The Cold War

Reform Revolt and ReactionLecture Four: Term 1 Week 5

The End of WW2

• Nov 1944 FDR re-elected for 4th term

• 12 April 1945 FDR dies

• 8 May 1945 V-E Day

The Atomic Bomb• The Manhattan Project• 6 August 1945

Hiroshima – 70,000 killed instantly, rising to 140,000 by the end of 1945

• 9 August 1945 Nagasaki – 70,000 killed

• 14 August V-J Day – Japan surrenders

The Big Three

• Tehran, 1943• Yalta, 1945• Potsdam, July

1945 (Truman, Churchill/Attlee and Stalin)

Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill

The Rise of Two Powers

The United States• Powerful military &

atomic bomb• Strong economy and

manufacturing industry• United Nations (est.

1944-45)• World Bank (est. 1944)

The Soviet Union• Occupied most of

Eastern Europe• Crucial in defeating

Hitler• Devastated by war but

determined to keep sphere of influence in Eastern Europe

Containment

• Diplomat George F. Kennan’s 1946 telegram from Moscow to Washington

• The Truman Doctrine• The Marshall Plan• NATO est. 1949

NSC-68 (1950)

• 1949 Soviet Union tests atomic bomb• 1949 Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and

Kuomintang win Chinese civil war• “the cold war is in fact a real

war in which the survival ofthe free world is at stake”

The Korean War (1950-53)

• Korea divided at 38th Parallel between communist North and anticommunist South

• 33,000 US troops killed• 1million Korean soldiers

and 2million Korean civilians killed

Questions to Consider…

• How did ordinary Americans view the use of the atomic bomb?

• What was Stalinist communism and why did the US fear/dislike it so much?

• What impact did the Korean war have on ordinary Americans?

• How did African Americans and other minorities view the Cold War?

Essays

• Due Monday week 7 (16th Nov)• Submit in lecture or outside H339 with

coversheet• First Years must also submit essays online• Any questions/ email me:

L.J.Plath@warwick.ac.uk