Truman does win in 1948 (barely) but he has a hard road ahead. So hard are the next four years that Truman will elect not to run in 1952 and his poll numbers will be at an all time low for any American president (even Nixon after his resignation). So what happened? How did things go so badly? Part of that story is here, part of it is in the domestic arena, and part of it is in the next chapter, on Korea.
Here, the Soviets get the bomb, China “falls” and Americans are accused of giving away secrets to the communists. Despite the great victory in the Berlin airlift of 1948, the above three events lead many Americans, to look at the enormous “Red” Army in Europe, and conclude we were losing the cold war.
So, NSC-68 rolls out, claims we can spend 20% of our GDP on defense, later Eisenhower warns of the “military industrial complex”, after we join NATO and G. Kennan is rolling in his proverbial grave (he lived until 05) because his idea of containment, had been diplomatic and economic, not military.
So here we roll into the 50s, fear of communism, Korea, the Civil Rights movement will take center stage on the domestic front, and on the lighter side, the Mickey Mouse Club and TV will come along, as will Elvis and Rock & Roll.
The 50s isn’t all “Leave it to Beaver” though. What do you think of, when you think of the 50s?
Earlier 50′s I remember it wasn’t as good as it had been later, that is when a lot of people faced conformity.
As to the chapter, something I found interesting was that even though Kennan would speak and basically warn that NATO should not make its treaty a militaristic alliance without facing their consequences. Obviously why Mcarthyism escalated quickly was beacause people thought that they had already lost and wanted someone to blame for their “loss”. What I got out of the NSC-68, was that it was the U.S.’s last resort to continue the containment policy.
NSC 68 was an extension ofthe Truman doctrine, in the way that it extenxed the doctrine to the rest of the non-communist world, including South Korea. NSC 68 also essentially says that all change in the world was caused by communist, which is the opposite of McCarthy’s theory that all things that went wrong were caused by traitors in the government itself. The reason i think that McCarthy really got so powerful was because of the Russians getting the bomb. The view that the US was superior and hadthe power to change anything was important, but the bomb scare is what ultimately helped mccarthy gain power.
When I think of the 50s I think of cuba and how I could pretty much go to havana and see all the cool cars that existed in the 50s still working.
As for the chapter, I like how the United States learned from their “mistakes” and decided to invest more money in Europe because it was a common belief that had more money been invested to the democratic Chinese, Chiang, China might not have fallen. If the US had invested more money in China, China might not have fallen, and our diplomatic history would be very different.
Many things come to mind for me when I think of the 50s. As Samantha mentioned, it was truly the last decade of conformity in the US. It was also a time of substantial economic prosperity (if I may borrow from my railroad knowledge, even a lowly switchman had a high enough standard of living to own a house and raise a family of four). Lastly, there was the obvious threat of Nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. All in all, I’d say that domestic conditions were relatively good, but the looming threat of the cold war was always a concern.
After reading this chapter, I found it evident that the U.S. creating NATO and spending a lot of money to rebuilt Western Europe was not enough to contain communism. China still fell and there were many questions that were still unanswered. It seemed like Truman was unsuccessfully convincing the American people that NATO was necessary. I don’t much about the 1950′s, but several things that come to mind are the baby boom and society seemed to be materialistic because everybody wanted to buy a house, a car and have children.
Whenever i think of the 50′s likr Nadia said the cars were much cooler, despite being scared of an attack by the Russians, i think that the 50′s would have been a cool time to live in.
Even though China had fallen to communism and that the Soviets had gotten hold of their own creation of the bomb, for people to say that we were now losing the Cold War is foolish becuase for the Soviets to create an atomic bomb was inevitable, and for China to fall, sure we probably could have tried harder to stop it but it fell, we couldn’t do anything to stop it after it fell so we just have to let it be.
Whenever I think of the of 50′s, I always picture a very simple way of life, with perfect families, house-wives, and flashy cars. After reading the chapter, I realized how difficult of a time this was, and how much stress was on the United States to take care of the rest of the world. Although the United States and the Soviet Union were not on peaceful terms, I found it interesting that they were able to work together to help establish a home for the Jews in what was previously Palestinian territory. After successfully declaring their independence on May 14, 1948, I found it odd that Israel turned to the Soviet Union to supply their arms, instead of the United States, whom continues to be their ally today.
Like everyone else, I picture the 50s as a great time where new fashion, haircuts and technology came into play. Yet, in this chapter, it makes one see another side of the 50s.
This chapter was effective in detailing the tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S. It is sort of reading a very dramatic soap opera, because everyone is just all over the place. Poor Kennan though, he probably did not consider himself to be the father of containment policy, since it was only an economic and political challenge, he thought. NSC-68 was according to Senator Henry Jackson, “the first comprehensive statement of a national strategy.” It was probably one of the greater factors that caused the shift in a defensive strategy to an offensive one, although no offense position was taken, except in rearment, which was what the American Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted, not Kennan. I also found it surprising that the US was that close to forming an offensive strategy recommended by Clay but Army Chief of Staff Omar Bradley used sheer numbers, that they would be outnumbered 10-1. The Berlin airlift was a big success, and also very clever because the Russians wanted to stop the US but the US still managed to get around that without waging war. Pretty smart move.
The fifties remind me of poofy skirts and drive throughs, and also the time when defense spending drastically increased to confront the communist threat. I believe the fifties was a simple time made complex by the accusations of Mcarthy and the hysteria within the government. To pose a serious threat to Russia, America needed to become belligerent in all buy name, just as it had in WWII.
My picture of the Fifty’s leans towards the fear of communism. While things seemed pretty nice on the surface, the US was incredibly fearful of communism and nuclear war. I think of the episode of The Twilight Zone called “Monsters on Mulberry Street”. This episode is a comment on the red scare: people start accusing each other of being the ‘monster’, and the whole community turns on each other, creating chaos. The ‘monster’ is a ‘communist’, people were afraid of having one live closeby, and they looked just like everyone else. The key to that episode is that there was no monster, and only the fear of ‘monsters’ itself was enough to destroy a community.