The Cold War dominated the time between the end of World War II and 1990. The USSR and the United States of America held the trump cards, nuclear bombs and missiles. The two nations controlled the fate of the world in the sense that they controlled whether the world would come to an abrupt end. While the Cold War progressed so did society which went on as if the threat of nuclear obliteration was just an apparition. The Space Race, computer development, superhighway construction, jet airliner development, the creation of an international phone system, the advent of television, enormous progress in medicine, and the creation of mass consumerism—among many other things—all played a part in the world that developed after World War II. However, much of the world progressed poorly compared to the Western Democracies. In Africa, India, Asia, and the Middle East, colonialism was in its last throws and transitioning to new ways of governance was rough. Hundreds of wars accompanied by mass killing marred the world emerging from eighteenth century colonialism. Nothing has been easy in this ongoing birth of a modern world.
The Cold War began immediately after World War II concluded, or perhaps even before, and ended when the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989. There is little doubt that President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted a world based on a sizeable level of trust between the United States and the Soviet Union. For reasons that are hard to determine, he trusted the dictator and murderer of millions, Joseph Stalin. Winston Churchill tried to warm up to Stalin, but quickly discerned Stalin was not trustworthy. He saw that Roosevelt was falling for the duplicitous Stalin’s words of compromise and attempted to warn Roosevelt, but to no avail.
At war’s end, Roosevelt was no longer the president of the United States, and Churchill was no longer the prime minister of Great Britain. Roosevelt died in the last months of the war and Churchill was voted out of office. The new men, Truman as president of the United States and Atlee as prime minister of Great Britain, took over where their predecessors left off. As for Truman, he was in the dark about everything. The atomic bomb was news to him. Roosevelt had told him nothing; as a result, Truman was on his own when confronting the problems of a new world filled with massive armies and atomic weapons.
One of Truman’s first decisions was to drop the atomic bomb on Japan in an attempt to end the war. Some have said it was the first act of the Cold War, designed to show Stalin the power possessed by the United States, and to deter a Soviet attack on Western Europe. Truman, however, said he used the atomic bomb to end World War II.
The Cold War was going to be something entirely new for planet Earth. Actions in the international arena were not what they might seem to be. Some event may have a hundred starting points, no real end point, and what actually occurred might be foggy at best and denied by everyone in every government everywhere. It is very hard to tell the history of something so close in time when a lot of emotional baggage is still around and documents are all but impossible to come by in some cases. The Cold War was fought with technology, spies, and nerves. Clandestine operations were often the key to everything, and secret operations are not disclosed by most governments until many years have passed—if ever.
Economics played a large part in the Cold War. In Europe, with US help, a recovery without precedent took place between the end of the war and 1970. The recovery rate in the output of goods exceeded 200 percent. In 1957 France, Italy, and Germany led the way in starting a customs union, the European Economic Community. This union was the precursor of the European Union. In Asia, Japan’s economy boomed with the Korean War era, and with American help Japan grew to a superpower, in economic terms anyway. The economic gap between the Soviet and American systems consistently widened during the entire Cold War period.
Soon after World War II, Winston Churchill, always good with a phrase, said that an iron curtain had fallen across Eastern Europe. He was more right than he may have imagined. Once the Soviets were in control of an area, no one and no information came out of that area again. Stalin, the so-called man of steel, had placed an iron curtain over his empire and that curtain would hang about until 1989.
Before and during World War II the Soviet Union developed clandestine cells and placed them throughout the world with the idea of spreading the communist revolution through subversion and violence. If these revolutions took control of many small nations, and perhaps a few large ones, the communists would control the world de facto if not directly. They also placed spies at the highest levels of governments all over the world. The Soviets were masters of the game and managed to insert spies into the uppermost levels of the Nazi, Japanese, British, and American governments. In the case of the American and British governments they penetrated to the heart of the espionage communities and even the counterespionage units of these democracies.
Communist spies in the American nuclear development program stole the secrets of the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, and gave them to the Soviets. The Soviets recruited many spies from the ranks of Britain’s top universities, mainly on ideological grounds, and simply waited until they entered the premier levels of government or technological work to extract secrets from them. The USSR placed spies at high levels of US Policy determination, in the US Treasury, and in many other important positions in the military and government bureaucracy. They even penetrated the American CIA and FBI, thereafter using these human resources to track what America knew about Soviet spies and to uncover American spies in the USSR. One spy was in the US Nuclear Submarine program and delivered to the Soviets complete details on how the US Navy was building super quiet submarines that were following the Soviet subs effectively. After these details were absorbed by the Soviets the United States could no longer track Soviet submarines, and many of these were nuclear missile submarines—also copied from American technological plans.
Throughout the Cold War the Americans were at a significant disadvantage in clandestine operations; and the Soviets easily matched the West’s technological miracles by simply stealing the technology. This saved the Soviets billions of dollars in development costs. It also kept the Soviets at par with the West militarily. Not only did the Soviets steal plans, they stole many of the actual technological units. As the Cold War progressed into the 1980s, President Reagan used this Soviet ability against the USSR by allowing them to steal purposely planted defective parts and computer chips used for operating complex equipment. Because the parts were designed to be defective and for the defect to be nearly impossible to unearth, tremendous damage was done to critical Soviet operations, such as their Siberian oil pipeline, by component failures. It was one of the very few American espionage successes during the Cold War.
The Cold War brought the United States and the Soviet Union into a dangerous and deadly arms race. Each nation constructed more and larger nuclear warheads, better missile delivery systems, better jet bombers and fighters, and a lot more. Submarines showed dramatic improvements, which included the ability for one ship to launch up to sixteen nuclear-armed missiles while submerged. These missiles were intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) carrying multiple independently targetable nuclear warheads. Each ICBM could carry up to ten warheads and each were capable of being sent to a different target. One missile could annihilate up to ten objectives. The Soviets constructed larger warheads, up to twenty megatons (twenty million tons of TNT), which was far more than the ten-kiloton bomb (ten thousand tons of TNT) that leveled Hiroshima. These multiple warhead ICBMs were installed on missile submarines thereby enabling one submarine to bring nuclear devastation to 160 targets.
As the Soviet warheads grew in power, the United States constructed hardened underground missile silos with the capability to withstand an atomic blast and still fire back. America maintained a number of B-52 bombers aloft at all times to enable them to attack the Soviet Union after an atomic attack on the United States and its airfields. The United States also placed missiles into mobile launchers and constantly drove them around the nation to make targeting them all but impossible. Another tool in the arsenal of second strike capability was the so-called doomsday tapes. It is said the hardened missile silos had computers which, once enabled, would fire their missiles at some predetermined future date even if everyone in the silo (or even the United States) was dead. As eerie as it may sound, everyone on earth could be dead from the nuclear war and months or years later the computers would still be launching continued atomic attacks on smoldering enemy landscapes.
The entire point to all of this military expenditure on the American side was to ensure the ability to strike back at the USSR after a surprise atomic attack on the United States. Much of this fear of a surprise attack was left over from Pearl Harbor and the resolve of the United States to never allow that kind of attack to happen again. In addition, the United States did not trust the Soviets or Stalin. They equated Stalin to Hitler, and the United States was determined to avoid any hint of appeasement. The name for this fantastic deterrent capability held by the Soviets and the United States was Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). [335]A fitting name, but what was amazing about the entire philosophy is—it worked. War itself was not banned by the atomic bomb; however, no nuclear exchange has taken place (yet) so a crazy sounding policy has worked for sixty-five plus years.
From 1945 to 2010, the United States of America exercised a strong stabilizing force on the world. For over fifty years the USA held the line against communism, aggression, and instability. In 2010, forces within the nation are eroding its ability to stand firm against new threats. As the United States shrinks from its former position of insuring stability the world will go through many changes akin to the withdrawal of Great Britain from the world stage after 1945, but with no nation to step into the void as a replacement. Instability and chaos may well result from the resulting world realignment.
Truman: Neophyte Cold Warrior
1945 to 1952
Truman adopted a policy of containment regarding the Soviet Union and the communist threat. George Kennan, a State Department analyst, outlined this policy in 1947. Kennan assumed the Soviet Union would do everything in its power to spread communism. The purpose of the containment policy was to stop the USSR from spreading communism through invasion or subversion. To forward this policy, Truman gave aid to Greece in its war against communist insurgents, instituted the Marshall Plan to revitalize Western Europe, helped reconstruct West Germany to offset Soviet power, and fought the Korean War to repel a communist invasion. His problems included the loss of China to the Reds, large numbers of Soviet spies in the US Government and military, and his failure to remain ready to fight conventional wars.
During the Truman administration an American senator, Joe McCarthy, started a well publicized “commie hunt” within the US Government. Many of his accusations were challenged at the time, but a short window of opportunity opened for US intelligence when they broke the Soviet codes and began uncovering information about Soviet spies in the United States. The Verona decrypts proved many communist spies were operating at high levels of the US Government and intelligence services. This window was closed when a Soviet spy operating within this most secret unitdiscovered the decrypts and the Soviets changed their codes. The press and the liberal establishment vilified McCarthy, and his name is still used as a weapon against anyone wanting to throw a wide net in search of traitors or spies. For some reason he is often associated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, but McCarthy was a US Senator and was not part of the House committee.
In 1949, Truman failed to prevent the communist takeover of China. One of the greatest political, diplomatic, military, and strategic failures in modern history was the loss of China to Mao Zedong and the communists. The Kuomintang Army of General Chiang Kai-shek was corrupt to the core and a poor fighting unit by any measure; however, General Chiang Kai-shek was far better than any communist regime. At one point, the Kuomintang Army was about to crush Mao Zedong and his communists in spite of Soviet aid, but the United States stepped in and prevented what should have been the final assault on Mao. This American cease-fire let the communists regroup and then survive the attacks of Chiang. All of this was orchestrated by General George Marshall, famous for leading the US military throughout World War II, and the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from economic collapse after WWII. Somehow, his key role in the communist’s victory in China is ignored by history. (The Korean War is covered in another section.)
The fall of China to communism produced the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and a lot of international tension over Taiwan. The communists also conquered Tibet, oppressing and slaughtering its people by claiming it was part of China, and thereafter moved Chinese settlers into the region. In fact, Tibet was not and had not been part of China for centuries. The invasion went unnoticed by the West as Western media and governments ignored what was happening. Even today communist China is a major threat to the West. Red China opened its economy to some capitalist ways and it has prospered beyond all expectation; however, Red China and its leaders are still communist dictators who have taken the lives of millions in their quest for power. They will stop at nothing to keep themselves in power. Human life is not now, nor has it ever been, something to worry about for the communists. Human beings are alive to serve the state and no other reason. The sole purpose in life under a communist regime is service to the state. These malefic dictators are no different than Stalin or Hitler, except for their extreme subtleness in presenting themselves to the world.
Truman did move dramatically in Europe in the aftermath of WWII. Europe was desolate, Germany was prostrate, and America was disarming rapidly. It was a recipe for disaster because the Soviet Union maintained its military power and Stalin awaited his chance to acquire the devastated area (he already had Eastern Europe). The communists could prevail by winning elections or subverting governments or waging guerrilla war. Stalin could “win” Western Europe without an invasion, and the attendant risk of a nuclear war, with subversive activities. Communist cells worked to convince the populace of Europe that capitalism had failed so they should turn to the East and communism to find a prosperous and peaceful future. The Americans sent General George Marshall to study the situation and he returned with a radical idea. The United States would have to rebuild Western Europe to save itself and democracy.
Before the war’s end, America and England studied ways to de-industrialize Germany because it had started the two worst wars in history. They would turn the warlike nation into pastureland so it could never start another world conflagration.[336] After the war, both England and the United States realized that without West Germany the weakened states of Western Europe would crumble before a Soviet assault; thus, the decision was made to keep West Germany a strong industrialized nation to offset the impressive power of the USSR. If there was an invasion, fighting the Soviets from the moment they crossed the iron curtain was crucial; therefore, West Germany became the front line.[337]
The United States initiated the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall (sec state 1947-1949; former general), giving Western Europe millions of US dollars to rebuild its infrastructure and military organizations. A similar effort was undertaken in Japan. This was an incredible break with history. Think of it, at the end of the Second World War, the worst war in human history, the United States of America rebuilt its friends and its enemies with millions of dollars that no one had to pay back. Never before in history had a nation fought a terrible war to a victorious end, rebuilt its enemies at its expense, and then left demanding nothing. The normal course of action was to conquer and stay or conquer and demand massive repatriations from the conquered people (WWI). The Marshall plan worked and Western Europe rose from the wreckage of war in a startling recovery that included West Germany becoming one of the world’s economic leaders. The United States and Western Europe formed NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which was a mutual defense alliance for protection against the Soviets and their eastern bloc allies. Recall the US tried to stay out of the last two wars so Europe had trust issues about American entry if the Soviets invaded. To convince Western Europe the United States would fight upon a Soviet invasion US troops were stationed there so Americans would be dying the instant a war began guaranteeing an immediate US entry into the conflict.
These plans worked and they worked very well. Truman and his administration performed admirably to secure the freedom of Western Europe won at such great cost during World War II. These administrative victories were critical in keeping Western Europe free from Soviet hegemony. Had even a few nations, such as Italy or Greece, gone communist and allied with the Soviets, the Cold War’s difficulties would multiply making victory problematical. Western Europe remained in democracy’s camp allowing the west to prevail in the Cold War.
In Japan, General MacArthur ran the nation as a virtual dictator (right up his ally). He was assigned to oversee the occupation and rebuilding of Japan after the war, and in this role he was masterful. With help from the Americans, and the Korean War, Japan rebuilt in record time to become thesecond most prosperous nation on earth by 1980 or so. Truman’s policies helped immensely in rebuilding the Japanese nation. In drafting their postwar constitution the Japanese renounced war and decided to keep only a small national defense force for protection. Actually, the United States of America provided, and still provides, the military protection for Japan. This policy allowed Japan’s economy to expand without the expensive burden of a large military force to slow it down (Remember Sun Tzu?). Instead, America adopted the burden of protecting Japan and Europe, as well as a number of other areas. Today, the nations of Europe and the Japanese can well afford to protect themselves, but as of 2010, the United States continues to supply military protection for Europe, Japan, and much of the world.
From 1945 to 1952, the Western Democracies made substantial economic progress. After WWII, the military downsized and the US economy began an expansion that was accompanied by low inflation and increasing trade with its old friends, England and its colonies, and its new friends, Germany and Japan. TV was just coming on the line and its impact would be massive. From the early start in black-and-white to the wide-screen color monsters of the 21st Century the influence of those blinking screens has been phenomenal.
The United States and its old allies (minus the USSR and China) tried to keep free trade alive, and tried to use the United Nations to advance a new view of the world which included collective security and a march toward the eradication of ignorance, discrimination, disease, and hunger. The UN was much like the post WWI League of Nations, but its charter gave it a bit more clout. Still, the Security Council was required to approve any action using force and one no vote could kill taking action. During the Truman and Eisenhower years the world acted as if it was on the side of the West, when in fact this was only a tactic to keep the might of the Western Democracies off the backs of the petty dictators and warlords who wanted the world to go on as it always had, leaving them with absolute power over their populations. As time moved forward, the petty nations of the world began to vote in favor of the communist super states turning the idea of an international organization for peace and progress on its head. The dream of world cooperation actually died with the League, but somehow its demanding corpse staggers on. Originally an American idea, it was an idealistic concept by President Wilson who failed in selling it to his own countrymen. Reviving it after WW II was probably a quixotic error, pushed by an optimistic concept that the world was becoming a new place. It did not become a new place after WWII, just a different place with the same problems of greed and desperation. Human nature remains forever the same.
Eisenhower: Careful Cold Warrior
1952 to 1960
Truman left office with the Cold War, the arms race, and the Korean War boiling on. Eisenhower, the general leading the Allied forces in Europe during WWII, became president of the United States in 1952. He inherited a nearly worthless, out-of-control intelligence community. Eisenhower thought his failure to reign in the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) was one of his most significant defeats while in office. Under Eisenhower, the United States assured the world it would use the atomic bomb to deter aggression; however, this was a false promise and the communist world knew it. In many areas of the world the United States, through the CIA, supported petty murdering dictators for whom honest elections were an anathema. The CIA was afraid the communist, or at least left-wing radicals, would win an election and anything was better than an anti-USA communist government. During the Cold War, the United States sent millions of dollars to support oppressive right-wing military dictatorships solely because they opposed communism.
The US commitment to Europe by Truman under the Marshall Plan prevented a potential communist takeover. Eisenhower continued all these policies and encouraged NATO to remain strong in its opposition to communism. The growth of European economies helped the US economy stay strong through the Eisenhower years. Eisenhower tried to reduce government spending, and he tried to reduce government’s size. In this he was somewhat successful.
Nonetheless, the communists were very good at starting guerrilla wars and overthrowing governments, especially in nations made up of peasants. The communist promise of free land and a non-corrupt government struck a chord with many peasants throughout the world. Communist revolutionaries are generally fanatics, but have good rapport with villagers and rural groups supporting a revolutionary movement. As long as the population supported the communists no total victory was likely by the national government, and defeat was always a possibility as the insurgents gained backing and power. Where villages refused to support the revolution the village elders were murdered and replaced by communist revolutionaries. It was a simple equation to the communist fanatics, join therevolution or die. Most governments in rural farming nations had problems controlling outlying areas in the best of circumstances, and, as the villagers turned communist, control became impossible. The fact that America’s CIA, usually without the knowledge of the State Department, paid off right-wing thugs to stave off communists was an evil necessity to the intelligence community trying to thwart world communism. Besides, the communists were murdering people and it was necessary to strike back.
Because of the deep penetration of US and British intelligence services by the Soviets (and probably others), using humans to spy for the US proved impossible. Accordingly, the Americans turned to their trump card: technology. By combining outstanding cameras with a high-flying aircraft the United States fabricated the U-2, one of the most successful spy aircraft in history. With this aircraft the United States could overfly the Soviet Union and photograph their military installations at will. Initially, the Soviets possessed no aircraft or missiles capable of reaching the high-flying U-2. These flights worked very well for a few years, but as time went on the missions became increasingly dangerous. In 1960, the Soviets shot down a U-2 and captured its pilot Gary F. Powers. It was another costly defeat for US intelligence services.[338]
Technology continued to be the American’s best option for intelligence, although it was poor second to human information gathering. The Americans developed spy satellites with cameras that had the phenomenal ability to see enemy activity in great detail from outer space. Eisenhower demanded that the United States develop spy satellites. Before he left office the first spy satellite was put into orbit, code named Corona. The Corona spy satellite’s first film drop gave the United States more intelligence on the Soviet Union than all the U-2 flights combined. The first satellites dropped film back to Earth to be developed; however, the Americans soon constructed satellites that would beam the information back to Earth in digital form with as much detail as before. It was a stupendous achievement, but it was top secret. Later, the United States developed the SR-71, another spy aircraft, that flew so fast and high the Soviets never found an effective countermeasure. America’s undersea operations also produced wonderful results as US submarines managed to tap into Soviet undersea communication cables. As the United States could not break Soviet or Chinese codes they had to achieve a connection to a communication source thought to be safe by their antagonist so information would be transmitted in the clear (no code). The US submarine force’s achievement was near unbelievable, and it gleaned information for years, but it was discovered by yet another Soviet spy in one of the most top-secret posts of the US Naval Service.
During the Eisenhower administration a new world threat was incubating. Radical Muslim groups committed to an ideology of hate developed by Parisian Muslims before World War II began attracting converts. These Muslims absorbed Hitler’s ideas and fascism, especially his hatred of Jews. The fanatics thought a fascist style government operated to spread fundamentalist Islamic ideology was perfect for reuniting Muslims around the world and forming a caliphate to control the Middle East. All this Muslim fundamental philosophy and theology was given a big push with the creation of Israel in 1948. The Islamic world exploded, and war was immediately declared on the new Jewish state. Israel beat its Muslim opponents rather soundly and established its new nation with additional territory won in wars against its aggressive neighbors. Many Palestinians left the state of Israel, becoming a homeless mob of seething hatred spreading throughout the adjoining states of Trans Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
This Palestinian question still haunts the world, and calls for an independent Palestinian state will continue; however, the Muslim nations surrounding Israel have never offered these refugees a national home. It appears they are political pawns in a much larger game being played out on the world stage. The Muslim elites seem to think this human vat of boiling revulsion for Israel is something to be used for political advantage rather than a group of human beings needing a place to live, a place easily provided by Saudi Arabia or Syria, but which has not and will not be offered. Having the international community in an uproar over the Palestinians helps with the condemnation of Israel, thus, the Palestinians stay homeless.
The establishment of Israel and the rise of fundamentalist Islam is a formula ensuring eternal religious conflict. When Muslim nations failed militarily against Israel, the fundamentalists Muslims argued that their god (Allah) was against them and only by following his express commands with fervor could the Muslims attain “victory.” This fundamentalist thinking struck a chord with many Muslims, and a radical form of the Muslim religion was embraced. It would take a while, but the Islamic fundamentalist would eventually fly aircraft into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. This thinking spawned terrorism and the immoral attacks on anyone not part of the terrorists’ religious group, including other Muslims. The main target was Israel and its supporters, the United States and Britain. Hijacking cruise ships and airliners enabled the terrorists to achieve many of their goals: world recognition of their cause, release of captured comrades, and money. Since murder, bombings, kidnapping, and hijacking worked the terrorist kept using terrorism.
But in 1950, terrorism’s irrational and asymmetrical threat was down the line, many years away. Until then, the main goal of the West in the Cold War was stopping the communists from conquering the world.
Eisenhower left office in 1960, warning about the military industrial complex, but his warning went unheeded. As the new president, John F. Kennedy came into office, new programs and weapons were coming off the assembly line of the military industrial complex that kept the United States militarily ahead of the communist nations. Kennedy won a critical 1960 debate with his opponent Richard Nixon, and one point concerned where the United States should fight for freedom. Kennedy stated that every inch of “free” soil must be defended. This led Kennedy into Vietnam and later—under his successor Lyndon Johnson—a complete commitment to Vietnam. History seems to say that the better argument was made by Nixon who had stated that the United States must choose its conflicts carefully, and not every inch of free soil needed defending (see the Vietnam War for more information). Nixon was giving the world a seasoned diplomat’s view of foreign policy which focused on vital national interests and not on an ideology of defending everywhere all the time.
During the Truman and Eisenhower years the United States, Western Europe, and the Western Democracies had good economic times. After a slight recession in 1948, the advance to economic prosperity began. In the 1950’s the GDP (Gross Domestic Product—the measure of a nation’s economic vigor) doubled, and it doubled again in the 1960’s. Eisenhower established NASA (National Aeronautical and Space Administration) and the Federal Housing Administration to help people purchase new homes. The US Military was guarding Europe and Japan, and the United States was developing the first ICBMs to guard the West from Soviet intimidation. With inflation rates of 2 or 3 percent, low oil prices, and a growing economy with Europe and Japan as major trading partners, and massive spending on improving the infrastructure of the nation, the US Economy continued to expand in spite of rather large military expenditures. It was during the 1950’s that megacities began to form. The urban mass of New York, Boston, and Washington DC joined together to form one continuous city. Of course, no one joined the governments, which caused a lot of problems, but there was no doubt the phenomenon would be repeated in the US and throughout the world. As the megacities rose up so did the complexity of governing such a vast urban area that crossed jurisdictional lines. The problems created by this mass amalgamation have not yet been solved. Perhaps no solution exists.
While Eisenhower did try to reduce the size of the US government he was only partially successful. By the time Ike left office in 1960, TV was commonplace in the United States and Western European homes, the interstate highway system was being planned in the United States, and Europe itself was growing ever more economically and militarily powerful. France declared its independence from the United States and Britain by leaving NATO in 1966, developing its own atomic bomb and building up its military capabilities while struggling to maintain its old empire. Britain realized the days of empire were over and started a precipitous dismantling of its ancient empire, abandoning its control over millions of people worldwide.
The British decision to scuttle its empire was a bold one brought on by necessity. The people of England were morally opposed to the continuation of the old order and Britain was stumbling economically. Two world wars bankrupted the nation and it struggled to stay afloat. England would survive, however, it was not an easy transition from the world’s greatest empire to just the United Kingdom. England’s ability to influence world affairs was shrinking, and this required the United States of America to step in and take its place representing the Western Democracies around the world. For this to occur, America had to end its isolationist tendencies and enter into the unforgiving world of international relations where, as the leading nation, it would take endless flack for its decisions. The United States was not used to this role and the transition to a world leader was not easy for a nation wanting to being left alone.
Internally, America was going to face its own upheaval when the civil rights movements got underway in the late 1950s. The majority of white Americans disliked the way the southern states treated black Americans, but the issue was ignored for decades. Finally, blacks brought attention to their plight and America responded. This crusade against the bigots of the South was going to consume a large amount of time and energy. What no one could foresee was this struggle bringing as much bad as good. Victory over the discriminatory laws of several southern states should have brought harmony within the nation and a satisfaction in the expansion of liberty to minorities; however, the opposite occurred as black America decided the United States was a worthless country and not worth supporting. Violence did not decrease as the civil rights movement went on, it increased. Even after numerous laws and court decisions supported the black cause, blacks refused to rejoice in the progress made. Rather, they obsessed over getting more, or getting even, for past wrongs.
Meanwhile, the progress of technology continued apace. New smaller electronics were reaching consumers each year and progress in new kitchen and home devices of every type was commonplace. Everywhere in the West things were getting better—at least on the home front. Women were employed in increasing numbers and industrial expansion was accelerating. Even with the growing challenge from the East, the West was feeling it was superior.
Kennedy: Risk-Taking Cold Warrior
1960-November 1963
Kennedy addressed the Cold War in an aggressive way. He managed to get himself into the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of communist Cuba by former Cuban exiles(an absolute failure), and he allowed his brother, the attorney general Robert Kennedy, to run secret wars against Castro (the Cuban dictator) as well as other communists in Latin America. There were some successes; however, Kennedy soon came to realize the American intelligence services were hollow. Without good information making good decisions regarding the Soviet Union and other challenges abroad was difficult.
The CIA missed the Soviets’ placing missiles into its client state of Cuba. The director of the CIA predicted, with no evidence, the USSR might try this gambit; however, such a move could start World War Three and no one thought the Soviets would risk it. However, the Soviets did make the move in 1962. Photos taken by a U-2 over flight and examined by a good analyst uncovered the evidence, but the missiles were already in the country by the time the CIA informed Kennedy of their presence. By careful analysis and more extremely dangerous over flights (one U-2 was shot down and its pilot lost) the United States ascertained that the missiles were armed with nuclear warheads. Messages to Moscow failed to elicit the desired response so Kennedy declared a blockade of Cuba and sent the US Navy to sea with orders to intercept Soviet ships sailing for Cuba with missiles for their Cuban arsenal.[339] As one might expect, the blockade triggered an international crisis while the United States and the Soviets sparred with one another behind the scenes.
Eventually, a deal was worked out whereby the United States would agree to never invade Cuba and to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey. In exchange, the USSR would remove its missiles from Cuba. The communists won all around. John Kennedy and his brother Robert were adamant that no details about the removal of missiles from Turkey be leaked. As presented by the press the crisis was an American victory. The truth was unknown for years. If it had leaked in 1962, Kennedy and the democrats might have lost the 1964 election.
The Cuban missile crisis was indirectly caused by the CIA’s failure to discover the movement of Soviet nuclear-tipped missiles into Cuba. The direct cause was Kennedy himself. Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, had met Kennedy and decided he was not tough; that is, he could be bluffed if Khrushchev remained strong. It was a close call for the world because Khrushchev misread the American president, the US military, and the American people. The US military was lobbying for war after the missiles were discovered and Kennedy and his brother Robert had a hard time holding them in check. Because the two leaders of the USSR and the United States misread one another an atomic exchange leading to worldwide devastation became a real possibility.
This was always the ultimate danger in the Cold War, that someone would make an error, or a series of errors, leading to an unintended atomic war. Some experts worried about a diplomatic error, leading one superpower to think the other planned an attack or an error by one leader making a foolish read of the other’s intentions and launching a pre-emptive atomic strike. Others worried about human error at the machines, because the missiles and aircraft armed with nuclear devices were ready to launch at a moment’s notice. Both sides, America and the Soviets, were hit by surprise attacks in World War II that severely harmed their military capabilities. Both sides were determined not to let it happen again. This put the two sides on a nuclear hair trigger, and the trigger men on both sides were nervous. It might be a miracle the world came through this long period of threat unscathed by the nukes, but a lot of people in both governments put in many sleepless nights keeping the world safe from its ultimate destruction. Either side had the ability to destroy the entire world hundreds of times over; consequently, if either side launched the world was gone. It was a lot of people never taking their eyes off the ball that kept the Cold War from becoming World War III and both sides won on that score.
President Kennedy did not finish his term of office. He was murdered riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. The man who allegedly killed President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, was murdered in the Dallas police station on November 24, 1963, by strip club owner Jack Ruby. The Warren Commission, established by order of President Johnson (who was vice president when Kennedy was assassinated), investigated the assassination. Under the guidance of Chief Justice Earl Warren of the US Supreme Court the Commission concluded Oswald murdered the president as a lone gunman. They further concluded that Jack Ruby killed Oswald because he assassinated Kennedy.
The findings of the Commission were immediately challenged and numerous conspiracy theories continue to circulate even today (2010). Conspiracy theorists believe Oswald shot the president in the back and claim the bullet hitting President Kennedy in the head was fired from the front of the car rather than Oswald’s position behind Kennedy. The Warren Commission found that Oswald fired the fatal shots from a third floor window in the Dallas book depository building. Amateur film taken of the assassination appears to show the president’s head being pushed back and to his left (as viewed from the front of the car) when the bullet struck. The conspiracy theorists believe the government covered up the crime to protect someone or something of great importance.[340] It is certain that critical evidence was lost and suffered from tampering. Photographs of the Kennedy emergency room operation and autopsy are missing as are parts of his brain that were supposed to be retained. Stranger still, the missing photographs are said to be the very ones that could prove if the killing shot came from the front or the back of the president. The missing brain matter could also prove what kind of bullet hit the president. What really happened that day in Dallas may never be conclusively known, but the Warren Commission’s investigation was sloppy and contained many unstated assumptions and flaws that caused people to conclude a government cover-up had occurred.
The Kennedy assassination was a blow to the upbeat nature of the nation. The 1950s was an era of growth and change, but the changes were moderate. The death of Kennedy threw a wet blanket on the times and the message was things were not as they once were. The newspapers were full of reports about the war in Vietnam, small as it was, and the continuing strife of the civil rights movement. The Space Race was proceeding and even there it seemed the communists were winning. Nonetheless, prosperity was evident, and the future seemed to promise more of the same. Europe started talking about a new organization, a kind of economic United States of Europe, where trade barriers would come down and laws could be homogenized. France was pushing the idea as they believed they would be the natural leader of any such organization, thus, enabling a further distancing from America and its inordinate influence on European affairs.
Most European states were unhappy with the US involvement in Vietnam, and they resisted pressure to fight the communist assault on the South. The world had larger problems, they thought, and a lot of those problems were just to the east of Europe as the Soviet Union gained economic and military power.
Lyndon B. Johnson: Worthless Cold Warrior
November 1963-1968
After Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson became president. Johnson, who had been a leader of Congress for years, had large plans. He launched the “War on Poverty,” “War on Crime,” and many other social wars for his “Great Society”; however, he did all this while engaging in and massively expanding a real shooting war in Vietnam. Johnson, who witnessed the importance of price controls during World War II, stated that the nation would enjoy both “guns and butter” with his administration. This statement illustrates an unrivaled irrationality. Wars bring inflation, normally on a massive scale; thus, governments move to inhibit inflation by imposing wage and price controls at the outset of a conflict. Discovered in World War I, this was not a secret and wage and price controls were immediately initiated in World War II. Johnson knew all of this and chose to ignore it (he also ignored his economists).
The predictable result of this economic policy was massive inflation and economic stagnation. The impacts on the American economy were intensely negative which affected the Cold War. With America focused on Vietnam the troops and equipment in Europe, and other areas, languished. The Soviets upheld the peace, but if they had struck the US Army and its European Allies would have faced conquest from the east. All over the world communists were making progress in their insurgencies because the attention of the United States was on Vietnam. Johnson failed at fighting the Vietnam War and the Cold War. During his final years in office antiwar protests swept the nation. As the press turned against him Johnson watched his presidency implode.
We will handle Vietnam in a special section.
President Johnson began what he termed the Great Society which was a bundle of welfare programs designed to pull the poor out of poverty, decrease crime, improve education, and otherwise make the United States into the true workers’ paradise he thought it could be. The megacities continued to grow and during the 1970’s and the urban welfare programs did not alleviate the problems. All these Great Society programs were costly failures. His expensive programs, plus the Vietnam War, led to massive inflation coupled with an economic contraction. Presidents must make good decisions, and Johnson made some of the worst decisions in the history of the US presidency. He failed as few others have.[341]
Nixon: Winning Cold Warrior
1968 to August 1974
The antiwar movement, rallying around Robert F. Kennedy for president, drove Johnson from office; however, after winning the California primary in 1968, which all but guaranteed him the democratic presidential nomination, a Muslim terrorist murdered RFK.[342] In his place the Democratic Party nominated US Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. His opponent was Republican Richard Nixon, John Kennedy’s opponent in 1960. The Republicans won the presidential race, but Congress remained strongly democratic and antiwar. Nixon extracted the United States from Vietnam by 1973; however, South Vietnam fell to an all-out communist invasion from the North in 1975.[343]
Nixon was the first US president to visit China in an attempt to bring about a new relationship between the two nations. China greeted Nixon warmly, but overtly little happened. The real “victory” was sub-rosa because just by visiting the communist nation he put pressure on North Vietnam. Nixon’s visit was a key moment in opening up China to capitalism. Nixon also signed arms limitation treaties with the USSR; thus, lowering atomic war tensions. Nixon was attempting to limit the possibility of atomic war by allowing Red China, and the USSR, an equal place in the world which was the goal of every US president since Truman. What none of them seemed ready to acknowledge was the communist commitment to the destruction of the United States in particular and democracy in general. By following a course of live and let live they were giving the communist unlimited time to destroy the West.
Nixon inherited a contracting economy with enormous new government programs doling out billions of dollars to millions of people and institutions. Nixon, remembered as a conservative, increased these payments until they became the largest part of the federal budget. At the same time, he imposed wage and price controls to hold inflation in check because of the Vietnam War spending—but this came much too late to do any good. Government expansion continued under the Nixon administration. Nixon thought big and attempted significant changes to the world and the nation; however, Nixon could not overcome the hostility of Congress and the weak economy in his search for grand accomplishments. And his wage and price controls did nothing to improve the economic situation.
Nixon ordered the CIA to “spy” on US citizens which was against its charter, but they had previously engaged in many non-charter ventures. Nixon was convinced communist agents sponsored the antiwar movement; however, no proof was found. A break-in at Democratic Headquarters in theWatergate Building in Washington DC was traced back to the Committee To Re-elect the President, a Nixon campaign organization. A Congressional investigation accused Nixon of covering up for his White House staff and impeached him for obstruction of justice. Nixon resigned in 1973 to avoid, he said, putting the nation through an impeachment. The Watergate scandal drove Nixon from office. The new president, Gerald Ford, was not in office long enough to achieve any real change in economic or national policy.[344]
After Nixon left office Gerald Ford, the vice president appointed by Congress after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew, assumed the presidency. After Ford came into office North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam in violation of the treaty signed with Nixon in 1973 and in violation of numerous UN Charter provisions. Ford did nothing because Congress had cut off all aid to the former ally. The United Nations also refused to act, in contradiction of its own charter. Ford, president for over two years, listened to Henry Kissinger on foreign policy matters and Kissinger advised doing nothing about the invasion of South Vietnam. Ford’s biggest foreign policy decision was to forgo defending South Vietnam after the communist invasion. South Vietnam quickly fell to the North Vietnamese.
Europe was making progress toward joining into an economic union. This was tempered by the problems of socialism, because the new socialist world that Europe created after World War II was running into a funding problem. It was apparent that Europeans were not having enough children to replace themselves. One-child families were the norm, and this meant a shrinking young population would soon be supporting a fast growing retired population. The only way to handle the growing number of people, retired or otherwise, on the government dole was to raise Europe’s already high taxes. High taxes were already hurting the European economy and increasing them would only do additional harm. The politicians in Europe had to keep increasing the dole to stay in office because powerful trade unions demanded increasing benefits; however, to do so was irresponsibly selling the future for the present. This demonstrates a significant problem in democracies adopting a Socialist or Wealth redistribution philosophy. When powerful groups gain control of the government they can force policies into law benefitting their groups at the expense of the nation as a whole.
The Muslim populations in Europe were growing. At first the Islamic people were an underclass who kept to themselves and seemed to bother no one; however, as their numbers increased so did their power. By the year 2000 they were a massive group demanding vast cultural changes in Europe to correspond to their view of religion and life. Using democratic processes these Muslim groups have demanded changes to Western law to meet their cultural views. From the first moment they began to establish themselves in Europe they refused to adopt Western ideas, dress, or culture. Now Europe faces a dynamic but growing minority that may soon be majorities in some nations. The failure to notice and deal with the non-assimilation of the Muslims now challenges Europe with massive change.
During the 1970’s, satellite development made space a very important place. Telecommunications satellites began to tie the world together through television and radio signals sent to satellites in space that beamed them back to earth. This made it possible to televise events from anywhere in the world. As this theme progressed, it would lead to Global Positioning Systems (satellite tracking of positions on the earth’s surface), cellular telephones enabling a phone the size of a deck of cards to communicate with anyone anywhere on earth, and a host of other wonders advancing our ability to tell each other “what’s for dinner.” It also enhanced the military’s ability to put a bomb through a bathroom window from half way around the world. Now a guy’s not safe anywhere.
Another innovation hit the streets in 1974, the microprocessor. This tiny, well . . . not so tiny at first . . . innovation allowed computers to be made a lot smaller—and cheaper. As the microprocessor improved, it helped telecommunications satellites, cellular telephones, cars, plus a lot more, to operate better. This was THE invention that put tabletop computing on the world scene. The invention of the microprocessor will probably rank with the printing press as one of the most important inventions in world history.
Carter: Incompetent Cold Warrior
1976 to 1980
Worldwide, the Western Democracies began losing the Cold War after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. The United States was no longer viewed as an impeccable partner, and Soviet influence grew in Europe, Africa, and South America while Chinese influence expanded in Southeast Asia. Gerald Ford lost the next presidential election to Jimmy Carter in 1976, in part because he opposed a massive loan to New York when it was in financial difficulty. Mr. Carter was the former governor of Georgia, and before that he grew peanuts.
As Carter took office, the communists stepped up their march to world power and increasing the isolation of the United States. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, turning the nation into a Soviet satellite. The Carter administration responded by canceling the US participation in the Moscow Olympics. To hardnosed Soviet and Chinese leaders this proved the United States was powerless against communist expansion. In Iran, radical fundamentalist Muslims overthrew the Shah and replaced him with a radical Muslim religious leader pulled home from exile. The Muslim radicals then seized the US Embassy, taking sixty-six Americans hostages and holding them until the end of Carter’s term (444 days). This was additional proof the United States could be intimidated by bold actions.
During the Carter administration the US Congress, under the leadership of the Church Committee, discovered the CIA was spying on US citizens, and the committee discovered the intelligence agency paid off “immoral people” in its espionage operations. Congress banned the CIA from spying in the United States, employing “unsavory people” for intelligence operations, and prohibited the FBI and CIA from sharing information. These moves, among others by Carter and the US Congress, destroyed the intelligence-gathering capability the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies possessed. These unrealistic laws stopped coordination in tracking foreign spies and terrorists. The Church Committee knew the problems this legislation would create, but Church and his colleagues chose to ignore pleas from the security agencies. The Church Committee truly eviscerated the ability of the US to gather intelligence in the Cold War, and this would continue during the War on Terror. As ragged as US intelligence was before, it shrank in value after Congress “reformed” the security agencies.
The communists made inroads in Africa and Latin America throughout the Carter years. The US lost control of the Panama Canal when the tiny nation of Panama seized the Canal Zone, Cuba sent troops to Africa and Latin America to fight for communism, Nicaragua went Communist, Iran went to the terrorists, Russia was threatening Iran and Turkey, and the United States was doing little to turn the tide. OPEC[345] doubled the price of oil in retaliation for President Carter freezing Iranian assets in the United States. The world over the United States was viewed with disdain as more nations fell into communism’s sphere of influence.
The economy under Carter continued to stagger. Inflation accelerated along with government spending, meanwhile, the economy continued stagnating. With no economic growth and worsening world conditions, the future looked bleak. Some commentators were opining that the days of growth and prosperity were behind the Western world. The Western world’s economies had wandered in the doldrums for years. Since the Lyndon Johnson era, it seemed nothing had gone right economically. The European Union was coming together, and it was clear the economic union would benefit Western Europe; nevertheless, that benefit seemed a long way off. Nixon’s regulations failed to right the US economic ship, and even though these regulations were gone the economy meandered downward. The West, it seemed, was out of options. The Carter administration appeared unable to meet the challenge.
A nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, and the following media frenzy, destroyed the nuclear electric industry in the United States. France and other nations continued to build nuclear reactors for energy, but the United States would halt this construction, effectively removing this source of power as an alternative to oil or natural gas. The fuel crisis rippled through the United States and other Western economies, further crippling the already fragile system of economic interchange. Congress and several states passed bills protecting the environment that made building anything much more expensive and time consuming. Oil refineries, for example, were simply not constructed after the passage of the restrictive environmental measures (even in 2010, no oil refineries have been constructed in the US since the 1970’s). The price of everything was increasing while wages were flat which, in essence, shrank the economic power of the common person.
Reagan: Ultimate Cold Warrior
1980 to 1988
Figure 75
President Ronald Reagan
(We win, they lose!)
In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States. His first thought was to strengthen the US economy. Reagan cut taxes and decreased government regulation over many aspects of the economy. This was the magic bullet that no one else thought would work. Reagan decidedthe government was the problem with the US economy; thus, as he removed government restrictions and lowered taxes, the economy responded and began to grow rapidly. Inflation was tamed, wages began to increase as the economy expanded, and even tax revenues increased as the economy grew. Reagan proved the commentators wrong when they said the best days were behind the United States and the West. Reagan proved the best days were still ahead as long as the government gave the people the room to invent and the money (power) to do so. The US economy recovered from years of stagflation (a combination of inflation and stagnated growth) and began a more than decade’s long expansion. Many future politicians would reap the benefits of Reagan’s low tax and low regulation policies—without mentioning him of course.
Reagan armed the “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan (actually Muslim fundamentalists) and tried to arm Latin American guerrillas to fight communism. The efforts in Afghanistan tied down thousands of Soviet troops and allowed the United States to hurt the Soviets as they had hurt the United States in Vietnam. None of this was essential because everything was a sideshow compared to what Reagan was really planning, an all-out assault on the Soviet system itself.
After taking office Reagan told his staff he had a new idea for dealing with communism: “We win, they lose,” he said. This was a complete reversal of thirty-five years of US policy aimed at coexistence with the Soviets. Reagan wanted to destroy them, not live with them. To that end, he put his staff to work looking at what was weak in the Soviet system. The key flaw soon surfaced, their economy was on thin ice. To hurt the USSR’s economy, Reagan began an arms race where American technology would outperform the Soviets and cause them to spend millions they could not afford in order to keep up. The plan worked. The Soviets were paranoid about keeping up with the United States in arms and arms production. As their spending for military and technological hardware increased it collapsed their economy. The Soviet Union began to do things no one ever thought they would witness. They allowed the reunification of Germany; Poland’s independence; left Afghanistan, and they released their hold over Eastern Europe. By 1989 it was over, and ecstatic Germans, uniting their country after years of separation, tore down the Berlin Wall.
Eastern Europe was free, and many non-Russian areas of the Soviet Union declared independence. Belarus, the Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Kazakhstan, and others fled the Soviet empire. The speed with which these formally subjugated regions left the Soviet Union was amazing. In spite of the fact the Russians controlled them for many decades, the moment a chance for freedom appeared they took it. The Communist Party no longer controlled Russia. This victory came suddenly and could hardly be fathomed until it was complete. Reagan left office in 1988 after two successful terms as president. He was a visionary who convinced the people of the United States to continue looking forward for the best days, because optimism was the tonic for the future.
George Bush number 41(or Bush the “elder”) was president of the United States when the Soviet Union collapsed, but the policies of Ronald Reagan won the Cold War for the Western Democracies. George Bush the elder worked his magic by helping the Soviets withdraw without bloodshed, which was common for such realignments in the past. Reagan viewed the Soviet Union as evil. Being evil, Reagan thought it could not last; therefore, if he concentrated on its weaknesses the USSR would fold. He was right, and he victoriously ended one of the longest, costliest, and most dangerous confrontations to threaten the world. President Ronald Reagan did what Hitler and Stalin could not, defeat Russia and cause the collapse of its empire. The cost of this Cold War contest cannot be calculated. Some estimates say the United States alone spent 8 trillion dollars and sacrificed at least 100,000 US lives during the conflict.
As the US economy recovered under Reagan, the world economy began to pick up as well. In England, Margaret Thatcher managed to turn the tide against socialism for a while, and the British economy picked up after a period of rather tough government policies emphasizing growth rather than taxation and socialism. England was toying with the idea of becoming part of Europe, and the Chunnel (a tunnel between France and England) planning began. It would open in 1994.
By 1989, computers were being tied together forming the World Wide Web. This network grew to dominate the news and information sectors of the world. The Internet challenged governments’ abilities to control the content and reach of this new communication method. Wireless telephones were also on the horizon, and the mobile phone would become as ubiquitous as leaves on the trees. The modern world soon filled with chitchat invisibly flowing over the airwaves.
The European Economic Community (EC) formed its common market in 1993, thereby expanding its trade and economic potential. The Euro, the EC’s currency, was introduced in 1999, and by 2008 it grew to be worth almost twice the US dollar. It appears the economic power of the EC will grow to become a dominant force in the Western world. In 1995, the World Trade Organization was created with the idea of facilitating international free trade. This too became a formidable part of the world economy forming in the twenty-first century. As Asia (Japan, Korea, and China) increases in economic power along with the European common market, it is apparent a new world economic order is forming. The impact of the World Wide Web, instant communications, the World Trade Organization, the computerization of the world, communication satellites, spy satellites, and so many other world-changing technologies, coupled with the growth of markets, will influence the twenty-first century massively. Accelerating change is now the most apparent product of the new century. What must be acknowledged is that the pace of change is becoming incredibly quick. Also, we must also acknowledge a large part of the world is not changing. Africa and the Middle East are still in the 18th Century except for their plethora of full automatic weapons. Islam still embraces a medieval mind-set, rejecting the changes the world is undergoing, and wanting to raze what the West identifies as progress. As the West and parts of Asia hasten away from the stagnate regions of the world, turmoil is predictable; but how much? Will the moribund areas of the earth be willing to destroy the dynamic peoples of the globe with atomic weapons, biologic terror weapons, or other armaments of mass murder?
A new economic world order will most probably lead to a political world order challenging the individualism of the West. The United Nations is already showing how the non-Western world rejects the Western ideology of individual freedom and individual empowerment. The Western Democracies are isolated in the United Nations by the tribal and totalitarian societies that dominate the rest of humankind. As technology and economic interdependence increase in importance, will the world be able to incorporate its widely divergent views on how people should live? Such wide differences have led to conflict in the past, and if history is our teacher, it is warning we must be vigilant of these differences leading to momentous disarray in the future.
Books and Resources:
The Fifty-Year Wound: How America’s Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World by Derek Leebaert, probably the best book on the subject of the Cold War and its impacts.
Legacy of Ashes: the History of the CIA by Tim Weiner, probably the best book on the failures of the American intelligence services and its costs.
At the Abyss, An Insider’s History of the Cold War, Thomas C. Reed, Ballantine Books, 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War: excellent article and good overview of the Cold War.