Ch. 34-35 Flashcards
Yalta conference
Meeting of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin in February 1945 at an old tsarist resort on the Black Sea, where the Big Three leaders laid the foundations for the postwar division of power in Europe, including a divided Germany and territorial concessions to the Soviet Union.
Cold War
The forty-five-year-long diplomatic tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that divided much of the world into polarized camps, capitalist against communist. Most of the international conflicts during that period, particularly in the developing world, can be traced to the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Bretton Woods Conference
Meeting of Western allies to establish a postwar international economic order to avoid crises like the one that spawned World War II. Led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, designed to regulate currency levels and provide aid to underdeveloped countries.
International Monetary Fund
to encourage world trade by regulating currency exchange rates.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank)
to promote economic growth in war-ravaged and underdeveloped areas.
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
reduced trade barriers among member nations and helped to form the basis for the transformative spread of economic globalization in the latter half of the century.
United Nations (U.N.)
International body formed in 1945 to bring nations into dialogue in hopes of preventing further world wars. Much like the former League of Nations in ambition, the U.N. was more realistic in recognizing the authority of the Big Five powers in keeping peace in the world. Thus, it guaranteed veto power to all permanent members of its Security Council—Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
Nuremberg war crimes trial
Highly publicized proceedings against former Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity in postwar Germany. The trials led to several executions and long prison sentences.
Berlin airlift
Year-long mission of flying food and supplies to blockaded West Berliners, whom the Soviet Union cut off from access to the West in the first major crisis of the Cold War.
containment doctrine
America’s strategy against the Soviet Union based on ideas of George Kennan. The doctrine declared that the Soviet Union and communism were inherently expansionist and had to be stopped from spreading through both military and political pressure. Containment guided American foreign policy throughout most of the Cold War.
Truman Doctrine
President Truman’s universal pledge of support for any people fighting any communist or communist-inspired threat. Truman presented the doctrine to Congress in 1947 in support of his request for $400 million to defend Greece and Turkey against Soviet-backed insurgencies.
Marshall Plan
Massive transfer of aid money to help rebuild postwar Western Europe, intended to bolster capitalist and democratic governments and prevent domestic communist groups from riding poverty and misery to power. The plan was first announced by Secretary of State George Marshall at Harvard’s commencement in June 1947.
National Security Act
creating the Department of Defense. The department was to be housed in the sprawling Pentagon building on the banks of the Potomac and to be headed by a new cabinet officer, the secretary of defense. also established the National Security Council (NSC) to advise the president on security matters and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate the government’s foreign fact gathering.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Military alliance of Western European powers and the United States and Canada established in 1949 to defend against the common threat from the Soviet Union, marking a giant stride forward for European unity and American internationalism.
National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (NSC-68)
National Security Council recommendation to quadruple defense spending and rapidly expand peacetime armed forces to address Cold War tensions. It reflected a new militarization of American foreign policy, but the huge costs of rearmament were not expected to interfere with what seemed like the limitless possibilities of postwar prosperity.
Korean War
First “hot war” of the Cold War. It began when the Soviet-backed North Koreans invaded South Korea and U.N. forces, dominated by the United States, launched a counteroffensive. The war ended in stalemate in 1953.
“loyalty” program
The attorney general drew up a list of ninety supposedly disloyal organizations, none of which was given the opportunity to prove its innocence. The Loyalty Review Board investigated more than 3 million federal employees, some 3000 of whom either resigned or were dismissed, none under formal indictment.
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
Investigatory body established in 1938 to root out “subversion.” Sought to expose communist influence in American government and society, in particular through the trial of Alger Hiss.
McCarthyism
A brand of vitriolic, fear-mongering anti-communism associated with the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the early 1950s, Senator McCarthy used his position in Congress to baselessly accuse high-ranking government officials and other Americans of conspiracy with communism. The term named after him refers to the dangerous forces of unfairness and fear wrought by anticommunist paranoia.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Executive Order 9981
Order issued by President Truman to desegregate the armed forces. The president’s action resulted from a combination of pressure from civil rights advocates, election-year political calculations, and the new geopolitical context of the Cold War.
Taft-Hartley Act
Republican-promoted, antiunion legislation passed over President Truman’s vigorous veto that weakened many of labor’s New Deal gains by banning the closed shop and other strategies that helped unions organize. It also required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath, which purged the union movement of many of its most committed and active organizers.
Operation Dixie
Failed effort by the CIO after World War II to unionize southern workers, especially in textile factories.
Employment Act of 1946
Legislation declaring that the government’s economic policy should aim to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power, as well as to keep inflation low. This general commitment was much shorter on specific targets and rules than its liberal creators had wished. The act created the Council of Economic Advisers to provide the president with data and recommendations to make economic policy.
GI Bill
Known officially as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act and more informally as the GI Bill of Rights, this law helped returning World War II soldiers reintegrate into civilian life by securing loans to buy homes and farms and set up small businesses. It also made tuition and stipends available for them to attend college, as well as job training programs. The act was intended to cushion the blow of 15 million returning servicemen on the employment market and to nurture the postwar economy.
Henry A. Wallace
Fair Deal
President Truman’s extensive social program introduced in his 1949 message to Congress. Republicans and southern Democrats kept much of his vision from being enacted, except for raising the minimum wage, providing for more public housing, and extending old-age insurance to many more beneficiaries under the Social Security Act.
New look foreign policy
condemned mere “containment” of communism as “negative, futile, and immoral.”
policy of boldness
Foreign-policy objective of Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of state John Foster Dulles, who believed in changing the containment strategy to one that more directly engaged the Soviet Union and attempted to roll back communist influence around the world. This policy led to a buildup of America’s nuclear arsenal to threaten “massive retaliation” against communist enemies, launching the Cold War’s arms race.
Hungarian uprising
Series of demonstrations in Hungary against the Soviet Union. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev violently suppressed this pro-Western uprising, highlighting the limitations of America’s power in Eastern Europe.
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Military engagement in French colonial Vietnam in which French forces were defeated by Viet Minh nationalists loyal to Ho Chi Minh. With this loss, the French ended their colonial involvement in Indochina, paving the way for America’s entry.
Suez crisis
International crisis launched when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been owned mostly by French and British stockholders. The crisis led to a British and French attack on Egypt, which failed without aid from the United States. The Suez crisis marked an important turning point in the post-colonial Middle East and highlighted the rising importance of oil in world affairs.
