11
November
4,6
The Cold War
EAH, Chapter 24.
Primary Sources 24.1, 24.2, 24.3, 24.5,
Primary Source Handout on George Kennan’s “Long Telegram.”
Was Kennan right about the Soviets. What information would you need
to corroborate his assertions?
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Back How to Read a pri...
HOW TO READ A PRIMARY SOURCE
(with thanks to the major author, Prof. Patrick Rael, Bowdoin College)
Good reading is about asking questions of your sources. Keep the following in mind
when reading primary sources. Even if you believe you can't arrive at the answers,
imagining possible answers will aid your comprehension.
* What patterns or ideas are repeated throughout the readings?
*What major differences appear in them?
*What values and fundamental assumptions underlie their content?
*What is the author's place in society? Even if I don't know her or his place in society,
what could it be, based on the document?
*What is "at stake" for the author of the text? What could have motivate her or him to
write it? Describe what you think is the purpose of this document.
*Is the author reliable? Is the author credible? Is the author neutral towards the subject?
Is the author biased? What evidence supports your contentions? What is the tone of this
document: angry? wistful? ironic?... or?
*What in the document can I consider historical "fact"? What can I consider the author's
"interpretation"? What can I actually know for sure about the past based on this
document?
*If I were a contemporary of the author, how might I react to the document? Would I be
sympathetic? Antagonistic? How might my reaction to the content change, depending
on my place in society?
*How do the ideas and values in the source differ from the ideas and values of my own
age?
*What are my own preconceptions and assumptions regarding the subject of the source?
How do they influence the way I read and evaluate the document?
*How might a scholar use this document to support her or his arguments? What kinds of
arguments might this document support?
*What problems might a scholar encounter in using this source? Does the source
represent a common experience or a unique circumstance?
*If a historian used this source, what sorts of criticism might other historians offer?
**HOW DOES THIS DOCUMENT RELATE TO WHAT I HAVE LEARNED
FROM THE LECTURES AND THE TEXT? Does it support or contradict what I have
read or heard? What can the context I have learned tell me about this document, and vice
versa?
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WINDOW TO THE PAST
Ronald Reagan Testimony before HUAC, 1947
During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the United States
became preoccupied with searching for and punishing
Communists at home. In 1947 the House Committee on Un-
American Activities investigated alleged Communism in
Hollywood. The committee heard the testimony of Ronald
Reagan, the president of the Screen Actors Guild, who
declared that his organization had successfully countered
Communist influence. To discover more about what this
primary source can show us, see Document 24.5 on page 817.
Mr. Rragax. Well, sir, I would like to say, as Mr. Montgomery and
Mr. Murply have indicated, they have done it very well. I have been
alarmed by the misapprehension, the feeling around, that it was a
minority fighting against a majority on this issue in our business, and
I would like in answering that question to reiterate what those gentle-
men have said, that rather 99 percent of us are pretty well aware of
what is going on, and I think within the bounds of our democratic
rights, and never once stepping over the rights given us by democracy,
we have done a pretty good job in our business of keeping those
people's activities curtailed. After all, we must recognize them at
present as a political party. On that basis we have exposed their
fies when we came across them, we have opposed their propaganda,
and I can certainly testify that in the case of the Screen Actors Guild
we have been eminently successful in preventing them from, with
their usual tactics, trying to run a majority of an organization with
a well organized minority.
So that fundamentally I would say in opposing those people that
the best thing to do is to make democracy work. In the Screen Actors
Guild we make it work by insuring everyone a vote and by keeping
everyone informed. I believe that, as Thomas Jefferson put it, if all
the American people know all of the facts they will never make a
inistake.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1
After reading this chapter you should be able to:
Explain the origins of the Cold War.
Identify how the overall strategy of containment changed
between 1948 and 1953, and explain in particular how the
Korean War affected U.S. Cold War strategy and
presidential power.
Analyze the effects of the Cold War on domestic policy.
Evaluate how the Eisenhower administration managed
containment throughout the world.
1
A Swipe to turn pages->
GUIDED ANALYSIS
Henry Wallace | The Way to Peace, 1946
By the late 1940s, tensions between the two
superpowers threatened to erupt into armed
conflict. Opinion within the U.S. government
about how to respond to this challenge ranged
widely: Some urged cooperation, while others
argued for aggressive confrontation with the
Soviet Union. In the following selection,
Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace
criticizes aggressive responses to the Soviet
Union.
Document 24.1
"Getting tough" never bought anything
real and lasting—whether for schoolyard
bullies or businessmen or world powers.
The tougher we get, the tougher the
Russians will get.
Throughout the world there are
numerous reactionary elements which
had hoped for Axis victory—and now
profess great friendship for the United
States. Yet, these enemies of yesterday
and false friends of today continually try
to provoke war between the United
States and Russia. They have no real love
of the United States. They only long for
the day when the United States and
Russia will destroy each other. We must
not let our Russian policy be guided or
influenced by those inside or outside the
United States who want war with Russia.
This does not mean appeasement. ...
The real peace treaty we now need is
between the United States and Russia.
On our part, we should recognize that we
have no more business in the political
affairs of Eastern Europe than Russia has
in the political affairs of Latin America,
Western Europe, and the United States.
We may not like what Russia does in
Eastern Europe. Her type of land reform,
industrial expropriation, and suppression
of basic liberties offends the great
majority of the people of the United
States. But whether we like it or not the
Russians will try to socialize their sphere
of influence just as we try to democratize
our sphere of influence. ...
Russia must be convinced that we are
not planning for war against her and we
must be certain that Russia is not
carrying on territorial expansion or world
domination through native communists
faithfully following every twist and turn in
the Moscow party line. But in this
competition, we must insist on an open
door for trade throughout the world.
There will always be an ideological
conflict—but that is no reason why
diplomats cannot work out a basis for
both systems to live safely in the world
side by side.
Source: Henry Wallace, "The Way to
Peace," in The Annals of America
(Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica,
1968), 16:372–73.
• According to Wallace, why do some
countries want the United States to
confront the Soviet Union?
How does recognition of a nation's
spheres of influence affect Wallace's
thinking?
• What does Wallace indicate the
United States would gain from
pursuing peace with the Soviet
Union?
Put It in Context
• Why do you think American foreign
policy leaders rejected Wallace's
perspective in the postwar period?
The Truman Doctrine, which pledged to protect
democratic countries and contain the expansion of
communism, was the cornerstone of American foreign policy
throughout the Cold War. The United States committed itself
to shoring up governments, whether democratic or dictatorial,
as long as they were avowedly anti-Communist. Americans
believed that the rest of the world's nations wanted to be like
the United States and therefore would not willingly accept
communism, which they thought could be imposed only from
the outside by the Soviet Union and never reasonably chosen
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