The Truman Doctrine, from Sage American History, is available under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. © 2014, Henry J. Sage. The Truman Doctrine March 12, 1947 President Harry S. Truman learned most of what he knew about the Cold War on the job, starting with his meeting with Stalin at Potsdam outside Berlin in July, 1945. By 1947 he, like many Americans, saw Communism as a threat to international peace and stability that had to be contained. Here is the speech to Congress in which he outlined his "containment doctrine." The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress. The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved. One aspect of the present situation, which I wish to present to you at this time for your consideration and decision, concerns Greece and Turkey. The United States has received from the Greek Government an urgent appeal for financial and economic assistance. Preliminary reports from the American Economic Mission now in Greece and reports from the American Ambassador in Greece corroborate the statement of the Greek Government that assistance is imperative if Greece is to survive as a free nation. I do not believe that the American people and the Congress wish to turn a deaf ear to the appeal of the Greek Government. The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by Communists, who defy the Government's authority at a number of points, particularly along the northern boundaries. A commission appointed by the United Nations Security Council is at present investigating disturbed conditions in Northern Greece and alleged border violations along the frontiers between Greece on the one hand and Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia on the other. Meanwhile, the Greek Government is unable to cope with the situation. The Greek Army is small and poorly equipped. It needs supplies and equipment if it is to restore the authority to the Government throughout Greek territory. Greece must have assistance if it is to become a self-supporting and self-respecting democracy. The United States must supply this assistance. We have already extended to Greece certain types of relief and economic aid but these are inadequate. There is no other country to which democratic Greece can turn. No other nation is willing and able to provide the necessary support for a democratic Greek Government. The British Government, which has been helping Greece, can give no further financial or economic aid after March 31. Great Britain finds itself under the necessity of reducing or liquidating its commitments in several parts of the world, including Greece. 1 http://www.sageamericanhistory.net/coldwar/documents/TrumanDoct.htm http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en_US http://creativecommons.o ...

1. The Truman Doctrine, from Sage American History, is available
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. © 2014,
Henry J. Sage.
The Truman Doctrine
March 12, 1947
President Harry S. Truman learned most of what he knew about
the Cold War on the job, starting with
his meeting with Stalin at Potsdam outside Berlin in July, 1945.
By 1947 he, like many Americans, saw
Communism as a threat to international peace and stability that
had to be contained. Here is the speech
to Congress in which he outlined his "containment doctrine."
The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today
necessitates my appearance before a joint
session of the Congress. The foreign policy and the national
security of this country are involved. One
aspect of the present situation, which I wish to present to you at
this time for your consideration and
decision, concerns Greece and Turkey.
The United States has received from the Greek Government an
urgent appeal for financial and economic
assistance. Preliminary reports from the American Economic
Mission now in Greece and reports from
the American Ambassador in Greece corroborate the statement
of the Greek Government that

2. assistance is imperative if Greece is to survive as a free nation.
I do not believe that the American people and the Congress wish
to turn a deaf ear to the appeal of the
Greek Government.
The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the
terrorist activities of several thousand
armed men, led by Communists, who defy the Government's
authority at a number of points,
particularly along the northern boundaries. A commission
appointed by the United Nations Security
Council is at present investigating disturbed conditions in
Northern Greece and alleged border violations
along the frontiers between Greece on the one hand and
Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia on the other.
Meanwhile, the Greek Government is unable to cope with the
situation. The Greek Army is small and
poorly equipped. It needs supplies and equipment if it is to
restore the authority to the Government
throughout Greek territory.
Greece must have assistance if it is to become a self-supporting
and self-respecting democracy. The
United States must supply this assistance. We have already
extended to Greece certain types of relief
and economic aid but these are inadequate. There is no other
country to which democratic Greece can
turn. No other nation is willing and able to provide the
necessary support for a democratic Greek
Government.
The British Government, which has been helping Greece, can
give no further financial or economic aid
after March 31. Great Britain finds itself under the necessity of

3. reducing or liquidating its commitments
in several parts of the world, including Greece.
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We have considered how the United Nations might assist in this
crisis, But the situation is an urgent one
requiring immediate action, and the United Nations and its
related organizations are not in a position to
extend help of the kind that is required. . . .
Greece's neighbor, Turkey, also deserves our attention. The
future of Turkey as an independent and
economically sound state is clearly no less important to the
freedom-loving peoples of the world than
the future of Greece. The circumstances in which Turkey finds
itself today are considerably different
from those of Greece. Turkey has been spared the disasters that
have beset Greece. And during the war,
the United States and Great Britain furnished Turkey with
material aid. Nevertheless, Turkey now needs
our support.
Since the war Turkey has sought additional financial assistance
from Great Britain and the United States
for the purpose of effecting the modernization necessary for the
maintenance of its national integrity.
That integrity is essential to the preservation of order in the
Middle East.

4. The British Government has informed us that, owing to its own
difficulties, it can no longer extend
financial or economic aid to Turkey. As in the case of Greece, if
Turkey is to have the assistance it needs,
the United States must supply it. We are the only country able
to provide that help.
I am fully aware of the broad implications involved if the
United States extends assistance to Greece and
Turkey, and I shall discuss these implications with you at this
time.
One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the
United States is the creation of conditions in
which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of
life free from coercion. This was a
fundamental issue in the war with Germany and Japan. Our
victory was won over countries which
sought to impose their will, and their way of life, upon other
nations.
To ensure the peaceful development of nations, free from
coercion, the United States has taken a
leading part in establishing the United Nations. The United
Nations is designed to make possible lasting
freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not
realize our objectives, however, unless we
are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free
institutions and their national integrity against
aggressive movements that seek to impose on them totalitarian
regimes. This is no more than a frank
recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples,
by direct or indirect aggression,
undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the
security of the United States.

5. The peoples of a number of countries of the world have recently
had totalitarian regimes forced upon
them against their will. The Government of the United States
has made frequent protests against
coercion and intimidation, in violation of the Yalta Agreement,
in Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria. I must
also state that in a number of other countries there have been
similar developments.
At the present moment in world history nearly every nation
must choose between alternative ways of
life. The choice is too often not a free one.
2
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is
distinguished by free institutions,
representative government, free elections, guarantees of
individual liberty, freedom of speech and
religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of the minority
forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies
upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed
elections, and the suppression of
personal freedoms.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to
support free peoples who are resisting
attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside
pressures,
I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own
destinies in their own way.

6. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic
and financial aid which is essential to
economic stability and orderly political processes,
The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred. But we
cannot allow changes in the status quo
in violation of the charter of the United Nations by such
methods as coercion, or by such subterfuges as
political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations to
maintain their freedom, the United
States will be giving effect to the principles of the charter of the
United Nations,
It is necessary only to glance at a map to realize that the
survival and integrity of the Greek nation are of
grave importance in a much wider situation. If Greece should
fall under the control of an armed
minority, the effect-upon its neighbor, Turkey, would be
immediate and serious. Confusion and disorder
might well spread throughout the entire Middle East.
Moreover, the disappearance of Greece as an independent state
would have a profound effect upon
those countries in Europe whose peoples are struggling against
great difficulties to maintain their
freedoms and their independence while they repair the damages
of war.
It would be an unspeakable tragedy if these countries, which
have struggled so long against
overwhelming odds, should lose that victory for which they
sacrificed so much. Collapse of free
institutions and loss of independence would be disastrous not
only for them but for the world.
Discouragement and possibly failure would quickly be the lot of

7. neighboring peoples striving to maintain
their freedom and independence.
Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the
effect will be far reaching to the west as
well as to the east. We must take immediate and resolute action.
I therefore ask the Congress to provide authority for assistance
to Greece and Turkey in the amount of
$400,000,000 for the period ending June 30, 1948.
In addition to funds, I ask the Congress to authorize the detail
of American civilian and military
personnel to Greece and Turkey, at the request of those
countries, to assist in the tasks of
reconstruction, and for the purpose of supervising the use of
such financial and material assistance as
3
may be furnished. I recommend that authority also be provided
for the instruction and training of
selected Greek and Turkish personnel.
Finally, I ask that the Congress provide authority which will
permit the speediest and most effective use,
in terms of needed commodities, supplies, and equipment, of
such funds as may be authorized. . . .
The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and
want. They spread and grow in the evil soil
of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the
hope of a people for a better life has died.
We must keep that hope alive. The free peoples of the world

8. look to us for support in maintaining their
freedoms.
If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the
world-and we shall surely endanger the
welfare of this nation.
Great responsibilities have been placed upon us by the swift
movement of events. I am confident that
the Congress will face these responsibilities squarely.
4
The Marshall Plan, from Sage American History, is available
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. © 2014,
Henry J. Sage.
THE MARSHALL PLAN
From the Congressional Record: Remarks by the Honorable
George C. Marshall, Secretary of State, at
Harvard University on June 5, 1947.
I need not tell you gentlemen that the world situation is very
serious. That must be apparent to all
intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is
one of such enormous complexity that the
very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio
make it exceedingly difficult for the man in

9. the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation.
Furthermore, the people of this country are
distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for
them to comprehend the plight and
consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the
effect of those reactions on their
governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in
the world.
In considering the requirements for the rehabilitation of Europe
the physical loss of life, the visible
destruction of cities, factories, mines, and railroads was
correctly estimated, but it has become obvious
during recent months that this visible destruction was probably
less serious than the dislocation of the
entire fabric of European economy. For the past 10 years
conditions have been highly abnormal. The
feverish preparation for war and the more feverish maintenance
of the war effort engulfed all aspects of
national economics. Machinery has fallen into disrepair or is
entirely obsolete. Under the arbitrary and
destructive Nazi rule, virtually every possible enterprise was
geared into the German war machine.
Long-standing commercial ties, private institutions, banks,
insurance companies and shipping companies
disappeared, through loss of capital, absorption through
nationalization or by simple destruction. In
many countries, confidence in the local currency has been
severely shaken. The breakdown of the
business structure of Europe during the war was complete.
Recovery has been seriously retarded by the
fact that 2 years after the close of hostilities a peace settlement
with Germany and Austria has not been
agreed upon. But even given a more prompt solution of these
difficult problems, the rehabilitation of
the economic structure of Europe quite evidently will require a

10. much longer time and greater effort than
had been foreseen.
There is a phase of this matter which is both interesting and
serious. The farmer has always produced
the foodstuffs to exchange with the city dweller for the other
necessities of life. This division of labor is
the basis of modern civilization. At the present time it is
threatened with breakdown. The town and city
industries are not producing adequate goods to exchange with
the foodproducing farmer. Raw materials
and fuel are in short supply. Machinery is lacking or worn out.
The farmer or the peasant cannot find the
goods for sale which he desires to purchase. So the sale of his
farm produce for money which he cannot
use seems to him an unprofitable transaction. He, therefore, has
withdrawn many fields from crop
cultivation and is using them for grazing. He feeds more grain
to stock and finds for himself and his
family an ample supply of food, however short he may be on
clothing and the other ordinary gadgets of
civilization.
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Meanwhile people in the cities are short of food and fuel. So the
governments are forced to use their
foreign money and credits to procure these necessities abroad.
This process exhausts funds which are
urgently needed for reconstruction. Thus a very serious
situation is rapidly developing which bodes no
good for the world. The modern system of the division of labor

11. upon which the exchange of products is
based is in danger of breaking down.
The truth of the matter is that Europe's requirements for the
next 3 or 4 years of foreign food and other
essential products-principally from America-are so much greater
than her present ability to pay that she
must have substantial additional help, or face economic, social,
and political deterioration of a very
grave character.
The remedy lies in breaking the vicious circle and restoring the
confidence of the European people in the
economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a
whole. The manufacturer and the farmer
throughout wide areas must be able and willing to exchange
their products for currencies the continuing
value of which is not open to question.
Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the
possibilities of disturbances arising as a
result of the desperation of the people concerned, the
consequences to the economy of the United
States should be apparent to all. It is logical that the United
States should do whatever it is able to do to
assist in the return of normal economic health in the world,
without which there can be no political
stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not
against any country or doctrine but against
hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be
the revival of a working economy in the
world so as to permit the emergence of political and social
conditions in which free institutions can exist.
Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a piecemeal
basis as various crises develop. Any
assistance that this Government may render in the future should

12. provide a cure rather than a mere
palliative. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of
recovery will find full cooperation, I am
sure, on the part of the United States Government. Any
government which maneuvers to block the
recovery of other countries cannot expect help from us.
Furthermore, governments, political parties, or
groups which seek to perpetuate human misery in order to profit
therefrom politically or otherwise will
encounter the opposition of the United States.
It is already evident that, before the United States Government
can proceed much further in its efforts
to alleviate the situation and help start the European world on
its way to recovery, there must be some
agreement among the countries of Europe as to the requirements
of the situation and the part those
countries themselves will take in order to give proper effect to
whatever action might be undertaken by
this Government. It would be neither fitting nor efficacious for
this Government to undertake to draw
up unilaterally a program designed to place Europe on its feet
economically. This is the business of the
Europeans. The initiative, I think, must come from Europe. The
role of this country should consist of
friendly aid in the drafting of a European program and of later
support of such a program so far as it may
be practical for us to do so. The program should be a joint one,
agreed to by a number, if not all
European nations.
2
An essential part of any successful action on the part of the

13. United States is an understanding on the
part of the people of America of the character of the problem
and the remedies to be applied. Political
passion and prejudice should have no part. With foresight, and a
willingness on the part of our people to
face up to the vast responsibility which history has clearly
placed upon our country, the difficulties I
have outlined can and will be overcome.
3
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Election of 1948 Share on Facebook Save at del.icio.us
Save on Google Digg thisSelect Election 1948
Party
Nominees
Electoral Vote Popular Vote Presidential Vice Presidential
Democratic Harry S Truman Alben W. Barkley 303 57.1%
24,105,810 49.5%
Republican Thomas E. Dewey Earl Warren 189 35.6%
21,970,064 45.1%
States' Rights Strom Thurmond Fielding Wright 39 7.3%
1,169,114 2.4%
HARRY S TRUMAN THOMAS E. DEWEY STROM

15. THURMOND
STATE TOTAL VOTES
Democrat Republican States' Rights
Votes % EV Votes % EV Votes % EV
Alabama 214,980 -- 0.0 40,930 19.0 171,443 79.7 11
Arizona 177,065 95,251 53.8 4 77,597 43.8 -- 0.0
Arkansas 242,475 149,659 61.7 9 50,959 21.0 40,068 16.5
California 4,021,538 1,913,134 47.6 25 1,895,269 47.1 1,228
0.0
Colorado 515,237 267,288 51.9 6 239,714 46.5 -- 0.0
Connecticut 883,518 423,297 47.9 437,754 49.5 8 -- 0.0
Delaware 139,073 67,813 48.8 69,588 50.0 3 -- 0.0
Florida 577,643 281,988 48.8 8 194,280 33.6 89,755 15.5
Georgia 418,844 254,646 60.8 12 76,691 18.3 85,135 20.3
Idaho 214,816 107,370 50.0 4 101,514 47.3 -- 0.0
Illinois 3,984,046 1,994,715 50.1 28 1,961,103 49.2 -- 0.0
Indiana 1,656,212 807,831 48.8 821,079 49.6 13 -- 0.0
Iowa 1,038,264 522,380 50.3 10 494,018 47.6 -- 0.0
Kansas 788,819 351,902 44.6 423,039 53.6 8 -- 0.0
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Kentucky 822,658 466,756 56.7 11 341,210 41.5 10,411 1.3
Louisiana 416,336 136,344 32.7 72,657 17.5 204,290 49.1 10
Maine 264,787 111,916 42.3 150,234 56.7 5 -- 0.0
Maryland 596,748 286,521 48.0 294,814 49.4 8 2,489 0.4
Massachusetts 2,107,146 1,151,788 54.7 16 909,370 43.2 -- 0.0
Michigan 2,109,609 1,003,448 47.6 1,038,595 49.2 19 -- 0.0
Minnesota 1,212,226 692,966 57.2 11 483,617 39.9 -- 0.0

16. Mississippi 192,190 19,384 10.1 5,043 2.6 167,538 87.2 9
Missouri 1,578,628 917,315 58.1 15 655,039 41.5 -- 0.0
Montana 224,278 119,071 53.1 4 96,770 43.1 -- 0.0
Nebraska 488,940 224,165 45.8 264,774 54.2 6 -- 0.0
Nevada 62,117 31,291 50.4 3 29,357 47.3 -- 0.0
New Hampshire 231,440 107,995 46.7 121,299 52.4 4 7 0.0
New Jersey 1,949,555 895,455 45.9 981,124 50.3 16 -- 0.0
New Mexico 187,063 105,464 56.4 4 80,303 42.9 -- 0.0
New York 6,177,337 2,780,204 45.0 2,841,163 46.0 47 -- 0.0
North Carolina 791,209 459,070 58.0 14 258,572 32.7 69,652
8.8
North Dakota 220,716 95,812 43.4 115,139 52.2 4 374 0.2
Ohio 2,936,071 1,452,791 49.5 25 1,445,684 49.2 -- 0.0
Oklahoma 721,599 452,782 62.7 10 268,817 37.3 -- 0.0
Oregon 524,080 243,147 46.4 260,904 49.8 6 -- 0.0
Pennsylvania 3,735,348 1,752,426 46.9 1,902,197 50.9 35 -- 0.0
Rhode Island 327,702 188,736 57.6 4 135,787 41.4 -- 0.0
South Carolina 142,571 34,423 24.1 5,386 3.8 102,607 72.0 8
South Dakota 250,105 117,653 47.0 129,651 51.8 4 -- 0.0
Tennessee 550,283 270,402 49.1 11 202,914 36.9 73,815 13.4 1
Texas 1,147,245 750,700 65.4 23 282,240 24.6 106,909 9.3
Utah 276,306 149,151 54.0 4 124,402 45.0 -- 0.0
Vermont 123,382 45,557 36.9 75,926 61.5 3 -- 0.0
Virginia 419,256 200,786 47.9 11 172,070 41.0 43,393 10.4
Washington 905,058 476,165 52.6 8 386,314 42.7 -- 0.0
West Virginia 748,750 429,188 57.3 8 316,251 42.2 -- 0.0
Wisconsin 1,276,800 647,310 50.7 12 590,959 46.3 -- 0.0
Wyoming 101,425 52,354 51.6 3 47,947 47.3 -- 0.0
Totals 48,691,494 24,105,810 49.5 303 21,970,064 45.1 189
1,169,114 2.4 39
Election of 1948
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America and the Cold War: The Truman, Eisenhower and
Kennedy Years, from Sage American History, is
available under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. ©
2014, Henry J. Sage.
America and the Cold War: The Truman, Eisenhower and
Kennedy
Years
Copyright © 2012, Henry J. Sage
General. The history of warfare in the modern world is notable
for the fact that two of the most terrible

18. wars of all time were fought in the first half of the 20th century.
What probably would have been the
most destructive war ever fought, which we would probably
designate as World War III—if there were
any “we” around to make note of it—was never fought. Instead
what we got was the Cold War, often
referred to as the “balance of terror.”
That standoff between the two great superpowers, the United
States and the Soviet Union, and their
allies, probably occurred because for the first time in history all
sides could readily understand the huge
price they would pay by precipitating an all-out conflict.
Because of the use of the two atomic bombs in
World War II on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, evidence existed to
show how horrible a full-blown nuclear
exchange would be. By the mid-1950s both sides had
constructed bombs which were thousands of
times more powerful than the first two dropped in 1945; in a
nuclear exchange, there might well be no
winners.
The idea of a state of international tension was certainly not a
new development that emerged in the
middle of the 20th century. Following the Napoleonic wars, the
European powers assembled in 1815 in
Vienna under the leadership of Austrian Prince Metternich and
created a structure designed to prevent
the further outbreak of the kind that had torn Europe for more
than two decades. The tension was
there, but it was alleviated by the unwillingness of the great
powers to trigger a conflict. The alliance
system based upon some sort of balance of power was continued
under the leadership of Prussian
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck at the Congress of Berlin of
1878. Once again, great tensions existed, but

19. that system held those powers in check.
When the breakdown finally did occur in 1914, it was because
of a long series of diplomatic blunders
driven by the shortsightedness of rulers who lacked the vision
either of Metternich or Bismarck. The
Great War of 1914-1918, probably the most terrible war ever
fought by armies on the ground, was
barely over before the tensions were reignited. World War II
began chiefly because of the destructive
nature of the so-called peace treaty written at Versailles by the
victors. Although antiwar movements
prospered in the 1920s and early 1930s, the growing militarism
of Italy, Germany and Japan revived the
kind of international discomfort that had preceded the First
World War. That militarism led to the
outbreak of another war in 1939. In some ways, World War II
was a continuation of World War I.
Thus long periods of international tension were nothing new;
the difference is that after 1945, weapons
technology had proceeded so far that all but the most obtuse
political players could see that the future
of full-scale, no-holds-barred warfare had grown too terrible to
contemplate. Ironically, then, the
greatest deterrent to war in the nuclear age became war itself.
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The Cold War kept the world on edge for over 50 years. The
best that can be said of it is that it never

20. erupted into the holocaust many feared. For a time, during the
1950s, the question of a ‘Third World
War’ was less a matter of “if” than of “when?” People built
bomb shelters in their back yards and school
children practiced a-bomb drills. Nuclear war seemed
inevitable. Under that shadow of a potential
holocaust, the NATO and Warsaw Pact (or Eastern Bloc)
nations twisted and turned to advance their
goals while avoiding the spark that might instigate a war of
surpassing destruction. Most internationally
significant events of that period—from trouble in the Middle
East, to wars of national liberation, to
issues of developing nations in Africa and Latin America—were
played out against the backdrop of the
Cold War.
The Cold War had many ramifications for the American people.
The anti-Communist witch hunts of the
1940s and 1950s led to severe consequences for many
Americans based solely on their political views.
The campaign of Senator Joseph McCarthy to root out real or
imagined communist agents in the U.S.
government gave America the term McCarthyism, a synonym
for political intolerance. The Korean and
Vietnam wars put American lives on the line on the fight
against Communism. Most of all, the fear of
nuclear war made life unsettling for people even in a time of
supposed peace. The collapse of the Soviet
Union ended the Cold War, but the remnants of that age—the
thousands of nuclear warheads still in
existence and in the possession of a number of nations—are still
with us.
See The Legacy of World War II
The Truman Years

21. Harry S. Truman was a modest man. (His critics at the time
might have said, “And with good reason,”
though his stature as a president has grown considerably in
recent years.) Raised in Independence,
Missouri, Harry Truman worked at various job after graduation
from high school in 1901. When the
United States entered World War I, Captain Truman commanded
an artillery battery and saw significant
action in France. Following the failure of a store he ran during
the 1922 depression, Truman entered
politics, holding various positions under the eye of Missouri
party boss Tom Pendergast. In 1934 Truman
was elected to the United States Senate, where he served until
he was tapped by Franklin Roosevelt to
run with him as vice presidential candidate in 1944.
When President Roosevelt urged Senator Truman to join him on
the ticket, Truman balked. As a Senate
committee chairman overseeing military procurement during
World War II, he had taken on powerful
industry leaders and accused them of profiteering and shoddy
practices, even as young Americans were
dying on the battlefield. Because of that fact, and because he
was a loyal New Deal Democrat, Roosevelt
wanted him on the ticket. (After Truman became President,
General Marshall claimed that Truman’s
work in the Senate “Was worth Two divisions to me.”)
Bess Truman didn’t like Washington at all and couldn’t imagine
her husband being in the White House.
But Roosevelt would not take no for an answer, so the reluctant
senator from Missouri became vice
president and soon thereafter was elevated to an office which he
never sought and did not really want.
Harry Truman was the last American without a college

22. education to be elected president (he was
reelected in his own right in 1948), but that is not to say he was
not well-educated. He read widely,
2
especially in history, and was nobody's fool. Despite all that, he
was nevertheless ill-prepared to take
over the most powerful office in the free world. Few if any men
could have adequately replaced FDR.
After informing the Vice President of her husband’s death,
Eleanor Roosevelt said to the new President, “What can we
do for you, Harry? For you are the one in trouble now.”
Franklin Roosevelt had been president for over 12 years when
he died. Schoolchildren who mourned his
death had not been born when FDR was sworn in on March 4,
1933. No one will ever know how
conscious Franklin Roosevelt was of his own mortality, but
historians have speculated that he probably
experienced a sense of denial regarding his health, coupled with
a determination to stay alive until the
great battle against evil was brought to a satisfactory
conclusion. In any case, he shared practically
nothing with his vice president, leaving him to sign letters of
condolence and carry out other routine,
mundane functions of the office of Vice President.
The most glaring example of Franklin Roosevelt's cavalier
attitude toward former Senator Truman was
the fact that he never even brought Vice President Truman into
his confidence on the atomic bomb

23. project going on in New Mexico. President Truman had to be
informed of the work being done to
develop the device by Secretary of War Henry Stimson after he
took office.
Thus Harry Truman, the man who would not be king, assumed
leadership of the nation and much of the
world at one of the most critical junctures in history. How was
the world to be shaped now that two
great, terrible wars had destroyed so much? While the defeat of
Germany was virtually assured—
Germany surrendered on May 8, less than a month after FDR’s
death—the war in Japan was by no
means over. During each wartime conference, however, the
focus had shifted further and further
toward postwar concerns.
(For a fine study of the final months of World War 2, see J.
Robert Moskin, Mr. Truman's War: The Final
Victories of World War II and the Birth of the Post war World.)
President Roosevelt’s role among the Big Three Leaders—FDR,
Churchill, and Stalin—had often been to
act as mediator between Churchill and Stalin, who frequently
clashed during meetings as they
contemplated the world after the defeat of Germany and Japan.
By the time of the Yalta Conference in
February, 1945, it was apparent that Stalin had little intention
of allowing freedom and democracy to
flourish in that portion of the world surrounding the Soviet
Union. Roosevelt, who was by then gravely ill
and exhausted from the long journey to Russia, found Stalin
difficult and determined to have his way.
By the time of the Potsdam Conference, held just outside
Berlin, Germany, in July, 1945, tensions

24. between East and West had been ameliorated somewhat by
satisfaction at the defeat of Nazi Germany.
During that meeting, Stalin and President Truman met for the
first time. Stalin reassured the president
that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan three
months after the defeat of Germany,
which gratified Truman. The President also took the occasion to
inform the Premier of the successful
test of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico, and was struck by
the lack of surprise shown by Stalin. (As
is now well known, Stalin was being informed of progress on
the atomic bomb by spies in Great Britain,
3
Canada, and the United States.) The President also informed
Prime Minister Churchill, who was replaced
during the conference by newly-elected Prime Minister Clement
Atlee, of America’s creation of the
bomb and his intention to use it.
The Russians had seen their country invaded twice within a
century by Napoleon and Hitler, and on both
occasions the Russian people had suffered enormous casualties.
Stalin was determined not to let that
happen again. Furthermore, Communist doctrine called for a
worldwide revolution of all workers toward
the eventual overthrow of the capitalist system. Indeed the West
had meddled in the Russian Revolution
following the Bolshevik takeover in 1917, and anti-communist
rhetoric and other activities had been
pervasive in the West throughout most of the 20th century. The
cooperation between the United States
and Great Britain and the Soviet Union during World War II can

25. be attributed to the fact that even
conservative leaders such as Churchill saw Hitler as the far
greater evil facing humanity.
President Truman’s Containment Policy. President Truman’s
Cold War policy became one of
“containment” of Communism, which meant not challenging the
Communists where they were already
established, but doing everything possible to see to it that their
sphere of influence did not enlarge itself
at the expense of “free” nations. Truman's policy was first
explicitly proclaimed in a 1947 speech. Great
Britain had been closely monitoring procommunist
developments in Greece and Turkey since the end of
World War II and had provided financial and military support to
the anticommunist governments.
Because of her own financial difficulties, however, Great
Britain was obliged to cease aid to those
nations. Thus the United States was left the responsibility of
providing assistance.
President Truman went before Congress on March 12, 1947, and
requested that Congress provide $400
million in military aid and economic assistance for Greece and
Turkey, thus articulating what would
become known as theTruman Doctrine. That policy would be
generally followed by all successive
presidents through Ronald Reagan. Truman stated that, “It must
be the policy of the United States to
support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by
armed minorities or by outside
pressures.” The Republican Congress supported Truman’s
request, which bespoke the bi-partisan cast of
America’s Cold War policy.
See Harry S. Truman, Truman Doctrine Speech, 1947. See also

26. David McCullough’s Truman and the fine
HBO film of the same name with Gary Sinese. Truman wrote his
own Memoirs as well.
The Marshall Plan. Shortly after President Truman's speech,
Secretary of State George C. Marshall gave
an address on June 5, 1947, at Harvard University in which he
outlined what would become known as
the Marshall Plan. Europe was a long way from recovering from
the Second World War, and the harsh
winter of 1946-47 had exacerbated the suffering of many
Europeans. He stated, “It is logical that the
United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the
return of normal economic health in the
world, without which there can be no political stability and no
assured peace. Our policy is directed not
against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty,
desperation and chaos.”
Secretary Marshall’s plan for massive economic relief, known
as the European Recovery Program,
provided funds totaling $20 billion to sixteen countries,
including Germany. It was justified on
humanitarian grounds, but was also clearly designed to help
stave off the possible expansion of
4
communism into Western Europe. Marshall offered to include
the Soviet Union in his program, but
Premier Stalin turned down Marshall’s offer, claiming it was a
propaganda tool. The Marshall plan
succeeded in both its purposes; it helped restore the European
economy (which indirectly aided the

27. American economy as well), and it helped reduce the danger of
the growth of communism. Winston
Churchill called the Marshal Plan “the most unselfish act by any
great power in history.” (See Marshall
speech)
Berlin. Following World War II Germany had been divided into
four occupation zones allotted to France,
Great Britain, United States, and the Soviet Union. The former
German capital of Berlin fell within the
Soviet sector, and that city was also divided into four zones.
Access to the city was by air, and by a strip
of land on which a highway and a railroad offeredground access
into West Berlin. Trying to strengthen
their hold on the eastern sector, and perhaps irritated by the
Marshall plan and anti-Communist
rhetoric, the Soviets cut off ground access to Berlin in June,
1948. President Truman's response was the
ordering of what became known as the Berlin Airlift. All
available transport aircraft were pressed into
service and began operating around the clock to provide Berlin
with everything its population needed to
survive, from food to fuel to clothing and other necessities of
life. The Berlin Airlift was carried on into
1949 when the Soviets eventually backed down and reopened
the ground access to Berlin. In all, some
2,200,000 tons of supplies were airlifted into Berlin in 267,000
flights. The airlift, which was opposed by
some of the President Truman's advisers, was a diplomatic
triumph for the president. (Left: Berlin
children wave to American pilots.)
Tensions heightened dramatically in 1949 when the Soviet
Union exploded its first nuclear bomb. Until
that time the United States had been the sole possessor of those
powerful weapons, but now the arms

28. race swung into full gear. The bombs produced in the 1950s
eventually grew to dwarf the Hiroshima
bomb in explosive power, exceeding its capacity by a factor of
10,000.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The continuing tension
between the Eastern and Western
powers led several European countries to begin considering a
mutual defense pact in 1948. The United
States and Canada eventually entered into the discussions, as it
was apparent that the defense interests
of the nations on the western side of the Atlantic coincided with
those of Europe. Negotiations
continued until a treaty was signed in Washington in April 1949
which created the 12-nation pact of the
United States, Canada, and 10 Western European nations. The
treaty obligated each member nation to
share the responsibility for collective security of the North
Atlantic region. For the first time in its
history, the United States had seen fit to discard the policy first
established by presidents Washington
and Jefferson of steering clear of permanent, entangling
alliances. NATO was expanded in the 1950s and
now includes several nations in Eastern Europe.
Now that the Cold War is over, it is relatively easy to view it
objectively. We can ask whether the United
States played its cards correctly, and question whether we might
have been able to lower tensions
sooner and more sharply. Since the U.S. and its allies “won” the
Cold War (and one can properly ask
whether it is really over), it is easy to say, “Well, of course we
played it right—after all, we did win,
didn’t we?”
5

29. A more critical view might suggest that while Americans have
indeed seen the fall of the Soviet Union
and much of the apparatus of Communism, during those tension-
filled years the U.S. might have pushed
its luck so far that the only reason we did not get into a nuclear
war was plain good fortune.
In the aftermath of attacks on New York City and Washington
on September 11, 2001, Americans
certainly understand the fear that comes from threats of
violence. Yet during the height of the Cold War
in the 1950s and 1960s, the fear of nuclear war went beyond the
fear of attacks on isolated cities or
installations. For a time, the possibility of total nuclear war
could not be ruled out. Questions were
raised not only about the level of destruction that might result
from a nuclear exchange, but also about
what life might be like after a nuclear war. In fact, movies like
On the Beach, based on the novel by Nevil
Shute, raised the possibility of the extinction of all human life
on Earth, and few saw that scenario as a
far-fetched fantasy
The Cold War Turns Hot: Korea, The Forgotten War
General Douglas MacArthur is one of America's most colorful
historic characters. Son of a career army
officer, he served over 50 years in the Army and fought in three
wars. In 1935 he retired as Chief of Staff
of the Army and went to the Philippines, where he took over
command of all American and Philippine
military forces during the years leading up to World War II.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl

30. Harbor they invaded the Philippines. MacArthur was forced to
abandon the islands; he retreated to
Australia and assumed command of all forces in the Southern
Pacific area. From there MacArthur led
U.S. forces back through Indonesia and retook the Philippines
late in the war. Following the reduction of
Okinawa, he and the Navy and Marine forces under Admiral
Nimitz began planning the invasion of
Japan. Before that could occur, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki brought about the
Japanese surrender.
As the senior representative of the Allied Powers, MacArthur
made a memorable speech about the
horrors of war as he accepted the formal Japanese capitulation
aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay
in September, 1945. He stayed on as the senior allied
occupation officer, and became virtually the acting
emperor of Japan. He was a strong force in converting Japan
into a modern, democratic state, and was
even involved with writing the pacifistic Japanese Constitution.
Most Japanese admired MacArthur and
were gratified by his moderate, even-handed treatment of the
Japanese people during the postwar
years. He was truly a benevolent dictator.
(When this author asked a student who was raised in Japan what
her countrymen and women thought of
MacArthur, she answered, “They thought he was a god.”)
The Korean Peninsula had been a colony of Japan until World
War II. In 1945 it was divided at the 38th
parallel into two nations. At that time the United States and the
Soviet Union jointly administered Korea
in a manner similar to the disposition of occupied Germany at
the time. Both nations had occupying

31. forces in Korea, the Soviets in the North, Americans in the
South. The North Korean government was
Communist, the South Korean government non-communist and
quasi-democratic, and both claimed
sovereignty over the entire peninsula. The situation also
resembled what would ensue in Vietnam after
the French were defeated in 1954.
6
In 1949, after American educated strongman Syngman Rhee was
elected President of the Republic of
Korea (South Korea), the United States withdrew its occupying
forces, except for a small advisory
command. Soviet forces had withdrawn from the North in 1948.
In 1950 North Korean Communist
leader Kim Il-sung met with Soviet and Chinese Communist
leaders and proposed to take over all of
Korea by force. He met no objections from either nation and
was offered their support. China
repatriated 50,000 Korean soldiers who had fought for the
Communists in China’s Civil War, and they
became an important element of the North Korean People’s
Army. Thus the struggle for control of
Korea broke out when the North Koreans crossed the 38th
parallel in force in 1950.
War Breaks Out. In June, 1950, North Korean troops surged
across the border into South Korea,
triggering the first major confrontation between the forces of
the communist and non-communist
worlds. The United States, which had occupied South Korea as
part of the post-war administration of
former Japanese colonies, became immediately involved in the

32. war. Critics of American foreign policy
claimed that when the Truman administration adopted its
containment policy, the theoretical line
drawn around areas that would be protected against communist
aggression failed to include Korea. In
addition, because the U.S. was preoccupied with affairs in
Europe as well as rebuilding Japan on a
democratic footing, North Korea’s Kim Il-sung and his Chinese
and Soviet counterparts felt that the
United States would not defend Korea. President Truman,
however, contradictory to what others might
have believed, decided immediately that, in keeping with his
containment policy, the United States
would come to the aid of South Korea. He appealed immediately
to the United Nations for support, and
was rewarded with a unanimous vote in the UN Security
Council calling for a military defense of the
Republic of Korea. For the first time, an international body
voted to oppose aggression by force.
President Truman then ordered American naval and air forces to
begin supporting the South Korean
army. When it became apparent that the North Korean army
could not be stopped by naval and air
support alone, the President made the decision to commit
ground forces to Korea. As the Security
Council resolution had called for all nations with adequate
military forces to contribute to South Korea’s
defense, other nations such as Great Britain, France, Canada
and Australia prepared to send military
units to Korea. The United States, however assumed the major
share of the burden of fighting the
Korean War. President Truman named General Douglas
MacArthur, America’s supreme commander in
the Far East, commander of all forces to be engaged in Korea.

33. As Commander of all United Nations forces, General MacArthur
immediately dispatched available
ground units to Korea. Having been involved only in occupation
duty since 1945, however, the American
troops were ill prepared and ill equipped for combat against a
well-trained army. Sent to Korea
piecemeal, they, along with the South Koreans, were soon
driven into a defensive perimeter around the
South Korean port of Pusan, and for a while it looked as though
North Korea would gain firm control of
the entire nation. MacArthur visited the American troops in the
Pusan perimeter and told their
commanding general that his men would have to hold on while
MacArthur prepared a countermove. If
they were driven off or captured, retaking the peninsula would
be an extremely difficult task.
Back in Japan General McArthur and his staff examined their
options and came up with a bold proposal,
which he submitted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for approval.
MacArthur’s plan called for an amphibious
7
invasion of South Korea at the port of Inchon, not far below the
38th parallel. It was a daring move, as
the attack would fall well behind North Korean lines. A variety
of factors helped make MacArthur’s
surprise move an unqualified success.
First, Inchon was an unlikely site for an invasion because of its
high tidal swings, meaning that the
enemy would not expect a landing there. Second, the geography
of South Korea meant that the North

34. Korean supply lines could be severedwith a quick strike inland
from Inchon. In addition, Inchon was near
the capital of Seoul and Kimpo airfield, the capture of which
would be valuable. The First Marine
Division under the command of Major General Oliver P. Smith
and the 7th Infantry Division, commanded
by Major General David G. Barr, conducted the landing,
successfully capturing Seoul and Kimpo airfield
in the process. The North Korean army, its supply lines severed,
fell back in disarray across the 38th
parallel. The breakout of American and Korean forces from
Pusan soon followed.
As American naval air and ground units entered the fray, and as
the South Korean Army pulled itself
together, the UN forces pursued the North Korean Army across
the border. South Korea was once again
secure. It does not go too far to claim that at that juncture, the
Korean War had been won—the invasion
had been repelled. General MacArthur chose to push the North
Korean army back toward the Chinese
border, however, feeling that China would not dare to intervene
in the conflict. In a meeting with
President Truman at Wake Island, he assured his commander-in-
chief that Chinese intervention was
unlikely. President Truman was aware that China had threatened
to intervene in Korea, communicating
their intent via neutral embassies. Truman felt the Chinese were
bluffing. Both he and General
MacArthur were wrong.
In November 1950 on Thanksgiving Day, a huge Chinese army
swept across the border and soon drove
the Americans back in the direction from which they had come.
Part of that painful withdrawal included
the movement of the First MarineDivision and the Seventh

35. Army Division from the Chosin Reservoir
area, a fighting withdrawal that took place in bitter cold
weather. “Frozen Chosin” became an epithet
for the painful process of extricating American troops from
what had seemed a virtual death trap. The
gains that had been made at great sacrifice were mostly lost, as
the North Korean army once again
crossed into South Korea and recaptured the capital of Seoul.
To bolster his defenses General MacArthur sought permission to
attack Chinese forces across the Yalu
River in Chinese territory. He wanted hit the Chinese army in
their sanctuary. He believed that attacking
bases from which the Chinese army was being supplied was a
key to defeating them in South Korea. The
Truman administration, not wishing to escalate the crisis nor
provoke a full, all-out war between United
States and Communist China, restricted MacArthur's movements
to the territory of North Korea. When
informed that he might bomb the southern half of bridges over
the Yalu River, MacArthur fumed, “In all
my years of military service I have never learned how to bomb
half a bridge!”
Uncomfortable with the Truman administration's policies,
General MacArthur openly criticized his
commander-in-chief and sent a letter to a Republican
congressman which was released to the public.
After consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President
Truman relieved the five-star general of his
command for insubordination.
8

36. President Truman’s firing of General MacArthur, one of the
great heroes of the Second World War, the
man who accepted the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay on
behalf of all Allied forces, caused a firestorm
of criticism. When the general returned to the United States, he
was fêted in New York with the largest
ticker tape parade ever conducted in that city. He was greeted
by enthusiastic admirers as he toured the
country, accepting salutes and parades in his honor in a number
of cities. In his farewell address to a
joint session of the United States Congress, he gave a moving
speech in which he claimed that, “In war
there can be no substitute for victory.”
See MacArthur’s Farewell Address to Congress. See also
William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas
MacArthur 1880 - 1964(Boston: Little, Brown, 1978), one of
several biographies. MacArthur also wrote
his own memoir, Reminiscences. An excellent 1977 film,
MacArthur, starring Gregory Peck, was directed
by Joseph Sargent.
President Truman replaced General MacArthur with General
Matthew Ridgway, another World War II
veteran, and General Ridgway soon began reclaiming some of
the ground that had been lost following
the Chinese invasion. But further attempts to push the war back
to the Chinese border were not
feasible, and the fighting degenerated into a stalemate around
the 38th parallel. In the presidential
election campaign of 1952, General Eisenhower, the Republican
candidate, promised that if elected he
would go to Korea and seek a solution to the conflict, a promise
he fulfilled. Eventually a cease-fire was
agreed upon and the fighting came to a desultory conclusion.
That cease-fire, however, was not quite

37. the same thing as peace, and tensions along the border between
North and South Korea continued for
many years. At the current time, American troops are still
stationed in South Korea.
The Aftermath of Korea. During the years since the fighting
ended, response to the Korean War has
been mixed. At the time, returning veterans of Korea discovered
that their fellow Americans seemed
almost totally ignorant of the war they had just fought. The
conclusion of the war—a negotiated truce
rather than a victory—left a sour taste with many Americans,
for whom memories of the overwhelming
victories of the Allies over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
were still relatively fresh. Some immediate
good came from the war, however; the United States Army that
started fighting in Korea in 1950 was
undertrained, under-disciplined, and under supplied. After
several years of combat in Korea, the United
States Army had been restored to good fighting condition. For
all its frustrations, the war had what was
ultimately a successful outcome: South Korea retained its
freedom and became a prosperous,
democratic and economically viable nation.
The Korean War provided lessons that might have been well
applied to Vietnam. Unfortunately, for a
variety of reasons, the Korean War did not substantially prepare
the United States for its next
involvement on the Asian mainland. The enemy faced in Korea
was not the same as the enemy faced in
Vietnam. One lesson that the West failed to learn from both the
Korean and Vietnamese experiences,
however, is that many of the communist leaders both in Korea
and in Vietnam were far more
nationalistic than communist. What they sought for their nations

38. rose above mere ideology. One
positive result of both wars, however, was that the United States
chose not to use tactical nuclear
weapons in Korea, for which the world may be properly
grateful. Had that door been opened, there is
no telling what the outcome might have been.
9
Although no final judgment can be offered even half a century
after the end of the Korean fighting, the
opinion of historian Max Hastings has some merit:
If the Korean War was a frustrating, profoundly unsatisfactory
experience, more than 35 years later it
still seems a struggle that the West was utterly right to fight.
(Max Hastings, The Korean War, New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1987, p. 344.)
As many Americans stationed in Korea have said, the Korean
people to this day are grateful to the
Americans who gave their lives in defense of that nation.
McCarthyism: The Cold War at Home. As the Cold War
progressed, and as the presence of Soviet spies
operating in the West, including in the United States, became
known, many Americans began to see
Communism is an immediate threat to their way of life. With
revelations of the spying of Klaus Fuchs,
who had smuggled atomic bomb secrets out of New Mexico, and
as Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg were revealed to be spies, a fear gripped much of
America. Thus by 1950 the time was ripe
for a demagogue to seize the issue of anti-Communism and turn

39. it to his own ends. What resulted was
one of the most disgraceful episodes in American politics. That
trend had already begun with the
blacklisting of anyone in Hollywood or other areas of the
country about whom it could be claimed that
they had the slightest degree of sympathy for the Communist
movement. Hundreds of lives were
disrupted. (See Guilty by Suspicion starring Robert De Niro,
1991.)
Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who had served with
the Marines in World War II, though he
had seen no combat, was elected to the Senate in 1946. (He later
lied about his military record, claiming
to have seen action.) Looking for an issue on which to run for
reelection in 1952, McCarthy hit on the
idea of anti-Communism, which he certainly did not have to
invent. He launched his “project” with a
speech in February, 1950. The press zeroed in on McCarthy's
charges, which sounded serious (though
they were in fact fabricated), and McCarthyism was born.
Taking the already present suspicion and fear of the Soviets to
new levels, McCarthy went on a frantic
chase after Communist conspirators, who he claimed existed in
virtually every corner of American life.
With little or no evidence, he carried out what can only be
called a witch hunt, ruining lives and
reputations in the process and eventually bringing himself into
disgrace.
McCarthy attacked all branches of government, including the
State Department and the U.S. Army, the
latter of which proved more than a match for McCarthy’s
recklessness. In a series of televised hearings,
McCarthy and aide Roy Cohn (many called him McCarthy’s

40. hatchet-man) tangled with a tough Army
lawyer named Joseph Welch. Welch put Cohn on the spot over
some doctored photographs. When
McCarthy tried to protect his protégé by slandering a lawyer in
Welch’s law firm, Welch turned on
McCarthy with a withering indictment. He accused the Senator
in front of television cameras of being
shameless and dishonorable, as spectators applauded.
The first Senator to attack McCarthyism on the floor of the
Senate was Republican Margaret Chase
Smith of Maine. She called for an end a smear tactics in her
“Declaration of Conscience” speech,
although she did not mention McCarthy by name. McCarthy was
eventually censured by the Senate. An
10
alcoholic, McCarthy died in 1957, but much of the damage done
by the Senator and his aides such as
Roy Cohn could not be repaired. One such casualty was J.
Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic
bomb, whose top-secret security clearance was suspended in
1953 because of his alleged leftist
sympathies during the 1930s.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: The General as President
Dwight David Eisenhower was born in Texas in 1890, one of six
brothers who grew up in Abilene, Kansas.
He entered West Point in 1911 and served in the Army during
the 1920s and 30s under such illustrious
officers as George Patton and Douglas MacArthur. Recognized
early for his powerful intelligence and

41. devotion to duty, he held important positions in the years
preceding World War II and helped develop
doctrine for armored warfare. When World War II broke out, he
was brought to Washington to work for
General George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, serving
as Chief of the War Plans Division.
In 1942 General Eisenhower went to Europe to take command of
American forces for the invasion of
North Africa, Operation Torch, in 1942. He was subsequently
named Supreme Commander Allied Forces
Europe and planned and oversaw Operation Overlord, the Allied
invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June
6, 1944. As Supreme Commander, he dealt with many
challenging personalities, including Winston
Churchill, French General Charles de Gaulle, British Field
Marshal Bernard Montgomery, senior Soviet
Russian officials and his military and civilian superiors in
Washington.
A measure of Eisenhower’s character is revealed in a message
he prepared in advance of the landings in
Normandy on D-Day:
Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a
satisfactory foothold and I have
withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and
place was based on the best information
available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery
and devotion to duty could do. If any
blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.
Fortunately, the general never had to release that message.
When World War II ended in Europe, General Eisenhower
accepted the surrender of German leaders

42. and took steps to reveal the horrors of the Nazi concentration
camps. (He accurately predicted that at
some future time people would deny that the events called the
Holocaust ever occurred. His quotation
about that prediction is inscribed on the rear wall of the
Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC.)
Following the war, General Eisenhower replaced George C.
Marshall as Chief of Staff of the Army. Partly
as a reward for his service, and mostly because of his
demonstrated leadership skills, Eisenhower held
several important positions following his retirement from active
duty. In 1948 he became president of
New York’s Columbia University, a position which allowed him
to be involved in high-level discussions of
American foreign policy. In the process, he made many useful
contacts and learned more about the
workings of the American political system. (He once claimed to
have been so little involved in politics
that he had never even voted.) Until President Harry Truman
decided to run for reelection in 1948, the
11
Democrats had been considering Eisenhower for their candidate.
In 1952 a movement began among
senior Republicans to nominate General Eisenhower as their
candidate for president.
Eisenhower faced a strong challenge from conservative Senator
Robert Taft of Ohio, the front runner for
the nomination, who was known as “Mr. Republican.”
Following a tough battle at the Republican
Convention, Eisenhower won the nomination on the first ballot.

43. He selected California Senator Richard
Nixon for vice president. With his grandfatherly image and the
slogan “I like Ike,” he comfortably
defeated Democratic candidate Democratic Governor Adlai
Stevenson of Illinois with almost 58% of the
popular vote. Eisenhower thus became the first former general
to enter the White House since Ulysses
S. Grant.
When Dwight D Eisenhower assumed the presidency on January
20, 1953, twenty years of Democratic
Party occupancy of the White House ended. President
Eisenhower was the only former general to
occupy that office in the 20th century, and he was extremely
well prepared for the position. What
served the former soldier well as he entered office when Cold
War tensions threatened was his
experience in dealing with other world leaders during the
Second World War. He dealt with future
adversaries such as top generals of the Russian Army, prickly
allies like France's Charles de Gaulle, and
powerful Allied leaders like Winston Churchill. As leader of the
largest and most complex military
operation ever undertaken by Americans—the invasion of
Europe and conquest of Nazi Germany—he
had management experience of the highest order.
President Eisenhower and the Cold War. President Eisenhower's
most significant challenges came in
the area of foreign-policy. Tensions had begun to arise between
the Soviet Union and the West even
before World War II was over. The Soviets had recently
developed a powerful nuclear arsenal, and the
death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 heightened the uncertainty of
relations with the communist world. Thus,
by the time Eisenhower took office in January 1953, the Cold

44. War, which had been underway for
practically a decade, had reached a dangerous level. Anti-Soviet
feelings ran deep; the McCarthy era was
in full swing. Americans, enjoying products that had sprung
from the technologies and events during
World War II and dealing with civil rights issues, were not
completely focused on foreign affairs.
Those who have examined the political career of General
Eisenhower (as he preferred to be called even
after becoming president) have generally agreed that he was a
shrewd observer of the world scene. Yet
he was sometimes naïve in his understanding of American
political practice. He seemed to some to be
working too hard to appease his political opponents, lacking the
experience of having dealt with a “loyal
opposition.” At the same time, he guided American foreign
affairs in a cautious, measured fashion.
No American politician could ignore the threat posed by the
Soviet Union, especially as the nuclear arms
race had begun to produce weapons of stupefying power,
thousands of times more powerful than the
bombs which had destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Assisting
in the formulation of Eisenhower's
foreign policy was Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who
took a stern view of the Soviets. Dulles’s
brother, Allen Dulles, was Director of Central Intelligence
(CIA) and contributed to the administration's
harsh view of the Soviets.
12

45. The first nuclear bomb, a hydrogen bomb, is exploded in a test
on a
Pacific Ocean atoll on November 1, 1952. Three days later,
General
Dwight Eisenhower was elected President of the United States
over
Governor Adlai Stevenson.
Like all postwar presidents, including his predecessor, Harry
Truman, President Eisenhower felt that the
greatest threat to America came from an expansive, monolithic
communism centered in the Soviet
Union. He stated in his first inaugural address that, “Forces of
good and evil are massed and armed and
opposed as rarely before in history. Freedom is pitted against
slavery, lightness against dark,” those
being reasons why he named John Foster Dulles as Secretary of
State. The Eisenhower-Dulles foreign
policy was, at least in its rhetoric, harsher than that of President
Truman; Dulles coined the phrase
“massive retaliation,” which was to be used if the Soviets
became aggressors.
Eisenhower was comfortable allowing Secretary Dulles to heat
up the rhetoric of the Cold War while he
himself worked more quietly behind the scenes to reduce
international tension. The new president was
far more clever than his critics at the time realized. An avid
golfer, Eisenhower had a putting green
installed on the south lawn of the White House, and a popular
ditty had the president “putting along” as
the world around him seethed. In fact, the president was deeply
engaged in monitoring foreign affairs
and was well aware of how dangerous the world had become.

46. When the Hungarians revolted against their Soviet oppressors in
1956, there were calls for the United
States to intervene to help the freedom fighters. Even if
Eisenhower had been tempted to act, however,
getting aid to landlocked Hungary would have been a
monumental undertaking. The Soviets quickly
repressed the revolt in any case. Yet the episode led some to
believe that the United States under
President Eisenhower was slow to respond to calls from
assistance by those beleaguered by
international communism.
In 1954 when the French Army found itself in a critical
situation in Indochina, President Eisenhower
declined to support the French at Dien Bien Phu with military
assistance. He did, however, offer military
and economic aid to South Vietnam. He defended his action by
describing what became known as the
Domino theory—that if one nation fell to communism, other
nations would certainly follow.
An additional crisis erupted in the Middle East in 1956. In 1955
the Soviet Union had begun arms
shipments to Egypt. In response, Israel strengthened its
defenses and requested arms from the United
States, a request that president Eisenhower rejected, fearing a
Middle East arms race. When United
States canceled a loan offer of $56 million to Egypt for
construction of the Aswan Dam, Egyptian leader
Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had grown closer to the Soviet Union,
took action to nationalize the Suez
canal and extract tolls from users. Israel responded by
advancing troops toward the Suez Canal, and
Britain and France began airstrikes against Egypt. British and
French leaders called for assistance from

47. 13
the United States, but president Eisenhower refused on the
grounds that he did not support the use of
force in the settlement of international conflicts.
Fearing that the Soviets would come to dominate the Middle
East, Eisenhower and his Secretary of State
Dulles requested a resolution from Congress authorizing the
president to extend economic and military
aid to Middle Eastern nations. He based his request on the
following principle:
We have shown, so that none can doubt, our dedication to the
principle that force shall not be used
internationally for any aggressive purpose and that the integrity
and independence of the nations of the
Middle East should be inviolate. Seldom in history has a
nation's dedication to principle been tested as
severely as ours during recent weeks. …
Let me refer again to the requested authority to employ the
armed forces of the United States to assist
to defend the territorial integrity and the political independence
of any nation in the area against
Communist armed aggression. Such authority would not be
exercised except at the desire of the nation
attacked. Beyond this it is my profound hope that this authority
would never have to be exercised at all.
(Dwight D. Eisenhower, Message to Congress, January 5, 1957.)
Congress responded by granting the president the authority to
use force to protect nations threatened

48. by communism. This policy became known as the “Eisenhower
Doctrine.” While deploring the use of
force, Eisenhower recognized that the threat of force could be a
deterrent to its use. In response to a
request from the President of Lebanon, President Eisenhower
sent 5,000 Marines into that country to
protect Lebanon’s territorial integrity. They remained there for
three months.
Although criticized in some quarters for his inaction in the Suez
Crisis, Eisenhower was as aware as
anyone on the planet of the horrors that could be unleashed by
another widespread war, now made an
even more terrifying prospect because of the spread of nuclear
weapons. With new and more powerful
hydrogen bombs being built, the Eisenhower administration
followed a policy designed to use the threat
of nuclear war only as a deterrent to the Soviet Union in case
vital United States interests should be
threatened. Eisenhower also rejected any possible use of atomic
or nuclear weapons in defense of
French Indochina or Taiwan. In retrospect, Eisenhower's
cautious policy has been deemed wise and
prudent, given the volatility of international relations in the
1950s. The rhetoric of “massive retaliation”
was strong, but a first use of nuclear weapons probably never
entered President Eisenhower’s
consciousness; like General MacArthur, he abhorred the use of
atomic or nuclear weapons. His recent
biographer, Jim Newton describes Eisenhower in these words:
Shrewd and patient, moderate and confident, Ike guided
America through some of the most
treacherous moments of the Cold War. He was urged to take
advantage of America’s military advantage
in those early years—to finish the Korean War with nuclear

49. weapons, to repel Chinese aggression
against Taiwan, to repulse the Soviets in Berlin, to rescue the
French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. …
Eisenhower was not complacent, nor was he reckless or
unhinged. (See Jim Newton, Eisenhower: The
White House Years(New York: Doubleday, 2011.)
14
Dwight Eisenhower might be considered a great American for
things he did not do as well as for those
he did. Later in his life he reflected: “The United States never
lost a soldier or a foot of ground in my
administration. We kept the peace. People ask how it
happened—by God, it didn't just happen, I'll tell
you that.”
Sputnik: The Space Race Begins. In the years following World
War II blustering Soviet propaganda had
provided ammunition for comedians who suggested that the
Russians were all talk and no action. When
they exploded their first nuclear device in 1949, however, the
jokes quickly fell flat. When the Soviet
Union launched the first Earth satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, the
reaction among many Americans was close
to panic. Fears of the military use of space ran rampant, and the
United States was placed on a crash
course to match the Soviet achievement. The American
educational system came under severe criticism
suggesting that “Ivan” was far better educated than “Johnny,”
especially in math, science and
engineering.
With the knowledge that the missiles used by the Soviets to

50. launch satellites into space could also be
used to rain warheads on the United States, Eisenhower
authorized surveillance flights by U-2 aircraft
over the Soviet Union. The high flying spy planes were thought
to be invulnerable to anti-air missiles,
but in 1959 a U-2 aircraft (left) piloted by Major Francis Gary
Powers was shot down over the Soviet
Union. The administration initially issued denials, but when
pictures of the U.S. airman and the downed
aircraft were shown on Soviet television, it was clear that the
story was real. When President
Eisenhower refused to issue an apology, Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev canceled a scheduled summit
meeting with the president, which further heightened tensions.
Despite President Eisenhower’s caution,
the world was still a dangerous place.
Shortly before his departure from the White House, President
Eisenhower, following the example first
set by George Washington, delivered a farewell address to the
nation on radio and television, in which
he cautioned the American people of the forces that threatened
to take over the direction of American
foreign policy. The speech has become known as his “Military-
Industrial Complex Speech.” In the
course of his remarks he said:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. … We
must never let the weight of this
combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. …
Today … the free university, historically the fountainhead of
free ideas and scientific discovery, has
experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly

51. because of the huge costs involved, a
government contract becomes virtually a substitute for
intellectual curiosity. … The prospect of
domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment,
project allocations, and the power of
money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of
time. As we peer into society’s future,
we—you and I, and our government—must avoid the impulse to
live only for today, plundering for our
own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow.
We cannot mortgage the material
15
assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their
political and spiritual heritage. We want
democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become
the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.…
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a
continuing imperative. Together we must learn
how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect
and decent purpose. Because this need is
so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official
responsibilities in this field with a definite
sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror
and the lingering sadness of war, as one
who knows that another war could utterly destroy this
civilization which has been so slowly and
painfully built over thousands of years, I wish I could say
tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.…

52. (Full text of President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address.)
The Kennedy Years
An observer of the administration of John F. Kennedy once
noted, “You are the staff officers of World
War II, come of age.” The observer went on to comment that the
Kennedy staffers had seen many things
handled poorly during that earlier conflict, and they were
determined to do things right. History has yet
to conclude decisively whether or not that noble ideal was
reached.
Joseph P. Kennedy, a wealthy businessman and movie tycoon,
was determined that one of his sons
would become the first Irish-Catholic president of the United
States. When his son, Joseph P. Kennedy
Jr., was killed in a bombing mission during World War II, the
mantle passed to his next oldest son, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy. Young Jack Kennedy, who had commanded
a PT boat during the war, ran
successfully for Congress in 1946 and was elected to the Senate
in 1952. He married Jacqueline Bouvier
in 1953 and was runner-up for the vice presidential nomination
in 1956. The publicity gained from that
experience enabled him to gain the Democratic nomination in
1960. He defeated Vice President Richard
Nixon in a very close election.
President Kennedy’s inaugural address set the tone for his
foreign policy; people looking back on it have
often noted how much it seemed to foretell coming events,
especially in its military imagery. Consider
his words:
Let the word go forth … that the torch has been passed to a new

53. generation of Americans—born in this
century, tempered by war, disciplined by a cold and bitter
peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and
unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human
rights to which this nation has always
been committed …
Let every nation know, whether it wish us well or ill, that we
shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet
any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe in order to
assure the survival and success of liberty.
To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe
struggling to break the bonds of mass misery,
we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for
whatever period is required—not because
the Communists are doing it, not because we seek their votes,
but because it is right. If the free society
cannot help the many who are poor, it can never save the few
who are rich.
16
Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to
oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in
the Americas. And let every other power know that this
Hemisphere intends to remain the master of its
own house.
As a combat veteran of World War II, Kennedy viewed himself
and his administration as Cold Warriors.
His father had been ambassador to Great Britain during the
years leading up to World War II, and
Kennedy's oldest brother, Joe, was killed in that conflict. The

54. rhetoric of JFK’s inaugural address was
filled with military imagery. He saw himself as a fighter, and
many Americans were prepared to follow
his lead.
Once Kennedy was in office, however, it soon became apparent
that his counterpart in the Soviet Union,
Premier Nikita Khrushchev, saw him as young, inexperienced
and perhaps naïve. Kennedy set out to
prove him wrong. It is believed that his first face-to-face
confrontation with Khrushchev in Vienna is
what led him to increase American support for the anti-
communist Diem government in Vietnam. No
doubt it also led him to play hardball with the Russians during
the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. He
reorganized the Joint Chiefs of Staff to find generals who would
share his view of the world; indeed, a
number of them were far more hard-line than the president.
The Bay of Pigs. As the McKinley administration was preparing
to go to war with Spain in 1898, the anti-
imperialist movement in the United States was growing in
influence. One result was the Teller
Amendment, attached to a key piece of war legislation, which
stated that the United States was not
going to war for the purpose of annexing Cuba. Although the
U.S. did intervene very heavily in that
nation following its independence from Spain, America stuck by
its pledge and Cuba remained
independent.
During the 1950s Cuba was ruled by the dictator Fulgencio
Batista. One wry observer noted that “Batista
may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” The
comment meant that whatever his flaws,
Batista was staunchly anti-Communist. The revolution led by

55. Fidel Castro began in 1953 and ended by
driving out the Batista regime in 1959. Shortly after Castro took
power, it became apparent that his
sympathies lay with Communism and that he intended to rule
Cuba with an iron hand. Many of Batista's
government officials and soldiers were executed, and religious
and other civil institutions were clamped
down severely.
The idea of a communist nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida
did not sit well with most Americans.
During the early years of the Castro regime the Eisenhower
administration and the CIA began catering to
a group of so-called Cuban patriots, “freedom fighters,” who
were determined to invade Cuba. Their
goal was to reverse the Castro revolution and end his control of
the country. A small army of freedom
fighters was trained in Guatemala with American support. The
rebels came to believe that they could
depend on full American assistance and cooperation, if not an
outright declaration of war on the Castro
government, once the operation began.
Before that plan was executed President Eisenhower left office
and was replaced by the young John F.
Kennedy. Kennedy assumed office in January, 1961, and by
April of that year the invasion plan was
ready to be put into action. Those who have since examined the
plan and the resources provided quickly
17
saw that it was bound for disaster and never had any real chance
of success. Nevertheless, President

56. Kennedy, as the youngest man ever elected president, did not
want to appear weak in the conduct of
foreign policy, and he let the plan proceed.
]The idea was to land a small force at the Bay of Pigs in
southern Cuba, with the expectation that
patriotic citizens would join the invasion force and eventually
overthrow Castro's government. The
success of a C.I.A. inspired coup to overthrow a leftist regime
in Guatemala in 1954 had led the C.I.A. to
believe a similar plan would succeed in Cuba. Although
planning for the operation was ill-conceived, it
took on a momentum of its own. The C.I.A. foolishly believed
that American involvement could be kept
secret. The area chosen for the landing was one in which Castro
had strong support among the people.
The military, feeling it was a C.I.A. operation and thus none of
its business, kept its objections to the plan
to itself. President Kennedy erroneously believed that since
President Eisenhower, a career soldier,
approved of the plan, it must be sound, when in fact Eisenhower
had been only marginally involved in
the planning process.
The invasion was a dismal failure, and within a matter of hours
the entire invasion force was either killed
or captured. Bitter recriminations followed, as the rebels
claimed that America had not provided the
promised support. The fact is that the Kennedy administration
had no intention of backing an all-out
invasion of Cuba. When things turned bad for the invaders,
Kennedy cancelled further air support in
hopes of concealing American involvement. It was too late for
that, however. Far many reasons, the plot
was doomed to failure from the beginning.

57. Because Kennedy had only been in office for a few months
when the Bay of Pigs fiasco took place, he
was able to publicly accept full responsibility for the operation,
understanding full well that any critic
must know that it had been in the works for months before
Kennedy took office. His personal charisma
earned him high marks for candor even as he delivered the bad
news. His defenders were able to say
that he did not want to reverse a policy begun by General
Eisenhower, and thus he allowed the
operation, about which he himself was skeptical, to go forward.
The Bay of Pigs had a significant impact on the future of the
Kennedy administration foreign policy.
Soviet Premier Khrushchev saw it as a sign of Kennedy's
inexperience and naivety. Thus when Kennedy
and Khrushchev met later in Vienna, Khrushchev was rough
with Kennedy and blustered about how the
Soviet Union would eventually crush the United States.
Kennedy returned from Vienna shaken but
determined not to be pushed around by the Soviets. Two months
later Khrushchev sealed off the border
between East and West Berlin and built a wall to prevent East
Germans from escaping into West Berlin.
Vice President Johnson was sent to Germany to reassure the
German people, but the Cold War had
escalated once again.
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962
President Kennedy was at heart a Cold Warrior. He had been
critical of the Eisenhower administration’s
foreign policy and was prepared to take a hard line with
communism. Upon returning from his Vienna
meeting with Khrushchev in 1961, he acknowledged that his
Soviet counterpart “beat the hell out of

58. me.” He vowed to get tough with the Soviets in order to
demonstrate that he (and the U.S.) could not be
18
pushed around. He decided that the time was suitable for a
stand, and that Vietnam would be the place.
Thus he began the buildup of the American advisory cadre in
Vietnam that was to lead to America’s
much greater involvement during the Johnson years. (See
Vietnam section.)
A greater threat than Vietnam soon emerged, however. The
United States had continued to keep a close
eye on Cuba following the Bay of Pigs, using spy planes to fly
over the island and photograph any
suspected military activity. Then, in October 1962, American
reconnaissance flights revealed that the
Soviets were building nuclear weapons bases in Cuba, a
violation of the Monroe Doctrine and a serious
threat to American security. Additional aerial reconnaissance
photos confirmed that preparations were
underway to install missile launchers on the island of Cuba with
the potential to launch nuclear tipped
weapons at the U.S.
The Cuban missile crisis was the closest the world ever came to
all-out nuclear war. Following the first
sightings of the missiles being placed by Soviets, additional
Russian vessels were seen heading towards
Cuba carrying more missile components. Thus began what
became known as “the 13 days,” a period of
extremely high tension in which the Kennedy administration
tried to find a way to get the missiles out of

59. Cuba without starting World War III. Kennedy and his advisers
had to walk a very tight line in order to
achieve that end.
Robert Kennedy's book, Thirteen Days, is a detailed analysis of
the missile crisis. Robert F. Kennedy was
JFK's brother, Attorney General and closest adviser. President
Kennedy had to confront not only
Khrushchev and his plan to turn Cuba into a missile base for the
Soviets; he also had to deal with his
military leaders, who were generally in favor of bold,
aggressive action. In order to foster a full
discussion of all possible options, the president convened an
Executive Committee of the National
Security Council, known as EXCOMM, consisting of top
military and civilian advisors, including the
president’s brother. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and some civilians
supported the bombing of missile sites in
Cuba followed up by an all-out military invasion. Less
aggressive options were also heatedly discussed.
As the EXCOMM huddled in Washington trying to work out a
plan to deal with the situation, Marines
and army units were placed on high alert and began preparation
for an invasion of Cuba. The American
naval base at Guantánamo Bay was braced for action, and
Marines were flown from the First Marine
Division site in Camp Pendleton, California, to the East Coast
to be positioned for further action. The
101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions were also placed on high
alert. As military preparations went on,
Kennedy struggled to keep the media from over-reporting the
situation and causing panic in the streets.
He also addressed the nation directly via television.
Continued flights by U-2 spy planes tracked the progress of the

60. installations, and low-level flights were
authorized to get a close-up view of the missile sites. As
tensions mounted, the debate extended to the
United Nations, where Ambassador Adlai Stevenson confronted
the Soviet ambassador with pictures of
the missile installations (left). Stevenson demonstrated for the
world that America’s claims were not
lies, as the Soviet minister had charged. The United States Navy
placed what was called a “quarantine”
around the island of Cuba (the term blockade was not used since
it is a term indicating that a state of
war exists), and Soviet ships were ordered not to advance any
farther with their missile cargos.
19
As tension mounted, Soviet Premier Khrushchev sent a message
offering a means to end the standoff
through negotiation. Careful analysis of the message revealed
that it was drafted personally by
Khrushchev, who was obviously under considerable stress. The
following day a much harsher message
was received, apparently the result of internal bickering in the
Kremlin. The president decided to
respond to Khrushchev’s first message, ignoring the more
threatening follow up. By using means of
communication outside normal diplomatic channels and tense
negotiations between Robert Kennedy
and the Soviet ambassador in Washington, the Americans were
able to convince the Soviets to cease
development of the missile sites.
The deal that was finally struck involved a concession by the
United States that some obsolete missiles

61. in Turkey would eventually be removed (supposedly they were
going to be removed anyway.) In
addition the United States promised not to invade Cuba. When
the crisis was over, the world breathed a
little easier, and the most frightening moments of the Cold War
had passed. Tensions remained; the
confrontation had shaken the world. As Secretary of State Dean
Rusk later put it, "We were eyeball to
eyeball and the other guy blinked." Not long afterward a “hot
line” was established between
Washington and Moscow to facilitate communications in case of
a future crisis.
See Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban
Missile Crisis (New York: Norton, 1973)
and the film of the same name based on the book starring Bruce
Greenwood and Kevin Costner. See
also Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the
Cuban Missile Crisis (2nd ed. New York:
Longman, 1999.)
The Kennedy Legacy. The question still discussed about
President Kennedy’s foreign policy—one for
which there is no satisfactory answer—is: “What would
Kennedy have done in Vietnam if he had not
been assassinated?” Some believe that he was prepared to end
what he saw as a misguided venture;
however, advisers close to the Kennedy administration have
indicated that if his intent was to begin a
full withdrawal from Vietnam, they had seen little evidence that
he would carry it further. True, he had
drawn down the number of advisers in Vietnam slightly during
the last months of his presidency, but
some believe that that was just preparation for the election of
1964. We can only speculate about the
later course of events if Kennedy had not been shot.

62. In the end, Kennedy followed the path of Presidents Truman and
Eisenhower as a leader determined to
prevent the further spread of Communism in the world by all
reasonable means. He had campaigned on
the issue of a missile gap between United States and the Soviet
Union, and even his plan to place a man
on the moon in the decade of the 1960s was, to a large extent,
aimed at defeating the Russians in space.
The military implications were obvious. It was during
Kennedy's administration that the most dangerous
point in the Cold War was reached: the Cuban Missile Crisis of
October 1962.
20
American Association of School Librarians
National Research Forum
White Paper
December 2014
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of
Museum
and Library Services grant number LG-62-13-0212-13.

63. http://www.ala.org/news/sites/ala.org.news/files/news/pressrele
aseimages/IMLS_Logo_Black_0.jpg
December 2014
2 AASL National Research Forum – White Paper
Abstract
......................................................................................... 3
Introduction
................................................................................ 4
Research and Causality Discussion ................................... 6
Recommended Plan of Action .......................................... 12
Community of Scholars .......................................................
17
Conclusion
................................................................................ 19
Works Cited
............................................................................. 21
Appendix A: Participants ....................................................
23

64. Appendix B: Further Reading ........................................... 26
Appendix C: Timetable ........................................................
31
Appendix D: Communication Plan .................................. 33
http://www.aasl.org/
December 2014
3 AASL National Research Forum – White Paper
On April 11 and 12, 2014, the American Association of School
Librarians (AASL) held
Causality: School Libraries and Student Success (CLASS), an
IMLS-funded national forum. Dr.
Thomas Cook, one of the most influential methodologists in
education research, and a five-
member panel of expert scholars and practitioners led 50
established and emerging school
library researchers in articulating a national research agenda to
investigate causal

65. phenomena in school library instruction, resources, and
services.
Research in academic achievement and school librarianship has
a strong foundation of over
25 correlational studies in which school librarians’ activities
and school library programs
have been explored in relation to student learning and teacher
support. The results of these
studies suggest that complementary research should be
conducted to establish a causal
relationship between the work of effective school librarians and
the creation of motivated,
engaged, and agile learners.
The goals of this white paper are to:
1. Capture the rich discussion emanating from the CLASS forum
surrounding research
and causality.
2. Propose a progression of research methods and projects that
will support efforts
toward theory building, exploratory research, and demonstration
research; and
3. Outline mechanisms by which a community of scholars can
be cultivated and

66. nurtured toward furthering the research agenda and its
activities.
http://www.aasl.org/
December 2014
4 AASL National Research Forum – White Paper
Today’s students must navigate an information terrain that
demands sophisticated search,
location, evaluation, and creation skills. They are facing a
maze of ethical and safety
decisions related to social media and digital resources. They
need to be prepared for the
demands of tomorrow’s workforce and higher education. Myriad
forces such as the
common standards movement’s emphasis on conceptual
application; growing global needs
for dynamic, innovative, and flexible workplace readiness
skills; and ubiquitous
information and technology heighten the demands on educators
responsible for these

67. students. State-certified school librarians and other educators
who can address these
challenges through the creation of effective learning spaces are
needed now more than
ever and yet fiscal cutbacks and other challenges threaten these
positions and learning
spaces in many schools. The time is now and the need is urgent
to demonstrate the
relationship of state-certified school librarians leading effective
school library programs
with student learning and success.
More than ever, we understand that the profession of school
librarianship is broad and
complex. Professional, certified school librarians are educators,
information specialists,
and leaders. They possess the expertise, knowledge and
influence to ensure students’
mastery of a wide range of cognitive, interpersonal, and
intrapersonal skills. However, a
number of states have fewer than half of schools with a full-
time certified school librarian
and the field has made little progress in changing that, despite
active support in some areas

68. (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009-2012).
Research is needed to demonstrate
what kinds of effects a quality school library program, defined
as a fully funded and fully
staffed learning space led by a state-certified school librarian,
has on student learning and
success. A single driving question of this white paper is: How
might school library
researchers use causal research designs to determine which
specific aspects of school
library program positively impact student learning?
On April 11 and 12, 2014, the American Association of School
Librarians (AASL) invited 50
scholars from a broad array of backgrounds including school
librarianship and related
fields. The group represented researchers in children’s
materials, curriculum, teaching and
learning, technology, and program administration. Causality:
School Libraries and Student
Success (CLASS), an IMLS-funded national forum was a bold
move toward addressing issues
facing the profession through new directions in research.
This white paper reports on this unprecedented convening of the
nation’s leading school

69. library and educational researchers and furthers the
development of a national agenda to
demonstrate the positive influences of effective state-certified
school librarians and quality
http://www.aasl.org/
December 2014
5 AASL National Research Forum – White Paper
school library programs and learning spaces on student learning.
The CLASS Forum reflects
the diversity of voices in the educational field.
Dr. Thomas Cook, one of the most influential methodologists in
education research, guided
this historic meeting. The five-member expert panel was
comprised of scholars and
practitioners from information science, library studies and
education including, John
Brock (New York State Education Department), Joseph Maxwell
(George Mason
University, VA), Paul Lanata (Jefferson County Public Schools,

70. KY), Marcia Mardis (Florida
State University) and Shana Pribesh (Old Dominion University,
VA). The panel was joined
by 50 participants including established and emerging
researchers, scholars outside the school
library field, state department of education researchers,
consultants and a representative from
ALA’s Office for Research and Statistics. The participants
examined the issues of causality
related to student learning and school libraries to articulate a
research agenda and
investigate causal phenomena in school library instruction,
resources, and services.
School librarianship has a strong foundation of more than 25
correlational studies in which
certified school librarians’ activities and school library
programs have been explored in
relation to student learning and teacher support. The National
Research Council (2012) has
affirmed the need for further research into the necessary 21st
century competencies for
students. The results of these studies suggest that the school
library research field is ready
to add studies that attempt to establish a causal relationship

71. between the work of effective
state-certified school librarians and the creation of motivated,
engaged, and agile learners.
To this end, the goals of this white paper are to:
1 Capture the rich discussion surrounding research and causality
emanating from
the CLASS forum.
2 Propose a progression of research methods and projects that
will support efforts
toward theory building, exploratory research, and demonstration
research; and
3 Outline mechanisms by which a community of scholars can be
cultivated and
nurtured toward furthering the research agenda and its
activities.
http://www.aasl.org/
December 2014
6 AASL National Research Forum – White Paper

72. GOAL ONE: To capture the rich discussion emanating from the
CLASS forum
surrounding research and causality.
This discussion is summarized according to the following three
objectives to:
1. Acknowledge and affirm the importance of an existing body
of correlational and
case study research in the field
2. Identify the complexities surrounding efforts to move toward
causal studies linking
school librarianship and student learning
3. Identify methodological concerns
For decades, researchers interested in school libraries have
explored the relationship of
school-level characteristics of libraries, such as the size of
school library collections or the
qualifications of school library staff, and student achievement.
Additionally there have
been numerous case studies examining various aspects of school
library practice. The
foundational work of Carol Kuhlthau (1991) in the information
seeking behaviors of
students was frequently cited during the forum.