Key Players in the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations
George Kennan: Considered the smartest man in the American government
Averill Harriman: U.S diplomat
George Marshall: 5 star general and Secretary of State
Dean Acheson: Secretary of State
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Leader of the NSA think tank on Cold War strategy
John Foster Dulles: Secretary of State and promoter of the brinkmanship strategy
The Truman Administration
1945-1953
1944 GI Bill passed by Congress
1945
Yalta Conference Franklin Roosevelt dies
Potsdam Conference Harry Truman, Josef Stalin, Clement Atlee
Hiroshima + Nagasaki Do you think we should have shared the technology?
1946
The Iron Curtain Inflation soars (25%), Hollywood screen actors guild strike
Containment Policy/George Kennan Unemployment rises with the return of soldiers
Greece-Turkey Conflict $400 million in aid
1947
The Truman Doctrine Richard Nixon & the Alger Hiss case
The Marshall Plan/$17 billion
1948
The Berlin Airlift
1949
NATO
China falls to the Communists/Mao v. Chiang
The Soviet Union tests an A-Bomb
1950
The Korean War/36th parallel Senator Joseph McCarthy charges that over 200
communists have infiltrated the State Department
1951
Truman fires Douglass MacArthur The Hollywood Ten
Inchon landing/Puson/Douglass MacArthur Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
NSC-68 increased military spending Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
1952
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed
The Cold War
Eisenhower Years
1953-1961
1953
Dwight Eisenhower becomes president Josef Stalin dies
Massive retaliation policy/John Foster Dulles Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are electrocuted
Brinksmanship CIA
Korean armistice is signed
Iran/Reza Pahlavi (shah of Iran) CIA overthrow of Iranian government
1954
H-bomb developed Army-McCarthy Hearings/TV
France pulls out of Vietnam Senator Joseph McCarthy censored by the Senate
Dien Bien Phu “Have you no decency sir, have you no decency”
Joseph Welch
Senator Joseph McCarthy censored by the U.S. Senate
Southeast Asian Treaty Organization
SEATO
US, Great Britain, Australia, Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, France
This was to counter the threat of communist expansion into South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
CIA involved in Guatemala overthrow of leftist government
1955: Geneva Conference
Vietnam
Diem + Ho Chi Minh
Issue: free elections in Vietnam
1956: Diem cancels free elections
1956: Suez Crisis
Gamal Nasser
US refuses to financially back Egypt in building the Aswan Dam
Egypt takes the Suez Canal from Great Britain and France
Great Britain, Israel, and France retake the canal
Radio Free Europe/Hungarian Revolt
1957: Eisenhower Doctrine: U.S. will support friendly governments in the Middle East
USSR launches Sputnik
1958: NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) is organized
National Defense and Education Act (science and foreign language education)
1959: “kitchen debate” between Nixon and Khrushchev
Khrushchev visits the US and agreement is reached to “forestall” talks on West Berlin.
U-2 Incident/Gary Powers is shot down spying over the Soviet Union
1959: Fidel Castro overthrows military leader, Fulgencio Batista.
CIA plots to overthrow Castro
1960: Farewell Address
“Beware of the Military Industrial Complex”
Dwight D. Eisenhower