READINGS Required reading: Voices of Freedom DOCUMENT 159 – THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE (1947) DOCUMENT 164 – JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY ON THE ATTACK (1950) Optional reading: Give Me Liberty CHAPTER 23, PP. 906 - 940 THE COLD WAR AND THE 1950S: How did the Cold War affect notions of freedom in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s? In the context of a geopolitical struggle with Soviet communism, how did Americans come to define freedom at home? How did they seek to spread it abroad – and at what cost? What is “containment”? 1.The attempt to root out Communist infiltrators in the U.S. State Department. An early Cold War attempt to control and limit the production of nuclear weapons. A cornerstone of American foreign policy during the Cold War, it suggested that the U.S. must “contain” communism within its borders while supporting democratic and capitalist regimes. A word that the beatniks and other cultural radicals used to describe the stifling conservatism and consensus of American culture in the 1950s. 2.A witness famously accused which politician of having “no sense of decency”? Joseph McCarthy Harry Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower Richard Nixon 3.In the 1950s, the U.S. actively intervened in the domestic political affairs of all the following countries, EXCEPT: Vietnam Guatemala France Iran 4.The Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision stated that ______________. A federal income tax was constitutional. State employees were allowed to form labor unions. Racial status could be considered in college admissions. The racial segregation of schools was unconstitutional. 5.All of the following were conscious forms of rebellion against mainstream American culture in the 1950s, EXCEPT: The suburbs Playboy magazine Beat poetry Rock n’ Roll music 6.According to Harry Truman’s “Truman Doctrine” (Document 159), the Cold War presented every country with a choice “between alternative ways of life,” one advanced by the United States, and the other by the Soviets. According to Truman, all of the following are characteristics of the free (or American) way of life, EXCEPT: Free elections The will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority The will of the majority Freedom of speech and religion 7. In “What Freedom Means to Us” (Document 167), Richard Nixon makes all of the following arguments, EXCEPT: Factory earners in the United States can afford to buy a house, a television set, and a car. Americans are free to join a union, criticize the president, and buy a Soviet newspaper. In the United States, the rich were rich because they had worked harder and saved more money. It would be unjust to ask them to pay taxes. From the standpoint of the equitable distribution of wealth, the United States comes closer to the idea of “prosperity for all in a classless society” than the Soviet Union has. 8.Truman Administration program provided some $13 million in cash and supplies to the struggling economies of Western Europe to help rebuild after the end of World War II. The Marshall Plan The European Relief Fund The Peace Corps The Truman Initiative 9.This plan recommended that the President intensify containment policy against the Soviet Union at home and abroad, increase military spending, accelerate the nation’s arms program, and engage in “covert means” to disrupt communist countries. The Marshall Plan The Yalta Conference NSC-68 NATO 10.Although the Second Red Scare of the 1950s unfairly and unjustly targeted innocent American citizens for being Communists, Soviet espionage was a legitimate threat at the beginning of the Cold War. True False