Truman and the Cold War

From 1945-1953…

Truman left office in 1953 but the war was not yet over.

Outline• The end of World War II

and, 1945 the Yalta conference

• 1945 FDR dies Truman takes over

• 1946 The Potsdam conference

• 1947 Marshall Plan, Stalin refuses it

• 1948, Truman is elected• 1948 Berlin Blockade

• 1949, NATO is established

• 1949, china becomes communist after civil war

• 1950 Korean war began• 1953 Korean war ended• 1953 Truman’s term is

over doesn’t run for re-election

1945• In 1945 at the Yalta conference

the “big three” met.• America, England, and the

Soviet Union. Roosevelt for America, Churchill for England and Stalin for the Soviet Union

• It was right after the end of world war II and they were there to decide what to do with post war Europe

• Nothing was decided at this conference other than that they needed to keep the Germans down and make sure that the Eastern Europe economies didn’t fail.

• On April 12th of 1945 just after this conference FDR died.

• Roosevelt was very sick and his death was not a surprise.

• Truman was Roosevelt’s vice president and he took over office when Roosevelt died.

• On the far left is FDR just before his death

in 1945 and in the middle is Truman

The Potsdam Conference• After the death of FDR and

Truman’s taking over office the problems of what to do with Eastern Europe was still there and it needed to be solved so the Potsdam conference was called in 1946.

• The attendance of that was Stalin, Truman and Churchill and it was known that Truman and Stalin did not like each other

• The three could not agree on what to do with Eastern Europe but the three were diplomatic and they decided that they couldn’t do anything at the time and needed to think more about what to do but one thing was clear they needed to forever keep Germany down.

The Marshall Plan• The Marshall Plan was made by general

George Marshall secretary of state at Harvard University in 1947

• Europe needed our money to get their economies going again

• Money came out of the pockets of the American people

• Europe was in desperate need of money and our economy couldn’t function without theirs

• We gave over 13 billion dollars to countries in Europe

• We would give money to any country that was democratic and any country that tried to stand in our way would be taken down

• It was not favored by the American citizens because it forced the taxes to go up because that was where the money was mostly coming from but it had to be done

• Stalin refused our help and wanted to stand in the way of America

• The Marshall Plan helped most all countries in Europe

• The countries that did not receive aid were either in alliance with the USSR or they were not democratic

• Stalin refused the help and didn’t like the Marshall Plan to get Europe back on track

• The soviet union refused the idea of the Marshall plan and tried to stand in the way of America

• The soviets were communists and this started the idea that the communists were trying to take over and that caused the American’s to see the soviets as their enemy and that they needed to be stopped

• Truman and Stalin did not like each other and it was said that during the war they only united because they had the same enemy, Nazi Germany

• Now that the war was over another was starting, between the soviets and all who were against the communists.

The election of 1948• The election of 1948

began when the democratic party split into three parts because so many people disagreed with what Truman wanted

• So not only was Truman running against Dewey and the Republicans but his own Democratic party

• The odds were against him and most thought the best thing to do would just be to drop out of the election and stop the embarrassment

• The Chicago Tribune along with many others had said that Truman had no chance of winning and that Dewey was most definitely going to win

• Dewey lost• Truman won with 112

electoral votes to Dewey’s 12

• He laughed at the headlines when it was announced that he had been elected as the president of the united states

1948 Berlin Blockade• The Berlin blockade

was the soviet union blocking off Berlin and forcing the western powers to fly in supplies

• It was called the air lift and no one thought that it would work

• When it did the soviets were humiliated

• By the end of the air lift Berlin was receiving more cargo then before the blockade even began

NATO

• In 1949 NATO was formed• The North Atlantic Treaty

Organization• At first a political alliance• Many believed that they

would have no defense against a soviet attack

• It was just many countries unifying together and they would defend each other if a communist country attacked them

Civil war in China• The Chinese broke

out into civil war in 1949

• It was a power struggle in the Chinese government

• It was brutal and many innocent civilians were killed in the street

• The outcome was the Chinese becoming communists

1950 the Korean War• The Korean war was

a civil war between North and South Korea

• It began in 1950 when the two decided that they wanted to unite under one government but each side wanted it to be their government

• The North attacked the South and the United Nations and America were quick to intervene

• America attacked the north and would have easily won if Communist china had not come to their rescue

• We fought against the communists for three long bloody years and lost many American’s

• In 1953 the two sides signed a treaty that set borders and ended the war

• The borders were only a few miles different from how they had been before the war

• Americans blamed Truman for the deaths of soldiers and for entering such a pointless war

1953 the War Ends

Truman Leaves Office

• In 1953 Truman’s term of office was over

• By this time he had the lowest public approval ratings in history

• He didn’t run for another term

• He simply left office quietly