Episode 8: America and the Beginnings of the Cold War

Speaker 1 This is 15-minute history. A podcast for educators students and history Buffs featuring the minds and talents at the University of Texas at Austin. 15-minute. History is a partnership of not even past and hemispheres in the College of liberal arts at UT Austin. Speaker 2 Hi, this is 15-minute history a podcast from the University of Texas at Austin. I'm Joan neuberger professor in the department of history and editor of not even passed today. We're here with Jeremy Suri. Who is a professor in the department of history as As well as the LBJ School of public affairs and Jeremy specializes in international history. Hi Jeremy. Hi Joan. Today. We're going to talk about the origins of the Cold War great. Can we start with a definition and a timeframe? Speaker 1 Sure, the cold war is a period and that will give us our time frame, a period roughly from 1945 to 1980, nine or so, and it's a period when three things happen among others. First. You see a rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. That did not exist before second. You see a major expansion of American overseas, activities beyond what the United States had been involved with before and third. You see, a transformation in domestic Liberties and rights within the United States because of these overseas commitments, and because of this rivalry. Speaker 2 Okay, great. And it began right after World War Speaker 1 2. It begins. At the end of WWII. I think one of the interesting things is how WWII bleeds into the Cold War, very Speaker 2 directly. Well, maybe we could start right there. Why don't you tell us what role the The hot war plane and leading Speaker 1 to the core. Sure. Well, one way to think about the end of WWII is that there's a lot of unfinished business at the end of the war, the American and Russian and British armies find themselves in the middle of Europe without an agreement as to when they're going to leave and who's going to be in control of which areas and the same is true to an extent in Asia. The United States is in control of Japan, but there's no agreement on what the post-war Japanese settlement will look like nor what the Korean Peninsula and parts of China should look like. So, one dispute that takes us from the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union in World War 2 into a cold war. Rivalry is a dispute over who will control these territories for the Soviet Union. The future of Germany is very, very important, for many reasons related to Soviet security as well as ideology, but it's also very important for United States and there's no agreement on that issue. There isn't an agreement on Japan either. So what to do with the defeated Powers, the people in those territories, the wealth in those areas and In the future chessboard of the world that's really where the cold war starts. Speaker 2 And so the explosion of the first atomic weapons played a role in shaping those Speaker 1 decisions. When. Absolutely, absolutely. So the atomic bomb is the last Act of World War Two. And the First Act of the Cold War, in many respects, the development of the atomic bomb in the United States. And they were programs, of course in other countries as well. But the American program is really key to developing a weapon. A new technology before anyone. Else so that it can be used in the course of the war to defeat the enemy President Roosevelt. Then President Truman, they're both committed to ending the war as fast as they can in both Europe and Asia with his few American casualties as possible. And so they're trying to substitute technology for Manpower wherever they can. That's why we do so much aerial bombardment during the war. That's really why we wait so long for D-Day, in a sense is to make sure we're expending is few casualties as we can and get as many results with this few deaths as possible. And that's the job of the president of the United States in a sense. And so the bomb is developed as a new technology in an effort to use that technology to end the war. When the bomb is first tested in July 16th, 1945, in New Mexico. It's immediately assumed that it will be used against the Japanese because we're still at war with Japan. And the United States is planning for a land Invasion, which by all estimates will be a very, very bloody invasion of the Mainland of Japan. So, Truman signs an order. He's actually in Germany meeting with Stalin at the time. He signs an To quote, use the bombs. When ready and the first run is ready on on August 6 1945. This second one on, August 9th 1945. These bombs are meant to end the war as quickly as possible and they barely do that. It takes a few days for the Japanese to actually surrender their. After its August 15th or August, 14th of ending upon which time zone, you're in, that's the end of World War Two, the United States. It's the beginning of the Cold War because the Soviet leader. Joseph Stalin sees this technology and immediately fears that it's going to be used to coerce and Sure, Soviet Union. And he has reason to believe that because there are major disputes as we just talked about in Germany and elsewhere. He also has suffered and witnessed two major Wars where Russia has been invaded by enemies who have better technology. So he has, we might say almost an inferiority complex about this. And so, this raises and we know this from work that's been done on the Russian Archives. This raises Stalin suspicions Beyond where they already were and he becomes committed to developing his own bomb as a priority and not in Way doing anything that might limit his ability, to develop this weapon at the same time. The United States doesn't want him to do that. So we see a dispute arising in the United Nations, the newly formed United Nations over the control of atomic weapons and atomic material similar to our dispute with Iran today and the Soviets refused to agree to an international regime to control these weapons because they don't have one and the United States does. Speaker 2 And while all this was going on. There was a secret intelligence gathering at the same. Time. Right? And that plays a role to doesn't Speaker 1 absolutely. There's a lot of spine going on. And there are a number of reasons why this is happening Stalin recognizes that even though he's part of an alliance with the United States and Great Britain, the Americans and the British are collaborating on some things that he's not involved in. He's not told about the atomic project, but he figures it out. And we know this also from the Russian archives, he figures this out because all of the top Atomic scientists in the US and Britain stop publishing in 1942 and the Soviet scientists realized something must be going on. If all of these people, Stop publishing. Where are they? What are they doing? So he immediately Stalin. Begins a process of trying to infiltrate the Manhattan Project in New Mexico and elsewhere. And some of the spies are American and British citizens, who believe that this technology should be shared and are opposed to keeping the Russians out. Some are hired goons by the Russians, have a combination of idealists and goons who are doing the Speaker 2 spine. And that is the foundation of the modern Central Intelligence Agency. Speaker 1 If it's not the foundation of the modern American Central Intelligence Agency, it is a key moment in the transformation of what becomes the KGB because the KGB now takes on an even greater International Espionage effort. They already were doing that to some extent, but it increases. And this is a very big sacrifice for the so because they need all the Manpower they can have, of course, on the battlefield. The Central Intelligence Agency is created in the United States. In 1947 through the National Security Act, which incidentally creates the unified Department of Defense. We previously had Department of Army and a department of Navy. The founders never wanted a unified military. The belief Americans had until 1947 and Military should never be unified. It's too powerful if it's unified, its unified in 47 and the CIA is created. What existed during World War? Two was the oss the office of strategic Services, which did some spying Allen. Dulles and William Donovan were involved in overseeing this in Europe, but it was very small scale before World War 2, the United States had a very very small intelligence establishment. One of the Big changes Joan in the cold war is that we develop a big intelligent establishment. We did not have Speaker 2 before. So, okay. So we have Europe occupied. We have Japan decimated by atomic weapons, and the United States has to come up with a policy where there are individuals who had a particular Speaker 1 influence on more. Sure. It's a fascinating moment because a number of individuals who might not have had influence did because of these new circumstances, but also because we had a new president, While President was strong opinions recognized that he was not very well informed and that's Truman and that's President. Harry Truman. Truman had been Roosevelt's vice president since 1944 and he had had lunch with Roosevelt before Roosevelt dies, in early 45, a total of two times. He did not know about the atomic project until Roosevelt died. And in fact, he was briefed on the atomic project by Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, who had begun his career fighting Indians on Horseback. So the man who fights Indians on Horseback and briefs the president on this project, Eject Truman had to rely on a lot of advisors and one man. He came to rely on was George Marshall. Who was the man responsible for overseeing American Military activities. In a sense Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas. MacArthur's boss and Marshall comes to play a major role as a trusted advisor. Truman Marshall brings in to the state department in 1947. He brings George Kennan. George Kennan had been the highest ranking Russian speaker in the Embassy in Moscow, which is to say he was the number two person. In the embassy averell Harriman, the Ambassador did not speak Russian. So Cannon was at all of the major meetings in the late late 4445 with Stalin. He watched Stalin and action, then he was in Moscow during these early Cold War years and in February 1947, he had sent, what was what is now called famously, The Long Telegram, back to the United States, which was his effort to articulate to articulate. What American position and policy should be with regard to the Soviet Union? He emphasized the expansionist aims of the Soviet Union and emphasize that the United States had to take a hard line to convince the Soviets that they could not expand and that this would lead to the regime turning in on itself. This would make the regime more palatable, more peaceful and perhaps make it even collapse. He's brought in and becomes the person who oversees much of American early planning for the Cold War and he comes up with this doctrine that we I'm to call containment which is the idea of containing the Soviet Union, particularly in Europe, not allowing them to expand Speaker 2 where the two sides only fighting over territory or what else, what were the issues in the Speaker 1 cold? So, ideology plays a major role and ideology gets fused with territory because one of the Soviet policies is to try to build friendly regimes by encouraging parties, to form that have political ideology similar to the Bolshevik Communist party, which is to say, Parties, I believe in collectivized agriculture parties that believe in state ownership of private property and parties that will trade with the Soviet Union and share their resources with them. The United States is doing this as well. We are seeking in Germany and elsewhere to empower what we view as Democratic regimes, but Democratic regimes that are friendly to ourselves. So ideology and territory get fused. Neither regime wants to directly control. A lot of territory. Both regimes want to have governments. And Or that will be friendly to them. What does that mean governments? That share their ideology. There's a moral component. Of course, as well. Many Americans came to view and this is particularly true in the late 1940s. When other figures like Cannon, man named Carl Friedrich and zbigniew, Brzezinski later on and a major female intellectual Hannah. Arendt, one of the most influential figures at the time when they begin to write about. Totalitarianism Americans. Come to see that actually perhaps Communists. And Fascist regimes are the same, perhaps. They share expansionist, impulses, perhaps, they're similarly militaristic. And we need to have a moral position against allowing them to even Speaker 2 exist. And that was the basis of the theory of totalitarian is correct fascism and communism. Where the Speaker 1 same, right? And, and I think what a lot of historians now believe is that the arguments about totalitarianism that were made by intellectuals like, Hannah, Arendt and others are actually rationalizations of what many people are thinking in 46, 47 48, when they look at the. So Union and they see Echoes of Nazi Germany in it. And so there's a moral position and anticommunist moral position. That's as much about preventing these regimes from surviving as it is about strategic issues, and resource issues and land. Hmm. Speaker 2 Okay. So here we are at the beginning of the Cold War. These ideas are developing. The policies are being instituted. How are things different in 1950 than, in Speaker 1 1945? Well, they're hugely different one of the points I try to make to Students all the time is the world changes very quickly. Sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't change at all for a while. But there's a major change that happens here for big things. I would point to some of which we've already touched on one, is the United States is now truly a global power in 1950, in the way. It wasn't before we had Global aspirations. We maybe even had some Global capabilities, but it's a 1950 that the United States starts to take on obligations that involve the use of economic cultural and Military resources in all corners of the Glow 1954 example, we begin to pay some of the French bills in Indochina. That will be the long beginning of American entrance into the Vietnam War. So we're a global power in a way we weren't before second. Big transformation is we have new institutions at home that were Unthinkable before The Constitution. Very clearly says that the Army and the Navy should be separate, the founding fathers believed that a unified military would be a threat to democracy. We create a 1947, not just the Central Intelligence Agency, but we create what we now, call the Pentagon, the department of the defense, which is a unified military that we didn't have before with a secretary of defense, much more powerful than a secretary of army or navy would ever be third. The United States undertakes, major foreign aid activities that it didn't before and foreign aid here means assistance for food and economic development, but also military Assistance programs, providing weapons to certain regimes, we do a lot of this in Western Europe. The Marshall Plan is part of that are a to Japan is Part of that, but forth. And I think most significant of all the American people start to conceive of themselves as living in a world, where the protection of democracy at home involves the need for the spread of democracy abroad. Many Americans believe that before, but there were still very strong isolationist impulses in the United States. Those are almost gone at this point. It's a new Society in that sense and Americans recognize that you can see that. And what they're saying at the The time you can see that in the political parties, the Republican party before 1950 was actually somewhat isolationist Robert Taft. The great senator from Ohio was critical of American expansion overseas. The Republican Party wanted to spend less money. It shifts significantly and becomes what we would now recognize as more of the modern Republican party, as we would recognize the modern democratic party shifting to. Speaker 2 Hmm. So really both parties by 1950. See, it is being important that the United States taken Speaker 1 International role. Absolutely. By Many historians would say. It becomes impossible to run for president without saying United States should do more overseas. It's very hard to say we should do Speaker 2 less. Well, thank you very much Speaker 1 Jeremy. Thank you, Joan. 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