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38 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Taft – Hartley Act, 1947
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It was passed over President Truman's vigorous veto. It was a slave labor law that outlawed the "closed" (all union) shop, made unions liable for damages that resulted from jurisdictional disputes among themselves, and required union leaders to take a uncommunist oath. It was one of the obstacles that slowed the growth of organized labor in the years after World War II.
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Full Employment Act, 1946
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It made it a government policy "to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power." The act created a three member Council of Economic Advisers to provide the president with the data and the recommendations to make the policy a reality.
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GI Bill of Rights, 1944
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It was also known ad Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. It was enacted partly out of fear that the employment markets would never be able to absorb 15 million returning veterans at war's end. The bill also pushed schools for these veterans.. The total eventually spent for education some $14.5 billion in tax payer's dollars. The Act also enabled the Veterans Administration to guarantee about $16 billion in loans for veterans to buy homes, farms, and small businesses.
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Levittown
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made by the Levitt brothers on New York's Long Island. They were builders that revolutionized the techniques of home construction. Erecting hundreds or even thousands of dwellings in a single project, specialized crew working from standardized plans laid foundations, while other raised factory assembled framing modules, put on roofs, strung wires, installed plumbing, and finished the walls in record time with cost-cutting efficiency.
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White Flight
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"Whites flew" to the leafy green suburbs left the inner cities – especially those in the Northeast and Midwest – black, brown, and broke. Migrating blacks from the south filled up the urban neighborhoods that were abandoned by the departing white middle class. In effect, the incoming blacks imported the grinding poverty of the rural South into the inner cores of northern cities.
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Baby Boom
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huge leap in birthrate in the decade and half after 1945. Confident young men and women tied the nuptial knot in record numbers at war's end, and they began immediately to fill the nation's empty cradles. They thus touched off a demographic explosion that added more than 50 million bawling babies to the nation's population by the end of the 1950s.
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Yalta Conference, Feb. 1945
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It was the final conference for the Big Three. The final plan was laid for smashing the buckling German lines and shaking the beaten Axis foe. Stalin agreed that Poland, with revised boundaries, should have a representative government based on free elections – a pledge he soon broke. Bulgaria and Romania were likewise to have free elections – A promise also flouted. The Big Three further announced plans for fashioning a new international peace keeping organization – The United Nations. The most controversial subject concerned what to do with the Far East (Japan). Russia promised to attack Japan within 3 months after Germany surrendered. In return, Russia would regain the control of the Southern half of Sakhalin Island, and Kurile Island. The Soviet Union would also granted joint control over the railroads of China's Manchuria, and special privileges in the two key seaports of that area, Darien and Port Arthur.
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Bretton Woods, 1944
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The Western Allies established the International Monetary fund. They also founded the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to promote economic growth in war ravaged and underdeveloped areas. The United States took the lead in creating these important international bodies and supplied most of their funding. The Soviets declined to participate.
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International Monetary Fund (IMF)
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It was created to encourage world trade by regulating currency exchange rates.
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World Bank
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It was created during the Bretton Woods meeting and was used to promote economic growth in war ravaged and underdeveloped areas.
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Security Council
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It was a feature in the United Nations that was dominated by the Big Five powers (United States, Britain, the USSR, France, and China), each of whom had the right to veto.
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Big Five Powers
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It was the United States, Britain, the USSR, France, and China
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Nuremberg Trials, 1945 – 1946
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It was when twenty – two top culprits were tired. Accusations including committing crimes against the laws of war and humanity and plotting aggression in contrary to solemn treaty pledges. Twelve of the accused Nazis swung from the gallows and seven were sentenced to long jail terms.
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German Occupation zones
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Germany was divided in four military occupation zones, each assigned to one of the Big Four Powers (France, Britain, America, and the USSR).
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Iron Curtain
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Eastern European countries such as Poland and Hungary, became nominally independent satellite states bound to the soviet Union. Eastern Europe virtually disappeared from Western sight behind the iron curtain of secrecy and isolation that Stalin clanged down across Europe from the Baltic to the Adriatic. The division of Europe would endure for more than four decades.
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Containment Policy
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The containment doctrine was formulated by the brilliant young diplomat and Soviet specialist, George F. Kennan, who said that Russia was relentlessly expansionary.
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The Truman Doctrine, 1947
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Britain could no longer bear the financial and military load of defending Greece against communist pressures. If Greece fell, Turkey would presumably collapse and the strategic eastern Mediterranean would pass into the Soviet orbit. With the Truman Doctrine, Truman asked fro $400 million to bolster Greece and Turkey. The Doctrine also declared that it is the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.
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The Marshall Plan, 1947
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It offered that if the Europeans would make political reforms and accept certain outside aid, the United States would provide substantial financial assistance. This forced cooperation constituted a powerful nudge on the road to the eventual creation of the European Community. The plan called fro spending $12.5 billion over four years in sixteen cooperating countries. It was a spectacular success.
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Berlin Blockade, 1948
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Berlin was located deep within the Soviet occupation Zone. The Soviets abruptly choked off all rail and highway access to Berlin. They evidently reasoned that the Allies would be starved out. Berlin became a hugely symbolic issue for both sides. At stake was not only the fate of the city, but a test of wills between Moscow and Washington. The American organized a gigantic airlift in the midst of hair trigger tension. For nearly a year, flying some of the very aircraft that had recently dropped bombs on Berlin, American pilots ferried thousands of tons of supplies a day to the grateful Berliners, Their former enemies. The Soviets finally called off the blockade in may 1949.
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National Security Act, 1947
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It created the Department of Defense. The department was to be housed in the sprawling Pentagon building on the banks of the Potomac and to be headed by a new cabinet officer, the secretary of defense. Under the secretary, but now without cabinet status, were the civilian secretaries of the navy, the army, and the air force. It also established the National Security Council to advise the president on security matters and the central Intelligence Agency to coordinate the government's foreign fact gathering.
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Voice of America, 1948
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It was authorized by Congress. It began beaming American radio broadcasts behind the iron curtain.
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NATO, 1949
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AKA the North Atlantic treaty Organization. It was an agreement between the twelve original signatories and pledged to regard an attack on one as an attack on all and promised to respond with "armed force" if necessary. It marked a dramatic departure from American diplomatic convention, a gigantic boost for European unification, and significant step in the militarization of the Cold War. It was the cornerstone of all Cold War American policy toward Europe.
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Mao Zedong
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He was the communist leader who lead a revolution against Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi.
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Revolution in China
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The ineptitude and corruption within the generalissimo's regime gradually began to corrode the confidence of his people. The communist armies swept south overwhelmingly, and late in 1949 Jiang was forced to the last hope island of Formosa (Taiwan).
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Dean Acheson
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He was the British appearing secretary of State. He insisted that Democratic agencies, wormy with communists, had deliberately withheld aid from Jiang Jieshi so that he would fall. Democrats heatedly replied that when a regime has forfeited the support of its people, no amount of outside help will save it.
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Soviet A – bomb, 1949
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In September of 1949, President Truman shocked the nation by announcing that the Soviet had exploded an atomic bomb, approximately three years earlier than many experts had thought possible. American strategist since 1945 had counted on keeping the Soviets in line by threats of a one sided aerial attack with nuclear weapons.
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H – Bomb
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To outpace the Soviets in nuclear weaponry, Truman ordered the development of the H- Bomb, which was a city smashing device that was many times more deadly than the atomic bomb. The United States exploded its first hydrogen device on a South Pacific atoll in 1952, despite warnings from some scientists that the h-Bomb was so powerful that it would become a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide. The Soviets exploded their first H – Bomb in 1953.
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Loyalty Oaths
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Due to the fear of communist spies, Truman launched a massive loyalty program. The attorney general drew up a list of ninety supposedly disloyal organizations, none of which was given the opportunity to prove its innocence. Loyalty Oaths in increasing numbers were demanded of employees, especially teachers.
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House of Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)
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It was created to investigate subversion.
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Alger Hiss, 1948
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Richard Nixon was an ambitious red catcher who led the chase after Alger hiss, a prominent ex – New Dealer and a distinguished member of the eastern establishment. Hiss was accused of being a communist agent in the 1930s. He demanded the right to defend himself and dramatically met his chief accuser before the HUAC. He denied everything, but was caught in embarrassing falsehoods, convicted of perjury in 1950 and was sentence to five years in prison.
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Senator Joseph McCarthy
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He, with Nixon, lead the search for communists in Washington, conservative politicians at the state and local levels discovered that ill manner of real or perceived social changes – including declining religious sentiment, increased sexual freedom, and agitation for civil rights – could be tarred with a red brush.
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McCarran Internal Security Act, 1950
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It was vetoed by Truman. The Act authorized the present to arrest and detained suspicious people during the internal security emergency.
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Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
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They supposedly leaked atomic data to Moscow. They were convicted in 1952 of espionage and after prolonged appeals, went to the electric chair in1953. They were the only people in American history to ever be executed in peacetime for espionage. Their sensational trial and electrocution, combined with sympathy for their two orphaned children began to sour some sober citizens on the excesses of the red hunters.
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Election of 1948
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During the Elections, the Democrats were split in three groups. One under Truman, one under J. Strom Thurmond, and one under Henry A. Wallace. The Republicans nominated Thomas E. Dewey. Although Dewey looks like he won for sure, Truman actually won. The Democratic Party also regained control of Congress.
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Korea/38th Parallel
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Korea had also been split into two occupation zones (at the 38th parallel) under control by the United States and the USSR. After while, the two countries gave the country back its freedom. However the Northern Communist Koreans decided to surprise attack the Southern Koreans. Shocked, SK was driven back to a tiny defensive area around Pusan. Truman quickly sprang into the breach. He had the UN condemn North Korean as an aggressor and to render every assistance to restore peace.
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NSC – 68
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it stated that the United States should quadruple its defense spending. It was a key document of the Cold war period, not only because it marked a major step in the militarization of American foreign policy, but also because it vividly reflected the sense of almost limitless possibility that pervaded postwar American society. It rested on the assumption that the enormous American economy could bear without strain the huge costs of a gigantic rearmament program.
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Inchon Landing, 1950
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General MacArthur decided to land instead of in the Southern Pusan perimeter, to land behind enemy's lines at Inchon. He succeeded and within two weeks the North Koreans had scrambled back behind the sanctuary of the thirty eighth parallel. President Truman ordered northward crossings by MacArthur provided that there were no interventions in forces by the Chinese or Soviets.
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Firing of General MacArthur, 1951
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MacArthur favored a blockade of the Chinese coasts and bombardment of the Chinese bases in Manchuria. But Washington policy makers, with anxious eyes on Moscow, refused to enlarge the already costly conflict. MacArthur sneered at the concept of limited war and instead that there is no substitute for victory. When the general began to take the issue publicly with presidential policies, Truman had no choice but to remove the insubordinate MacArthur from command.
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