post-war disarray

  • post-war Europe -> multiple problems
  • future of Germany and defeated countries unresolved
  • change in world power
    • US leading
  • power vacuum in western, southern, and eastern Europe

Long Telegram by Kennan

  • American concesssions would not affect official Soviet aggressiveness
  • expectation that Moscow in control of all communist forces to topple the Western bloc
    • in reality not really
  • Kennan pessimistic about the prospects for liberal capitalim in Europe and elsewhere
  • change in public opinion
    • public advertisements and propaganda
    • prompted the Iron Curtain speech 5 March 1946
      • though US public not ready for a special US-UK relation
  • to get tough
  • economic and political support for those threatened by SU

opposition voices to tough policy

  • Henry Wallace: ‘the tougher we get, the tougher the Russians will get’

possible explanation for the popularization of Containment

  1. Churchill: appeasement prepared the way for Hitler and permitted him to launch a world war
    1. align SU w/ Germany
  2. increase in US expansion results in increase in possible conflicts and insecurity
  3. fears of recession after the war
    1. hoped US flow of capital goods, elimination of tariff barriers & restrictive legislation in whole Europe to avoid recession
      1. against communist control
  4. to rally US morale; inspire and motivate production
  5. US find a reason to reassert its military significance

Containment under way

1946 foreign policy - containment

  • reported to the public

Iran - 1st test ground for Containment

  • joint control by UK-SU
    • both supposed to withdraw by 2 March 1946
    • SU didn’t
    • Azerbaijani communists claimed autonomy
  • pressure on SU -> SU declared to leave 5/6 weeks later -> Azerbaijanis some autonomy within iran -> joint Soviet-Iranian oil company
  • Byrnes: SU imperialist
    • Azerbaijani autonomy abolished
    • SU-Iranian oil company not ratified

Council of Foreign Ministers in Paris April 1946

  • Byrnes rejected most SU proposals
  • final resolution:
  • SU made some concessions but adament at refusing the ‘open door’ policy

conflict in Turkey

  • Montreux Convention 1936 -> gave Turkey power over the Strait
  • Potsdam agreed that SU to seek revision of the Convention
  • 7 August 1946 - SU demanded Turkey to ignore the Montreux Convention
  • US adopted aggressive policy
    • opposition note
    • warships into the eastern Mediterranean
  • Stalin backed down

containment in credit

  • credit to all other countries
  • credit to SU if allowed US economic penetration
  • reduced economic assistance to states under SU spheres of influence
    • Czechoslovakia negotiations cut off
    • US quit United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)
      • Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary
        • applied to the World Bank for credits but turned down

policy on atomic weapons

US attempted to collaborate with the SU but failed

  • US proposed unfair terms for the SU (when only US has atomic bomb)
  • Baruch Plan
    • International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA)
    • UN control gradually over all Abomb raw materials and plants
    • Washington allowed to build complete A bomb if desired

Germany question

  • US thought only choices:
    • leave unified Germany under SU influence
    • partition of Germany
  • SU devastating eastern Germany
    • fusing of the KPD (communists) & the social democrats (SPD) into the SED (Socialist Unity Party)
      • exacerbated KPD and SPD in Western Germany -> end to collaboration
  • General Lucius Clay
    • deputy US military governor in Berlin
    • more receptive and friendly to the SU
    • against Containment
  • US emphasis on western Germany economic unity
    • among the other occupying powers
    • Bizonia
      • after UK agreed
    • US: German reconstruction begin immediately + German now given priary responsibility to rule themselves.

Germany

prior to the end of war:

  • SU, US, and UK search for German top scientists
  • 1945 Operation Paperclip
    • US to capture as many German scientists on A bomb and missiles as possible
  • Germans didn’t play a major role in developing the atomic bomb but they did in advancing rocket technology

Nuclear weapons

fission bombs - atomic bombs
fusion weapons - hydrogen /thermonuclear bombs

1949 - explosion of first SU A bomb

US increased military military budget + established Strategic Air Command 1946

1950 A bomb #

  • SU - 5
  • US - 700+

Operation Totality / Unthinkable / First Strike

  • nuclear war against the US
  • First Strike planned 34 A mombs dropped on 24 SU cities during the Berlin Blockade

The 3rd World War + Spy wars

Stalin reacting more calmly to US & UK decisions b/c of spies everywhere

  • he knew the threats are not really real

1945 Elizabeth Bentley confessed to FBI as a SU spy

1947 CIA (Central intelligence Agency) set up

1954 SU KGB (Committee of State Security)

  • ~ SU Cheka

SU manipulation of eastern Europe elections

  • Poland
    • Stanislaw Mikolajczyk Deouty Prime Minister
    • terror, violence, and opposition
    • communist manipulated the results; admitted themselves
  • Hungary
    • PM Ferenc Nagy from the Smallholders’ Party
    • communists to capture KGP deputies as counter-revolutionary organizations
    • Nagy blackmailed by his son as hostage
  • Romania
    • gov. willing to falsify results as communists wished
  • Bulgaria
    • communists already highest votes
  • Czechoslovakia
    • different b/c only bourgeois democratic base for a pro-SU policy
    • relatively less harassments by communists