Burning America: In the Best Interest of the Country? Cold War Freeze

History 

Guide and Notes

Unit _: Days __-__

Concept:  Cold War Freeze

Overview of this concept:

Although the cost of war was suffering, brutal devastation, and tragic loss of life abroad, World War II accomplished on the home front what the New Deal failed to achieve—an end to the Depression. Demand for war goods created new industries and stimulated existing business.

Life in Cold War America was marked by a search for security. Blacks and women sought to keep the gains they had made during the war, and many Americans struggled to maintain their standard of living in the face of postwar inflation. For some, security meant exposing the subversives they suspected were operating in society and at high levels of their government. In the face of mounting opposition, Truman attempted to pursue policies that addressed these concerns.

At Yalta, the Big Three (U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union) decided to try German and Japanese principals as war criminals, creating for the first time in history a dubious new category of villainy for the losers of a conflict. The Holocaust notwithstanding it set a dangerous and perverse precedent, for at any time in the future, heads of state on the wrong side of a military outcome could be easily demonized and tried for “crimes against humanity.” Worse, unpopular winners could now find themselves accused of war crimes by losers whose religion or politics were shared by whatever majority of the international governing body happened, at the time, to be overseeing such nonsense. Predictably, critics of American policy in the Vietnam War some twenty years later would employ the same language against Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Yalta also produced an agreement to hold a United Nations conference in San Francisco in April 1945, with the objective of creating an effective successor to the old League of Nations. To Roosevelt, these “concessions” by Stalin indicated his willingness to work for peace. Little did he know that Soviet spies in the United States had already provided the Russian dictator with all the information he needed about the American positions, and thus he easily out negotiated the sickly and wobbly Roosevelt. Others, however, noted that Stalin traded words and promises for carte blanche within territory he already held, and that having lost more than 20 million defeating Hitler, Stalin felt a few more casualties in the invasion of Japan seemed a cheap price in exchange for occupying large chunks of China, Korea, and northern Japan.

In July 1947, George Kennan wrote an article under the pseudonym Mr. X for Foreign Affairs entitled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” which outlined a strategy for dealing with an aggressive Soviet Union. They key to winning the Cold War, Kennan wrote, lay in a strategy of “containment,” in which the United States did not seek to roll back Soviet gains as much as to build a giant economic/military/political fence around the communist state so that it could not expand farther. America should respond to Soviet advances the “the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points,” Kennan wrote. Korea, of course, would be the pressure point of the U.S. containment strategy.

Western democracy was unacceptable to Stalin, who began to establish Soviet-style communism in Eastern Europe. The clash of intentions and ideals led to the division of Europe and much of the rest of the world. In Asia the end of World War II brought peace only to Japan. Under United States occupation, the Japanese renounced militarism, disbanded their army, democratized their society, and embarked on a program of economic development that brought them unprecedented prosperity. In contrast the rest of Asia was caught up in the Cold War. As tensions grew, the Cold Was escalated into a hot war with bloodshed and the dislocation of people.

Within months after the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union entered into a period of intense confrontation and rivalry. American leaders sought to maintain workable links with the Soviets while trying to check communism in Europe. Later this containment policy was applied to China, but it could not prevent the outbreak of war in Korea. At home, Americans sought to adjust to a peacetime economy.

With the end of World War II, the Allies’ goal of defeating Germany and Japan had been attained; its goal of establishing democratic governments throughout Europe, however, proved to be illusive. To Churchill and Truman, democracy meant political and economic system like those in Great Britain and the United States. Western democracy was unacceptable to Stalin, who began to establish Soviet style communism in Eastern Europe. The clash of intentions and ideals led to the division of Europe and much of the rest of the world.

As the Truman presidency came to an end, the fear of communism preoccupied the nation. In Asia the United States was engaged in a long and frustrating war with the Communists. In other parts of the world. A dangerous Cold War between communism and American interest grew increasingly heated. The nation was ready for new leadership to guide it through these troubling and uncertain times.

When the Republicans rallied voter support with the cry “It’s time for a change” in 1952, they were referring to the country’ economic policies. For the previous 20 years, Democratic administration leaned toward the interest of labor. When Eisenhower accepted the presidential nomination, he promised that in economic matters he would “travel the straight road down the middle.” As a result, the nation enjoyed an unprecedented period of prosperity and witnessed the rapid development of big business and agribusiness.

The economic growth of the 1950s brought great changes to the nation. For the first time, most Americans enjoyed a life of abundance. This prosperity greatly changed the way people lived. Advances in technology and medicine coupled economic prosperity gave Americans great confidence in the future.

In the 1950s contented affluence at home contrasted sharply with political upheaval abroad. Communism and new nations emerging from former colonies were changing the international landscape. President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles aggressively waged the biggest campaign against communism.

Additional Resources for Teacher:

·         History of a Free Nation, pp. 877–884, pp. 890–897, 899–902, 907–909, 914–917, 919–928, 931–932

·         Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 119–128, 145–178, 190–197

Student Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for the concept (in order of introduction):

·         History of a Free Nation

·         Basic History of the U.S.

·         Source #1 Executive Order 9981, the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces in 1948.

·         Source #2 1948 Democratic Party Platform

·         Source #3 “Checkers” speech, Richard Nixon

·         Source #4 President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock,” (September 24, 1957)

·         Source #5 "One Hundred Percent Wrong Club," speech by Branch Rickey for the "One Hundred Percent Wrong Club" banquet, Atlanta, Georgia, January 20, 1956. Broadcast on WERD 860 AM radio.

·         Source #6 “Death of Emmett Till,” Bob Dylan

·         Source #7 Yalta Conference

·         Source #8 “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Mr. X

·         Source #9 The Marshall Plan

·         Source #10 “Iron Curtain” Speech, Sir Winston Churchill

·         Source #11 Chairmen Mao excerpts

·         Source #12 NSC-68 “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security”

·         Source #13 Truman Address on Korea July 19, 1950

·         Source #14 Truman’s Loyalty Oath

·         Source #15 Senator McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia speech

·         Source #16 Declaration of Conscience, Senator Margaret Chase Smith

·         Source #17 Republican Platform, 1956

·         Source #18 The Constitution and the 25^th Amendment

·         Source #19 Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Exit Speech: the Military-Industrial Complex

Day __

Objectives:

SWBAT explain how World War II had significant economic and cultural consequences. Significant consequences include economic restructuring, inflation, labor, women’s roles, technology, and migration.

Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this lesson:

·         Source #1 Executive Order 9981, the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces in 1948.

·         Source #2 1948 Democratic Party Platform

·         Source #3 “Checkers” speech, Richard Nixon

·         Source #4 President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock,” (September 24, 1957)

·         Source #5 "One Hundred Percent Wrong Club," speech by Branch Rickey for the "One Hundred Percent Wrong Club" banquet, Atlanta, Georgia, January 20, 1956. Broadcast on WERD 860 AM radio.

·         Source #6 “Death of Emmett Till,” Bob Dylan

Review—Key Question (s):

·         How did American leadership in creating the United Nations illustrate the dramatic change World War II had made in long-range United States foreign policy?

·         Why did kamikaze missions pose such a deadly threat to American forces? What does the strategy suggest about the values and patriotism of the Japanese?

·         Analyze Hitler’s strategy for war. After his early victories, where did he go wrong?

·         Explain the importance to Hitler of the 1939 nonaggression treaty with the Soviet Union. Why do you suppose the Soviet Union signed it?

Suggested Key Discussion Points/Questions:

·         Post-war technology changed the landscape of America. The decade-and-a-half after the Second World War witnessed a dramatic expansion of America's car culture. What highlighted America’s car culture? (One highlight is the creation of the Interstate Highway System that is still in existence today.)

·         What does the Interstate Highway System demonstrate? (This demonstrates American hopes for a technologically advanced future, another hallmark of Cold War America.)

·         What was one of the most important changes within the United States that occurred as a result of World War II? (One of the most important changes within the United States that occurred during wartime was change in identity. World War II enabled people to learn about each other and themselves. People of different cultures, backgrounds, ages, and especially genders, who experienced massive changes in their lives.)

o   World War II, for many women, was about what? (For many women it was about gaining strength and mobility. As more and more men left to fight in battle, women started taking over traditionally male responsibilities. As far back as history can tell, women have been limited in mobility and set in particular spaces by society, but war changed all the rules. War very much became a doorway through which women ventured out of the home where they had been confined. During World War II, women in high numbers were asked to work outside as well as inside of the home. For many women, World War II became a symbol of freedom. It was a time where women were no longer forced into the roles society had created for them.)

o   Why were women favored in dangerous war making production? (Women were thought to have better motor skills than men, which was said to be from the common practice of needle work so they were useful with wire fuses on bombs and to fill metal casings with gunpowder.).

o   What happened as a result of more women in war production? (Many accidents resulted in factories.).

o   How many women were injured or killed? (Over 210,000 women were permanently disabled and at least 37,000 lost their lives.)

o   How did life for women, after the War, change? (Life for women was changing. Women had their own money and could do with it what they pleased. They became more independent. War taught them how to stand on their own two feet. Though relatively short-lived, World War II provided a way for women to do what they wanted. Far fewer obstacles stood in the way of women proving that they were extremely capable.)

·         What Civil Rights breakthroughs occurred? (Despite the tendency toward McCarthy-inspired conservatism during these years, minorities achieved significant breakthroughs. Indeed, many minorities used the language of freedom inspired by the Cold War to push for their own increased rights.)

·         What groups were assimilated during the war? (European immigrant groups, which had faced discrimination before the war, were generally assimilated into American culture during the war. They became accepted in social groups and the workplace in ways that would have been unthinkable just two decades prior.)

·         What group began to mobilize? (African Americans began to mobilize their forces for what would become the civil rights movement.)

·         President Truman displayed an early example of this new consideration for minorities.

·         Who was the first president to address the NAACP at its national convention? (President Truman).

·         What was even more important than this symbolic gesture? (More importantly, in 1946, Truman formed the first Committee on Civil Rights to assess the state of citizenship rights across the country. The committee issued a report, “To Secure These Rights” that recommended “the elimination of segregation, based on race, color, creed, or national origin, from American life.”)

·         Read Source #1 Executive Order 9981. Based on these recommendations, what did Truman order? (Truman ordered the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces in 1948.)

o   The process was slow and laborious, and not complete until 1954. But it was a monumental accomplishment that brought black and white Americans together in the close confines of the U.S. military.

o   What did Executive Order 9981 state? (The Order stated that "there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.")

o   What did the order establish? (The order established an advisory committee to examine the rules, practices, and procedures of the armed services and recommend ways to make desegregation a reality.)

o   Who resisted desegregation? (There was considerable resistance to the executive order from the military).

o   By when did most of the military become integrated? (By the end of the Korean conflict, almost all the military was integrated.)

o   What clear signal was communicated about segregation? (Desegregating the armed forces also sent a clear signal that the federal government was willing to challenge segregation in its own ranks. The armed forces became a model example that interracial desegregation could work, something that was not generally accepted before the 1940s. For many Americans this was not accepted until much later than that).

o   Read Source #2. The Democratic Party Platform of 1948. In 1948, what plank did Truman endorse? (Truman endorsed a plank in his party’s platform at the Democratic National Convention that supported civil rights for all Americans, regardless of race, creed, or color).

o   What did the Platform claim as Democratic Party gains? (The Democratic Party is responsible for the great civil rights gains made in recent years in eliminating unfair and illegal discrimination based on race, creed or color).

o   What did the Democratic Party commit itself to? (The Democratic Party commits itself to continuing its efforts to eradicate all racial, religious and economic discrimination.)

o   What rights do racial and religious minorities have? (We again state our belief that racial and religious minorities must have the right to live, the right to work, the right to vote, the full and equal protection of the laws, on a basis of equality with all citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution.)

o   Who was highly commended? (We highly commend President Harry S. Truman for his courageous stand on the issue of civil rights.)

o   What should Congress do to support the President? (We call upon the Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental American Principles: (1) the right of full and equal political participation; (2) the right to equal opportunity of employment; (3) the right of security of person; (4) and the right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our nation.)

o   What are the Democrats pledged to do? (We pledge ourselves to legislation to admit a minimum of 400,000 displaced persons found eligible for United States citizenship without discrimination as to race or religion. We condemn the undemocratic action of the Republican 80^th Congress in passing an inadequate and bigoted bill for this purpose, which law imposes no-American restrictions based on race and religion upon such admissions.)

o   On July 14, Northern Democrats led by Mayor of Minneapolis Hubert Humphrey and Illinois Senator Paul Douglas pushed for the convention to adopt a strong civil rights platform plank and endorse President Truman's pro-civil rights actions. They were opposed by conservatives opposed to racial integration and by moderates who feared alienating Southern voters (regarded as essential to a Democratic victory), including some of Truman's own aides. They were supported by northeastern urban Democratic leaders, who thought the plank would appeal to the growing black vote in their cities (traditionally Republican).

§  In a speech to the convention, Humphrey urged the Democratic Party to "get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." The convention adopted the civil rights plank in a close vote (651½-582½).

o   What was the reaction of many Democrats? (Though many Democrats expressed outrage, civil rights had entered the national dialogue.)

§  In response, all 22 members of the Mississippi delegation, led by Governor Fielding L. Wright and former Governor Hugh L. White, walked out of the assembly. Thirteen members of the Alabama delegation followed, led by Leven H. Ellis. The bolted delegates and other Southerners then formed the States' Rights Democratic Party (“Dixiecrats”), which nominated Strom Thurmond for President and Wright for Vice President.

o   The fight over the civil rights plank was a political launching point for Humphrey. He was elected to the United States Senate that year, and in 1964 was elected Vice President.

o   What does the Democratic Party want to guide them to prosperity, security, a better life, leadership, and lasting peace? (The guidance of Divine Providence).

·         President Eisenhower and the Republicans will also pioneer civil rights breakthroughs as in the 1956 Little Rock incident. Eisenhower ordered National Guard troops to protect students going to school.

·         Read Source #3: the “Checkers” speech by Richard Nixon. Nixon was the first American politician to effectively exploit the new medium of television. We will consider how he did so.

·         At the 1952 Republican national convention, a young Senator from California, Richard M. Nixon, was chosen to be the running mate of presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower.

o   Nixon had enjoyed a spectacular rise in national politics. Elected to Congress in 1946, he quickly made a name for himself as a militant anti-Communist while serving on the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1950, at age 38, he was elected to the Senate and became an outspoken critic of President Truman’s conduct of the Korean War. He also cited wasteful spending by the Democrats, and alleged that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government.

o   But Nixon’s rapid rise in American politics nearly came to a crashing halt after a sensational headline appeared in the New York Post stating, “Secret Rich Men’s Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary.” The headline appeared just a few days after Eisenhower had chosen him as his running mate. Amid the shock and outrage that followed, many Republicans urged Eisenhower to dump Nixon from the ticket before it was too late.

o   If you were Nixon, what would you do? (Various: some might say he should quit immediately to help Eisenhower’s ticket, others might argue that he should deny the charges and fight. In this case Nixon, in a brilliant political maneuver, took his case directly to the American people via the new medium of television.)

o   During a nationwide broadcast, with his wife Pat sitting stoically nearby, Nixon offered an apologetic explanation of his finances.

o   What were two now-famous lines? (One, regarding his wife's "respectable Republican cloth coat;" additionally, he told of a little dog named Checkers that was given as a present to his young daughters. "I want to say right now that regardless of what they say, we're going to keep it.").

o   What did he turn to in the last section of the address? (He turned the last section of his address into a political attack, making veiled accusations about the finances of his political opponents and challenging them to provide the same kind of open explanation.).

o   What has this speech come to be known as? And, was it a political triumph? (Although it would forever be known as Nixon's "Checkers Speech," it was actually a political triumph for Nixon at the time it was given.)

o   What was Eisenhower’s reaction? (Eisenhower requested Nixon to come to West Virginia where he was campaigning and greeted Nixon at the airport with, "Dick, you're my boy.")

o   How did the Republicans do in the next election? (The Republicans went on to win the election by a landslide.)

o   Do you get the impression that Nixon came from a wealthy family or that he was rich at the time of the speech? (No, Nixon demonstrates that he came from humble origins and that he was of modest financial means.).

·         How can a bold decision change the course of education in American Civil Rights history? (President Dwight D. Eisenhower ensured that all students could receive an equal education at Little Rock Central High School).

o   On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education that segregated schools are "inherently unequal." In September 1957, as a result of that ruling, nine African-American students enrolled at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The ensuing struggle between segregationists and integrationists, the State of Arkansas and the federal government, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, has become known in modern American history as the "Little Rock Crisis." The crisis gained world-wide attention. When Governor Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High School to keep the nine students from entering the school, President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to insure the safety of the "Little Rock Nine" and that the rulings of the Supreme Court were upheld. The manuscript holdings of the Eisenhower Presidential Library contain a large amount of documentation on this historic test of the Brown vs. Topeka ruling and school integration.

·         Read Source #4. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock,” (September 24, 1957).

o   Who opposed the orders of the Federal Court at Little Rock? (In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition.).

o   How does Eisenhower justify action on the part of the Executive Branch and the President? (Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President’s responsibility is inescapable.)

·         In what sport was there a popular example of civil rights liberalism? (Professional baseball featured another popular example of civil rights liberalism.)

Satchel Paige, the Negro League superstar, is featured in a 1953 Coca-Cola advertisement marketing him as a spokesperson for a traditional American product. 

·         Branch Rickey integrated professional baseball. Read Source #5.

o   In a radio transcript, Rickey describes the problems he felt he faced in the 1940s, when he decided to integrate major league baseball. He also discusses events that influenced his decision and factors that he thinks will reduce racial prejudice.

o   As we all know, Jackie Robinson was the player who shattered racial barriers when he integrated baseball in 1947. But before he could swing a bat in the major leagues, or even step onto the field for that matter, he had to be signed by someone who believed in equality, who believed that it wasn’t right for America’s sport to be divided by the color of its players’ skin. This man was Branch Rickey, an executive of the Brooklyn Dodgers who initiated the “Noble Experiment” of integration.

o   In a 1956 speech to the “One Hundred Percent Wrong Club” in Atlanta, about 9 years after Jackie Robinson began playing in the MLB, Rickey discussed his decision to end segregation in baseball and the factors he found necessary to achieve this, as well as the obstacles he faced along the way. The first of these hurdles was ownership. In order to sign a black player, Rickey knew that he needed to find an owner sympathetic to his cause to allow integration to occur. In the end, he found that owner: himself.

o   Once he became part owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Rickey was able to move on to the next task: finding the right player to break baseball’s color barrier. This person had to not only be a great player, but a great man as well. Rickey spent extensive time and effort scouting the Negro Leagues for one such player. While there were plenty of outstanding black athletes, Rickey needed someone who would be able to endure the discrimination and prejudice he would face as the first black major league player, someone who would not lose his temper or his cool while facing nearly insurmountable obstacles. He wanted “a man of exceptional intelligence, a man who was able to grasp and control the responsibilities of himself to his race and could carry that load.” This man would have to represent his entire race on sport’s biggest stage, and if he failed, the Great Experiment would be destroyed; indeed, integration itself would likely be postponed for another decade. Branch Rickey went looking for a hero, and what he found was Jackie Robinson.

o   Jackie Robinson was everything Rickey needed and more. Once he found his man, Rickey confronted the next obstacle, feasibility. This included organizing “public relations, transportation, housing, accommodations” etc. These logistics proved extremely difficult in 1940’s segregated America. Countless times, hotels would not accommodate the team or a restaurant would refuse to serve them, and the Brooklyn Dodgers would move on to the next place that would. Ultimately, though, these obstacles did little to deter Rickey from achieving his goal of integrating the MLB.

o   Rickey was also worried about the reaction of the African American population itself. He knew that such a groundbreaking change would prompt African Americans to almost overdo their celebration of Jackie Robinson and integration, thus furthering the separation between races that Rickey was trying to overcome. He didn’t want celebratory dinners or mass attendances; he didn’t want Jackie Robinson to be an anomaly. He wanted Jackie to be a professional baseball player, just like everyone else in the MLB, whether he be white or black or purple or green. He wanted Jackie to be judged by the power of his swing, not the color of his skin, and he wanted this to apply to both the black and white population of America.

o   Lastly, the final obstacle that Branch Rickey had to overcome was one that he had very little control over: the reaction of his fellow players on the Brooklyn Dodgers team. In the end, this proved to be a very small problem. Although it was a gradual change, Jackie Robinson’s teammates accepted him in the locker room. Was everyone his best friend? Of course not, but that would have been the case as well had he been white like every other player. But they supported him and respected him, and ultimately, that’s all Branch Rickey could have asked for.

o   Branch Rickey had a mission. He wanted to integrate baseball, to bring about the equality and acceptance that America was founded upon. He was, in his own words, “completely color-blind”. And, like every man with a mission, he also had a plan. He followed this plan, stuck to it as he dodged blows and jumped hurdles and overcame obstacles, and, against all odds, his Great Experiment worked. Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, and the whole country became a little more color-blind. Just like Branch Rickey himself.

o   In April 1947, Jackie Robinson, a World War II veteran, made his major league baseball debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Aware that his presence would generate hostility, Robinson vowed not to retaliate against racist taunts. As expected, fans threw debris at him, rival players attacked him, and he was often barred from eating with his teammates on the road.

o   Despite hardships, how did Robinson perform?

o   Despite these stressful hardships, Robinson flourished. He won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 1947 and the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 1949, and later he became the first African American inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Within a few years, a number of other stars of the Negro Leagues entered the historically white major leagues, successfully integrating “America’s pastime,” a highly visible aspect of the nation’s cultural life."

o   What were the two problems that Rickey faced when integrating the majors? (N.B. “Negro” was the acceptable term at that time for individuals who are now more respectfully described as African-Americans. The number one problem in the hiring of a negro in professional baseball in this country is ownership of a club. The second thing was to find the right man as a player.)

o   How would the right man justify himself? (“He must justify himself upon the positive principle of merit.”)

o   What about his intelligence? (I wanted a man of exceptional intelligence, a man who was able to grasp and control the responsibilities of himself to his race and could carry that load. That was the greatest danger point of all.)

o   Who or what group displayed disgraceful conduct? (“And, of course, there was disgraceful governmental conduct.”)

o   What group held that men were equal? ("The church has always, and it has been a tendency of the Christian church too to undertake to establish the equality of all men in the sight of God. And to the extent which that prevailed to that extent it became inevitable that all men should ultimately become free. That was the greatest force in the world, - to give every man moral stature.)

o   Playing baseball, as he relates a story, was a call from what? ("I believe that a man can play baseball as coming to him from a call from God.”)

o   Circumstances can violate out citizenship but who is the “Man” of 1900 years ago who lived and died for freedom? ("Character is a great thing to have in an athlete, a team. It's a great thing. And when I wonder if there is any condonation, any explanation, anything that can be done to make an extenuating circumstance out of something that violates the right of a part of our citizenship throughout the country when I know that the Man of 1900 years ago spent His life and died for the sake of freedom, - the right to come, to go, to see, to think, to believe, to act. It is to be understood, but it is too profoundly regretted.”)

o   What else may solve the lack of freedom and racial issues? ("Education is a slow process. It may solve it. It is inevitable that this thing comes to fruition. Too many forces are working fast. This so called little Robinson, - we call it the "Robinson Experiment," - tremendous as it will be for Jackie to have so placed himself in relation not only to his own people in this country, but to his whole generation and to all America that he will leave the mark of fine sportsmanship and fine character. That is something that he must guard carefully. He has a responsibility there.)   

o   What is Tannebaum’s fourth point? ("And fourth, the recognition of the moral stature of all men, that all humans are equal. This thing of freedom has been bought at a great price. That all men are equal in the sight of God. That all law must recognize that men are equal, - all humans are equal by nature. The same pains, and the same joys, and in our country the same food, the same dress, the same religion, the same language, the same everything. And perhaps quite as questionable an ancestry civically in this country on the part of the black men as we can trace many of the forbearers in the white race of the other settlers of this country.”)

·         What massive resistance did civil rights advocates encounter and what was the black response?

o   In the South, black advances were almost always met by massive resistance from the dominant white population. Certainly some white southerners supported racial integration, but the loudest and most agitated did not. African American activists and their white sympathizers were beaten, picketed, and generally maltreated, sometimes even killed. The Brown decision itself had led to the creation of several White Citizens’ Councils, which were organized to defend segregation. The Ku Klux Klan also experienced a revival in the middle 1950s, especially in the South. And parts of the South, such as Prince Edward County, Virginia, chose to close their public school system and their public pools rather than be forced to integrate.

·         A good example of poor conditions in the South was memorialized by songwriter Bob Dylan in his song, “Death of Emmett Till.” Why is a young Jewish man singing about Emmett Till? Read Source #6.

o   Where and when did the incident take place? (‘Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago.”)

o   Where was Emmett Till from? (“When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door.”)

o   What happened? (A black boy, Emmett Till, fell victim to some men who dragged him to a barn and beat him up for no reason, tortured him, and did evil things).

o   What did they do with the body? (“Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain. And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.”)

o   Did they find the guilty men? (Yes, two brothers confessed that they had killed Emmett).

o   So they were convicted? (No, the trial was a mockery and the jury found them innocent and the brothers went free).

o   What is Jim Crow? (Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. All were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Democratic-dominated state legislatures after the Reconstruction period. The laws were enforced until 1965.)

o   What could happen if things change? (“This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man; that this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give, we could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.”)

o   Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was a young African-American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African-Americans in the United States.

o   Till was born and raised in Chicago. During summer vacation he was visiting relatives and spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Till was accused of flirting with or whistling at Bryant. Decades later, Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated part of the testimony regarding her interaction with Till, specifically the portion where she accused Till of grabbing her waist and uttering obscenities. Till's interaction with Bryant, perhaps unwittingly, violated the strictures of conduct for an African-American male interacting with a white woman in the Jim Crow era.

o   Several nights after the store incident, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam went armed to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted the boy. They took him away and beat and mutilated him before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river.

o   Till's body was returned to Chicago where his mother insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket. The open-coffin funeral exposed the world to more than her son Emmett Till's bloated, mutilated body. Her decision focused attention not only on U.S. racism and the barbarism of lynching but also on the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy.

o   What happened to his killers? In September 1955, Bryant and Milam were acquitted by an all-white jury of Till's kidnapping and murder. Protected against double jeopardy, or a re-trial, the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with Look magazine that they had killed Till.

o   Was that the end or the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement?

o   Till's murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement. In December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott began in Alabama and lasted more than a year, resulting eventually in a US Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional. According to historians, events surrounding Emmett Till's life and death continue to resonate.

Follow-up/Assessment Questions:

·         What significant social changes had occurred in American society after World War II?

·         What were racial relations like in the post-War period?

·         How had sports changed American society?

·         How had Eisenhower and the federal government intervened in school integration?

·         How had television changed American politics?

·         How had civil rights advocates changed an American party platform?

·         How had the war encouraged integration of the armed services?

Prompt Question for Next Lesson:

·         How will political deals contribute to Communist tyranny in Eastern Europe?

·         What role did diplomacy and compromise play?

Day __

Objectives:

·         SWBAT explain that rather than confronting the Soviet Union the U.S. adopted a policy of containment to stop further communist expansion.

·         SWBAT explain communism v. individual rights, containment, economic aid, and military presence.

Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this lesson:

·         Source #7 Yalta Conference

·         Source #8 “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Mr. X

·         Source #9 The Marshall Plan

·         Source #10 “Iron Curtain” Speech, Sir Winston Churchill

Review—Key Question (s):

·         How had the international scene changed at the conclusion of World War II?

Suggested Key Discussion Points/Questions:

·         What was the Yalta Conference? Read Source #7.

o   The Yalta Conference was held from 4 to 11 February 1945 and was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the Big Three, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union for the purpose of discussing Germany and Europe’s postwar reorganization. The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively.

o   What conclusion about a world organization was reached? (That a United Nations conference on the proposed world organization should be summoned for Wednesday, 25 April, 1945, and should be held in the United States of America).

o   What nations were invited? (The United Nations as they existed on 8 February 1945).

o   What did it mean by the Associated Nations? (For this purpose, by the term "Associated Nations" was meant the eight Associated Nations and Turkey.)

o   Which two Soviet Socialist Republics also were invited? (i.e., the Ukraine and White Russia.)

o   Who will be consulted? (The Government of China and the French Provisional Government in regard to decisions taken at the present conference concerning the proposed world organization.)

o    How many votes does each member of the Security Council have? (Each member of the Security Council should have one vote.)

o   How many nations will have permanent seats on the Security Council? (Five nations).

o   The five are which nations? (The permanent members of the United Nations Security Council [also known as the Permanent Five, Big Five, or P5] are the five states which the UN Charter of 1945 grants a permanent seat on the UN Security Council: China [formerly the Republic of China], France, Russia [formerly the Soviet Union], the United Kingdom, and the United States.)

o   What do they have in common? (These countries were all allies in World War II, which they won.)

o   What important power do they share in common? (They are also all nuclear weapons states).

o   What important power do any one of the five permanent members have? (The power of veto).

o   What does this power enable them to do? (The power of veto enables them to prevent the adoption of any "substantive" draft Council resolution, regardless of its level of international support).

o   What continent was liberated? (Europe).

o   What last vestiges must be destroyed? (Nazism and fascism).

o   They are to create what? And, where did this principle arise? (They are to create democratic institutions of their own choice. This is a principle of the Atlantic Charter: the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live - the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived to them by the aggressor nations.)

o   What is the Atlantic Charter? (The Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement issued during World War II on 14 August 1941 which defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. The leaders of the United Kingdom and the United States drafted the work and all the Allies of World War II later confirmed it. The Charter stated the ideal goals of the war: no territorial aggrandizement; no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people (self-determination); restoration of self-government to those deprived of it; reduction of trade restrictions; global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all; freedom from fear and want; freedom of the seas; and abandonment of the use of force, as well as disarmament of aggressor nations. Adherents of the Atlantic Charter signed the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942, which became the basis for the modern United Nations).

o   What country was ordered to pay reparations? (Germany).

o   What country was restored? (Poland).

o   What country was ordered to war against Japan? (The Soviet Union).

·          

·         W

o   What was the aim of the conference? The aim of the conference was to shape a post-war peace that represented not just a collective security order but a plan to give self-determination to the liberated peoples of post-Nazi Europe.

o   Why did Yalta became a subject of intense controversy? How did political deals contribute to Communist tyranny in Eastern Europe? (The Yalta agreements were attacked as a “sellout,” at the time it seemed vital to keep the Soviet Union from making a separate peace with Germany when American and British forces were still fighting in the west. Even more important, the United States wanted Soviet support in the war against Japan.)

o   Before the atomic bomb was successfully tested, American military experts expected that defeating Japan would take another 18 months.

o   American diplomats also suspected that Stalin’s agreement to free elections in Eastern Europe was not sincere.

o   But with Soviet troops already in those nations, Roosevelt felt that this loose agreement was the best he could do.

o   He had faith in the further world organization and in his personal relationship with Stalin to solve any problems that might arise.   

o   Yalta was the second of three major wartime conferences among the Big Three.

o   A conference in Moscow in October 1944, not attended by President Roosevelt, between Churchill and Stalin carved up Europe into Western and Soviet spheres of influence. The people living in those spheres were not consulted neither did they vote about the decisions made.

o   General Charles de Gaulle was not present at either the Yalta or Potsdam conferences; a diplomatic slight that was the occasion for deep and lasting resentment. De Gaulle attributed his exclusion from Yalta to the longstanding personal antagonism towards him of Roosevelt, although the Soviet Union had also objected to his inclusion as a full participant. But the absence of French representation at Yalta also meant that extending an invitation for De Gaulle to attend the Potsdam Conference would have been highly problematic; as he would then have felt honor-bound to insist that all issues agreed at Yalta in his absence would have had to be re-opened.

o   By the time FDR realized he had failed at Yalta, it was too late to do anything about it. On March 23, 1945, nineteen days before he died, President Roosevelt confided to Anna Rosenberg, “Averell [Harriman] is right. We can’t do business with Stalin. He has broken every one of the promises he made at Yalta.” In other words, FDR had really believed that Stalin would keep his promises and treaty engagements.

·         What was the first significant confrontation of the Cold War? (The Berlin Blockade
The first significant confrontation of the Cold War developed in Germany. The Allies from World War II had agreed to divide postwar Germany into four occupation zones [one for the United States, one for the Soviet Union, one for Great Britain, and one for France]. The capital city of Berlin [which sat directly in the center of the Soviet zone] was similarly divided into four zones, one for each member. In February 1948, the Americans, British, and French met in London to plan the economic reconstruction of their zones, and, on June 23, 1948, they announced the extension of the West German currency, the Deutschmark, into West Berlin in an effort to sew together the nation in the name of Western democracy and capitalism.)

o   What did Stalin fear? (Fearing too much Western influence, Stalin was not prepared to allow this currency into the heart of the Soviet zone, so on June 24, the Soviets blockaded West Berlin, preventing food and supplies from entering the non-Soviet sections of the city. This was the first “battle” of the Cold War.)

o   The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies’ railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche Mark from West Berlin.

o   The Western Allies organized the Berlin airlift (26 June 1948–30 September 1949) to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin, a difficult feat given the size of the city's population. Aircrews from the United States Air Force, the Royal Air Force, the French Air Force, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and the South African Air Force flew over 200,000 sorties in one year, providing to the West Berliners up to 12,941 tons of necessities in a day, such as fuel and food, with the original plan being to lift 3,475 tons of supplies. However, by the end of the airlift, that number was often met twofold. The Soviets did not disrupt the airlift for fear this might lead to open conflict, even though they far outnumbered the allies in Germany and especially Berlin.

o   By the spring of 1949, the airlift was clearly succeeding, and by April it was delivering more cargo than had previously been transported into the city by rail. On 12 May 1949, the USSR lifted the blockade of West Berlin, although for a time the U.S., U.K and France continued to supply the city by air anyway because they were worried that the Soviets were simply going to resume the blockade and were only trying to disrupt western supply lines. The Berlin Blockade served to highlight the competing ideological and economic visions for postwar Europe and was the first major multinational skirmish of the cold war.

o   On 15 April 1949, the Soviet news agency TASS reported a willingness by the Soviets to lift the blockade. The next day, the US State Department stated that the "way appears clear" for the blockade to end. Soon afterwards, the four powers began serious negotiations, and a settlement was reached on Western terms.

·         Read Source #8 published anonymously by Mr. X for Foreign Affairs entitled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” and later identified as State Department official George Kennan. He used the pseudonym “Mr. X,” to publish the article in the July edition. The article focused on Kennan’s call for a policy of containment toward the Soviet Union and established the foundation for much of America’s early Cold War foreign policy.

o   In February 1946, Kennan, then serving as the U.S. charge d’affaires in Moscow, wrote his famous “long telegram” to the Department of State. In the missive, he condemned the communist leadership of the Soviet Union and called on the United States to forcefully resist Russian expansion.

o   Encouraged by friends and colleagues, Kennan refined the telegram into an article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Kennan signed the article “Mr. X” to avoid any charge that he was presenting official U.S. government policy, but nearly everyone in the Department of State and White House recognized the piece as Kennan’s work.

o   In the article, Kennan explained that the Soviet Union’s leaders were determined to spread the communist doctrine around the world, but were also extremely patient and pragmatic in pursuing such expansion.

o   In the “face of superior force,” Kennan said, the Russians would retreat and wait for a more propitious moment. The West, however, should not be lulled into complacency by temporary Soviet setbacks.

o   What did Kennan claim about Soviet foreign policy? (Kennan claimed their policy, “is a fluid stream which moves constantly, wherever it is permitted to move, toward a given goal.”).

o   What advice did Kennan recommend for the terms of U.S. foreign policy? (Kennan’s advice was clear: “The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”).

o   According to communism, what is the nefarious capitalist system of production? (“The capitalist system of production is a nefarious one which inevitable leads to the exploitation of the working class by the capital-owning class and is incapable of developing adequately the economic resources of society or of distributing fairly the material good produced by human labor; (c) that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction and must, in view of the inability of the capital-owning class to adjust itself to economic change, result eventually and inescapably in a revolutionary transfer of power to the working class; and (d) that imperialism, the final phase of capitalism, leads directly to war and revolution.”)

o   What was an opposing element to the communalistic New Economic Policy? (“The individual peasant who, in his own small way, was also a private producer.”)

o   Did Lenin or Stalin believe in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of compromise? (No, they were insecure, did not tolerate rival political forces in the sphere of power which they coveted, they were fanatics, too fierce and too jealous to envisage any permanent sharing of power).

o   Was the Communist Party to be individual or collective? (“The mass of Party members might go through the motions of election, deliberation, decision and action; but in these motions they were to be animated not by their own individual wills but by the awesome breath of the Party leadership and the over-brooding presence of ‘the word.’").

o   What should be the main element of United States policy? (“In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”)

o   What practical containment policy should be pursued by the U.S.? (“The Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence.”).

o   What is a fair test of national quality? (“Surely, there was never a fairer test of national quality than this. In the light of these circumstances, the thoughtful observer of Russian-American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.”)

o   What was the reaction to the article and how influential was it? (Kennan’s article created a sensation in the United States, and the term “containment” instantly entered the Cold War lexicon.)

o   The administration of President Harry S. Truman embraced Kennan’s philosophy.

o   In the next few years, in particular what was one organization, which attempted to “contain” Soviet expansion? (Through a variety of programs, but including the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] in 1949.)

o   NATO successfully brought the establishment in peacetime of an integrated command that was unique in the history of military alliances. It brought the commitment of six American divisions to the Continent, the rearmament of West Germany and a general buildup. Despite ups and downs, that buildup finally has multiplied by five the number of divisions, by ten the number of modern aircraft available for Europe's defense since 1949.

o   Kennan’s star rose quickly in the Department of State and in 1952 he was named U.S. ambassador to Russia.

o   By the 1960s, with the United States hopelessly mired in the Vietnam War, Kennan began to question some of his own basic assumptions in the “Mr. X” article and became a vocal critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

o   In particular, he criticized U.S. policymakers during the 1950s and 1960s for putting too much emphasis on the military containment of the Soviet Union, rather than on political and economic programs.

·         Read Source #9. What was the Marshall Plan? (On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe.)

o   According to the Plan, what should the U.S. assist and what was it against? (The Plan stated: “It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world . . . . Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.”)

o   What did the Plan lead to? (It led to the creation of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation [OEEC] on 16 April 1948, in order to meet Marshall's request for "some agreement among the countries of Europe as to the requirements of the situation and the part those countries themselves will take".)

o   What was the mandate? (The mandate of the OEEC was to continue work on a joint recovery program and in particular to supervise the distribution of aid. In 1961, the OEEC evolved to become the OECD.)

o   What was Marshall awarded? (General Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for his role as architect and advocate of the Marshall Plan.)

o   What happened shortly after the Marshall Plan was unveiled? (Shortly after the Marshall Plan was unveiled, Moscow declared that Soviet-occupied countries would not be permitted to take American funds.)

o   What was Stalin afraid of? (Stalin was afraid that capitalism and democracy might stimulate anti-Soviet governments to form along its border, threatening Soviet security. In 1948, Stalin consolidated his control of Eastern Europe by ousting the last eastern European government not dominated by communists in Czechoslovakia.)

o   In response what did the Soviets formalize? (In 1955, the members of this union formalized their organization with the Warsaw Pact. The sides were beginning to harden. Disagreement and suspicion were turning into an armed standoff.)

o   Was communism advancing or was the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin just trying to protect his nation from European invasion?

o   Despite Stalin’s declarations, the United States saw communism on the march. In a “long telegram” drafted in 1946 by George F. Kennan, the senior American diplomat stationed in Moscow, the Americans developed a response to communist expansion that came to be called containment. As the policy of containment went into effect, it was clear the United States was not only in an ideological war with communism and the Soviet Union, but was also willing to back it up with military might and economic support.

o   The post-World War II reconstruction of Western Europe was one of the greatest economic policy and foreign policy successes of this century. "Folk wisdom" assigns a major role in successful reconstruction to the Marshall Plan: the program that transferred some $13 billion to Europe in the years 1948-51. The Marshall Plan did play a major role in setting the stage for post-World War II Western Europe's rapid growth. The conditions attached to Marshall Plan aid pushed European political economy in a direction that left its post World War II "mixed economies" with more "market" and less "controls" in the mix.

·         Read Source #10 about the “iron curtain.” What is the iron curtain? (The Iron Curtain was the name for the physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and its allied states. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union, while on the west side were the countries that were allied to the United States or nominally neutral.)

o   Separate international economic and military alliances were developed on each side of the Iron Curtain: member countries are in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact, with the Soviet Union as the leading state; opposing countries are in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with the United States as the pre-eminent power.

o   Physically, the Iron Curtain took the form of border defenses between the countries of Europe in the middle of the continent. The most notable border was marked by the Berlin Wall and its Checkpoint Charlie, which served as a symbol of the Curtain as a whole.

o   The use of the term iron curtain as a metaphor for strict separation goes back at least as far as the early 19th century. It originally referred to fireproof curtains in theaters. Although its popularity as a Cold War symbol is attributed to its use in a speech Winston Churchill gave on the 5 March 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels had already used the term in reference to the Soviet Union.

o   According to Churchill, what civilization is at peril against communism? (Christian civilization).

o   What policy will not work? (“Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement.”)

o   What do the Russian and their allies admire? (“From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength.”).

o   What do they not have respect for? (“there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness.”).

o   What doctrine will not work? (“the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength.”).

Follow-up/Assessment Questions:

·         How was the world split up during the Cold War?

·         How did the Allies seek to support Europe during the Cold War?

·         What was the policy of containment?

·         Did Yalta favor the Allies or the Soviet Union?

Prompt Question for Next Lesson:

·         How was communism appealing and how did the U.S. react to its spread?

Day __

Objectives:

·         SWBAT explain the appeal of Communism to those living under monarchial and colonial oppression. Thus, Communists were able to take control of countries.

·         SWBAT how military campaigns to spread communism led to war.

·         SWBAT Concept: The threat communism posed to self-government and the presence of communist agents in the U.S. precipitated a Red Scare.

Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this lesson:

·         Resources

·         History of a Free Nation, pp. 891–892, 899–902

·         Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 148–150, 159–169

·         Source #11 Chairmen Mao excerpts

·         Source #12 NSC-68 “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security”

·         Source #13 Truman Address on Korea July 19, 1950

Review—Key Question (s):

·         Did the United States military and diplomatic experts advise to defend every nation or were some outside the “defense perimeter” of the United States?

·         Either because of great costs of defense or withdrawing troops does the action of withdrawal lead to peace? In 1949, the United States withdrew most of its troops from Korea. Did this move prove to be an invitation to communist aggression after Yalta?  

Suggested Key Discussion Points/Questions:

·         Feeling threatened by Western powers, the Soviet Union wanted to create a buffer, or safely zone, on its western border. Soviet troops stationed there ensured that the nations of Eastern Europe would remain its allies.

·         The Communists promised to abolish poverty, privilege, and private property. They guaranteed productive work, shelter, education, health care, and a classless society in the new “people’s democracies” of war-torn Eastern Europe.

·         Since the early 1930s, a civil war between the nationalist government and the Communists had ravaged China. During World War II, both sides stopped fighting one another and fought the Japanese. In the war against Japan, Mao’s Communists grew to be a strong guerrilla force.

o   What was the Little Red Book? (The Little Red Book - or, to give its full title, Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong - contains 267 aphorisms from the Communist Chinese leader, covering subjects such as class struggle, "correcting mistaken ideas" and the "mass line", a key tenet of Mao Zedong’s Thought.)

o   What is the mass line? The mass line is the political, organizational and leadership method developed by Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Chinese revolution. The essential element of the mass line is consulting the masses, interpreting their suggestions within the framework of Marxism-Leninism, and then enforcing the resulting policies.

o   Mao developed the mass line into a coherent organizing methodology that encompasses philosophy, strategy, tactics, leadership, and organizational theory that has been applied by many communists subsequent to the Chinese revolution. Chinese communist leaders generally attribute their conquest of power to the faithful pursuit of effective "mass line" tactics, and a "correct" mass line is supposed to be the essential prerequisite for the full consolidation of power.

·         Read Source #11 Chairman Mao excerpts.

o Who or what is the sole motive force in history? (The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.” Cf. "On Coalition Government" [April 24, 1945], Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 257. “The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge. Cf. "Preface and Postscript to Rural Surveys" [March and April 1941], Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 12.)

o   Who does the mass line rely on? To improve the mass line what needs to be carried out? (“We have always maintained that the revolution must rely on the masses of the people, on everybody's taking a hand, and have opposed relying merely on a few persons issuing orders. . . . How can everyone be expected to get moving and how can anything be done well? To solve this problem the basic thing is, of course, to carry out ideological education on the mass line, but at the same time we must teach these comrades many concrete methods of work.” Cf. "A Talk to the Editorial Staff of the Shansi-Suiyuan Daily" [April 2, 1948], Selected Works, Vol. IV, pp. 241-42.).

o What areas supported Mao the most and from what class? (“The present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China's central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. Cf. "Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" [March 1927], Selected Works, Vol. I, pp. 23-24. “The high tide of social transformation in the countryside, the high tide of co-operation, has already reached some places and will soon sweep over the whole country. It is a vast socialist revolutionary movement involving a rural population of more than 800 million, and it has extremely great and worldwide significance. . . . Shortcomings or mistakes found among the cadres and the peasants can be remedied or overcome provided we give them positive help.” Cf. On the Question of Agricultural Co-operation [July 31, 1955], 3rd ed., p. 1.).

o Is Maoism an individual or a collective idea? (“To link oneself with the masses, one must act in accordance with the needs and wishes of the masses. All work done for the masses must start from their needs and not from the desire of any individual, however well-intentioned.”)

o Why do the masses think their collective ideas are their own individual idea? (In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily "from the masses, to the masses". This means: take the ideas of the masses [scattered and unsystematic ideas] and concentrate them [through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas], then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge. Cf. "The United Front in Cultural Work" [October 30, 1944], Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 119.).

o   Mao’s ideas start from what problems but advance to what action? (“We should pay close attention to the well being of the masses, from the problems of land and labour to those of fuel, rice, cooking oil and salt.... All such problems concerning the well being of the masses should be placed on our agenda. We should discuss them, adopt and carry out decisions and check up on the results. We should help the masses to realize that we represent their interests and that our lives are intimately bound up with theirs. We should help them to proceed from these things to an understanding of the higher tasks which we have put forward, the tasks of the revolutionary war, so that they will support the revolution and spread it throughout the country, respond to our political appeals and fight to the end for victory in the revolution.” Cf. "Be Concerned with the Well-Being of the Masses, Pay Attention to Methods of Work" [January 27, 1934], Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 149.).

o   Through his promise of land reform, as well as military and political pressure, Mao’s forces were able to extend their control over much of mainland China. The civil war of the 1930s had greatly weakened the Nationalists, and the Japanese controlled most of the cities that had been centers of nationalist support.

·         From an American perspective, the "loss of China" refers, in U.S. political discourse, to the unexpected Communist Party takeover of mainland China from the American-backed Nationalists in 1949, and therefore the loss of China to communism.”

o   During World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt had assumed that China, under Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership, would become a great power after the war, along with the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. Roosevelt's lack of sufficient material support to Chiang Kai-shek during the war against Japan in the 1930s and 1940s and his deplorable choices of U.S. diplomatic emissaries to China contributed to the failure of Roosevelt's policy.

o   According to historian Arthur Waldron, "Franklin Roosevelt thought of China as a power already securely held by [Chiang Kai-shek]." Chiang Kai-shek's hold on power was, however, tenuous, and "once the Japanese were defeated, China would become a power vacuum, tempting to Moscow, and beyond the capability of the Nationalists to control. In that sense, the collapse of China into communism was aided by the incompetence of Roosevelt’s policy."

o   The "loss of China" was portrayed by critics of the Truman Administration as an "avoidable catastrophe". It led to a "rancorous and divisive debate" and the issue was exploited by the Republicans at the polls in 1952. It also played a large role in the rise of Joseph McCarthy, who, with his allies, sought scapegoats for that "loss", targeting notably Owen Lattimore, an influential scholar of Central Asia.

o   In the early 1950s, the Truman administration was attacked for the "loss" of China with Senator Joseph McCarthy charging in a 1950 speech that "Communists" in the State Department, whom President Harry S. Truman had allegedly tolerated, were responsible for the "loss" of China. In a speech that said much about fears of American masculinity going "soft" that were common in the 1950s, McCarthy charged that "prancing minions of the Moscow party line" had been in charge of policy towards China in the State Department while the Secretary of State Dean Acheson was a "dilettante diplomat who cringed before the Soviet colossus".

·         American leaders were determined to prevent other states from “falling.” A paper known as NSC-68 stated the American diplomatic policy. National Security Council Paper NSC-68 (entitled “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security” and frequently referred to as NSC-68) was a Top-Secret report completed by the U.S. Department of State’s Policy Planning Staff on April 7, 1950. The 58-page memorandum is among the most influential documents composed by the U.S. Government during the Cold War, and was not declassified until 1975.

o   Read Source #12. What did American diplomats portray in the paper? (American diplomats portrayed an uncontrollably aggressive Soviet Union whose program for “world domination” required the “ultimate elimination” of any opposition. Its authors argued that one of the most pressing threats confronting the United States was the hostile design of the Soviet Union. The authors concluded that the Soviet threat would soon be greatly augmented by the addition of more weapons, including nuclear weapons, to the Soviet arsenal.)

o   What did NSC-68’s recommend? (They argued that the best course of action was to respond in kind with a massive build-up of the U.S. military and its weaponry. Sweeping recommendations included to stop the enemy threat included a massive military buildup, the creation of hydrogen bombs, and the rooting out of all communists on American soil.)

o   What did critics think of NSC-68? (To critics, NSC-68 seemed out of proportion to the threat.)

o   However, what happened on June 25, 1950? (Communist powers in North Korea invaded South Korea, thus beginning the Korean War.)

o   What did the National Security Council (NSC) do as a result? (Afraid of what Korea meant for the march of communism, the National Security Council adopted NSC-68 as official policy.)

o   How did the NSC prepare? (To prepare to impede communist progress, it embarked on a vast rearmament plan, increasing the 1951 defense budget from $13.5 billion to $48.2 billion. The Korean invasion had made the incredible—a worldwide communist takeover—suddenly seem plausible.)

o   Was the statement effective? (This document is critical to understanding the Cold War with its effect on similar national security pronouncements such as President George W. Bush’s announcement of a “War on Terror” in September 2001 and the National Security Strategy document of 2002. It is not only related to documents such as the National Security Strategy March 2005, but also provides insight to current US foreign policy. Implementation of NSC 68 shows the extent to which it marked a 'shift' in US policy — not only toward the USSR, but toward all communist governments. By signing the document, Truman provided a clearly defined and coherent US policy that did not really exist previously. Furthermore, it can be argued that NSC 68, as proposed by the council, addressed Truman's problem of being attacked from the right following the “red scare” and Alger Hiss case. Although not made public, NSC 68 was manifested in subsequent increases in America's conventional and nuclear capabilities, thereby adding to the country's financial burden. While NSC 68 did not make any specific recommendations regarding the proposed increase in defense expenditures, the Truman Administration almost tripled defense spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product between 1950 and 1953 [from 5 to 14.2 percent]. President Eisenhower objected to a massive increase in military spending during his farewell speech).  

·         Korea seemed an unlikely place for World War III to break out. It was remote, and it did not possess vital natural resources. But “losing” China to Mao’s communism had taken its psychological toll on American leaders. Plus, just as with Berlin, Korea, which had been controlled by Japan during the war, was divided between the Allies after the war, with the Soviets controlling the northern half and the United States controlling the southern half. The country was to be reunified in 1948, but the deadline passed without the nation coming together. Tensions between the north and the south simmered, and when North Korean forces (aided by Soviet planners) attacked and easily took the South Korean capital of Seoul, Americans felt the need to respond.

o   In the wake of the Korean War, many Americans concluded that the United States could not afford another land war against the Soviet Union and its allies. While still committed to containment, starting in the mid-1950s the United States relied less on open warfare and instead emphasized (1) covert operations, (2) formal alliances, and (3) the presence of nuclear weapons.

o   By 1949, both the United States and the USSR had withdrawn the majority of their troops from the Korean Peninsula.

o   How could the withdrawal of troops have encouraged aggression? (Various: but most students will realize, if not articulate, the historical axiom that `the absence of power creates a vacuum.’ A lack of an opposing military force can embolden a hostile power.)

o   On June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. Read Source 13.

o   What type of language does President Truman use to describe the Soviet Union and other communist countries? (“This attack has made it clear, beyond all doubt, that the international Communist movement is willing to use armed invasion to conquer independent nations. An act of aggression such as this creates a very real danger to the security of all free nations. The attack upon Korea was an outright breach of the peace and a violation of the Charter of the United Nations. By their actions in Korea, Communist leaders have demonstrated their contempt for the basic moral principles on which the United Nations is founded. This is a direct challenge to the efforts of the free nations to build the kind of world in which men can live in freedom and peace. This challenge has been presented squarely. We must meet it squarely.”).

o   How does Truman plead his case to the American people in an effort to justify increased military spending? (“The things we need to do to build up our military defense will require considerable adjustment in our domestic economy. We have a tremendously rich and productive economy, and it is expanding every year. Our job now is to divert to defense purposes more of that tremendous productive capacity–more steel, more aluminum, more of a good many things. Some of the additional production for military purposes can come from making fuller use of plants which are not operating at capacity. But many of our industries are already going full tilt, and until we can add new capacity, some of the resources we need for the national defense will have to be taken from civilian uses.”)

o   Truman mentions the role of the United Nations Security Council in "stopping outbreaks of aggression in a hurry." Does this justify his use of American troops in Korea without first asking for approval by Congress? (Various: but of course students should demonstrate knowledge of the Constitution, how war is declared, and war-making powers along with the check and balances in the document.)

o   America is an example of what? (“Our country stands before the world as an example of how free men, under God, can build a community of neighbors, working together for the good of all.”)

o   How are we to live? (“We believe that freedom and peace are essential if men are to live as our Creator intended us to live. It is this faith that has guided us in the past, and it is this faith that will fortify us in the stern days ahead.”)

o   Who won the Korean War? (Neither side actually won the Korean War. In fact, the war goes on to this day, since the combatants never signed a peace treaty. South Korea did not even sign the Armistice agreement of July 27, 1953, and North Korea repudiated the armistice in 2013.)

Follow-up/Assessment Questions:

·         Did the U.S. or Communism win the Korean War?

·         Was NSC-68 an accurate depiction of Cold War adversaries?

·         Did the U.S. lose China?

·         Why was Mao so successful?

Prompt Question for Next Lesson:

·         How did the success of international Communism impact American domestic politics?

Day __

Objectives:

o   SWBAT the difference between communism v. individual rights, and how espionage, treason, fear, and suspicion impacted American domestic politics.

Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this lesson:

·         History of a Free Nation, pp. 907–909, 916

·         Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 170–178

·         Source #14 Truman’s Loyalty Oath

·         Source #15 Senator McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia speech

·         Source #16 Declaration of Conscience, Senator Margaret Chase Smith

Review—Key Question (s):

o   Why would the success of international Communism make many Americans uneasy?

o   Did Americans, specifically the President and a leading Senator, need to question the loyalty of Americans?

Suggested Key Discussion Points/Questions:

·         What was the second Red Scare (and the first!)?  (As World War I was ending a fear-driven, anti-communist movement known as the First Red Scare began to spread across the United States of America. In 1917 Russia had undergone the Bolshevik Revolution. The Bolsheviks established a communist government that withdrew Russian troops from the war effort. After WW II, the Second Red Scare was a crusade against communist influence within the United States. Its scope was wide and deep, curtailing civil liberties and quelling political dissent from the top levels of national politics to the lowest neighborhood school board meeting.)

·         When did the second Red Scare begin? (The second Red Scare began almost as soon as World War II ended; its prominence paralleled the progress of the Cold War.)

·         Read Source 14: Truman’s 1947 loyalty oath.

o   What did Truman fear? (Fearful of allegations that there were communists working in his government, in 1947 Truman established the Federal Loyalty-Security Program, which investigated the backgrounds of all federal employees and barred hiring anyone who was deemed a security risk.)

o   What did Truman’s attorney general do? (Tom C. Clark, compiled a list of hundreds of organizations that were considered potentially subversive. The organizations were then subjected to investigations. Many state and city governments and private companies emulated the loyalty program and required employees to sign loyalty oaths.)

o   What are the origins of Truman’s Loyalty Program? (Truman’s Loyalty Program has its origins in World War II, particularly in the Hatch Act [1939], which forbade anyone who “advocated the overthrow of our constitutional form of government in the United States” to work in government agencies.)

o   After the war, tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union grew, as did suspicion of workers in every government department. Several advisors, including Attorney General Tom Clark, urged Truman to form a loyalty program to safeguard against communist infiltration in the government.

o   Why did Truman reluctantly institute such a policy? (Initially, Truman was reluctant to form such a program, fearing it could threaten civil liberties of government workers. However, several factors shaped his decision to institute such a policy. Fear of communism was growing rapidly at home, and in the 1946 midterm election, Republicans gained control of Congress for the first time since 1931.)

o   To examine the issue, in November 1946 Truman created the Temporary Commission on Employee Loyalty, which stated, “there are many conditions called to the Committee’s attention that cannot be remedied by mere changes in techniques… Adequate protective measures must be adopted to see that persons of questioned loyalty are not permitted to enter into the federal service.”

o   In March 1947, Truman signed Executive Order 9835, “prescribing procedures for the administration of an employee’s loyalty program in the executive branch of the government.”

o   Why was the Loyalty Program criticized? (The Loyalty Program has been criticized as a weapon of hysteria attacking law-abiding citizens. The Attorney General’s office compiled lists of “subversive” organizations, and prior involvement in protests or labor strikes could be grounds for investigation.)

o   As the Cold War intensified, investigations grew more frequent and far-reaching. As noted in Civil Liberties and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman, edited by Richard S. Kirkendall, “During the loyalty-security program’s peak years from 1947 to 1956, over five million federal workers underwent screening, resulting in an estimated 2,700 dismissals and 12,000 resignations… the program exerted its chilling effect on a far larger number of employees than those who were dismissed” (p. 70).

o   While Truman feared the Program could become a “witch hunt,” he defended it as necessary to preserve American security during a time of great tension. Many Americans agreed with him and applauded his stand against communism and subversion. The historical context of this event is important, for every investigation, every loyalty oath and every questionnaire took place under a backdrop of fear in an uncertain post-war world.

·         How pervasive were loyalty oaths? (Between 1947 and 1965, roughly 20 percent of all working people in the United States were required to take an oath.)

·         How did the foreign policy of containment impact domestic policy? (The Cold War emphasis on containment is often framed in terms of Truman’s foreign policy decisions: the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine in Europe, the Korean War in Asia. Yet containment took on a life of its own in the United States as many Americans grew more and more concerned about Communism on U.S. soil, and even more alarmingly, in government agencies. The rise of McCarthyism in the wake of this fear is well-known. Less discussed, perhaps, is the emergence of a Loyalty Program within the federal government.)

·         It is common today to look at events like McCarthyism, HUAC and the Loyalty Program as products of hysteria. Yet this hardly was the first time the federal government restricted civil liberties in the name of national security.

·         When in American history did the federal government restrict civil liberties? (In 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts as concerns grew over a looming war with France. During both the Civil War and World War I, individuals suspected of disloyalty faced prison. The liberty vs. security debate is a continuity in American history, and even though we live in a post-Cold War world, some of these issues are still part of the discussion in an age of global terrorism. Truman’s Loyalty Program must be viewed and debated with this understanding, and the understanding that historical context drives presidential decision making.)

·         Why was Executive Order 9835 a first? (The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence in the U.S. federal government. Truman aimed to rally public opinion behind his Cold War policies with investigations conducted under its authority. He also hoped to quiet right-wing critics who accused Democrats of being soft on communism. At the same time, he advised the Loyalty Review Board to limit the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] to avoid a witch hunt.)

·         Do Cold War fears during the Truman Administration justify the institution of the government Employee Loyalty Program in a democratic society? (Various but this is the crux of the issue: safety vs. liberty).

·         The Loyalty Order was part of the prelude to the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin. It was mostly the result of increasing U.S.-Soviet tensions and political maneuvering by the president and Congress. The order established a wide area for the departmental loyalty boards to conduct loyalty screenings of federal employees and job applicants. It allowed the FBI to run initial name checks on federal employees and authorized further field investigations if the initial inquiry uncovered information that cast someone in a negative light. Executive Order 9835 also was the main impetus for the creation of the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO).

·         Wisconsin Republican Joseph R. McCarthy first won election to the Senate in 1946 during a campaign marked by much anticommunist Red-baiting. Partially in response to Republican Party victories, President Harry S. Truman tried to demonstrate his own concern about the threat of Communism by setting up a loyalty program for federal employees. He also asked the Justice Department to compile an official list of 78 subversive organizations. As the midterm election year got underway, former State Department official Alger Hiss, suspected of espionage, was convicted of perjury.

·         Read Source #15. McCarthy, on the 9^th of February, in a speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, mounted an attack on Truman’s foreign policy agenda by charging that the State Department and its Secretary, Dean Acheson, harbored “traitorous” Communists.

o   There is some dispute about the number of Communists McCarthy claimed to have known about. Though advance copies of this speech distributed to the press record the number as 205, McCarthy quickly revised this claim. Both in a letter he wrote to President Truman the next day and in an “official” transcript of the speech that McCarthy submitted to the Congressional Record ten days later he uses the number 57. Although McCarthy displayed this list of names both in Wheeling and then later on the Senate floor, he never made the list public.

o   According to McCarthy, what is the great difference between the two Cold War powers? (“great difference between our western Christian world and the atheistic Communist world is not political, gentlemen, it is moral.”)

o   What is the final, all-out battle between? (“communistic atheism and Christianity”).

o   Who also though this? (Stalin stated: “To think that the Communist revolution can be carried out peacefully, within the framework of a Christian democracy, means one has either gone out of one’s mind and lost all normal understanding, or has grossly and openly repudiated the Communist revolution.”).

o   Who has had access to the finest America has had to offer but are the most traitorous? (The State Department: “There are the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths [who] are the ones who have been most traitorous.”).

o   How many are members of the Communist Party? (205)

o   When McCarthy wrote to President Truman how many State Department members did he claim were Communists? (57)

·         The anticommunist crusader Senator Joseph McCarthy stepped into national prominence on February 9, 1950, when he mounted an attack on President Truman’s foreign policy agenda. McCarthy charged that the State Department and its Secretary, Dean Acheson, harbored “traitorous” Communists. McCarthy’s apocalyptic rhetoric—he portrayed the Cold War conflict as “a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity”—made critics hesitate before challenging him. His purported lists of Communist conspirators multiplied in subsequent years to include employees in government agencies, the broadcasting and defense industries, universities, the United Nations, and the military. Most of those accused were helpless to defend their ruined reputations and faced loss of employment, damaged careers, and in many cases, broken lives.

·         Read Source #16. Who protested against McCarthy? (In protest, Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith composed the “Declaration of Conscience,” “condemning the atmosphere of suspicion and blaming leaders of both parties.”)

o   What condition is the problem? (“It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership in either the legislative branch or the executive branch of our Government.”)

o   What parts of the Constitution did she feel was relevant during McCarthyism? (“I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech, but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.”)

o   Instead of thinking as Republicans or Democrats what should be done? (“It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”)

·         What worried Americans? With fingers pointing everywhere, leading Americans grew worried about an insidious conspiracy to overthrow the government.

·         Who was at the center of the controversy? Congressman Richard Nixon, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin were at the center of this storm. For his part, Nixon propelled himself to fame in 1948 by charging former State Department official Alger Hiss with espionage. Although the evidence of his association with communists at first appeared shaky, Hiss was convicted of lying about his Soviet contacts in 1950. Decades later, his guilt is still debated by historians, although most now conclude that Hiss was in fact a spy. Meanwhile, Hoover insisted that communists were everywhere, “even at your front door,” and he instructed the FBI to keep tabs on people who might be associated with communism. In general, his investigations extended to any group that challenged conformity, including liberals, labor activists, civil rights workers, and especially homosexuals.

·         What happened outside of D.C.? The Hollywood Ten were a group of screenwriters and directors accused of being members of the Communist Party and they were blacklisted. There was a collection of names of hundreds of people deemed “subversive” whom Hollywood executives agreed not to hire.

·         During the early 1950s, but also since then, controversy has raged about the extent of Soviet espionage on American soil. For example, on June 19, 1953, the Rosenbergs were executed. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens who spied, with others, for the Soviet Union and were tried, convicted, and executed by the federal government of the United States. They provided top-secret information about radar, sonar, and jet propulsion engines to the USSR and were accused of transmitting valuable nuclear weapon designs to the Soviet Union; at that time the United States was the only country in the world with nuclear weapons.

o   Other convicted co-conspirators were imprisoned, including Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, who supplied documents from Los Alamos to Julius and who served 10 years of a 15-year sentence; Harry Gold, who identified Greenglass and served 15 years in federal prison as the courier for Greenglass. Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist working in Los Alamos and handled by Gold, provided vastly more important information to the Soviets. He was convicted in Great Britain and served nine years and four months in prison.

o   For decades, the Rosenbergs' sons Michael and Robert Meeropol and many other defenders maintained that Julius and Ethel were innocent of spying on their country and victims of Cold War paranoia. After the fall of the Soviet Union, much information concerning them was declassified, including a trove of decoded Soviet cables, code-named VENONA, which detailed Julius's role as a courier and recruiter for the Soviets and Ethel's role as an accessory.

o   Their sons' current position is that Julius was legally guilty of the conspiracy charge, though not of atomic spying, while Ethel was only generally aware of his activities. The children say that their father did not deserve the death penalty and that their mother was wrongly convicted. They continue to campaign for Ethel to be posthumously and legally exonerated.

o   In 2014, five historians who had published works based on the Rosenberg case wrote that Soviet documents show that Ethel Rosenberg hid money and espionage paraphernalia for Julius, served as an intermediary for communications with his Soviet intelligence contacts, relayed her personal evaluation of individuals whom Julius considered recruiting, and was present at meetings with his sources. They also demonstrate that Julius reported to the KGB how Ethel persuaded Ruth Greenglass to travel to New Mexico to recruit David Greenglass as a spy.

o   Over the years, the evidence has mounted that the Soviets did in fact have an extensive spy network in the United States. However, those such as McCarthy and others who accused State Department officials or Hollywood filmmakers of disloyalty were incorrect.

Follow-up/Assessment Questions:

·         To what extent was the U.S. infiltrated with Soviet spies?

·         Which Americans cautioned against McCarthy, doubted his evidence, and had a pang of conscience?

·         Did McCarthy have sufficient evidence for his accusations?

·         Did Truman do the right thing by instituting a loyalty oath?

Prompt Question for Next Lesson:

·         How did America fare with a moderate president who had a limited view of government involvement in the economy? Was there prosperity or a recession? Was there affluence and technological and scientific progress?

Day __

Objectives:

·         SWBAT explain how the politically moderate domestic policies of President Eisenhower allowed greater economic freedom and enabled prosperity.

·         SWBAT explain how advances in medicine, and the need to effective Presidential decision-making, led to the 25^th Amendment.

·         SWBAT explain the military-industrial complex.

Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this lesson:

·         History of a Free Nation, pp. 914–917, 919–928

·         Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5, pp. 190–197

·         Source #17 Republican Platform, 1956

·         Source #18 The Constitution and the 25^th Amendment

·         Source #19 Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Exit Speech: the Military-Industrial Complex

Review—Key Question (s)

·         Why was loyalty to the country and subversion on ongoing concern in the 1950s?

·         What was the ongoing impact of McCarthyism?

·         Why was Communism on going concern in the 1950s?

Suggested Key Discussion Points/Discussions:

·         Explain Eisenhower’s economic policies.

o   A component of Eisenhower’s “New Look” policy included long term changes he wanted to implement in the United States economy.  One of his main issues was that of reducing expenditures of the federal government.  Eisenhower wanted to reduce Truman’s request for the fiscal year beginning in 1953.  One of Eisenhower’s main tactics in going about this was the reduction in military spending.  Although the military was an important aspect of the United States at the time, Eisenhower felt that overspending of national defense was a waste and a self-defeating stimulus to inflation.  The solution to this problem was known as massive retaliation, in which the United States was prepared to use nuclear weapons in the case of an attack.  Nuclear weapons were actually a more efficient use of money than was training the military.

o   Eisenhower’s budget for 1954 reduced former president Truman’s proposed expenditures by $5 billion and he cut the $10 billion deficit nearly in half.  Throughout the rest of the 1950’s the average life style of the American increased.  One reason for this was the transition of more people from urban areas to the suburbs.  Over the decade, the housing supply increased 27%.

o   Also under Eisenhower’s presidency, he decided against any government organized health insurance and also refused to allow tax cuts.  His goal from this was to gain economic stability.  Throughout his eight years in office, the economy grow at an average of 2.4% each year.

·         Discuss the plight of the small farmer in the 1950s.

o   One of the continuing themes of American agriculture in the 20th century is a decline in the number of farms, farmers and rural residents coupled with an increase in the farm size, specialization and capitalization. The two decades between 1950 and 1970 were bellwether years for these trends.

o   Between 1950 and 1970, the number of farm declined by half before leveling off. More farms were consolidated or sold during this period than in any other period in our history.

o   The number of people on farms dropped from over 20 million in 1950 to less than 10 million in 1970.

o   The average size of farms went from around 205 acres in 1950 to almost 400 acres in 1969.

o   At the same time, productivity increased – farmers were producing even more food at a cheaper cost to consumers on roughly the same amount of farmland in the country.

o   One of the main causes of this consolidation of farms is specialization. Large farms are not simply replicas of smaller ones on a bigger scale. The economic realities that allow a farmer to grow also force him or her to change the operation. Large farms almost have to specialize in a few cash crops. Or, to put it another way, specialization allows farms to grow larger. It is both a push and a pull of economic factors that fosters specialization.

o   In 1900, almost all farms – 98 percent – had chickens, 82 percent grew corn for grain, 80 percent had at least one milk cow, and a like percentage had pigs. Given those numbers, it's obvious that most of the farms were diversified, growing all of those items.

o   By 1992, only 4 percent of farms reported having chickens, 8 percent had milk cows, 10 percent had pigs and only 25 percent were growing corn. Most of the farmers who were producing these commodities produced only one or two crops or livestock items. Of the 17 major farm commodities, the average farm in 1900 produced five of them; in 1992, the average farm produced less than two.

o   So, what was happening in the 50s and 60s to promote consolidation? For one thing, the machinery manufacturers that made consolidation possible were finally reaching their potential after being hampered by the Depression and the material shortages of World War II. For another, four wars in the 20th century each strained the supply of farm labor which in turn pushing farmers to mechanize. But most importantly, economies of scale have been a driving force behind the movement toward larger farms and specialization. When a farmer invests thousands of dollars in a new machine that is specifically designed to plant, cultivate or harvest a particular crop, the natural tendency is to raise as much of that crop as possible to realize a return on the investment.

·         Describe the effect of affluence on American life.

o   The 1950s are often seen as a counterpoint to the decades that followed it — a period of conformity, prosperity, and peace (after the Korean War ended), as compared to the rebellion, unrest, and war that began in the 1960s. However, the decade was not without its problems. Many domestic and foreign policy issues surfaced in the '50s that the United States would grapple with in the years ahead. Throughout the country, while many Americans enjoyed the fruits of an “affluent society,” poverty was more widespread than most believed, and the struggle for civil rights by minorities, particularly African‐Americans, became a national concern. Internationally, the Cold War continued. Although Eisenhower initiated the first steps toward improving relations with the Soviet Union, the United States became involved in Southeast Asia and offered pro‐Western governments in the Middle East and Latin America financial and military support.

o   For middle‐class Americans, the 1950s were a time of prosperity. Even with three recessions during the eight years of the Eisenhower administration, the country's per capita income rose and inflation remained low. Americans had more discretionary income, and they spent it on cars, homes, television sets, and an array of other household appliances. By 1960, more than 60 percent of Americans owned their own homes, and three quarters of the households in the country had television sets. Much of this consumer spending was done on credit, with bank loans, installment buying, and credit cards (which were introduced in 1950).

o   The physical well-being of Americans was as good as their economic health. Advances in medicine included new antibiotics and, perhaps most important, a successful vaccine against poliomyelitis, a disease that had crippled millions of children. Dr. Jonas Salk announced his discovery of a polio vaccine in 1953, and four years later, Dr. Albert Sabin developed a vaccine that could be taken orally. With a nationwide inoculation program, polio disappeared from the United States.

o   The influx of people to the suburbs that began after World War II continued unabated throughout the 1950s. Meanwhile, population growth slowed in cities and decreased in rural areas, and by 1960, nearly 40 percent of all Americans lived in suburbia. The growth of these “bedroom” communities, where residents lived on the outskirts of town and commuted to work, meant that the automobile became more important than ever before. As the number of cars increased, so did the demand for gasoline and better roads. Although people were willing to drive or take public transportation to work, they were not willing to go to the city to shop. Consequently, shopping centers became a distinctive feature on the suburban landscape during the decade, and cities' central business districts showed signs of decline.

o   The composition of the labor force changed dramatically in the 1950s. Factory employment declined because of improvements in productivity and technology, while the number of white‐collar jobs in the clerical, sales, and service sectors grew. Although union membership began to drop late in the decade, organized labor made significant gains. The internal strife within the union movement ended in 1955 with the merging of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations into the AFL‐CIO. Workers in many industries won settlements that linked wages to cost‐of‐living increases.

o   The number of women working outside the home increased significantly in the '50s. By 1960, nearly 40 percent of American women had joined the workforce, and married women with school‐age children represented a significant proportion of that number. Women continued to earn considerably less than men for doing the same job, regardless of whether they worked in a factory or office, or in a profession such as teaching or nursing. The fact that so many women worked outside the home ran counter to the myth in popular culture that emphasized the importance of traditional gender roles. Advertising, mass circulation magazines such as Life, and television's situation comedies sent the message that women should focus on creating a beautiful home and raising a family.

o   Although some Republicans hoped that Eisenhower would dismantle all of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs, the president realized that doing so was neither possible nor desirable. In fact, Eisenhower supported some components of the New Deal, such as Social Security, whose coverage was expanded to the self‐employed, farm workers, and military personnel; and the federal minimum wage, which rose to $1 an hour during his administration. However, the president's domestic agenda did reverse some New Deal trends. For example, Eisenhower focused on reducing the federal budget, which included cutting farm subsidies, abolishing the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, keeping inflation in check, and promoting private rather than public development of the nation's energy resources. Despite Eisenhower's concern for fiscal responsibility, he was prepared to increase spending to get the country out of the 1953, 1957, and 1958 recessions. Modern Republicanism represented a pragmatic approach to domestic policy. Committed to limiting the role of the government in the economy, the administration was ready to act when circumstances demanded it.

o   Eisenhower's modern Republicanism embraced two major public works projects — the St. Lawrence Seaway and the interstate highway system. The Seaway, a joint American‐Canadian effort completed in 1959, gave ocean‐going ships access to the Great Lakes. The Interstate highway Act, passed in 1956, authorized the federal government to finance 90 percent of the cost of building the interstate system through a tax on automobiles, parts, and gasoline that went into the Highway Trust Fund. The 30‐year construction program skewed the nation's transportation policy in favor of cars and trucks and resulted in reduced spending on urban mass transit and railroads.

o   In 1954, Congress added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the phrase “In God We Trust” was included on all U.S. currency in the following year. While these changes were subtle reminders of the ideological struggle of the Cold War (Americans believed in God; Communists were atheists), they also reflected the mood of the country. The United States experienced a religious revival in the 1950s, with more than 60 percent of Americans reporting they belonged to a church or synagogue, as opposed to less than 50 percent before World War II. Evangelist Billy Graham, Protestant minister Norman Vincent Peale, and Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen emerged as the spokespersons for the revival, and they used the newest mass medium — television — to carry their message to millions of Americans. Sheen had a weekly television program called Life is Worth Living, and Graham's crusades were later televised as well.

o   Television replaced the radio as the dominant form of home entertainment. The number of television sets in American homes grew from a few thousand at the end of World War II to nearly 46 million by 1960. TV Guide became the nation's leading magazine, and food companies introduced frozen meals called TV dinners. Although the most popular television programs were situation comedies (I Love Lucy), game shows (The $64,000 Question), and adult westerns (Gunsmoke), television in the 1950s was not the “vast wasteland” that critics often claimed. Television proved that it could be a potent force in shaping politics and public opinion. For example, Nixon's “Checkers” speech, which was carried on TV, kept him in the running for vice president in 1952, and the televised Army‐McCarthy hearings proved that the senator from Wisconsin was a dangerous demagogue, a point that was emphasized on Edward R. Murrow's See It Now exposé in 1954. Murrow's series, which ran from 1951 to 1958, also brought the plight of migrant farm workers to the attention of Americans.

o   Drawing the largest audience of teenage television viewers was Dick Clark's American Bandstand, a program showcasing the music of rock ‘n’ roll. Rock 'n' roll grew out of the African‐American rhythm and blues (R & B) tradition when, around 1954, white singers began imitating R & B groups or melding R & B and country styles. Despite charges that it was “race music” and contributed to juvenile delinquency, performers such as Bill Haley and the Comets (“Rock Around the Clock”) and, most notably, Elvis Presley made rock 'n' roll a youth music phenomenon. Rock 'n' roll also helped to bring black artists such as Chuck Berry into the entertainment mainstream.

·         Give examples of advances in medical technology.

o   Penicillin—an antibiotic that’s considered one of the most important medications of all time—was first successfully synthesized and mass produced 

o   The polio vaccine was developed by Jonas Salk

o   The first successful human kidney transplants from a living organ donor and from a deceased donor were performed—and the first successful kidney transplant was also the first successful human organ transplant 

o   The heart-lung machine used for cardiopulmonary bypass was invented; the first successful human open heart surgery supported by this machine was performed in 1953 

o   Battery-powered transcutaneous cardiac pacemakers were developed 

o   Artificial heart valves were first successfully implanted into humans 

o   A Doppler monitor was first used by Dr. Edward Hon to detect a fetal heartbeat—thus initiating the use of fetal ultrasounds 

o   Oral contraceptives (“the pill”) were developed, though not approved for use until 1960 

o   Chemotherapy came into use for cancer treatment, and the chemotherapy drug methotrexate cures metastatic cancer for the first time in 1956 

o   In 1958, researchers identify how hormones can bind to a receptor protein in cells to drive cancer growth, opening up an entirely new avenue of treatment for certain cancers 

o   Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was invented by Peter Safar and James Elam 

o   James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the 3D double helix structure of DNA 

o   Oxytetracycline was discovered, becoming the second known broad-spectrum antibiotic in the tetracycline family, and became mass produced by Pfizer under the brand name Terramycin 

o   The antibiotic isoniazid was developed and successfully used to treat tuberculosis infections 

o   A number of groundbreaking epidemiological studies were published linking smoking to lung cancer; also, results from a major study commissioned by the American Cancer Society were published in 1957 and showed that smoking significantly reduces life expectancy 

o   In 1953, REM sleep was discovered and associated with dreaming, first establishing that sleep consists of distinct stages 

o   The first cochlear prosthesis was invented and first implanted for the treatment of deafness 

o   British ophthalmologist Dr. Harold Ridley implanted the first permanent intraocular lens to correct cataracts

·         Explain the pressures of conformity in the 1950s.

o   During the 1950s, a sense of uniformity pervaded American society. Conformity was common, as young and old alike followed group norms rather than striking out on their own. Though men and women had been forced into new employment patterns during World War II, once the war was over, traditional roles were reaffirmed.

o   Men expected to be the breadwinners; women, even when they worked, assumed their proper place was at home. Sociologist David Riesman observed the importance of peer-group expectations in his influential book, The Lonely Crowd. He called this new society "other-directed," and maintained that such societies lead to stability as well as conformity. Television contributed to the homogenizing trend by providing young and old with a shared experience reflecting accepted social patterns.

·         The Cold War shaped American domestic life in many ways.

o   For one thing, it helped keep the economy hot despite the demobilization after World War II.

o   Fear of nuclear war also inspired both a second Red Scare (usually called McCarthyism) and a religious revival.

o   The Cold War contributed to a tide of conservatism, as many politicians warned that communists had gained a foothold in American political and cultural life and any left-leaning initiative might be the secret work of covert communists. This conservatism diminished some of the momentum of postwar liberals, who believed the rhetoric of World War II had given them leverage to pass their pro-union, antidiscrimination agenda. Despite this, the fight against fascism remained a point of rhetoric for most civil rights liberals.

o   At the end of World War II, Truman saw all the returning soldiers and feared that job shortages were imminent. With this in mind, in late 1945 he submitted a twenty-one-point plan, later called the Fair Deal, which sought to expand the welfare state initiated during the New Deal. The Fair Deal included increases to the minimum wage, federal assistance in building homes, federal support for education and health care, and an attempt to reach full employment through public works. Showing Truman’s commitment to civil rights, the Fair Deal also renewed the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), which Roosevelt had established to end racial job discrimination in federal jobs.

o   After these initial flurries of uncertainty, however, the postwar economy picked up. Indeed, it grew red hot. From 1947 to 1960, the gross national product doubled. Wages went up, inflation stayed low, and leisure activities became accessible to more and more Americans. Comforts such as electricity, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing increased. Many more than half of all Americans were now considered “middle class.” Fears about a distressed economic picture melted away as the American nation successfully converted to a peacetime economy.

o   The new interest in cars combined with a quirk in the GI Bill led to another change in American life: the dramatic growth of the suburbs. The GI Bill made loans available for new homes, but it did not finance the renovation of old homes. For this and other reasons, more and more Americans moved out of the cities to the green ring around them.

o   President Eisenhower had a Cold War influence on highway construction. His experience in WW II necessitated the fast movement of troops which led to an enormous expansion of roads in the U.S. Visitors began more driving to National Parks--and service stations, hotels, and fast food places popped up as a result.

·         Read Source #17: the Republican Platform, 1956. How was Eisenhower both a liberal and a conservative? (“In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people’s money, or the economy, or their form of government, be conservative.” Dwight D. Eisenhower).

o   What was the Republican Declaration of Faith? (America's trust is in the merciful providence of God, in whose image every man is created ... the source of every man's dignity and freedom. In this trust our Republic was founded. We give devoted homage to the Founding Fathers. They not only proclaimed that the freedom and rights of men came from the Creator and not from the State, but they provided safeguards to those freedoms.).

o   What was the economic level? (In four years we have achieved the highest economic level with the most widely shared benefits that the world has ever seen. We of the Republican Party have fostered this prosperity and are dedicated to its expansion and to the preservation of the climate in which it has thrived.).

o   What was their position on inflation? (We will ever fight the demoralizing influence of inflation as a national way of life. We are proud to have fulfilled our 1952 pledge to halt the skyrocketing cost of living that in the previous 13 years had cut the value of the dollar by half, and robbed millions of the full value of their wages, savings, insurance, pensions and social security.)

o   What did they do in regards to the budget? (We have balanced the budget. We believe and will continue to prove that thrift, prudence and a sensible respect for living within income applies as surely to the management of our Government's budget as it does to the family budget.)

o   In government, when there is a division of powers, what is that called? With a division of powers, who or what is of supreme importance? (Federalism, and as stated in the platform: “We hold that the strict division of powers and the primary responsibility of State and local governments must be maintained, and that the centralization of powers in the national Government leads to expansion of the mastery of our lives. . . . The individual is of supreme importance.).

o   What is their taxation and fiscal policy? (Further reductions in Government spending, balancing of the budget, to assure the financial strength of the country which is so vital to the struggle of the free world in its battle against Communism; and to maintain the purchasing power of a sound dollar, and the value of savings, pensions and insurance. Further reductions in taxes.)

·         The United States presidential election of 1956 was the 43rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1956. The popular incumbent President, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, successfully ran for re-election. The election was a re-match of 1952, as Eisenhower's opponent in 1956 was Adlai Stevenson, a former Illinois governor, whom Eisenhower had defeated four years earlier.

·         Eisenhower was popular, although his health had become a quiet issue, especially in the context of the Cold War.

·         After several periods of incapacity due to severe health problems, Eisenhower attempted to clarify procedures through a signed agreement with Vice President Richard Nixon, drafted by Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. However, this agreement did not have legal authority. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in September 1955 and intestinal problems requiring emergency surgery in July 1956. Each time, until Eisenhower was able to resume his duties Nixon presided over Cabinet meetings and, along with Eisenhower aides, kept the executive branch functioning and assured the public that the situation was under control. However, Nixon never made any effort to formally assume the status of Acting President or President.

·         By the 1960s, medical advances had made increasingly plausible the scenario of an injured or ill president living a long time while incapacitated. The assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 demonstrated to policymakers of the need for a clear procedure for determining presidential disability. The new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, had once suffered a heart attack and – with the office of vice president to remain vacant until the next term began on January 20, 1965 – the next two people in the line of succession were the 71-year-old Speaker of the House John McCormack and the 86-year-old Senate President pro tempore Carl Hayden.

·         On February 23, 1967, at a White House ceremony certifying the ratification, President Johnson said: It was 180 years ago, in the closing days of the Constitutional Convention, that the Founding Fathers debated the question of Presidential disability. John Dickinson of Delaware asked this question: "What is the extent of the term 'disability' and who is to be the judge of it?" No one replied.

·         Read Source #18: the Constitution and the 25^th Amendment. If the President is removed out of death, resignation, or inability who takes the office? (Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution reads: “In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President.).

o   Is this provision ambiguous? In the enumerated circumstances, does the vice president become the president? Or, merely assumes the "powers and duties" of the presidency? (Various: the students should grasp the ambiguity and how it needs to be addressed.).

o   What does the text mean by inability? (Various: it fails to define inability).

o   How are questions of inability to be resolved? (Various: the text does not clarify.).

o   How does the Twenty-fifth Amendment address these deficiencies?

§  In Section 1? (Section 1 clarifies that in the enumerated situations the vice president becomes president, instead of merely assuming the powers and duties of the presidency.)

§  In Section 2? (Section 2 addresses the Constitution's original failure to provide a mechanism for filling a vacancy in the office of vice president. The vice presidency had become vacant several times due to death, resignation, or succession to the presidency, and these vacancies had often lasted several years.)

§  In Section 3? (Section 3 allows the president to voluntarily transfer his authority to the vice president [for example, in anticipation of a medical procedure] by declaring in writing his inability to discharge his duties. The vice president then assumes the powers and duties of the presidency as acting president; the vice president does not become president and the president remains in office, although without authority. The president regains his powers and duties when he declares in writing that he is again ready to discharge them.)

§  In Section 4? (Section 4 addresses the case of an incapacitated president who is unable or unwilling to execute the voluntary declaration contemplated in Section 3.)

§  What is the amendment’s only section that has never been invoked? (Section 4: is the amendment's only section that has never been invoked.)

§  What happens in this unusual case? (It allows the vice president, together with a "majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide," to declare the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" in a written declaration. The transfer of authority to the vice president is immediate and [as with Section 3] the vice president becomes acting president – not president – and the president remains in office, though without authority.)  

·         Eisenhower’s opponent in 1956, Stevenson, remained popular with a core of liberal Democrats, but held no office and had no real base. He (and Eisenhower) largely ignored the subject of civil rights. As the country enjoyed peace - Eisenhower had ended the Korean War - and economic growth, few doubted a successful re-election for the charismatic Eisenhower.

·         Compared to the 1952 election, Eisenhower gained Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia from Stevenson, while losing Missouri.
This was the last presidential election before the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii, which would participate for the first time as states in the 1960 presidential election. It was also the last election in which any of the major candidates was born in the 19th century, or were both re-nominated for a rematch of the previous presidential election.

·         Read Source #19: Dwight D. Eisenhower’s exit speech, on Jan.17, 1961: warning of the military industrial complex.

o   What is the Military Industrial Complex? The military–industrial complex (MIC) is an informal alliance between a nation's military and the defense industry that supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy. A driving factor behind this relationship between the government and defense-minded corporations is that both sides benefit—one side from obtaining war weapons, and the other from being paid to supply them. The term is most often used in reference to the system behind the military of the United States, where it is most prevalent and gained popularity after its use in the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961. In 2011, the United States spent more (in absolute numbers) on its military than the next 13 nations combined.

o   In the context of the United States, the appellation given to it sometimes is extended to military-industrial-congressional (MICC), adding the U.S. Congress to form a three-sided relationship termed an iron triangle. These relationships include political contributions, political approval for military spending, lobbying to support bureaucracies, and oversight of the industry; or more broadly to include the entire network of contracts and flows of money and resources among individuals as well as corporations and institutions of the defense contractors, private military contractors, The Pentagon, the Congress, and executive branch.

o   In what spheres of influence is the military-industrial complex felt and how pervasive is it? (Eisenhower states: “This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government.”)

o   What might the MIC endanger? (“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”)

o   Who could prevent these dangers? (“We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals”).

o   What could prosper together? (“security and liberty may prosper together”).

o   In closing, what does Eisenhower express? (“To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing inspiration: We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied. . . . that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings”).

·         What else was happening …
1947     AT&T invents the cellular phone, which becomes commercially available only in 1983.
1950     Danish doctor Christian Hamburger performs the first sex change operation on New Yorker George Jorgensen, who becomes Christine Jorgensen.
1954     Ray Kroc buys the small-scale franchise McDonald’s Restaurant and begins to turn it into the most successful fast-food chain in the world.
1959     The Beatles form.

Follow-up/Assessment Questions:

·         Despite the continued debate between the Cold War antagonists, by 1949, how had the two sides consolidated their positions on either side of the iron curtain?

o   After the Berlin Blockade, the Cold War stalled in Europe; the iron curtain was largely in place. Instead, the focus of the Cold War was shifted elsewhere. Asia was the first stop. Britain and France had huge colonial possessions in Asia and Africa, but after World War II they no longer had the money to maintain those empires. Moreover, the Atlantic Charter had plotted the Allied Powers at least rhetorically against colonialism. This fact allowed an opening for Soviet-backed revolutionary movements.

§  Would these colonial holdings in Asia become communist? Would the United States allow them to?

§  How would nationalist battles in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia threaten Western colonial power and later lead to the Vietnam War?

§  Why did it look to some that the United States was losing the Cold War?

o   How would the conflicts over race in 1950s America would turn out to be dress rehearsals for the massive social changes that would come in the 1960s? More than just civil rights were affected by the changes in postwar America. The political spectrum was colored by the Cold War for the next half-century.

o   What effect did affluence have on Americans who were to have access to greater luxuries than in any other society in the history of the world? Jobs were mostly plentiful, and churches were generally full. But these changes came with some costs.

o   How did the fear of unpredictable nuclear holocaust loom over everything?

o   How were women confined to traditional roles in the 1950s? Women were socially prescribed to remain in the home if the family could afford it.

o   How did government policies entrench racial division? The federal government eased loans for suburban, but not inner city development. These policies made racial disparities worse by restrictions in suburban housing.

o   How did conformity restrict individuals? The consumerist impulse of American life led many Americans to critique their society as hollow and bland.

·         Whatever else it might be, the coming decade, when these complaints would have ramifications, would not be described as bland, conformist, or dull. It is to that subject, “the sixties,” that we now must turn.

Prompt Question for Next Lesson:

·         After two terms of Eisenhower’s traditional Republicanism, 1960 saw a significant change with the election of a liberal, Harvard-trained young Democrat from Massachusetts: John Kennedy. This period was known as “the Era of Camelot” and as such Americans were hopeful for significant Civil Rights advances and an expansion of free market prosperity. How would 1960s liberalism address the pressing concerns regarding student and urban unrest, the war in Vietnam, foreign affairs, and the elimination of poverty?

History Grade 8

Student Sources Supplement __

Cold War Freeze

Source # 1 Transcript of Executive Order 9981: Desegregation of the Armed Forces (1948)

Establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity In the Armed Forces.

WHEREAS it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country's defense:

NOW THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States, and as Commander in Chief of the armed services, it is hereby ordered as follows:

1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.

2. There shall be created in the National Military Establishment an advisory committee to be known as the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, which shall be composed of seven members to be designated by the President.

3. The Committee is authorized on behalf of the President to examine into the rules, procedures and practices of the Armed Services in order to determine in what respect such rules, procedures and practices may be altered or improved with a view to carrying out the policy of this order. The Committee shall confer and advise the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Air Force, and shall make such recommendations to the President and to said Secretaries as in the judgment of the Committee will effectuate the policy hereof.

4. All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government are authorized and directed to cooperate with the Committee in its work, and to furnish the Committee such information or the services of such persons as the Committee may require in the performance of its duties.

5. When requested by the Committee to do so, persons in the armed services or in any of the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall testify before the Committee and shall make available for use of the Committee such documents and other information as the Committee may require.

6. The Committee shall continue to exist until such time as the President shall terminate its existence by Executive order.

Harry Truman

The White House
July 26, 1948

Source #2 1948 Democratic Party Platform, excerpt

July 12, 1948

The Democratic Party adopts this platform in the conviction that the destiny of the United States is to provide leadership in the world toward a realization of the Four Freedoms.

Our Domestic Policies

The Democratic Party is responsible for the great civil rights gains made in recent years in eliminating unfair and illegal discrimination based on race, creed or color,

The Democratic Party commits itself to continuing its efforts to eradicate all racial, religious and economic discrimination.

We again state our belief that racial and religious minorities must have the right to live, the right to work, the right to vote, the full and equal protection of the laws, on a basis of equality with all citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution.

We highly commend President Harry S. Truman for his courageous stand on the issue of civil rights.

We call upon the Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental American Principles: (1) the right of full and equal political participation; (2) the right to equal opportunity of employment; (3) the right of security of person; (4) and the right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our nation. [1]

We pledge ourselves to legislation to admit a minimum of 400,000 displaced persons found eligible for United States citizenship without discrimination as to race or religion. We condemn the undemocratic action of the Republican 80^th Congress in passing an inadequate and bigoted bill for this purpose, which law imposes no-American restrictions based on race and religion upon such admissions.

Under them [the Democratic Party platform] and with the guidance of Divine Providence we can proceed to higher levels of prosperity and security; we can advance to a better life at home; we can continue our leadership in the world with ever-growing prospects for lasting peace.

Source #3 “Checkers” speech

At the 1952 Republican national convention, a young Senator from California, Richard M. Nixon, was chosen to be the running mate of presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Nixon had enjoyed a spectacular rise in national politics. Elected to Congress in 1946, he quickly made a name for himself as a militant anti-Communist while serving on the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1950, at age 38, he was elected to the Senate and became an outspoken critic of President Truman's conduct of the Korean War. He also cited wasteful spending by the Democrats, and alleged that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government.

But Nixon's rapid rise in American politics nearly came to a crashing halt after a sensational headline appeared in the New York Post stating, "Secret Rich Men's Trust Fund Keeps Nixon in Style Far Beyond His Salary." The headline appeared just a few days after Eisenhower had chosen him as his running mate. Amid the shock and outrage that followed, many Republicans urged Eisenhower to dump Nixon from the ticket before it was too late.

Nixon, however, in a brilliant political maneuver, took his case directly to the American people via the new medium of television. During a nationwide broadcast, with his wife Pat sitting stoically nearby, Nixon offered an apologetic explanation of his finances, including the now-famous lines regarding his wife's "respectable Republican cloth coat." Additionally, he told of a little dog named Checkers that was given as a present to his young daughters. "I want to say right now that regardless of what they say, we're going to keep it."

He turned the last section of his address into a political attack, making veiled accusations about the finances of his political opponents and challenging them to provide the same kind of open explanation.

Although it would forever be known as Nixon's "Checkers Speech," it was actually a political triumph for Nixon at the time it was given. Eisenhower requested Nixon to come to West Virginia where he was campaigning and greeted Nixon at the airport with, "Dick, you're my boy." The Republicans went on to win the election by a landslide.

My Fellow Americans,

I come before you tonight as a candidate for the Vice-presidency and as a man whose honesty and integrity has been questioned.

Now, the usual political thing to do when charges are made against you is to either ignore them or to deny them without giving details. I believe we have had enough of that in the United States, particularly with the present administration in Washington D.C.

To me, the office of the Vice-presidency of the United States is a great office, and I feel that the people have got to have confidence in the integrity of the men who run for that office and who might attain them.

I have a theory, too, that the best and only answer to a smear or an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth. And that is why I am here tonight. I want to tell you my side of the case.

I am sure that you have read the charges, and you have heard it, that I, Senator Nixon, took $18,000 from a group of my supporters.

Now, was that wrong? And let me say that it was wrong. I am saying it, incidentally, that it was wrong, just not illegal, because it isn't a question of whether it was legal or illegal, that isn't enough. The question is, was it morally wrong? I say that it was morally wrong if any of that $18,000 went to Senator Nixon, for my personal use. I say that it was morally wrong if it was secretly given and secretly handled.

And I say that it was morally wrong if any of the contributors got special favors for the contributions that they made.

And to answer those questions let me say this--not a cent of the $18,000 or any other money of that type ever went to me for my personal use. Every penny of it was used to pay for political expenses that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.

It was not a secret fund. As a matter of fact, when I was on "Meet the Press"--some of you may have seen it last Sunday--Peter Edson came up to me after the program, and he said, "Dick, what about this fund we hear about?" And I said, "Well, there is no secret about it. Go out and see Dana Smith who was the administrator of the fund," and I gave him his address. And I said you will find that the purpose of the fund simply was to defray political expenses that I did not feel should be charged to the government.

And third, let me point out, and I want to make this particularly clear, that no contributor to this fund, no contributor to any of my campaigns, has ever received any consideration that he would not have received as an ordinary constituent.

I just don't believe in that, and I can say that never, while I have been in the Senate of the United States, as far as the people that contributed to this fund are concerned, have I made a telephone call to an agency, nor have I gone down to an agency on their behalf.

And the records will show that--the records which are in the hands of the administration.

Well, then, some of you will say, and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?"

Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, the Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip, that is, for himself, and his family between his home and Washington D.C. And then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office to handle his mail.

And the allowance for my State of California, is enough to hire 13 people. And let me say, incidentally, that this allowance is not paid to the Senator.

It is paid directly to the individuals, that the Senator puts on his payroll, but all of these people and all of these allowances are for strictly official business--business, for example, when a constituent writes in and wants you to go down to the Veteran's Administration and get some information about his GI policy--items of that type for example. But there are other expenses that are not covered by the government. And I think I can best discuss those expenses by asking you some questions.

Do you think that when I or any other Senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers?

Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home state to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers?

Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers?

I know what your answer is. It is the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem.

The answer is no. The taxpayers should not be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business.

Well, then the question arises, you say, "Well, how do you pay for these and how can you do it legally?" And there are several ways, that it can be done, incidentally, and it is done legally in the United States Senate and in the Congress.

The first way is to be a rich man. So I couldn't use that.

Another way that is used is to put your wife on the payroll. Let me say, incidentally, that my opponent, my opposite number for the Vice-presidency on the Democratic ticket, does have his wife on the payroll and has had her on his payroll for the past ten years. Now let me just say this--That is his business, and I am not critical of him for doing that. You will have to pass judgment on that particular point, but I have never done that for this reason:

I have found that there are so many deserving stenographers and secretaries in Washington that needed the work that I just didn't feel it was right to put my wife on the payroll--My wife sitting over there.

She is a wonderful stenographer. She used to teach stenography and she used to teach shorthand in high school. That was when I met her. And I can tell you folks that she has worked many hours on Saturdays and Sundays in my office, and she has done a fine job, and I am proud to say tonight that in the six years I have been in the Senate of the United States, Pat Nixon has never been on the government payroll.

What are the other ways that these finances can be taken care of? Some who are lawyers, and I happen to be a lawyer, continue to practice law, but I haven't been able to do that.

I am so far away from California and I have been so busy with my senatorial work that I have not engaged in any legal practice, and, also, as far as law practice is concerned, it seemed to me that the relationship between an attorney and the client was so personal that you couldn't possibly represent a man as an attorney and then have an unbiased view when he presented his case to you in the event that he had one before government.

And so I felt that the best way to handle these necessary political expenses of getting my message to the American people and the speeches I made--the speeches I had printed for the most part concerned this one message of exposing this administration, the Communism in it, the corruption in it--the only way I could do that was to accept the aid which people in my home state of California, who contributed to my campaign and who continued to make these contributions after I was elected, were glad to make.

And let me say that I am proud of the fact that not one of them has ever asked me for a special favor. I am proud of the fact that not one of them has ever asked me to vote on a bill other than my own conscience would dictate. And I am proud of the fact that the taxpayers by subterfuge or otherwise have never paid one dime for expenses which I thought were political and should not be charged to the taxpayers.

Let me say, incidentally, that some of you may say, "Well, that is all right, Senator, that is your explanation, but have you got any proof?" And I would like to tell you this evening that just an hour ago we received an independent audit of this entire fund. I suggested to Governor Sherman Adams, who is the chief of staff of the Eisenhower campaign, that an independent audit and legal report be obtained, and I have that audit in my hand.

It is an audit made by Price Waterhouse & Co. firm, and the legal opinion by Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, lawyers in Los Angeles, the biggest law firm, and incidentally, one of the best ones in Los Angeles.

I am proud to report to you tonight that this audit and legal opinion is being forwarded to General Eisenhower and I would like to read to you the opinion that was prepared by Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, based on all the pertinent laws, and statutes, together with the audit report prepared by the certified public accountants.

It is our conclusion that Senator Nixon did not obtain any financial gain from the collection and disbursement of the funds by Dana Smith; that Senator Nixon did not violate any federal or state law by reason of the operation of the fund; and that neither the portion of the fund paid by Dana Smith directly to third persons, nor the portion paid to Senator Nixon, to reimburse him for office expenses, constituted income in a sense which was either reportable or taxable as income under income tax laws.

Signed--Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, by Elmo Conley

That is not Nixon speaking, but it is an independent audit which was requested because I want the American people to know all the facts and I am not afraid of having independent people go in and check the facts, and that is exactly what they did.

But then I realized that there are still some who may say, and rightly so--and let me say that I recognize that some will continue to smear regardless of what the truth may be--but that there has been understandably, some honest misunderstanding on this matter, and there are some that will say, "Well, maybe you were able, Senator, to fake the thing. How can we believe what you say--after all, is there a possibility that maybe you got some sums in cash? Is there a possibility that you might have feathered your own nest?" And so now, what I am going to do--and incidentally this is unprecedented in the history of American politics--I am going at this time to give to this television and radio audience, a complete financial history, everything I have earned, everything I have spent and everything I own, and I want you to know the facts.

I will have to start early, I was born in 1913. Our family was one of modest circumstances, and most of my early life was spent in a store out in East Whittier. It was a grocery store, one of those family enterprises.

The only reason we were able to make it go was because my mother and dad had five boys, and we all worked in the store. I worked my way through college, and, to a great extent, through law school. And then in 1940, probably the best thing that ever happened to me happened. I married Pat who is sitting over here.

We had a rather difficult time after we were married, like so many of the young couples who might be listening to us. I practiced law. She continued to teach school.

Then, in 1942, I went into the service. Let me say that my service record was not a particularly unusual one. I went to the South Pacific. I guess I'm entitled to a couple of battle stars. I got a couple of letters of commendation. But I was just there when the bombs were falling. And then I returned. I returned to the United States, and in 1946, I ran for Congress. When we came out of the war--Pat and I--Pat during the war had worked as a stenographer, and in a bank, and as an economist for a government agency--and when we came out, the total of our savings, from both my law practice, her teaching and all the time I was in the war, the total for that entire period was just less than $10,000--every cent of that, incidentally, was in government bonds--well, that's where we start, when I go into politics.

Now, whatever I earned since I went into politics--well, here it is. I jotted it down. Let me read the notes.

First of all, I have had my salary as a Congressman and as a Senator.

Second, I have received a total in this past six years of $1,600 from estates which were in my law firm at the time that I severed my connection with it. And, incidentally, as I said before, I have not engaged in any legal practice, and have not accepted any fees from business that came into the firm after I went into politics.

I have made an average of approximately $1,500 a year from nonpolitical speaking engagements and lectures.

And then, unfortunately, we have inherited little money. Pat sold her interest in her father's estate for $3,000, and I inherited $1,500 from my grandfather. We lived rather modestly.

For four years we lived in an apartment in Parkfairfax, Alexandria Virginia. The rent was $80 a month. And we saved for a time when we could buy a house. Now that was what we took in.

What did we do with this money? What do we have today to show for it? This will surprise you because it is so little. I suppose as standards generally go of people in public life.

First of all, we've got a house in Washington, which cost $41,000 and on which we owe $20,000. We have a house in Whittier, California which cost $13,000 and on which we owe $3,000. My folks are living there at the present time.

I have just $4,000 in life insurance, plus my GI policy which I have never been able to convert, and which will run out in two years.

I have no life insurance whatever on Pat. I have no life insurance on our two youngsters, Patricia and Julie.

I own a 1950 Oldsmobile car. We have our furniture. We have no stocks and bonds of any type. We have no interest, direct or indirect, in any business. Now that is what we have. What do we owe?

Well, in addition to the mortgages, the $20,000 mortgage on the house in Washington and the $10,000 mortgage on the house in Whittier, I owe $4,000 to the Riggs Bank in Washington D.C. with an interest at 4 percent.

I owe $3,500 to my parents, and the interest on that loan, which I pay regularly, because it is a part of the savings they made through the years they were working so hard--I pay regularly 4 percent interest. And then I have a $500 loan, which I have on my life insurance. Well, that's about it. That's what we have. And that's what we owe. It isn't very much.

But Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we have got is honestly ours.

I should say this, that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she would look good in anything.

One other thing I probably should tell you, because if I don't they will probably be saying this about me, too. We did get something, a gift, after the election.

A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog, and, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore, saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was?

It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate that he had sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted, and our little girl Tricia, the six year old, named it Checkers.

And you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.

It isn't easy to come before a nation-wide audience and bare your life, as I have done. But I want to say some things before I conclude, that I think most of you will agree on.

Mr. Mitchell, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made this statement that if a man couldn't afford to be in the United States Senate, he shouldn't run for senate. And I just want to make my position clear.

I don't agree with Mr. Mitchell when he says that only a rich man should serve his government in the United States Senate or Congress. I don't believe that represents the thinking of the Democratic Party, and I know it doesn't represent the thinking of the Republican Party.

I believe that it's fine that a man like Governor Stevenson, who inherited a fortune from his father, can run for President. But I also feel that it is essential in this country of ours that a man of modest means can also run for President, because, you know--remember Abraham Lincoln--you remember what he said--"God must have loved the common people, he made so many of them."

And now I'm going to suggest some courses of conduct.

First of all, you have read in the papers about other funds, now, Mr. Stevenson apparently had a couple. One of them in which a group of business people paid and helped to supplement the salaries of state employees. Here is where the money went directly into their pockets, and I think that what Mr. Stevenson should do should be to come before the American people, as I have, give the names of the people that contributed to that fund, give the names of the people who put this money into their pockets, at the same time that they were receiving money from their state government and see what favors, if any, they gave out for that.

I don't condemn Mr. Stevenson for what he did, but until the facts are in, there is a doubt that would be raised. And as far as Mr. Sparkman is concerned, I would suggest the same thing. He's had his wife on the payroll. I don't condemn him for that, but I think that he should come before the American people and indicate what outside sources of income he has had. I would suggest that under the circumstances both Mr. Sparkman and Mr. Stevenson should come before the American people, as I have, and make a complete financial statement as to their financial history, and if they don't, it will be an admission that they have something to hide.

And I think you will agree with me--because, folks, remember, a man that's to be President of the United States, a man that is to be Vice President of the United States, must have the confidence of all the people. And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. And that is why I suggest that Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Sparkman, if they are under attack, that should be what they are doing.

Now let me say this: I know this is not the last of the smears. In spite of my explanation tonight, other smears will be made. Others have been made in the past. And the purpose of the smears, I know, is this, to silence me, to make me let up.

Well, they just don't know who they are dealing with. I'm going to tell you this: I remember in the dark days of the Hiss trial some of the same columnists, some of the same radio commentators who are attacking me now and misrepresenting my position, were violently opposing me at the time I was after Alger Hiss. But I continued to fight because I knew I was right, and I can say to this great television and radio audience that I have no apologies to the American people for my part in putting Alger Hiss where he is today. And as far as this is concerned, I intend to continue to fight.

Why do I feel so deeply? Why do I feel that in spite of the smears, the misunderstanding, the necessity for a man to come up here and bare his soul? And I want to tell you why.

Because, you see, I love my country. And I think my country is in danger. And I think the only man that can save America at this time is the man that's running for President, on my ticket, Dwight Eisenhower.

You say, why do I think it is in danger? And I say look at the record. Seven years of the Truman-Acheson administration, and what's happened? Six hundred million people lost to Communists.

And a war in Korea in which we have lost 117,000 American casualties, and I say that those in the State Department that made the mistakes which caused that war and which resulted in those losses should be kicked out of the State Department just as fast as we can get them out of there.

And let me say that I know Mr. Stevenson won't do that because he defends the Truman policy, and I know that Dwight Eisenhower will do that, and he will give America the leadership that it needs.

Take the problem of corruption. You have read about the mess in Washington. Mr. Stevenson can't clean it up because he was picked by the man, Truman, under whose Administration the mess was made.

You wouldn't trust the man who made the mess to clean it up. That is Truman. And by the same token you can't trust the man who was picked by the man who made the mess to clean it up and that's Stevenson. And so I say, Eisenhower who owes nothing to Truman, nothing to the big city bosses--he is the man who can clean up the mess in Washington.

Take Communism. I say as far as that subject is concerned the danger is greater to America. In the Hiss case they got the secrets which enabled them to break the American secret State Department code.

They got secrets in the atomic bomb case which enabled them to get the secret of the atomic bomb five years before they would have gotten it by their own devices. And I say that any man who called the Alger Hiss case a red herring isn't fit to be President of the United States.

I say that a man who, like Mr. Stevenson, has pooh-poohed and ridiculed the Communist threat in the United States--he has accused us, that they have attempted to expose the Communists, of looking for Communists in the Bureau of Fisheries and Wildlife. I say that a man who says that isn't qualified to be President of the United States.

And I say that the only man who can lead us into this fight to rid the government of both those who are Communists and those who have corrupted this government is Eisenhower, because General Eisenhower, you can be sure, recognizes the problem, and knows how to handle it.

Let me say this, finally. This evening I want to read to you just briefly excerpts from a letter that I received, a letter, which after all this is over, no one can take away from us. It reads as follows:

Dear Senator Nixon,

Since I am only 19 years of age, I can't vote in this presidential election, but believe me if I could, you and General Eisenhower would certainly get my vote. My husband is in the Fleet Marines in Korea. He is in the front lines. And we have a two month old son he has never seen. And I feel confident that with great Americans like you and General Eisenhower in the White House, lonely Americans like myself will be united with their loved ones now in Korea. I only pray to God that you won't be too late. Enclosed is a small check to help you with your campaign. Living on $85 a month it is all I can do.

Folks, it is a check for $10, and it is one that I shall never cash. And let me just say this: We hear a lot about prosperity these days, but I say why can't we have prosperity built on peace, rather than prosperity built on war? Why can't we have prosperity and an honest government in Washington D.C. at the same time?

Believe me, we can. And Eisenhower is the man that can lead the crusade to bring us that kind of prosperity.

And now, finally, I know that you wonder whether or not I am going to stay on the Republican ticket or resign. Let me say this: I don't believe that I ought to quit, because I am not a quitter. And, incidentally, Pat is not a quitter. After all, her name is Patricia Ryan and she was born on St. Patrick's day, and you know the Irish never quit.

But the decision, my friends, is not mine. I would do nothing that would harm the possibilities of Dwight Eisenhower to become President of the United States. And for that reason I am submitting to the Republican National Committee tonight through this television broadcast the decision which it is theirs to make. Let them decide whether my position on the ticket will help or hurt. And I am going to ask you to help them decide. Wire and write the Republican National Committee whether you think I should stay on or whether I should get off. And whatever their decision, I will abide by it.

But let me just say this last word. Regardless of what happens, I am going to continue this fight. I am going to campaign up and down America until we drive the crooks and the Communists and those that defend them out of Washington, and remember folks, Eisenhower is a great man. Folks, he is a great man, and a vote for Eisenhower is a vote for what is good for America.

Richard M. Nixon - September 23, 1952

Source #4 Excerpt from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock,” (September 24, 1957)

For a few minutes this evening I want to speak to you about the serious situation that has arisen in Little Rock. To make this talk I have come to the President’s office in the White House. I could have spoken from Rhode Island, where I have been staying recently, but I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to take and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the Federal Court at Little Rock can be executed without unlawful interference.
In that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the carrying out of proper orders from a Federal Court. Local authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition and, under the law, I yesterday issued a Proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse.
This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again preventing the carrying out of the Court’s order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school.
Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President’s responsibility is inescapable.
In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an Executive Order directing the use of troops under Federal authority to aid in the execution of Federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary when my Proclamation of yesterday was not observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues.

Complete text and Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Radio and Television Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock.,” September 24, 1957. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.

Source #5 "One Hundred Percent Wrong Club" Speech by Branch Rickey for the "One Hundred Percent Wrong Club" banquet, Atlanta, Georgia, January 20, 1956. Broadcast on WERD 860 AM radio.

(Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Branch Rickey Papers)

Rickey describes the problems he felt he faced in the 1940s, when he decided to integrate major league baseball. He also discusses events that influenced his decision and factors that he thinks will reduce racial prejudice. This version of the text reproduces the spelling and punctuation of the original typed transcript.

"Dr. May, gentlemen, -- ladies and gentlemen. My plane doesn't leave until tomorrow at 10:35 A.M. and I haven't a thing to do between now and then but to talk if I get the chance, -- and I feel like talking.

"I asked Mr. Lawson and several others today about my time limit, and I think I was rather insistent upon it, -- and I never did get a time limit and I just concluded that I would talk as long as I pleased. I don't know what time you gentlemen have engagements for tomorrow morning's work but I want to talk about a thing or two.

"I feel a little remote, -- the speaking spot is not as close as I would like it. I should like to feel that each one of you were my guests tonight at my own home, and that I could talk to you just as I would if you were there. And I am going to try to maintain that attitude of mine from my remarks that I am very close to you and whether you may agree with what I have to say or not, you will know that I am trying to be intimately confidential and frank about my remarks.

"Now I could talk at some length, of course, about the problem of hiring a negro ball player after an experience of 25 years in St. Louis, -- where at the end I had no stock at all in the club and no negro was permitted to buy his way into the grandstand during that entire period of my residence in St. Louis. The only place a negro could witness a ball game in St. Louis was to buy his way into the bleachers, -- the pavilion. With an experience of that kind in back of me, and having had sort of a "bringins up" that was a bit contrary to that regime, -- milieu, in St. Louis, I went to Brooklyn.

"Within the first month in Brooklyn, I approached what I considered the number one problem in the hiring of a negro in professional baseball in this country. Now that is a story and that could be a fairly long speech. Namely, - ownership. Ownership must be in line with you, and I was at that time an employee, not at that time a part owner of the club. And when ownership was passed, then five other things presented themselves. This is not my speech. I am just giving you this as a preliminary. But I want to get out of the road of this thing, and have you say that, -- well, I wish he had talked about that thing.

"The second thing was to find the right man as a player. I spent $25,000 in all the Caribbean countries, -- in Puerto Rico, Cuba, -- employed two scouts, one for an entire year in Mexico, to find that the greatest negro players were in our own country.

"Then I had to get the right man off the field. I couldn't come with a man to break down a tradition that had in it centered and concentrated all the prejudices of a great many people north and south unless he was good. He must justify himself upon the positive principle of merit. He must be a great player. I must not risk an excuse of trying to do something in the sociological field, or in the race field, just because of sort of a "holier than thou." I must be sure that the man was good on the field, but more dangerous to me, at that time, and even now, is the wrong man off the field. It didn't matter to me so much in choosing a man off the field that he was temperamental, -- righteously subject to resentments. I wanted a man of exceptional intelligence, a man who was able to grasp and control the responsibilities of himself to his race and could carry that load. That was the greatest danger point of all. Really greater than the number five in the whole six.

"Number one was ownership, number two is the man on the field, number three the man off the field. And number four was my public relations, transportation, housing, accommodations here, embarrassments, -- feasibility. That required investigation and therein lies the speech. And the Cradle of Liberty in America was the last place to make and to give us generous considerations.

"And the fifth one was the negro race itself, - over-adulation, mass attendance, dinners, of one kind or another of such a public nature that it would have a tendency to create a solidification of the antagonisms and misunderstandings, -- over-doing it. And I want to tell you that the committee of 32, -- it was called, in Greater New York -- eminent negro citizens, and Judge Kazansky, and my secretary and myself, -- those 32 men organized all eight cities in the National League and did a beautiful job of it. And for two years not one of those things was attempted or done and I never had any embarrassments in Brooklyn. They did have a great trainload of people go to see you play in Montreal and Buffalo and other places, -- and I tried to stop that but I was too late.

"But the greatest danger, the greatest hazard, I felt was the negro race itself. Not people of this crowd any more than you would find antagonisms organized in a white crowd of this caliber either. Those of less understanding, - those of a lower grade of education frankly. And that job was done beautifully under the leadership of a fine judge in New York who became a Chairman of an Executive Committee. That story has never been told. The meetings we had, two years of investigations -- the Presidents of two of the negro colleges, the publisher of the Pittsburgh Courier, a very helpful gentleman he was to me, a professor of sociology in New York University, and a number of others, the LaGuardia Committee on Anti-Discrimination, Tom Dewey's Committee in support of the Quinn-Ives Law in New York state.

"And sixth was the acceptance by his colleagues, -- but his fellow players. And that one I could not handle in advance. The other five over a period of two and one-half years, I worked very hard on it. I felt that the time was ripe, that there wouldn't be any reaction on the part of a great public if a man had superior skill, if he had intelligence and character and had patience and forbearance, and "could take it" as it was said here. I didn't make a mistake there. I have made mistakes, lots of mistakes.

"A man of exceptional courage, and exceptional intelligence, a man of basically fine character, and he can thank his forbearers for a lot of it. He comes from the right sort of home, and I knew all this, and when somebody, somewhere, thinks in terms of a local athletic club not playing some other club because of the presence on the squad of a man of color. I am thinking that if an exhibition game were to be played in these parts against a team on whose squad was Jackie Robinson, -- even leaving out all of the principle of fair play, all the elements of equality and citizenship, all the economic necessities connected with it, all the violations of the whole form and conceptions of our Government from its beginning up to now, -- leave it all out of the picture, he would be depriving some of the citizens of his own community, some wonderful boys, from seeing an exhibition of skill and technique, and the great, beautiful, graciousness of a slide, the like of which they could not see from any other man in this country. And that's not fair to a local constituency.

"I am wondering, I am compelled to wonder, how it can be. And at the breakfast, recently, when a morning paper's story was being discussed and my flaxen hair daughter said to me, "He surely didn't say it." I thought, yes it is understandable. It is understandable. And when a great United States Senator said to me some few days after that, "Do you know that the headlines in Egypt are terribly embarrassing to our State Department?" And then he told me, in part, a story whose utter truthfulness I have no reason to doubt, about the tremendous humiliation - "The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave," - "where we are talking about extending to all civilizations, tremendous and beautiful freedoms, and the unavoidable, hypocritical position it puts us in internationally," "How could anybody do it," said my daughter.

"That night we had a family discussion. It lasted a long time. My five daughters were there, mother was there, auntie was there, four sons-in-law were there, - it was Christmas time. And I said to them what I want to say to you tonight. It is understandable that an American with a certain background, certain exposures in the field of education, would represent a more or less a plausible inheritance in regard to the assimilation, the relationship, the acceptance in our current life of the negro.

"The whole thing as a difference between the acceptance in Brazil, for instance, Spanish and Portuguese countries, and the British West Indies and America, a very remarkable thing, but understood by all historians and all writers on the subject. Portugal was the first one to import slaves from Africa, - took them into Portugal. It was the last one to give up the slave trade. 19,000,000 go into one country alone in South America, - imported slaves over a period of over four hundred years. Now, slavery antedated negro slavery, - oh many years, really thousands of years, before any negro was taken out of Africa. It was an accident, a misfortune, a thing that could be remedied. All slavery throughout the centuries preceded African importation of slaves. It was the result of war, it was a result of debt. There were several things that led to it, but always there was manumission in front of the man. Freedom obtainable. And the laws going back clear beyond Seneca, and Cicero refers to it, - all the way through all those centuries, manumission was a comparatively easy thing. The law of that time, all of it - Plato, the Roman jurisprudence is based upon it, that you can become free. You may be a slave today, - you can be a Moor, you can be a Greek, you can be a man of high intelligence. Slavery was a matter of accident or misfortune. And the Spanish Law, - the Latin nations inherited that law both in its enactment and in its interpretation were favorable to manumission, - making men free. It was not a matter of color at all and the law supported that and the importation of slaves into South America, and all of South America, into Mexico earlier, a few were there subsequently, and in all the Caribbean countries which are now predominant, - all of it came in the line of probable manumission, so that when, say, 90% of all the slaves who had been slaves came to be free in Brazil, for example. Then would come in the other importations and the other men who were slaves. There was a group of qualified free men to take care of the small number, 10%, who were slaves. That was Latin America.

"They had no problems such as we had here in the south following the Civil War, where there was nobody to take care of a great number of free men and no previous free men in the colored race to adapt themselves to those conditions. And, of course, there was disgraceful governmental conduct. Now the difference, miracle that it is, mystery that it is, and yet greed at the bottom of it the slave trade was immensely profitable, - Liverpool was, - I was going to say, was built out of it, and America followed suit on it. And whereas the law that men are equal long before, I say, the negro came into the picture.

"The church has always, and it has been a tendency of the Christian church too to undertake to establish the equality of all men in the sight of God. And to the extent which that prevailed to that extent it became inevitable that all men should ultimately become free. That was the greatest force in the world, - to give every man moral stature. Of course the Emancipation Proclamation by Lincoln made the southern negro slave free, but it never did make the white man morally free. He remained a slave to his inheritances. And some are even today.

"I believe that a man can play baseball as coming to him from a call from God.

"I was in Cleveland at a dinner when I was a youngster, - just out of college, and a man in Cleveland who was called, editorially in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, on the occasion of his death, the foremost citizen of Cleveland, - George Shurtliffe was his name. I never had met him except at that luncheon that day up there in the cupola of that building, 12 or 13 gentlemen around the table, and I was asked to take a job, - a certain job that I had never thought about taking. And I didn't feel that I was qualified for the job, and I didn't no whether I wanted it, - I was quite ill at ease about it, but the strengthened force of the men who were asking me to take it was influential with me. And we had this dinner and Mr. Shurtliffe was asked to come.

"He was identified with the organization in some capacity, and when we had just about finished the meal, - I was sitting the second one on the left side of the table and he was down yonder at the end, he said to me, "Branch," he said, "do you believe in the call of God?" No, his first question was, - "if you thought God wanted you to do something would you do it?"

"I said, "if I knew what God wanted me to do, I think any boy would."

He said, "do you believe in the call of God?" I didn't answer.

He said, "do you know what the call of God is?"

"I said, "I don't know that I do," but I said, "I don't think it is a little bird that comes and sits on your ear and whispers and says to you go do this."

"He said, "I think you are right."

"Well," I said, "Bishop Basford said that to me and it's not original," but I said, "I don't. . . ."

"He said, "would you like to know what I think it is?"

"And I said, "I would," because he was a distinguished man.

"He said that the first thing in the call of God is aptitude. God doesn't want any man to do something that he can't do. He made me define the word in front of those gentlemen.

"He said, the second thing in the call of God is the advice of his friends, and he made me tell him all my friends and we got down from the 8,000 people that had seen that professional football game that fall where I had made a touchdown, - I was a great big fellow, and I couldn't name all those 8,000. I thought they were all my friends. They gave nine rahs with my name on the end of it and it got down to the place where I named my father and mother and then the girl that I had announced I was going to marry. He accepted her. And that made two and then he took a professor in school after questioning me about it. And then he took a boyhood friend that I had grown up with way down in the hills of southern Ohio, - a country boy. He said, no man has more than a handful of real friends under adversity. He said, they are God's angels -- go talk to them. God speaks to men through his friends. Be careful who your friends are. The second thing he said.

"And the third thing, he said, was opportunity. He said, when you are prepared to do something and your friends all tell you that you should do it and then the chance comes to do it, he said, that's where God shows His face. Now, he said to me, and I didn't quite know what the word meant when he said it. And he said there may be some sophistry about that. But whether there was or not, I have used it often. And I have thought about it in connection with ball players. What should they be doing in this thing that emphasizes the physical over the mental or spiritual or whatnot. And what are the weaknesses of opportunity in the field? What are the great chances for moral deterioration on the part of great men who go into this thing where they have been under hours of labor previously and now have leisure time, - the most damnable thing in the world.

"Leisure in the hands of the man who has no creativeness, - lots of young men don't have it. That thing that can write great symphonies, that can write great tragedies in this use of time. I have often wondered where God may come into the picture. There are some boys who shouldn't be playing ball. This chap, and others, - it's a wonderful thing to have a family background and to have something you can hold on to that is basic and firm and strong.

"Character is a great thing to have in an athlete, a team. It's a great thing. And when I wonder if there is any condonation, any explanation, anything that can be done to make an extenuating circumstance out of something that violates the right of a part of our citizenship throughout the country when I know that the Man of 1900 years ago spent His life and died for the sake of freedom, - the right to come, to go, to see, to think, to believe, to act. It is to be understood, but it is too profoundly regretted.

"Education is a slow process. It may solve it. It is inevitable that this thing comes to fruition. Too many forces are working fast. This so called little Robinson, - we call it the "Robinson Experiment," - tremendous as it will be for Jackie to have so placed himself in relation not only to his own people in this country, but to his whole generation and to all America that he will leave the mark of fine sportsmanship and fine character. That is something that he must guard carefully. He has a responsibility there.

"Frank Tannenbaum, in his book on Slave and Citizen, - he is a professor of Latin American history in Columbia University, points out, - I think it is the bible on the subject - it really is. I'm not sure, I'm not sure that legislators ought to drive against a prominent and very antagonistic minority. I'm not sure that they should drive F.E.C. too fast too far. I'm not sure that the 18th Amendment might repeat itself. That you would have an organization of glued antagonisms that would be able to delay the solution of a problem that is now in my judgment fast being solved, and when you once gain an eminence you do not have to recede from it. The educational process is something.

"Four things, says Tannenbaum, is solving this question, with an unrealized rapidity. First, - proximity. Clay Hopper, Jackie's first manager. I've never told it in public. I've never allowed it to be printed if I could help it, took me by the lapels of my coat as he sat there sweating in his underclothes watching a game over on the inside park at Daytona Beach. And this boy had made a great play in the fourth inning and I had remarked about it and the two of us sitting there together, and this boy coming from - I shouldn't have given his name, - forget the name and I will tell you the story. I'll deny that he ever said it. He took me by the front of my coat when in the seventh inning Jackie made one of those tremendous remarkable plays that very few people can make, - went toward first base, made a slide, stabbed the ball, came with it in his left hand glove and as he turned with the body control that's almost inconceivable and cut off the runner at second base on a force play. I took Clay and I put my hand on his shoulder and I said, "Did you ever see a play to beat it?"

"Now this fellow comes from Greenwood, Mississippi. And he would forgive me, I am sure, because of the magnificent way that he came through on it. He took me and shook me and his face that far from me and he said, "do you really think that a '[the “n” word is used]' is a human being, Mr. Rickey?" That's what he said. That's what that fellow said. I have never answered him until this minute.

"And six months later he came into my office after the year at Montreal when he was this boy's manager. He didn't want him to be sent to him. And he said to me, "I want to take back what I said to you last spring." He said, "I'm ashamed of it." "Now," he said, "you may have plans for him to be on your club," - and he was, "but," he said, "if you don't have plans to have him on the Brooklyn club," he said, "I would like to have him back in Montreal." And then he told me that he was not only a great ball player good enough for Brooklyn, but he said that he was a fine gentleman. Proximity. Proximity, says Tannenbaum, will solve this thing if you can have enough of it. But that is a limited thing, you see.

"And the second thing, says Tannenbaum, is the cultural inter-twining through the arts, through literature, through painting, through singing, through the professions, where you stabbed through the horizontal strata of social makeup, and you make vertical thrusts in that cultural inter-twining. That inevitably will help solve this problem, - and be believes with rapidity.

"And third, the existence in our democracy here of a middle class, the middle class in Great Britain, - the middle class in probably every country, I think, that makes secure, if anything does, a democracy such as we know. This group here like this, - these groups throughout America of all colors. That existence in this country will bring it about surely and faster than people know.

"And fourth, the recognition of the moral stature of all men, that all humans are equal. This thing of freedom has been bought at a great price. That all men are equal in the sight of God. That all law must recognize that men are equal, - all humans are equal by nature. The same pains, and the same joys, and in our country the same food, the same dress, the same religion, the same language, the same everything. And perhaps quite as questionable an ancestry civically in this country on the part of the black men as we can trace many of the forbearers in the white race of the other settlers of this country.

"Gentlemen, it is inconceivable to me that in view of domestic tranquility and home understanding that anywhere, anytime, anybody, can question the right of citizens of this country for equal economic opportunity under the law. How can it be? And how can anyone in official authority, where more attention is given to remarks than would come from an ordinary civilian, be so unremindful of his country's relationship that he could bring us into [?] and disgrace. internationally.

"These four things I mention will work, I think, in due time with a sureness that will make possibly the very next generation wonder and look back, as I said that you quoted me in Cincinnati, I had forgotten that I had ever said it look back with incredulity upon everything that was a problem to us today in this country, and will wonder what the issue was all about. I am completely color-blind. I know that America is, - it's been proven Jackie, - is more interested in the grace of a man's swing, in the dexterity of his cutting a base, and his speed afoot, in his scientific body control, in his excellence as a competitor on the field, - America, wide and broad, and in Atlanta, and in Georgia, will become instantly more interested in those marvelous, beautiful qualities than they are in the pigmentation of a man's skin, or indeed in the last syllable of his name. Men are coming to be regarded of value based upon their merits, and God hasten the day when Governors of our States will become sufficiently educated that they will respond to those views."

Ladies and Gentlemen, you have just heard a rebroadcast of the 100% Wrong Club's Banquet, held at the Walnut Room of the Matahara Apartments and tape recorded by Station WERD for presentation at this time.

This is Atlanta's voice of progress, WERD, 860 on your dial. The time in Atlanta is 5:00 o'clock and it is time for "Sounds" from the 860 spot.

Source #6 The Death Of Emmett Till, Bob Dylan

"Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door.
This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what.
They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street.

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just…

Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die.

And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.

I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.

If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.”

Songwriters: Bob Dylan

The Death Of Emmett Till lyrics © Bob Dylan Music Co.

Source #7 The Yalta Conference, February, 1945

Washington, March 24 - The text of the agreements reached at the Crimea (Yalta) Conference between President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Generalissimo Stalin, as released by the State Department today, follows:

PROTOCOL OF PROCEEDINGS OF CRIMEA CONFERENCE

The Crimea Conference of the heads of the Governments of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which took place from Feb. 4 to 11, came to the following conclusions:

I. WORLD ORGANIZATION

It was decided:

1. That a United Nations conference on the proposed world organization should be summoned for Wednesday, 25 April, 1945, and should be held in the United States of America.

2. The nations to be invited to this conference should be:

(a) the United Nations as they existed on 8 Feb., 1945; and

(b) Such of the Associated Nations as have declared war on the common enemy by 1 March, 1945. (For this purpose, by the term "Associated Nations" was meant the eight Associated Nations and Turkey.) When the conference on world organization is held, the delegates of the United Kingdom and United State of America will support a proposal to admit to original membership two Soviet Socialist Republics, i.e., the Ukraine and White Russia.

3. That the United States Government, on behalf of the three powers, should consult the Government of China and the French Provisional Government in regard to decisions taken at the present conference concerning the proposed world organization.

4. That the text of the invitation to be issued to all the nations which would take part in the United Nations conference should be as follows:

"The Government of the United States of America, on behalf of itself and of the Governments of the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics and the Republic of China and of the Provisional Government of the French Republic invite the Government of -------- to send representatives to a conference to be held on 25 April, 1945, or soon thereafter , at San Francisco, in the United States of America, to prepare a charter for a general international organization for the maintenance of international peace and security.

"The above-named Governments suggest that the conference consider as affording a basis for such a Charter the proposals for the establishment of a general international organization which were made public last October as a result of the Dumbarton Oaks conference and which have now been supplemented by the following provisions for Section C of Chapter VI:

C. Voting

"1. Each member of the Security Council should have one vote.

"2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members.

"3. Decisions of the Security Council on all matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members, including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VIII, Section A and under the second sentence of Paragraph 1 of Chapter VIII, Section C, a party to a dispute should abstain from voting.'

"Further information as to arrangements will be transmitted subsequently.

"In the event that the Government of -------- desires in advance of the conference to present views or comments concerning the proposals, the Government of the United States of America will be pleased to transmit such views and comments to the other participating Governments."

Territorial trusteeship:

It was agreed that the five nations which will have permanent seats on the Security Council should consult each other prior to the United Nations conference on the question of territorial trusteeship.

The acceptance of this recommendation is subject to its being made clear that territorial trusteeship will only apply to

(a) existing mandates of the League of Nations;

(b) territories detached from the enemy as a result of the present war;

(c) any other territory which might voluntarily be placed under trusteeship; and

(d) no discussion of actual territories is contemplated at the forthcoming United Nations conference or in the preliminary consultations, and it will be a matter for subsequent agreement which territories within the above categories will be place under trusteeship.

[Begin first section published Feb., 13, 1945.]

II. DECLARATION OF LIBERATED EUROPE

The following declaration has been approved:

The Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the President of the United States of America have consulted with each other in the common interests of the people of their countries and those of liberated Europe. They jointly declare their mutual agreement to concert during the temporary period of instability in liberated Europe the policies of their three Governments in assisting the peoples liberated from the domination of Nazi Germany and the peoples of the former Axis satellite states of Europe to solve by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems.

The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national economic life must be achieved by processes which will enable the liberated peoples to destroy the last vestiges of nazism and fascism and to create democratic institutions of their own choice. This is a principle of the Atlantic Charter - the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live - the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived to them by the aggressor nations.

To foster the conditions in which the liberated people may exercise these rights, the three governments will jointly assist the people in any European liberated state or former Axis state in Europe where, in their judgment conditions require,

(a) to establish conditions of internal peace;

(b) to carry out emergency relief measures for the relief of distressed peoples;

(c) to form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population and pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of Governments responsive to the will of the people; and

(d) to facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections.

The three Governments will consult the other United Nations and provisional authorities or other Governments in Europe when matters of direct interest to them are under consideration.

When, in the opinion of the three Governments, conditions in any European liberated state or former Axis satellite in Europe make such action necessary, they will immediately consult together on the measure necessary to discharge the joint responsibilities set forth in this declaration.

By this declaration we reaffirm our faith in the principles of the Atlantic Charter, our pledge in the Declaration by the United Nations and our determination to build in cooperation with other peace-loving nations world order, under law, dedicated to peace, security, freedom and general well-being of all mankind.

In issuing this declaration, the three powers express the hope that the Provisional Government of the French Republic may be associated with them in the procedure suggested.

[End first section published Feb., 13, 1945.]

III. DISMEMBERMENT OF GERMANY

It was agreed that Article 12 (a) of the Surrender terms for Germany should be amended to read as follows:

"The United Kingdom, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics shall possess supreme authority with respect to Germany. In the exercise of such authority they will take such steps, including the complete dismemberment of Germany as they deem requisite for future peace and security."

The study of the procedure of the dismemberment of Germany was referred to a committee consisting of Mr. Anthony Eden, Mr. John Winant, and Mr. Fedor T. Gusev. This body would consider the desirability of associating with it a French representative.

IV. ZONE OF OCCUPATION FOR THE FRENCH AND CONTROL COUNCIL FOR GERMANY.

It was agreed that a zone in Germany, to be occupied by the French forces, should be allocated France. This zone would be formed out of the British and American zones and its extent would be settled by the British and Americans in consultation with the French Provisional Government.

It was also agreed that the French Provisional Government should be invited to become a member of the Allied Control Council for Germany.

V. REPARATION

The following protocol has been approved:

Protocol

On the Talks Between the Heads of Three Governments at the Crimean Conference on the Question of the German Reparations in Kind

1. Germany must pay in kind for the losses caused by her to the Allied nations in the course of the war. Reparations are to be received in the first instance by those countries which have borne the main burden of the war, have suffered the heaviest losses and have organized victory over the enemy.

2. Reparation in kind is to be exacted from Germany in three following forms:

(a) Removals within two years from the surrender of Germany or the cessation of organized resistance from the national wealth of Germany located on the territory of Germany herself as well as outside her territory (equipment, machine tools, ships, rolling stock, German investments abroad, shares of industrial, transport and other enterprises in Germany, etc.), these removals to be carried out chiefly for the purpose of destroying the war potential of Germany.

(b) Annual deliveries of goods from current production for a period to be fixed.

(c) Use of German labor.

3. For the working out on the above principles of a detailed plan for exaction of reparation from Germany an Allied reparation commission will be set up in Moscow. It will consist of three representatives - one from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, one from the United Kingdom and one from the United States of America.

4. With regard to the fixing of the total sum of the reparation as well as the distribution of it among the countries which suffered from the German aggression, the Soviet and American delegations agreed as follows:

"The Moscow reparation commission should take in its initial studies as a basis for discussion the suggestion of the Soviet Government that the total sum of the reparation in accordance with the points (a) and (b) of the Paragraph 2 should be 22 billion dollars and that 50 per cent should go to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

The British delegation was of the opinion that, pending consideration of the reparation question by the Moscow reparation commission, no figures of reparation should be mentioned.

The above Soviet-American proposal has been passed to the Moscow reparation commission as one of the proposals to be considered by the commission.

VI. MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS

The conference agreed that the question of the major war criminals should be the subject of inquiry by the three Foreign Secretaries for report in due course after the close of the conference.

[Begin second section published Feb. 13, 1945.]

VII. POLAND

The following declaration on Poland was agreed by the conference:

"A new situation has been created in Poland as a result of her complete liberation by the Red Army. This calls for the establishment of a Polish Provisional Government which can be more broadly based than was possible before the recent liberation of the western part of Poland. The Provisional Government which is now functioning in Poland should therefore be reorganized on a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad. This new Government should then be called the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity.

"M. Molotov, Mr. Harriman and Sir A. Clark Kerr are authorized as a commission to consult in the first instance in Moscow with members of the present Provisional Government and with other Polish democratic leaders from within Poland and from abroad, with a view to the reorganization of the present Government along the above lines. This Polish Provisional Government of National Unity shall be pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot. In these elections all democratic and anti-Nazi parties shall have the right to take part and to put forward candidates.

"When a Polish Provisional of Government National Unity has been properly formed in conformity with the above, the Government of the U.S.S.R., which now maintains diplomatic relations with the present Provisional Government of Poland, and the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the United States of America will establish diplomatic relations with the new Polish Provisional Government National Unity, and will exchange Ambassadors by whose reports the respective Governments will be kept informed about the situation in Poland.

"The three heads of Government consider that the eastern frontier of Poland should follow the Curzon Line with digressions from it in some regions of five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland. They recognize that Poland must receive substantial accessions in territory in the north and west. They feel that the opinion of the new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity should be sought in due course of the extent of these accessions and that the final delimitation of the western frontier of Poland should thereafter await the peace conference."

VIII. YUGOSLAVIA

It was agreed to recommend to Marshal Tito and to Dr. Ivan Subasitch:

(a) That the Tito-Subasitch agreement should immediately be put into effect and a new government formed on the basis of the agreement.

(b) That as soon as the new Government has been formed it should declare:

(I) That the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation (AVNOJ) will be extended to include members of the last Yugoslav Skupstina who have not compromised themselves by collaboration with the enemy, thus forming a body to be known as a temporary Parliament and

(II) That legislative acts passed by the Anti-Fascist Assembly of the National Liberation (AVNOJ) will be subject to subsequent ratification by a Constituent Assembly; and that this statement should be published in the communiqué of the conference.

IX. ITALO-YOGOSLAV FRONTIER - ITALO-AUSTRIAN FRONTIER

Notes on these subjects were put in by the British delegation and the American and Soviet delegations agreed to consider them and give their views later.

X. YUGOSLAV-BULGARIAN RELATIONS

There was an exchange of views between the Foreign Secretaries on the question of the desirability of a Yugoslav-Bulgarian pact of alliance. The question at issue was whether a state still under an armistice regime could be allowed to enter into a treaty with another state. Mr. Eden suggested that the Bulgarian and Yugoslav Governments should be informed that this could not be approved. Mr. Stettinius suggested that the British and American Ambassadors should discuss the matter further with Mr. Molotov in Moscow. Mr. Molotov agreed with the proposal of Mr. Stettinius.

XI. SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

The British delegation put in notes for the consideration of their colleagues on the following subjects:

(a) The Control Commission in Bulgaria.

(b) Greek claims upon Bulgaria, more particularly with reference to reparations.

(c) Oil equipment in Rumania.

XII. IRAN

Mr. Eden, Mr. Stettinius and Mr. Molotov exchanged views on the situation in Iran. It was agreed that this matter should be pursued through the diplomatic channel.

[Begin third section published Feb. 13, 1945.]

XIII. MEETINGS OF THE THREE FOREIGN SECRETARIES

The conference agreed that permanent machinery should be set up for consultation between the three Foreign Secretaries; they should meet as often as necessary, probably about every three or four months.

These meetings will be held in rotation in the three capitals, the first meeting being held in London.

[End third section published Feb. 13, 1945.]

XIV. THE MONTREAUX CONVENTION AND THE STRAITS

It was agreed that at the next meeting of the three Foreign Secretaries to be held in London, they should consider proposals which it was understood the Soviet Government would put forward in relation to the Montreaux Convention, and report to their Governments. The Turkish Government should be informed at the appropriate moment.

The forgoing protocol was approved and signed by the three Foreign Secretaries at the Crimean Conference Feb. 11, 1945.

E. R. Stettinius Jr.
M. Molotov
Anthony Eden

AGREEMENT REGARDING JAPAN

The leaders of the three great powers - the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain - have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that:

1. The status quo in Outer Mongolia (the Mongolian People's Republic) shall be preserved.

2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz.:

(a) The southern part of Sakhalin as well as the islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union;

(b) The commercial port of Dairen shall be internationalized, the pre-eminent interests of the Soviet Union in this port being safeguarded, and the lease of Port Arthur as a naval base of the U.S.S.R. restored;

(c) The Chinese-Eastern Railroad and the South Manchurian Railroad, which provide an outlet to Dairen, shall be jointly operated by the establishment of a joint Soviet-Chinese company, it being understood that the pre-eminent interests of the Soviet Union shall be safeguarded and that China shall retain sovereignty in Manchuria;

3. The Kurile Islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.

It is understood that the agreement concerning Outer Mongolia and the ports and railroads referred to above will require concurrence of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. The President will take measures in order to maintain this concurrence on advice from Marshal Stalin.

The heads of the three great powers have agreed that these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated.

For its part, the Soviet Union expresses it readiness to conclude with the National Government of China a pact of friendship and alliance between the U.S.S.R. and China in order to render assistance to China with its armed forces for the purpose of liberating China from the Japanese yoke.

Joseph Stalin
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Winston S. Churchill

February 11, 1945

Source #8 The Sources of Soviet Conduct (1947), George Kennan

The X Article, formally titled "The Sources of Soviet Conduct", was published in Foreign Affairs in July 1947. Though signed pseudonymously by "X", it was well known at the time that the true author was George F. Kennan, the deputy chief of mission of the United States to the USSR from 1944 to 1946, under ambassador W. Averell Harriman. The article was an expansion of a well-circulated State Department cable called The Long Telegram and became famous for setting forth the doctrine of containment.

Part I

The political personality of Soviet power as we know it today is the product of ideology and circumstances: ideology inherited by the present Soviet leaders from the movement in which they had their political origin, and circumstances of the power which they now have exercised for nearly three decades in Russia. There can be few tasks of psychological analysis more difficult than to try to trace the interaction of these two forces and the relative role of each in the determination of official Soviet conduct. Yet the attempt must be made if that conduct is to be understood and effectively countered.

It is difficult to summarize the set of ideological concepts with which the Soviet leaders came into power. Marxian ideology, in its Russian-Communist projection, has always been in process of subtle evolution. The materials on which it bases itself are extensive and complex. But the outstanding features of Communist thought as it existed in 1916 may perhaps be summarized as follows: (a) that the central factor in the life of man, the factor which determines the character of public life and the "physiognomy of society," is the system by which material goods are produced and exchanged; (b) that the capitalist system of production is a nefarious one which inevitable leads to the exploitation of the working class by the capital-owning class and is incapable of developing adequately the economic resources of society or of distributing fairly the material good produced by human labor; (c) that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction and must, in view of the inability of the capital-owning class to adjust itself to economic change, result eventually and inescapably in a revolutionary transfer of power to the working class; and (d) that imperialism, the final phase of capitalism, leads directly to war and revolution.

The rest may be outlined in Lenin's own words: "Unevenness of economic and political development is the inflexible law of capitalism. It follows from this that the victory of Socialism may come originally in a few capitalist countries or even in a single capitalist country. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and having organized Socialist production at home, would rise against the remaining capitalist world, drawing to itself in the process the oppressed classes of other countries." It must be noted that there was no assumption that capitalism would perish without proletarian revolution. A final push was needed from a revolutionary proletariat movement in order to tip over the tottering structure. But it was regarded as inevitable that sooner or later that push be given.

For 50 years prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, this pattern of thought had exercised great fascination for the members of the Russian revolutionary movement. Frustrated, discontented, hopeless of finding self-expression -- or too impatient to seek it -- in the confining limits of the Tsarist political system, yet lacking wide popular support or their choice of bloody revolution as a means of social betterment, these revolutionists found in Marxist theory a highly convenient rationalization for their own instinctive desires. It afforded pseudo-scientific justification for their impatience, for their categorical denial of all value in the Tsarist system, for their yearning for power and revenge and for their inclination to cut corners in the pursuit of it. It is therefore no wonder that they had come to believe implicitly in the truth and soundness of the Marxist-Leninist teachings, so congenial to their own impulses and emotions. Their sincerity need not be impugned. This is a phenomenon as old as human nature itself. It is has never been more aptly described than by Edward Gibbon, who wrote in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the demon of Socrates affords a memorable instance of how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud." And it was with this set of conceptions that the members of the Bolshevik Party entered into power.

Now it must be noted that through all the years of preparation for revolution, the attention of these men, as indeed of Marx himself, had been centered less on the future form which Socialism would take than on the necessary overthrow of rival power which, in their view, had to precede the introduction of Socialism. Their views, therefore, on the positive program to be put into effect, once power was attained, were for the most part nebulous, visionary and impractical. Beyond the nationalization of industry and the expropriation of large private capital holdings there was no agreed program. The treatment of the peasantry, which, according to the Marxist formulation was not of the proletariat, had always been a vague spot in the pattern of Communist thought: and it remained an object of controversy and vacillation for the first ten years of Communist power.

The circumstances of the immediate post-revolution period -- the existence in Russia of civil war and foreign intervention, together with the obvious fact that the Communists represented only a tiny minority of the Russian people -- made the establishment of dictatorial power a necessity. The experiment with war Communism" and the abrupt attempt to eliminate private production and trade had unfortunate economic consequences and caused further bitterness against the new revolutionary regime. While the temporary relaxation of the effort to communize Russia, represented by the New Economic Policy, alleviated some of this economic distress and thereby served its purpose, it also made it evident that the "capitalistic sector of society" was still prepared to profit at once from any relaxation of governmental pressure, and would, if permitted to continue to exist, always constitute a powerful opposing element to the Soviet regime and a serious rival for influence in the country. Somewhat the same situation prevailed with respect to the individual peasant who, in his own small way, was also a private producer.

Lenin, had he lived, might have proved a great enough man to reconcile these conflicting forces to the ultimate benefit of Russian society, though this is questionable. But be that as it may, Stalin, and those whom he led in the struggle for succession to Lenin's position of leadership, were not the men to tolerate rival political forces in the sphere of power which they coveted. Their sense of insecurity was too great. Their particular brand of fanaticism, unmodified by any of the Anglo-Saxon traditions of compromise, was too fierce and too jealous to envisage any permanent sharing of power. From the Russian-Asiatic world out of which they had emerged they carried with them a skepticism as to the possibilities of permanent and peaceful coexistence of rival forces. Easily persuaded of their own doctrinaire "rightness," they insisted on the submission or destruction of all competing power. Outside the Communist Party, Russian society was to have no rigidity. There were to be no forms of collective human activity or association which would not be dominated by the Party. No other force in Russian society was to be permitted to achieve vitality or integrity. Only the Party was to have structure. All else was to be an amorphous mass.

And within the Party the same principle was to apply. The mass of Party members might go through the motions of election, deliberation, decision and action; but in these motions they were to be animated not by their own individual wills but by the awesome breath of the Party leadership and the over-brooding presence of "the word."

Let it be stressed again that subjectively these men probably did not seek absolutism for its own sake. They doubtless believed -- and found it easy to believe -- that they alone knew what was good for society and that they would accomplish that good once their power was secure and unchallengeable. But in seeking that security of their own rule they were prepared to recognize no restrictions, either of God or man, on the character of their methods. And until such time as that security might be achieved, they placed far down on their scale of operational priorities the comforts and happiness of the peoples entrusted to their care.

Now the outstanding circumstance concerning the Soviet regime is that down to the present day this process of political consolidation has never been completed and the men in the Kremlin have continued to be predominantly absorbed with the struggle to secure and make absolute the power which they seized in November 1917. They have endeavored to secure it primarily against forces at home, within Soviet society itself. But they have also endeavored to secure it against the outside world. For ideology, as we have seen, taught them that the outside world was hostile and that it was their duty eventually to overthrow the political forces beyond their borders. Then powerful hands of Russian history and tradition reached up to sustain them in this feeling. Finally, their own aggressive intransigence with respect to the outside world began to find its own reaction; and they were soon forced, to use another Gibbonesque phrase, "to chastise the contumacy" which they themselves had provoked. It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct he is bound eventually to be right.

Now it lies in the nature of the mental world of the Soviet leaders, as well as in the character of their ideology, that no opposition to them can be officially recognized as having any merit or justification whatsoever. Such opposition can flow, in theory, only from the hostile and incorrigible forces of dying capitalism. As long as remnants of capitalism were officially recognized as existing in Russia, it was possible to place on them, as an internal element, part of the blame for the maintenance of a dictatorial form of society. But as these remnants were liquidated, little by little, this justification fell away, and when it was indicated officially that they had been finally destroyed, it disappeared altogether. And this fact created one of the most basic of the compulsions which came to act upon the Soviet regime: since capitalism no longer existed in Russia and since it could not be admitted that there could be serious or widespread opposition to the Kremlin springing spontaneously from the liberated masses under its authority, it became necessary to justify the retention of the dictatorship by stressing the menace of capitalism abroad.

This began at an early date. In 1924 Stalin specifically defended the retention of the "organs of suppression," meaning, among others, the army and the secret police, on the ground that "as long as there is a capitalistic encirclement there will be danger of intervention with all the consequences that flow from that danger." In accordance with that theory, and from that time on, all internal opposition forces in Russia have consistently been portrayed as the agents of foreign forces of reaction antagonistic to Soviet power.

By the same token, tremendous emphasis has been placed on the original Communist thesis of a basic antagonism between the capitalist and Socialist worlds. It is clear, from many indications, that this emphasis is not founded in reality. The real facts concerning it have been confused by the existence abroad of genuine resentment provoked by Soviet philosophy and tactics and occasionally by the existence of great centers of military power, notably the Nazi regime in Germany and the Japanese Government of the late 1930s, which indeed have aggressive designs against the Soviet Union. But there is ample evidence that the stress laid in Moscow on the menace confronting Soviet society from the world outside its borders is founded not in the realities of foreign antagonism but in the necessity of explaining away the maintenance of dictatorial authority at home.

Now the maintenance of this pattern of Soviet power, namely, the pursuit of unlimited authority domestically, accompanied by the cultivation of the semi-myth of implacable foreign hostility, has gone far to shape the actual machinery of Soviet power as we know it today. Internal organs of administration which did not serve this purpose withered on the vine. Organs which did serve this purpose became vastly swollen. The security of Soviet power came to rest on the iron discipline of the Party, on the severity and ubiquity of the secret police, and on the uncompromising economic monopolism of the state. The "organs of suppression," in which the Soviet leaders had sought security from rival forces, became in large measures the masters of those whom they were designed to serve. Today the major part of the structure of Soviet power is committed to the perfection of the dictatorship and to the maintenance of the concept of Russia as in a state of siege, with the enemy lowering beyond the walls. And the millions of human beings who form that part of the structure of power must defend at all costs this concept of Russia's position, for without it they are themselves superfluous.

As things stand today, the rulers can no longer dream of parting with these organs of suppression. The quest for absolute power, pursued now for nearly three decades with a ruthlessness unparalleled (in scope at least) in modern times, has again produced internally, as it did externally, its own reaction. The excesses of the police apparatus have fanned the potential opposition to the regime into something far greater and more dangerous than it could have been before those excesses began.

But least of all can the rulers dispense with the fiction by which the maintenance of dictatorial power has been defended. For this fiction has been canonized in Soviet philosophy by the excesses already committed in its name; and it is now anchored in the Soviet structure of thought by bonds far greater than those of mere ideology.

Part II

So much for the historical background. What does it spell in terms of the political personality of Soviet power as we know it today?

Of the original ideology, nothing has been officially junked. Belief is maintained in the basic badness of capitalism, in the inevitability of its destruction, in the obligation of the proletariat to assist in that destruction and to take power into its own hands. But stress has come to be laid primarily on those concepts which relate most specifically to the Soviet regime itself: to its position as the sole truly Socialist regime in a dark and misguided world, and to the relationships of power within it.

The first of these concepts is that of the innate antagonism between capitalism and Socialism. We have seen how deeply that concept has become imbedded in foundations of Soviet power. It has profound implications for Russia's conduct as a member of international society. It means that there can never be on Moscow's side a sincere assumption of a community of aims between the Soviet Union and powers which are regarded as capitalist. It must inevitably be assumed in Moscow that the aims of the capitalist world are antagonistic to the Soviet regime, and therefore to the interests of the peoples it controls. If the Soviet government occasionally sets its signature to documents which would indicate the contrary, this is to be regarded as a tactical maneuver permissible in dealing with the enemy (who is without honor) and should be taken in the spirit of caveat emptor. Basically, the antagonism remains. It is postulated. And from it flow many of the phenomena which we find disturbing in the Kremlin's conduct of foreign policy: the secretiveness, the lack of frankness, the duplicity, the wary suspiciousness, and the basic unfriendliness of purpose. These phenomena are there to stay, for the foreseeable future. There can be variations of degree and of emphasis. When there is something the Russians want from us, one or the other of these features of their policy may be thrust temporarily into the background; and when that happens there will always be Americans who will leap forward with gleeful announcements that "the Russians have changed," and some who will even try to take credit for having brought about such "changes." But we should not be misled by tactical maneuvers. These characteristics of Soviet policy, like the postulate from which they flow, are basic to the internal nature of Soviet power, and will be with us, whether in the foreground or the background, until the internal nature of Soviet power is changed.

This means we are going to continue for long time to find the Russians difficult to deal with. It does not mean that they should be considered as embarked upon a do-or-die program to overthrow our society by a given date. The theory of the inevitability of the eventual fall of capitalism has the fortunate connotation that there is no hurry about it. The forces of progress can take their time in preparing the final coup de grâce. meanwhile, what is vital is that the "Socialist fatherland" -- that oasis of power which has already been won for Socialism in the person of the Soviet Union -- should be cherished and defended by all good Communists at home and abroad, its fortunes promoted, its enemies badgered and confounded. The promotion of premature, "adventuristic" revolutionary projects abroad which might embarrass Soviet power in any way would be an inexcusable, even a counter-revolutionary act. The cause of Socialism is the support and promotion of Soviet power, as defined in Moscow.

This brings us to the second of the concepts important to contemporary Soviet outlook. That is the infallibility of the Kremlin. The Soviet concept of power, which permits no focal points of organization outside the Party itself, requires that the Party leadership remain in theory the sole repository of truth. For if truth were to be found elsewhere, there would be justification for its expression in organized activity. But it is precisely that which the Kremlin cannot and will not permit.

The leadership of the Communist Party is therefore always right, and has been always right ever since in 1929 Stalin formalized his personal power by announcing that decisions of the Politburo were being taken unanimously.

On the principle of infallibility there rests the iron discipline of the Communist Party. In fact, the two concepts are mutually self-supporting. Perfect discipline requires recognition of infallibility. Infallibility requires the observance of discipline. And the two go far to determine the behaviorism of the entire Soviet apparatus of power. But their effect cannot be understood unless a third factor be taken into account: namely, the fact that the leadership is at liberty to put forward for tactical purposes any particular thesis which it finds useful to the cause at any particular moment and to require the faithful and unquestioning acceptance of that thesis by the members of the movement as a whole. This means that truth is not a constant but is actually created, for all intents and purposes, by the Soviet leaders themselves. It may vary from week to week, from month to month. It is nothing absolute and immutable -- nothing which flows from objective reality. It is only the most recent manifestation of the wisdom of those in whom the ultimate wisdom is supposed to reside, because they represent the logic of history. The accumulative effect of these factors is to give to the whole subordinate apparatus of Soviet power an unshakable stubbornness and steadfastness in its orientation. This orientation can be changed at will by the Kremlin but by no other power. Once a given party line has been laid down on a given issue of current policy, the whole Soviet governmental machine, including the mechanism of diplomacy, moves inexorably along the prescribed path, like a persistent toy automobile wound up and headed in a given direction, stopping only when it meets with some unanswerable force. The individuals who are the components of this machine are unamenable to argument or reason, which comes to them from outside sources. Their whole training has taught them to mistrust and discount the glib persuasiveness of the outside world. Like the white dog before the phonograph, they hear only the "master's voice." And if they are to be called off from the purposes last dictated to them, it is the master who must call them off. Thus the foreign representative cannot hope that his words will make any impression on them. The most that he can hope is that they will be transmitted to those at the top, who are capable of changing the party line. But even those are not likely to be swayed by any normal logic in the words of the bourgeois representative. Since there can be no appeal to common purposes, there can be no appeal to common mental approaches. For this reason, facts speak louder than words to the ears of the Kremlin; and words carry the greatest weight when they have the ring of reflecting, or being backed up by, facts of unchallengeable validity.

But we have seen that the Kremlin is under no ideological compulsion to accomplish its purposes in a hurry. Like the Church, it is dealing in ideological concepts which are of long-term validity, and it can afford to be patient. It has no right to risk the existing achievements of the revolution for the sake of vain baubles of the future. The very teachings of Lenin himself require great caution and flexibility in the pursuit of Communist purposes. Again, these precepts are fortified by the lessons of Russian history: of centuries of obscure battles between nomadic forces over the stretches of a vast unfortified plain. Here caution, circumspection, flexibility and deception are the valuable qualities; and their value finds a natural appreciation in the Russian or the oriental mind. Thus the Kremlin has no compunction about retreating in the face of superior forces. And being under the compulsion of no timetable, it does not get panicky under the necessity for such retreat. Its political action is a fluid stream which moves constantly, wherever it is permitted to move, toward a given goal. Its main concern is to make sure that it has filled every nook and cranny available to it in the basin of world power. But if it finds unassailable barriers in its path, it accepts these philosophically and accommodates itself to them. The main thing is that there should always be pressure, unceasing constant pressure, toward the desired goal. There is no trace of any feeling in Soviet psychology that that goal must be reached at any given time.

These considerations make Soviet diplomacy at once easier and more difficult to deal with than the diplomacy of individual aggressive leaders like Napoleon and Hitler. On the one hand it is more sensitive to contrary force, more ready to yield on individual sectors of the diplomatic front when that force is felt to be too strong, and thus more rational in the logic and rhetoric of power. On the other hand it cannot be easily defeated or discouraged by a single victory on the part of its opponents. And the patient persistence by which it is animated means that it can be effectively countered not by sporadic acts which represent the momentary whims of democratic opinion but only be intelligent long-range policies on the part of Russia's adversaries -- policies no less steady in their purpose, and no less variegated and resourceful in their application, than those of the Soviet Union itself.

In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. It is important to note, however, that such a policy has nothing to do with outward histrionics: with threats or blustering or superfluous gestures of outward "toughness." While the Kremlin is basically flexible in its reaction to political realities, it is by no means unamenable to considerations of prestige. Like almost any other government, it can be placed by tactless and threatening gestures in a position where it cannot afford to yield even though this might be dictated by its sense of realism. The Russian leaders are keen judges of human psychology, and as such they are highly conscious that loss of temper and of self-control is never a source of strength in political affairs. They are quick to exploit such evidences of weakness. For these reasons it is a sine qua non of successful dealing with Russia that the foreign government in question should remain at all times cool and collected and that its demands on Russian policy should be put forward in such a manner as to leave the way open for a compliance not too detrimental to Russian prestige.

Part III

In the light of the above, it will be clearly seen that the Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy, but which cannot be charmed or talked out of existence. The Russians look forward to a duel of infinite duration, and they see that already they have scored great successes. It must be borne in mind that there was a time when the Communist Party represented far more of a minority in the sphere of Russian national life than Soviet power today represents in the world community.

But if the ideology convinces the rulers of Russia that truth is on their side and they can therefore afford to wait, those of us on whom that ideology has no claim are free to examine objectively the validity of that premise. The Soviet thesis not only implies complete lack of control by the west over its own economic destiny, it likewise assumes Russian unity, discipline and patience over an infinite period. Let us bring this apocalyptic vision down to earth, and suppose that the western world finds the strength and resourcefulness to contain Soviet power over a period of ten to fifteen years. What does that spell for Russia itself?

The Soviet leaders, taking advantage of the contributions of modern techniques to the arts of despotism, have solved the question of obedience within the confines of their power. Few challenge their authority; and even those who do are unable to make that challenge valid as against the organs of suppression of the state.

The Kremlin has also proved able to accomplish its purpose of building up Russia, regardless of the interests of the inhabitants, and industrial foundation of heavy metallurgy, which is, to be sure, not yet complete but which is nevertheless continuing to grow and is approaching those of the other major industrial countries. All of this, however, both the maintenance of internal political security and the building of heavy industry, has been carried out at a terrible cost in human life and in human hopes and energies. It has necessitated the use of forced labor on a scale unprecedented in modern times under conditions of peace. It has involved the neglect or abuse of other phases of Soviet economic life, particularly agriculture, consumers' goods production, housing and transportation.

To all that, the war has added its tremendous toll of destruction, death and human exhaustion. In consequence of this, we have in Russia today a population which is physically and spiritually tired. The mass of the people are disillusioned, skeptical and no longer as accessible as they once were to the magical attraction which Soviet power still radiates to its followers abroad. The avidity with which people seized upon the slight respite accorded to the Church for tactical reasons during the war was eloquent testimony to the fact that their capacity for faith and devotion found little expression in the purposes of the regime.

In these circumstances, there are limits to the physical and nervous strength of people themselves. These limits are absolute ones, and are binding even for the cruelest dictatorship, because beyond them people cannot be driven. The forced labor camps and the other agencies of constraint provide temporary means of compelling people to work longer hours than their own volition or mere economic pressure would dictate; but if people survive them at all they become old before their time and must be considered as human casualties to the demands of dictatorship. In either case their best powers are no longer available to society and can no longer be enlisted in the service of the state.

Here only the younger generations can help. The younger generation, despite all vicissitudes and sufferings, is numerous and vigorous; and the Russians are a talented people. But it still remains to be seen what will be the effects on mature performance of the abnormal emotional strains of childhood which Soviet dictatorship created and which were enormously increased by the war. Such things as normal security and placidity of home environment have practically ceased to exist in the Soviet Union outside of the most remote farms and villages. And observers are not yet sure whether that is not going to leave its mark on the over-all capacity of the generation now coming into maturity.

In addition to this, we have the fact that Soviet economic development, while it can list certain formidable achievements, has been precariously spotty and uneven. Russian Communists who speak of the "uneven development of capitalism" should blush at the contemplation of their own national economy. Here certain branches of economic life, such as the metallurgical and machine industries, have been pushed out of all proportion to other sectors of economy. Here is a nation striving to become in a short period one of the great industrial nations of the world while it still has no highway network worthy of the name and only a relatively primitive network of railways. Much has been done to increase efficiency of labor and to teach primitive peasants something about the operation of machines. But maintenance is still a crying deficiency of all Soviet economy. Construction is hasty and poor in quality. Depreciation must be enormous. And in vast sectors of economic life it has not yet been possible to instill into labor anything like that general culture of production and technical self-respect which characterizes the skilled worker of the west.

It is difficult to see how these deficiencies can be corrected at an early date by a tired and dispirited population working largely under the shadow of fear and compulsion. And as long as they are not overcome, Russia will remain economically as vulnerable, and in a certain sense an impotent, nation, capable of exporting its enthusiasms and of radiating the strange charm of its primitive political vitality but unable to back up those articles of export by the real evidences of material power and prosperity.

Meanwhile, a great uncertainty hangs over the political life of the Soviet Union. That is the uncertainty involved in the transfer of power from one individual or group of individuals to others.

This is, of course, outstandingly the problem of the personal position of Stalin. We must remember that his succession to Lenin's pinnacle of pre-eminence in the Communist movement was the only such transfer of individual authority which the Soviet Union has experienced. That transfer took 12 years to consolidate. It cost the lives of millions of people and shook the state to its foundations. The attendant tremors were felt all through the international revolutionary movement, to the disadvantage of the Kremlin itself.

It is always possible that another transfer of pre-eminent power may take place quietly and inconspicuously, with no repercussions anywhere. But again, it is possible that the questions involved may unleash, to use some of Lenin's words, one of those "incredibly swift transitions" from "delicate deceit" to "wild violence" which characterize Russian history, and may shake Soviet power to its foundations.

But this is not only a question of Stalin himself. There has been, since 1938, a dangerous congealment of political life in the higher circles of Soviet power. The All-Union Congress of Soviets, in theory the supreme body of the Party, is supposed to meet not less often than once in three years. It will soon be eight full years since its last meeting. During this period membership in the Party has numerically doubled. Party mortality during the war was enormous; and today well over half of the Party members are persons who have entered since the last Party congress was held. Meanwhile, the same small group of men has carried on at the top through an amazing series of national vicissitudes. Surely there is some reason why the experiences of the war brought basic political changes to every one of the great governments of the west. Surely the causes of that phenomenon are basic enough to be present somewhere in the obscurity of Soviet political life, as well. And yet no recognition has been given to these causes in Russia.

It must be surmised from this that even within so highly disciplined an organization as the Communist Party there must be a growing divergence in age, outlook and interest between the great mass of Party members, only so recently recruited into the movement, and the little self-perpetuating clique of men at the top, whom most of these Party members have never met, with whom they have never conversed, and with whom they can have no political intimacy.

Who can say whether, in these circumstances, the eventual rejuvenation of the higher spheres of authority (which can only be a matter of time) can take place smoothly and peacefully, or whether rivals in the quest for higher power will not eventually reach down into these politically immature and inexperienced masses in order to find support for their respective claims? If this were ever to happen, strange consequences could flow for the Communist Party: for the membership at large has been exercised only in the practices of iron discipline and obedience and not in the arts of compromise and accommodation. And if disunity were ever to seize and paralyze the Party, the chaos and weakness of Russian society would be revealed in forms beyond description. For we have seen that Soviet power is only concealing an amorphous mass of human beings among whom no independent organizational structure is tolerated. In Russia there is not even such a thing as local government. The present generation of Russians have never known spontaneity of collective action. If, consequently, anything were ever to occur to disrupt the unity and efficacy of the Party as a political instrument, Soviet Russia might be changed overnight from one of the strongest to one of the weakest and most pitiable of national societies.

Thus the future of Soviet power may not be by any means as secure as Russian capacity for self-delusion would make it appear to the men of the Kremlin. That they can quietly and easily turn it over to others remains to be proved. Meanwhile, the hardships of their rule and the vicissitudes of international life have taken a heavy toll of the strength and hopes of the great people on whom their power rests. It is curious to note that the ideological power of Soviet authority is strongest today in areas beyond the frontiers of Russia, beyond the reach of its police power. This phenomenon brings to mind a comparison used by Thomas Mann in his great novel Buddenbrooks. Observing that human institutions often show the greatest outward brilliance at a moment when inner decay is in reality farthest advanced, he compared one of those stars whose light shines most brightly on this world when in reality it has long since ceased to exist. And who can say with assurance that the strong light still cast by the Kremlin on the dissatisfied peoples of the western world is not the powerful afterglow of a constellation which is in actuality on the wane? This cannot be proved. And it cannot be disproved. But the possibility remains (and in the opinion of this writer it is a strong one) that Soviet power, like the capitalist world of its conception, bears within it the seeds of its own decay, and that the sprouting of these seeds is well advanced.

Part IV

It is clear that the United States cannot expect in the foreseeable future to enjoy political intimacy with the Soviet regime. It must continue to regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner, in the political arena. It must continue to expect that Soviet policies will reflect no abstract love of peace and stability, no real faith in the possibility of a permanent happy coexistence of the Socialist and capitalist worlds, but rather a cautious, persistent pressure toward the disruption and, weakening of all rival influence and rival power.

Balanced against this are the facts that Russia, as opposed to the western world in general, is still by far the weaker party, which Soviet policy is highly flexible, and that Soviet society may well contain deficiencies which will eventually weaken its own total potential. This would of itself warrant the United States entering with reasonable confidence upon a policy of firm containment, designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counter-force at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world.

But in actuality the possibilities for American policy are by no means limited to holding the line and hoping for the best. It is entirely possible for the United States to influence by its actions the internal developments, both within Russia and throughout the international Communist movement, by which Russian policy is largely determined. This is not only a question of the modest measure of informational activity which this government can conduct in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, although that, too, is important. It is rather a question of the degree to which the United States can create among the peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which is coping successfully with the problem of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time. To the extent that such an impression can be created and maintained, the aims of Russian Communism must appear sterile and quixotic, the hopes and enthusiasm of Moscow's supporters must wane, and added strain must be imposed on the Kremlin's foreign policies. For the palsied decrepitude of the capitalist world is the keystone of Communist philosophy. Even the failure of the United States to experience the early economic depression which the ravens of the Red Square have been predicting with such complacent confidence since hostilities ceased would have deep and important repercussions throughout the Communist world.

By the same token, exhibitions of indecision, disunity and internal disintegration within this country have an exhilarating effect on the whole Communist movement. At each evidence of these tendencies, a thrill of hope and excitement goes through the Communist world; a new jauntiness can be noted in the Moscow tread; new groups of foreign supporters climb on to what they can only view as the band wagon of international politics; and Russian pressure increases all along the line in international affairs.

It would be an exaggeration to say that American behavior unassisted and alone could exercise a power of life and death over the Communist movement and bring about the early fall of Soviet power in Russia. But the United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate, to force upon the Kremlin a far greater degree of moderation and circumspection than it has had to observe in recent years, and in this way to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the breakup or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power. For no mystical, Messianic movement -- and particularly not that of the Kremlin -- can face frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself in one way or another to the logic of that state of affairs.

Thus the decision will really fall in large measure in this country itself. The issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence a test of the overall worth of the United States as a nation among nations. To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.

Surely, there was never a fairer test of national quality than this. In the light of these circumstances, the thoughtful observer of Russian-American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.

Source #9 The Marshall Plan (there are two versions: tape recorded and a hand-out version)

The speech was not given at the formal June 5 morning commencement exercise but after lunch when twelve honorary degree recipients made speeches to the graduates, friends, and alumni. The speech was tape-recorded. The following is from the State Department’s handout version of June 4, 1947.

I need not tell you gentlemen that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.

In considering the requirements for the rehabilitation of Europe the physical loss of life, the visible destruction of cities, factories, mines and railroads was correctly estimated, but it has become obvious during recent months that this visible destruction was probably less serious than the dislocation of the entire fabric of European economy. For the past ten years conditions have been highly abnormal. The feverish preparation for war and the more feverish maintenance of the war effort engulfed all aspects of national economies. Machinery has fallen into disrepair or is entirely obsolete. Under the arbitrary and destructive Nazi rule, virtually every possible enterprise was geared into the German war machine. Long-standing commercial ties, private institutions, banks, insurance companies and shipping companies disappeared, through loss of capital, absorption through nationalization or by simple destruction. In many countries, confidence in the local currency has been severely shaken. The breakdown of the business structure of Europe during the war was complete. Recovery has been seriously retarded by the fact that two years after the close of hostilities a peace settlement with Germany and Austria has not been agreed upon. But even given a more prompt solution of these difficult problems, the rehabilitation of the economic structure of Europe quite evidently will require a much longer time and greater effort than had been foreseen.

There is a phase of this matter which is both interesting and serious. The farmer has always produced the foodstuffs to exchange with the city dweller for the other necessities of life. This division of labor is the basis of modern civilization. At the present time it is threatened with breakdown. The town and city industries are not producing adequate goods to exchange with the food-producing farmer. Raw materials and fuel are in short supply. Machinery is lacking or worn out. The farmer of the peasant cannot find the goods for sale which he desires to purchase. So the sale of his farm produce for money which he cannot use seems to him an unprofitable transaction. He, therefore, has withdrawn many fields from crop cultivation and is using them for grazing. He feeds more grain to stock and finds for himself and his family an ample supply of food, however short he may be on clothing and the other ordinary gadgets of civilization. Meanwhile people in the cities are short of food and fuel. So the governments are forced to use their foreign money and credits to procure these necessities abroad. This process exhausts funds which are urgently needed for reconstruction. This a very serious situation is rapidly developing which bodes no good for the world. The modern system of the division of labor upon which the exchange of products is based is in danger of breaking down.

The truth of the matter is that Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products–principally from America–are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help, or face economic, social and political deterioration of a very grave character.

The remedy lies in breaking the vicious circle and restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole. The manufacturer and the farmer throughout wide areas must be able and willing to exchange their products for currencies the continuing value of which is not open to question.

Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned, the consequences to the economy of the United States should be apparent to all. It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a piece-meal basis as various crises develop. Any assistance that this Government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere palliative. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full cooperation, I am sure, on the part of the United States Government. Any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us. Furthermore, governments, political parties or groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise will encounter the opposition of the United States.

It is already evident that, before the United States Government can proceed much further in its efforts to alleviate the situation and help start the European world on its way to recovery, there must be some agreement among the countries of Europe as to the requirements of the situation and the part those countries themselves will take in order to give proper effect to whatever action might be undertaken by this Government. It would be neither fitting nor efficacious for this Government to undertake to draw up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feet economically. This is the business of the Europeans. The initiative, I think, must come from Europe. The role of this country should consist of friendly aid in the drafting of a European program and of later support of such a program so far as it may be practical for us to do so. The program should be a joint one, agreed to by a number, if not all European nations.

An essential part of any successful action on the part of the United States is an understanding on the part of the people of America of the character of the problem and the remedies to be applied. Political passion and prejudice should have no part. With foresight, and a willingness on the part of our people to face up to the vast responsibility which history has clearly placed upon our country, the difficulties I have outlined can and will be overcome.

Source #9 The "Marshall Plan" speech at Harvard University, 5 June 1947 (tape recorded)

I'm profoundly grateful and touched by the great distinction and honor and great compliment accorded me by the authorities of Harvard this morning. I'm overwhelmed, as a matter of fact, and I'm rather fearful of my inability to maintain such a high rating as you've been generous enough to accord to me. In these historic and lovely surroundings, this perfect day, and this very wonderful assembly, it is a tremendously impressive thing to an individual in my position. But to speak more seriously, I need not tell you, gentlemen, that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.

In considering the requirements for the rehabilitation of Europe, the physical loss of life, the visible destruction of cities, factories, mines and railroads was correctly estimated but it has become obvious during recent months that this visible destruction was probably less serious than the dislocation of the entire fabric of European economy. For the past 10 years conditions have been highly abnormal. The feverish preparation for war and the more feverish maintenance of the war effort engulfed all aspects of national economies. Machinery has fallen into disrepair or is entirely obsolete. Under the arbitrary and destructive Nazi rule, virtually every possible enterprise was geared into the German war machine. Long-standing commercial ties, private institutions, banks, insurance companies, and shipping companies disappeared, through loss of capital, absorption through nationalization, or by simple destruction. In many countries, confidence in the local currency has been severely shaken. The breakdown of the business structure of Europe during the war was complete. Recovery has been seriously retarded by the fact that two years after the close of hostilities a peace settlement with Germany and Austria has not been agreed upon. But even given a more prompt solution of these difficult problems the rehabilitation of the economic structure of Europe quite evidently will require a much longer time and greater effort than had been foreseen.

There is a phase of this matter which is both interesting and serious. The farmer has always produced the foodstuffs to exchange with the city dweller for the other necessities of life. This division of labor is the basis of modern civilization. At the present time it is threatened with breakdown. The town and city industries are not producing adequate goods to exchange with the food producing farmer. Raw materials and fuel are in short supply. Machinery is lacking or worn out. The farmer or the peasant cannot find the goods for sale which he desires to purchase. So the sale of his farm produce for money which he cannot use seems to him an unprofitable transaction. He, therefore, has withdrawn many fields from crop cultivation and is using them for grazing. He feeds more grain to stock and finds for himself and his family an ample supply of food, however short he may be on clothing and the other ordinary gadgets of civilization. Meanwhile people in the cities are short of food and fuel. So the governments are forced to use their foreign money and credits to procure these necessities abroad. This process exhausts funds which are urgently needed for reconstruction. Thus a very serious situation is rapidly developing which bodes no good for the world. The modern system of the division of labor upon which the exchange of products is based is in danger of breaking down.

The truth of the matter is that Europe's requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products - principally from America - are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character.

The remedy lies in breaking the vicious circle and restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole. The manufacturer and the farmer throughout wide areas must be able and willing to exchange their products for currencies the continuing value of which is not open to question.

Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned, the consequences to the economy of the United States should be apparent to all. It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a piecemeal basis as various crises develop. Any assistance that this Government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere palliative. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full co-operation I am sure, on the part of the United States Government. Any government which maneuvers to block the recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us. Furthermore, governments, political parties, or groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit therefrom politically or otherwise will encounter the opposition of the United States.

It is already evident that, before the United States Government can proceed much further in its efforts to alleviate the situation and help start the European world on its way to recovery, there must be some agreement among the countries of Europe as to the requirements of the situation and the part those countries themselves will take in order to give proper effect to whatever action might be undertaken by this Government. It would be neither fitting nor efficacious for this Government to undertake to draw up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feet economically. This is the business of the Europeans. The initiative, I think, must come from Europe. The role of this country should consist of friendly aid in the drafting of a European program and of later support of such a program so far as it may be practical for us to do so. The program should be a joint one, agreed to by a number, if not all European nations.

An essential part of any successful action on the part of the United States is an understanding on the part of the people of America of the character of the problem and the remedies to be applied. Political passion and prejudice should have no part. With foresight, and a willingness on the part of our people to face up to the vast responsibility which history has clearly placed upon our country, the difficulties I have outlined can and will be overcome.

I am sorry that on each occasion I have said something publicly in regard to our international situation, I've been forced by the necessities of the case to enter into rather technical discussions. But to my mind, it is of vast importance that our people reach some general understanding of what the complications really are, rather than react from a passion or a prejudice or an emotion of the moment. As I said more formally a moment ago, we are remote from the scene of these troubles. It is virtually impossible at this distance merely by reading, or listening, or even seeing photographs or motion pictures, to grasp at all the real significance of the situation. And yet the whole world of the future hangs on a proper judgment. It hangs, I think, to a large extent on the realization of the American people, of just what are the various dominant factors. What are the reactions of the people? What are the justifications of those reactions? What are the sufferings? What is needed? What can best be done? What must be done?

Thank you very much.

Source #10 Winston S. Churchill: "Iron Curtain Speech", March 5, 1946
Winston Churchill gave this speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, after receiving an honorary degree. With typical oratorical skills, Church introduced the phrase "Iron Curtain" to describe the division between Western powers and the area controlled by the Soviet Union. As such the speech marks the onset of the Cold War.
The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with this primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future.
As you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining, for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the aftertime.
It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall rule and guide the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.
I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain -- and I doubt not here also -- toward the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships.
It is my duty, however, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.
The safety of the world, ladies and gentlemen, requires a unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung. Twice the United States has had to send several millions of its young men across the Atlantic to fight the wars. But now we all can find any nation, wherever it may dwell, between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe within the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with our Charter.
In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization.
The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and especially in Manchuria. The agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I was a party, was extremely favorable to Soviet Russia, but it was made at a time when no one could say that the German war might not extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945 and when the Japanese war was expected by the best judges to last for a further eighteen months from the end of the German war.
I repulse the idea that a new war is inevitable -- still more that it is imminent. It is because I am sure that our fortunes are still in our own hands and that we hold the power to save the future, that I feel the duty to speak out now that I have the occasion and the opportunity to do so. I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries.
Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement. What is needed is a settlement, and the longer this is delayed, the more difficult it will be and the greater our dangers will become.
From what I have seen of our Russian friends and allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness. For that reason the old doctrine of a balance of power is unsound. We cannot afford, if we can help it, to work on narrow margins, offering temptations to a trial of strength.
Last time I saw it all coming and I cried aloud to my own fellow countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind.
There never was a war in history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented, in my belief, without the firing of a single shot, and Germany might be powerful, prosperous and honored today; but no one would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool.
We must not let it happen again. This can only be achieved by reaching now, in 1946, a good understanding on all points with Russia under the general authority of the United Nations Organization and by the maintenance of that good understanding through many peaceful years, by the whole strength of the English-speaking world and all its connections. If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealth be added to that of the United States, with all that such cooperation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe, and in science and in industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary there will be an overwhelming assurance of security. If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength, seeking no one's land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts of men, if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.
Source 11 Chairmen Mao excerpts

The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.

"On Coalition Government" (April 24, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 257.

The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge.

"Preface and Postscript to Rural Surveys" (March and April 1941), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 12.

The masses have boundless creative power. They can organize themselves and concentrate on places and branches of work where they can give full play to their energy; they can concentrate on production in breadth and depth and create more and more undertakings for their own well-being.

Introductory note to "Surplus Labour Has Found a Way Out" (1955), The Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, Chinese ed., Vol. II.

The present upsurge of the peasant movement is a colossal event. In a very short time, in China's central, southern and northern provinces, several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves. Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will force you to make the choice quickly.

"Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan" (March 1927), Selected Works, Vol. I, pp. 23-24.

The high tide of social transformation in the countryside, the high tide of co-operation, has already reached some places and will soon sweep over the whole country. It is a vast socialist revolutionary movement involving a rural population of more than 800 million, and it has extremely great and worldwide significance. We should give this movement active, enthusiastic and systematic leadership, and not drag it back by one means or another. Some errors are unavoidable in the process; this is understandable, and they will not be hard to correct. Shortcomings or mistakes found among the cadres and the peasants can be remedied or overcome provided we give them positive help.

On the Question of Agricultural Co-operation (July 31, 1955), 3rd ed., p. 1.

The masses have a potentially inexhaustible enthusiasm for socialism. Those who can only follow the old routine in a revolutionary period are utterly incapable of seeing this enthusiasm. They are blind and all is dark ahead of them. At times they go so far as to confound right and wrong and turn things upside down. Haven't we come across enough persons of this type? Those who simply follow the old routine invariably underestimate the people's enthusiasm. Let something new appear and they always disapprove and rush to oppose it. Afterwards, they have to admit defeat and do a little self-criticism. But the next time something new appears, they go through the same process all over again. This is their pattern of behavior in regard to anything and everything new. Such people are always passive, always fail to move forward at the critical moment, and always have to be given a shove in the back before they move a step.

Introductory note to "This Township Went Co-operative in Two Years" (1955), The Socialist Upsurge in China's Countryside, Chinese ed., Vol. II.

For over twenty years our Party has carried on mass work every day, and for the past dozen years it has talked about the mass line every day. We have always maintained that the revolution must rely on the masses of the people, on everybody's taking a hand, and have opposed relying merely on a few persons issuing orders. The mass line, however, is still not being thoroughly carried out in the work of some comrades; they still rely solely on a handful of people working in solitude. One reason is that, whatever they do, they are always reluctant to explain it to the people they lead and that they do not understand why or how to give play to the initiative and creative energy of those they lead. Subjectively, they too want everyone to take a hand in the work, but they do not let other people know what is to be done or how to do it. That being the case, how can everyone be expected to get moving and how can anything be done well? To solve this problem the basic thing is, of course, to carry out ideological education on the mass line, but at the same time we must teach these comrades many concrete methods of work.

"A Talk to the Editorial Staff of the Shansi-Suiyuan Daily" (April 2, 1948), Selected Works, Vol. IV, pp. 241-42.

Twenty-four years of experience tell us that the right task, policy and style of work invariably conform with the demands of the masses at a given time and place and invariably strengthen our ties with the masses, and the wrong task, policy and style of work invariably disagree with the demands of the masses at a given time and place and invariably alienate us from the masses. The reason why such evils as dogmatism, empiricism, commandism, tailism, sectarianism, bureaucracy and an arrogant attitude in work are definitely harmful and intolerable, and why anyone suffering from these maladies must overcome them, is that they alienate us from the masses.

"On Coalition Government" (April 24, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 315.

To link oneself with the masses, one must act in accordance with the needs and wishes of the masses. All work done for the masses must start from their needs and not from the desire of any individual, however well-intentioned. It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should wait patiently. We should not make the change until, through our work, most of the masses have become conscious of the need and are willing and determined to carry it out. Otherwise we shall isolate ourselves from the masses. Unless they are conscious and willing, any kind of work that requires their participation will turn out to be a mere formality and will fail.... There are two principles here: one is the actual needs of the masses rather than what we fancy they need, and the other is the wishes of the masses, who must make up their own minds instead of our making up their minds for them.

"The United Front in Cultural Work" (October 30, 1944), Selected Works, Vol. III, pp. 236-37.

Our congress should call upon the whole Party to be vigilant and to see that no comrade at any post is divorced from the masses. It should teach every comrade to love the people and listen attentively to the voice of the masses; to identify himself with the masses wherever he goes and, instead of standing above them, to immerse himself among them; and, according to their present level, to awaken them or raise their political consciousness and help them gradually to organize themselves voluntarily and to set going all essential struggles permitted by the internal and external circumstances of the given time and place.

"On Coalition Government" (April 24, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, pp. 315-I6.

If we tried to go on the offensive when the masses are not yet awakened, that would be adventurism. If we insisted on leading the masses to do anything against their will, we would certainly fail. If we did not advance when the masses demand advance, that would be Right opportunism.

"A Talk to the Editorial Staff of the Shansi-Suiyuan Daily" (April 2, I948), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 243.

Commandism is wrong in any type of work, because in overstepping the level of political consciousness of the masses and violating the principle of voluntary mass action it reflects the disease of impetuosity. Our comrades must not assume that everything they themselves understand is understood by the masses. Whether the masses understand it and are ready to take action can be discovered only by going into their midst and making investigations. If we do so, we can avoid commandism. Tailism in any type of work is also wrong, because in falling below the level of political consciousness of the masses and violating the principle of leading the masses forward it reflects the disease of dilatoriness. Our comrades must not assume that the masses have no understanding of what they do not yet understand. It often happens that the masses outstrip us and are eager to advance a step and that nevertheless our comrades fail to act as leaders of the masses and tail behind certain backward elements, reflecting their views and, moreover, mistaking them for those of the broad masses.

"On Coalition Government" (April 24, 1945), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 316.

Take the ideas of the masses and concentrate them, then go to the masses, persevere in the ideas and carry them through, so as to form correct ideas of leadership - such is the basic method of leadership.

"Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership" (June 1, 1943), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 120.

In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily "from the masses, to the masses". This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in such action. Then once again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses so that the ideas are persevered in and carried through. And so on, over and over again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge.

Ibid., p. 119.

We should go to the masses and learn from them, synthesize their experience into better, articulated principles and methods, then do propaganda among the masses, and call upon them to put these principles and methods into practice so as to solve their problems and help them achieve liberation and happiness.

"Get Organized!" (November 29, 1943), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 158.

There are people in our leading organs in some places that think that it is enough for the leaders alone to know the Party's policies and that there is no need to let the masses know them. This is one of the basic reasons why some of our work cannot be done well.

"A Talk to the Editorial Staff of the Shansi-Suiyuan Daily" (April 2, 1948), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 241.

In all mass movements we must make a basic investigation and analysis of the number of active supporters, opponents and neutrals and must not decide problems subjectively and without basis.

"Methods of Work of Party Committees" (March 13, 1949), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 380.

The masses in any given place are generally composed of three parts, the relatively active, the intermediate and the relatively backward. The leaders must therefore be skilled in uniting the small number of active elements around the leadership and must rely on them to raise the level of the intermediate elements and to win over the backward elements.

"Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership" (June 1, 1943), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 118.

To be good at translating the Party's policy into action of the masses, to be good at getting not only the leading cadres but also the broad masses to understand and master every movement and every struggle we launch - this is an art of Marxist-Leninist leadership. It is also the dividing line that determines whether or not we make mistakes in our work.

"A Talk to the Editorial Staff of the Shansi-Suiyuan Daily" (April 2, 1948), Selected Works, Vol. IV, PP 242-43.

However active the leading group may be, its activity will amount to fruitless effort by a handful of people unless combined with the activity of the masses. On the other hand, if the masses alone are active without a strong leading group to organize their activity properly, such activity cannot be sustained for long, or carried forward in the right direction, or raised to a high level.

"Some Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership" (June 1, 1943), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 118.

Production by the masses, the interests of the masses, the experiences and feelings of the masses - to these the leading cadres should pay constant attention.

Inscription for a production exhibition sponsored by organizations directly under the Central Committee of the Party and the General Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, Liberation Daily of Yenan, November 24, 1943.

We should pay close attention to the well being of the masses, from the problems of land and labour to those of fuel, rice, cooking oil and salt.... All such problems concerning the well being of the masses should be placed on our agenda. We should discuss them, adopt and carry out decisions and check up on the results. We should help the masses to realize that we represent their interests and that our lives are intimately bound up with theirs. We should help them to proceed from these things to an understanding of the higher tasks which we have put forward, the tasks of the revolutionary war, so that they will support the revolution and spread it throughout the country, respond to our political appeals and fight to the end for victory in the revolution.

"Be Concerned with the Well-Being of the Masses, Pay Attention to Methods of Work" (January 27, 1934), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 149.

Source #12 NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, April 14, 1950, excerpt

III. Fundamental Design of the Kremlin

The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas now under their control. In the minds of the Soviet leaders, however, achievement of this design requires the dynamic extension of their authority and the ultimate elimination of any effective opposition to their authority.

V. Soviet Intentions and Capabilities

A. POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL

The Kremlin's design for world domination begins at home. The first concern of a despotic oligarchy is that the local base of its power and authority be secure. The massive fact of the iron curtain isolating the Soviet peoples from the outside world, the repeated political purges within the USSR and the institutionalized crimes of the MVD [the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs] are evidence that the Kremlin does not feel secure at home and that "the entire coercive force of the socialist state" is more than ever one of seeking to impose its absolute authority over "the economy, manner of life, and consciousness of people" (Vyshinski, The Law of the Soviet State, p. 74). Similar evidence in the satellite states of Eastern Europe leads to the conclusion that this same policy, in less advanced phases, is being applied to the Kremlin's colonial areas.

With particular reference to the United States, the Kremlin's strategic and tactical policy is affected by its estimate that we are not only the greatest immediate obstacle which stands between it and world domination, we are also the only power which could release forces in the free and Soviet worlds which could destroy it. The Kremlin's policy toward us is consequently animated by a peculiarly virulent blend of hatred and fear. Its strategy has been one of attempting to undermine the complex of forces, in this country and in the rest of the free world, on which our power is based. In this it has both adhered to doctrine and followed the sound principle of seeking maximum results with minimum risks and commitments. The present application of this strategy is a new form of expression for traditional Russian caution. However, there is no justification in Soviet theory or practice for predicting that, should the Kremlin become convinced that it could cause our downfall by one conclusive blow, it would not seek that solution.

C. MILITARY

The Soviet Union is developing the military capacity to support its design for world domination. The Soviet Union actually possesses armed forces far in excess of those necessary to defend its national territory. These armed forces are probably not yet considered by the Soviet Union to be sufficient to initiate a war which would involve the United States. This excessive strength, coupled now with an atomic capability, provides the Soviet Union with great coercive power for use in time of peace in furtherance of its objectives and serves as a deterrent to the victims of its aggression from taking any action in opposition to its tactics which would risk war.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Conclusions
a. Develop a level of military readiness which can be maintained as long as necessary as a deterrent to Soviet aggression, as indispensable support to our political attitude toward the USSR, as a source of encouragement to nations resisting Soviet political aggression, and as an adequate basis for immediate military commitments and for rapid mobilization should war prove unavoidable.
b. Assure the internal security of the United States against dangers of sabotage, subversion, and espionage.
Source #13 Truman Address on Korea July 19, 1950
This address by President Truman was given nearly a month into the Korean Conflict.
At noon today I sent a message to the Congress about the situation in Korea. I want to talk to you tonight about that situation, and about what it means to the security of the United States and to our hopes for peace in the world.
Korea is a small country, thousands of miles away, but what is happening there is important to every American.
On Sunday, June 25th, Communist forces attacked the Republic of Korea.
This attack has made it clear, beyond all doubt, that the international Communist movement is willing to use armed invasion to conquer independent nations. An act of aggression such as this creates a very real danger to the security of all free nations.
The attack upon Korea was an outright breach of the peace and a violation of the Charter of the United Nations. By their actions in Korea, Communist leaders have demonstrated their contempt for the basic moral principles on which the United Nations is founded. This is a direct challenge to the efforts of the free nations to build the kind of world in which men can live in freedom and peace.
This challenge has been presented squarely. We must meet it squarely. . . .
The Communist invasion was launched in great force, with planes, tanks, and artillery. The size of the attack, and the speed with which it was followed up, make it perfectly plain that it had been plotted long in advance.
As soon as word of the attack was received, Secretary of State [Dean] Acheson called me at Independence, Mo., and informed me that, with my approval, he would ask for an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council met just 24 hours after the Communist invasion began.
One of the main reasons the Security Council was set up was to act in such cases as this–to stop outbreaks of aggression in a hurry before they develop into general conflicts. In this case the Council passed a resolution which called for the invaders of Korea to stop fighting, and to withdraw. The Council called on all members of the United Nations to help carry out this resolution. The Communist invaders ignored the action of the Security Council and kept right on with their attack.
The Security Council then met again. It recommended that members of the United Nations help the Republic of Korea repel the attack and help restore peace and security in that area.
Fifty-two of the 59 countries which are members of the United Nations have given their support to the action taken by the Security Council to restore peace in Korea.
These actions by the United Nations and its members are of great importance. The free nations have now made it clear that lawless aggression will be met with force. The free nations have learned the fateful lesson of the 1930's. That lesson is that aggression must be met firmly. Appeasement leads only to further aggression and ultimately to war.
The principal effort to help the Koreans preserve their independence, and to help the United Nations restore peace, has been made by the United States. We have sent land, sea, and air forces to assist in these operations. We have done this because we know that what is at stake here is nothing less than our own national security and the peace of the world.
So far, two other nations–Australia and Great Britain–have sent planes to Korea; and six other nations–Australia, Canada, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and New Zealand–have made naval forces available.
Under the flag of the United Nations a unified command has been established for all forces of the members of the United Nations fighting in Korea. Gen. Douglas MacArthur is the commander of this combined force.
The prompt action of the United Nations to put down lawless aggression, and the prompt response to this action by free peoples all over the world, will stand as a landmark in mankind's long search for a rule of law among nations.
Only a few countries have failed to endorse the efforts of the United Nations to stop the fighting in Korea. The most important of these is the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union has boycotted the meetings of the United Nations Security Council. It has refused to support the actions of the United Nations with respect to Korea.
The United States requested the Soviet Government, 2 days after the fighting started, to use its influence with the North Koreans to have them withdraw. The Soviet Government refused.
The Soviet Government has said many times that it wants peace in the world, but its attitude toward this act of aggression against the Republic of Korea is in direct contradiction of its statements.
For our part, we shall continue to support the United Nations action to restore peace in the world.
We know that it will take a hard, tough fight to halt the invasion, and to drive the Communists back. The invaders have been provided with enough equipment and supplies for a long campaign. They overwhelmed the lightly armed defense forces of the Korean Republic in the first few days and drove southward.
Now, however, the Korean defenders have reorganized and are making a brave fight for their liberty, and an increasing number of American troops have joined them. Our forces have fought a skillful, rearguard delaying action, pending the arrival of reinforcements. Some of these reinforcements are now arriving; others are on the way from the United States . . . .
Furthermore, the fact that Communist forces have invaded Korea is a warning that there may be similar acts of aggression in other parts of the world. The free nations must be on their guard, more than ever before, against this kind of sneak attack . . . .
When we have worked out with other free countries an increased program for our common defense, I shall recommend to the Congress that additional funds be provided for this purpose. This is of great importance. The free nations face a worldwide threat. It must be met with a worldwide defense. The United States and other free nations can multiply their strength by joining with one another in a common effort to provide this defense. This is our best hope for peace.
The things we need to do to build up our military defense will require considerable adjustment in our domestic economy. We have a tremendously rich and productive economy, and it is expanding every year.
Our job now is to divert to defense purposes more of that tremendous productive capacity–more steel, more aluminum, more of a good many things.
Some of the additional production for military purposes can come from making fuller use of plants which are not operating at capacity. But many of our industries are already going full tilt, and until we can add new capacity, some of the resources we need for the national defense will have to be taken from civilian uses.
This requires us to take certain steps to make sure that we obtain the things we need for national defense, and at the same time guard against inflationary price rises.
The steps that are needed now must be taken promptly.
In the message which I sent to the Congress today, I described the economic measures which are required at this time.
First, we need laws which will insure prompt and adequate supplies for military and essential civilian use. I have therefore recommended that the Congress give the Government power to guide the flow of materials into essential uses, to restrict their use for nonessential purposes, and to prevent the accumulation of unnecessary inventories.
Second, we must adopt measures to prevent inflation and to keep our Government in a sound financial condition. One of the major causes of inflation is the excessive use of credit. I have recommended that the Congress authorize the Government to set limits on installment buying and to curb speculation in agricultural commodities. In the housing field, where Government credit is an important factor, I have already directed that credit restraints be applied, and I have recommended that the Congress authorize further controls.
As an additional safeguard against inflation, and to help finance our defense needs, it will be necessary to make substantial increases in taxes. This is a contribution to our national security that every one of us should stand ready to make. As soon as a balanced and fair tax program can be worked out, I shall lay it before the Congress. This tax program will have as a major aim the elimination of profiteering.
Third, we should increase the production of goods needed for national defense. We must plan to enlarge our defense production, not just for the immediate future, but for the next several years. This will be primarily a task for our businessmen and workers. However, to help obtain the necessary increases, the Government should be authorized to provide certain types of financial assistance to private industry to increase defense production.
Our military needs are large, and to meet them will require hard work and steady effort. I know that we can produce what we need if each of us does his part–each man, each woman, each soldier, each civilian. This is a time for all of us to pitch in and work together. . . .
We have the resources to meet our needs. Far more important, the American people are unified in their belief in democratic freedom. We are united in detesting Communist slavery.
We know that the cost of freedom is high. But we are determined to preserve our freedom-no matter what the cost.
I know that our people are willing to do their part to support our soldiers and sailors and airmen who are fighting in Korea. I know that our fighting men can count on each and every one of you.
Our country stands before the world as an example of how free men, under God, can build a community of neighbors, working together for the good of all.
That is the goal we seek not only for ourselves, but for all people. We believe that freedom and peace are essential if men are to live as our Creator intended us to live. It is this faith that has guided us in the past, and it is this faith that will fortify us in the stern days ahead.
Paul F. Boller, Jr. and Ronald Story, A More Perfect Union: Documents in U.S. History, Volume II. ©1984 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Source #14 Executive Order 9835 excerpt Harry S. Truman Prescribing Procedures for the Administration of an Employees Loyalty Program in the Executive Branch of the Government

March 21, 1947

Whereas each employee of the Government of the United States is endowed with a measure of trusteeship over the democratic processes which are the heart and sinew of the United States; and

Whereas it is of vital importance that persons employed in the Federal service be of complete and unswerving loyalty to the United States; and

Whereas, although the loyalty of by far the overwhelming majority of all Government employees is beyond question, the presence within the Government service of any disloyal or subversive person constitutes a threat to our democratic processes; and

Whereas maximum protection must be afforded the United States against infiltration of disloyal persons into the ranks of its employees, and equal protection from unfounded accusations of disloyalty must be afforded the loyal employees of the Government:

PART I—INVESTIGATION OF APPLICANTS

1. There shall be a loyalty investigation of every person entering the civilian employment of any department or agency of the executive branch of the Federal Government.
1.  
2. The investigations of persons entering the employ of the executive branch may be conducted after any such person enters upon actual employment therein, but in any such case the appointment of such person shall be conditioned upon a favorable determination with respect to his loyalty.
1. Investigations of persons entering the competitive service shall be conducted as expeditiously as possible; provided, however, that if any such investigation is not completed within 18 months from the date on which a person enters actual employment, the condition that his employment is subject to investigation shall expire, except in a case in which the Civil Service Commission has made an initial adjudication of disloyalty and the case continues to be active by reason of an appeal, and it shall then be the responsibility of the employing department or agency to conclude such investigation and make a final determination concerning the loyalty of such person.
3. An investigation shall be made of all applicants at all available pertinent sources of information and shall include reference to:
1. Federal Bureau of Investigation files.
2. Civil Service Commission files.
3. Military and naval intelligence files.
4. The files of any other appropriate government investigative or intelligence agency.
5. House Committee on un-American Activities files.
6. Local law-enforcement files at the place of residence and employment of the applicant, including municipal, county, and State law-enforcement files.
7. Schools and colleges attended by applicant.
8. Former employers of applicant.
9. References given by applicant.
10. Any other appropriate source.
4. Whenever derogatory information with respect to loyalty of an applicant is revealed a full investigation shall be conducted. A full field investigation shall also be conducted of those applicants, or of applicants for particular positions, as may be designated by the head of the employing department or agency, such designations to be based on the determination by any such head of the best interests of national security.

PART V—STANDARDS

1. The standard for the refusal of employment or the removal from employment in an executive department or agency on grounds relating to loyalty shall be that, on all the evidence, reasonable grounds exist for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the Government of the United States.
2. Activities and associations of an applicant or employee which may be considered in connection with the determination of disloyalty may include one or more of the following:
1. Sabotage, espionage, or attempts or preparations therefor, or knowingly associating with spies or saboteurs;
2. Treason or sedition or advocacy thereof;
3. Advocacy of revolution or force or violence to alter the constitutional form of government of the United States;
4. Intentional, unauthorized disclosure to any person, under circumstances which may indicate disloyalty to the United States, of documents or information of a confidential or non-public character obtained by the person making the disclosure as a result of his employment by the Government of the United States;
5. Performing or attempting to perform his duties, or otherwise acting, so as to serve the interests of another government in preference to the interests of the United States.
6. Membership in, affiliation with or sympathetic association with any foreign or domestic organization, association, movement, group or combination of persons, designated by the Attorney General as totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive, or as having adopted a policy of advocating or approving the commission of acts of force or violence to deny other persons their rights under the Constitution of the United States, or as seeking to alter the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means.

Source #15 Speech of Joseph McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia, February 9, 1950

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight as we celebrate the one hundred forty-first birthday of one of the greatest men in American history, I would like to be able to talk about what a glorious day today is in the history of the world. As we celebrate the birth of this man who with his whole heart and soul hated war, I would like to be able to speak of peace in our time—of war being outlawed—and of world-wide disarmament. These would be truly appropriate things to be able to mention as we celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

Five years after a world war has been won, men’s hearts should anticipate a long peace—and men’s minds should be free from the heavy weight that comes with war. But this is not such a period—for this is not a period of peace. This is a time of “the cold war.” This is a time when all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile armed camps—a time of a great armament race.

Today we can almost physically hear the mutterings and rumblings of an invigorated god of war. You can see it, feel it, and hear it all the way from the Indochina hills, from the shores of Formosa, right over into the very heart of Europe itself.

The one encouraging thing is that the “mad moment” has not yet arrived for the firing of the gun or the exploding of the bomb which will set civilization about the final task of destroying itself. There is still a hope for peace if we finally decide that no longer can we safely blind our eyes and close our ears to those facts which are shaping up more and more clearly . . . and that is that we are now engaged in a show-down fight . . . not the usual war between nations for land areas or other material gains, but a war between two diametrically opposed ideologies.

The great difference between our western Christian world and the atheistic Communist world is not political, gentlemen, it is moral. For instance, the Marxian idea of confiscating the land and factories and running the entire economy as a single enterprise is momentous. Likewise, Lenin’s invention of the one-party police state as a way to make Marx’s idea work is hardly less momentous.

Stalin’s resolute putting across of these two ideas, of course, did much to divide the world. With only these differences, however, the east and the west could most certainly still live in peace.

The real, basic difference, however, lies in the religion of immoralism . . . invented by Marx, preached feverishly by Lenin, and carried to unimaginable extremes by Stalin. This religion of immoralism, if the Red half of the world triumphs—and well it may, gentlemen—this religion of immoralism will more deeply wound and damage mankind than any conceivable economic or political system.

Karl Marx dismissed God as a hoax, and Lenin and Stalin have added in clear-cut, unmistakable language their resolve that no nation, no people who believe in a god, can exist side by side with their communistic state.

Karl Marx, for example, expelled people from his Communist Party for mentioning such things as love, justice, humanity or morality. He called this “soulful ravings” and “sloppy sentimentality.” . . .

Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down—they are truly down.

Lest there be any doubt that the time has been chosen, let us go directly to the leader of communism today—Joseph Stalin. Here is what he said—not back in 1928, not before the war, not during the war—but 2 years after the last war was ended: “To think that the Communist revolution can be carried out peacefully, within the framework of a Christian democracy, means one has either gone out of one’s mind and lost all normal understanding, or has grossly and openly repudiated the Communist revolution.” . . .

Ladies and gentlemen, can there be anyone tonight who is so blind as to say that the war is not on? Can there by anyone who fails to realize that the Communist world has said the time is now? . . . that this is the time for the show-down between the democratic Christian world and the communistic atheistic world?

Unless we face this fact, we shall pay the price that must be paid by those who wait too long.

Six years ago, . . . there was within the Soviet orbit, 180,000,000 people. Lined up on the antitotalitarian side there were in the world at that time, roughly 1,625,000,000 people. Today, only six years later, there are 800,000,000 people under the absolute domination of Soviet Russia—an increase of over 400 percent. On our side, the figure has shrunk to around 500,000,000. In other words, in less than six years, the odds have changed from 9 to 1 in our favor to 8 to 5 against us.

This indicates the swiftness of the tempo of Communist victories and American defeats in the cold war. As one of our outstanding historical figures once said, “When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be from enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within.” . . .

The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because our only powerful potential enemy has sent men to invade our shores . . . but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have been treated so well by this Nation. It has not been the less fortunate, or members of minority groups who have been traitorous to this Nation, but rather those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest Nation on earth has had to offer . . . the finest homes, the finest college education and the finest jobs in government we can give.

This is glaringly true in the State Department. There the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been most traitorous. . . .

I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department. . . .

As you know, very recently the Secretary of State proclaimed his loyalty to a man guilty of what has always been considered as the most abominable of all crimes—being a traitor to the people who gave him a position of great trust—high treason. . . .

He has lighted the spark which is resulting in a moral uprising and will end only when the whole sorry mess of twisted, warped thinkers are swept from the national scene so that we may have a new birth of honesty and decency in government.

Joseph McCarthy to President Harry Truman, February 11, 1950

In the Lincoln Day speech at Wheeling Thursday night I stated that the State Department harbors a nest of Communists and Communist sympathizers who are helping to shape our foreign policy. I further stated that I have in my possession the names of 57 Communists who are in the State Department at present. A State Department spokesman promptly denied this, claiming that there is not a single Communist in the Department. You can convince yourself of the falsity of the State Department claim very easily. You will recall that you personally appointed a board to screen State Department employees for the purpose of weeding out fellow travelers—men whom the board considered dangerous to the security of this Nation. Your board did a painstaking job, and named hundreds which had been listed as dangerous to the security of the Nation, because of communistic connections.

While the records are not available to me, I know absolutely of one group of approximately 300 certified to the Secretary for discharge because of communism. He actually only discharged approximately 80. I understand that this was done after lengthy consultation with the now-convicted traitor, Alger Hiss. I would suggest, therefore, Mr. President, that you simply pick up your phone and ask Mr. Acheson how many of those whom your board had labeled as dangerous Communists he failed to discharge. The day the House Un-American Activities Committee exposed Alger Hiss as an important link in an international Communist spy ring you signed an order forbidding the State Department’s giving any information in regard to the disloyalty or the communistic connections of anyone in that Department to the Congress.

Despite this State Department black-out, we have been able to compile a list of 57 Communists in the State Department. This list is available to you but you can get a much longer list by ordering Secretary Acheson to give you a list of those whom your own board listed as being disloyal and who are still working in the State Department. I believe the following is the minimum which can be expected of you in this case.

1. That you demand that Acheson give you and the proper congressional committee the names and a complete report on all of those who were placed in the Department by Alger Hiss, and all of those still working in the State Department who were listed by your board as bad security risks because of their communistic connections.

2. That you promptly revoke the order in which you provided under no circumstances could a congressional committee obtain any information or help in exposing Communists.

Failure on your part will label the Democratic Party of being the bedfellow of international communism. Certainly this label is not deserved by the hundreds of thousands of loyal American Democrats throughout the Nation, and by the sizable number of able loyal Democrats in both the Senate and the House.

Source: U.S. Senate, State Department Loyalty Investigation Committee on Foreign Relations, 81st Congress; Joseph McCarthy to President Harry Truman February 11, 1950, Congressional Record, 81st Congress

Source #16 Declaration of Conscience, “National Suicide”: Margaret Chase Smith and Six Republican Senators Speak Out Against Joseph McCarthy’s Attack on “Individual Freedom”

The anticommunist crusader Senator Joseph McCarthy stepped into national prominence on February 9, 1950, when he mounted an attack on President Truman’s foreign policy agenda. McCarthy charged that the State Department and its Secretary, Dean Acheson, harbored “traitorous” Communists. McCarthy’s apocalyptic rhetoric—he portrayed the Cold War conflict as “a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity”—made critics hesitate before challenging him. His purported lists of Communist conspirators multiplied in subsequent years to include employees in government agencies, the broadcasting and defense industries, universities, the United Nations, and the military. Most of those accused were helpless to defend their ruined reputations and faced loss of employment, damaged careers, and in many cases, broken lives. In protest, Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith composed the following “Declaration of Conscience,” condemning the atmosphere of suspicion and blaming leaders of both parties for their “lack of effective leadership.” Although Smith convinced six additional Republican Senators to join her in the Declaration, the seven refused to support a Senate report prepared by Democrats that called McCarthy’s charges against State Department personnel fraudulent.

Declaration of Conscience, June 1, 1950

Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership in either the legislative branch or the executive branch of our Government.

That leadership is so lacking that serious and responsible proposals are being made that national advisory commissions be appointed to provide such critically needed leadership.

I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as simply as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart.

I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American.

The United States Senate has long enjoyed worldwide respect as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But recently that deliberative character has too often been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity.

It is ironical that we Senators can debate in the Senate directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to any American, who is not a Senator, any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming an American—and without that non-Senator American having any legal redress against it—yet if we say the same thing in the Senate about our colleagues we can be stopped on the grounds of being out of order.

It is strange that we can verbally attack anyone else without restraint and with full protection and yet we hold ourselves above the same type of criticism here on the Senate floor. Surely the United States Senate is big enough to take self-criticism and self-appraisal. Surely we should be able to take the same kind of character attacks that we “dish out” to outsiders.

I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its Members to do some soul searching—for us to weigh our consciences—on the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America; on the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges.

I think that it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech, but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.

Whether it be a criminal prosecution in court or a character prosecution in the Senate, there is little practical distinction when the life of a person has been ruined.

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism—

The right to criticize;

The right to hold unpopular beliefs;

The right to protest;

The right of independent thought.

The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us doesn’t? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in.

The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as “Communists” or “Fascists” by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.

The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed. But there have been enough proved cases, such as the Amerasia case, the Hiss case, the Coplon case, the Gold case, to cause Nation-wide distrust and strong suspicion that there may be something to the unproved, sensational accusations.

As a Republican, I say to my colleagues on this side of the aisle that the Republican Party faces a challenge today that is not unlike the challenge that it faced back in Lincoln’s day. The Republican Party so successfully met that challenge that it emerged from the Civil War as the champion of a united nation—in addition to being a party that unrelentingly fought loose spending and loose programs.

Today our country is being psychologically divided by the confusion and the suspicions that are bred in the United States Senate to spread like cancerous tentacles of “know nothing, suspect everything” attitudes. Today we have a Democratic administration that has developed a mania for loose spending and loose programs. History is repeating itself—and the Republican Party again has the opportunity to emerge as the champion of unity and prudence.

The record of the present Democratic administration has provided us with sufficient campaign issues without the necessity of resorting to political smears. America is rapidly losing its position as leader of the world simply because the Democratic administration has pitifully failed to provide effective leadership.

The Democratic administration has completely confused the American people by its daily contradictory grave warnings and optimistic assurances—that show the people that our Democratic administration has no idea of where it is going.

The Democratic administration has greatly lost the confidence of the American people by its complacency to the threat of communism here at home and the leak of vital secrets to Russia through key officials of the Democratic administration. There are enough proved cases to make this point without diluting our criticism with unproved charges.

Surely these are sufficient reasons to make it clear to the American people that it is time for a change and that a Republican victory is necessary to the security of this country. Surely it is clear that this nation will continue to suffer as long as it is governed by the present ineffective Democratic administration.

Yet to displace it with a Republican regime embracing a philosophy that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to this Nation. The Nation sorely needs a Republican victory. But I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear.

I doubt if the Republican Party could—simply because I don’t believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans aren’t that desperate for victory.

I don’t want to see the Republican Party win that way. While it might be a fleeting victory for the Republican Party, it would be a more lasting defeat for the American people. Surely it would ultimately be suicide for the Republican Party and the two-party system that has protected our American liberties from the dictatorship of a one-party system.

As members of the minority party, we do not have the primary authority to formulate the policy of our Government. But we do have the responsibility of rendering constructive criticism, of clarifying issues, of allaying fears by acting as responsible citizens.

As a woman, I wonder how the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters feel about the way in which members of their families have been politically mangled in Senate debate—and I use the word “debate” advisedly.

As a United States Senator, I am not proud of the way in which the Senate has been made a publicity platform for irresponsible sensationalism. I am not proud of the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle. I am not proud of the obviously staged, undignified countercharges that have been attempted in retaliation from the other side of the aisle.

I don’t like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity. I am not proud of the way we smear outsiders from the floor of the Senate and hide behind the cloak of congressional immunity and still place ourselves beyond criticism on the floor of the Senate.

As an American, I am shocked at the way Republicans and Democrats alike are playing directly into the Communist design of “confuse, divide and conquer.” As an American, I don’t want a Democratic administration “whitewash” or “cover-up” any more than I want a Republican smear or witch hunt.

As an American, I condemn a Republican “Fascist” just as much as I condemn a Democrat “Communist.” I condemn a Democrat “Fascist” just as much as I condemn a Republican “Communist.” They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our Nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.

It is with these thoughts I have drafted what I call a Declaration of Conscience. I am gratified that Senator Tobey, Senator Aiken, Senator Morse, Senator Ives, Senator Thye and Senator Hendrickson, have concurred in that declaration and have authorized me to announce their concurrence.

Statement of Seven Republican Senators

1. We are Republicans. But we are Americans first. It is as Americans that we express our concern with the growing confusion that threatens the security and stability of our country. Democrats and Republicans alike have contributed to that confusion.

2. The Democratic administration has initially created the confusion by its lack of effective leadership, by its contradictory grave warnings and optimistic assurances, by its complacency to the threat of communism here at home, by its oversensitiveness to rightful criticism, by its petty bitterness against its critics.

3. Certain elements of the Republican Party have materially added to this confusion in the hopes of riding the Republican party to victory through the selfish political exploitation of fear, bigotry, ignorance, and intolerance. There are enough mistakes of the Democrats for Republicans to criticize constructively without resorting to political smears.

4. To this extent, Democrats and Republicans alike have unwittingly, but undeniably, played directly into the Communist design of “confuse, divide and conquer.”

5. It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.

Source: "Declaration of Conscience" by Senator Margaret Chase Smith and Statement of Seven Senators, June 1, 1950, Congressional Record, 82nd Congress. 1st Session, in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and Roger Burns, Congress Investigates: A Documented History, 1792–1974 (New York: Chelsea House, 1963), 84–88.

Source #17 Republican Party Platform of 1956, excerpt, August 20, 1956

Declaration of Faith

America's trust is in the merciful providence of God, in whose image every man is created ... the source of every man's dignity and freedom.

In this trust our Republic was founded. We give devoted homage to the Founding Fathers. They not only proclaimed that the freedom and rights of men came from the Creator and not from the State, but they provided safeguards to those freedoms.

Our great President Dwight D. Eisenhower has counseled us further: "In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human. In all those things which deal with people's money, or their economy, or their form of government, be conservative."

In four years we have achieved the highest economic level with the most widely shared benefits that the world has ever seen. We of the Republican Party have fostered this prosperity and are dedicated to its expansion and to the preservation of the climate in which it has thrived.

We will ever fight the demoralizing influence of inflation as a national way of life. We are proud to have fulfilled our 1952 pledge to halt the skyrocketing cost of living that in the previous 13 years had cut the value of the dollar by half, and robbed millions of the full value of their wages, savings, insurance, pensions and social security.

We have balanced the budget. We believe and will continue to prove that thrift, prudence and a sensible respect for living within income applies as surely to the management of our Government's budget as it does to the family budget.

We hold that the strict division of powers and the primary responsibility of State and local governments must be maintained, and that the centralization of powers in the national Government leads to expansion of the mastery of our lives,

The individual is of supreme importance.

Taxation and Fiscal Policy

The Republican Party takes pride in calling attention to the outstanding fiscal achievements of the Eisenhower Administration, several of which are mentioned in the foreword to these resolutions.

In order to progress further in correcting the unfortunate results of unwise financial management during 20 years of Democrat Administrations, we pledge to pursue the following objectives:

Further reductions in Government spending as recommended in the Hoover Commission Report, without weakening the support of a superior defense program or depreciating the quality of essential services of government to our people.

Continued balancing of the budget, to assure the financial strength of the country which is so vital to the struggle of the free world in its battle against Communism; and to maintain the purchasing power of a sound dollar, and the value of savings, pensions and insurance.

Gradual reduction of the national debt.

Then, insofar as consistent with a balanced budget, we pledge to work toward these additional objectives:

Further reductions in taxes with particular consideration for low and middle income families.

Initiation of a sound policy of tax reductions which will encourage small independent businesses to modernize and progress.

Continual study of additional ways to correct inequities in the effect of various taxes.

Consistent with the Republican Administration's accomplishment in stemming the inflation —which under five Democrat Administrations had cut the value of the dollar in half, and so had robbed the wage earner and millions of thrifty citizens who had savings, pensions and insurance—we endorse the present policy of freedom for the Federal Reserve System to combat both inflation and deflation by wise fiscal policy.

The Republican Party believes that sound money, which retains its buying power, is an essential foundation for new jobs, a higher standard of living, protection of savings, a secure national defense, and the general economic growth of the country.

Business and Economic Policy

The Republican Party has as a primary concern the continued advancement of the well-being of the individual. This can be attained only in an economy that, as today, is sound, free and creative, ever building new wealth and new jobs for all the people.

We believe in good business for all business—small, medium and large. We believe that competition in a free economy opens unrivaled opportunity and brings the greatest good to the greatest number.

The sound economic policies of the Eisenhower Administration have created an atmosphere of confidence in which good businesses flourish and can plan for growth to create new job opportunities for our expanding population.

We have eliminated a host of needless controls. To meet the immense demands of our expanding economy, we have initiated the largest highway, air and maritime programs in history, each soundly financed.

We shall continue to advocate the maintenance and expansion of a strong, efficient, privately-owned and operated and soundly financed system of transportation that will serve all of the needs of our Nation under Federal regulatory policies that will enable each carrier to realize its inherent economic advantages and its full competitive capabilities.

We recognize the United States' world leadership in aviation, and we shall continue to encourage its technical development and vigorous expansion. Our goal is to support and sponsor air services and to make available to our citizens the safest and most comprehensive air transportation. We favor adequate funds and expeditious action in improving air safety, and highest efficiency in the control of air traffic.

We stand for forward-looking programs, created to replace our war-built merchant fleet with the most advanced types in design, with increased speed. Adaptation of new propulsion power units, including nuclear, must be sponsored and achieved.

We should proceed with the prompt construction of the Atomic Powered Peace Ship in order that we may demonstrate to the world, in this as in other fields, the peaceful uses of the atom.

Our steadily rising prosperity is constantly reflecting the confidence of our citizens in the policies of our Republican Administration.

Small Business

We pledge the continuation and improvement of our drive to aid small business. Every constructive potential avenue of improvement both legislative and executive—has been explored in our search for ways in which to widen opportunities for this important segment of America's economy.

Beginning with our creation of the very successful Small Business Administration, and continuing through the recently completed studies and recommendations of the Cabinet Committee on Small Business, which we strongly endorse, we have focused our attention on positive measures to help small businesses get started and grow.

Small Business can look forward to expanded participation in federal procurement—valuable financing and technical aids—a continuously vigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws—important cuts in the burdens of paper work, and certain tax reductions as budgetary requirements permit.

Small business now is receiving approximately one-third, dollar-wise, of all Defense contracts. We recommend a further review of procurement procedures for all defense departments and agencies with a view to facilitating and extending such participation for the further benefit of Small Business.

We favor loans at reasonable rates of interest to small businesses which have records of permanency but who are in temporary need and which are unable to obtain credit in commercial channels. We recommend an extension at the earliest opportunity of the Small Business Administration which is now scheduled to expire in mid-1957.

Civil Rights

The Republican Party has unequivocally recognized that the supreme law of the land is embodied in the Constitution, which guarantees to all people the blessings of liberty, due process and equal protection of the laws. It confers upon all native-born and naturalized citizens not only citizenship in the State where the individual resides but citizenship of the United States as well. This is an unqualified right, regardless of race, creed or color.

Source #18

Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution reads:

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President.

Amendment XXV

Section 1.

In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2.

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3.

Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4.

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Source #19 Transcript of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961)

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

III

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology-global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle-with liberty at stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research-these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we which to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs-balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage-balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between action of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peace time, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

V

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we-you and I, and our government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

VI

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war-as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years-I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

VII

So-in this my last good night to you as your President-I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find somethings worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I-my fellow citizens-need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing inspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

Name __________________________________________                                Date _____________________                                            

History Test #__--Cold War Freeze

___________/100

Define: (         /10)

1. containment

2. Cold War

Short Answer:

3. How did the Cold War begin and why?

(      /20)

4.         Evaluate the Eisenhower Administration by addressing Civil Rights, domestic affluence, and the Military-Industrial Complex.

(       /25)

Geography: (       /10)

5. Find and identify Little Rock, Brooklyn, Mississippi, Yalta, China, Korea

Essay Question

Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Answer only one of the following questions in paragraph form on a separate piece of paper. Include in your answer a thesis statement and relevant supporting details. (        /35)

6.       Describe Yalta, Soviet conduct during the Cold War, and the Allies response: the Marshall Plan, and the “Iron Curtain” speech. How did the Allies respond to the Soviets after World War II? Was it an effective response?

-or-

       Six

Consider Chairman Mao. Did the U.S. lose China or did Chairmen Mao lead China? Was the U.S. containment policy of NSC-68 and response in Korea effective? Why or why not?