Notes for 3/17

Cold War
-Potsdam Conference
-Truman learns the testing of the atomic bomb was successful and tells Stalin about it
-Conference demands Japan that they surrender unconditionally or be destroyed
-Baruch Plan
-Truman gets Bernard Baruch to propose international control of nuclear weapons to UN
-Baruch Plan calls for:
-Full disclosure by all UN members of Nuclear research and materials
-Creation of international authority to ensure concurrence
-Destruction of all U.S. atomic weapons once these steps were complete
-Soviets called on U.S. to destroy weapons unilaterally which U.S. refused to do since Soviets had their own development program underway

Containment
-Friction between U.S. and Soviet Union builds
-Truman suddenly suspanded lend-lease assistance to Soviet Union (Sept. 1945) partly to pressure Soviets into holding elections in Poland that U.S. had been promised at Yalta
-U.S. linked extension of U.S. reconstruction loans to its goal of rolling back Soivet power in Eastern Europe
-Didn't work and Soviets tightened their grip on Eastern Europe
-Soviet spehere of influence which Stalin called defensive and which U.S. called communist expansion emerged in Eastern Europe (Poland, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechslovakia)
-March 1947: Truman wanted to reserve gains by communist-led insurgents in Greece and to keep communist pressures out of Turkey, so announced Truman Doctrine:
-Truman asked Congress to provide aid to Greece and Turkey
-U.S. should aid countries "who are resisting attempted subversion by armed minorities or by outside pressures" otherwise security of U.S. was threatened
-Congress passed Truman's request for $400 million in assistance to Greece and Turkey (mostly military aid)
-With this, U.S. National Security policy becomes "containment"
-Term comes from article published in foreign affairs magazine written under psuedonym, Mr. X, by State department official (George Kennan)
-Mr. X. argued that Soviets = naturally expansionist but if they were confronted firmly they would back down
-Containment became global, anticommunist policy. U.S. followed until fall of Soviet Union (1991)
-Containment linked all leftist insurgencies to totalitarian movement controlled from Moscow that threatened U.S.
-9 days after proclamation of Truman Doctrine, Truman issued executive order 9835 which called for:
-System of Loyalty Boards authorized to determine if "reasonable grounds" existed for believing that any government employee belonged to organization or had political ideas that might threaten security risk to U.S.
-Known that CPUSA was receiving financial support from Moscow and Soviets were spying
-Once highly classified, intercepted messages between Moscow and U.S. ("Venana Files") showed Soviet Union had been obtaining info. from U.S. government agencies including office of war information and office of strategic services (CIA)
-Moscow obtained classified info. on U.S. atomic weapons program
-Loyalty Program came at time when very few people in our government knew the extent of Soviet spy activity and infiltration of U.S. government but couldn't reveal what they knew
-Also came at time when Congress set up House Unamerican Activities Committee and the republican senator (Joseph McCarthy) alleged hundreds of communist party members of holding government jobs