, Iran had never been “officially” colonized. Formal occupation began in 1941 with the permanent billeting of British and Soviet troops.

The Americans arrived in 1942-1943 to expedite the delivery of supplies to the Soviet Union through a Persian Corridor.

As the war neared its end, traditional rivalries flared, and conflict between the Allied forces intensified.  Despite some friction, United States and British interests eventually coincided. An implicit partnership developed with the two allies jointly opposing Soviet activities.

By November 1945, the United States was taking a leadership position, pressing for the evacuation of all Allied troops by January 1946. As in Manchuria, the Soviets refused to leave. Instead they decided to support separatist activities in the provinces of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan. Such interference was unacceptable to both Iran and the United States.

Parallels with recent events in Manchuria were only too clear. But, once again, it was impossible to separate American ideals and interests. Not only did Iran border the Soviet Union, in an area targeted by the United States for “forward defense,” but the country possessed vast oil resources considered vital to the West’s campaign against ‘international communism.’

As Simon Bromley notes, the military implications of oil were first seen by Winston Churchill. By the end of World War I, “the military and economic significance of oil was apparent to all the major powers.”

Echoing their prior stance, the Soviets pursued the pattern they had established in Manchuria by asserting control over the internal affairs of a neighboring country. In doing so, they were creating a sphere of influence that they felt would protect their borders against possible incursion.

Soviet troop strength in Iran was not insignificant. According to Kuniholm, estimates allowed for 30,000 in Azerbaijan and 75,000 in northern Iran, compared to 5,000 British troops and 6,000 American troops in the rest of the country. The total number of Soviet troops was at least three times that of the Iranian Army.

In addition to military force, Stalin also reapplied previously employed techniques of economic penetration. Just as the Soviets had looted and confiscated  industrial equipment in Manchuria, they seized Azerbaijan’s fertile grain fields, directing and controlling the area’s vast wheat harvest. This had critical impact since the province ordinarily supplied enough grain for its own consumption and, additionally, provided almost half of Tehran’s yearly needs.

Kuniholm says: Because the Soviets “refused to permit the province of Azerbaijan to deliver wheat to the south, and were themselves taking Azerbaijan’s harvest,” the Western allies were required to import wheat in order to prevent starvation in parts of southern Iran.

Similar tactics affected other goods.

For example, Iran was forced to export shoes manufactured in Azerbaijani factories to the Soviet Union, making it necessary to import higher priced shoes in return.

In the end, the Americans saw Soviet actions geostrategically, and also as an implicit threat to the oil fields of the Middle East, a matter affecting national security. The conflict over oil became quite explicit when the Soviets demanded an oil concession in northern Iran.