America in the Forties 9780815650614, 9780815632658

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A M ER IC A I N T H E T W EN T IET H CEN T U R Y

John Robert Greene, Series Editor

Other titles in America in the Twentieth Century America in the Twenties Ronald Allen Goldberg America in the Fifties Andrew J. Dunar America in the Sixties John Robert Greene America in the Seventies Stephanie A. Slocum-Schaffer

Ronald Allen Goldberg Foreword by John Robert Greene

S Y R ACUSE U N I V ER SI T Y PR E S S

Copyright © 2012 by Syracuse University Press Syracuse, New York 13244-5290 All Rights Reserved First Edition 2012 12 13 14 15 16 5 4 3 2 1 ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit our Web site at SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu. ISBN (cloth): 978-0-8156-3292-4 ISBN (paper): 978-08156-3265-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldberg, Ronald Allen. America in the forties / Ronald Allen Goldberg ; foreword by John Robert Greene. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8156-3292-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8156-3265-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. United States—History—1933–1945. 2. United States— History—1945–1953. 3. World War, 1939–1945—United States. 4. United States—Social conditions—1933–1945. 5. United States—Social conditions—1945– 6. Nineteen forties. I. Title. E806.G635 2011 973.91—dc23 2011036927

Manufactured in the United States of America

For Kathy and Jeffrey

Ronald Allen Goldberg is professor of history at Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, Virginia. He served as chair of the History Department from 1990 to 2005. He is the author of America in the Twenties, published by Syracuse University Press. He has also written a study of former Virginia senator A. Willis Robertson’s position on the Vietnam War.

Contents Foreword, John Robert Greene Preface

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Acknowledgments 1. A Prelude to War

xiii 1

2. Life on the Home Front 3. The War Against Germany 4. War in the Pacific

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5. Postwar America: Prosperity and Problems 6. Truman: The Embattled President 7. The Rise of the Cold War 8. Legacies Notes

160 171

Selected Readings Bibliography Index

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Foreword JOHN ROBERT GR EENE

“ T H E R E J U S T N E V E R S E E M S T O B E E N OUG H T I M E .” “The textbook is so bland, the students won’t read it.” “Don’t teachers ever write?” “If I could only fi nd more than one book that I feel good about assigning.” These complaints are endemic to those of us who teach survey American history courses. The book series America in the Twentieth Century was designed to address these issues in a novel fashion that attempts to meet the needs of both student and instructor alike. It uses decades for its organizational schema (admittedly a debatable choice, but it is our experience that chronology, not theme, makes for a better survey course), and each book tackles the main issues of a particular decade in a fashion at once readable and scholarly in nature. The series editor has chosen authors primarily for their teaching skills—indeed, each book proposal was accompanied by syllabi that show the prospective author’s course pedagogy. In fact, contributors have been urged to write these books from their lecture notes and to limit footnote references, which can often distract or intimidate the student reader. In a departure from virtually every textbook series of note, one member of our editorial board is a presently sitting college student, whose comments on the manuscript may well be the most helpful of all. Each book ends with a recommended reading list, giving the author’s favorite books to recommend to students. The list is, admittedly, not exhaustive, but no list of our favorite works ever is. The result is a readable, concise, and scholarly series of books from master teachers who know what works in the college classroom. We offer it to ix

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college instructors and their students in hopes that they will, in the words of the Latin maxim, do the one thing that we all in the academy hope that professor and student will do together: Tolle et Lege (Take and read).

Preface “ B E N O T A F R A I D O F G R E A T N E S S : some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” These famous words from William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night aptly apply to the three outstanding Allied leaders of the 1940s: Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. Winston Churchill was born into an extremely prominent British family that included a legendary general and various political leaders, including his own father, who had served in the British Parliament. He was born on the estate of his ancestor the duke of Marlborough, hero of the 1703 Battle of Blenheim against the French. Heavily involved in politics at an early age, Churchill was a rising star until his career suffered a major reverse. Somewhat in political disgrace after World War I for being linked to a disastrous British defeat at the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli in Turkey, he returned to power in time to save his island nation from the Nazis. An inspiring leader and brilliant speaker, Churchill took power when virtually all of Europe had fallen to the Nazis, and defeatism was rising in England. He rallied the British, was able to work closely with his American counterpart, Franklin Roosevelt, and helped steer the British through the crisis. He realized the enormous consequences to follow should Britain be defeated by the Nazis and persuaded his country to “never surrender.” Though similarly born into wealth, Franklin Roosevelt did not have as distinguished a political bloodline as Churchill. Except for his famous cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, his family consisted mainly of successful businessmen rather than political leaders. His father was a low-key businessman, already fi fty years old when his famous son was born. xi

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Roosevelt, who had pulled the United States through the greatest economic crisis in its history during the 1930s, was able to guide his nation during one of the most dangerous periods in world history. A defeat of the Allies might plunge the world back into the “dark ages” for centuries. Roosevelt’s great accomplishments were to steer an isolationist-minded nation into helping oppose the Nazis and, after 1941, to serve as a brilliant wartime leader. In the bloodiest war in history, Roosevelt preserved an often difficult alliance of the three anti-Axis powers—Britain, Soviet Russia, and the United States—culminating in the fi nal victory in September 1945. The career of Harry Truman is perhaps the most amazing of the three principal Western leaders of the 1940s. Born into a humble family, failing in business, he rose politically with the help of a corrupt political machine. Elected vice president in 1944, he literally had greatness thrust upon him when he assumed the presidency following the death of Franklin Roosevelt less than a year later. Although many expected very little from him, he became a strong leader during the fi nal days of World War II and the subsequent emergence of the Cold War. He created a revolution in foreign policy after the war, comparable in scope to the domestic revolution achieved by Roosevelt’s New Deal. Challenged by expansionist-minded totalitarian powers during a crucial period in history, the West produced a number of extraordinary leaders. When the Cold War fi nally ended in 1989, the legacy of these three men was complete. The military crisis of World War II and the long, drawn-out challenge from the Communists that followed tested their greatness and resulted in a major triumph of Western traditions. The decade of the 1940s determined the history of much of the twentieth century. The heroic accomplishments of the United States during World War II and the early Cold War helped lay the foundation for its current dominant role in economic and military affairs worldwide. This general overview of the period focuses on many of the key players and the main ideas that shaped this crucial era and that continue to affect American history.

Acknowledgments S E V E R A L P E OP L E helped bring this project to fruition. I especially thank Mary Selden Evans of Syracuse University Press and series editor John Robert Greene of Cazenovia College for their support and patience as this project went forward. Three of my colleagues at Thomas Nelson Community College—Vic Thompson, Norm Hahn, and Dick Dixon—provided invaluable insights and technical assistance to the manuscript. Most of all, I must thank my wife, Kathy, and son, Jeffrey, for their valuable advice and encouragement as the work progressed.

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A Prelude to War before Pearl Harbor, a steady drift of events threatened to involve the United States in a war with the Axis powers. For western Europe, including the main U.S. allies, England and France, World War II officially began in September 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland. The United States now had to consider how involved it would become in the anti-Axis crusade. It debated how much aid should be extended to England and France and whether it should assist its longtime friend China, now under all-out assault from the Japanese. The American people were anxious to avoid war but clearly supported helping our friends oppose the Axis. The seriousness of the crisis with both Germany and Japan steadily escalated, culminating in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into war with all the Axis powers. In the late 1930s, a series of provocative acts by Germany had led to a steady increase of American hostility toward the Nazi government. In 1938, Germany took over the Sudetenland (a German-speaking area near the Czech–German border) in Czechoslovakia, as well as merging with Austria in violation of the World War I agreements. That same year, the German government authorized the Kristalnacht, an assault on the Jewish community in Germany in retaliation for the killing of a German official. Germany also was cultivating friendly relations with right-wing governments in Greece, Rumania, and Spain. The forces aligned against democracy were steadily gaining strength and becoming more emboldened. In January 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned members of Congress that “philosophies of force” were loose in the world that threatened “the tenets of faith and humanity” on which the American way of life

I N T H E T WO Y E A R S

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was founded.1 Only two months later, Germany violated its earlier pledge to England and France by taking over all of Czechoslovakia. That summer, Germany set the stage for World War II by formalizing an alliance with its archrival, the Soviet Union, thus freeing itself from the fear of a two-front war. It then began threatening Poland, thus creating the fi nal crisis before World War II. At this vital juncture in European affairs, Roosevelt attempted an “eleventh-hour” appeal for peace. The president sent notes to the leaders of England, Italy, Poland, and Germany, asking them to avoid war. The notes were ineffective, described as having “the value of a valentine to one’s mother-in-law sent out of season.”2 The United States was very aware of the grave threat posed by the Axis powers. A German defeat of England and France would crush democracy in Europe. A Chinese defeat by the Japanese would have less direct political and economic consequences other than placing all Western colonies in Asia in danger of attack. A victory by these combined Axis powers would dramatically alter the worldwide balance of power. The United States believed that a Nazi-dominated Europe, combined with Japanese supremacy in East Asia, would endanger the capitalist world order that America saw as synonymous with its own interests. Presidential adviser John McCloy worried that the Germans might “shut off our trade interests with Europe, and with the Far East.”3 President Roosevelt, as well as British prime minister Winston Churchill, saw danger to the Western political and economic structure and was determined to resist. Despite this dangerous situation, most Americans were anxious to avoid war with the Axis powers. In guiding the public toward accepting aid to our allies, even at the risk of war, Roosevelt proved to be a brilliant leader. He clearly identified the stakes involved in the war and the importance of helping our allies. During the two years of great debate, 1939–41, Roosevelt continually escalated U.S. involvement in the overseas crises, always careful never to move faster than public opinion would allow. Although identifying with our traditional friends in opposition to the Axis powers, on the eve of Pearl Harbor most Americans still wished to stay out of the war. During this two-year period, the United States walked a tightrope between aiding its friends and avoiding entry into the war. However, Roosevelt did not even pretend to be neutral after 1939, nor did the great body of the American people. Unlike during World War I, there was never any question where American sympathies lay. Because of the evil character of the

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Axis powers, American public opinion came to support substantial aid to the Allies as the price of survival. In the late 1930s before the war began in Europe, Germany had been especially anxious to keep the United States neutral in the growing crisis. It realized that, unlike during the period before World War I, the American public clearly saw Germany as a menace to the West. To gather support for Nazi Germany within the United States, a German American Bund had been formed but had little success. The German ambassador to the United States reported to his government that the isolationists rather than the Bund might better serve Germany’s interests. Aware of the growing anti-German mood in the United States, the German embassy warned against promoting sabotage, which might damage the isolationist position. Such actions would hurt their government’s efforts to keep the United States from aiding the Allies should war break out. When Hitler began World War II with his invasion of Poland in September 1939, England and France declared war after Germany refused to withdraw. There were several misconceptions by the Allies early in the war. When Hitler defeated Poland and prepared his upcoming offensive against western Europe, the United States believed that England and France would contain Germany as they had done during World War I. Leading American general George C. Marshall assumed that the Maginot Line, a string of fortifications along the German–French border, would halt the German advance. A stalemate in the fighting would then follow, and British control of the seas would gradually wear the Germans down. England and France initially believed that they would be fighting Hitler for three years. These expectations ultimately turned out to be completely incorrect. At the beginning of the war, Poland was defeated after only a few weeks, and a lull in the fighting, known as the “Phony War,” began and would last until April 1940, when Germany launched an invasion of western Europe. During this six-month interval in the fighting, both sides geared up for the next phase of the war. Western Europe had hoped that Hitler would turn next toward the Balkans and the Ukraine and grant it a reprieve. Although at war with England and France after the attack on Poland, Germany’s main interests were in eastern Europe. Hitler, who somewhat admired the British, never had a true desire to fight England. Seeking only minor territorial gains in western Europe, he wished instead to obtain British and French acknowledgment of

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his new eastern European conquests. England and France rejected this idea and mistakenly believed that the Maginot Line would contain the Nazis. Concern over the deepening crisis in Europe led to a prolonged debate in the United States on how involved it should become. At the onset of the war, Roosevelt declared that the United States was officially neutral but did not ask the American people to avoid taking sides. “This nation will remain a neutral nation. But I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. . . . Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or close his conscience.”4 A Gallop poll taken the next month indicated that 84 percent of Americans were pro-Allies and only 2 percent favored the Germans. Because polls also indicated that the American people wished to stay out of the war, Roosevelt stated the United States would remain a nonbelligerent. Although Roosevelt saw that the United States would eventually have to become involved, he was fully cognizant of public opinion. Finding a way to help the Allies became the president’s major foreign policy problem. For this task, there were important legal and political barriers to overcome. The United States was hobbled by a series of laws designed to prevent the nation from being dragged into war, as had occurred during World War I. The 1934 Johnson Act, which forbade loans to nations that defaulted on their World War I debts, and the 1935 Neutrality Act, which banned direct aid to nations at war, made it difficult for the United States to act. The isolationist forces in Congress that had passed these acts still presented a major obstacle to Roosevelt as he balanced offering aid to the Allies and contending with a strong national feeling to stay out of the war. The president’s challenge was to end the arms embargo while allaying fears that this step meant war. His brilliant solution was the cash-and-carry system, which could avoid the problems of loans and supplying transport for provisions to the Allies. Under this program, the Allies would pay cash in advance and be responsible themselves for transporting the weapons to Europe. The United States would then not be obligated to rescue customers to secure payment for arms or risk the loss of American ships carrying the weapons. Nevertheless, the influential Senator William Borah of Idaho was skeptical, believing the new system would eventually lead to war. Roosevelt’s idea was popular with the public, and the bill passed Congress in late 1939 by a wide margin. Other steps seemed sure to follow as the public’s isolationist stance steadily weakened in the face of the increasing Nazi threat. Most Americans, although still hoping to stay out of the war,

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favored helping the Allies. The Nation magazine commented that “what a majority of the American people want is to be as un-neutral as possible without getting into war.”5 When Hitler attacked in the West in the spring of 1940, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, and Norway quickly fell. The war took a more ominous turn when the Germans advanced across France, pinning the British and French along the Atlantic coast. Facing disaster in France, England was fortunate in being able to withdraw its 340,000 soldiers back to Britain, although it was forced to leave behind huge amounts of weapons and equipment. So serious was this defeat that England was virtually disarmed after its withdrawal from the French port of Dunkirk, its land-fighting capacity essentially nonexistent. The British hope that France would hold on long enough to allow England to rearm was dashed when the French were defeated soon afterward. The U.S. expectation that French land power, British sea power, and U.S. industrial power would be sufficient to contain Germany no longer applied. The assault on western Europe aroused Americans to the dangers in Europe more strikingly than Roosevelt ever could. After the collapse of France in June 1940, virtually all Americans recognized that the German victories in Europe imperiled the United States. Because England now represented the only hope for the United States in Europe, Roosevelt had to reassess what aid (if any) should be extended to its last remaining ally. Aiding the British might be risky because approximately two-thirds of the American public believed England was about to be defeated. Criticizing Roosevelt’s ever-increasing involvement in the European crisis, former New Deal officer Hugh Johnson said that Roosevelt was irresponsibly “shooting craps with destiny.”6 It was not a realistic option for the United States to become more involved in the war, beyond helping the British. Although England was in a desperate situation, only 7.7 percent of the American people favored entering the war, and Roosevelt did not consider intervention at this time. The bad taste of World War I lingered, and most Americans hoped to avoid a similar intervention. The unclear purposes of World War I, unpaid war debts, suspicion of European nations, concern with domestic problems, and sometimes outright pacifism had led to an isolationist attitude in the United States. Because aid to Britain would not by itself defeat the Nazis, and the United States might have to become a belligerent at some time in the future, Roosevelt asked Congress to increase defense spending. Under his new army

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chief of staff General George Marshall, a protégé of World War I commander General John Pershing and soon to become the president’s chief strategist in World War II, the United States began its defense buildup. The U.S. rearmament program was now accelerating, even though Congress was very reluctant to approve huge defense budgets. Just prior to the French defeat, Churchill had urged Roosevelt to enter the war, but the president refused, sensing that neither the American people nor its military establishment was ready for such a move. Incredibly at such a desperate time in history, the U.S. regular army had only 245,000 men (twentieth in the world and just behind Switzerland).7 The despairing General Marshall described the unsatisfactory condition: “As an army, we were ineffective. Our equipment, modern at the conclusion of World War I, was . . . obsolete. In fact, during the post-war period, continuous paring of appropriations had reduced the army virtually to the status . . . of a third rate power.”8 Rather than join the war, the president decided to offer more aid to Britain as well as to greatly increase the U.S. armed forces. The U.S. rearmament was a long process, and it was not until late 1942 that it would be able to engage the Germans directly. The steadily worsening crisis in Europe shocked the United States into a massive rearmament program, including the fi rst peacetime draft in its history. Because the initial draft called for twelve-month tours of duty and only in the Western Hemisphere, it won easy approval by Congress. In 1940, the public backed a weakened form of the draft as well as aid to England. Strengthening the draft law in 1941, which seemed to bring the United States closer to joining the war, would launch a much more spirited debate in Congress. To further demonstrate the severity of the crisis, Roosevelt created a war cabinet, adding two well-known Republican interventionists, Henry Stimson (secretary of war) and Frank Knox (secretary of the navy). The president hoped to gain more support for his policies from the opposition party—unlike Woodrow Wilson, who had alienated the Republicans during the World War I crisis by refusing to work with them. Creating a war cabinet, the president believed, would unify the country and weaken the Republican isolationists. England’s fate in the war was critical to America’s wartime strategy. Fortunately for the West, Germany’s air campaign over the English Channel to prepare for a land invasion had been defeated by the British in the 1940

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“Battle of Britain.” Hitler even tried unsuccessfully to convert the former king Edward VIII into an English “Quisling” (a Norwegian collaborator who came to symbolize working with the Nazis) but failed. When Hitler saw that the British had no intention of yielding and that invasion would be difficult and dangerous, he decided on an air assault on the island, hoping to break its morale. To further England’s chances for survival, Congress agreed to the Destroyers Deal in 1940, even though many believed England was doomed. Roosevelt called the deal “the most important action in the reinforcement of our national defense . . . since the Louisiana Purchase.” 9 To avert legal problems concerning the transfer of important defense materials, Roosevelt cleverly put the deal in the form of a trade. Hoping to rescue a desperate England, the United States agreed to exchange fi fty destroyers for bases in several British Caribbean islands. To help win over the U.S. Congress, Churchill called the deal “a matter of life or death.” He later claimed that the Destroyers Deal brought the United States and England closer together even though most of the destroyers were actually unseaworthy. Only a half-dozen were in use by the end of 1940. The destroyers themselves were not even the principal part of the deal. One scholar claimed that Churchill’s main goal had been to entangle the two nations’ affairs and interests beyond the possibility of a separation and divorce. It also helped sustain the British will to continue, while holding back the appeasers in England. The Destroyers Deal proved to be an important step in a series of unneutral acts to aid England. This deal led some Americans to fear that an American intervention in the war was increasingly likely. Two days after the signing of the Destroyers Deal, the America First Committee was founded. It proposed a “Fortress America” strategy, which meant keeping our weapons at home, building up our defenses, and, it hoped, keeping the nation out of the European war. It also opposed the “all aid short of war” policy, which it believed weakened the United States and could possibly lead to war. One of the best-known America Firsters was the legendary aviator Charles Lindbergh, who had previously aroused suspicion of his pro-German feelings when he personally met Hitler in the late 1930s. His comments accusing the Jews of fomenting the world crisis led to charges of anti-Semitism against him and the America First Committee, which weakened its effectiveness. One of the main opponents of the America Firsters was William Allen White, the famous Kansas newspaper editor who urged the United States

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to aid England at this critical time. White declared that staying uninvolved was no solution and believed the United States itself would face an inevitable attack by the Axis powers within two years. To persuade Americans to get more active, he helped found the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. Allen’s group was an alternative to the America Firsters, stressing the need to save the United States through helping the British. The growing crisis in Europe became the setting for the U.S. presidential election of 1940. Despite wartime political dissension and disruptions in society, the United States continued to hold political elections. (England had cancelled elections for the duration of the war.) The surprise Republican candidate in 1940 was Wendell Willkie, a former Democrat turned Republican. Willkie was called the most unusual nominee since Horace Greeley, a prominent Republican newspaper editor nominated by the Democrats in 1872. Willkie had cast his fi rst Republican vote only four years earlier in 1936, and his defeat of well-known Republicans for the nomination was deemed a “political miracle.” A charismatic personality, Willkie was described as the most beloved Republican nominee since Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. He supported most of the New Deal, was a mild isolationist, and seemed out of step with the foreign policy views of the Republican Party. To balance the views of this surprising nominee, the Republicans nominated for vice president Senator Charles McNary, who was a strong isolationist and a conservative. The Republican campaign manager for this unusual ticket, Representative Joseph Martin, shared the same views as Willkie’s running mate rather than those of the head of the ticket. President Roosevelt broke with tradition because of the overseas crisis when he decided to run for a third term. However, the Democratic team had a major new face for the 1940 election. Vice President John Nance Garner chose not to seek another term and was replaced by Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace. Described as a “mystic” and a “utopian,” the Iowan tended to be the intellectual type and rather standoffi sh with the party leaders. He was nominated at the insistence of Roosevelt, who threatened to decline the presidential nomination if Wallace were not his running mate. The controversial Wallace would be removed from the ticket in 1944, later to become a major political problem for President Truman when he ran as a third-party candidate in the 1948 election. The Republican Willkie was a dynamic candidate who put President Roosevelt on the defensive. He ran a vigorous, issue-oriented campaign,

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raising some serious questions for the voters to consider. Willkie charged that Roosevelt had failed to get the nation out of the Depression and had neglected the nation’s defenses. He stated that a third presidential term was dangerous for America. His most provocative charge was suggesting the president would take the United States into the war. The U.S. role in the European crisis was the major campaign issue in 1940. When the Republican candidate equated a Roosevelt victory with going to war, the president tried to reassure the public by declaring: “Your boys are not going to be sent into foreign wars.”10 Because later evidence indicated the president was not reluctant to get into the war (in order to save Western civilization), he was not being completely honest. Scholars noted that Roosevelt was being devious, but “Americans did not want to make unpleasant choices and . . . wanted to be lied to.”11 By election day, most of Willkie’s charges lacked validity. Prosperity had returned as a consequence of the accelerated defense buildup. Unemployment had declined to 14.6 percent by the end of 1940, its lowest level in ten years, as the vast rearmament program began to revive the economy. Roosevelt had promised to keep the United States out of World War II (unless attacked). Concern over violating the two-term tradition was not a major factor in the election, and the nation obviously feared dictators abroad rather than a potential dictator at home. The possibility of war may even have helped defeat Willkie because some voters were concerned about his inexperience in foreign affairs. With all the major trends working in the president’s favor, he won the election, but by a smaller margin than in his previous two victories. Roosevelt was walking a fi ne line as the crisis deepened. Other countries in Europe (e.g., Romania and Hungary) were supporting the Axis powers. At home, he was under attack by the isolationists for moving the United States toward intervention. Viewing the situation abroad as very serious, Roosevelt denounced the policy of isolation as a “delusion.” Although there was now substantial support for aiding England, Roosevelt still had to act carefully, including disavowing any possibility of entering the war because the American people clearly opposed such a move. Although declaring his peaceful intentions during the campaign, the president simultaneously had escalated the nation’s involvement in the crisis abroad. Defense spending increased substantially, prominent Republicans were brought into the cabinet, the peacetime draft was instituted, and the United States completed the Destroyers Deal with England. Defense

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spending rose from $2.2 billion in 1940 to $13.7 billion in 1941, which was about ten times the total pre-1939 budget. The United States was also creating various agencies to organize for war preparations and gradually moving away from its nonbelligerent status. Despite the president’s disavowals, the United States was preparing for war. Roosevelt’s victory in 1940 gave him more political freedom to continue aid to Britain, our only major European ally still standing. When Churchill again asked Roosevelt to formally enter the war, the president obviously had to decline. The peace movement was very strong, and only the shock of Pearl Harbor made such a step possible. Churchill warned Roosevelt that a desperate England was nearly strangled by the U-boat campaign, which was sinking so many of the merchant ships heading for the beleaguered British. If the United States would not intervene, Churchill suggested the Americans should be willing to protect the sea lanes at least halfway across the Atlantic. He also warned that Britain was short of cash to buy weapons, and its fate was in jeopardy. In response to England’s desperate plight, the president spoke to the American people, making them aware of the emergency and preparing them for bold new steps to be undertaken. In his masterful “arsenal of democracy” address on December 29, 1940, Roosevelt warned the nation of the perilous situation abroad. The United States was dealing with a determined potential foe in Europe that was beyond reasoning. “The experience of the past two years has proven beyond doubt that no nation can appease the Nazis. . . . No nation can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb.”12 Stressing how important a victory by Britain was, Roosevelt warned the American people: “If Great Britain goes down, all of us in the Americas would be living at the point of a gun. The vast resources and wealth of this hemisphere constitute the most tempting loot in the world.”13 The United States could not merely wait for an enemy invasion because “our Bunker Hill of tomorrow may be several thousand miles from Boston.”14 The president’s speech met with general acclaim throughout the country except among the hardcore isolationists. Its effect was to speed passage of a new greatly expanded aid program, the Lend-Lease Act, which went through Congress in March with majorities of almost two to one. When the Lend-Lease program began in early 1941, England was broke. Because the Johnson Act of 1934 prohibited loans to nations (such as England) that had defaulted on World War I debts, the new program would help

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England get weapons it could not afford and keep the United States from being fi nancially drawn into the war through costly loan programs. The Lend-Lease program would lend weapons to allies such as England on the promise of return after the war. So sweeping was the proposal that, according to one contemporary journal, Roosevelt would be able to lend anything from a “trench shovel to a battleship.” No limits were set on the quantity of weapons lent or the sums to be allocated. This loan program was actually a clever means of getting around the neutrality laws and ultimately granting $46 billion to our leading allies in the war. Roosevelt brilliantly sold the idea to the Congress and the public with his garden hose analogy: Isn’t it logical to lend your hose to your neighbor when his house is on fi re and before the fi re reaches your own house? The president also emphasized the heavy stakes involved. “Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now.”15 Even though Hitler’s initial targets were in Europe, the United States was not immune from the danger. Roosevelt believed that the fanatical Hitler would try to seize North and South America after controlling Europe. He claimed that Nazi agents were already all over Latin America and that the United States would defi nitely be targeted. Therefore, it would be suicide to wait until Germany was in America’s front yard. The United States had to realize that if the fascist powers won, it would be put in a vice, a straitjacket, from which it would not recover for one hundred years. To avoid a disaster, it was necessary for the United States to become “the great arsenal of democracy.” Nevertheless, some critics wondered if this program was a “new Magna Carta” for freedom or a “common-law marriage” with England. Lend-Lease would take the United States to the very edge of the European confl ict. By openly committing itself to supplying the British war effort, the United States would become England’s co-belligerent in all but name. Whatever the risk, Roosevelt believed it was necessary for the United States to stand beside the British. The administration was convinced that the United States was marked for attack and was determined to aid the nations already fighting. Roosevelt also felt that aid alone might not suffice and that U.S. entry into the war might be necessary. The interventionists warned Congress that if the United States did not act decisively and soon, Britain might be defeated in three months, and America might then become the next target. Roosevelt

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agreed and foresaw that without direct U.S. intervention, Britain would fall, and Western culture and democracy would soon collapse. Yet even at this critical time, the isolationist sentiment in the United States seemed to tie his hands. Winston Churchill, even more than Roosevelt, saw the need for U.S. military intervention in order to save England. After the Lend-Lease program was enacted, Churchill told Roosevelt that England would rather have an American declaration of war and no supplies for six months than double the quantity of supplies and no declaration. He believed (as did Roosevelt) that only an American intervention could defeat the Nazis. Despite the obvious need to help a desperate England, there was much opposition to this program in Congress. Representing the isolationist cause, Senator Burton Wheeler claimed that Lend-Lease was the New Deal’s “Triple A foreign policy; it will plow under every fourth American boy.”16 President Roosevelt called this the most despicable comment he had ever heard from a government official. Clearly, the president had to educate opponents in Congress on the need to act. Helping the president win approval was the fact that 70 percent of the public favored aid to England, even at the risk of war. The Lend-Lease Act, which passed by sizable margins in Congress, raised the stakes for the United States. Aiding the bill’s passage in Congress were England’s recent victory in the Battle of Britain and the president’s reelection over the Republican Wendell Willkie. If the destroyers-for-bases deal had taken the United States into “limited war,” Lend-Lease constituted, according to Secretary of War Stimson, “a declaration of economic war.” This was a policy of all-out aid, even at the risk of war. The die had been cast, and the ensuing months saw the United States gradually drawn into an undeclared shooting war with Germany. Once the United States had committed itself to becoming an arsenal, it naturally became concerned with the transportation of war materials to England. The extent of the U.S. role in transporting these goods led to an intense debate within the nation. The United States considered whether it should escort the supplies partly or totally across the Atlantic or merely act as a spotter to warn the British of danger. It also debated whether the British should have fi rst claim on weapons produced in the United States. Critics wondered if the shipping of U.S. planes to England would cause a shortage for the United States and delay training of U.S. pilots and thus weaken America’s rearmament. Perhaps the most important challenge was to defi ne

A P R E L U DE T O WA R

13

America’s role as a neutral. The U.S. defi nition of neutrality steadily changed as the nation escalated its role in the European crisis, not willing to risk a German victory. Throughout 1941, the crises continued to worsen. The Germans were advancing in North Africa, had invaded the Balkans, and that June took an enormous risk by invading Russia despite the 1939 Nazi–Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Hitler had become frustrated with England’s unwillingness to surrender and his increasingly strained relations with Russia. Joseph Stalin had annexed the Baltic states and was pressuring the right-wing government of Finland. Believing that a war with Russia was inevitable, Hitler attacked it even though this meant possibly fighting on more than one front. He felt that England, though not defeated, was contained and did not actually raise the threat of a two-front war. So important was a victory over Russia that Hitler threw the bulk of his army into the eastern campaign. The war that Germany launched against Russia was a no-holds-barred, extremely bloody campaign. So ferocious was the fighting here that historians note: “Possibly not since the struggle between Christians and Muslims in the 16th century had war been waged with such ruthlessness.”17 As in that earlier bloodbath, the stakes involved might determine European history for centuries. As the war worsened for the West, the United States weighed additional measures to cope with the growing threat. It considered the possibility of extending Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union and the more controversial idea of strengthening the new draft law. At General Marshall’s suggestion, Roosevelt proposed making the draft-law tours of duty extend beyond twelve months and include possible service outside the Western Hemisphere. A skeptical Hamilton Fish, a leading isolationist Republican in the House of Representatives, wondered if the draft-law amendment was part of a gigantic conspiracy to get the United States into the war. Supporters of the measure noted that the army would dissolve if the law were not changed. Although the law passed the Senate by a comfortable margin, the vote in the House was incredibly only 203 to 202. In 1941, the U.S. Army made an important assessment of the war. The fi rst major objective was the defeat of Germany. General Marshall warned: “Collapse in the [European war] would be fatal; collapse in the Far East would be serious but not fatal.”18 To defeat the Nazis, it would be necessary for the United States to enter the war. There would be no painless victory

14

A M ER ICA I N T H E FORTIES

through air power or naval victories, and only land armies could fi nally win the war, the U.S. strategists concluded. Yet because of the nation’s unpreparedness, July 1, 1943, would be the earliest date the U.S. forces would be ready to fight. Despite these sobering conclusions, the administration had to tread carefully. Most Americans still opposed entering the war and hoped that Britain and the Soviet Union could somehow defeat Germany. By mid-1941, the war continued to decline for the West. The German U-boats were sinking an enormous number of Allied merchant ships carrying supplies to England. A horrifying example of the problem occurred that April when in one night a British convoy lost ten of its twenty-two ships. Germany had just invaded Greece and Yugoslavia and was advancing in North Africa. In Russia, its early gains were staggering, and Hitler’s prediction of easy victory in Russia (“We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down”19) seemed to be coming true. Without America’s entry into the war, a German victory now appeared likely. On August 11, 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill met for the fi rst time, at sea off the coast of Canada. They issued the Atlantic Charter, proclaiming the Four Freedoms idea as the ultimate goal for an Allied victory. Critics were suspicious of ulterior motives behind this idealistic statement of wartime goals, and cynics called it the Mein Kampf of the democracies. The Chicago Tribune, suspecting some sort of secret commitment by Roosevelt, noted that an ancestor of the president had been a Tory during the American Revolution. In the last six months of 1941, U.S. tensions with Germany steadily increased as Nazi submarines escalated their attacks on Allied merchant ships. To secure the Lend-Lease merchant ships going to England, the United States reassessed its strategy in the Atlantic war zone. At fi rst, because it lacked authority to engage the Germans and with the public opposed to escorting ships, the United States could act only as a spotter to warn the merchant ships. But in the following months, the U.S. role grew ever larger. It occupied both Iceland and Greenland and began escorting Lend-Lease convoys as far as Iceland in the mid-Atlantic. The United States now considered these islands part of the Western Hemisphere and thus under the protection of the Monroe Doctrine, which had barred colonization in this hemisphere. In October 1941, Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to arm U.S. merchant ships in response to German attacks on them. The president called the German submarines the “rattlesnakes of the Atlantic,” and the

A P R E L U DE T O WA R

15

United States began operating under a “shoot on sight” policy. So important were the stakes that Churchill declared: “On the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic, the crunch of the whole war will be found.”20 He later stated that this was the only time in the war when he felt England might be defeated. Predictably, this more aggressive policy by the United States led to skirmishes at sea with Germany and to numerous sinkings of U.S.-owned merchant ships. In May 1941, the U.S. merchant ship Robin Moor was sunk by Germany. In October 1941, the Kearney, a U.S. destroyer, was attacked, with the loss of eleven lives, the fi rst U.S. naval casualties of World War II. The Reuben James, another destroyer, was also attacked that year, with the loss of more than one hundred lives. The United States was gradually being drawn into the confl ict. Responding to this growing crisis, the United States became more assertive in its Atlantic policy. The Neutrality Act was revised, permitting escorts to the British Isles and also the arming of merchant ships. By December 1941, the United States was transporting unlimited aid to the Allies and skirmishing with Germany in the Atlantic. Critics pondered whether the United States was trying to bait Germany into declaring war. By this time, both public opinion and Congress had moved toward accepting war with Germany. The public had come to accept all-out aid to Britain, even at the cost of possible war with Germany. Yet because the United States was still disarmed and Germany was heavily engaged in the Russian campaign, both were reluctant to declare war against each other. A similar pattern of escalating tension was occurring with Japan in the period preceding the Pearl Harbor attack. Although the United States was an economic belligerent against Germany by the summer of 1941, it was action in the Pacific that thrust the United States openly into World War II. The growing crisis with Hitler’s main ally, Japan, had long roots. Like Germany, Japan had been an expanding power prior to World War II. It had seized Taiwan from China in 1895 and had expanded its holdings in China and Korea by 1910. During the 1920s, it had participated in a series of international agreements limiting armaments and appeared to have adopted a more peaceful foreign policy. But in the early 1930s, a conservative reaction had set in. In 1932, assassins hoping for a more militant government killed the prime minister and a former fi nance minister. During the 1930s, U.S.–Japanese relations were clearly on a collision course. In 1931, Japan had attacked China and seized Manchuria, thus

16

A M ER ICA I N T H E FORTIES

presenting the League of Nations with one of its fi rst major crises. With the militarists in fi rm control from the early 1930s on, Japan adopted a more aggressive foreign policy, which culminated in a full-scale war against China that began in 1937. Because the United States had long been a friend of the Chinese nation and was wary of Japan’s intentions for China and the rest of Asia, U.S.–Japanese relations declined immensely. In November 1938, rejecting the 1922 Washington Conference agreements on a system of arms limitation, “Japan, after long hesitation, fi nally crossed the bridge of no return,” one scholar noted.21 The root cause of the U.S.–Japan confl ict was China, which Japan had coveted since the 1890s. Seeking new sources of raw materials and an outlet for its burgeoning population, Japan looked at its Asian neighbor with envy. However, the United States became an early problem for Japanese expansion. When Japan defeated Russia in 1905 and claimed major concessions in Manchuria and elsewhere in Asia, the United States limited those gains. The Japanese government believed the United States was blocking the island nation’s just desserts in Asia. The 1924 U.S. immigration law, barring Japanese immigration to America, further worsened relations between the two nations. When Japan captured Manchuria in 1931, the United States issued the Stimson Doctrine, which denied the legitimacy of the Manchurian seizure. Tensions were steadily rising between the two nations by the early 1930s. U.S. opposition to Japanese expansion continued in the late 1930s, leading directly to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan had annexed Manchuria in northern China as a means of curing its own economic problems. Wishing to gain farmland and raw materials, Japan moved hundreds of thousands of its farmers to this area. After the 1931 invasion of Manchuria went unchallenged by the West, Japan was encouraged to launch a full-scale war on China beginning in 1937 and resented U.S. aid to the Chinese. American support for China was mainly an emotional tie rather than an economic one because the United States actually had more business dealings with Japan at that time. While digesting its gains in China, Japan also looked enviously at the rich colonial holdings of the Americans, the Dutch, the French, and the British, which included Indonesia, Indochina, Malaya, and Burma. Its everexpanding ambitions were not limited to China and would ultimately draw it into a war with the Americans and the British. The China quagmire proved to be an insoluble problem between the United States and Japan. The Japanese wanted to separate the China

A P R E L U DE T O WA R

17

problem from relations with the United States, but the United States, a longtime supporter of China, was not willing to walk away from this problem. Secretary of State Cordell Hull stated: “A peaceful settlement between Japan and China is an essential element in the situation.”22 Herbert Feis, historian and former State Department official, believed that Japanese demands for the United States to cease aid to China made war inevitable.23 Similarly, the U.S. insistence on a Japanese evacuation from China made a rapprochement between the two nations impossible. The emotional tie to China later became a military one as well. Roosevelt believed that China-at-war pinned down large numbers of Japanese forces. Both he and Churchill agreed there could not be a “Munich-type” abandonment of the Chinese, similar to how the British and French permitted Hitler to seize part of Czechoslovakia in 1938. This long-troubled nation that had been the cause of damaged U.S.–Japanese relations for many years would continue to be supported. In dealing with this complex problem, Roosevelt was careful not to antagonize important political groups in the United States and in Japan. As with the European crisis, the isolationist sentiment in the United States led the president to be very cautious in his Asian policy. When Japan had earlier attacked an American ship, the Panay, in December 1937 in Chinese waters, the United States refused to act. Similarly, the president had to consider political sentiment in Japan. Roosevelt was concerned with arousing the war party in Japan and continued to ship oil and scrap iron, fearing an embargo might strengthen the militarists and lead to a possible attack on Indochina or elsewhere against Western interests. By 1939, U.S. trade relations with Japan were in a downward spiral in response to the rising tensions in Asia. In July 1939, Roosevelt sent Japan the necessary six-month notice for ending a 1911 treaty that had regulated trade between the two countries. In a reversal of its previous policy, the United States seemed about to use trade as a weapon to change Japanese foreign policy. Japan was vulnerable because the United States was the source (as of 1938) of 44 percent of its imports. In particular, Roosevelt knew the Japanese economy depended on U.S. oil and scrap iron. Using trade to coerce the Japanese had wide approval from the American public, in contrast to the nation’s earlier lack of interest in blocking Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria. Although Roosevelt had now put all trade with Japan on a twenty-fourhour basis, America did not actually cease trading strategic raw materials to

18

A M ER ICA I N T H E FORTIES

Japan at this time. The president wished to avoid further Japanese intervention in Asia, even as they steadily advanced in China. It was hoped that the U.S. trade policy would persuade Japan not to threaten its other Asian neighbors. The Japanese began to draw steadily closer to Germany by 1940, encouraged by Hitler’s successes in Europe. Following the fall of France in June 1940, an emboldened Japan began pressuring Vietnam, which led to a partial U.S. trade embargo. This step caused Japan to further strengthen its ties to the Axis nations. In September 1940, Germany, Japan, and Italy signed the Tripartite Pact, which basically assigned spheres of interest for Germany and Italy in Europe and for Japan in the Far East. It also promised that these powers would help each other if any became involved in a war with the United States. Both Germany and Japan saw advantages in this treaty. On the one hand, with this agreement Hitler tried to divert American attention to the Pacific by encouraging the Japanese to be aggressive, which was his main purpose in bringing Japan into the Axis. On the other hand, Japan’s allying with Germany emboldened its policy toward the United States and moved the new Axis member closer to war. The crisis had worsened earlier in July 1940, when the new Konoye government took power in Japan, which contained several militants, including Hideki Tojo as war minister. Despite Japan’s obvious expansionist tendencies, the United States was still reluctant to use economic sanctions as a diplomatic tool to modify Japanese territorial ambitions. Even though Japan was particularly vulnerable to economic pressure because it received 80 percent of its oil from the United States, there was a danger in withholding oil as a diplomatic weapon. The United States feared an oil embargo would encourage Japan to seize oil-rich Indonesia and provoke a war with the West. This game of diplomatic Russian roulette reached a higher level because of the growing crisis in Vietnam. In September 1940, the United States embargoed scrap iron to Japan in response to threats against Vietnam. Japan had demanded and received permission to allow Japanese military units to enter Vietnam, which it would invade a year later. Following Japan’s occupation of Vietnam in July 1941, which was seen as preparatory action for a move into Malaya and Indonesia, the United States imposed a total trade embargo. Oil as well as scrap iron, both vital to Japan’s war machine, were now embargoed. All Japanese assets in the United States were frozen, and Roosevelt warned against further Japanese expansion “or else.”

A P R E L U DE T O WA R

19

These moves by the United States dramatically altered the situation in Asia. Unless Japan changed its policies, war now seemed inevitable. To avoid economic strangulation, Japan would have to gain the raw materials of other Asian nations, especially Malaya and Indonesia, but this risked war with the United States. Japan must now either end its expansionist strategy or fight the United States. In July 1941, Japan decided on an overall strategy of expansion and would not be deterred by the possibility of war with the United States. Soon afterward, Prime Minister Konoye was replaced with the more militant Tojo; the war party was now fi rmly in power. If war were to come, there were two distinctly different options for Japan. It rejected the Northern Operation, an attack on Russia that would aid in the German conquest and end the challenge from Russia for hegemony in Asia. Instead, it decided on the Southern Operation, involving attacks on such targets as Indonesia, Malaya, the Philippines, and Indochina. This would end Japan’s humiliating dependence on U.S. oil, lead to victory in the China war, and chase the Western colonial powers from Asia. Japan chose to risk war with England and the United States when it decided on the Southern Operation. For this strategy to succeed, it needed to capture the British naval base at Singapore, deny the United States use of the Philippines as a base, and cripple the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. The attack on Pearl Harbor would be especially critical. The strategist behind the Pearl Harbor attack, Admiral Isaroku Yamamoto, stated that if Japan were to go to war with the United States, “[it] will have no hope of winning unless the U.S. fleet in Hawaiian waters can be destroyed.”24 He emphasized that success at Pearl Harbor depended on surprise, just as in the 1905 attack on the Russian fleet at Tsushima Straits during the Russo-Japanese War. After victory at Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto hoped the United States would eventually lose the will to fight a long war and accept a deal that guaranteed Japan a “free hand” in Asia. A total defeat of the United States would be impossible, Japanese planners said, because Japan had limited resources and could not fight a prolonged war. If the Americans chose a “fight to the fi nish,” one Japanese officer ominously warned, Japan was almost certainly doomed. The movement toward war entered its fi nal phase in the summer of 1941, when Japan sent troops into southern Indochina. The U.S. trade embargo that followed could possibly provoke a Japanese attack on its Asian neighbors. Japan had a two-year reserve of oil, or one and a half years’ worth if war broke out. Japan was at a crossroads. The United States hoped the

20

A M ER ICA I N T H E FORTIES

oil embargo would pressure Japan to withdraw from China and other conquered areas and to give up its foreign policy gains of many years rather than fight the Americans. If Japan chose not to submit, war with the United States seemed inevitable. Diplomat Joseph Grew stated: “The vicious cycle of reprisal and counter-reprisal is on.”25 The stringent economic restrictions put into effect by the United States in 1940–41 made it impossible for Japan to import the raw materials required for strengthening its military forces. It now faced the alternative of either abandoning its ambitions for empire or making itself self-sufficient through the seizure of the Southern Region. The former course was unthinkable, but the latter seemed a simple venture under existing circumstances. The British, Dutch, and U.S. forces confronting Japan were weak. The possibility of British and Dutch reinforcements seemed remote, and the United States was far from mobilized. Destroying the U.S. Pacific fleet would render the United States temporarily impotent. Oil was the most important raw material for Japan’s war machine, and, ultimately, the oil fields of Borneo and Sumatra were crucial in causing the attack on Pearl Harbor. In September 1941, Japanese leaders decided to implement the war strategy against the United States, England, and Holland if no progress were reached by October 15. A window of opportunity seemed about to close for Japan. It believed that it had a limited oil reserve and only a two-year period of superiority over the U.S. Navy at the rate the United States was then rebuilding its forces. Although it seemed war was inevitable, both sides continued to pursue the peace option. In the months preceding Pearl Harbor, unsuccessful efforts were made to avoid war. Japan even offered to meet the United States at a summit conference, but to no avail. Roosevelt, knowing (and totally rejecting) Japan’s demands, would not agree to such a meeting. He feared that the public, which strongly desired to avoid war, might force him to agree to a bad deal for America. Both sides were far apart in their terms for peace. Japan wanted the United States to cease aid to China, end the trade embargo, and freeze its military strength in the Pacific while Japan would continue its own buildup. Secretary of State Hull stated that agreement to these terms would amount to a U.S. surrender to Japanese hegemony in the western Pacific and eastern Asia. The United States, in turn, wanted Japan to abandon all its conquests since 1931, including China. To avoid a confl ict, either the United States or

A P R E L U DE T O WA R

21

Japan would have to make a complete reversal of its foreign policy of many years. The Japanese foreign minister claimed that Japan was being “asked not only to abandon all the gains of her years of sacrifice, but to surrender her international position as a power in the Far East.”26 The ever-worsening Asian crisis became more closely linked to the European war. Hitler encouraged Japan to be fi rm with the Americans. Japan believed that a German victory in Europe would make the United States more willing to compromise. To bolster Japan’s will, Germany and Italy indicated they would join the fight if Japan and the United States went to war. Japan was being encouraged by its allies to take the fi nal step. Although negotiations took place for months even into late 1941, a war between the United States and Japan was apparently about to break out. In a major intelligence breakthrough, the United States had “cracked” Japan’s highest diplomatic code by the fall of 1940. On December 6, after deciphering thirteen of fourteen parts of Japan’s internal response to Secretary of State Hull’s demands to quit China, the United States was convinced: “This means war.” On December 7, when part 14 was translated (“because of the attitudes of the American government, negotiated agreement was impossible”), the message was very clear. The United States now expected a Japanese attack, probably to occur on Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, or Hawaii (in that order of possibility). Almost everyone thought, including Marshall, that Japan would strike in Southeast Asia rather than in Hawaii. General Marshall tried to send warnings to the various American commanders, but at Hawaii weather conditions led to a problem in sending messages. Because of atmospheric pressures, there was a communications breakdown, and a warning sent by Western Union telegram did not arrive until the Japanese attack had already begun. The attack went well for the Japanese, with weather conditions being ideal and Pearl Harbor totally unprepared for the blow. On the morning of December 7, 1941, the striking fleet reached its predetermined launching position, about 275 miles north of Oahu. The attack began when the Japanese lead pilot shouted, “Tora, Tora, Tora” (Tiger, Tiger, Tiger), and lasted from 7:55 AM to 9:45 AM. The main damage was to the battleships, ironically all lined up in rows to make it easier to protect them from sabotage. A total of eight battleships were sunk or heavily damaged, 180 planes destroyed, and 120 crippled. The total death toll was 2,403, including 1,103 on the battleship Arizona. The Pearl Harbor attack disabled the U.S.

22

A M ER ICA I N T H E FORTIES

battleship fleet, but fortunately all the carriers were at sea. On learning of the attack, one elated Japanese soldier proclaimed: “We will teach the arrogant Anglo-Saxon scoundrels a lesson.”27 The consequences could have been much worse, but luckily the repair shops were not damaged, and Japan failed to hit the enormous fuel oil tanks. Loss of the fuel tanks would probably have forced the U.S. Navy to retreat to its bases on the West Coast, sweeping the western Pacific of U.S. ships and probably breaking the line of sea communication to Australia. Fortunately for the Americans, Japan refused to make another strike at the fuel tanks or the repair shops or to look for the U.S. carriers, and the U.S. Navy was allowed to recover from Pearl Harbor. The attack ultimately became both a brilliant tactical victory as well as a lost opportunity and a colossal political mistake for Japan. After the surprise Japanese attack, Hitler honored his pledge to Japan, and the United States found itself at war with Germany and Italy as well. Germany declared war on the United States even though it was wary of a two-front war and Japan had earlier refused to enter the war against Russia. Hitler had decided the question of war in Europe for the United States ironically not because of the shoot-outs in the Atlantic, but because of his ally’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The growing crises of the 1930s and early 1940s with both Germany and Japan had reached a breaking point, drawing the United States into the greatest war in history. Pearl Harbor unified the nation against the Axis far more than President Roosevelt had been able to do. Never at any time before Pearl Harbor did more than 17 percent of Americans favor a declaration of war against the Axis. Following the attack, however, isolationist leader Senator Burton Wheeler said: “The only thing . . . to do is to kick the hell out of them.”28 To do this, the United States now faced the challenge of mobilizing its economy and organizing a massive fighting force. President Roosevelt’s challenge had shifted from fi xing a broken economy to rescuing a world in turmoil.

Life on the Home Front F OL L O W I N G P E A R L H A R B OR ,

the United States faced the monumental task of preparing for war. President Roosevelt put the economy on a war footing and production of war materials soared, eventually outproducing the economies of all the Axis combatants combined. Although the wartime mobilization had fi nally ended the Depression, economic concerns remained, now focused on the possibility of labor shortages. The government consequently made agreements with organized labor to minimize labor stoppages to avoid disrupting the war effort. To replace the millions of men fighting abroad, women, young people, and foreigners were recruited to expand the labor pool. Beyond this concern over possible production problems, the war ultimately changed society as family separations and a job market in flux led to major alterations in the American lifestyle. Preparing for war created serious challenges for virtually every segment of society. There was concern that the new wartime economy would be marked by inflation. In the resulting defense buildup, others wondered if business and labor would get along. The wartime dislocations that led to a massive shift in housing patterns in the northern urban areas also raised the potential for racial problems. On the political scene, some questioned whether the major parties would be able to work together and keep partisanship from dividing the government. Unless these potential problems could be avoided, the nation’s mobilization effort would be severely disrupted. The stresses and dislocations caused by the war especially led to major social problems with minority groups and women. The most serious involved the Japanese Americans, who were forced to relocate into detention camps. For black Americans, the war brought more job opportunities and inspired 23

24

A M ER ICA I N T H E FORTIES

a relocation outside the South. They also encountered problems of discrimination and rioting, inspiring an early civil rights movement as blacks fought prejudice both at home and in the armed forces. Mexicans, imported in large numbers to fi ll a labor shortage, faced outbursts of discrimination and violence during the war. For women, the greatest challenge was in the workplace as millions sought either employment for the fi rst time or different types of jobs. For the nation, serious military and economic adjustments to the war crisis actually began in 1940. The American public, shocked by the fall of western Europe, especially France, and the emergency British evacuation at Dunkirk, now began intense rearmament and the draft. However, mobilizing the economy proved to be very difficult and would not be fully implemented until 1943. The U.S. tradition of an unregulated economy proved to be a serious challenge to the wartime administrators. Of all the major developed economies, the U.S. economy had been the least government run until 1940, even after years of New Deal regulations. This reorganization of society, with the consequent wartime separations and so many working for the fi rst time, brought about enormous social changes in the family life of average Americans. The demands for young men in the service and on the assembly line lessened their economic dependence on their elders and projected the “cult of youth.” The freedom and importance of young people, causing almost instant adulthood, greatly increased the marriage rate, with a consequent rise in the birth rate. The population, which had grown by only 3 million during the 1930s, increased by 6.5 million between 1940 and 1945. The “postwar” baby boom actually began during the war, aided by the birth of millions of “furlough babies.” The war also led to a new role for women, which had a destabilizing effect on family unity. The demand for women as assembly-line workers caused a new shift toward sexual equality in the family and a de-emphasis on the wife-mother role. Alongside this increased status for women, family stability also weakened because of geographic separation, long overtime hours, migration to new job locations, and induction of husbands into the service, with the consequent loss of parental control over children. These developments ultimately led to increased juvenile delinquency and divorce. Juvenile crime rates rose, with theft, property damage, and sexual misconduct being the main offenses. For married couples, the divorce rate rose from sixteen per one hundred marriages in 1940 to twenty-seven per

LIFE ON THE HOME FRONT

25

one hundred in 1944. “Never before—not even during the Great Depression—had American families been subjected to such stress.”1 The older leisure and entertainment industries attempted to keep life as normal as possible during the war. As Americans had done during the previous two decades, they went to the cinema in record numbers. With gasoline and rubber tires in short supply, the nearby air-conditioned neighborhood theater was a substitute for a drive or a trip to a resort. More than 90 million people attended fi lms each week. Rather than concentrate on serious, warrelated themes, Hollywood continued to turn out the same escapist kind of entertainment—love stories, comedies, adventures—that had been popular before the war. Movies were expected to boost public morale, and the government was even willing to grant military exemptions to movie stars. As did other media industries, radio also played a vital role during the war. Although radio had already experienced great success during its “golden age” of the 1930s, it was equally important during the war years. It served as both an important channel of military and diplomatic news and a source of entertainment for the public. Commercial radio broadcasting was heard in an estimated 60 million homes and automobile receivers. Especially important in reporting the war, radio reached maturity during the war years as a news medium and even replaced newspapers as the public’s preferred source of news. The networks sent their own correspondents to the war fronts and to foreign capitals, reaching millions of homes each night. So widespread was listening to the radio that nearly the entire nation heard President Roosevelt deliver his war message on December 8, 1941. The speech attracted the largest audience in U.S. radio history, with more than 81 percent of American homes tuning in to hear the president. Other leisure venues also boomed during the war. Vacations were more popular than during the Depression owing to the return of prosperity and in spite of the lessened ability to drive. Resorts did well as buses and trains substituted for private cars. In New York City, there was a boom in demand for hotel rooms and seats in restaurants, theaters, and night clubs. “People want to spend money,” one store manager said, “and if they can’t spend it on [clothes], they’ll spend it on something else.”2 Americans also retained their long-standing interest in professional sports during the war, albeit with some necessary changes. When more than 4,000 of the 5,700 players in the major and minor leagues entered the military services, baseball had to use older players, minor leaguers, and

26

A M ER ICA I N T H E FORTIES

individuals unfit for military service. Some games were played in twilight to allow working fans to attend without violating the ban on night sporting events. A women’s baseball league was created in 1943 by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who wanted to maintain interest in baseball. Other sports were also forced to make adjustments. About three hundred colleges gave up football in 1943 because of the player drain. The college Rose Bowl of January 1943 was played in Durham, North Carolina, instead of in Los Angeles because of a wartime ban on large assemblages on the West Coast. In golf and tennis, most of the major competitions were suspended for the duration of the war. Boxing heavyweight champion Joe Louis entered the service and did not defend his title during the war years. Despite the stresses and family problems caused by the war, life for the home-front population was far more comfortable than it had been in the 1930s. Mobilization had ended joblessness and brought the return of prosperity. During the low point of the Great Depression, as much as 25 percent of the workforce was unemployed, and a similar percentage was underemployed. By 1940, as the crisis in Europe deepened, spending for defense was bringing an economic revival. The total labor force in 1944 was 66 million, an increase of 12 million over 1940. After the drab years of the Depression, jobs were now plentiful, leading to a consequent rise in business and farm profits and wages. During the war, the average work week expanded to nearly fi fty hours, and the average weekly earnings in factories almost doubled (from $24.20 to $44.39). Per capita annual income rose from less than $1,000 in 1940 to almost $1,300 in 1944. By the middle of the confl ict, nearly seven out of ten Americans said they had not had to make any real sacrifices as a result of the war. Despite occasional complaints about shortages and deprivations, Americans were far better off than during the 1930s. Most home-front Americans were comfortable during the war and became richer than before. The “stayat-homes” called World War II “a pretty good war if you don’t get shot at.”3 Reflecting this new prosperity, the wartime mood in the United States was buoyant and upbeat. In spite of such burdens as higher taxes, rationing, and wage and price controls, the wartime surge of buying was exciting after such a long period of deprivation. Furthermore, Pearl Harbor had brought a sense of unity to the United States, especially welcome after the bitter Depression-era struggles over the economy and the sharp division over intervention in the prewar period.

LIFE ON THE HOME FRONT

27

Even service in the armed forces was not as disruptive as it might have been. After the United States entered the war in 1941, most men were not enlisted in the fighting. Although there were approximately 16 million men in uniform during the war, only one out of three men between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five was actually called to serve in the armed forces, and men older than thirty-five were generally not drafted. Although the United States suffered significant casualties during the war—400,000 killed and 600,000 wounded—it fared much better than the other major combatants, which suffered casualties in much greater numbers. The United States had entered the war relatively late and did not experience the confl ict on its home soil. As a result of the wartime mobilization effort, life on the home front was more regulated than before. In this new wartime economy, all sectors were told what they could produce, buy, or sell, the prices they could charge, and the profits they could make. The public faced wage and price controls, along with rationing for the fi rst time. (Mandatory rationing did not occur during World War I.) To cope with food shortages, Americans planted “victory gardens,” which by 1943 produced almost one-third of the vegetables consumed that year. Incomes rose, but there were limits on spending outlets owing to the shortage of consumer goods on the market. Some items such as automobiles and home appliances were not being made at all. By 1945, these restrictions on consumer spending resulted in approximately $140 billion saved by the public, waiting to be spent. One particular consumer good requiring significant adjustment by the public was clothing. To help conserve materials, government issued regulations for clothing manufacturers. For men’s “victory suits,” the government mandated eliminating an extra pair of pants with each suit, the doublebreasted jacket, and the vest, and it required shorter jackets with narrower lapels (to save wool). Women were also forced to accept new rules for clothing, which included shorter skirts and two-piece bathing suits. Women’s stockings became scarce because silk was needed for parachutes, and silk from Japan, its main source, was embargoed. To help gain acceptance for the new rules on clothing, the government issued a pledge to “the women and girls of America that there will be no extremes in dress styles during this war and that their present wardrobes will not be made obsolete by radical fashion changes.”4 With most commodities devoted to military use, civilians had to make adjustments in virtually every area of daily life. However, these restrictions

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were neither widely opposed nor heavily burdensome. Far fewer sacrifices were made in the United States than in England, a target of enemy bombing, which faced a more serious wartime emergency. The U.S. economy had such enormous productivity that enough of everything for both civilian and military use was being produced, with only a few exceptions. Despite rationing and the great diversion of resources to the war effort, aggregate consumer spending in the peak wartime year of 1944 actually increased 22 percent over its 1940 level. Wartime America had successfully developed a “guns and butter” economy. For those items unavailable or in short supply, the consumer had to make adjustments to maintain his normal lifestyle. Rationing of gasoline and tires and reduced “victory speed limits” of thirty-five miles per hour meant that driving was either curtailed or trips took much longer. The decline in automobile use was a boon to the railroads, which logged more railway passenger miles during the war than at any other period in U.S. history, before or since. In 1942, the railroads made money off the passenger trade for the fi rst time in fi fteen years. Even more surprising, buses for the fi rst time carried more passengers than the railroads. The war also led to important changes in the nature of the economy, with far-reaching effects for the future. Because of the pressing need to develop high-tech weapons and to deal with the heavy toll of casualties and sickness, the war either created or gave new momentum to industries that would become the most important of the late twentieth century. These industries formed the core of a third industrial revolution, including advanced electronics and telecommunication, aviation and aerospace, atomic energy, synthetic chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and sophisticated medical devices. The fi rst important breakthrough in computers occurred during the war as a militaryrelated initiative, inspiring a revolution in electronics after 1945. Perhaps the greatest changes brought by the war were to the nation’s economy. More than 15 million people entered either the armed forces or the labor force between 1940 and 1943, causing the unemployment problem almost to disappear. Between 1939 and 1945, the number of jobless people dropped from 9 million to 1 million, with jobs available to virtually anyone who wanted to work. Total civilian employment rose from 42.7 million in 1939, the last year of Depression-level unemployment, to 50.4 million in 1943. Unemployment, which had reached about 25 percent in 1933, dropped to just 1.2 percent by 1944. The figures for 1933 and 1944 were

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the worst and best unemployment numbers in history.5 The war had dramatically solved the unemployment problem that Roosevelt had struggled with for a decade. The decline of unemployment was an indicator both of the new prosperity in the economy and of the new sources of labor in the workforce. For the fi rst time in U.S. history, the participation rate (the percentage of the population older than fourteen that was employed) rose to more than 60 percent. Especially important was the increase in working women, including large numbers of married women who were in the workforce for the fi rst time. The largest addition of new workers consisted of millions of women between twenty-one and sixty-four years old. In addition, more than two-thirds of teenage boys (ages fourteen to nineteen) and large numbers of older workers (older than sixty-four) were utilized. The workforce was not only expanded but worked longer hours as well. The average work week in manufacturing rose from thirty-eight to more than forty-five hours per week, reflecting the greater percentage of the economy devoted to the war effort. Defense-related employment rose from 9 percent of total employment in 1941 to 40 percent in 1944. This increase in wartime spending greatly enlarged the U.S. economy. Between 1940 and 1945, the United States spent $320 billion on war expenses for itself and its allies. The gross national product rose from $101 billion in 1940 to $215 billion in 1945. In the fi rst six months of 1942, war orders exceeded $100 billion for equipment, which was more than the American economy had ever produced in a single year. The war also led to an increase in government employment from 1 million to 3.8 million between 1940 and 1945. Government spending consequently rose significantly, with total federal outlays increasing from $8.9 billion in 1939 to $98.4 billion in 1945, a figure not equaled until 1964. The government used several methods to pay for this extremely expensive war. The two leading revenue sources were borrowing through the sale of war bonds and taxation. About half of wartime expenses came from bond sales to the general public, wealthy individuals, institutions, and even schoolchildren. These bonds helped cover an enormous rise in the national debt from $43 billion in 1940 to $269 billion in 1946. The other half of the wartime expenses would be covered by a sharp rise in tax rates. Taxes, which had paid 30 percent of the cost of World War I, accounted for about 50 percent of World War II’s expenses. Income tax levels for the highest

30

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earners (more than $200,000) were raised to 94 percent. The tax base, which was as low as 3 percent of the population in 1933, rose substantially during the war. The number of taxpayers increased from only 7 million in 1940 to 42 million by 1945. To facilitate the collection of taxes, the modern collection process of the withholding tax system began in 1943. To help launch this system, which involved collecting taxes for the current year and the previous year simultaneously, the government considered and then rejected the extraordinary idea of cancelling the previous year’s taxes. In an effort to gain support for the new withholding system, even Walt Disney’s Donald Duck was enlisted in ad campaigns by the government. These gains in tax revenues, employment, and production in the economy largely reflected the soaring defense expenditures. The yearly defense output rose from 10 percent of gross national product in 1940 to approximately 50 percent in the peak year 1944. In 1941 alone, the proportion of economic activity devoted to war production grew from 15 percent to 33 percent. A year after Pearl Harbor, the nation was producing more defenserelated materials than all its enemies combined. By early 1945, the United States produced enough munitions to supply almost half of the armaments used on all the fighting fronts of the world. The 12,000 warships and merchant ships produced, if laid out end to end, would stretch from New York City to Omaha, Nebraska. These feats were made possible in part by enormous government spending and productivity increases in the more efficient wartime economy. In the manufacturing sector, productivity increased 25 percent between 1939 and 1944, with output per worker being one-third greater in 1943 than it had been in 1939. Recognizing this huge defense outpouring at the Teheran Conference in late 1943, Russian leader Joseph Stalin declared: “To American production, without which this war would have been lost.”6 America’s industrial success was matched by its agricultural achievement. Unlike the occasionally dissatisfied union workers, farmers were both prosperous and tranquil during the war. The overall farm population declined by nearly 29 percent during the war as more than 6 million left their farms to join the armed forces or to work in urban factories. However, those farmers who stayed behind prospered greatly, encouraged to produce all they could by government support for high farm prices, which more than doubled during the war. The Roosevelt administration set very high parity (target) prices

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during the war, and only these federal subsidies prevented consumers from having to buy food at extortionate rates. Despite the decline in farmworkers, farm production increased by more than 25 percent owing to mechanization and consolidation of smaller farms. Between 1940 and 1945, productivity on the farm soared as the number of persons supplied per farmworker rose from 19.7 to 46.5. Per capita income for farmers tripled compared to a doubling of per capita industrial income during the war years. “Farm times became good times,” stated an Idaho farmer.7 One observer noted: “Most farmers went from a tar-paper shack to a new frame house with indoor plumbing.”8 After years of poverty and despair, farmers were fi nally enjoying better times. Enormous gains by American factories and on the farm were made possible by a major administrative overhaul of the U.S. economy. Even before Pearl Harbor, the government had taken steps to put the economy on a wartime footing. Government agencies supervised rationing and anything relating to wartime production such as allocation of raw materials and the running of factories. Not until mid-1943, however, was a rational system of economic controls fi rmly in place. The civilian agencies had been unsuccessful in part because Roosevelt had preferred to divide responsibility among several associates so he could decide the main questions himself. In May 1943, Roosevelt created the Office of War Mobilization, led by James F. Byrnes, a brilliant administrator who had previously served as a senator from South Carolina and as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. The president fi nally delegated abundant authority, and this agency successfully mobilized the economy. Mobilization also succeeded because business interests were strongly behind the effort. In the cabinet, Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox staffed their departments with men from major corporate law fi rms and investment-banking businesses. These people were often conservative business types with different assumptions about the role of government than those held by New Dealers in the 1930s. Secretary Stimson noted: “If you are going to try to go to war in a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won’t work.” 9 The government chose to work on big business’s terms, providing various incentives and tax breaks. One important incentive for business was the cost-plus-a-fi xed-fee system, whereby the government guaranteed all development and production costs and then paid a percentage profit on the

32

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wartime goods produced. Despite Roosevelt’s original reluctance to invite into his administration those “economic royalists” who had led the opposition to the New Deal, leading businessmen were brought in to coordinate the production process. “Dollar-a-year” men (who continued to collect their regular company salaries while working for the government) eventually made up three-quarters of the executive staff of the leading government coordinating agency, the War Production Board. This policy of using businessmen in key positions was continued by its successor agency, the Office of War Mobilization. Whereas large corporations profited during the mobilization, small businesses suffered. Big business received most of the defense contracts, but smaller companies were confi ned largely to civilian work. Many small businesses, which were blocked from supplies of scarce materials and unable to produce civilian goods, were consequently forced to close their doors. Approximately 500,000 small businesses failed during the war, even though the nation’s economy was booming. The 55 percent jump in manufacturing employment between 1939 and 1944 took place mainly in big fi rms. So dominant was the role of big business that between 1940 and 1944 approximately 30 percent of defense contracts went to only ten companies, especially General Motors. With the unemployment problem largely resolved, the government created the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (OPA) in April 1941 to head off inflation. In April 1942, the OPA issued the General Maximum Price Regulation, which froze retail prices at the highest level reached in March 1942. These price controls held inflation in check, and in the two years after mid-1943 consumer prices rose by less than 2 percent. To help control inflation, the OPA also set up wage controls, which held the rise in wage rates to only 24 percent throughout the war. One of the most important functions of the wartime agencies was to reallocate materials from consumer items to military goods, best exemplified by the auto industry. Because the auto plants were needed to make planes and tanks, the government outlawed production of cars and trucks beginning in February 1942. Auto manufacturers initially opposed this forced conversion because their profits were fi nally rising by 1941 after the lean years of the 1930s. They now had to build tanks, armored personnel carriers, and especially aircraft and related items, which accounted for about 40 percent of their output. By the end of the war, Detroit had produced about

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one-half of all the engines and almost one-third of all the airframe weight for planes. Having been converted to defense contractors, the auto makers ultimately produced one-fi fth of all war material in the United States. Thanks to Detroit’s contribution, the aircraft industry boomed. U.S. aircraft production was crucial to the prosecution of the war, not only because of the bombing campaign against Germany and Japan, but also because of the major amphibious invasions in Europe and the Pacific islands, which would not have been attempted without supremacy in the air. The manufacture of planes became the leading U.S. industry during the war (up from forty-fourth in 1939.) Much to Germany’s regret, the sarcastic 1941 comment by Nazi leader Hermann Göring, “The Americans can’t build planes, only electric ice boxes and razor blades,”10 was proven false. Employment in the manufacture of aircraft and related equipment grew from 80,000 in 1940 to 1.3 million in 1943, from less than 1 percent of total manufacturing employment in 1940 to more than 7 percent. During the war, the United States ultimately built 300,000 planes, and in the peak year 1944 alone, it produced 96,000 planes, which exceeded the combined Axis production. In 1944, Germany and Japan together produced 68,000 planes, or about 70 percent of the U.S. total. A different type of challenge arose with the rubber industry. Early in the war, the United States found itself facing a serious rubber shortage. Japan had cut off 90 percent of America’s rubber supply from Malaya and Indonesia, and without this commodity the new motorized army and air force would come to a total halt. The problem was resolved by resorting to gasoline rationing to save rubber tires and by converting petroleum into synthetic rubber, which the United States learned to do by 1944. Another important development was the growth of organized labor, which, like business, gained much more influence during the war. Labor had earlier come of age with the support of the New Deal in the 1930s. Laws such as the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, ultimately declared unconstitutional, and the Wagner Act of 1935 had provided the mechanism for union recognition and collective bargaining, leading to a consequent rise in union membership. The number of union members increased dramatically during the war, from 10.5 million in 1941 to 14.75 million in 1945, or about one-third of the nonfarm labor force. This growth depended in part on the government’s decision to adopt a “maintenance of membership” policy. It gave every person hired in a shop

34

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with a union contract fi fteen days in which to resign from the union. He or she thereafter had to pay union dues for the duration of the contract between the union and the fi rm. Labor leaders had originally wanted a closed shop, which would have forced all workers into unions. Management had advocated the open shop, which would have permitted all workers the continuing choice of remaining outside the union. The compromise, which was designed to reduce the likelihood of strikes, greatly assisted union recruitment. Union workers prospered greatly throughout the war. Wages increased steadily even after correction for inflation, with real earnings rising 27 percent in the manufacturing workforce. Wages also increased because of the expanded work week. Virtually all workers were able to work overtime, for which they were paid time and a half. Although limits to hourly wages were imposed, there were no limits on the number of hours, and, with overtime, workers made more money than ever before. Despite the wartime crisis and expanded work opportunities, the labor front was sometimes turbulent. Strikes became a problem during the war, even though labor and business had agreed in December 1941 on a non– legally binding “no strike” pledge. At fi rst, the problem was less significant because the number of strikes and strikers in 1942 was roughly consistent with Depression-year numbers. It then doubled in 1943 and continued to rise in 1944 and 1945. In 1944, more than 2 million workers went on strike, although most of the work stoppages were short, and losses in production were less than 1 percent. The most controversial of the labor leaders was John L. Lewis, the head of the Coal Miners Union. In 1943, he led the 400,000 coal miners to strike on four different occasions, despite government efforts to avoid strikes during the war. Roosevelt was so angry with Lewis that year that he allegedly offered to resign if Lewis would commit suicide.11 A former ally of the president in 1936, Lewis had broken politically with Roosevelt in the late 1930s when the president refused to back labor during a series of strikes, and relations worsened steadily afterward. The coal strikes called by Lewis helped lead to the government’s attempt to restrict labor disturbances through the Smith-Connally Act. This 1943 act, which gave the government the power to seize war plants and made it illegal to encourage strikes in these plants, supervised prestrike plebiscites to reduce strikes and required a thirty-day cooling-off period before union leaders could call a strike. However, it was only partially successful in

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containing militant labor. Despite government legal restrictions, labor leaders such as Lewis proved difficult to control during both the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. Labor disturbances were not the only problem affecting workers during World War II. Changes in wartime employment patterns involving relocation to other cities often resulted in massive housing problems. The abundance of defense-related jobs that began to develop in 1941 set in motion the greatest mass migration the United States had ever seen. Approximately 9 million people—workers and their families—left their homes for employment in war plants. California alone had attracted 2 million new residents. Washington, D.C., flooded with new government workers, grew by 231,000 between 1941 and 1943. When a shortage of building materials forced the federal government in April 1942 to ban all nondefense construction and put a limitation on the addition or improvement of existing structures, serious housing shortages developed in cities facing waves of newcomers. In response to this housing crisis, the federal government was forced to intervene. Because of the ban on new housing construction, it began to build barrack-like housing developments near the war plants. More than a thousand of these new emergency housing communities—some the size of small cities—sprang into existence across the nation during 1942 and 1943. These communities housed as many as 1.5 million people at their peak of occupancy. The wartime migration also led to important changes in the racial situation. The war had sharply accelerated the decades-old flow of blacks and whites out of the South and into the industrial regions of the North and the West. Different patterns of settling in these cities developed for white and black workers. Whites were moving to the fringes of the cities, whereas blacks settled in the urban cores, where they attained more economic and political influence than previously held in the rural South. The World War II crisis intensified the debate over the racial question. During the 1930s, blacks shared in the gains from the New Deal social programs. However, there had been no civil rights agenda during the Roosevelt administration, which believed that Congress would not approve such a program. Black leaders did not push for civil rights laws during the war, preferring to fight for job gains and more rights in the armed forces. They believed the war would be followed by a more intensive debate over legal and political rights for African Americans. They spoke of the double V: victory over the Axis powers and victory over discrimination at home after the war.

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Life in the armed forces presented substantial problems for blacks during the war. Blacks were excluded from the air force and marines, and their roles in the army and navy were severely restricted. Training camps for new recruits were usually segregated, and Jim Crow attitudes continued in the southern and border areas. A shocking case of racial discrimination occurred in Salina, Kansas, where German prisoners were served in a restaurant that turned away black soldiers.12 The federal government had no remedy for these racial problems, preferring to concentrate on the war effort. Secretary of War Stimson wanted equal opportunity for both races, but not social integration. He backed the segregation policy of the armed forces, declaring the army could not operate as a sociological laboratory while it prepared for war. These racial problems, he explained, were a “persistent legacy of the original crime of slavery.”13 Similarly, General Marshall believed that desegregation of the army would destroy morale by overturning traditions “established by the American people through custom and habit.”14 President Roosevelt’s position was a mixture of concern, realism, and resignation. He clearly stressed winning the war over pushing for civil rights, declaring, “I don’t think . . . that we can bring about the millennium at this time.”15 He also had a very strong political reason for downplaying the racial issue. The president wished to retain the support of southern Democrats who were a very powerful bloc in Congress and chaired many of the committees in Congress during the war. Yet Roosevelt could not totally ignore the growing mood of civil rights awareness in the black community. He provoked the ire of Sleeping Car Porters Union head A. Philip Randolph in 1941, who threatened a civil rights march on Washington, D.C.—a “thundering herd” that could “shake up white America.” Randolph had been a longtime crusader for black rights. During World War I, he had aroused the attention of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who called him “one of the most dangerous Negroes in the U.S.”16 After the war, he became an associate of the militant black leader Marcus Garvey. On the eve of World War II, Randolph resolved to adopt a very aggressive civil rights approach, proposing a march on July 1, 1941, at the Lincoln Memorial that, it was hoped, would attract at least 50,000 blacks. So concerned was President Roosevelt with a possibly divisive racial demonstration in Washington, D.C., that he agreed to create the Fair Employment Practices Commission if Randolph would cancel the march. This body would investigate racial discrimination against workers in defense industries

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or in government jobs. Significantly, Roosevelt took no steps to desegregate the armed forces, and he was not willing to push for a broad civil rights program and risk losing southern support for his party. Civil rights, he felt, were secondary to winning the war. The civil rights movement was advanced with the 1942 founding of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a civil rights organization with biracial support. Led by James Farmer, the black son of a college professor, CORE challenged segregation in public accommodations such as restaurants and theaters, where it stressed the use of sit-ins. It remained a powerful civil rights tool for many years, and the sit-in tactic was widely used later in the 1960s. Important observers noted the changing atmosphere in the civil rights struggle. Gunnar Myrdal, author of the classic study of race relations An American Dilemma, wrote in 1944: “Not since Reconstruction has there been more reason to anticipate fundamental changes in American race relations.”17 Walter White, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP), stated: “World War II has immeasurably magnified the Negroes’ awareness of the disparity between the American profession and practice of democracy.”18 Yet no one in the civil rights movement expected the federal government to play an active role. “The majority of black soldiers will return home convinced that whatever betterment of their lot is achieved must come largely from their own efforts,” White declared.19 The war defi nitely heightened self-awareness and raised the expectations of black Americans, and the earliest steps in the later civil rights crusade were being taken. Despite only limited support from government leaders, black Americans achieved some noticeable gains during the war. The president’s order outlawing discrimination in defense-plant hiring led to a substantial increase in black employees. From 1942 to 1945, the percentage of black workers in defense industries rose from 3 percent to 8 percent. The federal government increased the number of its black employees from 60,000 to 200,000. In another gesture toward civil rights, Secretary Stimson appointed William Hastie, dean of the Howard University Law School, to be his civilian aide on racial affairs to promote “the fair and effective utilization of Negroes.” One of the most important civil rights advances came from the judiciary. In a move with potentially far-reaching political ramifications, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the white primary in April 1944. In Smith v. Alwright, a case presented by the NAACP, the Court ruled that the

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Democratic Party in Texas could not exclude blacks from voting in primary elections. This threat to the traditional all-white primary outraged the Deep South, seemingly threatening white domination of the region. Southern concern was unwarranted for many years, however, because the Court’s ruling would not be fi rmly implemented until the more liberal civil rights era of the 1960s. Other significant steps in civil rights were taken by the armed forces, albeit partly in response to a manpower shortage. The navy integrated the crews of twenty-five ships, and the army ordered the integration of training camps, although many in the South remained segregated. The army also agreed to organize several black combat units and to train black aviators. Colonel Benjamin Davis, the officer in charge of the new Tuskegee air force fighter group, climaxed a long career going back to World War I when he became the fi rst black general in U.S. history in 1943. Although some improvements for blacks were obvious during the war, overall conditions were still unsatisfactory. African Americans were especially becoming frustrated with the massive housing problems in the northern cities. The black sections of the major cities became terribly overcrowded as approximately 700,000 blacks migrated to be near the defense jobs. The Detroit riot of June 1943, which reflected overcrowded conditions in housing areas, lasted several days: twenty-five blacks and nine whites were killed, and sixty-five people were injured. The New York City riot of August 1943 began with a false rumor that a white policeman had killed a black soldier: six blacks were killed, and three hundred were injured. These frustrations and resentments ultimately led to riots in other cities throughout the nation. The federal government could not relieve these racial tensions, and they remained a problem for future generations. On employment matters, Roosevelt’s attempt to strengthen the Fair Employment Practices Commission in 1943 had only limited results, and even that led to increased southern hostility. Although progress was slow, the federal government had made some gestures toward racial equality for the fi rst time since Reconstruction. Observing the changing racial climate, the NAACP’s leader Walter White stated: “A wind is rising—a wind of determination by the have-nots of the world to share the benefits of freedom and prosperity.”20 The momentum for civil rights would not be easily halted. A different type of discrimination was also being challenged during the war, resulting in new lifestyles for women. More a cultural than a legal

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phenomenon, the work patterns of women changed dramatically. The number of working women rose from 14,600,000 in 1941 to 19,370,000 in 1944, when 37 percent of all adult women were in the labor force. Women with husbands in the service were especially likely to work; between 1939 and 1944, married women outnumbered single women in the female labor force for the fi rst time. There was also a change in the type of jobs done by women, with a noticeable shift from “women’s jobs” such as laundering, farm labor, waitressing, office work, nursing, and elementary school teaching to manufacturing jobs. Many worked in shipyards and airplane factories as steelworkers, riveters, and welders. To encourage women to work in factories, the federal government offered to help pay for child care, and the National War Labor Board declared wage differentials based on sex to be discriminatory and impermissible. Between 1940 and 1944, the overall share of women in manufacturing positions rose from 22 percent to 32.7 percent. However, this new job pattern did not win universal approval. The noted columnist Max Lerner was concerned that the war was developing a “new Amazon” who would “outdrink, outswear, and outswagger the men.”21 Women were also serving in the armed forces for the fi rst time, although not in combat roles. Instead, they would replace able-bodied men in the military tied down to desk, service, and even mechanical jobs and free them for combat. By 1945, more than 300,000 women had served as WACs (Women’s Army Corps), WAVES (navy, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), and WASPs (Women’s Air Force Service Pilots). Like other minorities, the Mexican American community was also affected by the war. Unlike women and blacks, this group was involved mainly in agriculture rather than in defense jobs. When the war caused an acute farm labor shortage, the United States recruited Mexican farm laborers, and several hundred thousand “braceros” (translated as “helping arms”) entered the United States in the next few years. At the insistence of the Mexican government, landowners were forced to provide transportation, food, shelter, and medical care for these workers. Unfortunately, some Mexicans’ cultural habits helped lead to prejudice during the war, including violent personal attacks. Some young Mexicans formed gangs and wore zoot suits (trousers flared at the knees but tighter at the ankles, a loosely fitted coat reaching to midthigh, a long key chain, and a felt hat). Middle-class Americans associated the zoot suit with gang

40

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activity and violence, and in Los Angeles there were several attacks by sailors on Mexican youths. For those Americans with origins in the Axis nations, consideration was given to interning them for possible disloyalty. When the war began, there was the real possibility that German Americans might be a target for discrimination. However, they had been well integrated into the United States by World War II and did not suffer persecution as during World War I. A policy to isolate large numbers of Germans was probably unrealistic. President Roosevelt had inquired about interning German Americans early in the war, but when told this would involve about 600,000 people, he lost interest. Similarly, an internment policy or limits on movement and job opportunities for Italian Americans might also entail hundreds of thousands of people. Although there had been considerable support by Italian Americans for Benito Mussolini’s government before Pearl Harbor, Americans were not too concerned about possible disloyalty, and there was no support for interning them. There was also a political reason for embracing the Italian Americans: President Roosevelt was anxious to receive the very substantial Italian vote. The situation involving Americans with Japanese ancestry was unfortunately vastly different. Japanese Americans were the minority that suffered the most overt discrimination during the war. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the United States made the decision to intern them, a group less integrated into American society and less politically important than European minorities. About 110,000 Japanese were to be moved to ten detention camps in seven western states. California, which had a long history of anti-Asian sentiment, insisted on their removal, and the Roosevelt administration acquiesced. In the weeks after Pearl Harbor, anti-Japanese sentiment increased, reflecting Japan’s capture of the western Pacific island groups as well as the East Asian mainland and its impending conquest of the Philippine Islands. In March 1942, when the Pacific war was obviously not going well, Congress approved the Japanese-internment policy. The action was based on the military’s authority to wage war and its insistence that the evacuation was necessary for the defense of the West Coast. The Japanese were to be evacuated from the states of California, Washington, and Oregon. At fi rst, they were allowed to relocate voluntarily, but because of pressure from many states a forcible internment policy was instituted. When faced with a legal challenge, the relocation was later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Korematsu

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v. the United States (1944). In Hawaii, where the Japanese community was much more important to the economy and numbered about one-third of the population, they were not interned. Underlying the internment policy was the considerable support for it from both the public and government leaders. The chief of the army’s West Coast Defense Command declared that “the Japanese race is an enemy race.”22 The famous political pundit Walter Lippman, regarding the Pacific coast as a combat zone, believed that Japanese Americans had actually collaborated with the enemy.23 Westbrook Pegler, another respected journalist, declared that every Japanese in California should be under guard, “and to hell with habeas corpus until the danger is over.”24 President Roosevelt agreed, declaring “that civil liberties were okay for 99 percent but the United States should bear down on the rest.”25 One scholar queries whether the president was following an “Atlantic First” policy in civil liberties that paralleled his military strategy. Even by the middle of the war, release from the internment camps was delayed because of anti-Japanese bias in California. When the military commanders told Roosevelt in May 1943 that the army saw no military reason for keeping loyal Japanese in the camps, Secretary of War Stimson asked the president to consider anti-Japanese attitudes in California and maintain the internment policy. He warned of possible riots if the Japanese Americans were released, which might lead to Japanese retaliation against U.S. prisoners. Ultimately, by late 1944, internees who showed no evidence of disloyalty and could perform useful jobs elsewhere in the nation were being released. About 60,000 of the 114,000 internees would be released within three months, but 18,000 Japanese who refused to renounce their loyalty to the emperor of Japan were deemed ineligible for release and put in a separate camp in California. Ironically, while the government was debating its release policy in 1944, it permitted several thousand internees to serve in the European war. Finally in early 1945, the government ordered all detainees to leave the camps. In a show of remorse in 1988, Congress provided $20,000 compensation to each of the 60,000 surviving detainees. Beyond its treatment of minorities during the war, the United States became increasingly conservative at home as “Dr. New Deal” was replaced by “Dr. Win the War.” Similar to what had happened during World War I, the reformist tide in politics virtually came to a halt during World War II, although it had been slowing since the late 1930s. As the nation became

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more prosperous and the military situation became its highest priority, Republicans and southern Democrats sought to cut back on the New Deal. With unemployment so dramatically reduced, many of the New Deal measures had seemingly lost their raison d’être. To Roosevelt’s opponents, this was an opportunity to attack the New Deal. After his 1940 reelection to the presidency, Roosevelt continued to feel increasing pressure from Congress. Since the late 1930s, the New Deal coalition had been weakening because of the “court-packing” controversy, the attempted purge of conservatives in Congress in 1938, and declining unemployment as the nation mobilized for World War II. Unfortunately for the president, this trend continued during the war. The Republicans made substantial gains in the 1942 congressional elections: forty-four seats in the House and nine in the Senate. Observers questioned whether this most conservative Congress in a decade was about to usher in a return to the probusiness policies of the 1920s. In the early 1940s, the conservative coalition of southern Democrats and conservative Republicans blocked Roosevelt’s initiatives on all but war-related questions. After the 1942 congressional election, this coalition controlled both houses of Congress and saw a chance to eliminate several New Deal programs. The core of the New Deal was saved, however, and only peripheral agencies were phased out during the war. But the conservatives were able to block any new additions to the New Deal agenda. This trend was clearly demonstrated in August 1943, on the eighth anniversary of the Social Security Act, when Roosevelt’s attempt to broadly extend coverage was soundly rebuffed by Congress. The strength of the conservatives was further demonstrated by Roosevelt’s lack of success with his so-called second Bill of Rights in 1944. In his State of the Union Address that year, Roosevelt asked Congress to consider a wide range of social goals, guaranteeing prosperity for all. He called for such rights as a good job; enough food, clothing, recreation, housing; a better life for farmers; protection against sickness, accident, and unemployment; adequate medical care; and a good education. He wished all these goals, constituting an economic bill of rights, to be implemented soon after the war, but Congress was not receptive to his plan. When Roosevelt decided to run for a fourth term in 1944, he easily won renomination but faced a powerful conservative opposition in his choice of a running mate. In deciding to serve until victory in the war, he had reversed his 1941 position not to seek another term. Roosevelt’s nomination

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was inevitable in light of his three previous victories. However, his selection of a running mate became a serious political consideration, with important implications for the future. Under extreme pressure within the Democratic Party, Roosevelt decided on a new choice for vice president. His 1940 selection of Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace had not been a popular choice. Wallace had originally been an effective agriculture secretary in Roosevelt’s fi rst cabinet (and the son of President Harding’s agriculture secretary in the early 1920s), but his views and aloof personality had offended many important segments in the Democratic Party by the early 1940s. Some more conservative Democratic factions were made uneasy by his references to the “century of the common man” and the need for a “people’s revolution.” As vice president, Wallace was soon out of favor with the Senate, lacking the confidence of many of the party leaders. His critics charged that he was trying “to extend the New Deal throughout the earth.” He was willing to surrender a large degree of national sovereignty to the newly proposed United Nations and apparently wished to redistribute wealth at home to the economically hard-pressed segments of society. Opponents claimed he was supporting a “lend-lease” program for the domestic front when he championed “economic democracy” for the common man. His views and personality managed to offend simultaneously the South, the Democratic bosses, and powerful business interests. Unlike in 1940, when Roosevelt insisted on Wallace as a running mate, he now acquiesced and permitted contending factions to promote other possible candidates. At the insistence of key Democrats, Roosevelt replaced the controversial Wallace as his running mate with Senator Harry Truman of Missouri, who had emerged as the compromise choice. He was chosen as a unity candidate, and his selection was dubbed “the second Missouri Compromise.” All the other potential candidates had serious deficiencies to consider. Senate majority leader Alben Barkley was regarded as too old at sixty-six (although he became Truman’s running mate four years later at age seventy). Wartime administrator James Byrnes was not only opposed by labor and civil rights groups but also aroused opposition because he was a lapsed Catholic. Supreme Court justice William Douglas was not interested in running. In contrast to his rivals, Truman had no obvious weaknesses and seemed the ideal candidate. He was a loyal New Dealer from a border state and was acceptable to all factions in the party. The South was pleased by his family’s southern background; political bosses liked his ties to boss Tom Pendergast

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of Kansas City; and the liberals liked his work on the Truman Committee, which investigated fraud and waste in World War II defense spending. Truman was also aided by Wallace’s poor relations with the Senate. The controversial Wallace lacked support in that body, soon to be a vital agency in ratifying postwar treaties. Unlike Wallace, the new vice presidential nominee had the respect of his fellow senators. Despite being passed over, Wallace backed Roosevelt in the 1944 election and refused to split the party. The Republicans were also divided as the 1944 elections approached. The 1940 candidate Wendell Willkie was interested in running again but, like Wallace, had become a pariah in his own party. His positions were far too liberal for the conservatives and isolationists who dominated the Republican Party. Since 1941, he had strongly backed Roosevelt’s wartime policies such as Lend-Lease and aid to the Allies. He further alienated conservatives with his strong stands on liberalism at home, civil rights for blacks, and anticolonialism abroad. In his book One World, he expressed strong admiration for the Soviet Union and a belief that the United States would have to become more international-minded in the postwar world. The book also called for an end to racism at home and abroad and for a strong United Nations to help preserve the peace after the war. To the conservative Republican Party, Willkie’s views were unacceptable. Even though this highly influential book sold faster than any book in publishing history, selling a million copies in eight weeks, Willkie’s political standing did not improve. One of three principal contenders for the 1944 Republican nomination, he did poorly in the Wisconsin primary and quit the race. Only one month before the election in 1944, Willkie died of a heart attack. The eventual nominee, Thomas Dewey, had become prominent by winning the governorship of New York in 1942, a feat not achieved by a Republican for more than two decades. Grandson of a founder of the Republican Party in 1854, he was a more traditional Republican than Willkie. Roosevelt, who had become an admirer of Willkie, personally disliked Dewey, expressing “unvarnished contempt” for him. He considered Dewey unprincipled in foreign affairs and an internationalist through opportunism rather than conviction, and he resented Dewey’s personal attacks against him. The Republicans were hoping that a conservative trend evident since 1938 would culminate in a presidential victory in 1944. They were especially anxious for victory, having lost three consecutive presidential elections

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(1932, 1936, 1940) for the fi rst time in the party’s history. Unfortunately, the election came under difficult circumstances for the Republicans. The conduct of the war was not an issue before the voters. In a more bitter campaign than four years earlier, the Republicans were forced to concentrate on two principal issues: Was Roosevelt’s health a major problem, and had the Democrats permitted Communists to take control of the New Deal? By Election Day, all the major factors worked against the Republicans. Both industrial workers and farmers were experiencing wartime prosperity. The war had defi nitely turned in favor of the Allies, especially with the Normandy invasion in Europe and victories in the Pacific. Unseating a popular president who was obviously winning the war during a time of prosperity had created an impossible challenge for the Republicans. Not surprisingly, Roosevelt was victorious, but by a smaller margin than in 1940. Despite the president’s reelection, the conservative coalition remained strong and would continue to dominate Congress. Roosevelt’s death in early 1945 raised the question whether he should have run again. His personal physician thought Roosevelt had a “good” chance to fi nish a fourth term.26 There is no evidence that the president thought of Truman as a successor in the White House before the end of his term rather than as an important senator who could gain him influence in that body. The delegates at the Democratic Convention in 1944, however, observed the situation differently than President Roosevelt, and “each kept uppermost in mind that his fi rst choice for Vice President might become President.”27 In the conservative political environment of 1944, the only new major program created was the GI Bill of Rights, officially titled the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, which eventually benefitted millions of veterans. Unlike the bonus for World War I veterans, the government decided to reward the soldiers of World War II with a comprehensive program that encompassed education, housing, and unemployment benefits. This act provided for liberal unemployment benefits, preference given to veterans in being hired for jobs, education assistance, and guaranteed loans to buy a small business, farm, or house. It marked the largest entry of the federal government into education since the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. During the war, a pattern of strong executive action on war-related matters was not challenged. Roosevelt had set price controls, relocated the Japanese Americans, and seized war plants during strikes—all with the support

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of the Supreme Court and Congress. The federal government had also increased in size tremendously, growing from 1 million employees in 1940 to 3.8 million by 1945. The wartime changes to the federal government—a strong executive branch and a growing number of federal employees—set the standard for the postwar period. Disgruntled conservatives wished to return to the 1920s atmosphere of limited government, and new president Harry Truman would later be hard-pressed to resist their challenge. Under Franklin Roosevelt’s strong leadership during World War II, the United States had reorganized on the home front to prepare for the confl ict. However, the president’s most important challenge—waging a successful war against the Germans in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific—lay ahead. Once again he proved to be a strong leader in guiding the nation through the bloodiest war in world history.

The War Against Germany on Pearl Harbor led the United States into war with Germany and Italy as well as Japan. In honoring his alliance with Japan, Hitler declared war on the United States only one day after the attack. His decision spared the United States from having to decide whether Pearl Harbor meant America should also declare war on Japan’s allies. After Pearl Harbor, the long debate in the United States—whether to enter the European war— had suddenly ended. American entry into the war incredibly aroused hope in both the British and the German governments. British prime minister Winston Churchill believed that the war against Hitler would now be won. The British leader declared afterward: “There was no more doubt about the end. [I] went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”1 German dictator Adolf Hitler reached an opposing view of the meaning of Pearl Harbor. Encouraged by Japan’s attack on the United States, he declared: “Now it is impossible for us to lose the war. We have an ally who has never been vanquished in three thousand years.”2 Because the Japanese surprise attack had drawn the United States into the war, sheer emotion might indicate Japan rather than Germany should become the primary target. Well aware of the relative strength of the two Axis powers, President Roosevelt almost immediately rejected the Asia-fi rst strategy, declaring: “To defeat Japan fi rst would increase the chance of complete German domination of Europe and Africa. Defeat of Germany fi rst meant the defeat of Japan.”3 The conduct of the European war was marked by several major debates on strategy between the Allies and also among high-ranking U.S. officials. T H E J A PA N E S E A T T AC K

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One of the most controversial matters was whether the United States should fi rst attack the Germans in France or choose a less risky engagement elsewhere. The American decision to land in North Africa fi rst and then in Sicily and Italy aroused much resentment and suspicion from the Soviets, already reeling from the German onslaught. Stalin hoped for an American invasion of France to relieve his desperate nation. Even leading American generals such as Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower pushed for the second front in France and to stop “beating around the bush.” Yet for more than two years, Russia did most of the fighting against the Germans; only in 1944 did the United States and Britain become full partners in the war against Hitler. By late 1941, all the major powers were engaged in the war. The Allies, consisting mainly of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, were facing the Axis powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Hitler had encouraged his Japanese ally to attack the United States, believing this would take some of the pressure off Germany. Despite Hitler’s great fear of a two-front war, he honored his alliance with Japan and declared war on the United States on December 8, 1941. (Yet six months earlier, in June 1941, Japan had not declared war on Russia after the Soviets had been attacked by Germany.) The war Hitler had launched in 1939 with his attack on Poland had now become a global war that could alter the worldwide balance of power. America’s war against Germany, like its war against Japan, began at sea. The battle of the Atlantic, which began in 1939 shortly after the outbreak of World War II, was a confl ict for supremacy on the ocean highway across which all American supplies and troops must flow to Europe. Realizing the importance of this naval struggle, Roosevelt and Churchill repeatedly stated that the struggle with Hitler would be won or lost at sea. Either U.S. supplies to England would keep that nation afloat, or the British would be starved into submission, with possibly disastrous consequences for the Americans as well. For more than two years before Pearl Harbor, the Germans had been careful not to lure the United States into World War II by a provocative naval attack in the Atlantic. But after Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941, he released the chief of German submarine operations, Admiral Karl Doenitz, from all restraints. Doenitz could now loose his U-boats as far westward as the U.S. eastern shoreline to cut the Allied supply lines at their source. With this strategy, Germany hoped England would soon be forced to capitulate.

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In early 1942, the Allies were in a dire situation in the Atlantic. German submarines enjoyed such early success here that they referred to the Atlantic campaign as the “American turkey shoot.” Doenitz’s naval campaign threatened to shut down America’s war against Hitler almost before it could get started. In January 1942, German subs sank thirty-five U.S. ships off the U.S. east coast, with more than 200,000 tons of shipping lost. A single sub cruising off New York harbor in that month sunk eight ships, including three tankers, in just twelve hours. In a shocking display of enemy power on June 15, a German submarine sank two U.S. freighters off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, as thousands of tourists watched. By June 1942, 4.7 million tons of Allied shipping had been sunk. Also that month in an incident similar to the German attack near Virginia Beach, one U.S. ship was sunk off the coast of Jacksonville Beach, Florida, as shocked tourists watched from shore. Germany was sinking U.S. shipping faster than it could be replaced. Army chief of staff General George C. Marshall warned chief of naval operations Admiral Ernest King in June 1942: “The losses by submarines off our Atlantic seaboard and in the Caribbean now threaten our entire war effort. I am fearful that another month or two of this will so cripple our means of transport that we will be unable to bring sufficient men and plans to bear against the enemy.”4 The potential consequences of Germany’s submarine offensive were enormous. Churchill later stated: “The U-boat was our worst evil. [It was] . . . the only thing that ever really frightened me during the war.”5 Admiral Doenitz believed if he could sink 700,000 tons of Allied shipping per month, victory would be his. Britain would then face starvation, Russia defeat, and America permanent isolation on the far side of the Atlantic. By mid-1942, German success seemed to be at hand, as Allied shipping losses exceeded 800,000 tons per month. During that year, net U.S. and British shipping tonnage shrunk by a margin that threatened to rob the Allies of their war-making powers if not soon reversed. The Anglo-American alliance seemed in danger of being strangled by German U-boats by the end of 1942. Fortunately, the Allies had begun implementing a strategy to cope with the submarine that cut losses dramatically. In May 1942, the United States began a convoy system, along with the crucial use of aircraft to spot submarines. Destroyers could then be called in to attack the submarines. However, because of the planes’ limited range there were certain areas where they could not operate, and here Germany’s submarine campaign was particularly

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effective. Though not a perfect solution, the U.S. convoy system led to a change in Germany’s attack plans. On July 19, Doenitz withdrew his last two subs from North American waters, and the naval confl ict was transferred to the mid-Atlantic, where the convoy system was not as effective. Only after longer-range bombers were developed would the Allies win the battle of the Atlantic by May 1943. On another front earlier in June 1941, the war took a dramatic turn that ultimately led to the loss of millions of German soldiers. Hitler launched a surprise massive attack on the Soviet Union, expecting to be victorious in eight to ten weeks. After defeating the British and French armies in France and seeing the British flee the continent at Dunkirk, Hitler was in a quandary. His air war over the English Channel in the summer of 1940 had been unsuccessful, delaying his planned invasion, for which he had little desire. The attack on Russia might solve his British problem. Knowing that England wished to fi nd an ally in the USSR, Hitler hoped that a defeat of the Soviets would force Britain to come to terms with Germany. Hitler had been encouraged to attack Russia by the Soviets’ relatively poor showing in the war with Finland from December 1939 to March 1940. When a right-wing government in Finland refused to allow Stalin the use of bases to defend against Hitler, Russia attacked. When Hitler saw that it took the Soviets nearly four months to prevail, he was encouraged to invade Russia. Even if England would not be persuaded to surrender, Hitler saw Russia as the last obstacle to German domination of the continent. His philosophy had always claimed that a clash between Nazism and Soviet communism was inevitable. For him, this clash was more than just between political systems; his racial views were always partial to northern and western Europeans such as the British, and he looked down on eastern Europeans as the Untermenschen (lower order). He hoped to populate eastern Europe with Germans after the war, creating a vastly enlarged “greater Germany.” Victory over Russia would help Germany complete its vast territorial goals in Europe. It had already annexed areas that were part of pre-1918 Germany and other areas that had large German-speaking populations. Later, certain areas of western Europe would eventually become part of Germany. In eastern and central Europe, parts of Poland, Russia, and Czechoslovakia would become German colonies. The new Nazi Empire would give Hitler power that no modern European had ever held.

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Russia had tried to avoid a German invasion by signing the Nonaggression Pact with Germany in August 1939. Even after the agreement, Stalin tried very hard to avoid provoking Hitler because his nation was unprepared to fight. He ignored warnings from England and the United States about a likely German invasion and was actually shipping strategic materials to Germany until Russia was invaded by the Nazis. Hoping that Hitler would honor the agreement, Stalin had not alerted the Russian people to the possibility of an attack. Germany invaded Russia in June 1941 with 3 million troops, assisted by hundreds of thousands of soldiers from allied nations. When the invasion began, U.S. Army intelligence gave Russia only one to three months to hold on. By December 1941, the Germans were within twenty-one miles of Moscow and had infl icted between 4 and 5 million casualties on the Soviet Union. Very close to defeat, Stalin began urging the United States and England to rescue the Soviet Union with a massive French landing. Although all of the major Allies agreed that Germany was the primary enemy, there were three distinctly different views of how to fight the Germans. Russia favored a major action against Germany such as a D-Day-type landing to draw Germany away from the Russian front. England wished to pursue a less bloody strategy of concentrating on naval and air attacks and did not favor a cross-channel landing until Germany was on the verge of defeat. Combining the two ideas, the United States felt the most effective strategy was a sustained air campaign to be followed by massive landings and engagement of the enemy eventually in France. In 1942, the United States faced the critical decision of where to oppose the Germans fi rst. That June, both General Marshall and General Eisenhower, the recently appointed head of operations in the European theater, pressed for a French landing rather than a North African campaign. The British instead urged President Roosevelt to choose the less risky invasion of North Africa. The American generals speculated whether the North African landing was “marginal,” “inconsequential,” or “not that important.” They believed the North African strategy would delay the inevitable French landing and possibly jeopardize Russia’s survival. Also skeptical of the British strategy, President Roosevelt told Churchill in May 1942 that “the Russians are killing more Germans and destroying more equipment than you and I put together.”6 A Russian defeat would have disastrous consequences for the entire war effort. So important was Russia

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that Roosevelt “would rather lose New Zealand, Australia or anything else than have the Russians collapse.”7 Clearly, there was an American interest in helping the Soviet Union survive the Nazi onslaught, but where to launch the fi rst American strike against Germany had triggered a major controversy. General Eisenhower laid out the reasons for a French landing without delay. He was especially concerned over Russia’s survival in the war. In July 1942, Eisenhower declared: “We should not forget that the prize we seek is to keep eight million Russians in the war. We’ve got to go to Europe and fight—and we’ve got to quit wasting resources all over the world—and still worse—wasting time. . . . If we’re to keep Russia in, save the Middle East, India, and Burma, we’ve got to begin slugging by air at Western Europe, to be followed by a land attack as soon as possible.”8 Stimson and Marshall strongly agreed and pressed for a 1943 French landing. British prime minister Winston Churchill successfully convinced President Roosevelt to override his leading generals and attack North Africa instead. The president realized that the United States was still rearming and that the Pacific war was engaging substantial amounts of American troops and equipment. An American invasion of France would require a more opportune time. Churchill had his own pressing reasons to delay a French landing. The memory of the British defeat in France at the beginning of the war and the miraculous rescue at Dunkirk was still fresh in his mind. He also considered the very costly land campaigns of World War I and the tragic 1915 Gallipoli landing in Turkey, which he personally had planned. If a European landing were to be undertaken, perhaps a less risky landing site would be in Norway, where the Germans were less concentrated. Churchill especially preferred a landing in the Middle East, fearing its fall could lead to the loss of India. Churchill’s resistance to the French landing was reinforced by the unsuccessful operation at Dieppe, France. In August 1942, the Allies staged a “trial run” invasion on the French coast, unfortunately leading to a disaster. More than 6,000 Allied troops landed to test the German coastal defenses, but only 2,500 men returned to England, the rest being killed or captured. One scholar called it the sea version of “the charge of the Light Brigade.” 9 (In the Crimean War of the 1840s, a British unit known as the Light Brigade made a catastrophic charge against the Russian army.) This operation’s fate seemed to confi rm the wisdom of postponing the French landing and attacking North Africa instead. Churchill believed it was better

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to wait, years if necessary, until the Germans were at the point of exhaustion from blockade and aerial bombing, before attempting a hazardous crosschannel invasion. Stalin was extremely disappointed with the new strategy adopted by the United States and Britain. Although the Germans were doing very well in North Africa in 1942 and threatening to seize the Middle East, Russia still favored a French landing. The German onslaught was infl icting enormous casualties on Russia, and Stalin hoped a French landing would divert German soldiers to France. Stalin feared the Western powers were merely letting the Soviet Union and Germany slug it out while they participated on the sidelines. This view aroused his suspicions of the West and helped lead to the tense atmosphere that ultimately resulted in the Cold War. The British put Russia’s concern in the context of their own difficulties only two years earlier. At the beginning of the war in 1939–40, Stalin had allowed a desperate England to fend for itself against Germany. Churchill noted that Stalin did not intervene in the war against Germany until Russia itself was attacked. The British leader questioned whether the Allies were truly obligated to take major risks to bail out Russia. Having agreed on the invasion of North Africa to begin in November 1942, General Marshall had recently named Eisenhower to be commander of the operation (Torch) and of all American forces in the European theater. Outranked at the time by 366 more senior officers, Eisenhower had impressed Marshall with his brilliant ability to plan large operations, demonstrated a year earlier when he presented Marshall a plan for protecting the supply lines to Australia. Upon his appointment, Eisenhower was immediately promoted from colonel to lieutenant general. In North Africa, the United States decided to open a new front in French Morocco. Eisenhower feared that the Vichy French government, nominally controlling southern France but obviously dominated by Germany, might oppose the landing. (When Germany defeated France in 1940, it occupied the northern part of the country and permitted the French to rule the southern part from the city of Vichy with French Nazi collaborators.) The United States landed in Morocco in November 1942, only one month after the British had stopped the Germans at the crucial battle of El Alamein in Egypt. The Americans fortunately faced only token resistance from the French. When Vichy France ordered cooperation with the Allies, an irate Hitler ordered that all of France be put under German occupation.

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The United States was aided by Admiral Jean-François Darlan, the second-highest-ranking official in the collaborationist Vichy government, who had persuaded the French in North Africa to cease fighting the Allies and to join them against the Axis forces. Many critics opposed dealing with Darlan, arguing that it was immoral for the United States to work with a Nazi collaborator. Seeing the situation as a war emergency, Roosevelt noted: “You are permitted in time of great danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge.”10 Regarded as a French “Quisling,” Darlan was soon after assassinated by an anti-Nazi Frenchman. Eisenhower assembled a team of famous generals in North Africa who would later become major players in the European campaign. General Mark Clark was his deputy commander in North Africa. General Omar Bradley, Eisenhower’s classmate from West Point, joined the team and later became one of the principal field commanders in France. General George Patton was also given a field command in North Africa and afterward in Europe. Patton was already one of the most colorful and controversial generals, nicknamed “Blood and Guts” and known for inflammatory speeches and stern discipline. With a team of outstanding American generals and a strategy in place, the tide of the war was turning by the end of 1942. In October 1942, Hitler had seemed a military colossus, controlling much of Russia and the European continent. The submarine was still scoring spectacular successes in the Atlantic. He controlled the Mediterranean area, and his forces were in Egypt, approaching the Suez Canal and Middle East oil supplies. Germany seemed on the verge of victory before the United States completed its buildup in 1942. These gains would be tenuous, however, once the United States was fully engaged in the war. According to President Roosevelt, “The Axis powers knew that they must win the war in 1942—or eventually lose everything.”11 By November 1942, the war had changed significantly. The British had launched a counteroffensive against the Germans in Egypt, and the United States had landed on the other side of North Africa. The Russians were making progress in the crucial battle of Stalingrad. In the Atlantic, the German submarine offensive had taken a turn for the worse. The Allies had learned to contain Nazi advances, and Germany’s strategy of “blitz, annihilate, and conquer” was failing. In May 1943, Germany and Italy were defeated in Tunisia, and the fighting ended in North Africa. Approximately 240,000 prisoners were taken, bringing the total casualties for the two Axis powers since the beginning

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of the campaign in 1940 to around 950,000. The North Africa campaign, although it delayed an attack on the continent, was a great victory for the Allies. The legendary German general Erwin Rommel, hero of the early fighting in North Africa and a personal favorite of Hitler, was defeated, and the Germans lost many men. The Italian army never recovered from its defeat in North Africa, and the Mediterranean was now open to the Allies. Not only beaten in North Africa, the Germans also suffered a horrific defeat at Stalingrad in January 1943. Usually regarded as the turning point in the European war, Stalingrad represented Hitler’s fi rst major defeat in Europe. The Germans lost hundreds of thousands in the battle for Stalingrad. The Nazis had hoped that a Russian defeat here would both knock Russia out of the war and solve Germany’s oil problems. Later, in July 1943, Germany suffered another major defeat in Russia at the battle of Kursk. In this titanic encounter involving 4,000 planes, 6,000 tanks, and 2 million men, Russia extinguished Germany’s offensive capability. No longer fearful of a Russian collapse, Churchill was now raising concerns about Russia’s possibly dominating Europe after the war. Fears of the stronger Russian position led Britain to renew its objections to the French landing. The British continued to urge an invasion of Italy rather than France because an attack through Italy and the Balkans might later prevent the spread of communism in central Europe. This would also be less risky, and the Allies could avoid the expected heavy losses of a French landing. Churchill especially feared a repeat of the World War I battle of the Somme, involving the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. Churchill argued that only the Italian campaign was feasible in 1943 and could yield huge benefits for the Allies. Normandy could come only in the spring of 1944 because of the need to gather men and supplies, so hundreds of thousands of men would be forced to stand idle in the Mediterranean. A successful campaign in southern Europe could be launched much sooner and bring major advantages to the Allies. A strong blow against Italy might knock it out of the war, relieve Russia by forcing Hitler to divert troops from the eastern front to replace Italian troops withdrawn from the Balkans, nudge Turkey toward joining the Allies, and allow the seizure of ports and bases necessary for launching assaults against the Balkans and southern Europe. At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Churchill pressed for the Italian campaign and earned Roosevelt’s endorsement of the strategy.

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Roosevelt believed a delay in the French landing provided additional time for the buildup in England. Marshall strongly disagreed, saying that Italy was a “dead-end” campaign and that the new Italian strategy was “periphery pecking.” Continuing to fight in the Mediterranean would dissipate AngloAmerican strength, he believed, and achieve no significant strategic purpose. He argued that the Mediterranean was in danger of becoming “a suction cup that would lead to interminable dissipation of effort in that inappropriate theater.”12 It would draw away troops and supplies and jeopardize crosschannel plans. A compromise between the United States and Great Britain was reached at the Casablanca Conference. The British agreed to the second front in France for May 1944, and the United States agreed to the invasion of Sicily and Italy to be launched in the summer of 1943. To counter the suction effect that General Marshall warned about, a limit was put on Allied troop strength for the attack on Italy. The long-delayed French landing was fi nally put on a defi nite schedule. The Allied strategy of delaying a French landing was putting strains on the Grand Alliance. Stalin never regarded the landings in North Africa and Sicily as true second fronts. Relations worsened even further in March 1943 when the Allies postponed all convoys to Russia by the northern route as too risky and also decided to support the Mediterranean operation, which Stalin opposed. Alternative routes for Lend-Lease supplies to Russia were less successful in delivering supplies, and relations with Russia now fell to a new low. Complicating the war situation was the incredible fact that after victory in North Africa, the United States and Britain did not fight for months (April, May, and June 1943) prior to the invasion of Sicily, even while Russia was engaging Germany by itself. Stalin continued to ask when the second front would take place in France. North Africa, he claimed, had not been a real second front to help Russia. Neither the brief expedition into Sicily nor the deliberately limited campaign in Italy had eased the pressure on Russia. Stalin even worried the West was plotting to quit the war. Partly to reassure Stalin that there would be no separate peace with Germany, the United States proclaimed the doctrine of “unconditional surrender”: Germany would have to surrender everywhere at the same time and with no preconditions. In the summer of 1943 following the Allied invasion of Sicily, Benito Mussolini was replaced by Italian military chief Marshall Pietro Badoglio as head of state. Soon after Italy’s surrender to the Allies, it actually joined the

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war against Hitler. It was not a major factor as a new ally to the West, and the only significant role this former enemy played was through the Italian partisans. Mussolini, who had been arrested by his fellow Italians, was rescued by Hitler and put in charge of a puppet government in northern Italy and remained a minor factor for the duration of the war. Hitler now poured troops into Italy, and the Italian campaign was to be fought between an Anglo-American force and the Germans. The war against Germany was clearly shifting in favor of the Allies by 1943. Along with the Allied victories in North Africa and Stalingrad by early 1943, the war in the Atlantic had also turned. Britain had broken the latest German code, giving it vital information about submarine operations. New U.S. escort carriers were now available, containing many planes that could sink the subs as they surfaced (German subs had to surface for air after only a brief time underwater). With the new carriers, containing longer-range planes, the United States had closed the midocean “air gap” that had aided the subs so much. Germany afterward developed a sub that could stay under the water for long periods of time, but it arrived too late in the war to make a difference. Improved sonar and radar also made it easier to track the subs, and in May 1943 alone, forty-three German subs were sunk. Recognizing “we had lost the Battle of the Atlantic,”13 Admiral Doenitz ordered all but a handful of his subs out of the North Atlantic on May 24. The United States could now move troops and supplies to Europe virtually unhindered. Germany’s defeat in the Atlantic came in the same month as the fi nal Allied victory in North Africa. For his success here, Eisenhower was named the commander of the upcoming Italian invasion and promoted to four-star general. His career continued its meteoric rise; this promotion preceding his subsequent appointment as commander of the Normandy landing the following year. His leading subordinates, General Patton and British general Bernard Montgomery, actually led the invasion of Sicily in the summer of 1943, the greatest amphibious operation in recorded history until surpassed at Normandy in 1944. Both Patton and Montgomery were already famous generals. Patton, who had previously served under the overall U.S. commander General John Pershing in World War I, had distinguished himself in North Africa. General Montgomery had earlier defeated General Rommel in Egypt and had turned the tide in the North African campaign. The invasion of Sicily was less bloody than the North African campaign as Germany and Italy soon withdrew from this island into Italy, and

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resistance was limited. When the Sicilian campaign ended in mid-1943, the Allies began to transfer troops from the Mediterranean to England to get ready for Normandy. Italy and the Mediterranean had become secondary to the French landing. The Allied strategy was to use Italy as a lure to force the enemy to commit a maximum number of divisions in Italy at the time the cross-channel landing invasion was being launched. The strategy was successful; the Allies later estimated that about one-third of the German strength in the West was employed in Italy, a key factor in the success at Normandy. From mid-October 1943 to mid-March 1945, the Germans almost always outnumbered the Allies in Italy. Throughout 1944–45, the Germans never had fewer than twenty-four and as many as twenty-eight well-trained divisions there. Allied progress was slow and bloody in Italy because of the heavy concentration of German forces here as well as the Allies’ unwillingness to dedicate more troops to this front. Consequently, the Italian front held out almost until the end of the war; Italy surrendered to the West only one week before the overall surrender of German forces in Europe and long after the successful invasion of France. Throughout 1943, the British continued to raise doubts concerning the French landing, even as their oft-promoted Italian campaign had bogged down. Churchill believed that a failed channel attack could cost the Allies the war and that the risk that the invasion would fail was substantial. England, as it had since the beginning of the war, favored a French landing only if German military power had significantly deteriorated. The United States challenged the British position, stating that a crosschannel attack from England was the best way of getting to the heart of Germany. The U.S. military buildup in England had gone on for some time, and pressure from Stalin was intense. A more ambitious Italian campaign also presented enormous problems. Supplying a French landing was much easier than equipping an enlarged Italian campaign. Furthermore, the terrain in Italy was more difficult to fight on than the terrain in France. When the Sicilian campaign ended in mid-1943, the Allies began to transfer troops from the Mediterranean to England to get ready for Normandy. Churchill’s repeated calls for caution regarding the earlier agreed upon French landing had been overruled. The air war over Germany, like the Italian campaign, was another front that was not going well by 1943. The U.S. bombing campaign in Europe had begun earlier in August 1942 with raids against railroad yards in France. By

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the time of the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, not a single bomber had yet penetrated German air space. In mid-August 1943, the United States began deep-penetration raids in Germany, which unfortunately were very costly and accomplished little. The Allies had originally hoped the air attacks would extinguish German industrial production, thus starving Germany into submission. By early 1944, however, improved U.S. bombers were changing the outcome of bombing raids. In February 1944, the United States successfully conducted a deadly bombing raid on German aircraft factories, in contrast to the earlier failed raids of 1943. Germany suffered heavy losses here, an indication that the Allies had won the European air war. Impressed with this seemingly painless attack on the Axis, the British revived their earlier calls for an intense air war as a substitute for the French landing. Eisenhower rejected this strategy, believing it would take longer to achieve victory and would negatively affect Russian morale. The proposed French landing continued to be a major irritant between Stalin and the Western allies throughout 1943 and early 1944. At the Teheran Conference in November 1943, Stalin brushed aside the Italian campaign as diversionary and insisted that the only real second front must come in a cross-channel invasion. He complained that there had been no genuine second front in 1942 or 1943. The Allied offensives in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, he believed, were merely diversions from what had to be done. Stalin reminded his allies: “The Red Army had sustained millions of casualties compared with which the sacrifices of the Anglo-American armies are insignificant.”14 Just as Stalin was suspicious of the Allies’ true intentions behind the delay in the French landing, the British had similar fears of Soviet intentions. Churchill continued to urge more operations in the Mediterranean rather than a French landing in part because he feared a permanent Russian occupation of eastern Europe. He felt a better strategy for the Allies was to be more engaged in the fighting farther east in Europe and thus contain Stalin. Churchill’s fears about Stalin were not unrealistic. In late 1943, the Soviet leader had indicated to Marshall Josip Tito of Yugoslavia: “Whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise.”15 This was an early forewarning from Stalin himself of the future Cold War division of Europe.

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The Teheran Conference of November 1943 was the fi rst joint meeting of the Big Three Allied leaders. At the conference, Stalin impressed his British and American counterparts as a formidable negotiator. Churchill described him as “remarkably astute,” and leading American diplomat Averill Harriman noted his “shrewdness,” “high intelligence,” and “fantastic grasp of detail.” Harriman wrote that Stalin was “better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic than Churchill . . . as well as a murderous tyrant.”16 It would not be easy for Roosevelt to charm such a man into being cooperative with the West. Churchill was especially concerned with the results of the Teheran Conference. Stalin had agreed to join the Pacific war after Germany was defeated, and the United States and Britain would fi nally make the French invasion in May 1944. The most troublesome issue at the conference was Poland and the fate of eastern Europe. The Soviets had taken an extremely fi rm position on this matter, stating that Russia’s borders (especially referring to Poland) were no more to be discussed than California’s. Because Roosevelt had agreed to move Poland’s borders to the west and thus allow Russia to annex Polish lands, Stalin left Teheran confident that the West would not interfere with his plans to take over eastern Europe. He also expected the United States to return to its isolationist stance after the war, as it had after World War I. Should the United States choose to remain aloof from Europe after the war, Churchill predicted a dire future for the region. With Germany broken, Britain enfeebled, and a U.S. withdrawal across the sea, Europe at war’s end would be prostrate and helpless before Soviet power. With its huge army and intentions to occupy eastern Europe, Churchill feared Russia would remain the only great power on the European continent. He worried that Roosevelt had agreed to Soviet domination of Poland and the Baltic states at Teheran, and these fears further reinforced Churchill’s desire to shift the U.S.–British fighting farther east to contain Russia after the war. Like Stalin but for very different reasons, Hitler was aware of the huge stakes involved in the French landing. Despite his catastrophic defeats in Russia in 1943, he continued to stress an all-out stand in the West, where he believed the danger was greatest. Although the war in the East was not going well for Germany, Hitler refused to weaken his western forces to strengthen the eastern front. In November 1943, he noted: “The threat from the East remains but an even greater danger looms in the West. In the East, the vastness of space will, as a last resort, permit a loss of territory even on a major

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scale, without suffering a mortal blow to Germany’s chances for survival. [But] in the West, if the enemy here succeeds in penetrating our defenses on a wide front, consequences of staggering proportions will follow within a short time.”17 For Hitler, a defeat of the French landing would yield enormous benefits. In the spring of 1944, Germany believed a victory in the West could release about 45 percent of the strength it had kept there to await the invasion. These soldiers could then be transferred to the East to deal with the growing menace on the Russian front. A defeat of the French landing could possibly solve Germany’s problems in Russia as well as protect its conquests in western Europe. Once the United States decided to proceed with the French landing, the selection of a commander concerned the president. He had to choose either his brilliant strategist General Marshall or his battle-tested field commander General Eisenhower. It had been widely assumed that General Marshall would command the Normandy landing and that Eisenhower would return to Washington to take Marshall’s place. Roosevelt stated that Marshall was “entitled to his place in history as a great general.”18 The president was advised, however, by several key military people, such as retired General John Pershing, chief of naval operations Admiral Ernest King, and chief of the air force General Henry Arnold that Marshall was too valuable to shift to a new position. Roosevelt agreed, and in December 1943 he told Marshall: “I don’t feel I could sleep at ease if you were out of Washington.”19 General Eisenhower was chosen instead to lead the Normandy operation, the decision resting on Eisenhower’s successes in the Mediterranean area. General Montgomery was named to command the British forces at Normandy, and General Bradley became the field commander of the Americans. The leading generals fi nally had been selected for the much-debated and long-delayed French invasion. To defend against the expected Allied landing, Hitler had ordered the construction of the Atlantic Wall, a string of German coastal defenses. Hitler wished to destroy the invasion force on the beaches so that Roosevelt and Churchill would be politically fi nished, and the Allies would never dare launch another invasion of France. Such a victory would dramatically reverse Germany’s declining position in the war. The actual defense of France was left to two of Hitler’s most trusted generals, Erwin Rommel and Gerd Von Runstadt. However, the two German

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commanders could not agree on a single strategy for opposing the Allies. Rommel, like Hitler, wished to defeat the landing on the beaches. Von Runstadt urged instead an attack on the Allies with a mobile reserve force once the landing was already made. Despairing of defending adequately his entire coastal sector and wary of a feint, he proposed to let the invaders come ashore and then to massively counterattack. Both strategies had major weaknesses. Von Runstadt challenged the Rommel strategy by asking on which beaches the Allies would attack. Rommel countered by asking how Von Runstadt would rush in reinforcements after the landing was secure, considering that the enemy controlled the air space and had been steadily bombing rail and transportation facilities. Rommel was particularly concerned about the Americans’ great advantage in men and material reserves. If Germany did not stop them on the beaches, American numerical and material superiority would play itself out in a relentless war of attrition, pitting the exhausted Germans against wave after wave of fresh manpower and the unlimited output of American factories. Germany attempted to merge these confl icting ideas, and both the Rommel and the Von Runstadt strategies were employed unsuccessfully on D-Day. The test of these two strategies came on June 6, 1944, with the longawaited Normandy invasion (Operation Overlord). This was the beginning of the fi nal phase of the war in Europe. The strategy behind Overlord was to defeat Germany in two phases. There would be a surprise landing, use of air power to stop German reinforcements, and the taking of a base farther inland. About three months later, following the landing of an additional million Allied troops with unlimited supplies, there would be a fi nal drive toward Germany. The Allies considered two landing sites: Calais and Normandy. Calais was closer to England and Germany’s industrial heartland, but Normandy had larger beach areas to support a landing. Fortunately, the Germans did not know where the Allies would strike. They expected the invasion to come at Calais, persuading them to keep a strong force there. The Allies had successfully decoyed the Germans through mock preparations and phony maneuvers, and the Germans awaited a landing at Calais that never came. On the eve of the landing in Normandy, there was a near crisis inaugurated by the Americans themselves when a major general revealed the date and place at a cocktail party and was subsequently sent home with a demotion to the rank of colonel. The fact that he had been

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a classmate of Eisenhower did not save him. The Germans never learned of this indiscretion, and the Normandy secret remained safe. There were extensive preliminary actions needed to ensure the success of Normandy. Massive bombing raids were undertaken to destroy the German air force, oil supplies, as well as rail systems and bridges. As Rommel had feared, U.S. control of the air made it difficult for Germany to move in reinforcements after the invasion began. Months of attacks on the German air force prior to June 6 had made it virtually nonexistent and completely impotent on D-Day. French resistance fighters also helped by destroying bridges and rail systems. Just before the attack, the 82nd and 101st Airborne had landed paratroopers behind enemy lines to further prevent a German counteroffensive. The intricate Allied planning prior to D-Day rendered an effective German response to the landing almost impossible. Eisenhower chose June 6 as the invasion day because of weather, supply, and element-of-surprise considerations. The landing, originally planned for May 1944, had been postponed one month to bring in more equipment. On the eve of the invasion, he commanded a force of 2,760,000 men and had gathered an invasion fleet exceeding 6,000 vessels, 5 million tons of supplies and munitions, and more than 100,000 vehicles. Operation Bolero, the long buildup in England, had reached enormous levels. The fi rst day of the Normandy invasion was a success. The German commander Von Runstadt asked the German high command for reinforcements, but Hitler was sleeping at Berschtesgarden, his vacation retreat, and was not to be disturbed. In the early crucial hours of Normandy, no German relief operations were ordered. By nightfall of June 6, more than 100,000 men had landed. Even in the decisive three weeks immediately after D-Day, Hitler refused to transfer divisions from Calais that could have been used to relieve Normandy. Although German air and naval forces had been ineffective on D-Day, they made desperate attempts afterward to check the tremendous flow of men and materials across the channel. In the days and weeks that followed, the Nazis rushed approximately 1,000 planes from Germany and Italy to bomb the beaches at Normandy but failed to change the situation. The Allies successfully held the beach area, and the buildup continued. By July 4, the Allies had landed 1 million men along with overwhelming amounts of equipment.

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Rommel’s concerns about the number of U.S. soldiers and material advantages were repeated by other Germans after the Normandy landing. One officer despaired: “Every night we know that we have cut them to pieces, infl icted heavy casualties, mowed down their transport. But in the morning, we are suddenly faced with fresh battalions, with complete replacements of men, machines, food, tanks, and weapons. This happens day after day.”20 The sheer amount of American ordinance and fi repower, which simply overwhelmed the Germans, seemed endless. Part of Hitler’s response to the Allied landings was the launching of his new miracle weapons from heavily defended bases in northern Europe, albeit with limited effect. Less than a week after D-Day, Germany initiated raids by the V-1, a small pilotless plane. Of about 10,000 V-1s targeting London, less than one-quarter reached the target area. Beginning in August 1944, the Germans began launching their second miracle weapon, the V-2 rocket. These rockets dealt out less punishment than the V-1, which itself was much less destructive than conventional bombing from air attacks. Hitler’s hopes for his new weapons went largely unfulfi lled, and Germany was forced to deal with the Allies by using conventional weapons. Until late in June, Nazi leaders still believed that the Allies planned to open a second front in the Calais area. They had been misled by a phony armament buildup in England to believe that an assault led by Patton would soon land here. The destruction of the harbor at Cherbourg contributed to this misconception because the Germans were unaware that the Allies were able to construct artificial harbors in the Normandy area. The artificial harbors would serve temporarily until the main port of Cherbourg, totally demolished by Germany, was rebuilt. The rebuilding was soon accomplished, and the port was considered 75 percent rehabilitated by mid-September 1944. By July 1, three weeks after the initial landings, the fi rst phase of the invasion came to an end. Germany had failed to smash the invasion with a decisive counterattack before the Allies were fi rmly established, and this failure would be critical to its fate in the war. The Germans had been frustrated by expectations of an attack at Calais, the bombed conditions of the French railroads, and the massive Allied air attacks. With the Allies fi rmly entrenched at Normandy, both Rommel and Von Runstadt were convinced that Germany could not drive out the invaders and probably had lost the war. The Allies’ next task was to break out from the beaches and sweep across France. After weeks of being pinned down in the beach area, the

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Allies found a weak link in the Axis defenses at St. Lo. To achieve the breakout, more than 2,000 bombers laid down a bomb carpet in a five-squaremile area. On July 25, St. Lo was captured, infl icting a major defeat on the Germans and allowing the Allies to advance toward the Seine River. After the United States cracked the defensive ring that the Germans had installed around Normandy, Eisenhower’s chief of staff, General Walter Bedell Smith, stated: “It was almost unbelievable that the German high command would have let the bulk of its forces in France be maneuvered into such a desperate situation.”21 Hitler’s refusal to permit a retreat led to the capture of 91,000 Germans and the loss of vast amounts of equipment. A rapid sweep across France followed the breakout at St. Lo, and the war turned ominous for Hitler. German general Günther Von Kluge stated: “Catastrophe is inevitable.”22 The successful Allied invasion at Normandy also convinced other German officers that the war had been lost and that it was necessary to murder Hitler to end the confl ict. On July 20, the conspirators launched an unsuccessful plot to kill Hitler. A bomb placed by a trusted German officer, Colonel Klaus Von Stauffenberg, failed to kill the Nazi leader. Originally placed near a heavy wooden table where Hitler was seated, the bomb was pushed under the table, which partially shielded Hitler, who was wounded but not killed by the blast. When Stauffenberg and the other plotters were rounded up and killed, other German army officers became afraid to try again. Under suspicion from Hitler of complicity in the attempt to kill him, such high-ranking generals as Von Kluge and Rommel committed suicide soon afterward, and a possibility of ending the war quickly had vanished. Even at this critical point in the European war, a major controversy over strategy occurred between Roosevelt and Churchill. The United States favored a second landing in southern France (Operation Anvil) to hasten the Nazi defeat in the West. Churchill opposed this landing, fearing it would weaken the Italian campaign. The British leader was also still considering postwar Soviet gains in Europe. As he had done earlier, he proposed instead an alternative landing in the Balkans to supplement the Italian campaign, which could halt Russian expansion into eastern Europe. Urging this new strategy, Churchill declared: “Why weaken a successful campaign in Italy when you can have two successful campaigns [Italy and France]?”23 He claimed Operation Anvil would weaken the Allies’ ability to contain Soviet expansion in Europe. Churchill felt it was better to keep the Allied troops in

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Italy, move northward, and strike toward Berlin and central Europe with the aim of containing Soviet expansion after the war. President Roosevelt opposed the idea, stating: “I agree that the political considerations you [Churchill] mention are important factors but most important is the striking at the heart of Germany.” The president added: “I should never survive even a slight setback to Overlord if it were known that fairly large forces had been diverted to the Balkans.”24 The Americans were adamant that the French campaign would not be weakened or changed. General Eisenhower also rejected the new British strategy, stressing that Operation Anvil would keep the Germans in southern France from resisting Overlord and would set up a new supply line for the Americans. Eisenhower stated that Churchill’s idea was a political matter rather than a military one and might prolong the war. With support from Marshall and Roosevelt, Eisenhower overruled Churchill’s idea. His decision reaffi rmed the U.S. priority in winning the war as soon as possible over the containment of Soviet Russia afterward. The war was turning disastrous for Germany on both the eastern and western fronts by the summer of 1944. By July, Russia had made huge advances over Germany and was now in Poland. The Allied landing in southern France begun on August 15 was also a great success, linking up with Overlord within a month and leading to the capture of more than 80,000 German prisoners. Hitler was now being squeezed from both sides in a twofront war he had always dreaded. In the Falaise campaign that followed the breakout at St. Lo, the Germans suffered extremely heavy casualties. (Falaise was a region in France between St. Lo and Paris.) Describing the German disaster, Eisenhower stated: “The battlefield of Falaise was one of the greatest killing grounds of any of the war areas. . . . It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.”25 With the Allied success at Falaise and the consequent widening of Allied operations, the battle for Normandy had been won with Germany suffering losses of approximately 450,000 men. In the Allied sweep across France that followed, Paris was liberated on August 25. Fortunately, the German commander General Dietrich Von Choltitz deliberately disobeyed orders by Hitler to destroy the bridges and other important sites around the city, agreeing instead to surrender Paris to the Allies. In a surprising comment from a Nazi leader, General Choltitz

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claimed afterward that “history would not forgive him for destroying such a beautiful city.”26 Some Allied leaders became overly optimistic in light of the heavy German losses, even predicting that organized resistance was unlikely to continue beyond December 1, 1944, and could end even sooner. General Marshall shared in the euphoria, declaring: “Cessation of hostilities in the war against Germany may occur at any time.”27 He predicted an end would probably come between September 1 and November 1, 1944. Eight months ahead of schedule, the British and Americans were now approaching the frontiers of Germany, defended by the Siegfried Line (also known as the West Wall). In the three months since Normandy, Germany had suffered staggering losses but was not about to surrender. Between the French invasion and the continued bombing of the German cities, the Allies had infl icted 1.2 million casualties. Yet Germany had more than 10 million men in uniform, and its factories were still very productive. Germany did not collapse immediately after Normandy but instead reorganized along the Siegfried Line on the German–French border. In September 1944, after the breakout at St. Lo and the victory in the Falaise Valley, Eisenhower proposed a general advance of all Allied armies toward the Rhine River. He ordered Montgomery to advance toward the Ruhr Valley, a heavily industrialized area in northern Germany, and Patton to advance toward the other great industrial center, the Saar Basin, in the south. They would advance together as part of a broad front. To implement this strategy, it was necessary to secure the Belgian city of Antwerp as a supply port for the Allied armies, making possible the setting up of supply lines across France. By September 1944, the stage was being set for a major campaign into Germany. Germany was regrouping desperately to withstand the assault on the Siegfried Line, a defensive line with troop shelters and pillboxes that was three miles deep. In the East, the German armies were being defeated by the Russians and local guerrilla fighters. With the Allied and Russian forces advancing, Germany was about to be invaded on both sides. Germany decided to rescue itself from its desperate situation by a surprise counterattack that would attempt to capture the main Allied supply port of Antwerp. The British had taken Antwerp in September 1944, but the supply port was not yet operational. In late 1944, Hitler laid plans for an offensive to the west through the Ardennes Forest, with Antwerp as the

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ultimate goal. With the port in German hands, the Allies’ supply problems might cause a halt to their advance toward Germany. At this point, a negotiated peace with the West might still be possible for Germany, thus allowing Hitler to turn his full attention to the Soviet Union. On December 16, Hitler launched the Battle of the Bulge with a surprise attack through the lightly defended Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxemburg. In this greatest land battle on the western front in World War II, Hitler gathered all his reserves and sent twenty-nine German divisions to attack thirty-three opposing Allied divisions. At the battle’s peak, the Germans created a short-lived bulge in American lines that was seventy miles wide and fi fty miles deep, causing panic throughout the Allied ranks. The city of Bastogne in Belgium, which became a famous symbol of resistance against the Germans, was surrounded but stubbornly refused to surrender. Germany’s gains were short-lived, and the Allies retook the original lines by January 31, 1945. Despite initial success in the Bulge campaign, Germany’s defeat was actually hastened because of its now-depleted reserves. Germany’s situation was declining rapidly after Hitler’s desperate gamble failed. By the second week in January, the Battle of the Bulge was over. Although it had delayed the Allied assault on Germany for at least six weeks, it could not reverse Germany’s fortunes. More than 76,000 U.S. casualties and more than 100,000 German casualties had resulted, making it the costliest battle of the war in terms of American lives and the bloodiest battle in U.S. history. The air war, which had been accelerating since the Normandy landing, especially targeting fuel, food, and transportation facilities, also made Germany’s continuation in the war more difficult. In January 1945, Armaments Minister Albert Speer warned Hitler of major problems in heavy industry and the production of weapons. Two months later he told Hitler that the situation had worsened and that the German economy was headed for an inevitable collapse within four to eight weeks. Some of the air attacks were directed against civilian rather than military or economic targets. On February 3, a massive air raid on Berlin by nearly 1,000 planes killed 25,000 people. Ten days later the raid on Dresden ignited a fi restorm that killed 35,000 people. In destroying Germany’s ability to wage war, the air attacks were also killing massive numbers of civilians. By early February, victory over Germany was in sight. Russia had overrun much of eastern Europe and had launched its fi nal assault on Germany,

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which ultimately culminated in the climactic battle of Berlin. England and the United States had recovered from the Battle of the Bulge and were about to cross into Germany from the west. On March 7, the United States captured a bridge at Remagen across the Rhine, extremely important because the other Rhine bridges had been destroyed. (Hitler executed those who failed to blow up this remaining bridge before its capture by the Americans.) U.S. troops now poured into central Germany. By the end of March, the United States had taken the Siegfried Line and cleared the Saar Basin of enemy forces, depriving the Germans of one of their most important industrial areas. In early April, the United States reached the Elbe River, its agreed meeting point with the Russian forces. Later that month the United States ran out of strategic targets to bomb in Germany and suspended the air war. Eisenhower captured the Ruhr Valley by April 18 and a few days later linked up with the Russians. The elimination of the Ruhr Pocket by Eisenhower ended significant fighting by large bodies of German troops with the Americans. The battle for western Europe was all but over, although the war would continue until the Russians took Berlin and Hitler was dead. The taking of Berlin became yet another controversy for the Allies. After capturing the Ruhr Valley, Eisenhower skipped Berlin, despite objections from the British. Churchill again was looking at the postwar political situation and the need to contain Russia, whereas Eisenhower (backed by Roosevelt) was considering the shortest way to end the war. Eisenhower claimed a Berlin attack would be very costly, possibly resulting in 100,000 Allied casualties. His prediction was accurate: Russia’s Berlin campaign cost tens of thousands of lives. The fi nal German collapse in May followed several abortive efforts to surrender to the West before its armed forces were totally defeated. The Allies realized these German initiatives were attempts to divide the antiGerman coalition and rejected them. In January 1945, Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop was involved with secret efforts to make a deal with the Allies. In February, the German commander in Italy tried to make a separate peace. In April 1945, one of Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler’s staff members unsuccessfully attempted to arrange a separate peace in the West. Following the death of Hitler on April 30, his successor, Admiral Karl Doenitz, also attempted to arrange a separate peace with the West but failed. Finally, on May 7 and again on May 8, Germany signed a formal surrender with all the Allies, ending the bloodiest war in European history.

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Any assessment of the Allied victory in Europe must focus on the enormous U.S. effort in the confl ict. Unlike the situation in World War I, when the U.S. role was relatively small, the reconquest of western Europe in World War II saw a predominant U.S. contribution. Churchill’s prediction following Pearl Harbor on the importance of American power had been proven correct. However, the Allied victory was still incomplete because the Pacific war raged on. World War II began for the Americans in the Pacific and only reached its fi nal climax with victory over Japan several months after the defeat of Germany.

War in the Pacific was merely a partial triumph over the Axis powers, and only after a defeat of Japan in September 1945 was the world fi nally at peace. The war in the Pacific represented the culmination of a series of controversies between the United States and Japan dating back to the early 1900s. Even though U.S.–Japanese relations improved after World War I, American military planners had already begun to consider the possibility of war with this rising Pacific power. Relations between the two nations soured during the 1930s when a more militant government came to power in Japan. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 initiated a sharp decline in relations between these future antagonists, which lasted throughout the decade. The Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, followed years of failed efforts to resolve foreign policy differences between the two powers, igniting a war that would last more than three and a half years. Knowing that its expansionist policy might lead to war, Japan had been rearming for years during the 1930s and would be a formidable enemy should a war with the United States break out. By the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, its army contained more than 5 million fully and partially trained soldiers, matched against approximately 350,000 poorly equipped U.S. troops in the Pacific. However, the United States was much better prepared with its navy than its ground forces. When the war began, the United States had seventeen battleships, six aircraft carriers, and thirty-two cruisers, distributed about equally between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The Japanese had ten battleships, nine aircraft carriers, and forty-six cruisers, all stationed in the western Pacific. Helping the Japanese was the fact that the United States was engaged in a two-front war and was not willing to commit more

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than 15 to 30 percent of its overall war effort to the Pacific war. This tilt toward Europe reflected U.S. military thinking that Nazi Germany was the more dangerous enemy. With the Pacific military balance clearly in its favor, Japan was optimistic about the war’s outcome. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was central to its strategy to defeat the Americans. Japan had decided on a plan—known as the Southern Operation—to attack the East Asian mainland and various Pacific islands that it had long desired to dominate and gain access to their natural resources. When it was warned by the United States to leave its neighbors alone, relations seriously deteriorated. Japan then concluded that to succeed with the Southern Operation, it must fi rst destroy the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. With the attack so carefully planned, Japan was very confident of success, believing that the “decadent self-indulgent Americans had no stomach for war’s hardship” and would be so traumatized by Pearl Harbor that they would quickly sue for peace.1 For Japan, the possible consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor were enormous. Admiral Isaroku Yamamoto, who had studied at Harvard in the 1920s, was in charge of the operation. He knew the vast U.S. industrial base and large population would make the United States a formidable foe in a fight and probably an invincible one if the confl ict were prolonged. Yamamoto, who had fought in Japan’s great victory at Tsushima Straits during the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, felt that success at Pearl Harbor might persuade the United States to accept Japanese domination over China and the Pacific. At a minimum, he hoped that crippling the U.S. Pacific fleet would buy time for Japan’s war strategy to go forward unmolested and allow Japan to consolidate its hold on the soon-to-be conquered areas in Southeast Asia and the western Pacific. He also knew that a surprise Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor might so enrage the Americans that they would continue fighting until Japan was totally defeated. Yamamoto realized that Japan’s resources were limited and that unless it could bring the United States to the peace table in a reasonably short time, a prolonged struggle would work against it. Although fighting a seemingly endless war in China since 1937, the Japanese were confident of victory in a major war with the West. Its future enemies, the United States and England, faced the challenge of fighting on multiple fronts. In addition to fighting the Axis powers in western Europe, they had to project their power between 6,000 and 12,000 miles from the home countries. Japan’s military leaders believed that once Japan dominated

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the entire Far East, the Allies, who were operating at the end of long supply lines and lacking well-developed advance bases, would fi nd reconquest difficult and perhaps impossible. Japan would then have achieved its goal, a negotiated peace that would give it a free hand in East Asia and the western Pacific island groups. Pearl Harbor was only the initial step in an elaborate war strategy developed by Japan. Japan envisioned a rapid conquest of the nearby lands needed for raw materials as well as protection of its new empire with a defensive circle of bases involving island chains that ringed the Japanese homeland. Japan’s basic plan was divided into three parts: phase one included neutralization of the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, seizure of the southern regions (the Philippines, Borneo, the Moluccas, Celebes, Timur, Java, Sumatra, Thailand, and Borneo—areas extremely rich in raw materials), and establishment of a defensive perimeter to protect these regions and the Japanese homeland. Japan achieved this goal by the spring of 1942. The last two parts of the strategy involved protecting Japan’s newly acquired empire. Phase two consisted of the consolidation and strengthening of the perimeter with a string of fortified bases extending through various island groups in the Pacific. The third phase embraced the interception and destruction of any attacking force that might attempt to penetrate the defensive perimeter and the waging of a defensive war against the United States, its main antagonist. Japan’s objectives were limited to dominating the western Pacific island groups and the East Asian mainland, and it had no plans to invade either the United States or Australia. The only real threat to the Japanese war plan was the U.S. Pacific fleet based at Pearl Harbor. In the west, Japan was protected by its occupation of the China coast. In the north, it was protected by the neutralization of the Soviet Union through the 1941 Nonaggression Pact with Stalin and later by the German assault on the Soviet Union. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor seemed to resolve the last remaining threat to Japan’s planned Pacific empire. Although concentrating on defeating Hitler, the United States also planned for a long struggle that would eventually wear down the Japanese. Central to the plan, developed by General Eisenhower before his deployment to the European command, was to keep open the Pacific line of communications with Australia and establish a base there. If the Allies were driven out of the Philippines and Singapore, they would fall back on the East Indies and Australia and, with the cooperation of China, strike good counterblows

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at Japan’s more distant holdings. The United States would eventually strike at Japan’s defensive ring of bases before reconquest of that nation’s newly acquired empire. In the early months of the war, the Japanese war strategy seemed to be working. After initiating the confl ict, Japan moved so far so rapidly that it soon accomplished its goals and even threatened Australia. Despite the main U.S. strategy to concentrate on Germany and Operation Bolero (the military buildup in England), the Pacific war during 1942 got considerably more support than originally planned. A worried U.S. military command was forced to concentrate in the Southwest Pacific in the fi rst two years of the war in order to keep its lifeline to Australia open, even at the risk of delaying its assault on Nazi Germany. Roosevelt was especially concerned about the possible loss of the vital U.S. command center in Australia and ordered all available resources to the Pacific in early 1942. The leading American general in the Pacific war was Douglas MacArthur, an experienced officer with many years of service in the Far East. General MacArthur had been an observer of the Japanese army as far back as the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. He had also served as leader of the 42nd Division in World War I, superintendent of West Point (at the age of thirty-nine), chief of staff of the U.S. Army from 1929 to 1935, and field marshal of the Philippine army. He was recalled to active duty from his earlier retirement and made co-commander, with Admiral Chester Nimitz, of the U.S. Pacific command in 1941. Immediately after his new assignment, General MacArthur was confronted with the Japanese sweep across the Pacific. Within hours after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese struck in the Philippines. Its interest here was linked to a more important objective, the protection of the soon-to-be conquered Indonesia and its valuable oil resources. The Philippines itself had little to offer Japan, but its capture was necessary to keep the United States from using it as a base to attack the Japanese conquests. MacArthur’s defense of the Philippine islands proved to be nearly impossible. With the U.S. fleet virtually immobilized after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese in control of the waters surrounding the Philippines, the position of the American and Filipino defenders quickly declined, and it became extremely difficult for the United States to offer any help to the beleaguered islands. In the Philippine campaign, which lasted six months, the Japanese appeared invincible from the beginning. Striking fi rst against the U.S. Far

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East air force based in Manila, Japan succeeded in severely disabling the fleet of B-17 bombers. It then landed thousands of troops on the main island of Luzon, forcing the U.S. garrison to retreat to the island fortress of Corregidor. When the campaign seemed hopeless in March 1942, General MacArthur was evacuated to Australia on President Roosevelt’s orders. In April, many captured U.S. forces experienced the infamous Bataan Death March, an eighty-mile trek marked by the death of 600 Americans and 10,000 Filipinos along the way. Because Japan viewed surrender as the ultimate dishonor and inspiring total contempt for the captive, it felt justified in ill treating its prisoners. Approximately 40 percent of U.S. prisoners held by Japan during the war died in captivity, compared to less than 4 percent of those held by Germany or Italy.2 MacArthur’s replacement as commander in the Philippines, General Jonathan Wainwright, surrendered on May 6, and the Philippine campaign was over. The U.S. defeat in the Philippines was only one example of Allied desperation in the early weeks of the war. Simultaneous with the successful Philippines campaign, Japan was also capturing numerous other targets. Earlier, in December 1941, Hong Kong, British Borneo, Guam, and Wake Island had fallen to the Japanese, and Indochina, Malaya, and Burma had followed soon afterward. On February 15, 1942, the British colony of Singapore, known as the “Gibraltar of the East,” also surrendered. It was referred to as the worst defeat in the history of the British army; eighty-five thousand men surrendered to a Japanese force half its size. In late February 1942, Japan took the Indonesian island of Sumatra with its oil fields, the key goal of the Southern Operation. To a United States desperate to protect Australia, anxious to build up for the European war, and still reeling from the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese seemed unstoppable. In the weeks ahead, Japan further extended its conquests. By the end of March 1942, it had taken much of Burma, Borneo, and several of Indonesia’s islands, and now even India seemed open to invasion. In these early months of 1942, for the fi rst time since the War of 1812, Americans were experiencing wide and sustained military defeat at the hands of foreigners. Making the situation even worse, Japan’s victories had come at a relatively small cost. In the fi rst four months of the war, Japan had routed the American, British, and Dutch to gain all this land for its new empire with the loss of only 15,000 men, 380 aircraft, and 4 destroyers. Reflecting on Japan’s successes, President Roosevelt stated: “The Pacific situation is now very grave.”3

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The fall of the Philippines in May 1942 concluded the fi rst phase of the Southern Operation—the occupation of territories from Burma through the Dutch East Indies and exploitation of their natural resources, as well as the establishment of a defensive perimeter to protect Japan’s conquests. The next objective was to secure a more elaborate defensive perimeter to hold off the expected U.S. counteroffensive. Japan now set up bases off Australia’s northern coast to isolate and neutralize Australia. One of the most important, Rabaul, became a major air and naval base to anchor the southern end of the defensive perimeter. When Japan seized Rabaul, a fortified area not far from Australia, along with a chain of nearby islands, the Pacific defensive perimeter was established, and phase two was complete. From the Bay of Bengal near India to the Bering Sea off the Alaska coast, these waters were under Japanese control. In completing the fi rst two phases of the grand strategy with relative ease by the spring of 1942, the Japanese felt well on the road to victory. They had destroyed five enemy battleships, one carrier, two cruisers, seven destroyers, and a host of merchant ships—at minimal cost to themselves. Japan was so confident that instead of merely reinforcing phase two of the strategy—consolidation and strengthening of the original defense perimeter—it decided to attempt new conquests. The Japanese had achieved their initial goal of setting up the outer defense perimeter so quickly that they now adopted a more ambitious strategy. They decided to expand their conquests by advancing southward toward Australia with the goal of occupying the nearby islands of New Guinea, New Caledonia and Fiji, the Solomons, and Port Moresby, Papua. In this confident period, Japan was hoping to obtain a much larger empire to be protected by a wider defensive ring, perhaps close enough to threaten the vital U.S. position in Australia. Japan’s expansion received a jolt in May 1942 at the battle of the Coral Sea, where it was halted in a famous naval battle fought entirely in the air. Having cracked Japan’s code, the United States knew in advance of the coming attack. Incredibly in this “naval” battle, the ships involved were 175 miles apart and never saw each other. The battle of Coral Sea was a limited U.S. victory because the Japanese offensive was halted but not decisively crushed, forcing them to abandon plans for extending the defense perimeter. The decisive battle of Midway, one month after the Coral Sea engagement, was a much more serious defeat for Japan’s war plans and extremely important for the direction of the war. A surprise U.S. bombing raid on

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Tokyo in April 1942, which took place under the command of General James Doolittle, indirectly led to the battle of Midway two months later. On April 18, 1942, sixteen bombers took off from the carrier Hornet, 650 miles from Japan, and did minimal damage. Some of the pilots landed safely in China, but others were either captured and executed as war criminals or died in crashes. Japan mistakenly believed these planes came from Midway and reassessed its defensive strategy. It now felt the U.S.-controlled Midway Island as well as the Aleutians near Alaska constituted a threat to Japan and that the line of Japanese-held bases would have to be extended to include them. Admiral Yamamoto, the chief Japanese strategist and the driving force behind the Pearl Harbor attack, persuaded Japan to attack these strategic targets. He especially urged Japan to fi nish the job begun at Pearl Harbor by seizing Midway Island, some 1,100 miles west of Hawaii. At the same time, Japan would land on several of the Aleutians to set up additional Pacific bases. The reward for the capture of Midway, the far more important objective, would be enormous, possibly even victory in the Pacific war. Politically, Midway in Japanese hands would menace Hawaii with the threat of invasion, providing a potent bargaining chip with which to force the Americans into a negotiated settlement. Militarily, a Japanese presence on Midway would lure forth the remaining elements of the U.S. Pacific fleet for the “decisive battle.” Once Japan destroyed the Pacific fleet at Midway, it would have an unchallenged defensive perimeter across the Pacific. The Southern Operation would be secure, and Japan could then sue for a negotiated peace on terms it dictated. Victory seemed to be only one battle away. Ever since December 1941, Yamamoto had favored a campaign in the eastern Pacific, where he hoped to engage the remainder of the U.S. fleet in a fi nal, decisive battle. On May 27, the anniversary of Admiral Togo Heihachiro’s 1905 rout of the Russians in the Battle of Tsushima, a large Japanese fleet led by five carriers and eleven battleships advanced toward Midway, while another attack group, including two carriers, headed toward the Aleutians. The situation seemed promising for Japan because the much smaller U.S. fleet at Midway was spearheaded by only three carriers. The United States possessed an enormous advantage in planning that cancelled out the enemy’s numerical advantage. Having cracked the Japanese code prior to the attack, Admiral Nimitz and his staff were reading Yamamoto’s messages and, in the most important intelligence breakthrough of the Pacific war, learned of the impending attack. (In an incredible lapse

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of judgment shortly after the battle, the Chicago Tribune revealed that the United States had cracked the Japanese code, but this announcement fortunately went unnoticed by Japan.)4 On June 4, only one day after Japan landed unopposed in the Aleutians, its forces struck at Midway, but the smaller U.S. fleet was able to repel the invaders. In this second famous air battle at sea, the U.S. dive-bombers settled the issue in five fateful minutes. Japan lost three carriers immediately and a fourth carrier later that day as well as approximately one hundred trained pilots—far more serious than the U.S. loss of only one carrier. In its defeat at Midway, Japan lost four of the six carriers with which it had attacked Pearl Harbor six months earlier. Midway served as a turning point in the war, and the Japanese navy never again launched a major offensive. Any possibility of a second attack on Hawaii was gone. After the defeat at Midway, the Japanese canceled their plans to expand the empire and instead turned to strengthening the areas already occupied. With this victory, Admiral Nimitz broke the backbone of Japanese naval air power and enabled the United States to retain the strategically located air and naval base at Midway, regarded as second in importance only to Pearl Harbor. The battle also ended Japan’s hopes for a short war, and as Admiral Yamamoto had warned against prior to Pearl Harbor, Japan now faced the danger of a long war against an enemy with a much larger economy. Ominously for a naval power such as Japan, it produced only six large carriers in the next two years, in contrast to the sixteen that the United States produced. Yet despite the U.S. victory at Midway, Japan advanced elsewhere. It had already gained a foothold in the western Aleutians and, more important, now continued to consolidate its defense perimeter around its conquests. Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines fell at this time, completing Japan’s conquest of the Philippines. Japan was not close to defeat, and the United States would be hard-pressed for the next three years. After Midway, the United States went on the offensive for the fi rst time, attacking northern New Guinea and Guadalcanal in the Solomons. Guadalcanal was especially important and was the site of an important campaign that would last nearly a year. If Japan held this island, it could control the skies over crucial shipping lanes to Australia and possibly launch another advance into the Southwest. In U.S. hands, Guadalcanal could provide a

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toehold for a step-by-step advance toward Rabaul, the nearby fortified hub of all Japanese operations in the southwestern Pacific. In a campaign lasting from August 1942 through February 1943, the United States won a great victory in Guadalcanal in the southwestern Pacific. The island had originally been seized by Japan in May 1942 as a fi rst step in reaching its supreme goal in the Pacific: cutting the lifelines between the United States and Australia. In August 1942, the United States recaptured Guadalcanal to halt Japan’s southerly advance. Attaching great importance to its recovery, a Japanese official stated: “Success or failure in re-capturing Guadalcanal . . . is the fork in the road which leads to victory for them or for us.”5 The Guadalcanal campaign was one of the largest and most complicated American operations of the war. The U.S. attempt to take the island began ominously when on August 9, 1942, Japan sank four cruisers and killed more than 1,000 American sailors, making it one of the worst defeats in U.S. naval history. However, the campaign took a more favorable turn for the Americans two weeks later. On August 24, 1942, the battle for Guadalcanal featured the third great carrier battle (after Coral Sea and Midway) of the war. Three U.S. carrier fleets were involved in this attack on Guadalcanal, leading to the U.S. capture of the island that month. However, the U.S. hold on Guadalcanal was tenuous and by mid-October, Roosevelt was fearful that his troops might be driven off the island. Realizing the enormous stakes involved, General MacArthur declared: “If we are defeated in the Solomons . . . the outcome in the Southwest Pacific will be in gravest danger.”6 On October 24, Roosevelt asked the Joint Chiefs to send every possible weapon to Guadalcanal, even if other areas had to be stripped. The United States ultimately lost two carriers and eight cruisers in the battle for Guadalcanal and the Solomons but tenaciously held on. The victorious Guadalcanal campaign, which concluded in February 1943, featured six separate naval battles and three major land clashes on the island in a battle that affected the military balance in the Pacific war. The Japanese attempt to regain the initiative in the Pacific was halted once more, following their decisive defeat the previous year at Midway. An elated President Roosevelt declared: “We have hit the Japanese very hard in the Solomon Islands. . . . We have probably broken the backbone of their fleet.”7 By early 1943, the Japanese evacuated all their forces from Guadalcanal, one of their few retreats during the war.

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This defeat for Japan also permitted the United States to retain southern New Guinea, just north of Australia. By the beginning of 1943, the Allies, with their victories in Guadalcanal and southern New Guinea, had defi nitely wrested the initiative from the Japanese in the southern and southwestern Pacific war. Equally important, they also had solidified their hold on the main Allied base in Australia. Soon after the Guadalcanal defeat, the Japanese suffered another major loss when on April 18, 1943, Admiral Yamamoto’s plane was shot down over the Pacific. The United States had learned of the admiral’s fl ight plans by intercepting coded messages. It was feared that if the attack on the admiral’s plane were successful, Japan would discover that its code had been cracked by the Americans, so specific permission had to be obtained from President Roosevelt for the attack. After the Guadalcanal campaign, the United States expanded its operations to other islands nearby. By fall 1943, the United States had taken the central Solomons and was moving toward the northern islands in the chain. The United States was also moving along the coast of the large island of New Guinea. It was even threatening the major Japanese base at Rabaul. Japan’s hold on the southwestern Pacific was becoming more tenuous. Despite the victory at Guadalcanal, the major task of halting and reversing the Japanese advance in the South Pacific was delayed by the need to build up U.S. forces, which caused a lull in operations in the central Pacific for more than a year after Midway. Initially, all U.S. resources in the Pacific had to be employed to stop the Japanese advance in the Solomon Islands and eastern New Guinea. By late 1943, however, the tremendous production feats of U.S. industry provided sufficient resources for the United States to begin its own limited offensive. The United States was now ready to start whittling away Japan’s gains from early 1942, adopting an island-hopping campaign that would neutralize several key areas by bombing instead of invasion in order to reduce casualties. In contrast to the striking victories at Midway and Guadalcanal, the least successful phase of the Pacific war was in China. The United States was anxious to keep China in the war, both to engage Japanese troops and to serve as the launching pad for the fi nal invasion of Japan. The United States played a minimal role in the actual combat in China, its principal fighting here being done by General Claire Chennault’s volunteer pilots, known as the Flying Tigers.

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China did not fight well in the war mainly because it was poorly led and bitterly divided. The Chinese civil war between the Communists and the pro-American Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, had begun in the 1920s and predated the Japanese invasion of 1937. The beleaguered Chiang was fighting the Japanese and the Chinese Communists at the same time. The poorly organized Chinese army was actually a coalition of warlords holding positions through loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek rather than military ability. Loss of men in battle would reduce their payments from the Allies, so they had little interest in fighting. Although China never totally collapsed, its poor performance was strongly criticized by the United States throughout the war. A leading American adviser concluded that Chiang was content to leave the job of defeating the Japanese to the Americans as he accumulated U.S. money and weapons for the expected struggle with his Communist adversaries after the war. The Chinese Communists grew steadily stronger during the war; while Chiang was reeling from the Japanese onslaught, they were consolidating their power in northern China. In Chiang’s thinking, the Japanese were the lesser of two evils, and he failed to unite with the Communists to oppose them. He considered the Communists to be “a disease of the heart,” far more dangerous than the Japanese invaders, whom he regarded as a “disease of the skin.”8 As Chiang’s armies continued to fight poorly, China’s importance as the launching pad for an eventual invasion of Japan eroded. Japan was reeling from defeats in the Pacific, so its only victories were coming in China. When it won control of important Chinese bases in late 1944, China was no longer considered essential to the war against Japan. The United States was now convinced that the successful route to Japan would be through the Pacific rather than through China. U.S. advisers in China had already concluded that Chiang was hopeless as a military leader. The fi rst U.S. chief adviser to China, General Joseph Stilwell, derisively referred to him as “the peanut.” Stilwell’s successor in China, General Albert Wedemeyer, also despaired of Chiang’s government and lamented that there was a desperate need for leadership in China, perhaps requiring “a Disraeli, Churchill, and Machiavelli all combined in one.” 9 Elsewhere, the war was steadily improving for the Americans. As a result of U.S. military victories and a vast increase in weapons production, the U.S. strategy in the Pacific became far more offensive minded in 1944. The old

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strategy consisting of a holding operation around the vast Japanese defense perimeter or of a counteroffensive based on hopping from one island to the next, perhaps culminating in the long-planned major thrust through Burma and China toward an invasion of Japan, was replaced. The new strategy called for a massive amphibious operation sweeping across the western Pacific, outflanking and isolating big enemy bases, blockading the home islands by sea and air, and then closing in for the fi nal assault. Capitalizing on the enormous U.S. buildup in troops and supplies, MacArthur and Nimitz could now administer crushing blows against Japan. The more aggressive U.S. position in the war contrasted with Japan’s more conservative strategy during the preceding two years. The Japanese had been pursuing a defensive strategy since June 1942, mainly because their carrier group had been smashed at Midway, and replacements eroded away in later encounters. They were still hoping for the one big naval battle that could decide mastery of the central Pacific, and this critical moment would come when the Americans tried to penetrate the key defense perimeter. Japan’s chance for a decisive victory came in June 1944 in one of the great naval battles of the war—in the Marianas. These islands could affect the outcome of the war and were a tempting target to the Americans. Taking the Marianas was deemed necessary before an assault on the Philippines and actions closer to the home islands could occur. The major islands of the Marianas—Guam, Saipan, and Tinian— were big enough to serve as air and naval bases in penetrating the western Pacific. Only 1,600 miles from Tokyo, they were near enough for the B-29s to make round trips to Japan, making possible a major new phase of the war. The islands were a vital cog in the Japanese defense perimeter and coveted by the Americans, so their capture would not be easy. In June 1944, the Marianas campaign was launched, becoming the most ambitious operation by the United States against Japan in the Pacific yet. More than 127,000 troops were involved, along with more than five hundred warships and beaching crafts. Attacks were launched against Guam, Saipan, and Tinian (site of the A-bomb take-offs in 1945). The Japanese recognized the gravity of the situation. The emperor himself warned that “if Saipan is lost, air raids on Tokyo will take place, [and] therefore you absolutely must hold Saipan.”10 Since early in the war, Japan had determined to throw the full strength of the Japanese fleet at the U.S. Pacific fleet when the opportunity arose to

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destroy it with one blow. Regarding the earlier battle of Midway as a missed opportunity, Japan felt the coming Marianas battle was the moment. In the naval battle that ensued, the United States had 15 carriers versus 9 for the Japanese. Japan also had 5 battleships, 13 cruisers, 28 destroyers, and 430 carrier-based aircraft, opposed by a U.S. fleet almost twice as big. With so many ships involved, this seemed to be the decisive battle. The United States won an overwhelming victory in this greatest carrier battle of the war, ending the Japanese navy’s capacity to give battle in the air. The day of the “Marianas Turkey Shoot,” June 4, 1944, became one of the most glorious in U.S. naval aviation history. The Japanese commander, Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, suffered terrible losses of planes and ships. In this incredible U.S. victory, also known as the “Battle of the Philippine Sea,” the Japanese air defeat was decisive. Japan lost 476 planes and 445 pilots compared to the American loss of 130 planes (of which 80 went down in night landings) and 76 pilots and crewmen. U.S. submarines also sank three carriers of Japan’s rapidly depleting carrier fleet. Amazingly, only one of the U.S. surface vessels was even damaged. The naval air victory was followed by U.S. invasions of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian. Saipan was the strong link in Japan’s defense line, and the Japanese were determined to hold it. In the successful battle for Saipan that raged from June 15 to July 9, more than 14,000 U.S. marines were killed or wounded. During the following month, the United States captured the other two islands. The Japanese defeat on Saipan was further marked by the incredible suicide of 1,000 civilians, who jumped off a cliff to escape expected “cruelty” from the Americans. Significantly, the Japanese commander, Admiral Jisaburu Ozawa, escaped with many ships because the United States decided not to follow him. Despite its outcome, this battle of the Philippine Sea was not the decisive battle the United States had hoped for to crush Japan fi nally and totally. That battle would be fought sixteen weeks later at Leyte Gulf in the Philippine Islands. The U.S. capture of Guam in August 1944 ended the assault campaign in the Marianas, in which more than 50,000 Japanese died. The loss of the Marianas made responsible Japanese officials realize that they had lost the war (comparable to the Normandy landing’s effect on certain German officers). A Japanese admiral wrote: “It will be extremely difficult to recover from this disaster and rise again.”11 The Tojo government fell at this time, only to be replaced by another military-led government. The military

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leaders who started the war were still in power and showed no sign of wanting to end it. Though Japan’s defeat was now all but certain, its surrender was not imminent. By the middle of 1944, the war had obviously taken an ominous turn for Japan. The seizure of the Marianas, which cracked the defensive line, was the beginning of the end for Japan. The United States had fi nally broken the outer ring of Japanese defenses and moved back into Burma, and the sea lines of communication to the western Pacific were secure. The elimination of Japan’s carrier-based air strength opened the Philippines for MacArthur’s forces. The United States also set up air bases at Guam, which made possible B-29 raids directly on Japan itself beginning in November 1944. After losing the Marianas, the Japanese planned a new defense line that included Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Taiwan, Shanghai, and southern Korea. Because reinforcements were not possible, ground forces were ordered to hold out to the end. Suicide aircraft, named “kamikaze” for the divine wind that had thwarted the only previous invasion of Japan, occurring in the thirteenth century, would be used against the advancing enemy. The fi nal battle would be fought in Japan itself, where a war of attrition might yet bring the Americans to terms. After taking the Marianas, the Americans were undecided where the next line of attack should be: the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Formosa, or Japan itself? The issue would be decided in July 1944 in Hawaii, where President Roosevelt personally heard the opposing arguments from his leading general and admiral in the Pacific. The major controversy was the necessity of invading the Philippines. MacArthur objected strongly to bypassing the Philippines, insisting that recovery of these islands was necessary not only strategically but also morally to redeem an obligation to free the Philippines. Nimitz argued that the U.S. obligation was to win the war, not to honor MacArthur’s earlier pledge to the Philippines. President Roosevelt had to decide between MacArthur’s idea (through the Philippines, Okinawa, and possibly Formosa to Japan) or Nimitz’s proposal (to go directly through Iwo Jima/Okinawa to Japan). Both of these legendary officers made convincing arguments for their plans. Relying upon his carriers, supply ships, and fleet of B-29s, Nimitz called for an advance through a small number of islands as the shortest route to Japan. MacArthur disagreed, saying a direct attack across the Pacific could degenerate into a number of sea-based attacks against very heavily defended

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positions. He doubted whether carrier-based aviation could defeat enemy planes coming from big land bases. His plan relied on land bases and an effective combination of land, sea, and air power. The president was asked to decide between two very different strategies: Nimitz’s naval-based advances or MacArthur’s land attacks. Three months later, in October 1944, the president agreed to accept both plans: attack the Philippines and then go through the central Pacific (Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Japan itself). The Philippine campaign began on October 17, 1944, with the huge Leyte Gulf naval battle. Beyond infl icting heavy losses on the Japanese, the battle would have a major impact on Japan’s oil supplies. In the prelude to the Philippine campaign, U.S. submarines largely succeeded in doing to Japan what German submarines had failed to do to England: interdicting the island nation’s merchant marine and choking off much of its supplies of food, fuel, and raw materials. The United States had already cut Japan’s oil supply from Indonesia to a trickle, and a Japanese defeat in the Philippines risked having the extremely important oil lifeline completely severed. A U.S. victory at Leyte Gulf and the inevitable follow-up invasion of the Philippines would challenge Japan even more than had the attack on Saipan several months earlier. The capture of the Philippines would make possible a future U.S. assault on Formosa, the Chinese coast, or Japan itself. By severing the vital lifeline of supplies to Japan that the Philippines shielded, the United States would be in a position to starve Japan into submission. To informed observers, Japan’s defeat was becoming more inevitable. The naval battle at Leyte Gulf was the largest in history, spreading over three days and involving more than seven hundred ships. Japan suffered a crushing defeat, losing four carriers, three battleships, nine cruisers, ten destroyers, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of sailors and pilots. This historic battle ended an era of ship-to-ship gunnery duels, the standard form of naval warfare for centuries before 1944. No nation would ever again build a battleship; aircraft carriers had proven themselves to be the decisive factor in sea battles. In another historic fi rst, a desperate Japan began to use air power in a strikingly different manner. Running short of fuel, planes, and trained pilots, it began its fi rst organized suicide attacks by plane at Leyte Gulf. The naval victory at Leyte Gulf, in which Japan lost 80 percent of the vessels sent to Leyte, gave the Allies complete control of the Pacific. A key Japanese official later said: “Our defeat at Leyte was tantamount to the loss

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of the Philippines. When you took the Philippines, that was the end of our resources.”12 Although the United States had won a major naval victory under Admiral William Halsey, the battle for the Philippines would continue for many months at great cost to both sides. Soon after the naval battle, MacArthur went ashore, stating, “I have returned,” and called upon the Filipinos to rally against the enemy. The Japanese army, despite its losses at sea, rapidly reinforced its land positions on the islands. General Tomoyuki Yamashita was able to hold out for months on Luzon, the main Philippine island. The battle of Manila in February and March 1945, a vicious street-by-street affair, took the lives of an estimated 100,000 Philippine civilians and thousands of U.S. soldiers. This Philippine “Stalingrad” provided a bitter foretaste of what awaited the Americans to the north, on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. With the Philippine Islands essentially captured by the end of March 1945, Admiral Nimitz focused on the upcoming battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa as a prelude to the invasion of Japan. During 1944, the Allies had registered major gains on all fronts except in China. In the Pacific, the two-pronged advance by Nimitz and MacArthur had converged in the Philippines; the outer defenses of Japan had been broken by the seizure of the Marianas, and Tokyo had come within bombing range of the B-29s. By the end of 1944, American submarines had sunk 43 million tons of Japan’s merchant shipping, and the Japanese were hardpressed to support their needs at home. The situation was equally grim for Japan’s attempt to hold on to its conquests. Its sea communications with the southern region, already precarious because of the U.S. submarine fleet, were completely severed when Leyte and Luzon were recaptured. The Japanese armies in the southern region were forced to exist off supplies in the countries they occupied and such reserves of war material they had stored. Clearly, Japan’s continuation of the war was seriously in doubt. By early 1945, it was apparent that Japan had lost the war but was not ready to quit. Its forces continued to struggle with the same fanatical zeal and tenacity of purpose as in the early days of the war. Many Japanese leaders and intellectuals were convinced after the fall of Saipan that Japan would not win, and the B-29 bombings of the home islands further stimulated efforts to bring about a surrender. A peace group was arising around the emperor, but the military was still in control of the government. Beyond

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the shock of an American victory, the peace group feared that communism might spread from China to Japan if political chaos developed in the wake of military defeat. By raising the stakes in the air war through the proposed capture of Iwo Jima, the United States aimed to shorten the war. It was hoped that a weakened Japan, obviously shaken by its defeat in the Marianas and the Philippines but still unwilling to quit, would be forced to surrender by the steadily increasing U.S. air power. Located halfway between Saipan and Tokyo, Iwo Jima was only four and a half miles long and two and a half miles wide. Following the capture of the Marianas, a gigantic B-29 bombing program was initiated, beginning in November 1944. Japanese planes on Iwo Jima had been using the island as a staging base for raids on grounded B-29s in the Marianas or for intercepting B-29s attacking Japan. Nimitz also wanted the island because its airfields and radar stations forced the B-29s to fly a lengthy dogleg course from the Marianas to avoid being attacked. The capture of Iwo Jima would ease the B-29 problem by shortening the route to Japan and providing a safe haven for aircraft in trouble. Air–sea rescue units could be based on the island, and emergency landings would be made in half the distance, saving many pilots’ lives, it was hoped. The Japanese were determined to hold Iwo Jima, one of their last outer defenses shielding the home islands. After the Philippine campaign was under control, the Allies launched an invasion of Iwo Jima, perhaps the most heavily fortified island during the war. The assault, which began in February 1945, ended the following month. In the bloody campaign to take the island, 20,000 of the 21,000 Japanese defenders died, along with 6,000 U.S. soldiers. (The island was the scene of the famous U.S. flag raising on Mount Suribachi.) The battle proved that Japan could exact a fearful price as the Allies moved closer to the home islands. A month later the United States invaded Okinawa, where the fighting was even more intense. A U.S. victory here would offer many advantages in the campaign to defeat Japan. Less than 350 miles from Japan, its capture was essential to eliminate Japanese bases there and on nearby islands and to provide more U.S. bases against Japan itself. Even more important, its size and location made it a suitable replacement for China as a launching pad for the fi nal invasion of Japan. The Japanese, however, were resolved to hold Okinawa, and its defense provoked one of the bloodiest and most extensive battles in the Pacific war.

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Raging for three months, the battle for Okinawa became the greatest combined land, air, and sea battle in history. There were 77,000 Japanese and 20,000 Okinawans defending the island. The United States invaded on April 1, 1945, with a force that rivaled in size Eisenhower’s at Normandy, greatly outnumbering the Japanese. In the largest amphibious undertaking of the Pacific war, the United States sent ashore 183,000 troops. In the fierce resistance that followed, massive kamikaze attacks by the defenders sank thirty-six ships and killed 4,900 sailors. Short on fuel, the desperate Japanese even sent the battleship Yamato, the world’s largest, on a suicide mission, sailing with only enough fuel for a one-way trip to Okinawa. The ship was sunk by U.S. planes before it could do damage in a naval version of the kamikaze, thus marking the end of the Japanese fleet. On land, there was little resistance the fi rst day, but in the following week the Americans encountered the most formidable enemy defense in all their Pacific campaigns. On June 22, the battle ended, after 70,000 Japanese died, compared to U.S. losses of 7,000 killed or missing on the island and another 5,000 who died at sea. Even the extremely bloody fighting at Okinawa did not force Japan to surrender, although it did bring down the government. Tojo had been ousted earlier in July 1944 when Guam and Saipan were captured. His successor, committed to continuing the war, fell after Okinawa was invaded. Emperor Hirohito now directed the new government to make peace, even on terms unfavorable to Japan. Army members of the cabinet were still reluctant, claiming that the Americans had not yet felt the full force of the Japanese army and pointed to the 8,000 aircraft gathered to repel the invasion effort. The awful carnage at Okinawa, like that on Iwo Jima, weighed heavily on the minds of U.S. policymakers as they planned Japan’s fi nal defeat. Japanese fanaticism was intensifying as the United States drove closer to the home islands. In the three months since Truman had become president, U.S. battle casualties in the Pacific were nearly half the total of the fi rst three years of war against Japan. If a few Japanese divisions and a handful of suicide planes could exact such a price in defending outlying islands, the United States worried what would happen when the Americans attacked the mainland itself. Truman believed an invasion of Japan could possibly lead to 500,000 American casualties. In weighing his momentous choice between such an invasion or dropping the newly developed atomic bomb, Truman feared the possibility of an “Okinawa” from one end of Japan to the other.

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Despite its many defeats, Japan was well prepared to put up such a struggle. On Okinawa, three Japanese divisions had stood up to an American force twice that size for nearly one hundred days. Japan was prepared to put up an even stiffer defense should the home islands be invaded. On the southernmost island, Kyushu, the likely landing point for the invasion, 350,000 Japanese soldiers were stationed. Japan had well more than 2 million men under arms throughout the home islands, as well as up to 4 million reservists and thousands of kamikaze planes for a last-ditch defense. Facing such resistance, the United States would undoubtedly pay a high cost in the invasion of Japan. The prospect of fierce resistance to such an attack led the United States to resort to intense bombing raids either to persuade Japan to surrender or to “soften up” the nation for the coming invasion. It had built air bases on Guam, Saipan, and Tinian (and later on Iwo Jima and Okinawa) to support these attacks. In late November 1944, the United States made its fi rst raids on Tokyo, which the Japanese air force was unable to prevent. General Curtis LeMay took charge of bombing Japan on January 7, 1945. Under him, the United States abandoned the idea of “precision” bombing in favor of terror attacks on civilian areas. LeMay decided to use incendiary (fi re) bombs that spewed gelatinized gasoline that stuck to its targets and was virtually inextinguishable by conventional means. His goal was to create fi restorms (like the ones that would later consume Hamburg and Dresden)—not merely fi res, but thermal hurricanes that killed by suffocation as well as by heat when the flames sucked all available oxygen out of the surrounding atmosphere. The most famous (and controversial) bombing raid before Hiroshima was the attack on Tokyo on March 9–10. On this raid involving 334 bombers based in the Marianas, the United States destroyed one-quarter of the city’s buildings, causing 1 million people to become homeless and killing nearly 84,000. Victims died from fi re, asphyxiation, falling buildings, and boiling to death in superheated canals and ponds as they sought refuge. Within a ten-day span, four of Japan’s other large cities received similar treatment. In the next five months, the bombers attacked sixty-six of Japan’s largest cities, destroying 43 percent of their built-up areas and rendering useless the six leading industrial centers of Japan. The United States was attacking industrial and urban centers as well as the oil-storage facilities and laying mines against shipping operations. Overall, more than

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8 million civilians lost their homes, as many as 900,000 were killed, and up to 1.3 million were injured. Despite the massive bombing campaign, Japan refused to surrender, and an invasion of Japan was planned to begin on November 1, 1945. Even though Japan’s defeat was inevitable, the government refused to end the war on terms of “unconditional surrender.” Japan, believing it still possessed great strength, hoped to bargain with the Americans. Its military government might consider a surrender based on no occupation, the emperor’s remaining on the throne, no international trials of Japanese leaders, and holding on to some of its conquests. The Japanese army and navy fi rmly resisted unconditional surrender and wished to continue fighting. At the same time, Japan also decided to get Russia involved in mediating a satisfactory end to the war. Yet Japan’s options to continue the war were steadily being narrowed. Russia announced in April 1945 that it would not renew the neutrality pact between the two nations, and peace negotiations through Russia were stalled. Not long afterward, the Allies indicated unwillingness to offer generous terms to the Japanese. In July, the Allied call for unconditional surrender was rejected by Japan, especially because it made no mention of the future status of the emperor. The war was heading toward a deadly climax if Japan persisted in its refusal to surrender. Because Japan would not quit, the United States went ahead with plans to use the atomic bomb. On July 16 at the Allied conference at Potsdam, Germany, Truman received a message that the A-bomb had been successfully tested. Truman, Secretary of War Stimson, and director of the A-bomb program (known as the Manhattan Project) General Leslie Groves had agreed previously, on April 25, that the bomb should be used as soon it was ready. Regarding the morality of using such a weapon, its advocates questioned whether the atomic bomb was actually worse than the fi re-bomb raid over Tokyo. In the following weeks, various groups of policymakers and scientists discussed using the bomb against Japan. Very few of these men and virtually none of the inner circle of decision makers seriously considered not dropping it. “It seemed to be a foregone conclusion,” one scientific panel member later wrote, “that the bomb would be used.”13 Truman’s most important adviser, General Marshall, strongly believed in the use of the bomb. Marshall saw the bomb as a prelude to the invasion of Japan, which he still expected to take place, even after an atomic attack.

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In such a bloody war, all weapons would have to be considered. He was so appalled by American casualties earlier at Iwo Jima that he had favored using poison gas at Okinawa but was overruled.14 One alternative to the use of the A-bomb was a demonstration test to frighten the Japanese into surrendering. However, many objections were raised to this option. J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of research on the bomb’s development, could think of no demonstration sufficiently spectacular to make Japan surrender. Other key figures raised further objections: the test bomb might be a dud, or Japan might shoot down the delivery plane or bring American prisoners into the test area, or maximum shock could be lost if the demonstration failed to bring surrender. All of these factors were considered and encouraged the leading circle around Truman to recommend rejection of this option. The Interim Committee, consisting of important scientists and civilians, recommended to Stimson that the bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible and without prior warning. This panel reported: “We can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”15 Leading scientists and later Nobel laureates who were involved in development of the bomb, such as Enrico Fermi and E. O. Lawrence, also recommended its direct military use. The decision to use the bomb was actually a series of decisions not to disturb the momentum of a process that was more than three years old by the spring of 1945 and rapidly building toward an inevitable climax. The bomb was developed at a cost of approximately $2 billion and involving at least 120,000 people, so refusal to use it would be difficult to justify. One scholar concluded that “the determination to use the bomb at the earliest possible date had probably been implicit in the original decision to build it at the fastest possible speed.”16 At the highest political level, the decision was never in doubt. Truman later wrote: “I regarded the bomb as a military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used.”17 Churchill declared: “The decision whether or not to use the atomic bomb to compel the surrender of Japan was never even an issue. There was unanimous, automatic, unquestioned agreement around our table; nor did I ever hear the slightest suggestion that we should do otherwise.”18 The British leader stated that earlier in 1944 he and Roosevelt had agreed upon the use of the bomb.19 Having made up his mind, President Truman at Potsdam on July 26, 1945, called on Japan to surrender

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or suffer “a rain of ruin.” When Japan refused, the momentum for dropping the bomb seemed unstoppable. Truman also considered whether to modify “unconditional surrender” to persuade Japan to surrender. Stimson and Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew urged such a change, which might lead Japan to quit and avoid use of the bomb. Leaders of the opposing position, including Secretary of State James F. Byrnes and his predecessor Cordell Hull, urged Truman to keep “unconditional surrender,” claiming that the president risked being called an “appeaser” at home. Truman agreed with the “no change” advice, and when Japanese peace feelers to Russia showed no indication that Japan would accept “unconditional surrender,” use of the bomb became inevitable. Because the consensus among leading U.S. officials was to use the bomb, the only argument that might spare Japan was that perhaps this ultimate weapon was no longer necessary. By the summer of 1945, Japan’s oil shipments had been drastically curtailed, and U.S. submarines had helped tighten a cordon around Japan, reducing the Japanese people to virtual starvation. Conceivably, Japan could be starved into surrender, but this might take a long time. Truman wanted to end the war quickly to save lives and never had any remorse over the use of the bomb. In a prelude to using the bomb, a list of suitable targets was prepared: Hiroshima, Kokura, Nagasaki, and Nigato (in order of priority). On August 6, the Enola Gay, accompanied by weather and photography planes, left for Hiroshima. The bomb underwent fi nal assembly in the air lest it explode on take-off and blow up Tinian Island. Flight commander Paul Tibbetts carried suicide pills for the crew in case the mission failed, and they were captured (the crew were unaware of this alternative). On August 6, 1945, the bomb exploded 2,000 feet above the city, causing approximately 140,000 to die in the fi rst few days, from both the explosion and radiation. Another bomb was dropped three days later at Nagasaki, which had replaced Kokura because of bad weather at that city, causing approximately 70,000 deaths. In between the two bombs, Russia declared war on Japan on August 8, adding another shock to the beleaguered Japanese. No longer was it possible for neutral Russia to mediate a peace agreement between the United States and Japan, thus eliminating another option for Japan to achieve a satisfactory peace. It would now be nearly impossible for Japan to dictate the terms of its surrender. After the two atomic bombs and Russia’s declaration of war, it would be equally difficult for Japan to continue fighting.

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Yet even at this point in the war, Japan was still divided on surrendering. Some urged surrender if the emperor could remain. Other leaders were holding out for a modified set of conditions: no military occupation of Japan; Japanese armed forces being allowed to disarm themselves; trials of war criminals to be conducted by Japanese courts. At the other extreme, the army chief of staff said Japan was not yet defeated and could resist an invading army. On August 10, following the Nagasaki attack, the deadlock was broken with the intervention of Emperor Hirohito, who urged Japan to “bear the unbearable” and surrender. He stated that the only condition to be asked was the preservation of the emperor’s position. The United States agreed to modify “unconditional surrender” with the proviso that the emperor’s authority would be under the supreme commander of the Allied powers. This condition was accepted after a last-minute coup in Japan to prevent surrender failed. The emperor’s intervention had broken the deadlock within the Japanese government. Russia’s declaration of war and the atomic bomb had not totally convinced Japan that its situation was militarily hopeless. Japan still had millions of soldiers at home with which to carry on the war. The A-bomb did, however, give the military a face-saving way to agree to surrender. One scholar wondered if the bomb had become another type of kamikaze, a miracle weapon that saved Japan from invasion.20 The confl ict in the Pacific ended with a total defeat for Japan. The war for expansion of territory and natural resources had resulted in catastrophe rather than riches and power for the Japanese. Yet, like the mythical phoenix arising from the ashes, the defeated nation would undergo a remarkable transition after 1945. It eventually created a new empire based on trade with the world and became a strong ally to its former enemy, the United States, as the Cold War developed after World War II. With the defeat of Japan marking the end of World War II, the United States confronted the difficult task of converting to peacetime conditions. Although the economy was prosperous, the postwar adjustment would be very turbulent. Finally free of the military crisis, the American people now faced a host of difficult challenges at home.

Postwar America Prosperity and Problems

at home and abroad, life in postwar America was better than ever for most Americans. In the fi rst few years after World War II, the United States experienced a strong economy, a consumer buying spree, and a home-buying splurge. In sharp contrast to the Depression-era 1930s, the war had made America a richer, more powerful nation. Americans were now beginning to enjoy themselves as never before, especially as wartime shortages and restrictions fi nally ended. With rising prosperity and more Americans leading the good life, the United States seemed about to enter into a golden age. Many Americans expected that the United States would preside over what Time magazine publisher Henry Luce had called in 1941 the “American Century,”1 marked by the spread of democracy and capitalism throughout the world. Walter Lippman predicted in 1945: “What Rome was to the ancient world, what Great Britain has been to the modern world, America is to be to the world of tomorrow.”2 Yet there were serious problems to be tackled before Americans could fully enjoy life in the postwar period. Reconverting to a peacetime economy in the eighteen months after the war was nearly as disruptive as the conversion to wartime conditions only a few years earlier. The economic problems seemed to come from all directions. Inflation became a major challenge when price controls were lifted, and there were temporary shortages of many essential items. Labor was dissatisfied and called a series of strikes as it tried to maintain the high level of wages enjoyed during the war. The most widespread series of strikes since 1919 produced a strong antilabor backlash from both the public DE S P I T E A H O S T O F P R OB L E M S

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and the Congress as well as convulsing the economy. Only by the end of 1946 did a more stable and satisfactory society emerge for most Americans. Beyond these economic adjustments, important social changes and new attitudes toward the outside world were occurring. For black Americans, protests against discrimination were becoming stronger after 1945, even as their living standards improved. For women, the principal change involved alterations in their work patterns. Women were reverting to the prewar stay-athome lifestyle, although not all discontinued working. Beyond the economic and legal changes after 1945, this period was also one of anxiety as America confronted the age of the A-bomb and the Cold War. Yet in this contradictory period of challenges alongside a prosperous economy, life was surprisingly normal for most Americans, who felt that things were improving. A rising living standard for the average American was a major theme in postwar America. The late 1940s were years of unimaginable consumption of new products to reach the market. With an abundance of money saved during the war, the affluent consumer could buy such new products as televisions, a new generation of plastics and synthetic fibers, and home air conditioning. During this period, many goods that are today considered standard were introduced or widely adopted. Such basic items as dishwashers, blenders, and garbage disposals now joined electric mixers, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners as common features of middle-class homes. At the same time, there were serious shortages in some of the other basic necessities of modern living. In housing and in such food staples as vegetables and meat, there were either serious shortages or very high prices. In 1945, only 46 percent of households had telephones. That same year, 52 percent of farm dwellings, with more than 25 million people, had no electricity. Freed from the wartime demands, Americans would now face the challenge of fi lling many important needs of society. In the post–World War II era, two entertainment and news mediums— radio and television—were becoming steadily more important. Radio had already been in widespread use since the 1920s, when long-distance broadcasting became widely available for the fi rst time. It was dominant in the mass media, and by the end of World War II more American homes had radios than bathtubs. Radio had greatly expanded its role in American life during the war, serving as a principal source for wartime news. Radio was the most important medium throughout the 1940s. Seen as “a poor man’s theater” during the 1930s, it had become America’s leading

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means of communication. By 1947, 34.8 million of the 38.5 million households in the nation had at least one radio. Comedian Jack Benny was probably the most popular radio personality in the postwar era. A bumbling embodiment of the ordinary person in a bewildering world, he was called the “straight man for the whole world.” The acknowledged leader in the 1940s, radio would soon have to share its dominant role in media with the rapidly growing television industry. In the late 1940s, following delays caused by the Great Depression and World War II, television debuted as a powerful new medium that would profoundly change American society. Television was an outgrowth of the work of several inventors, but especially Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth. Each made major contributions, and historians have long debated who should be considered the “father” of television. Although both men helped develop the electronic system to power the new invention, Zworykin worked closely with the RCA corporation and received more acclaim for his work. Introduced at the 1939 World’s Fair, television began to be found in many U.S. homes after the war and would become nearly universal during the 1950s. Perhaps more than any product since the Model T, television greatly changed the American lifestyle. It affected politics, family relations, entertainment, the dissemination of news, and the selling of products. Especially important in family life, television became known as “the twentieth century’s built-in babysitter.” Although developed before World War II, television only became widespread once the war ended. There were only about 10,000 sets in the United States by the end of 1941. During the war, the federal government stopped civilian development of television because the technicians were needed for war-related projects such as developing radar. When the war ended in 1945, these restrictions were lifted, and an important new industry was launched. In the postwar era, television won rapid acceptance by the American public. By 1949, approximately 100,000 television sets were being sold each week in the United States, and within three years approximately 10 percent of households already owned one. A profound revolution in communications that would affect nearly every aspect of American life had begun. By the end of the decade, the major economic drawbacks associated with television were being remedied. Television began to switch from furniture pieces to plastic table models to help it become more affordable. A more important challenge was whether television could generate enough .

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advertising revenue to sustain itself. In 1940, the fi rst television commercial had been shown—a sixty-second promotion for which a watch company had been charged $4.3 In the early postwar period of 1946, advertising revenue remained small. Seldom did a station gross more than $1,000 of the $3,000 cost of an hour’s operating time. By 1950, however, the fi nancial situation was much improved. Television revenue was about $100 million—four times higher than in 1949 and about one-quarter that of radio. By this time, television had also found its fi rst big star. Milton Berle was so popular by 1949 that 75 percent of television owners watched his show weekly. Berle was an all-around entertainer, able to do comedy, magic tricks, and dance routines, and critics noted his variety program was essentially a return to old-fashioned vaudeville of earlier days. Like Jack Benny of radio and Frank Sinatra in music, Berle dominated his medium in the postwar period. The electronics revolution would also have major implications in the coming years. The triode vacuum tube, invented by Lee DeForrest in the early 1900s, was being replaced by the transistor, developed by a team led by William Shockley at Bell Labs. One of the most important inventions of the twentieth century, the transistor would especially impact the newly developed computer, which had just been introduced to the public. Originally a World War II–related project, the world’s fi rst practical electronic high-speed computer (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, ENIAC) was developed by John Eckert and Chester Mauchley at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946. It was thousands of times faster than any calculator already in existence, and the early models were so big, they actually occupied an entire room. In 1950, the Remington Rand Corporation marketed the fi rst modern electronic computer used in business, thus sowing the seeds of the computer and Internet age and the so-called third industrial revolution. The importance of the computer cannot be overstated. One scholar declares that the computer represented “an advance in man’s thinking processes as radical as the invention of writing.”4 When fully integrated into the U.S. economy in future decades, the ever-shrinking computers would be vital in energizing the economy. Alongside these breakthroughs in technology and products for the home, society and the family were also undergoing significant developments. The most important sociological changes occurred in the family during the postwar years, marked by increases in marriage, divorce, and birth rates. With a healthy economy encouraging the rise of families, the baby boom was

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the most amazing social trend of the postwar era. Birth rates had risen even during the war, but the most significant increases came after 1945. By 1946, the baby boom was on, and “the cry of the baby was heard across the land.” The birth rate rose from 19.9 per 1,000 in 1944 to 25.8 per 1,000 in 1947, and the baby boom promoted still greater prosperity for the nation. Unfortunately, marital problems for returning servicemen also led to a record national divorce rate in 1946 of thirty-one divorces per one hundred marriages, more than twice the rate in 1940. This pattern was generally attributed to years of separation and women’s becoming more independent. In the more normal peacetime setting by 1947, divorce rates dropped, and this trend continued throughout the remainder of the decade. Postwar America also witnessed the rise of a new sociological class in the nation, the teenager, who now wielded more economic power, independence, and cultural tastes. With the money earned during World War II, they became an important part of the consumer economy. Unlike in the past, they had enough money left over even after helping out the family and soon became an important segment in the economy. Reflecting this new importance, the term teenager became widely used for the fi rst time. Especially important with teenagers were the movie and record businesses, two of the most significant cultural elements of the economy after World War II. Aided by the vast teenage market, the movies attracted a weekly attendance of 85 to 90 million people each year between 1945 and 1949. The music business was even more affected by the teenage market in the postwar period. Americans were now buying six times as many records as during the 1930s. The most popular singer at this time was Frank Sinatra, nicknamed “Swoonatra” for his effect on teenage girls. Sinatra had replaced Bing Crosby as the most popular singer during the war. In a prelude to the later idolization of rock ’n’ roll stars during the 1950s and 1960s, his teenage fans, known as “bobby-soxers,” mobbed him everywhere he went. They caused disruptions when he performed, leading one member of Congress to denounce Sinatra as “one of the prime instigators for juvenile delinquency in America.”5 More than these sociological changes, the dominant trend in postwar America was economic progress, marked by a steady decline in poverty. With the economy registering important gains in productivity, accompanied by low unemployment, the majority of Americans felt a broad sense of well-being by the late 1940s. During this period, the unemployment rate

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averaged less than 4 percent. The average American now earned more in real dollars, ate better, lived more comfortably, and stayed alive longer than his or her parents. Changes in the typical American diet exemplified the new prosperity. Before the war, housewives had turned to inexpensive, nonmeat dishes for about half the family meals. By 1947, the average American ate meat five out of seven nights a week. In the postwar era, the prosperous U.S. economy dominated the international economy like a colossus. By the late 1940s, with only 7 percent of the world’s population, America produced 57 percent of the world’s income, accounted for half of the world’s manufacturing output, and produced 57 percent of the world’s steel, 43 percent of its electricity, and 62 percent of its cars. Reflecting its dominant fi nancial position internationally, the United States possessed three-quarters of the world’s gold supplies. Per capita income in the United States in mid-1949 was much higher than in all the other major industrial economies. Initially after 1945, there was concern over returning to a period of economic hardship, as happened after World War I. With the end of the war and the consequent downsizing of the military establishment, some feared the economy would suffer. Some Americans even worried that defense cutbacks would cause a return to the days of the Great Depression. Instead, the United States emerged from World War II as the strongest military and economic power in the world. By late 1946, after a wave of strikes had subsided, the economy was booming. The nation had virtually full employment, and the fear of depression was over, although inflation remained a serious problem. Its ailing economy healed by World War II, the United States began the longest period of continued economic growth in its history. The 10 million unemployment figure predicted was actually 3 million as millions of women and school-age workers dropped out of the labor force, and the enormous demand for civilian goods stimulated the economy. Most members of the lower class had moved into the middle class during the war, with the unfortunate exception of African Americans. At war’s end, most controls over industry ended, and life became more normal. The overriding challenge to the United States after 1945, converting to a peacetime economy, went fairly smoothly after a very difficult transition period through mid-1946. All of the factors were in place for a huge expansion of the American economy. Businesses returned to producing consumer goods, and government rationing gradually ended. The purchase of these

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goods was greatly aided by the wartime reserve of money waiting to be spent. Americans had saved nearly $140 billion, creating a pent-up consumer demand caused by wartime shortages. Having made huge profits during the war, businesses had plenty of capital to retool and were able to produce more consumer goods. The devastated nations abroad were also a huge market, turning to the United States to supply their need for consumer goods. Cashing in on this huge domestic and international demand by 1947, the nation was prospering as never before. One factor threatening to derail the U.S. economy was the demobilization of the armed forces, creating the possibility of high unemployment. More than 12.1 million men were still in uniform in early August 1945. Heavy pressure was put on Congress to bring the men home (“no boats, no votes” was a common refrain), resulting in demobilization at a rapid pace. By June 1946, the number of servicemen had dropped to 3 million, and Congress agreed to authorize an army of only 1 million by July 1947. With a high-unemployment problem looming, the government was particularly attentive to the needs of the former serviceman as he transitioned to civilian life. The most important tool helping him was the GI Bill. Millions of returning veterans took advantage of the “52-20” provision of the GI Bill of Rights, a promise of $20 a week for fi fty-two weeks after they were discharged and were looking for a job. The act also provided loans to buy homes or start businesses. It made available up to $500 a year to attend college, an adequate sum in those days for most colleges. Veterans could receive a personal living expense of $65 per month if they were single or $90 per month if they were married so they would not have to go to work while they went to school. The program ultimately enabled nearly 8 million people to attend college or trade school or to receive some kind of advanced training. In 1947, servicemen accounted for more than 1 million of the nation’s 2.5 million college students. They helped increase the number of students receiving university degrees from 216,000 in 1940 to 497,000 in 1950. At a cost to the government of $3.7 billion between 1945 and 1949, the GI Bill became the most significant development in the modern history of American education. For younger students, significant gains were also registered, with more public funds being spent on education and more students remaining in school longer. Per pupil spending for public education more than doubled between 1944 and 1950. By the end of the decade, 57.4 percent of teenagers

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completed high school compared to only 49 percent in 1940. The education base was expanding in the United States at all levels. These gains were aided by a remarkable growth in the economy, stimulated by the revival of the auto industry. Automobile production, which had been banned by the government during World War II, was now springing back. New car sales increased from 69,500 in 1945 to 6.7 million in 1950, only 16,636 of these being foreign made. By that year, there were 40.3 million cars registered to 31.9 million families, an increase of approximately 15 million since 1945. As in the 1920s but on a much larger scale, automobiles led to the adoption of new patterns of living as well as stimulating the huge economic growth of the era. They fostered the movement to the suburbs, the decline of railroads, the weakening of downtown retail districts, and the declining ridership on mass transit. In the midst of this reviving economy, the most serious housing shortage in U.S. history became one of the nation’s leading problems after World War II. The wartime ban on housing construction, similar to the ban on auto production, helped create a major supply problem in the housing market after 1945. This shortage reflected the lack of home building during the war and the postwar flood of marriages and births. To remedy this problem, the government estimated a need for 5 million new housing units. This shortage was only partly remedied by the Housing Act of 1949, one of the few domestic initiatives of the Truman administration to be approved by Congress. Although the bill authorized government aid in building 800,000 new, low-cost housing units in six years, only 60,000 were actually built by the end of the Truman presidency. Most of the housing shortage would be remedied by the private sector, relying on a combination of low-cost building techniques and government-subsidized mortgages for the buyers. From 1946 to 1950, the annual number of single-family homes started, from either public or private sources, rose from 937,000 to 1.7 million. The GI Bill was invaluable, helping to secure 36 percent of all the mortgages in 1950. Beyond the fi nancing problem, a crucial challenge was to lower the cost of homes. To make them affordable to the public, builders decided to massproduce cheap, simply designed homes on an assembly-line basis in an architectural style described as “boxcar.” The Levittown development in New York, which exhibited this assembly-line construction of cheap housing, was the best known of the new type of home building. William Levitt’s famous “towns” offered homes that were small, only eight hundred square feet, and

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set on concrete slabs. Building assembly-line homes on small lots and using nonunion labor, he was able to bring the price down to less than $7,000. By 1949, he was selling thousands of his basic, assembly-line homes annually and became known as the “Henry Ford of the post-war builders.”6 Levitt’s housing projects impacted several major sociological trends after the war. The Levittown developments were not available to all Americans. Reflecting contemporary racial attitudes, his projects often contained restrictive covenants that barred black Americans. By stressing construction in lowcost areas away from the cities, Levitt also fostered a move to the suburbs, which initiated a population trend lasting several decades. Variations of the Levittown approach soon sprang up around the country, helping to solve the national shortage. The combination of public and private efforts was successful, and for the entire decade between 1940 and 1950 the portion of American families who owned their homes grew from 40 percent to 53 percent. Another key demographic trend after the war was the shift westward, a continuation of the war-related movement to the western states. The eleven states of the western region registered a growth of more than 40 percent between 1940 and 1950, three times greater than for the rest of the nation. California in particular more than doubled its population and moved into second place behind New York. Like the move to the suburbs, this shift westward also represented a trend that would continue for decades. The big cities also registered explosive growth after the war. Urban growth was accelerating, even though rural America was still substantial, and postwar America remained largely rural or small town in character. Although nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population lived in urban areas by 1950, less than half lived in cities or towns with 10,000 or more. The number living in places with more than 50,000 was only slightly more than one-third of the population. The United States in 1950 remained a world of farms, small towns, and modest-size cities, but this lifestyle was rapidly fading. Many people tried to hold on to this earlier vision of American society. Years earlier, white, Protestant, old-stock Americans had been the arbiters of the national lifestyle. In a trend dating back to the 1920s, the established classes were having to make room for groups from the lower rungs of society such as minorities and recently arrived immigrants. Many conservativeminded people especially resented the gradually changing position of black Americans, which fostered an atmosphere of increased racial tensions after the war.

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Despite this challenge, the lives of African Americans in the late 1940s had improved. Wartime economic gains caused by the opening up of industrial employment in the North had lured many blacks to higher-paying jobs. Roughly 1 million blacks moved away from the South during the 1940s, and the number of blacks employed in manufacturing during the war jumped from 500,000 to 1.2 million. Much of these gains continued after the war, leading many blacks to become more hopeful of a better life. Unlike most Americans who were content after World War II, black Americans now demanded redress of their problems and were making civil rights a more open question. Despite wartime gains, most blacks still faced massive discrimination and poverty after 1945, and the war had actually led to worsened racial conditions. Serious race riots had broken out during the war, a forewarning of problems the Truman administration would later have to address. For black Americans, World War II was a turning point in the quest for racial equality. Many blacks were now more hopeful of a better life, especially in contrast to the discouraging previous years. In 1945, a black news columnist predicted: “I do not believe that Negroes will stand idly by and see their newly opened doors of economic opportunity closed in their faces [after they had fought in a war] for democracy and against fascism.”7 The return of black veterans from service in the war and blacks’ experience of moving to the North led to more pressure for civil rights advances. The groundswell of protest was growing, indicated by the gain in membership by the NAACP from 50,000 to 450,000 during the war. Responding to pressure from black leaders, one particular goal was achieved by President Truman’s executive order in 1948 to desegregate the military. (Blacks composed 16 percent of Americans enlisted in the armed forces during the war, although they were only 10 percent of the population.) In the postwar era, nearly all civil rights gains were achieved either by executive order or through the courts. Truman’s entire civil rights agenda was rejected by Congress, which was dominated by southern Democrats and conservatives. Under pressure from the NAACP, the Supreme Court earlier in 1944 had outlawed the white primary, a ploy that had enabled states in the South to exclude blacks from Democratic primary races. In 1946, the Court ruled against segregation on buses and trains engaged in interstate travel and struck down restrictive covenants in the sale of housing. Two years later President Truman ordered the opening up of federal civil service jobs on a

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nondiscriminatory basis. In 1950, the Universities of Texas and Oklahoma were ordered by the courts to admit blacks and give them identical educational opportunities as whites. On many levels, the legal underpinnings of discrimination were being attacked. Important civil rights breakthroughs were also occurring in professional sports, one of the most important institutions in American culture. Football once again began signing black players after temporarily suspending this practice for a number of years, and the newly formed National Basketball Association contained a small number of black players. The most important breakthrough came in major league baseball, then the most popular spectator sport in the United States, with the signing of Jackie Robinson in 1947. Carefully selected and trained by the Brooklyn Dodgers organization, Robinson proved to be the ideal choice for the integration of baseball. A college graduate and an outstanding athlete in many sports, Robinson was called the “new Jim Thorpe” (a great all-around athlete of the early 1900s). His fi rst year in baseball was outstanding. He was named the 1947 “rookie of the year,” and he soon won over the fans with his exciting style of play. Urged by the Dodgers to “turn the other cheek,” he endured many racial insults but ultimately prevailed and opened the door for other black players. Baseball had heretofore mirrored the nation’s segregated racial atmosphere, and an important social barrier in America was starting to crumble. Despite these victories, black Americans still faced notable challenges by the end of the decade. The majority of southern blacks still did not vote either because they feared physical or economic reprisal or because they were restrained by poll taxes, literacy tests, or other registration roadblocks. Not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would this problem be resolved. In education, seventeen states legally segregated public schools, and twenty states segregated public accommodations. On the job front, blacks generally had a lower pay scale and were usually banned from labor unions. Yet openly confronting discrimination was still in the future. To protest these injustices, blacks did not resort to massive protests, preferring to rely on civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and the Urban League or working with influential white liberals and intellectuals. This heightened awareness did not immediately improve the difficult racial situation in the postwar South, where more than two-thirds of American blacks still resided by the late 1940s. About 70 percent of southern blacks lived in poverty in 1945 amid massive racial segregation. Despite the

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Supreme Court decision against the white primary in 1944, blacks in the lower South were deprived of any voice in politics. In 1950, as in 1940, white supremacy seemed secure in the South. Racial prejudice in Dixie led many black people to search for a better life in the North. However, the northern states were also plagued with racial problems, especially in employment and housing. A race riot broke out in Chicago in 1947, staged by whites to drive blacks away. To help remedy these problems, eleven states and twenty-eight cities enacted laws establishing fair employment practices commissions, and between 1945 and 1950 eighteen states approved legislation for the end of racial discrimination in public accommodations. The civil rights crusade was gaining strength during the Truman years. The housing problem for blacks was particularly difficult in the late 1940s. In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that restrictive covenants, private pacts used by whites to keep blacks out of residential neighborhoods, were not legally enforceable in the courts. Yet despite the Court’s ruling, segregated housing patterns continued to grow. After 1945, the growth of ghettoes—black enclaves within the central cities—in some of the larger urban areas in the North was more apparent. Few such ghettoes had actually existed before the war. While blacks crowded into ghettoes, whites found ample space in the rapidly growing suburbs. “White fl ight” was rendering restrictive covenants unnecessary, even before the Supreme Court ruling in 1948. Despite the massive discrimination and poverty faced by black Americans, there was a vibrant black cultural life in the 1940s. Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat “King” Cole were major entertainment stars. Black music, previously called “race music,” became known as “rhythm and blues” by the late 1940s and would help inspire a cultural revolution in America. Some black music had a hard driving beat that reached out later to a much wider, white audience and became known as “rock ’n’ roll.” Women also experienced great change after the war, although more in the workplace than in legal challenges. The war had brought additional millions of women into the workforce and into new and better-paying jobs. The end of the war led to a significant reversion to the older prewar job patterns, reflecting an obvious mood shift by the government and the public toward women working outside the home. To encourage women to consider leaving their jobs after the war, the federal government terminated daycare

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funding and gave veterans the right to displace wartime workers. There was also increased public pressure for women to be home with their children. By early 1946, millions either quit or were laid off, and the percentage of women in the workforce declined from 35 percent in 1945 to 29.6 percent in 1946. This figure was still higher than the 26 percent in 1940. The postwar era was a period of intense antifeminist feeling in the popular media and lack of public support for women’s rights by the general public, including women. In his classic 1946 book on baby care, the famous pediatrician Benjamin Spock urged women to stay home to raise stable and secure children.8 The baby boom, which had increased average family size, further strengthened the stay-at-home trend. After the war, women’s magazines and other writings launched an attack on feminist ideas, calling feminism a “deep illness.” 9 The quest for education, employment, and political power was also criticized. In this culture of domesticity, motherhood and dependency were deemed more natural. Pro-feminist author Fannie Hurst ruefully noted: “A sleeping sickness was [sic] spreading among the women of the land. . . . They are retrogressing into . . . that thing known as The Home.”10 The end of World War II did not reverse all of the new employment patterns for women. By 1950, there were about as many women working as in 1945, and for the fi rst time in U.S. history more than half of these women were married. Demobilization only slowed a long-range trend toward greater female participation in the market. The rise in female employment, although at a more deliberate pace, became one of the most powerful demographic trends of the postwar era. However, there was a noticeable shift for women from high-paying wartime jobs to the traditional female occupations, or, as one scholar notes, “Rosie the Riveter had become a fi le clerk.”11 This increase in employment was not related to a quest for women’s equality or a major attitudinal change by the American public. In 1945, 63 percent of the public did not approve of married women working if their husbands could support them. During the 1940s, feminists found little popular support. Even President Truman opposed a women’s movement, stating in 1945 that women’s rights were “a lot of hooey.”12 Truman had deliberately excluded women from his inner circle, feeling uncomfortable with them around and believing that their presence inhibited free discussion. The most important factor behind more women working was the quest for more consumer goods and a satisfactory personal life rather than for more “freedom” for the “new woman.”

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In the years immediately following World War II, no “women’s” legislation was passed by Congress. In 1945, Congress considered and rejected a law to ensure that women workers would not suffer discrimination in wage rates. The next year the Senate ratified the Equal Rights Amendment for women, only to see it defeated by the House. In 1947, Congress rejected a proposal to establish a national commission on the status of women. With the nation preoccupied with such concerns as inflation, labor unrest, and the Red Scare, the momentum for a women’s movement had clearly not yet developed. Organized labor was another segment of the economy that had also improved its status during the war, and it was reluctant to surrender its gains. Labor unions had become stronger, winning higher wages and greater benefits for workers during World War II. By 1945, unions that battled for survival in the 1920s and 1930s had tripled their prewar membership to 15 million. The challenge to unions now was to help workers maintain the high wartime level of wages. With the war over, unions quickly began flexing their muscles with a wave of strikes. Postwar labor unrest was aimed at getting a larger share of the profits that big companies were making, which unions believed far outpaced wages and benefits during the war. The end of the war had brought new problems for unions. Workers now faced layoffs, loss of overtime pay, and a decline in take-home pay of 30 percent by late 1945. To preserve workers’ gains, a wave of strikes broke out, similar to the labor unrest following World War I. In waging these struggles, labor, which had greatly increased its power during the war, proved to be a formidable foe. The increase in its membership during World War II continued the pattern of enormous growth seen during the 1930s. Union membership, which had grown from 11.6 percent to 26.9 percent of nonagricultural employment from 1930 to 1940, had increased to 35 percent by 1945. This rise in membership gave unions more political and economic power, and by 1945 they had become an important element within the Democratic Party. They were a much more powerful liberal force in 1945 than even such noted left-wing organizations as the Socialist and Communist parties. Unions, sometimes including Communists in leadership roles, dominated the Left in politics after the war, which later put them under considerable Red-baiting pressures as the Cold War intensified. To oust radical elements within union ranks during the postwar hysteria over communism, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expelled twelve of

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thirty-five affi liates, containing nearly a million workers, in 1949. By mid1950, the Red Scare had led to a thorough purge of the radicals, leaving anti-Communists in fi rm control of the U.S. labor movement. The main problems faced by unions after the war, however, were economic. As in the period after World War I, demobilization in 1945–46 made labor relations volatile. With the cancellation of defense contracts and facing layoffs and loss of overtime pay, labor feared real wages might return to their formerly depressed status. Union leaders cited wartime and postwar inflation and the loss of overtime pay as justification for seeking wage hikes of 30 percent. To correct what they considered a wage–price imbalance, these officials were seeking forty-eight hours’ pay for forty hours of work. They pointed out that by the end of 1946 prices were up 33 percent from their level on Pearl Harbor day. Labor unions, now free of their “no strike” wartime pledges, called for catch-up pay hikes, and strikes broke out in nearly every major industry in the late 1940s. The year 1946 ultimately became the most contentious in the history of labor–management relations, with 4,985 work stoppages by 4.6 million workers, or about one of every fourteen Americans in the labor force. The number of worker-days lost was 116 million, three times the previous high in 1945. The wave of strikes crested in early 1946, involving 1.8 million workers in such major industries as meat packing, oil refi ning, electrical appliances, steel, and auto manufacturing. Unlike the labor disturbances of the 1920s and 1930s, postwar labor disputes involved mainly wages and were not a struggle over union recognition. Unions ultimately succeeded in their aims, winning hefty wage increases while holding on to the membership gains they had made in wartime. In the late 1940s, unions also began to reap benefits from another source, gaining cost-of-living adjustments, health insurance, life insurance, paid vacations, and old-age pensions from employers. As the federal government slowed in extending social benefits after 1945, corporate benefits expanded greatly. Labor’s victories were won at enormous cost in both industrial strife and public support, setting the stage for the antilabor backlash to follow. These postwar economic gains were in part diminished by labor’s eroding political position, manifested in the stronger Republican position after the war. The wave of strikes and Truman’s apparent inability to deal with them led to the Republicans’ winning control of Congress in 1946. In the

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next several years, union gains would be slowed by increasing political difficulties, reflecting the decline in power of their Democratic allies in Congress. Unions were also under pressure from important structural changes in the U.S. economy. In contrast to their substantial wartime gains, union growth slowed after World War II. The war had brought about a huge expansion in manufacturing, which had boosted union membership in heavy industries that had unionized in the 1930s. In the late 1940s, however, these sectors of the economy grew slowly. In 1950, unions had 31.5 percent of nonagricultural employees, 4 percent less than in 1945. The trend of job expansion into white-collar rather than industrial jobs proved decisive in lessening the strength of unions over the next several decades. Other problems for unions related to race and the rise of a more hostile political climate. Organizing workers was particularly difficult in the South, a traditionally nonunion area. The attempts to expand membership here, known as “Operation Dixie,” were unsuccessful. Part of the problem was the southerners’ fear of organizing black workers. Unions were also hurt by Cold War anticommunism at home as well as by opposition from conservative politicians and business groups. There was public suspicion of a possible link between labor and the radical Left, which tainted labor’s image. These factors, along with the slower growth in manufacturing by the late 1940s, were steadily weakening organized labor. One area of job growth and an important legacy of the wartime emergency could be found in the expanded role of government. Between 1940 and 1950, the federal bureaucracy grew from just more than 1 million civilian employees and a $1.8 billion payroll to more than 2 million employees and a $6.7 billion payroll. The welfare state, created during the 1930s, had earlier been a major impetus for growth in the federal bureaucracy. The increase of federal employment during the war continued this growth trend, although the pattern slowed after 1945. Countering this trend toward big government was a turn away from liberalism after World War II. The conservative trend, which began in the late 1930s, persisted through the war years and into the late 1940s. In the postwar years, there was a tilt toward business interests and away from the activist government philosophy of the New Deal. Many politicians who had thrived in a depression environment by handing out government benefits to powerful interest groups, found it much more difficult to adapt to the

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politics of inflation, which called for holding the line on wages and prices and denying benefits to all groups. Although a rollback of the New Deal seemed impossible, expanding the government’s activities proved equally difficult. As the conservative had done to the Roosevelt administration during World War II, they succeeded in holding Truman and his liberal allies to a virtual stalemate in the late 1940s. Truman’s attempts to expand the New Deal were blocked, although the New Deal itself was basically preserved. The flourishing economy and concern over the intensifying Cold War helped to contain immediate pressure for additional government sponsored liberal programs. Foreign policy concerns and the prosperous economy were the most decisive forces shaping conservative political attitudes in the postwar era. Alongside the many domestic concerns, the growing number of crises abroad had a particularly sobering effect on the nation’s optimism. Despite the nation’s prosperity, a mood of anxiety over the Communist threat was developing by the late 1940s, culminating in the nation’s second Red Scare. After World War II, hysteria over possible Communist subversion became a national neurosis, affecting the political life of the United States for more than a decade. The rise of the Cold War and the discovery of domestic spies in 1946 created a climate of fear in the United States. Increasing this concern over leftist influence was the Progressive Party of Henry Wallace, led in part by Communists. There was also a widespread belief in the late 1940s that large numbers of Communists had infi ltrated the American government. By 1949, many were convinced that disloyal Americans had caused a sellout at Yalta, a failure to save eastern Europe, and a later betrayal of Chiang Kai-shek to the Communists in China. Because many believed that the United States was so powerful it could reshape the postwar world and that all failures could be attributed to the United States, it was easy to blame traitors within. In the search for disloyal citizens, a wide array of Americans came under suspicion. During the 1930s, Communists had achieved support in the arts and the labor movement. It was believed that large numbers of Communists had also infi ltrated the news media, the motion picture industry, and even the clergy. In the postwar period, several well-known intellectuals and reformers were exposed as former Communists. The Soviet Union had used these supporters to back its foreign policy during the 1930s and 1940s, to battle the anti-Soviet foreign policies of the Truman administration after the

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war, and to serve as spies. In the anti-Communist climate of the late 1940s, many would blame these groups for America’s troubles in foreign affairs. This fear of Communist influence led Congress and the federal government to actively search for disloyal Americans. Between 1945 and 1952, congressional committees conducted eighty-four hearings on Communist subversion. Originally set up in 1938, the House Un-American Activities Committee became the nation’s principal tribunal for the exposure and punishment of subversion after the war. One of the main tools of this committee was the 1940 Smith Act, which made it a criminal offense to “teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of the government by force or violence.” In attempting to ferret out Communists, this committee investigated such American institutions as Hollywood, higher education, unions, and the federal government itself. Based on the Smith Act, the government secured the conviction of eleven leading members of the American Communist Party for advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. In 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the verdicts, stating the defendants were “a clear and present danger” to the security of the nation. By the late 1940s, fear of Communist influence in the federal bureaucracy led to extensive machinery by the Truman administration to make America safe. Truman, after the Republican gains in the 1946 congressional elections and fearing he might be outflanked by the Republicans on this issue, set up a loyalty program for federal employees. By 1952, government loyalty boards had investigated thousands of employees, of whom more than 7,000 were dismissed or forced to resign. Of these, none was indicted, and no evidence of espionage was found. The Red Scare gained much credibility with the celebrated Alger Hiss case, involving a high-ranking government official. In 1948, Whitaker Chambers, a senior editor of Time (and former Communist), accused former State Department official Alger Hiss of having been a Communist spy. Hiss, who had served as adviser to President Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference, denied the charge and was backed by such leading establishment figures as Secretary of State Dean Acheson and President Truman. Even though Hiss ultimately was convicted only of perjury rather than spying because of the statute of limitations on the espionage charge, the case intensified the question of Communists in government. Some even charged that the outcome of the important Yalta Conference in 1945 between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin had been tainted by a pro-Soviet adviser

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to President Roosevelt. (Many years later, evidence revealed that Hiss had indeed colluded with the Soviets.) The conviction of Alger Hiss seemed to prove that the leaders of the Red Scare were right—that there were Communists in government, a fear that intensified an already charged atmosphere. The uncovering of a major spy network at this time increased the fear of Communist subversion even more. In England, Klaus Fuchs, a young scientist who had worked at the Los Alamos, New Mexico, atomic laboratory during the war, confessed to passing stolen atomic secrets to Soviet agents. In America, an espionage group including Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were later executed as spies, was uncovered and found to have links to Los Alamos. The atmosphere was further stirred by the fall of China to the Communists and the consolidation of Soviet power in eastern Europe. By 1950, the hunt for Communists was expanding, and many in government positions, education, business, and the arts were now being investigated at the federal or state level. These conditions provided a perfect setting for the rise of the famous hunter of Communists in government, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. On February 9, 1950, he declared that “the State Department was infested with 205 known Communists.” Later that month he reduced this charge to “57 card-carrying members of the Communist party.” Although he had no proof, the controversial senator maintained a large following until 1954. Even a Senate investigation that dismissed his “fi ndings” failed to shake his popularity. Ultimately condemned by the U.S. Senate, McCarthy lost much of his support when he began to attack the loyalty of important people in the army, including the much revered General Marshall. At the same time that the government accelerated its hunt for Communists following the sensational Hiss case and the uncovering of internal spy networks, the actual menace of domestic communism was vanishing. Thrown on the defensive by the Cold War, the American Communist Party suffered a sharp decline in membership, was driven from the labor movement, and lost its influence in the loyal American Left. By the 1950s, communism had become a spent force in American life. Yet the search for traitors continued, causing much political turmoil in the United States. Despite the anxieties caused by the Red Scare as well as by crises overseas and the ever-intensifying Cold War, the post-1945 mood in America was generally optimistic. The vast majority of Americans were living better than ever in a flourishing economy. African Americans lagged behind but were

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already engaged in a growing civil rights struggle. Unions were involved in a generally successful effort to protect the gains made during World War II. Pressure for government actions to meet the rising demands of many Americans at a time when there was little support for activist government created a major problem for the postwar Truman administration. In accommodating these various demands, President Truman would be sorely tested.

Truman The Embattled President

rose from a working-class background to become president during one of the most tumultuous periods in American history. He was a much embattled president, facing strong opposition from labor, civil rights groups, Republicans, the American public, and even fellow Democrats. Lacking a college education and moving from one low-level job to another, he entered politics rather late in life. With little to help him politically, Truman joined an infamous political machine in Kansas City and gradually advanced himself, ultimately reaching the presidency. Seemingly possessing few of the personal qualities that had made his predecessor such an effective president, he, too, became a strong leader during a difficult time. Truman’s main achievements as president were often of a more subtle nature rather than a long list of legislative programs. He faced enormous challenges upon assuming the presidency, especially in managing a complex reconversion to a peacetime economy. Truman faced: the possible return of the Depression, the threat of inflation, critical labor disputes, and consumer shortages. He successfully oversaw a very difficult transition of the economy following the war, establishing a fi rm prosperity while maintaining the principal accomplishments of the New Deal. The situation confronting Truman in 1945 was vastly different from that of 1933, when the Roosevelt presidency began. The New Deal developed in response to depression, with the very survival of capitalism at stake. Truman’s Fair Deal occurred during prosperity, the main problem to be faced being inflation. By the end of his presidency, Truman had avoided an

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economic collapse, presiding instead over an expanding economy. He generally followed the guidelines established by President Roosevelt, and, with the notable exception of civil rights, Truman’s policies never moved significantly beyond the New Deal. His domestic achievements were largely an extension of the earlier Democratic programs of the 1930s. Truman was born into a family of southern Democrats whose ancestors had fought for the Confederacy. Originally from Kentucky, where they had been slave owners, the family later relocated to Missouri. Truman was one of three children of a father who never succeeded in a variety of jobs. John Truman was a combative, uneducated farmer, a livestock and mule trader, and an unlucky grain speculator. Truman’s mother was well educated for her day, having graduated from college. From his family, he learned a strong sense of right and wrong that would later help shape his political career. Truman also grew up in a home with music and books, manifested later in his interest in the piano and reading American history. He experienced a happy boyhood in Independence, Missouri, where his family had settled in 1890. He has been described as “uncomplicated, at peace with himself, proud of his origins, and secure in the affections of his family.”1 Truman’s formal education ended with only a high school diploma, making him the last American president who never attended college. He had hoped to attend West Point but failed the physical exam due to poor eyesight, and, with his family pressed for money, he gave up on the idea of going to college. Lacking a college degree, Truman was later described by one scholar as “a self-educated, uneducated man.”2 Partly because his defective eyes kept him from sports, he became an insatiable reader, with interests ranging from Plutarch and the Bible to military lore and American history. He claimed to have read every book in the local library by the age of thirteen. When he was a young man, his limited educational background restricted his early career options. After high school, his fi rst jobs included a number of low-level positions in a bank, a newspaper, and a railroad, and he eventually wound up managing the family farm for several years. At the age of thirty-three, he enlisted to serve in World War I, becoming a captain and commanding one of the most unruly units in the army. He proved to be an effective commander, winning the respect and loyalty of his men. His World War I service was also a period of personal growth, being the fi rst time the future politician saw himself as a leader of men. He developed a great admiration for military men, leading him as president to

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appoint more military leaders to high positions than any other president in the twentieth century. While in the army, Truman befriended the nephew of Tom Pendergast, the political boss of the Kansas City Democrats. This friendship provided Truman’s fi rst political contact and his subsequent entry point into politics. After the war, he initially refused an offer from the political machine in 1921 to run for office because he was already co-owner of a successful men’s clothing store. His business soon became a local hangout, where he made valuable contacts for his later political career. When the business later failed in the recession of 1922, Truman reconsidered the machine offer and ran successfully for county commissioner, an administrative post. Because Truman lacked fi nancial resources, a prominent family name, or a professional background, the powerful Pendergast machine was his most likely means of political advancement. He later noted: “You can’t get anywhere in politics around Kansas City unless you work with the machine.”3 Except for two years following a defeat, Truman served in this position until 1934. Truman was a hard worker who retained his honesty even though linked to an obviously corrupt political machine. Although he might reward machine people with jobs, he was fi rmly against any illegal practices such as bribery or corruption in office. These were qualities his friend and mentor, Boss Pendergast, was forced to accept. On one occasion when Truman refused to deal with crooked contractors, Pendergast stated: “Didn’t I tell you boys, he’s the contrariest cuss in Missouri.”4 After this, Pendergast never asked Truman to do anything dishonest. Truman’s political career received an enormous boost in 1934 when he was chosen by the machine to run for the U.S. Senate. In a very difficult primary race, he defeated two contenders before easily defeating a Republican opponent in the general election. Because of his close ties to the Kansas City machine, Truman was originally dubbed “the gentleman from Pendergast.” As a senator, he was a loyal New Deal supporter, even on the controversial issue of court packing. He became a respected and influential member of the Senate, later earning membership in the “club,” the powerful inner circle of leading senators. However, he was not one of the architects of the New Deal or even a close confidante of President Roosevelt. Truman never sponsored a major piece of legislation, instead becoming involved in lesser issues such as regulating air and railroad transportation.

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Senator Truman’s political views were initially more moderate than those of the hardcore liberal New Dealers. He believed in a balanced budget and was skeptical about social experimentation, although he thought the government had a responsibility to help solve social and economic problems. He began as a typical middle-of-the-road senator, but, like many others in the Depression decade, he abandoned his former conservative views to emerge as a more liberal politician. He became a supporter of all the major New Deal policies, endorsing such measures as Social Security, the Wagner Act, and massive federal spending to curb unemployment. Truman was narrowly reelected in 1940 in what he called his most difficult political race ever. He ran without support from the president, even though he had been a faithful New Dealer (and ironically was to become Roosevelt’s future vice president). In the Senate race, the president was backing the Democratic governor of Missouri, who he thought would be a stronger candidate. Truman’s political mentor, Tom Pendergast, was in prison, and Truman had little money and almost no newspaper support in Missouri. His reelection made him a stronger member of the Senate, with more respect and influence. He served for another three and a half years in that body, until he resigned to run for vice president in mid-1944. He later came to regard his years in the Senate as the most satisfactory period in his political career. Truman’s victory in 1940 came in spite of his limitations as a candidate. He proved that despite his poor public speaking and pedestrian appearance, he could be a powerful, resourceful candidate. His folksy, somewhat corny manner resonated well with many voters. He seemed to be an average man, with no pretensions to special attainments or superior wisdom, trying to do the best he could. One scholar claimed that Truman’s victory in 1940 was “a greater one than in 1948. He didn’t have presidential stature, he was given up for dead politically, essentially alone, and having to beg for funds.”5 During his second term, Truman found the issue that propelled him into national prominence. In early 1941, he persuaded the Senate to create a committee to investigate defense spending, and he was appointed chairman of what came to be known as the Truman Committee. The purpose of the committee was to uncover fraud and the manufacture of shoddy products. President Roosevelt was initially cool toward the creation of this committee, fearing it would hinder his direction of the war effort in the same way the Radical Republicans had harassed Lincoln during the Civil War.

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Truman’s service on the committee made him nationally known, and by 1943 he was getting good reviews from the press. That year, Time magazine stated: Truman “had saved the country billions of dollars.”6 (In June 1943, when he uncovered an expensive item unaccompanied by sufficient information, he was told by Secretary of War Stimson that the mysterious project was legitimate and not to be further investigated. This was the top-secret atomic bomb project.) Truman’s primary achievement was to provide an authoritative public forum to pressure corporations and labor unions to act more in the public interest. In May 1944, a survey by Washington newsmen named him, the only member of Congress to be cited, as one of the ten most valuable officials in Washington.7 In the summer of 1944, the New York Times gave a complete endorsement to the committee and its chairman.8 By 1944, Truman had obviously become a respected national figure. One newspaper queried whether this was “a political Horatio Alger story” (a rags-to-riches success tale). During his tenure as chairman, he claimed to have saved approximately $15 billion. His work on the committee earned him much favorable press coverage and helped launch him into the next phase of his career, the vice presidency. In 1944, Roosevelt was persuaded to drop his then-current vice president, Henry Wallace, because of opposition from party leaders and southerners. Wallace was seen as too liberal and too unpredictable, even though he was a favorite with the ardent New Dealers. Having decided to choose a new running mate, Roosevelt allowed contending factions to promote possible candidates. Looking for someone who was both liberal and acceptable to Congress, the president ultimately chose Senator Truman, who had no liabilities and seemed to be a suitable compromise choice. Among Democratic leaders, Truman alone seemed capable of restoring a healthy relationship between the president and Congress and of assuming the presidency if Roosevelt died. Believing that no running mate could actually help the ticket, Roosevelt was looking for someone least likely to hurt it, and Truman best matched that qualification. Despite wide speculation, there is no evidence that he sought someone who could replace him should his health fail. Wallace’s poor relations with the Senate were a key factor because that body would be vital to ratifying postwar treaties. Truman had cultivated strong personal relations with his fellow senators for years and was well respected by his colleagues. He was known as a strong New Dealer, an internationalist, and a party loyalist. He was also from a political border state and

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was clearly qualified as a unity candidate. One scholar claims that the choice was particularly important because “each delegate kept uppermost in mind that his choice for vice president might become president.” 9 Roosevelt was influenced to pick Truman by Robert Hannegan, the Democratic National Committee chairman from St. Louis. A major figure in the Missouri Democratic organization, Hannegan had helped Truman win reelection in 1940. He played an important part in convincing Roosevelt that Wallace, unlike Truman, would hurt the ticket in 1944. All the key elements in the New Deal coalition—the big-city machines, the South, and labor unions—favored Truman. When the senator was reluctant to run, Roosevelt ordered the Democratic official to tell Truman that “if he wants to break up the Democratic Party in the middle of a war, that’s his responsibility,”10 and Truman was persuaded. Although he had not sought the vice presidency, he agreed to run after Roosevelt made this personal appeal to him. Elected by a comfortable margin in 1944, Truman settled into the role of vice president knowing that the president had been ill earlier that year and might not fi nish his fourth term. His main task as vice president was to secure confi rmation for Henry Wallace as commerce secretary, leading to a difficult but ultimately successful fight in the Senate. Because many conservatives in Congress were bitterly opposed to Wallace, lining up support for the former vice president was not easy. The solution was to weaken the position of commerce secretary. Truman arranged to separate a government agency, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), from the Commerce Department, a compromise that satisfied opponents of the nomination. Wallace’s earlier pledge to use the RFC to promote full employment had angered many conservatives, forcing Truman to arrange this political compromise. Truman’s former political mentor, Tom Pendergast, died at this time, and the new vice president unhesitatingly decided to attend the funeral. Unlike many of the former political boss’s associates, Truman did not desert his longtime friend, who had recently served time in prison and died a broken man. Still loyal to his former political mentor, Truman stated: “I’m as sorry as I can be. He has always been my friend and I have always been his.”11 Throughout his early political career and later into his presidency, Truman always remained loyal to his friends. On April 12, 1945, after having served only eighty-four days as vice president, Truman received a message to go to the White House immediately. There he was told by the First Lady that Roosevelt had died and he was now

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the president. On hearing the news, Truman said to the reporters: “Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know if you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me. I’ve got the most terrible responsible job a man ever had.”12 When he continued to make similar comments, congressional leaders urged him to act more presidential. He was so humble in the fi rst few weeks that Senator Alben Barkley fi nally took him aside and told him he risked having the public lose all confidence in him if he did not show more confidence in himself. Unlike many leading politicians, Truman had never aspired to be president. He had accepted the vice presidential nomination as an obligation. “If there ever was a man who was forced to be president, I am that man,”13 the new chief executive stated. He was also assuming office at one of the most difficult times in the nation’s history. Truman clearly had not been groomed for his awesome responsibilities. Prior to becoming president, he had not been personally close to Roosevelt, either as senator or vice president. Roosevelt had been disrespectful to Truman when he was a senator, had not backed him for reelection in 1940, and had even excluded him from the administrative inner circle when he was vice president. Truman had rarely met with Roosevelt either during the 1944 campaign or in the few months following the election. He plainly stated, “They didn’t tell me anything that was going on.”14 President Truman inherited governmental responsibilities that had grown enormously during the war. One historian declared that not even Lincoln in 1861 or Roosevelt in 1933 faced such formidable challenges as they assumed office.15 The wartime emergency was not yet over, and difficult peace arrangements lay ahead. In the crisis atmosphere of 1945, his power as president would be extremely great as he helped reshape the postwar world. “There have been monarchs in the past who wielded authority as intensive,” one scholar notes, “but not many.”16 To his colleagues in Washington, the new president seemed worthy of such vast authority. Although generally an unknown quantity to the public at that time, Truman had been a well-liked and respected member of Congress, where he was viewed as safe and competent. Former vice president John Nance Garner described Truman as “honest and patriotic” and as having “a head full of good horse sense.”17 He was seen as a “gregarious, experienced politician who was familiar with government operations, accustomed

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to the need for compromise, and schooled in domestic issues.”18 He was also endowed with an unpretentious but strong character and possessed a clear mind. Unlike his predecessor, he had a disinclination for the companionship of intellectuals and activists, which soon put him at odds with many of the leading Roosevelt advisers. Not a deep thinker himself, he was uncomfortable with many New Dealers, whom he suspected were intellectual snobs. Although ill at ease with the presidency at fi rst, Truman soon grew into the office. He also had a different political style than his predecessor. The former president was more skilled in dealing with men and the public and in the use of presidential power. As a senator, Truman had been described as more direct and less subtle, not as diplomatic. He was very decisive and never second-guessed himself. He had a simple view of right and wrong and examined complex problems on these terms. As president, Truman proved to be more conservative than his predecessor, especially when he challenged organized labor, which was a key segment of the Roosevelt coalition. He also was more committed to a balanced budget than Roosevelt. Although a loyal New Dealer, he had not been a fanatical liberal in the Senate. He was comfortable with conservatives who upheld the role of business in American society. Besides working on the family farm for many years, he, too, had been a businessman. Though Truman had a generally progressive outlook, observers noted he also possessed the innate conservatism of the Missouri-bred countryman. At fi rst, Truman began his presidency by acting as an all-out liberal in the tradition of former President Roosevelt. In September 1945, the new president boldly attempted to extend the New Deal. He called for a host of liberal measures, such as Social Security extension, housing legislation, national health insurance, an increased minimum wage, and further regional development programs modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority. A disapproving House minority leader Joseph Martin stated: “Not even President Roosevelt ever asked so much at one setting. It is just a case of out–New Dealing the New Deal.”19 Truman soon discovered that the public was unreceptive to an extended New Deal and that it was politically risky to be an extreme liberal after 1945. In this conservative political climate marked by fears of inflation and impatience with big government, Truman failed to get much from Congress. Because it had taken the Great Depression to make the New Deal possible, it was not realistic to expect new liberal programs during a period

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of prosperity. By early 1946, the American people clearly did not want new political and economic reforms. There was also precedent for expecting little from Congress. After World War I, the United States had rejected an activist, reform-type government. The general expectation was that following World War II, the country would once again turn away from the progressive government symbolized by the New Deal and return to 1920s-style conservatism. Congress had become more conservative as early as 1938, and even President Roosevelt had been unable to pass major New Deal initiatives after that year. When Truman was forced to limit his political agenda, his principal domestic concern now became maintaining a prosperous peacetime economy. Demobilizing the armed forces and converting the economy from wartime to peacetime production threatened a return to very high unemployment. Most economists predicted and the administration expected a depression after the war. By late autumn 1945, however, the administration realized that inflation, not depression, was the immediate economic danger. This new outlook helped lead to a confl ict with organized labor, a core constituency in the Democratic Party. The president tried to deal with the inflation challenge by holding down union demands. He soon faced the most serious labor–management confl icts since immediately after World War I. Organized labor insisted that wages, kept down by still existent wartime controls, now be allowed to rise substantially. It also sought stronger federal guarantees for the right of collective bargaining, including protection of the closed shop, an arrangement that required a potential employee to have union membership before being hired. The opposition, led by business leaders and conservatives, rejected these demands as dangerous to the economy and was ready to stand up to its labor adversary. Faced with a drop in wages, mainly from a loss of eight hours of overtime pay per week, and a sharp rise in prices after the war, organized labor threatened to launch a wave of strikes. Yet an increasingly conservative public was not sympathetic to the unions’ demands. Labor unions, which had picked up millions of members during the war and consequently became much stronger, were determined to challenge business despite public opposition. The stage was set for a fierce confrontation between unions, business, and the federal government.

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In this tense atmosphere during the Truman administration’s fi rst year in office, it had to deal with an endless outbreak of strikes affecting nearly all major industries. President Truman tried seizing industries and conciliating both parties through conferences, but with only limited success. The number of strikes increased sharply during the winter of 1945–46, leading a frustrated and seemingly unsympathetic President Truman to call for legislation to halt strikes through a thirty-day cooling-off period and mediation services. Labor was shocked—had Truman betrayed Roosevelt’s legacy? One particular target in the labor movement was John L. Lewis, head of the Coal Miners Union. Founder of the CIO, Lewis had become the most powerful and most feared labor leader in the United States. Possessing an arrogant disdain for public opinion, he had even called strikes during World War II. To Americans of the 1930s and 1940s, Lewis’s coal strikes were “as much an annual event as the fi rst sighting of the ground hog, or a President’s throwing out the fi rst baseball of the season.”20 When Lewis called a coal strike in 1946, he especially aroused Truman’s anger. The president came to detest Lewis, calling him “a Hitler at heart, a demagogue in action and a traitor in fact.”21 Truman added that President Roosevelt should have shot the union leader as a traitor.22 Lewis, who had also been President Roosevelt’s principal labor adversary, came to symbolize a selfish and uncaring attitude by organized labor, which helped to trigger a backlash against unions. Congress was now in a mood to curb labor “abuses” and redress what was widely considered the pro-labor bias of the 1935 Wagner Act. The problems with labor reached a peak in 1946 as nearly every major industry was plagued by strikes or threats of strikes. A record 4.6 million workers that year engaged in nearly 5,000 strikes. New statistical records were set in January 1946 in the number of workers striking and man-days lost. By this time, labor had offended management, the public, and the White House. A frustrated and angry President Truman declared: “Labor is following exactly the same path that arrogant industry followed in the 1920s.”23 Congress reacted harshly to labor’s militancy with the Case bill, which would have severely restricted labor’s activities. This bill provided for a thirty-day cooling-off period, along with injunctions against certain union activities and opened up unions to lawsuits. Far more stringent toward labor than the president’s own remedial proposal earlier that year, the bill passed Congress, and Truman’s veto was barely successful. The close vote to sus-

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tain the veto reflected the strong shift in sentiment against organized labor, indicating that tough times for unions were ahead. Truman, like organized labor, soon faced major political problems in this conservative political setting. By the end of 1945, he had lost control of Congress to the conservative Republican–southern Democratic coalition at the same time that his support from liberals and labor seriously eroded. Lacking public support and in trouble with the Democratic Left, Truman had virtually no influence in Congress. The just-completed seventy-ninth Congress, which adjourned in late 1946, had rejected nearly all the Truman programs, soon known as the “Fair Deal,” and almost rejected Henry Wallace as commerce secretary. The Employment Act of 1946 exemplified Truman’s political difficulties. It was the only major piece of Truman legislation passed by Congress in his fi rst term, albeit in a much weakened version. In the act’s original form, the government was directed by law to use its power to prevent serious unemployment and to guarantee every worker the right to a job. The bill would establish the Council of Economic Advisers to study the economy and then actively promote job creation. The weakened version of the bill that passed, however, created the council but called for merely analyzing the economy rather than mandating strong compulsory measures. Congress was obviously unwilling to establish another 1930s, New Deal–type program. Truman’s problem with the Employment Act was only one example of his political troubles by early 1946. The economic turmoil that followed the end of the war had jolted Truman’s prestige badly, leading many to consider him a “lightweight.” Even to liberals and loyal Democrats, he seemed a poor substitute for Roosevelt. Sensing Truman’s weak standing with the public, the Republicans hoped that victory in the congressional elections of 1946 and later in the presidential election in 1948 would lead to a return of a more normal (i.e., conservative, Republican-dominated) government. The low point of Truman’s political fortunes came in the fall of 1946. The wave of strikes, the rampant inflation following the lifting of price controls, the president’s apparent inability to solve the problems of reconversion, and the normal tendency for the “out party” to gain in off-year elections worked against the Democrats. In these elections, the Republicans gained control of both houses for the fi rst time since 1930. Campaigning on the theme “Had enough?” they added eleven senators and fi fty-four representatives. Observers claimed this was an omen for the 1948 election. Reflecting

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on Truman’s lowly political status at the time, critics declared: “To err is Truman.” When the beleaguered president examined his political difficulties in December 1946, he paraphrased the famous comment by Civil War general William Sherman (“War is hell”), declaring: “Sherman was wrong. . . . I fi nd peace is hell.”24 To some observers, the Republican victories in the 1946 congressional elections were a popular repudiation of Truman’s fi rst year and a half in office. He was now seen as a weak candidate should he seek the presidency in 1948. He was considered a spent force politically and perhaps a liability to his own party. A New York Times reporter stated that Truman could not carry even Missouri should he run.25 Time magazine stated: “Truman is a mediocre man,” and “the job is too big for him.”26 Fellow Democrat Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas irritated Truman by suggesting the proper thing to do was to resign the presidency and turn over the government to a Republican secretary of state, who would then become the next president. Truman was enraged by the suggestion, and he referred to the Arkansas legislator as Senator “Half-bright.”27 In the fi rst few months of 1947, a period dominated by concern over the worsening Cold War, Truman and Congress maintained a wary peace. The worst of reconversion was over, and the anticipated depression had not occurred. The wave of strikes had eased, and even the contentious John L. Lewis had seemingly been brought under control. Truman refrained from pressing his liberal program on Congress, possibly to avert backlash against his foreign policy proposals. American society was fundamentally sound, and domestic reforms, he stated, had to take a back seat to foreign policy and military needs. Dealing with a conservative and assertive Congress obviously would make passage of a liberal agenda almost impossible. The new eightieth Congress was more interested in balancing the budget and limiting the size of the federal government than in developing new welfare programs. Reflecting this conservative attitude, Congress now forced a rapid demobilization, ended wartime price controls, cut income taxes, and reduced agricultural price supports. The only important measures passed related to the office of the presidency: the Twenty-Second Amendment, which limited the presidency to two terms, and a new Presidential Succession Act. Under the Succession Act, the Speaker of the House would follow the vice president in the line of succession rather than the unelected secretary of state. The Congress did not yet launch an attack on the New Deal.

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Sensing their time was about to come, Republicans looked forward to the 1948 presidential election, when they would take complete control of the government and then try to repeal the social programs of the 1930s. In the midst of the nation’s increasing conservatism, Truman broke new ground in the controversial area of race relations. He was under growing pressure from civil rights groups, especially from A. Philip Randolph, who had earlier threatened protest marches during World War II. Truman also had a genuine concern about fair play as well as a political interest in currying favor with black voters. Despite a few breakthroughs in this previously “untouchable” issue, he achieved only limited gains for his civil rights program. Although his southern background made Truman an unlikely champion for racial equality, some of his long-held beliefs indicated another possible view of the matter. Traditionally, he had tried to please both the South and the black voters simultaneously. He had entered the presidency with a reasonably good record on civil rights, considering that he had come from a Jim Crow state. Segregation had been a way of life in Missouri that Truman had accepted. Earlier in his political career, he had stated: “I wish to make it clear that I am not appealing for social equality of the Negro. . . . Negroes want justice, not social relations.”28 But he had long supported legal and constitutional rights for blacks, and as a senator, he had defended the rights of blacks to education, welfare, and economic opportunity. Civil rights leaders recognized that the president, in his limited way, backed their cause, and they supported him strongly. Roy Wilkins, executive director of the NAACP, stated: “Truman did not believe in social equality but he did believe in fair play. No one had ever convinced him that the Bill of Rights was a document for white folks only.”29 Despite his interest in civil rights, President Truman had no success in enacting legislation such as antilynching and employment measures. His only major advances here followed his issuing executive orders outlawing discrimination in federal hiring and integrating the armed forces. Military integration especially had both actual and symbolic importance. Roy Wilkins stated that with this measure Truman created “a new climate for opinion [in civil rights].”30 Although his success on this issue was limited, Truman had become the fi rst president to make civil rights a major part of his program. Truman’s difficulties on the racial issue were matched by his efforts to contain the Republicans who sought to roll back the New Deal, especially to reverse some of the important gains made by organized labor under

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President Roosevelt. Despite their success in the 1946 congressional elections, the Republicans felt they were not yet powerful enough to begin overturning the New Deal en masse. Such a change would have to wait until 1948, when almost everyone assumed a Republican president would replace Harry Truman. The one large step open to the Republicans following their congressional victories in 1946 was to rewrite the labor legislation of the 1930s. Restricting the power of unions became a major goal for the newly confident Republican Party. Many Republicans felt the Wagner Act, which had enabled unions to gain great power, had been wrong in principle. They also resented labor’s strong alliance with the Democratic Party and felt that labor had become too arrogant. By 1947, a very hostile atmosphere toward labor existed in the Republican-dominated Congress, seeking to restrict union power. Many Americans also believed that the Wagner Act had unduly favored labor, making unions indifferent to the public welfare and hostile to corporate power. This atmosphere set the stage for the Republican’s key victory that year, the controversial Taft-Hartley Act. The Republicans initially had an even more Draconian labor bill on their agenda. As a replacement for the Case bill of the previous year, the Hartley bill would have voided the Wagner Act and deprived unions of their right to insist on collective bargaining, negotiate for a closed shop, resist the formation of company unions, or call on the federal government to aid in the curbing of unfair practices by employees. The Hartley bill would have returned labor unions to the legal status they occupied in the 1920s. Senator Robert Taft, leader of the conservative bloc of Republicans in the Senate, believed that this bill was neither practical nor wise. His modified version of the bill contained a shorter list of labor practices forbidden to unions, and the new Taft-Hartley bill was not as extreme. This controversial labor act was approved by Congress, which subsequently overrode the president’s veto. It outlawed the closed shop and secondary boycotts, mandated an eighty-day cooling-off period for strikes that “imperiled the national health and safety,” required anti-Communist affidavits from union officials, and allowed for state right-to-work laws. The closed shop, which required union membership as a condition for being hired, was replaced by the union shop, which required union membership after being hired unless the state outlawed mandatory union membership through “right-to-work” laws. The Taft-Hartley Act was regarded as the fi rst

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antilabor law since the 1920s. Unlike the Wagner Act, which had itemized unfair labor practices forbidden to employers, the new legislation created a list of unfair labor practices forbidden to unions. Organized labor saw danger in the new act, fearing that hostile presidents would routinely break strikes, that many states would outlaw the union shop, and that the act would encourage the government to interfere with collective bargaining. This controversial law infuriated labor unions, which regarded it as a “slave labor” act, and drove them even more into politics, allied with the Democrats on a year-round basis. Labor was ready to abandon its traditional “neutrality” and move even closer to the Democratic Party. An embittered union movement also initiated a debate over repeal of the measure that continued for many years. The Taft-Hartley Act was a reaction against many of the perceived “sins” committed by unions. Its passage was aided by popular resentment against strikes, against John L. Lewis, against reports of Communist penetration of unions, and against high prices. Truman himself had linked the strike leaders of 1946 to radicalism. In this political climate, the president felt some kind of antilabor bill was inevitable. He decided to veto the act, a veto that, although likely to be overturned, would earn him labor support in the 1948 election. Having damaged his standing with labor in 1946, he was anxious to mend his political fences. The controversy over the postwar deluge of strikes and how to deal with organized labor had further weakened the president’s popularity. Truman was already in trouble in 1946 because of the difficult economy, and his problems continued as he approached the 1948 presidential election. Questions were still being raised about his fitness for the presidency, even after three years in office. Attacked as anti-union, he was in trouble with organized labor, a core constituency of the Democratic Party. Many others felt he was simply out of place in the presidency. Critics wondered if he was the “little man” in the White House, another Millard Fillmore or Andrew Johnson.31 Political columnist Max Lerner questioned whether Truman even understood the nature and greatness of the office he held.32 Former New Deal interior secretary Harold Ickes called him “stupid.”33 The embattled president became the target of bitter political ridicule, typified by “Don’t shoot the piano player, he’s doing the best he can.”34 The president faced a major challenge in holding up under such pressure. A frustrated Truman, commenting on the state of postwar America,

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declared: “Selfishness, greed, jealousy raised their ugly heads.  .  .  . Labor began to grab all it could get by fair means or foul, farmers began black-marketing food, industry hoarded inventories, and the same old pacifists began to talk disarmament.”35 Casting a “plague” on everyone’s house, Truman would have to use all his political skills to navigate through such a political and economic minefield. With the president in deep trouble, many in his party hoped a new face might rescue the Democrats. In March 1948, Truman’s announcement that he would run again was received with unconcealed despair by virtually all of his party’s hierarchy. By April 1948, the president’s influence was described as weaker than any president’s in modern history. Truman found himself under attack from all sides of the Democratic Party. He was challenged by conservative southern Democrats who were angry over his support for civil rights and his seemingly pro-labor position. He also was hurt when urban blacks, put off by southern Democrats’ hostility to civil rights, defected in large numbers to the Republicans. Core elements of the New Deal coalition were deserting the embattled president. Truman was also under intense pressure by the equally sensitive issue of Communist subversion in the United States. The Republicans tried to cash in on this Communist phobia, demanding a thorough house cleaning of disloyal people in the executive branch of government. When the Republicans won control of both houses of Congress in 1946 for the fi rst time since 1928, this ensured that the new Congress would investigate the loyalty of federal employees. During the following year, Congress became involved in at least thirty-five separate investigations of federal personnel. Charged with being “soft on communism,” and wishing to deflect the heat of the Communist issue, Truman established loyalty boards after the 1946 elections. Through these boards, he instituted procedures to remove disloyal individuals from the federal bureaucracy. Truman never believed there was a genuine threat of subversion from within the government, calling this a “red herring,” but he was forced to act because of political realities. By the end of his presidency, approximately 7,000 federal employees had either been dismissed or forced to resign, out of a total of 2.5 million. Beyond these political attacks from the Republicans, the president also had personal reasons for this policy. He disliked the ardent New Dealers, whom he regarded as “crackpots and the lunatic fringe,” and they would be included in some of the investigations. The loyalty program also gained

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Truman support in Congress to fight communism abroad, as well as helping him in his 1948 election bid. Truman’s popularity had begun to rise after the 1946 elections, making him a more formidable threat for reelection. His veto of the Taft-Hartley Act helped him with his labor constituency. To bolster his standing with blacks, he had appointed a distinguished civil rights committee in December 1946 to make recommendations. He also became in 1947 the fi rst president to address the NAACP, which later helped him retain the black vote. The president was shoring up his base for his approaching reelection bid. To strengthen his candidacy in 1948, Truman became even more active on the controversial civil rights issue. He took his civil rights commission’s recommendations to Congress in February 1948, delivering the fi rst presidential message to focus solely on civil rights. Considered radical for its time, the message recommended an antilynching bill, a voting rights bill, a ban on discrimination in interstate transportation, creation of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission, and government initiatives to integrate the public schools. Truman’s strong stand at this time was in part inspired by fear of Henry Wallace, who had recently announced his candidacy for president on a third party and seemed likely to lure millions of liberal voters from the Democrats. Even though none of these recommendations ever reached the floor of Congress, the report helped lead to a wider split in the Democratic Party. Southern Democrats, who tended to be more conservative, began drifting away from the party leadership in the late 1930s, and this trend continued during the Truman administration. Despite the inaction of Congress, other important civil rights advances took place. At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, a faction led by Minneapolis mayor (and future senator and vice president) Hubert Humphrey secured an endorsement of Truman’s sweeping civil rights proposals of early 1948. The Humphrey initiative inspired an almost immediate movement led by South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond to bolt the Democratic Party. Truman then issued his notable executive orders to ban discrimination in federal employment and to begin desegregation of the armed forces. The debate over race relations could not be stilled, and, for the fi rst time since Reconstruction, civil rights would be a major issue in a presidential campaign. The situation did not look promising for the Democrats in 1948, apparently in total disarray. Time magazine concluded that “only a political

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miracle or extraordinary stupidity on the part of the Republicans can save the Democratic Party . . . from a debacle in November.”36 The sharp-tongued Republican Congresswoman from Connecticut, Claire Boothe Luce, called Truman “a gone goose.”37 Even his three-year tenure as president did not seem a major advantage. Truman had achieved very little success with his legislative agenda since assuming the presidency. Except for the weakened Employment Act of 1946, Congress had squelched practically every piece of social and economic legislation Truman had requested. Many of the remaining New Dealers had been defeated in 1946, and prosperity had quelled the appetite for further reforms. The “time for a change” political mentality that gripped the nation was a bad omen for the beleaguered president. Truman secured the Democratic nomination in 1948 despite considerable support for replacing him with General Eisenhower. Even two of President Roosevelt’s sons were lobbying for Eisenhower. After being rebuffed by Supreme Court justice William Douglas, the president chose Senate majority leader Alben Barkley of Kentucky as his running mate. Despite having survived a challenge to his nomination and fi nding a respectable running mate, the president still seemed doomed as a candidate. In a powerful attack on the president’s abilities, the St. Louis Post Dispatch stated that Truman lacked “the stature, the vision, the social and economic grasp, or the sense of history required to lead this nation in a world crisis.”38 Complicating the situation, the president faced a number of wellknown opponents in the campaign. He was opposed not only by Republican Thomas Dewey, but also within his own party by ultraliberal former vice president Henry Wallace and southern segregationist Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Wallace urged the United States to create a more far-reaching welfare state, and, blaming Truman for much of the troubles with the Communists abroad, he also urged the United States to be “nicer” to Stalin. Politically, Wallace was far to the left of Truman and wanted the United States to work more closely with the Soviet Union at the international level and with the American Communist Party on the domestic front. The United States should even accept Soviet domination of eastern Europe as a justifiable political reality, comparable to the U.S. domination of South America. These controversial views led one political commentator to declare: “A vote for Wallace is a vote for Stalin.”39 The Wallace challenge had only limited appeal because of the obvious influence of Communists in his Progressive Party.

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Like Wallace, Governor Thurmond threatened to siphon off a segment of Democrats from the president. Focusing almost exclusively on the civil rights question, Thurmond urged a more segregation-based approach to racial matters. His Dixiecrat Party captured only a few states during the election, with most of the South retaining its traditional loyalty to the Democratic Party. The danger to Truman’s reelection by Thurmond and Wallace had been grossly exaggerated. The principal threat to Truman’s reelection obviously came from the Republican ticket, consisting of the moderate, experienced governors of New York and California, Thomas Dewey and his running mate Earl Warren. Each had a good record, was hard to attack in a campaign, and seemingly possessed presidential stature. Should the crowded field of candidates deny anyone an electoral vote majority and throw the election into the House of Representatives, the situation would still be dire for the president. The Republican House majority along with its conservative southern Democratic allies would probably defeat Truman. Because Dewey seemed to be a particularly strong candidate, such a political scenario appeared unlikely. The fi rst presidential candidate born in the twentieth century, Dewey had become famous as New York’s district attorney while still in his thirties. Elected governor of New York in 1942, he became that state’s fi rst Republican governor in twenty years. Running for a second term in 1946, he rolled up the biggest victory in the state’s history, winning by nearly 700,000 votes. The overconfident Dewey ran a conservative campaign, leading the New York Times to observe: “Governor Dewey is acting like a man who has already been elected and is merely marking time.”40 One observer questioned whether Dewey was “running” or “walking” for the presidency.41 Yet as with the Wallaceites and the Dixiecrats, the impact of the Republicans was contained. Contrary to Dewey’s lethargic style, Truman ran an energetic, “Give ’em Hell, Harry”–type crusade for reelection. In his “whistle-stop” campaign, the president used his official train to take his case to the people. It was actually Republican senator Robert Taft who coined the term whistle-stop, accusing the president of “blackguarding Congress at whistle-stops all across the nation.”42 With his folksy approach, Truman excelled in this type of politics in which invariably the crowd would shout at him, “Give ’em hell, Harry!” In his “take it to the people” campaign, Truman continually linked the Republicans to the Great Depression and was cited as running an essentially

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one-issue, “bloody shirt” campaign. (In 1868, campaigning on one issue, the Republicans had labeled the Democrats the party that caused the Civil War, sometimes holding up a bloody shirt from a Civil War casualty.) Truman also appealed to the urban North, trying to attract its more liberal voters by criticizing the “do-nothing” eightieth Congress. He won the strong backing of organized labor by attacking the Taft-Hartley Act and the Republicans’ killing of the OPA, the wartime price-control agency, and thus “causing” inflation. Partly because of the “Wallace factor,” Truman made civil rights a key Democratic issue for the fi rst time in the party’s history. Once the Dixiecrats bolted the party, he became free to actively cultivate the black vote. During the campaign, the president cited his executive orders banning segregation in both the armed forces and the federal civil service. He also cemented his hold on the black vote by becoming the fi rst Democratic presidential candidate ever to deliver a campaign speech in Harlem. In the last days of the campaign, Truman concentrated on identifying himself with the New Deal philosophy and intensified his appeal to core elements of the Roosevelt coalition, including blacks, Jews, Catholics, labor unions, and voters of eastern European origin. Truman successfully resurrected the Roosevelt coalition, leading pundits to later question whether his victory was actually a fi fth term for his famous predecessor. With Truman’s triumph, accompanied by Democratic control of both houses of Congress, the voters defeated a return to pre–New Deal days. Partly because of the two dissident Democrats in the race, the election was actually much closer than the 2-million-vote national margin indicated. In Ohio, California, and Illinois, a swing of 60,000 votes would have given Dewey an electoral majority. Truman’s margin in Ohio was 7,107, in California only 17,865, and in Illinois only 33,612. Fortunately for the president, Thurmond and Wallace polled fewer votes than expected. In the traditionally Democratic South, Truman lost only four states to Thurmond. Elsewhere, Wallace’s vote cost Truman the states of New York, Maryland, and Michigan, although the renegade Democrat actually won no electoral votes. This most astonishing political upset in modern times surprised many because all the major polls had indicated a Dewey victory. So sure were the pollsters that they ceased operations two weeks before the election and missed the last-minute swing to Truman. Earlier, on September 9, famed pollster Elmo Roper announced that his organization would discontinue

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polling because the outcome was already “so obvious.” His latest poll had Dewey leading by an “unbeatable” 44 percent to 31 percent. In mid-October, Newsweek magazine polled fi fty of the nation’s leading political writers and found them unanimous in the opinion that Dewey would sweep to an easy, one-sided victory.43 These experts were wrong because of a switch in public sentiment late in the campaign. About 14 percent of the Truman voters made up their minds in the last two weeks, and approximately 3 percent decided on Election Day. One voter commented: “I talked about voting for Dewey all summer, but when the time came I just couldn’t do it. I remembered the Depression and all the good things that had come to me under the Democrats.”44 Other factors also contributed to this political miracle. To some voters, Dewey seemed patronizing, superior, and cold. Many felt he was overconfident and too dislikable and had run a lackadaisical campaign. He hadn’t even started campaigning until six weeks before the election. Others marveled at Truman’s skill in holding the Roosevelt coalition together without the Depression, World War II, and FDR himself. The noted political writer Walter Lippman wrote: “The party that Roosevelt formed had survived his death and is without question the dominant force in American politics.”45 Despite his amazing victory, Truman was still unable to get his most important programs through Congress, which continued to be dominated by the conservative Republican–southern Democratic coalition. Buoyed by the election, he had hoped that the new Democratic Congress would support a wide range of domestic programs that he christened the “Fair Deal” in his 1949 State of the Union Address. Shortly after his miracle victory, Truman proposed a host of reforms, including health insurance, aid to education, federal housing projects, and a controversial civil rights program. As had occurred virtually since the beginning of his presidency, nearly all these domestic measures were defeated in the conservative atmosphere of the late 1940s. The foreign-affairs crises were deepening, and during the more prosperous times of the late 1940s the public’s attention shifted to concern over the worsening Cold War. Even where Truman succeeded in getting Congress to act, the results were sometimes unsatisfactory. On public housing, only a very limited program was passed, and most of it was never realized. It was enacted because of overwhelming public support, reflecting the huge postwar housing shortage. The Housing Act of 1949, passed with the aid of powerful Republican

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Senator Robert Taft, authorized 810,000 units to be built over six years. The program called for federal loans and grants to builders and rent supplements for the poor in such units. However, it was scaled back by Truman during the Korean War, and only 60,000 units were built by the end of his presidency. Other Truman initiatives fared even worse. The plans for comprehensive health insurance, offering free medical and hospital care regardless of the ability to pay, and for federal aid for education were blocked. Truman’s fight to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act was also unsuccessful. His proposed Columbia Valley Administration, modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority and intended as the fi rst of several comprehensive power developments, similarly failed to gain support in Congress. Though the core of the New Deal remained intact, additional welfare-state programs proved impossible to enact. Truman’s controversial program to help farmers, known as the “Brannan Plan,” exemplified his dilemma. The plan, essentially a measure to provide a guaranteed income to farmers while allowing commodity prices to fi nd their own level in the open market, was opposed as “socialistic.” It attempted to keep farm income at the record high level of the war and immediate postwar periods while letting market prices fall to a natural supplyand-demand level. The program aimed to continue the New Deal policy of subsidizing the farmers, but not its techniques of restricting production in order to achieve artificially high prices. The plan would provide low prices to the consumer, high levels of production, and high income to farmers with the aid of government subsidies. The extra costs involved in maintaining high farm incomes would be borne by the federal government. Strong opposition from many quarters ultimately doomed the Brannan Plan. Labor opposed it, stating that farmers should not be favored with guaranteed incomes. The Korean War caused farm prices to rise and thus helped undercut any support for the plan. Republicans saw this plan as a political ploy by the Democrats to capture the farm vote. Even leading farm groups opposed it as unworkable, and it was blocked in Congress. Any chance of resurrecting the bill died in 1950 when the Republicans made strong gains in the off-year elections. The Democratic Party strategy of uniting the farm and labor voting blocs in order to pass the Brannan bill had failed. A disenchanted President Truman noted: “The main trouble with the farmers is that they hate labor so badly that they will not vote for their own interests.”46 They voted Republican in the 1950 elections, thereby killing any hope of future pro-farm or pro-labor bills.

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Toward the end of Truman’s presidency, the prosperous economy and increasing concern over communism diminished public enthusiasm for the Fair Deal. When the Red Scare became more intense in 1950 following the outbreak of the Korean War, Truman’s domestic program effectively died. Public concern over internal espionage, disloyal government employees, and the rise of the famed Communist hunter Senator Joseph McCarthy overshadowed interest in the Fair Deal. Truman’s program in Congress was foundering, a victim of the increasingly conservative mood in the country and the growing struggle against communism. Truman’s domestic policies were generally unsuccessful, and his greatest achievement was to prevent repeal of the New Deal during a conservative era. After almost eight years in office, he had only a few domestic achievements: his executive orders ending discrimination in the armed forces and in the federal civil service, the Housing Act of 1949, a rise in the minimum wage, and extended coverage and increased benefits in the Social Security system. His boldest proposals were defeated or ignored by Congress: civil rights legislation, national health insurance, the Brannan Plan for agriculture, and federal aid to education. His main contribution was to begin a public discussion on these programs, several of which would later be enacted during the more liberal 1960s. Finding it necessary to place party unity above all else after 1950, Truman quietly shelved most of his domestic legislative programs and sought to bring the conservative wing of his party behind his military and defense policies. Although he still strongly supported the Fair Deal, Truman declared, “First things come fi rst and our defense programs must have top priority.”47 For the remainder of the Truman administration, foreign policy concerns were preeminent as fighting the Cold War became the nation’s highest priority.

The Rise of the Cold War A S W I T H D O M E S T IC M A T T E R S ,

President Truman also had a much-troubled presidency in foreign affairs. During his administration, the nation went from concluding World War II to entering into the Cold War with Soviet Russia. Old fears of revolutionary communism were reawakening in the West, while suspicion and xenophobia surfaced in Russia. He engaged in a diplomatic duel with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and began a struggle that ultimately lasted until 1989. Truman, who had little experience in foreign affairs prior to becoming president, oversaw a revolution in American foreign policy and set its direction for the next four decades. Much maligned while in office, he lived to see most of his policies ultimately become successful. The crises after World War II stemmed largely from the Allied leaders’ different views of the postwar world and of each other. Stalin was obsessed with fear and distrust of the West, and Germany in particular. More than 20 million Russians had died in the war. He wanted Germany destroyed, and, beyond that, he wanted a safe barrier of friendly states—which to him could only be Communist states—to shield Russia from the untrustworthy West. Russia occupied much of eastern Europe at the end of the war, and Stalin hoped to convert these neighboring countries into subservient Communist satellites. Conversely, Churchill was very suspicious of Stalin’s intentions. Churchill looked at the world in terms of realpolitik and the balance of power. Stalin must be checked in his absorption of Poland and eastern Europe, or the balance of power would be disadvantageous to the West. During World War II, he unsuccessfully urged President Roosevelt to block Stalin, perhaps by a Balkan offense to gain a toehold for the West in eastern Europe. 137

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President Roosevelt tried to take a middle position between his two Allied partners. He hoped that by charming Stalin, he could win his trust. Yet the United States had a different value system than Soviet Russia, stressing liberty and democracy as well as capitalism for the postwar world. To win Stalin’s confidence, Roosevelt was careful to avoid the impression of Britain and the United States ganging up on Russia at the wartime conferences at Teheran and Yalta. He rejected Churchill’s Balkan strategy but was growing more suspicious of the Russian leader by the end of his presidency. One of Roosevelt’s most important initiatives for peace was to urge creation of the United Nations (UN), a successor to the ill-fated League of Nations. Truman supported the creation of the UN, which began shortly after the war ended. The UN never became an effective means of solving great-power disputes, and the growing crisis between Russia and the West continued unabated. Thrown into this diplomatic cauldron in 1945, Truman had no experience in relations with England or Russia, no fi rsthand knowledge of Churchill or Stalin. The new president took a much harder line toward the Soviet Union than Roosevelt, who had hoped a friendly attitude would persuade the Soviet dictator to make concessions on the major postwar issues. Truman was less diplomatic toward Stalin than his predecessor had been. At fi rst hoping that he could bring Stalin around through personal appeals and speculating that perhaps the Soviet leader was basically a political boss like his former political mentor Tom Pendergast, Truman soon learned that he faced a determined foe. Believing that Russia was breaking solemn agreements and was taking advantage of American generosity, he was far less accommodating on Soviet expansionism in eastern Europe than Roosevelt had been. He brought a staunchly anti-Communist view to the White House and early in his presidency came to view the Soviet Union as a “world bully.” Soon after Truman assumed office, difficulties with Stalin began to surface. At the conference at Potsdam, Germany, July–August 1945, Allied unity was clearly coming apart. Stalin had presented the West with a fait accompli in Poland, which he already controlled, and it was obvious that he planned to turn the remainder of eastern Europe, which he also occupied, into Communist satellites. His idea of a “Carthaginian” peace for Germany (similar to how ancient Rome almost totally and permanently destroyed its rival, Carthage) further aroused controversy. Favoring a Germany without recovery, Stalin wished the German nation to serve primarily as a supply depot for the

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rebuilding of the Russian economy. Truman objected to these plans, and no agreements were reached at the Potsdam Conference about the fate of Europe. The new American president and Stalin were becoming engaged in one of the most dangerous political and ideological conflicts in history. Helping Truman wage this historic struggle with Russia were four secretaries of state, beginning with Edward Stettinius, whom Truman had inherited from President Roosevelt. A former corporate leader rather than career diplomat, Stettinius had been named by Roosevelt largely because he would defer to the president in foreign affairs. Preferring to be his own secretary of state, Roosevelt chose Stettinius in late 1944 to succeed his ailing, longtime secretary Cordell Hull. Not affi liated with any party, Stettinius also would lend a nonpartisan feel to the conduct of foreign affairs. One of Truman’s earliest decisions was to replace Stettinius in June 1945 with James F. Byrnes, a powerful politician whom Truman had known as a Senate colleague for many years. Truman objected to Stettinius’s never having been elected to office. With no vice president at that time, the secretary of state was next in the line of succession, and Truman preferred a possible successor to have held an elective position. Byrnes, a very experienced politician, had served as Roosevelt’s domestic “czar” during much of World War II, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, and a U.S. senator from South Carolina. Truman, unlike Roosevelt, believed in working with a strong secretary of state. He gave his new secretary much latitude in foreign affairs—an acceptable arrangement to Byrnes, who wished to be an assistant president in foreign affairs. No other American secretary of state had ever assumed the office at a more critical time in U.S. history. The old power structure of the prewar years had been destroyed, and the Soviet Union was prepared to assume an ambitious, expansionist foreign policy. Stalin wished to dominate eastern Europe, which his armies already occupied, and his foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, made it clear that the price for cooperation was Western recognition of this controversial Soviet policy. The wartime alliance with Russia, now clouded with suspicion, was about to fall apart. Roosevelt and Truman’s hopes that a combination of personal charm and the newly created United Nations could ease tensions with Russia were going unrealized. At this critical point in U.S.–Soviet relations, Byrnes brought his own personal negotiating skills to the job. Renowned as a compromiser of confl icting interests, he became known as “a veritable Cardinal Richelieu [a

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famous seventeenth-century French diplomat] of the cloakroom.”1 Believing in the art of the possible, Byrnes was called a “compromiser” and a “harmonizer.” Although these talents had served him well in domestic politics, they were not as successful in dealing with the Soviet Union. Byrnes’s political and diplomatic skills would be severely tested in the next year and a half, and ultimately his tendency to compromise led to his ouster by Truman in late 1946. Contrary to his more flexible secretary of state’s approach, Truman’s position toward the Russians was already hardening. One of his earliest decisions as president, to end Lend-Lease aid to Russia immediately following Germany’s surrender, led to increased tensions with the Soviets. The United States was opposed to using the wartime Lend-Lease program for postwar rebuilding, with Congress concerned lest this program become a global “New Deal.” Truman’s decision soon aroused the suspicions of the Soviet dictator, already leery because of the Western position on eastern Europe. The most difficult problem to resolve was the status of Poland, where Russia absolutely refused to compromise. A struggle over Poland unofficially began the Cold War. Lying between Germany and the Soviet Union and serving as Germany’s invasion route in both world wars, this nation aroused a special interest in Stalin. Poland, in 1945, was cited by Churchill as the “fi rst of the great causes which led to the breakdown of the Grand Alliance.”2 It also became Truman’s fi rst major challenge as president, and he tackled it resolutely. The type of government to rule Poland after the war became a major controversy between the Soviets and the Western powers. The United States and Britain favored the prewar leaders, who resided in England during World War II, whereas the Soviets preferred the Russian-dominated Polish Communists, who had helped in the limited resistance against the Nazis. In a compromise to the West at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin had agreed to include non-Communists in the Polish government and to hold free elections. The wily Stalin, however, did not honor his promise, and because Russian troops were already occupying the country, it was easy for him to violate the agreement. The stakes in Poland were very high for the West, which feared the Polish model might be used by Stalin as a guide for other eastern European nations also occupied by Russia at the end of the war. With the Polish question unresolved, Truman and the American people were becoming increasingly suspicious about Russian intentions in eastern Europe.

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For President Truman, these sentiments actually predated his coming into office. He had made an extraordinary comment in June 1941 when Germany invaded Russia: “If we see Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word.”3 Despite these harsh comments, Truman was open to working with the Soviet Union during the war. He supported Lend-Lease to Russia, which was now a crucial partner in the war against Germany, and acknowledged the Soviet people as a “brave ally.” On becoming president, Truman reverted to his more hostile opinion of Communist Russia. He feared that Stalin, no longer needed in the fight against Germany, aimed to dominate all of Europe. His early position was that he was not afraid of Russia and intended to be fi rm but fair. After only five days in office, Truman was so upset about Poland that he decided it was time for “laying it on the line” to Soviet foreign minister Molotov. He believed a strong policy would not only express his displeasure but also win Soviet respect. Truman was urged to adopt this new hard line toward Russia by such key Roosevelt advisers as ambassador to Russia Averill Harriman, navy secretary Thomas Forrestal, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs William Leahy. Harriman had a particularly gloomy assessment of Russian policy, citing “a barbarian invasion of Europe.” In December 1945, an obviously concerned President Truman told Secretary Byrnes that “unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language, another war is in the making” and that he was “tired of babying the Soviets.”4 By early 1946, Truman had come to believe that the Russians were trying to push the Americans around and that Secretary Byrnes was being too easy with them. Stalin’s unyielding attitude over eastern Europe was steadily eroding trust and good will between the two former allies. Truman refused to see a justification for Soviet domination of eastern Europe and believed that Stalin would back down when confronted. Both leaders, however, were fi rm in their positions. Stalin’s feelings of insecurity regarding eastern Europe and the need to dominate Poland did not win support from Truman. The new president regarded Soviet expansionism as a threat to democracy and not simply an instrument of Soviet security. Positions were obviously hardening in the developing Cold War.

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Stalin saw the idea of postwar “spheres of interest” in Europe very differently from Truman. He was willing to concede American and British primacy in the areas where these two nations had fought, and he expected the Soviet Union to dominate in eastern Europe, where it had engaged the Germans. Otherwise, a Western-dominated eastern Europe might serve as a hostile base against the Soviet Union. Because of the delay in opening the second front and the consequent increased role for the Soviet Union in the European theater, Stalin believed that Russia had earned the right to dominate eastern Europe. The Russian leader had great difficulty in understanding the West’s special interest in that region. Ambassador Harriman stated that Stalin could not comprehend “why the United States should want to interfere with Soviet policy in a country like Poland, which he considers so important to Russian security, unless we have some ulterior motive.”5 By the beginning of 1946, official confidence in Stalin’s good intentions had all but evaporated, but there was still no consensus on a contrary doctrine to take its place. In February 1946, the situation significantly worsened with Stalin’s controversial speech to the Russian legislature that was basically an ultimatum to the non-Communist world. “There can be no collaboration with the capitalist West,” he declared. “The Soviet Union would overtake its enemies in the West by its economic and military strength.”6 A concerned U.S. State Department wondered: Was Russia engaged with the West in a contest for world supremacy? Stalin’s speech helped lead to a revolutionary new foreign policy for the United States. George Kennan, a brilliant State Department analyst, examined and explained its meaning in world affairs. A scholar-diplomat who favored the diplomacy of realpolitik, Kennan took a close look at Russian history over many years. In his famous analysis known as the “Long Telegram,” his views became the cornerstone of U.S. diplomacy in the post–World War II era. Stalin, he claimed, believed that the Russian Revolution was still evolving and that victory over the West was necessary. Russia was in a struggle with the outside world, which it believed was intent upon the destruction of communism. Acting as a political rival rather than as a friend in the postwar world, Russia would seize every opportunity to overtake the West. The two opposing sides had vastly different aims after World War II and were destined to engage in a long, drawn-out struggle. In this confrontation, Kennan recommended a possible winning strategy for President Truman. The United States must adopt a policy of fi rm containment, designed to

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confront the Russians with unalterable counterforce at every point where they showed signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world. Truman’s already hard-line views were reinforced by the Kennan analysis, which aroused the nation and helped set U.S. foreign policy for the next forty years. In his brilliant study of Soviet intentions and conduct of foreign policy, Kennan focused on Russia’s long-standing insecurity. He declared: “Russia feared encirclement by capitalism with which in the long run, there could be no permanent peaceful coexistence.” Kennan added that beneath Russia’s “neurotic” views of world affairs lay “the tradition and intuitive Russian sense of insecurity. . . . It fears the outside world as evil, hostile and menacing,” causing Russia’s desire for increased military and police power. Kennan predicted the Soviets would try to enlarge their power. The fact that Soviet power usually backed off “when strong resistance is encountered at any point” became the essence of the new containment policy, the backbone of U.S. foreign policy.7 Kennan believed that Russia’s problems with the West were deeply rooted in Russian history. With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, these feelings were used by the Communists to foster opposition to the West. Long-standing Russian feelings of hostility toward the West now justified dictatorship, expansionism, and the cruelty of the Communist system. Kennan identified communism as merely another form of traditional Russian values of nationalism, imperialism, and insecurity that actually dated back to the czars. The Communists were the latest in a long line of cruel and masterful rulers. In dealing with this threat, Kennan urged that the United States must block Soviet expansion in Europe. It was crucial, he emphasized, to keep the two great industrial centers of Japan and western Europe, which formed pincers around the Soviet Union. Kennan favored a determined effort to resist Soviet expansion by relying mainly on U.S. economic power. Although Japan was already safely in the Western camp, the situation in western Europe was more uncertain. He recommended a massive foreign-aid program to uplift the European economies and keep them allied with the West. A diplomatic solution to the U.S.–Soviet problems was not likely for some time, and he believed that the Russians would be uncooperative at conferences. Upon the death of Stalin, it was hoped, a better working relationship might be possible. The effect of the Long Telegram was sensational, arousing Washington and setting a pattern for many years in official American thinking about the

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Soviet problem. Leading Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan called for a stop to appeasing the Soviet Union. The hard-line containment policy was also taking root with the American public. Kennan’s analysis reinforced former British prime minister Winston Churchill’s warning to the West of a growing Communist menace in his celebrated speech a month earlier. In March 1946, Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech heightened the increasing anti-Soviet sentiment. In one of the most important speeches of the Cold War era, he warned that the West must resist further Russian expansionism or suffer horrible consequences. Citing the tight Soviet grip on eastern Europe, he declared in memorable words: “From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.” He believed that war was not inevitable, but that the West must take a fi rm stand with the Soviet Union. “Division and weakness will lead to catastrophe.”8 Like Kennan, Churchill believed that war with the Soviets could be avoided through a strong stand by the West. He declared: “I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefi nite expansion of their power and doctrines. . . . I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness.” 9 Churchill pointed to the West’s earlier mistakes in the 1930s as a missed opportunity to prevent World War II. “There never was a war in all history easier to prevent. . . . It could have been prevented without the fi ring of a single shot, but no one would listen to [my warnings] and we were all sucked into that awful whirlpool.”10 The warnings from Kennan and Churchill gave both a historical and an intellectual justification for a growing hostility and suspicion by the Truman administration toward the Soviet Union. The containment doctrine quickly gained credence with the Truman administration. It provided the rationale, if not the direct motivation, for the next major steps in postwar U.S. foreign policy—the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance—that followed shortly. The basic direction of Cold War diplomacy for several decades was being set. In contrast to Truman’s hardening position toward the Russians, Secretary Byrnes took a softer line that ultimately led to his removal. Byrnes’s proposal to share nuclear technology with Russia shocked the Senate. His

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trip to Moscow in late 1945 to try for a breakthrough further complicated the situation. When he agreed to recognize the Communist governments in Rumania and Bulgaria, Truman opposed the secretary’s actions, declaring: “Byrnes lost his nerve at Moscow.”11 Congress also was displeased with the secretary’s actions, urging him to get tough with Stalin. Its growing impatience reinforced the president’s own reservations, moving him closer to a break with his more accommodating secretary of state. The increasing tension over the fate of eastern Europe after World War II led the United States to veer away from its traditional noninvolvement in overseas affairs. The Truman administration now believed that no compromises were possible with Russia and that Stalin was more than just a tough political boss. Russia, obsessed with its security and determined to dominate eastern Europe, obviously had a different view of the world. Clearly by early 1946, the Grand Alliance had ended, and there was now a broad consensus for halting Communist expansion. Truman’s revolutionary shift in U.S. foreign policy was facilitated when the influential Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, a leading isolationist, switched to the internationalist camp in 1945 and weakened isolationist forces in his party. During 1946, the situation with Russia steadily worsened as the Soviets had already set up Communist governments in much of eastern Europe. In another critical area, the United States was challenging Russia to leave Iran, which it had occupied during the war and had promised to withdraw afterward. (During World War II, England and Russia agreed to temporarily occupy Iran to protect the oil supplies there.) Soviet pressure on Iran and neighboring Greece and Turkey was seen by the United States as an attempt by Stalin to extend his control beyond the area of immediate Soviet security needs. Soviet-backed Communists were trying to overthrow the Greek government, and Russia was pressing Turkey to cede certain areas on the Turkish–Russian border. Considered against the background of Stalin’s February 1946 speech when he declared there was no possibility of a peaceful world order because of Western capitalism and imperialism, a rivalry of enormous proportions was developing. Complicating matters for Truman, his political standing at home was shaky as these crucial developments were occurring in foreign relations. By early 1947, he had little prestige with the public after the difficult transition to a peacetime economy and even less respect from Congress, which had just fallen to the Republicans. A seemingly vulnerable President Truman now

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had to convince a hostile Congress and an apathetic public of the need for a revolutionary new direction in foreign affairs. In a move that symbolized the worsening of the Cold War, Byrnes was replaced as secretary of state in January 1947. Although given wide latitude by Truman, he had failed to change the Russian positions, especially in eastern Europe. Despite spending 350 of his 562 days as secretary of state at international conferences away from Washington, the globe-trotting diplomat had failed to budge the Soviets. In a cynical reference to the famous quote that “Nero fiddles while Rome burns,” critics stated that “the State Department fiddles while Byrnes roams.”12 By the time of his resignation, a consensus had developed in the United States on a “get tough” policy toward Russia. Byrnes’s hopes for a negotiated settlement with Russia had gone unfulfi lled, and Truman looked for a new secretary with a plan to confront the Soviets. In line with his own more aggressive attitude toward Russia, Truman appointed former World War II hero General George C. Marshall to be his new secretary of state. Marshall became the fi rst career military man in U.S. history to serve as secretary of state. The apolitical Marshall could help win over Republican support for Truman’s foreign policy. As evidence of his nonpolitical stance, he had never even voted. During World War II, he had served as chief of staff of the army and President Roosevelt’s chief military adviser. Second only to the president and the secretary of war, he had controlled the country’s military forces in a period of unprecedented expansion. Soon after the United States entered the war, Roosevelt made Marshall directly responsible to him in matters of strategy, tactics, and operations. Enormously influential during World War II and with direct access to the president, Marshall had climbed to a position of unique authority. Truman admired General Marshall greatly and was willing to delegate enormous authority to him in directing U.S. foreign policy. He called Marshall—while Roosevelt was still alive—“the greatest living American.”13 Marshall was a particular idol of the president, who later described him as “the great one of the age” and “the man who won World War II.”14 Marshall’s appointment brought prestige to the Truman administration at a time when its political fortunes were low and foreign affairs were of critical importance. He served for two years when the Republicans controlled Congress and helped make possible a bipartisan foreign policy. He also served as

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a principal architect of the new hard-line policy toward the Soviet Union as the crises in foreign affairs intensified. Following Russia’s takeover of eastern Europe, the Kennan analysis, the warning by Winston Churchill, and the appointment of General Marshall, a corner had been turned in Russian–American relations by early 1947. The Truman administration, no longer wavering on the nature of the Soviet threat, abandoned the idea of making important concessions to the Soviet Union and was ready to act boldly. As early as July 1946, Truman had declared he was tired of being pushed around by the Russians and that it was time to stand up to the Kremlin. In the year before Marshall’s appointment, Truman had been under pressure from both the hard-liners and the accommodationists as he was setting a new direction in U.S. foreign policy. Churchill, like Senator Vandenberg, was urging a fi rmer U.S. policy toward Russia. Newly appointed Secretary of State Marshall reinforced the serious nature of the situation. Describing the foreign crises of 1947 in military terms, he stated: “This was like the Battle of the Bulge, a sudden thrust of danger that carried with it potential disaster for the whole defense of the democracies.”15 This new attitude in foreign policy had already led to a break between Truman and secretary of commerce (and former vice president), Henry Wallace, who hoped to convert Truman to a more conciliatory attitude toward Russia. In an extraordinary speech in September 1946, Wallace strongly urged a friendlier policy toward Russia, even if this meant accepting Soviet spheres of influence in eastern Europe. He claimed that Russia had legitimate security concerns and was not a threat to the West. Wallace believed that the Soviet Union was a peaceful power and that the stiffening attitude of the Truman administration toward the Russians was warmongering. He saw nothing wrong with Russia’s occupying eastern Europe and called the “get tough” policy with Russia “foolhardy.” He further claimed that the United States had not really tried to work with Russia. Secretary of State Byrnes, not a hard-liner himself, felt his policies were undercut by the speech, and he threatened to resign if Wallace was not reprimanded. Soon afterward, Wallace, who was the last remaining link to the Roosevelt cabinet, was fi red by Truman. Having decided on the serious nature of the Soviet threat, the Truman administration was now ready to proceed with the next stage in its

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response to the problem as suggested in the Kennan analysis—the massive use of foreign aid. Its supporters called this an innovation of “great daring” that would lead to peace, human welfare, and political stability. It ultimately established two separate but related plans: the Truman Doctrine, a measure to aid Greece and Turkey, and later the Marshall Plan, a broader plan to aid western Europe. By 1947, Truman was conducting a more offensive-type foreign policy along the lines of Kennan’s containment policy. Kennan had warned in the Long Telegram that compromise and concession were viewed by Russia as signs of weakness. Among the fi rst examples of Truman’s tougher stance were his strongly resisting Russian attempts to install a Communist government in Greece and a more “friendly” government in Turkey. The U.S. hard line on Greece and Turkey also established a pattern for opposing the Communists elsewhere. Both Greece and Turkey, under severe Communist pressure since shortly after World War II, seemed about to fall by the beginning of 1947. Russia’s territorial demands on Turkey were seen as a prelude to a probable takeover of that nation, too poor to defend itself. In Greece, Communist guerrillas had put the government near collapse by early 1947. At this desperate time, England was forced to abandon aid to the region because of its own economic crisis. The United States and Britain (but primarily Britain) had agreed to aid Greece and Turkey after the war. The stakes for the West were extremely high in the region. The United States believed if one fell, the other would also fall, as well as perhaps all of the Middle East, India, North Africa, and possibly even Italy. After such a catastrophe, the idea of a free-world challenge to Communist expansion would be in doubt. When England announced in February 1947 that it would be forced to withdraw from the region, the United States agreed to allocate $400 million for military and economic aid for the two nations. Truman now had to get Congress and the American public to accept this new departure in foreign policy. To educate Congress about the problem, congressional leaders were brought to the White House for an intense briefi ng that won important allies for the project. The recruitment of Senator Vandenberg, the one-time isolationist Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was the crucial turning point in gaining congressional support.

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Having successfully lobbied Congress, Truman next faced the problem of educating the public about the Soviet threat. Although public suspicion of the Soviets had been growing after World War II, foreign policy and defense matters still held low priority for most Americans. A State Department official wrote in early 1947: “I think we must admit the conclusion that Congress and the people of this country are not sufficiently aware of the character and dimension of the crisis that impends, and of the means that must be taken . . . on a scale hitherto unimaginable . . . if disaster is to be avoided.”16 Similar to his role in getting congressional support, the assistance of Senator Vandenberg was invaluable in converting public opinion. To bring the public along, Vandenberg urged Truman to “make a personal appearance before Congress and scare hell out of the country.”17 As suggested by the senator, Truman began his public-relations campaign in early 1947 when he announced his new policy to rescue Greece and Turkey. He was actually mobilizing public opinion to resist the spread of communism worldwide, and he gave the public a view of the world that remained for decades. On March 12 in a historic turning point in American foreign policy, the president asked Congress to extend aid to these two nations, stating: “It must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure.”18 Called by one historian “the most controversial speech made by a president in the twentieth century,”19 it became the policy of the United States throughout the Cold War period. Truman proposed that the United States formally abandon its historic policy of avoiding entanglements in European politics. This revolutionary new policy was described as the opening blow in the containment policy. Approved overwhelmingly by Congress, the Truman Doctrine marked the fi rst step to oppose the growing Communist threat. Later that month at the Moscow Conference, Secretary Marshall became convinced that the United States and Russia would not reconcile their objectives either for Germany or for the rest of the world. This conference virtually marked the end of the wartime alliance, its failure and the enactment of the Truman Doctrine signaling the beginning of the Cold War. Through the containment policy, the United States was now firmly committed to the prevention of further Communist expansion. The new Truman Doctrine indicated that the Cold War in Europe was entering a more confrontational phase. Anne McCormick, political analyst

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for the New York Times, wrote: “If freedom as we understand it is to survive, it’s up to the United States to save it.”20 Truman compared the 1947–48 period to Europe during the 1938–39 period of confrontations with Hitler. Convinced that Western weakness would once again lead to a major war, he was prepared to fight for Turkey and Greece. As recommended by Kennan in his famous analysis, Truman rejected weakness in dealing with the Russians. Boldly, he declared: “There is only one language they understand: force.”21 One of Truman’s aims in his new program of $400 million in military aid to these two nations was to convince Stalin that “we mean business.” To implement this strong policy, the Truman administration also asked Congress to pass the National Security Act. This act unified the armed services under a secretary of defense and created the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, a presidential advisory council to deal with foreign and military matters. With these initiatives, the “Cold War state” was being institutionalized. Even as the rescue of Greece and Turkey was being formulated in early 1947, another plan was taking shape to meet the larger Soviet threat in western Europe. After a trip to Europe in 1947, Marshall realized the desperate economic situation was not improving. At that time, all of western Europe was in peril, having been impoverished by the war and recovering very slowly. In every country, Communists were active, working openly or secretly, to promote discontent and political instability through strikes, riots, and sabotage. Even such well-established democracies as France, Italy, Belgium, and Denmark had very strong Communist parties, and concerned American officials felt that the entire continent was in danger of falling to the Communists. In the 1947 elections, Communists won nearly one-third of the vote in France, and leading Marxists were brought into the cabinet. To avoid disaster, Marshall urged Truman to begin a massive economic aid program for the continent. Referring to the crisis in Europe, Marshall declared: “The patient is sinking while the doctors deliberate.”22 The Truman administration now faced the challenge of getting massive aid approved by an economy-minded Republican Congress. To foster passage of this aid program costing perhaps $10 to $20 billion, the administration launched a public-relations campaign. In May 1947, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson’s speech at Cleveland, Mississippi, drew early attention to the problem. The next month Marshall gave his celebrated commencement address at Harvard University, announcing the plan.

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One consideration was whether Communist nations should also be included in the aid program. To avoid being blamed for dividing the European community, the United States decided to offer aid to the Russians and other Communist nations, but on terms sure to be rejected. Russia would have to disclose the true nature of its economy, be willing to share its natural resources with other European nations, and open eastern Europe to American enterprise. Because Truman believed that Europe could be saved only by improving economic conditions, he gave his full support to the “Marshall Plan.” Truman linked the U.S. economy to foreign policy, stating: “We cannot enjoy economic progress in a world of stagnation,” and “economic distress anywhere in the world is a fertile breeding ground for violent political upheaval.”23 To make the aid program effective, the Europeans themselves would help in the planning. Secretary Marshall invited European governments to get together, frame plans for economic rebuilding of the continent, and then put specific requests for funds before the U.S. government. The Marshall Plan soon drew opposition from both sides of the political spectrum. The ultraliberal Henry Wallace called it the “martial plan,” designed to isolate and humiliate the Soviet Union. From the right, Senator Robert Taft of Ohio derided the Marshall Plan as “a global WPA” (the Works Progress Administration was a massive public-works program of the 1930s). Much of the opposition in Congress focused on the fi nancial burdens related to the program and fears that the United States was passing money into the “rat holes” of Europe. To get around this opposition, the president induced a bipartisan group of sixteen members of Congress to make an onthe-spot inspection of Europe’s plight and future prospects late in the fall of 1947. The strategy worked when the group returned as supporters of the Marshall Plan. By the end of 1947, the plan was formulated to grant $17 billion to rehabilitate Europe over a four-year period. An approving Winston Churchill called the plan “the most unsordid act in history.”24 Despite the growing support for the plan, passage was still not assured. The United States had already spent billions in aid since 1945, and Congress might not be willing to spend billions more. The economy-minded Republicans, determined to cut spending and taxes, might refuse to support another massive spending program. Senator Vandenberg helped get his fellow Republicans to line up behind the Marshall Plan. Indefi nite Communist expansion would mean atomic

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war, he declared, which could be avoided only by reviving the economies of western Europe. Opposition in the Senate quickly disappeared, and even the previously unconvinced leader of the conservative camp, Senator Robert Taft, now backed the plan. A bipartisan coalition behind the bill had formed in Congress. Support for the program in Congress was enhanced by Secretary Marshall, for whom the program would later be named. A man of immense prestige with Congress and the public, Marshall was crucial in selling the program, especially by warning congressional leaders of the dire economic and political situation in Europe. Economic recovery was barely occurring, he noted, and Communist parties were making serious inroads. The United States must be ready to allocate billions of dollars to help Europe or face a desperate situation. Passage was further expedited when Russia pressured a coalition government in Czechoslovakia into becoming a Communist regime in early 1948, sending shock waves across western Europe and the United States. The Czech coup in February 1948 had a more shattering effect on Western public opinion than any event since the 1939 Stalin–Hitler pact. It seriously eroded confidence in maintaining the peace, and in the United States there were fears of impending war. Congress approved the Marshall Plan soon thereafter, setting aside $5 billion for the fi rst year. This amount represented 12 percent of the entire federal budget or 2 percent of the gross national product. The Marshall Plan became a huge triumph for the Truman administration. By the following year, the economies of western Europe were already improving, and the threat of a Communist takeover had passed in several important European nations. Arthur Krock of the New York Times called the Marshall Plan “the central gem in the cluster of great ideas and fruitful decisions made by President Truman.”25 Historian David McCullough calls it “one of the great American achievements of the century.”26 The adoption of the plan became Marshall’s outstanding contribution as secretary of state, bringing him greater prestige and fame than had his wartime accomplishments as U.S. Army chief of staff. Economic problems were not the only concern of the Western allies. Mounting fears of Communist belligerence drew England, France, and the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg) into a defense agreement known as the Brussels Pact in the spring of 1948. But

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Europe was too weak to defend itself, and Secretary Marshall urged extending this concept into the more broad-based NATO, with American membership. NATO was an alliance consisting mainly of western European nations and created to halt the spread of communism in Europe. Should the United States decide to join, NATO would become the fi rst American peacetime alliance since the days of George Washington. The military counterpart to the Marshall Plan, NATO marked another historic turning point in U.S. foreign policy. By 1948, many Americans believed that only force could contain Russian expansion, and this alliance would convince both Russia and our European allies that the United States was committed to blocking Communist expansion. Otherwise, the Russians could be deceived by the previous U.S. record of nonentanglement in Europe, causing a fearful Europe to make an accommodation with Russia. Claiming U.S. security depended on the security of western Europe and calling NATO a logical extension of the Marshall Plan, Truman vigorously defended the proposed alliance. As the debate over the NATO alliance continued, further tensions with the Soviets arose. Partly in response to the West’s stronger position in western Europe and also Yugoslavia’s becoming more independent of Russia in 1948, Stalin shifted the focal point of the Cold War to Germany. Truman attributed very high importance to Germany, located in the heart of Europe and possessing vast military and industrial potential. The outbreak of the Berlin crisis that year created the strong possibility that a war would soon begin. Allied efforts to revive the German economy were behind Russia’s initiating the Berlin Blockade. In June 1948, the Soviets cut road and rail links to Berlin in response to currency reform by the three Western occupation powers, which seemed a prelude to the creation of a West German state. Stalin claimed this move was in violation of the World War II agreements. To relieve the hard-pressed West Berliners, the Americans launched “Operation Vittles,” a round-the-clock resupply of the city by air. Although Russia did not challenge the airlift, which ended after nine months, the temporary division between East and West Germany had obviously become permanent by this time. The Berlin crisis raised East–West tensions and led Truman to urge the restoration of the draft. The West now feared that Russia was about to seize other nations in Europe, perhaps Finland or the Scandinavian countries. Restoring the draft would give Russia a signal that although the United

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States had cut down on military spending, it would strongly resist further Russian expansion. To reinforce this idea, the United States moved closer to approving NATO. Truman became a forceful advocate for the alliance, believing it could have prevented both World War I and World War II. Now in an effort to save West Germany and the rest of western Europe, Truman urged the United States to support such an alliance. With the strong support of Congress, the Truman administration negotiated a defensive alliance with eleven nations: England, France, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Canada. The treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, and was ratified by the Senate in July by a margin of eighty-two to thirteen. Even though Congress was assured it would have to formally approve going to war if a member state were attacked, the United States had committed itself to automatically defend western Europe. The American people, in contrast to their 1919 rejection of the League of Nations, were supporting the idea of collective security. The creation of NATO marked the completion of the administration’s foreign policy strategy to resist Soviet expansion. So menacing was the situation in 1948 that the National Security Council predicted the Soviet Union had the “capability of overrunning in about 6 months all of continental Europe and the Near East as far as Cairo.”27 Truman had converted the public concern over the Communist threat into support for his containment policies. In April 1949, when Congress approved the NATO alliance, his last foreignpolicy initiative, all the major tools for waging the Cold War were in place. Alongside the problems in Europe was the deepening crisis in the Middle East, where both the Arabs and the British opposed creating a Jewish state. The main impetus for the Jewish state came from the worldwide Jewish community, still reeling from the Holocaust during World War II. The lack of a haven for European Jews emphasized the need for a Jewish nation. For the Jewish community, Palestine meant a return to their ancient homeland. As a senator, Truman had earlier endorsed the Zionist goal. He believed that England had an obligation to honor the Balfour Declaration of 1917, favoring the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. In late 1946, Truman, as president, had publicly endorsed the Zionist idea for the fi rst time, calling for a viable Jewish state in Palestine and establishing U.S. policy in favor of a partition of Palestine. His idea was opposed by the Joint Chiefs, by the leading figures in the State Department, and obviously by the Arab leaders.

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Truman, who relied so heavily on Marshall and gave him virtually a free rein as secretary of state, had his only major difference with Marshall over the Palestine question. So inflamed did the issue become that the secretary accused Truman of being motivated by political considerations (i.e. attempting to win the Jewish vote in 1948) instead of treating the question as a foreign policy matter. Marshall also feared that the Jews would be unable to defend themselves against the large Arab majority in the Middle East, perhaps leading to U.S. involvement in the confl ict. Both sides in the Middle East were far apart in their views. The Arabs had pledged armed resistance to a Jewish state, and there was even a threat of cutting off vital oil supplies to the West. Some were concerned the Arabs might even align with Russia. Saudi Arabia had warned that partition “will deal a death blow to American interests in the Arab countries.”28 To ease Arab concerns, Marshall and other key officials in the State Department offered as an alternative to support creation of a UN trusteeship in Palestine, containing both Arabs and Jews. Critics claimed this was a subterfuge, aimed at denying support for creating a Jewish state. Others questioned whether such a proposal was even possible because unofficially there was already a Jewish state in Palestine containing schools, public services, and an army. Looking at the seemingly impossible situation in the Middle East, a discouraged President Truman stated: “I surely wish God almighty would give the children of Israel an Isaiah, the Christians a St. Paul, and the Sons of Ishmael a peep at the Golden Rule.”29 On May 12, 1948, a fateful meeting occurred on this matter between Marshall and Undersecretary Robert Lovett, representing the anti-Zionist position, and presidential adviser Clark Clifford, taking the pro-Israeli position. After hearing both sides, Truman would then rule on the matter. Secretary of State Marshall so strongly opposed the president’s position that he threatened to vote against him in the upcoming presidential election. He later modified his position to not publicly opposing the president’s policy. A potential problem also surfaced in Congress, where Senator Walter George of Georgia cautioned: “Congress will not support a course calling for the further expenditure of American money and/or the use of American troops in the Palestine area.”30 Truman, who had long been sympathetic to the Jewish cause, came under intense political pressure to favor the Zionist idea. The Democrats were receiving much fi nancial support from Jewish groups, which also

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influenced the president’s policy. Recognizing these political realities, Truman stated: “I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.”31 His position was aided by the fact that only 10 percent of U.S. oil needs came from abroad and very little of that from the Middle East. Truman’s support proved crucial in the creation of the Jewish state. Despite strong opposition from State Department officials, the British, and the Arab states, Zionism moved forward. The UN General Assembly voted to support partition of Palestine, leading to an immediate outbreak of fighting in the Middle East, in which the Israelis were victorious. Truman agreed to recognize the new state of Israel only eleven minutes after it proclaimed its independence. Because of ill health, Marshall was forced to resign his position in early 1949 and was replaced by the anti-Soviet hard-liner Dean Acheson. A public official with vast experience, Acheson had served in the State Department since 1941. Like the former secretary, he was more a believer in power politics than in a reliance on international organizations such as the UN. A controversial figure, he was called “a pretentious snob,” a “Machiavelli,” and a “diplomat of rare genius.” Expecting little to come from negotiations with the Soviet Union, he believed that the actions of nations could be limited only by the balance of power and the threat of war. He had long regarded the Soviet Union with distrust, and, as undersecretary of state, he had helped develop the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. The new secretary’s fi rst tasks were to get Senate approval of NATO, which he accomplished in early 1949, and to complete the containment policies inaugurated under Marshall. He also gained congressional support for the largest peacetime military program in U.S. history, including a buildup of its forces through the restored military draft. To further strengthen the Western community, Acheson helped incorporate West Germany into the newly created Western alliance. The lines were hardening in the steadily intensifying Cold War. Between 1947 and early 1949, the administration had a string of successes in foreign affairs. The Berlin Blockade ended in the spring of 1949 when the Soviets acknowledged their failure to drive out the West. The NATO alliance, the Marshall Plan, and the Truman Doctrine were established, and the basic strategy for Truman’s foreign policy was set. Despite

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Truman’s fears that war with Russia might be imminent, an uncertain peace was taking hold in Europe. Alongside his recent successes in Europe and the very tense situation in the Middle East, Truman now faced a monumental challenge in China, where he suffered his most serious defeat in foreign policy, leading to sharp confl icts with the Republican Party. The pro-Western government in China was in a very precarious position after World War II. In the famous 1946 Long Telegram, Kennan had been very pessimistic in his analysis of the ongoing struggle in China between the American-backed Chiang Kai-shek and his Communist adversary Mao Tse-tung. Chiang’s government was too corrupt to be saved, Kennan believed, and economic assistance would not help. Ominously, he predicted U.S. aid would probably wind up with the Communists. The Republicans, in contrast to their support of the president’s European initiatives, jumped on Truman for the deteriorating position of Chiang Kai-shek. Although the Chinese Nationalists were being defeated in the late 1940s, Truman was reluctant to commit more aid to Chiang, whom he regarded as corrupt. Secretary Marshall agreed, believing that China was too big to be rescued by massive U.S. aid and that such an attempt would weaken the containment policy. The dissenting Republican Party, however, was strongly in support of an American bailout of China and would later hold Truman responsible for the Chinese Communist victory. The failure of the U.S. China policy rested mainly with the Chinese Nationalist government and not with Soviet troublemaking. Involved in a civil war with the Communists, Chiang had been an ineffectual ally in the war against Japan. He considered the Communists the more dangerous and had refused to unite with them against Japan. When World War II ended, Chiang believed communism could be defeated by force alone. The United States rejected Chiang’s strategy and was convinced by 1946 that only a coalition government with the Communists could bring peace to China. In January 1946, the United States sent General Marshall to arrange a coalition government, with Chiang as the dominant partner. For a few months, the strategy seemed to work, but by April 1946 fighting broke out again. Despite Marshall’s warning that the Nationalists were dangerously overextended, they reverted to their earlier strategy of trying to defeat the Communists militarily before considering political reforms. In January 1947, Marshall requested that he be recalled from China, acknowledging

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that the mission had failed. Most U.S. leaders believed that Chiang’s government was doomed, leading the Truman administration to cut aid to China and withdraw its civil and military missions. Not unexpectedly, Chiang had little success with the military option. In late 1948, his attack on Manchuria in northern China was repulsed, and the Communists then seized the military initiative. In the following months, Chiang was continually pushed farther south, where he suffered his fi nal defeat and forced to flee to Taiwan. Because the Chinese Communists seemed to be willing servants of the Soviet Union, Chiang’s defeat shocked the U.S. public. Although the American role in China had been a small one, a bitter debate now arose about Truman’s responsibility for the loss of China. To minimize the political damage from Chiang’s defeat, Truman issued a White Paper in August 1949 to explain the U.S. policy toward China. In it, the administration claimed that China fell because of internal problems that the United States could not control. Truman added that he had offered only limited aid to China because of that nation’s corrupt government. In a sensational revelation, he reported that between 45 and 55 percent of all Nationalist losses resulted from defections and that 80 percent of the U.S. equipment given to Chiang had fallen into Communist hands. The White Paper did not satisfy the president’s critics, mainly Republicans seeking a political advantage, who continued to charge that Truman lost China. As partisanship intensified over events in China, another equally disturbing event occurred: the Soviets successfully tested their fi rst atomic bomb in September 1949—about five years in advance of U.S. intelligence estimates. At this time, news also broke about spies in the atomic research program. Further problems for Truman followed when the Alger Hiss spy case became public. The China defeat, along with the Russian A-bomb and the Hiss case, plunged the United States into a period of anxiety and tarnished the great successes of 1947 to early 1949. The year 1949 was called the most anxious year since World War II, representing a turning point in the nation’s mood. For many, it was as scary as 1939, indicating that the decade had come full cycle. At the same time the United States attempted to distance itself from the China defeat, another Asian crisis was brewing. In January 1950, Secretary Acheson delivered his famous “defensive perimeter” speech, which defi ned large parts of the globe as being outside the sphere of American responsibility. Short of manpower and clearly emphasizing western Europe as its top

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priority, the United States did not include South Korea within its defense perimeter. The United States was also concerned that promises to defend South Korea might encourage its president, Syngman Rhee, to think he had U.S. backing for an attack on North Korea. U.S. diplomats in South Korea had warned repeatedly that there was danger of Rhee’s taking such action. Later in the wake of the Korean War, some would point to Acheson’s speech as encouraging a Communist attack on South Korea. The Communist invasion of South Korea in June 1950 led to an American intervention and the beginning of a war that would last three years. On hearing of the North Korean attack, Truman immediately responded: “By God, I am going to let them have it.”32 He compared this attack to the series of provocations during the pre–World War II period. “[Truman] remembered how each time that the democracies failed to act, it encouraged the aggressors to keep going ahead. If this was allowed to go unchallenged, it could mean a Third World War, just as similar incidents had brought on the Second World War.”33 When Truman announced a military response to the Korean invasion, the American people were not entirely unprepared, and the initial reaction was favorable. For several years, he had been warning the nation of the Communist threat. Truman, who began his presidency dealing with the World War II crisis and afterward attempting to avoid another war, was now faced with a confl ict in Asia. The Truman foreign policy, which began as World War II was ending, once again faced the challenge of ending a bloody confl ict.

Legacies T H E 1940 S WA S A DE C A DE O F WA R , one of the most troubled periods of the twentieth century. It included World War II, the bloodiest confl ict in world history, and the beginning of the Cold War, with the great powers seemingly poised to plunge the world into another catastrophe. It ended with the onset of the Korean War, a struggle that resulted in the loss of 38,000 lives in the fourth most costly foreign struggle in U.S. history. By the end of the decade, the United States had forsaken isolationism and become the protector of the free world. After 1945, the United States had to defi ne both its role in world affairs and the proper role of the federal government in domestic policies. Would the United States return to its traditional noninvolvement in world affairs after the war, or would it become an activist? On domestic matters, would the United States continue the direction of the New Deal or return to the limited role of the government as during the 1920s? These issues with vast implications for the future would be the subject of bitter debate in the late 1940s. The biggest story of the decade was World War II, involving several of the most famous people in history. The 1940s is sometimes called the “age of the giants,” with towering historical figures in positions of leadership. In Germany, Adolf Hitler, surely one of the bloodiest murderers in history, led a prostrate Germany back to economic prosperity and then into a crusade to dominate Europe. The Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, who mercilessly slaughtered millions of his own people to ensure the survival of communism, led his nation to a historic triumph over Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill, taking power in England during a very dark time in the war, successfully rallied his nation into persevering against the German enemy. In America, Franklin

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Roosevelt guided his nation out of its historic isolationism into a more vigorous role in world affairs that culminated in its involvement in World War II. Because most Americans were anxious to avoid war, it was easy for them to justify an isolationist foreign policy in the 1939–41 period. Roosevelt’s task was to make the American people willing to assist foreign allies, even at the risk of war, when many Americans regarded the crisis as “far away.” Ironically, when Roosevelt offered aid to Britain, Hitler accused the United States of violating that part of the Monroe Doctrine wherein it had promised to stay out of European affairs.1 U.S. involvement in the war followed the Japanese attack in late 1941, amid suspicion that Roosevelt had forced Japan to act. Japan was anxious to control the mineral wealth of such nations as Burma, Malaya, Vietnam, and Indonesia as well as to colonize parts of China with its own teeming population. When Japan continued its policy of expansion in spite of U.S. warnings, President Roosevelt ordered a trade embargo, which encouraged Japan to attack the United States. Questions later arose whether war with Japan was truly inevitable, or, as one historian alleged, did Roosevelt “trick” the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor?2 Although a long and painful war, World War II was fully supported by the American people until its conclusion. Made aware by the government of the high stakes involved, the public never wavered in its support after Pearl Harbor. This precedent was not followed successfully in America’s subsequent wars. The government was never able to make an equally convincing case for the later Korean, Vietnamese, and Iraqi–Afghan wars, and public support was much harder to maintain. Although possessing no previous military experience, Roosevelt proved to be an outstanding wartime leader, assembling a masterful group of officers during World War II. Unlike Lincoln during the Civil War, who was forced to continually search for winning generals, Roosevelt had an excellent team in place from the beginning. He was less involved than Lincoln in devising strategies, although on the crucial question of the 1944 French landing he took a direct role. Both in military terms and on the home front, World War II is regarded as America’s best fought major war. The ending of World War II, like its beginning, became a matter of controversy. Critics questioned whether the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan was a military necessity. Although using the bomb was easy to justify as a military tactic and not out of character with the brutality of

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World War II, a later historian nevertheless questioned whether there was an ulterior motive for it. Since Japan was seemingly beaten, perhaps the bomb was actually a tactic to intimidate the Soviet Union and make it more agreeable in the postwar world.3 With the end of the war, the world seemed about to enter into a “golden age.” The United States hoped to dominate the postwar world “like a colossus,” making all nations safer and more prosperous. Unfortunately, America’s high expectations would soon be checked by the outbreak of the Cold War with its former ally Russia. Possessing a powerful army with millions of soldiers, soon to obtain the atomic bomb, and seizing control of eastern Europe, Russia seemed formidable, and the world was now plagued with a diplomatic crisis that would last more than four decades. Although most historians at fi rst blamed the Communists for beginning the Cold War, later historians began to question this thesis.4 They doubted post-1945 Russia was actually able to pose a military threat to the West. Perhaps the capitalist democracies, eager to expand into overseas markets, had initiated the crisis with Stalin. This revisionist theory of history, which was popular with New Left historians, would ebb as the Cold War declined by the 1980s. The crises of the 1940s demonstrated the crucial importance of strong executive leadership. Roosevelt, who had emerged as a strong leader during the Depression-plagued 1930s, was equally powerful during the World War II emergency. He is generally ranked as the third-best U.S. president, placing him behind only Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. When President Roosevelt died shortly before the end of World War II, enormous responsibilities were assumed by his successor, Vice President Harry Truman. On entering office, Truman faced problems of a magnitude virtually unmatched by those confronting previous presidents. He faced enormous challenges, both foreign and domestic: ending World War II in a satisfactory manner, preserving the New Deal legacy, and engaging the Russians in the developing Cold War. He would also have to deal with a question raised by his predecessor concerning the proper role of the federal government in economic and social matters. Serving in a time of legendary political leaders, Truman unexpectedly emerged as a historic leader himself. At fi rst regarded as “the little man in the White House,”5 Truman developed into an effective president. He succeeded in preserving Roosevelt’s core policies and especially in setting up

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a strategy for the Cold War that his successors would follow for decades. A 1982 poll of historians ranked him number eight in the “near great” category of American presidents.6 A New York Times reporter claimed that although Truman “looked like the ordinary man on the streetcar, he was able to rise to the occasion.”7 Truman’s greatest impact as president was in his bold strategy for waging the Cold War. Thoroughly reversing the traditional isolationist attitude toward nations outside the Western Hemisphere, he moved America in a permanently different direction. The United States had never been engaged overseas during peacetime, and the temptation to return to traditional noninvolvement was alluring. Truman had to convince the nation that there was a genuine threat from the near-devastated Soviet Union and that the United States must spend billions to help save the world from Russian communism. In an America anxious to return to normal after World War II, Truman’s goal of a more activist foreign policy faced a serious political challenge. The Republican leader Senator Robert Taft stated: “It would be ironical if this Congress which really has its heart set on straightening out our domestic affairs would end up being besieged by foreign problems.”8 Yet because of the serious Soviet threat, Truman was able to focus the nation’s attention on foreign policy. He ultimately adopted the famous containment policy to block Soviet expansion and successfully laid the ground rules for waging the Cold War. An admiring Winston Churchill later called Truman “the man who saved Western civilization.” 9 In the still-chaotic Middle East, Truman was involved in the most enduring of all international disputes, which had its origins during the 1940s. The Jewish claim to Palestine dates back to biblical times, when the Jews ruled their own nation. Dispersed by the Romans, they became a minority in the area. Many years later, following the rise of Islam, the Arabs began to populate the area and eventually became the majority. A small Jewish population remained in the area, augmented greatly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After the horrors of World War II, the Jewish community pressured for the revival of a Jewish state in their ancient homeland. Complicating the matter were Muslim claims of religious ties to the area, especially in Jerusalem. The Israeli nation’s declaration of independence in 1948 almost immediately set off an international crisis. Rather than welcome Israel into the family of nations, the Arabs considered the Jewish state as a foreign invasion.

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After several wars between Israel and its neighbors and countless terrorist attacks, the parties remain bitter antagonists. Truman’s pro-Israel policy, going back to 1948, has been continued by his successors. The United States, which has emerged as Israel’s strongest ally, has been drawn into the confl ict diplomatically and is ever careful to prevent all-out war in the region, which might involve it against the Arabs. Although his greatest legacy was saving western Europe from communism, Truman met defeats elsewhere in foreign policy, and his term ended in January 1953 with much recrimination and fi nger pointing. He was bitterly attacked by many for the fall of China to the Communists in 1949. The China situation ultimately improved by the 1970s, but only after two decades of extremely cool relations. During his troubled presidency, Truman found himself embroiled in domestic disputes as intense as his fights over foreign policy. The Truman years marked a permanent change in the political agenda for the nation. In the 1950s, President Eisenhower noted that any political party that attempted to repeal the Roosevelt legacy would never be heard from again. No president who followed Truman even discussed the repeal of the New Deal welfare-state apparatus. The Roosevelt and Truman administrations demonstrated that despite occasional conservative counterattacks, the era of big government was permanent, and there would be no return to the limited government of the 1920s. Even under later conservative presidents such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, the federal government’s powers steadily expanded. An attempted conservative “counterrevolution” led to the most important political event of the 1940s—the presidential election of 1948. Although Truman was unable to greatly expand the New Deal, he prevented a return to 1920s–style conservatism by a reinvigorated Republican Party that was becoming stronger after the war. The Republicans had succeeded in winning control of Congress in 1946, aided by the strong anti-Truman sentiment. Led by Senator Robert Taft, they now believed they had an opportunity to reverse the New Deal and eagerly awaited the 1948 election to oust Truman and restore more conservative policies. In the famous upset of 1948, Truman surprised the nation by defeating his well-known Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, and any possible attempt to reverse the New Deal. All the trends had pointed to a Democratic defeat in 1948. One scholar noted: “Not since another simple man, Andrew

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Johnson, tried to fi ll the place of another strong president in an earlier post-war election (1866) had such a fury of unpopularity lashed the White House.”10 Truman’s surprising victory preserved the Roosevelt legacy and ensured the continuation of his own groundbreaking path in foreign policy. The intense political rancor of the period could not explain all of the most important domestic changes of the decade, some of which had been brought on by the World War II crisis, affecting the lifestyles of millions of Americans. The status of women changed significantly during the war, primarily on the job front. Working outside the traditional “women’s” jobs and many employed for the fi rst time, women were now engaged in betterpaying, often defense-related jobs. This change in the workplace was only partly reversed after the war. There was no significant economic or social change for women in the late 1940s, although the seeds had been planted. President Truman, the public, and even women themselves showed little interest in a women’s movement, which would only become an important new social trend in the more activist 1960s. For Japanese Americans, the war brought only problems as more than 100,000 were interned during most of the confl ict. With important implications for the future, the war had raised the question of the treatment of minorities with origins in nations at war with the United States. Would constitutional freedoms be sacrificed in the name of greater security for the American people? The war also raised awareness of America’s most glaring social problem, the racial question. In the search for more lucrative wartime jobs, the greatest domestic migration in the nation’s history occurred. Especially affected was the South, from which hundreds of thousands of African Americans relocated to fast-growing defense job centers in the West and Midwest, fi nding better jobs and more political rights in their new states. These more prosperous blacks, along with the vast numbers of returning black servicemen, would help fuel the burgeoning civil rights movement after the war. Truman’s role in civil rights is particularly noteworthy. He rose above his southern background and became a forceful advocate for racial justice. Even raising this controversial issue was politically risky. He was the fi rst president since Lincoln to confront the racial question. When Congress blocked his civil rights measures, he acted through executive orders to end discrimination in the armed forces and in the federal civil service. His 1948 civil rights agenda provoked a southern abandonment of his presidential bid.

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One leading southerner called Truman’s civil rights proposals the most divisive move since the fi ring on Fort Sumter.11 Upon Truman’s death in 1972, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP stated that Harry Truman, Abraham Lincoln, and Lyndon Johnson accomplished the most for blacks.12 Truman initiated public discussion on several key programs later to be approved during the more liberal 1960s. His civil rights agenda raised awareness on this issue. He began the discussion on the federal government’s role in a national health program, later to be realized as Medicare and Medicaid. He also pushed for a greater federal role in education and housing, but Congress was not receptive. Unsuccessful in his own domestic program, he laid part of the groundwork for Lyndon Johnson’s sweeping Great Society two decades later. Truman’s greatest domestic service was to steer the nation’s economy toward prosperity. For the vast majority of Americans, the decade had improved their living standards. New products could be purchased with the vast sums that were saved during the war years. New cars, homes, televisions, various new appliances—all were bought during the spending spree that followed the coming of peace. Even during the Cold War of the late 1940s, for most Americans, life had returned to normal, and living standards were higher than ever. During this period, a number of products were introduced that would dramatically alter American society. Television won rapid acceptance from the public, becoming a major influence on news, entertainment, and politics, making the cultural landscape more unified. Like radio in the 1920s, it gave Americans in all parts of the nation common experiences and helped to break down regional differences. It also gave Americans a greater awareness of issues around the world. Its social implications would reach new heights during the 1960s, when it helped promote civil rights by showing abuses of demonstrators and other activists. Lacking the immediate impact of television, the introduction of computers and the silicon chip in the late 1940s would also significantly change American lifestyles in future decades. The space program, modern defense systems, and virtually every complicated electronic system in the world would not be possible without the computer revolution. The later development of the cell phone and small personal computers would give Americans instant access to each other as well as a limitless source of information. The

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importance of the computer and the transistor grow each year, making the entire world more interconnected. Even for products formerly on the market, the wartime shortages were over, and such products were now readily available. Auto production resumed after the war, leading to record sales of new cars. Air conditioning, based on a technology developed before World War I by Willis Carrier (nicknamed “Johnny Icicle”) and formerly used mainly in businesses, became more popular in the late 1940s, and its market expanded to the home. In the crucial area of health, penicillin, which had been discovered earlier but only used widely for the fi rst time during World War II, now came into general use. More Americans were beginning to enjoy “the good life.” At the same time that life was obviously becoming more comfortable for the public, the nation began to grapple with the fear of Communists in America. In a precursor of the later concern over Islamic terrorists, Truman confronted the Red Scare problem as the nation worried about disloyalty from within. Congress and the administration actively sought to ferret out Communist sympathizers who might be aiding America’s enemies. Truman’s attempt to contain the anti-Communist hysteria through his own loyalty program had only limited success, and this also became a problem for the Eisenhower administration. Years later, following the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, the United States once again had to institute controversial measures involving curbs on basic freedoms. Another important legacy of the Truman era—the president’s right to initiate a war without a declaration by Congress—would also resurface for later presidents. Truman involved the United States in the Korean War in 1950 without consulting Congress. Both Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush also led the nation into war without a formal congressional declaration and aroused a political fi restorm afterward. Whether called a “police action,” an attempt “to preserve the security of Southeast Asia,” or an attempt to deal with weapons of mass destruction, the wars that Truman, Johnson, and Bush embroiled the nation in were controversial and frustrating. The War Powers Act of 1973, an attempt by Congress to curb the president’s warmaking powers by requiring congressional support for confl icts lasting more than sixty days, has been ineffective. Even decades later, the true nature of the president’s war-making powers has yet to be determined by Congress or the Supreme Court.

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For the United States, the decade of the 1940s ended as it began, drawn into a war thousands of miles from home. In June 1950, the Korean War began when Communist North Korea attacked South Korea. Almost immediately the United States joined in, hoping to avoid a much larger war later on. Initially supported by virtually all Americans, the Korean War bogged down when Communist China intervened, and Americans soon wearied of the military stalemate. The war ended with a still-divided Korea and the United States many years later having to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korea. The United States not only survived a challenge to its safety and its institutions during the 1940s but also saw the seeds of change planted in several important areas. Permanently abandoning a noninvolvement role, it now adopted a more activist foreign policy. The decade also laid the foundation for future prosperity, further progress in civil rights, and the expansion of the welfare state. Unions successfully preserved their power and nearly all their wartime gains. Black Americans were learning to more effectively agitate for civil rights. Although a women’s movement was still in the future, the new working patterns of World War II were not completely reversed. Even the role of government came under scrutiny again as vast new activist policies were being considered. During the critical decade of the 1940s, the United States helped preserve the Western tradition for the free world. In today’s difficult time of challenge from foreign terrorists and deep internal divisions concerning fundamental values, Americans can point to the even more serious challenges and ultimate triumphs of the 1940s. Sometimes called “the greatest generation,” the American people of that era overcame the nation’s most serious threat since the Civil War.

Notes Selected Readings Bibliography Index

Notes 1. A Prelude to War 1. Robert Divine, Roosevelt and World War II (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1969), 25. 2. Russell Buchanan, The United States and World War II, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 1:6. 3. Quoted in Nelson Lichtenstein, Roy Rosenzweig, Joshua Brown, and David Jaffee, Who Built America? vol. 2 (New York: Worth, 2000), 489. 4. Quoted in David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), 427. 5. Quoted in Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz, From Isolation to War, 1931–1941 (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2003), 95. 6. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 451. 7. Doenecke and Wilz, From Isolation to War, 99. 8. Quoted in Cabell Phillips, The 1940s: Decade of Triumph and Trouble (New York: Macmillan, 1975), 139. 9. Quoted in Divine, Roosevelt, 35. 10. Quoted in Doenecke and Wilz, From Isolation to War, 106. 11. Ibid., 107. 12. Quoted in Phillips, The 1940s, 141. 13. Quoted in Donald Rogers, Since You Went Away (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973), 36. 14. Quoted in James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (San Diego: Harvest Books, 1970), 100. 15. Quoted in ibid., 26. 16. Quoted in ibid., 45. 17. Doenecke and Wilz, From Isolation to War, 116. 18. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 482. 19. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 72.

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20. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 490. 21. Doenecke and Wilz, From Isolation to War, 130. 22. Quoted in Buchanan, United States, 1:38. 23. Cited in Doenecke and Wilz, From Isolation to War, 158. 24. Quoted in Buchanan, United States, 1:37. 25. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 511. 26. Quoted in Buchanan, United States, 1:54. 27. Quoted in ibid., 1:72. 28. Quoted in Michael Uschan, The 1940s (San Diego: Lucent Books, 1999), 15. 2. Life on the Home Front 1. Allan M. Winkler, Home Front USA: America during World War II (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000), 46. 2. Quoted in Joseph Cardello, “The First Link: Toward the End of Isolation,” in FDR: The Man, the Myth, the Era, 1882–1945, edited by Herbert Rosenbaum and Elizabeth Bartelme (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 180–81. 3. Quoted in Phillips, The 1940s, 105. 4. Quoted in Thomas K. McCraw, American Business, 1920–2000: How It Worked (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000), 91. 5. Ibid., 89. 6. Quoted in William Graebner, Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s (Boston: Twayne, 1991), 7. 7. Quoted in Winkler, Home Front USA, 23. 8. Ibid., 23. 9. Quoted in ibid., 14. 10. Quoted in Buchanan, United States, 1:xv. 11. Winkler, Home Front USA, 46. 12. Ibid., 65. 13. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 472. 14. Quoted in John Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and Culture during World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 185. 15. Quoted in Allan M. Winkler, “1941–1950,” in A Companion to Twentieth Century America, edited by Stephen Whitfield (Ames, IA: Blackwell, 2004), 62. 16. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 762. 17. Quoted in Blum, V Was for Victory, 218. 18. Quoted in ibid., 219. 19. Quoted in ibid. 20. Quoted in Winkler, “1941–1950,” 63. 21. Quoted in ibid., 66.

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22. Quoted in Phillips, The 1940s, 110. 23. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 751. 24. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 216. 25. Quoted in ibid., 216. 26. James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996), 58. 27. Gary Reichard, Politics as Usual: The Age of Truman and Eisenhower (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2004), 2. 3. The War Against Germany 1. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 523. 2. Quoted in ibid., 524. 3. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 243. 4. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 569. 5. Quoted in ibid., 571. 6. Quoted in Divine, Roosevelt, 89. 7. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 248. 8. Quoted in ibid., 229. 9. Buchanan, United States, 2:342. 10. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 297. 11. Quoted in ibid., 308. 12. Quoted in ibid., 369. 13. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 590. 14. Quoted in ibid., 611. 15. Quoted in Harold Evans, The American Century (New York: Knopf, 1998), 319. 16. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 675. 17. Quoted in Earl F. Ziemke, “War on the Eastern Front,” in A Concise History of World War II, edited by Vincent Esposito (New York: Praeger, 1965), 163. 18. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 687. 19. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 415. 20. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 731. 21. Quoted in Buchanan, United States, 2:394. 22. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 729. 23. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 478. 24. Quoted in ibid., 478, 479. 25. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 731. 26. Quoted in Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre, Is Paris Burning? (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), 176. 27. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 732.

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4. War in the Pacific 1. Quote given in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 810. 2. Evans, The American Century, 361. 3. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 223. 4. Evans, The American Century, 356. 5. Quoted in Vincent J. Esposito, “War in the Southern and Southwestern Pacific,” in Esposito, ed., A Concise History, 250. 6. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 284. 7. Quoted in ibid., 285. 8. Quoted in Bert Cochrane, Harry Truman and the Crisis Presidency (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1973), 298. 9. Quoted in Buchanan, United States, 1:485. 10. Quoted in Burns, Roosevelt, 487. 11. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 820. 12. Quoted in Buchanan, United States, 2:541. 13. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 840. 14. David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 441. 15. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 840. 16. Quoted in ibid., 841. 17. Quoted in Cochrane, Harry Truman, 174. 18. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, 841. 19. Ibid., 839. 20. Henry May, Anxiety and Affluence, 1945–1961 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 13. 5. Postwar America: Prosperity and Problems 1. Quoted in Graebner, Age of Doubt, 40. 2. Quoted in Patterson, Grand Expectations, 8. 3. McCraw, American Business, 129. 4. William Leuchtenberg, A Troubled Feast: American Society since 1945 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), 44. 5. Quoted in Uschan, The 1940s, 87. 6. Leuchtenberg, A Troubled Feast, 139. 7. Quoted in Uschan, The 1940s, 75. 8. Winkler, “1941–1950,” 67. 9. Quoted in William F. Levantrosser, Harry Truman: The Man from Independence (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 219. 10. Quoted in Eric Goldman, The Crucial Decade and After (New York: Vintage Books, 1960), 47.

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11. Harry S. Truman, “The National Health,” in The Truman Administration: Its Principles and Practice, edited by Louis Koenig (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1956), 218. 12. Quoted in Patterson, Grand Expectations, 35. 6. Truman: The Embattled President 1. Robert Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: 1945–1948 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977), xvi. 2. Ibid., xv. 3. Quoted in ibid., ix. 4. Quoted in Cochrane, Harry Truman, 62. 5. Ibid., 99. 6. Quoted in ibid., 113. 7. William Pemberton, Harry Truman: Fair Dealer and Cold Warrior (Boston: Hall, 1989), 33. 8. Cochrane, Harry Truman, 114. 9. Reichard, Politics as Usual, 2. 10. Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 314. 11. Quoted in Cochrane, Harry Truman, 117. 12. Quoted in Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 17. 13. Quoted in Robert Ferrell, Truman (Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1996), 129. 14. Quoted in Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 18. 15. McCullough, Truman, 463. 16. Cochrane, Harry Truman, 118. 17. Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 350. 18. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, xv. 19. Quoted in Reichard, Politics as Usual, 3. 20. Quoted in Leuchtenberg, A Troubled Feast, 123. 21. Quoted in Reichard, Politics as Usual, 8. 22. McCullough, Truman, 493. 23. Quoted in Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 164. 24. Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 476. 25. Cited in Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995), 381. 26. Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 493. 27. Phillips, The 1940s, 290. 28. Quoted in Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 31. 29. Quoted in Levantrosser, Harry Truman, 22. 30. Quoted in Alonzo L. Hamby, Harry S. Truman and the Fair Deal (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1974), xi. 31. Cochrane, Harry Truman, 211.

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32. Cited in McCullough, Truman, 477. 33. Quoted in ibid., 520. 34. Quoted in Cochrane, Harry Truman, 211. 35. Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 519. 36. Quoted in Phillips, The 1940s, 331. 37. Quoted in ibid., 330. 38. Quoted in Goldman, The Crucial Decade, 82. 39. Quoted in Graebner, Age of Doubt, 9. 40. Quoted in Phillips, The 1940s, 339. 41. Quoted in John Patrick Diggins, The Proud Decades: America in War and Peace, 1941–1960 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988), 107. 42. Quoted in John C. Walter,, “Franklin D. Roosevelt and Naval Rearmament, 1932– 1938,” in Rosenbaum and Bartelme, eds., FDR, 203. 43. Harry S. Truman, “Transition from Truman to Eisenhower,” in Koenig, ed., The Truman Administration, 384. 44. Quoted in Goldman, The Crucial Decade, 89. 45. Quoted in Hamby, Harry S. Truman, 119. 46. Quoted in ibid., 157. 47. Quoted in ibid., 158. 7. The Rise of the Cold War 1. Quote given in Richard D. Burns, “James F. Byrnes,” in An Uncertain Tradition: American Secretaries of State in the Twentieth Century, edited by Norman Graebner (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), 224. 2. Quoted in John L. Snell, “Diplomatic History of the War: From Axis Mastery to Allied Recovery, 1941–45,” in Esposito, ed., A Concise History, 357. 3. Quoted in Hamby, Man of The People, 270. 4. Harry Truman, Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955), 551–52. 5. Quoted in Robert Donovan, Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949–1953 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), 7. 6. Quoted in Phillips, The 1940s, 305. 7. Quoted in Goldman, The Crucial Decade, 70–71. 8. Quoted in Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 191. 9. Quoted in Goldman, The Crucial Decade, 37–38. 10. Quoted in May, Anxiety and Affluence, 55. 11. Quoted in Evans, The American Century, 390. 12. Quoted in Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 155. 13. Quoted in ibid., 142. 14. Quoted in Hamby, Man of the People, 388. 15. Quoted in Goldman, The Crucial Decade, 57.

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16. Quoted in Reichard, Politics as Usual, 20. 17. Quoted in Evans, The American Century, 394. 18. Quoted in Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 282. 19. Ibid., 283. 20. Quoted in Phillips, The 1940s, 304. 21. Quoted in Hamby, Man of the People, 517. 22. Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 561. 23. Quoted in Harry S. Truman, “Labor Legislation,” in Koenig, ed., The Truman Administration, 247. 24. Quoted in Phillips, The 1940s, 314. 25. Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 583. 26. Ibid., 583. 27. Quoted in Reichard, Politics as Usual, 53. 28. Quoted in Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 328. 29. Harry Truman, Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956), 157. 30. Quoted in Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 321. 31. Quoted in ibid., 321. 32. Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 776. 33. Ibid., 776–77. 8. Legacies 1. Adolph Hitler, “Speech to Declare War Against the United States, December 11, 1941,” Journal of Historical Review 8, no. 4 (Winter 1988–89): 389–416. 2. Frank Friedel, “Introduction: The Legacy of FDR,” in Rosenbaum and Bartelme, eds., FDR, 10. 3. Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 178. 4. Pemberton, Harry Truman, 74. 5. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis, 230. 6. Cited in Levantrosser, Harry Truman, 2. 7. Quoted in McCullough, Truman, 526. 8. Quoted in Goldman, The Crucial Decade, 57. 9. Quoted in Pemberton, Harry Truman, 172. 10. Goldman, The Crucial Decade, 44. 11. Cited in Leuchtenberg, A Troubled Feast, 16. 12. Cited in Ferrell, Truman, 192.

Selected Readings I N P R E PA R I N G T H I S M A N U S C R I P T , I drew intensively on the literature about the 1940s. I used several primary sources, although most of the books I consulted are secondary sources written by leading scholars in the field. Here I list and describe some of the most important of these works for any reader seeking further information on the topic each chapter focuses on.

1. A Prelude to War Justus D. Doenecke and John E. Wilz, From Isolation to War, 1931–1941 (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2003).

This book skillfully traces the road the United States took to entering World War II. The authors describe the setting and the people involved in the diplomacy between 1931 and 1941. Using a sort of chess-match style, they explain the reasons for Allied and Axis diplomacy during this crucial period. At this time, the United States was led by one of the most astute presidents in its history, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Realizing that the American people were reluctant to go to war, he had to proceed carefully as he tried to aid our allies and block advances by Germany and Japan. Assisting our allies was a controversial matter for the president. To many, they seemed doomed to defeat, and perhaps the United States could live with the consequences of an Axis victory. If the United States did aid the Allies, maybe England, Russia, and China might be able to fight the war for us. At the other extreme, many cynics even suspected that Roosevelt was not really trying to avoid entering the war. These issues were the main ones being considered by an increasingly anxious American public prior to 1941. 179

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This book explains the background of all the key decisions made by the major players of the time. It puts the reader in both sides’ shoes and gives a sense of how difficult were the choices Roosevelt made. The stakes were so high that there was virtually no margin for error. Although a relatively short work, From Isolation to War is very thorough and tells a complete story. It contains many maps and photos to give a clear picture of the times. It indicates how leading historians feel about the key decisions that were being made. The authors include an extensive bibliography to help the reader do further research on the matter. This book defi nitely explains the diplomacy during one of the most critical periods in foreign policy for the American people. For additional information on the prelude to war, see Robert Divine, Roosevelt and World War II (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1969); David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999); James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (San Diego: Harvest Books, 1970); Cabell Phillips, The 1940s: Decade of Triumph and Trouble (New York: Macmillan, 1975); and A. Russell Buchanan, The United States and World War II, vol. 1 (New York: Harper and Row, 1964). 2. Life on the Home Front Allen M. Winkler, Home Front USA: America during World War II (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000).

Home Front USA is a valuable tool in understanding how ordinary Americans lived during World War II. The author’s main theme is that mobilization was the overriding theme that changed America during the war. According to Winkler, it had as significant an impact on America as on the outcome of the war. It affected business, labor unions, and the role of government itself. “While the nation suffered no physical destruction within continental borders, the American people’s involvement in the war brought economic, social, and political change to an unprecedented degree.” Although all social groups were affected, there were winners and losers at home. Most Americans’ lives were changed in a positive way by the war. Winkler focuses especially on the positive effect of the war on women and blacks, both socially and economically. He also emphasizes that outsiders (those groups not well integrated into American society) fared less well

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during the war. For Japanese Americans, in particular, the war brought only burdens. In this relatively short book (around one hundred pages), the author covers a wide range of topics. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, Home Front USA is packed with information, yet it is very readable and serves as an enjoyable and valuable tool for studying home-front America, containing an extensive critical essay on the major sources in the field. The author did his graduate work at Yale University and has written extensively on the 1940s. Home Front USA is part of the American History series published by Harlan Davidson. After reading this book, readers will have a good understanding of the topic. 3. The War Against Germany Vincent Esposito, ed., A Concise History of World War II (New York: Praeger, 1965).

A Concise History of World War II is an extremely thorough, almost encyclopedic account of World War II. For those interested in an in-depth examination of the war against Germany, Vincent Esposito’s edited collection will serve admirably. Esposito was a graduate of West Point and MIT and served as a brigadier general in the U.S. Army during World War II. After his service in the war, he taught at West Point. The book is thoroughly researched, relying on about 90 percent of the authoritative information that was available at the time of publication. World War II was the best and most rigidly documented of all the major wars. This study relies on official U.S. government records, orders, agreements, reports of impartial observers, as well as documents from the German government and was prepared under the auspices of the Encyclopedia Americana. Each of the essays by different authors in this volume deals with a specific aspect of the war. Esposito contributed one of the chapters. The book covers all aspects of the war in a very thorough yet readable manner. The impressive array of facts and the thoroughness of the coverage makes it an indispensable reference on World War II and the events leading up to the war. The chapters were written by scholars in the field as well as by retired military officers. Very thorough rather than light or entertaining, the book is a treasure trove of material that will satisfy anyone interested in the war against Hitler.

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It breaks down the war into its various phases and contains literally everything, including many useful maps, one might wish to know about the European war. Additional reading on the topic can be found in David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999); James Macgregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (San Diego: Harvest Books, 1970); Robert Divine, Roosevelt and World War II (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1969); A. Russell Buchanan, The United States and World War II, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Row, 1964); and Harold Evans, The American Century (New York: Knopf, 1998). 4. War in the Pacific A. Russell Buchanan, The United States and World War II, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Row, 1964).

A very scholarly treatment of all aspects of World War II, Buchanan’s study offers an especially complete analysis of the Pacific war. In two volumes, it is part of the New American Nation series covering the entire range of American history. It is a masterful synthesis of many newspapers, general histories, and unpublished papers. It also contains many photographs and maps to further explain the story of the Pacific War. One of Buchanan’s main themes is that World War II differed from all previous wars in that it was truly total. It involved almost every great nation and most of the smaller ones. The war was fought in or involved almost all quarters of the globe, except South America. It affected every segment of society and the economy and made no distinction between combatants and civilians. Another principle theme is the U.S. economy’s role in helping lead to the Allied victory. Buchanan claims that it was the sheer weight of American production that turned the tide in the war. This production was decisive in supplying America’s needs as well as those of Britain, Russia, and even China. The author successfully synthesizes the importance of the economy and all important aspects of the war, not just the battles. Buchanan’s study flows smoothly and is written in an interesting style. The reader will gain a feel for the progress of the war, the principle leaders, and how the Pacific war was won. The book is very thorough and will satisfy both the advanced scholar and the general public.

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Buchanan, who received his doctorate at Stanford University, has taught at both Stanford and the University of California at Santa Barbara. He interrupted his teaching to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II. In addition to numerous publications, he has edited The Navy’s Air War: A Mission Completed. More information on this subject can be found in David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999); Bert Cochrane, Harry Truman and the Crisis Presidency (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1973); David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992); Vincent Esposito, ed., A Concise History of World War II (New York: Praeger, 1965); and Robert Donovan, Tumultuous Years (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982). 5. Postwar America: Prosperity and Problems John Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996).

Part of the Oxford History of the United States series, this book covers all the major topics in U.S. history from 1945 to 1974: women, civil rights, rising living standards, anticommunism, and the rise of the Cold War. The author’s most important theme deals with the economy, and he declares: “Economic growth was the most decisive force in the shaping of attitudes and expectations in the post-war era.” The title Grand Expectations relates to the high hopes that Americans had after 1945 (until the 1970s). Following the war, the public had a strong faith in economic advancement. The postwar economy would be spurred by the GI Bill, which promoted an educational boom, and by a vast expansion in the consumer market, especially in cars. The author further stresses the importance of both the surge in home building and the baby boom as families grew at a record pace. The affluent economy also helped facilitate the nation’s new role in the developing Cold War. The period from 1945 to 1970 was a prosperous time for most Americans, overshadowing concern over their domestic and international problems. By the 1970s, however, American prosperity was being challenged as international economic pressures steadily mounted. The United States could no longer regard an ever-expanding economy as inevitable. Written almost like a text, Grand Expectations is very thorough and readable. It is not to be considered light reading. Containing nearly eight

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hundred pages of text and an extremely thorough bibliography, it will satisfy both the general public’s interest in post–World War II America as well as the scholar’s need for serious research. For more in-depth studies of this topic, the reader should check William Graebner, Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s (Boston: Twayne, 1991); Thomas K. McCraw, American Business, 1920–2000: How It Worked (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000); Michael Uschan, The 1940s (San Diego: Lucent Books, 1999); William Leuchtenberg, A Troubled Feast: American Society since 1945 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973); and William F. Levantrosser, Harry Truman: The Man from Independence (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986). 6. Truman: The Embattled President Gary Reichard, Politics as Usual: The Age of Truman and Eisenhower (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2004).

This book is a study of U.S. society after World War II as well as of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. Reichard argues that the period after 1945 was different politically from what later followed in the 1960s. He describes the post–World War II era as less chaotic and more satisfying for the typical American. The author divides his book equally between the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies, claiming the same general principles apply to both. Reichard, who specializes in post-1945 U.S. political history as well as in U.S. immigration and ethnic studies, describes this period as more stable, more “business as usual.” There was less class warfare, and society was generally more content than during the more turbulent 1960s. The author regards the period as an agreeable time for most Americans. There was more political calm, despite the anti-Communist hysteria and the wave of post–World War II labor strikes. Even the Cold War did not upset the general sense of well-being in the nation. Reichard’s book is well researched and suitable for both graduate and undergraduate classes. It relies on a mixture of secondary and primary sources, including materials from Communist nations that became available as the Cold War was ending. It contains material on all aspects of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations and offers a thorough examination of post–World War II American society, written in an easy-to-absorb manner.

SELECT ED R E A DI NGS

185

Additional material on this subject can be found in Robert Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: 1945–1948 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977); Bert Cochrane, Harry Truman and the Crisis Presidency (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1973); David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992); Robert Ferrell, Truman (Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1996); and Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995). 7. The Rise of the Cold War Norman Graebner, ed., An Uncertain Tradition: American Secretaries of State in the Twentieth Century (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961).

Norman Graebner’s An Uncertain Tradition examines American foreign policy through the various secretaries of state in office between 1898 and 1959. Graebner edited this collection, in which each secretary is closely examined by a foreign-affairs scholar. He personally wrote the chapter on Truman’s last secretary of state, Dean Acheson. In this study, the reader gains insight not only into each secretary of state’s ideas, but also into his relations with the president, the Congress, and even the public. All this contributes to greater insight on foreign policy during the period. In the 1940s, five secretaries of state conducted American foreign policy. President Franklin Roosevelt basically acted as his own secretary of state, with Cordell Hull and Edward Stettinius playing subservient roles. President Harry Truman operated differently and ceded vast authority to his secretaries. His only significant deviation from this policy was when he overruled his State Department and strongly supported the creation of Israel in 1948. Otherwise, Edward Byrnes, George Marshall, and Dean Acheson in their time as secretary of state basically conducted an independent foreign policy (in line with Truman’s key philosophy). This book is a scholarly work that will give the reader a close look into the politics of the age as well as into major themes in foreign policy. The reader will gain more insight into the presidency, the American political process, and U.S. foreign policy. Graebner’s work offers a unique approach to twentieth-century U.S. history, including the turbulent events of the 1940s. For additional insights on the topics covered, the reader should check Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York:

186

SELECT ED R E A DI NGS

Oxford Univ. Press, 1995); Harry Truman, Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955); Eric Goldman, The Crucial Decade and After (New York: Vintage Books, 1960); Henry May, Anxiety and Affluence, 1945–1965 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964); and Harold Evans, The American Century (New York: Knopf, 1998).

Bibliography Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam. New York: Penguin Books, 1985. Bernstein, Barton, and Allen Matusow, eds. The Truman Administration: A Documentary History. New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Blum, John. V Was for Victory: Politics and Culture during World War II. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. Brokaw, Tom. The Greatest Generation. New York: Random House, 1998. Buchanan, Russell. The United States and World War II. 2 vols. New York: Harper and Row, 1964. Burns, James MacGregor. Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom. San Diego: Harvest Books, 1970. Byrnes, Mark S. The Truman Years: 1945–1953. London: Longman, 2000. Cochrane, Bert. Harry Truman and the Crisis Presidency. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1973. Collins, Larry, and Dominique LaPierre. Is Paris Burning? New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965. Diggins, John Patrick. The Proud Decades: America in War and Peace, 1941–1960. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988. Divine, Robert. Roosevelt and World War II. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1969. Doenecke, Justus D., and John E. Wilz. From Isolation to War, 1931–1941. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2003. Donovan, Robert. Conflict and Crisis: 1945–1948. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977. . Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949–1953. New York: W. W. Norton, 1982. Esposito, Vincent, ed. A Concise History of World War II. New York: Praeger, 1965. 187

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Evans, Harold. The American Century. New York: Knopf, 1998. Ferrell, Robert. Truman. Columbia: Univ. of Missouri Press, 1996. Goldman, Eric. The Crucial Decade and After. New York: Vintage Books, 1960. Goulden, Joseph. The Best Years: 1945–1950. New York: Athenium, 1976. Graebner, Norman, ed. An Uncertain Tradition: American Secretaries of State in the Twentieth Century. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961. Graebner, William. Age of Doubt: American Thought and Culture in the 1940s. Boston: Twayne, 1991. Hamby, Alonzo L. Harry S. Truman and the Fair Deal. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1974. . Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995. Hess, Gary R. The United States at War, 1941–1945. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000. Hitler, Adolph. “Speech to Declare War Against the United States, December l1, 1945.” Journal of Historical Review 8, no. 4 (Winter 1988–89): 389–416. Jenkins, Alan. The Forties. New York: Universe Books, 1977. Jones, Landon Y. Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation. New York: Ballantine Books, 1980. Kennedy, David. Freedom from Fear. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999. Koenig, Louis, ed. The Truman Administration: Its Principles and Practice. New York: New York Univ. Press, 1956. Leuchtenberg, William. A Troubled Feast: American Society since 1945. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. Levantrosser, William F. Harry Truman: The Man from Independence. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. Lichtenstein, Nelson, Roy Rosenzweig, Joshua Brown, and David Jaffee. Who Built America? Vol. 2. New York: Worth, 2000. May, Henry. Anxiety and Affluence, 1945–1965. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. McCauley, Martin. The Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1949. London: Pearson, Longman, 2003. McCraw, Thomas K. American Business, 1920–2000: How It Worked. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000. McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. O’Neill, William. American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945–1960. New York: Free Press, 1986. . American Society since 1945. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969.

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. A Democracy at War. New York: Free Press, 1993. Overy, R. J. The Origins of the Second World War. London: Longman, 1998. Parrish, Michael. Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression, 1920–1941. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992. Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996. Pemberton, William. Harry Truman: Fair Dealer and Cold Warrior. Boston: Hall, 1989. Phillips, Cabell. The 1940s: Decade of Triumph and Trouble. New York: Macmillan, 1975. Quint, Howard H., and Milton Cantor. Men, Women, and Issues in American History. Vol. 2. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1975. Reichard, Gary. Politics as Usual: The Age of Truman and Eisenhower. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2004. Rogers, Donald I. Since You Went Away. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973. Rosenbaum, Herbert, and Elizabeth Bartelme, eds. FDR: The Man, the Myth, the Era, 1882–1945. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987. Truman, Harry. Year of Decisions. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955. . Years of Trial and Hope. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956. Uschan, Michael. The 1940s. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1999. Whitfield, Stephen, ed. A Companion to Twentieth Century America. Ames, IA: Blackwell, 2004. Winkler, Allan M. Home Front USA: America during World War II. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000.

Index Acheson, Dean, 111, 150, 156, 158–59

Aleutian Islands, 77, 78

advertising, 96–97

Alger Hiss case, 111, 158

aerospace industry, 28, 166

Allies: Atlantic First policy, 47–48; call

African Americans. See black Americans

for unconditional surrender of Japan,

agriculture: Brannan Plan, 135, 136;

90; Casablanca Conference, 55–56,

Mexican migrant workers, 24, 39; price

59; consequences of defeat of, xii;

supports, 30–31, 125; wartime produc-

convoy system, 49–50; declaration of

tion, 30–31, 45. See also farmers

war against Germany, 3, 4; disagree-

air conditioning, 25, 95, 167

ment over strategy, 48, 53, 56, 58, 59,

aircraft: air war in Europe, 58–59, 67; air

65–66, 69; efforts to revive Germany,

war over Germany, 67, 68, 69; in Atlan-

153; end of alliance, 145, 149; goals of,

tic battle, 49–50, 57; in Battle of Brit-

14; Moscow Conference, 149; partners

ain, 6–7, 12, 50; in battle of Coral Sea,

of, 48; Potsdam Conference, 90,

76; in battle of Iwo Jima, 87; in battle

91–92, 138–39; rejection of German

of Midway, 78; in battle of Okinawa,

efforts to surrender, 69; strategies for

88; bombing around St. Lo, 65; bomb-

war against Germany, 51–52, 55–56,

ing campaign in Pacific island-hopping

58, 59, 65–66; strategy for war in

campaign, 80; bombing of Hiroshima/

Pacific, 47, 73–74, 81–82, 84–85, 87;

Nagasaki, 92; bombing raids on Japan,

Teheran Conference, 30, 59–60, 138;

76–77, 84, 86, 89–90; Flying Tigers in

tensions between partners, 137–42;

China, 80; Japanese attack on Manila

two-front war of, 71, 72; Yalta Confer-

and, 75; Japanese force on Japan, 87;

ence, 110, 111–12, 138, 140. See also

kamikaze attacks, 84, 85, 88; in Leyte

England; Pacific war; Russia; United

Gulf naval battle, 85; limitations of,

States; World War II (Germany); and

14; in Marianas campaign, 82–83; in

specific battle or campaign

Normandy operation, 63; Operation

America First Committee, 7

Vittles and, 153; production of, 32–33;

American Communist Party, 107, 111,

V-1/V-2 rockets, 63

112, 131

191

192

I N DEX

American Dilemma, An (Myrdal), 37

atomic energy, 28

anti-Asian sentiments, 40–41

Australia, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 80

antifeminism, 106–7

Austria, 1

anti-Japanese sentiments, 40–41

automobile industry: conversion of plants

antilabor backlash, 94–95, 108, 123–24, 127–28

for defense, 27, 32–33; gasoline/rubber shortages and, 25, 28; revival after

anti-Soviet sentiments, 140–44

WWII, 101, 167; strikes following

Antwerp, 67

WWII, 108

Arabs, 154–56, 163–64 Ardennes Forest, 67–68 Arizona (battleship), 21 armed forces: assessment of war in 1941,

aviation, 28. See also aerospace industry; aircraft Axis Powers: declaration of war, 4; fall of Italy, 56–57, 58; German inva-

13–14; black Americans in, 24, 36, 37,

sion of western Europe, 5; Germany’s

38; buildup during Cold War, 156;

surrender, 69; Hitler’s strategy, 13,

casualties of Korean War, 160; casual-

48, 67–68; Japanese strategy, 72–73,

ties of WWII, 15, 27, 68, 79, 83, 87,

74–77, 82, 84; Japanese surrender, 93;

88; demobilization of, 99, 100–101,

nature of, 2–3; Nazi-Soviet Nonaggres-

106, 108, 122, 125; discrimination in,

sion Pact, 2, 13, 51, 73; partners of, 48;

24; draft, 6, 9, 13, 24, 27, 153, 156;

prewar aggression, 1–2; production of

integration of, 103, 126, 130, 133, 136,

aircraft, 33; Romania/Hungary’s sup-

165; Japanese Americans in, 40; in Japan

port of, 9; as threat to democracy, 1–2;

in 1941, 71; service during WWII, 27;

Tripartite Pact, 18. See also Germany;

strength of, 6, 71; unification of, 150;

Italy; Japan; Pacific war; World War

women in, 39. See also Pacific war; World

II (Germany); and specific battle, cam-

War II (Germany)

paign, or leader

arms embargo, 4 arms limitation agreements, 15, 16 Armstrong, Louis, 105

baby boom, 24, 97–98, 101, 106

Arnold, Henry, 61

Badoglio, Pietro, 56

“arsenal of democracy” address, 10

balance of power, xii, 2, 48, 137, 156

Atlantic, battle of the, 10, 14–15, 48–50,

Balfour Declaration, 154

54, 57

Balkans: Churchill’s plan of attack

Atlantic First policy, 41, 71–72, 74

through, 55, 60, 66, 137–38; German

Atlantic Wall, 61

invasion of, 3, 13; Stalin’s annexa-

atomic bomb: Communists researching,

tion of, 13. See also eastern European

112, 158; social adjustments and,

nations

95; Soviet tests, 158, 162; Truman’s

Barkley, Alben, 43, 120, 131

investigation of defense spending,

baseball leagues, 25–26, 104

118; use against Japan, 90–93,

Bastogne, Belgium, 68

161–62

Bataan, 78

193

I N DEX

Bataan Death March, 75

president, 43; as head of Office of War

Battle of the Bulge, 67–68

Mobilization, 31; position on Japanese

Belgium, 5, 68, 150, 152–53, 154

surrender, 92; as secretary of state,

Bell Labs, 97

139–40, 146

Benny, Jack, 96, 97 Berle, Milton, 97 Berlin, battle of, 69

Calais, 62, 63, 64

Berlin Blockade, 153, 156

California, 35, 40, 41, 102

birth rate, 24, 97–98, 101

Canada, 154

black Americans: in armed forces, 24, 36,

Carrier, Willis, 167

37, 38; civil rights movement, 95, 102,

Casablanca Conference, 55–56, 59

103–5, 112–13, 165, 168; cultural life

Case bill, 123–24

of, 105; economic status of, 99, 104;

cash-and-carry system, 4

housing for, 102, 105; job oppor-

Celebes, 73

tunities during WWII, 23, 37, 165;

cell phones, 166

political influence of, 35, 37–38; racial

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 150

tensions during WWII, 23, 38; reloca-

Chambers, Whitaker, 111

tion outside the South, 23–24, 35;

Chennault, Claire, 80

Truman’s civil rights program, 103–4,

Cherbourg harbor, 64

126, 130, 133, 134, 136, 165–66,

Chiang Kai-shek, 81, 110, 157

168; Wilkie’s position on civil rights

Chicago riot (1947), 105

for, 44

Chicago Tribune, 14, 78

bobby-soxers, 98

China: civil war in, 81, 157; Communist

Borah, William, 4

takeover, 110, 112, 157–58, 164; inter-

Borneo, 20, 73, 75

vention in Korea, 168; Japanese expan-

boxing, 26

sion of holdings in, 15, 161; Japanese

braceros, 24, 39

war against, 1, 2, 16, 72, 80–81; role

Bradley, Omar, 54, 61

in war with Japan, 81, 110, 157; U.S.

Brannan Plan, 135, 136

postwar relations with, 157, 164; U.S.

Britain, Battle of, 6–7, 12, 50

role in fighting in, 80, 86; U.S. support

British Borneo, 75 Brussels Pact, 152–53 Bulge, Battle of the, 147

of, 16–17, 158 Chinese Nationalists, 81, 110, 157–58. See also Chiang Kai-shek

Burma, 16, 75, 84, 161

Choltitz, Dietrich Von, 66–67

Bush, George W., 164, 167

Churchill, Winston: Atlantic Charter, 14;

business, 27, 30–32. See also industry

background of, xi; on battle of the

business-labor relations. See labor-manage-

Atlantic, 15, 48, 49; concerns about

ment relations

Russian domination of Europe, 55, 59,

Byrnes, James F.: approach to Stalin, 141,

60, 65–66, 69, 137, 142, 144; on

144–45, 147; as candidate for vice

decision to use atomic bomb, 91;

194

I N DEX

Churchill, Winston (cont.)

expansionist policies leading to, 137,

“Iron Curtain” speech, 144; on

138, 139–42, 145, 148; Soviet testing

Japanese war with China, 17; legacy

of atomic bomb, 157–58; Stalin’s dis-

of, 160; on Normandy landing, 58;

trust of Allies and, 53, 56, 59, 66, 137,

pleas for U.S. to enter war, 6, 10, 12;

141, 142, 162; Stalin’s warnings of, 59;

prediction about American power, 70;

Truman’s domestic policy and, 125;

resistance to Axis Powers, 2; on Stalin,

U.S. allies in, 93; U.S. containment

59; strategy against Germany, 51,

policies, 142–45, 147–54, 156–57,

52–53, 55, 58, 59, 65–66; on Truman,

162–63. See also Red Scare

163; on U.S. entrance into war, 47; on

Cole, Nat “King,” 105

U.S. policy toward Russia, 147; Yalta

collective bargaining, 33, 122, 127–28

Conference, 111

Columbia Valley Administration, 121, 135

cities: ghettoes in, 105; housing problems during WWII, 23, 35; migration to, 23–24, 35, 39, 102, 103, 165; suburbanization of, 101, 102, 105

Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, 8 Communism/Communists: attempted takeover of Greece, 145, 148; Brussels

civilian casualties, 68, 89–90

Pact as protection against, 152–53;

civil rights movement: advances during

in China, 81, 110, 112, 157–58, 164;

WWII, 37–38; as issue in 1948 elec-

development of in Russia, 143; eastern

tion, 133; opposition to Byrnes, 43;

European governments controlled by,

role of television in, 166; Truman’s

145; end of Cold War, xii; Korean War

approach to, 103–4, 126, 129, 130,

and, 168; Marshall Plan and, 151; Red

134, 136, 165–66, 168; Wilkie’s posi-

Scare, 107–8, 110–12, 129, 135, 136,

tion on, 44; after WWII, 95, 103–5,

158, 167; in unions, 107, 110, 128;

112–13, 165; during WWII, 24, 35–37

U.S. containment policy, 142–49;

civil service, 103–4, 126, 130, 133, 136, 165 Clark, Mark, 54

Wallace and, 131; in western Europe, 150, 152. See also Cold War; Russia; Soviet Union

Clifford, Clark, 155

computers, 28, 97, 166–67

closed shop, 34, 122, 127

Congress: acceptance of war with Ger-

clothing, 27, 39–40

many, 15; antilabor backlash, 94–95,

Coal Miners Union, 34, 123

108, 123–24, 127–28; on Byrnes,

Cold War: adjustments in U.S. society

144–45; cash-and-carry system bill, 4;

to, 95; Berlin Blockade, 153, 156;

civil rights movement and, 103, 130;

conservative trend and, 110; effect

conservative trend, 41–44, 45, 108,

on American Communist Party, 112;

109, 113, 118–19, 121–26, 134–35,

effect on unions, 109; end of, xii; fall

164; creation of Jewish state and, 155;

of China and, 157–58; institutionaliza-

defense spending increases, 5–6; demo-

tion of, 150; as priority for Truman,

bilization of armed forces, 100, 125;

136; rise of, 137–49, 160, 162; Russian

Democratic control of in 1948, 133;

195

I N DEX

Destroyers Deal, 7; draft-law amend-

production of after WWII, 95,

ment, 13; interventionists warning to,

99–100; shortages after WWII, 94;

11; isolationist mentality of, xii, 2, 3,

television’s impact on sales of, 96

4–5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12–13, 17, 22, 160,

consumer spending, 27, 28, 29, 94, 95,

161; Lend-Lease program, 10, 11–12; Marshall Plan and, 150–52; opposition

99–100 containment policies, 142–45, 147–54,

to women’s movement, 107; on post-

156, 163, 168

war Lend-Lease program, 140; Red

convoy system, 49–50

Scare, 110–12, 129–30, 136, 158, 167;

Coral Sea, battle of the, 76

rejection of civil rights bills, 103; rela-

Corregidor, 75, 78

tionship with Truman, 46, 110, 113,

cost-plus-a-fi xed-fee system, 31–32

116–19, 121–22, 124–25, 131, 133,

Council of Economic Advisers, 124

134–36, 145, 164–66; Republican

Crosby, Bing, 98

control of in 1946, 108–9; Republican–

cult of youth, 24

southern Democratic coalition, 42;

cultural life: of black Americans, 105;

Roosevelt’s warnings about Nazis,

changing role of women, 23, 24, 29,

1–2; “shoot on sight” policy granted,

38–39, 95, 99, 105–6, 165; clothing

14–15; Social Security and, 42;

styles, 27, 39–40; cult of youth, 24; lei-

strength of southern Democrats in, 36;

sure/entertainment industries, 25–26,

support for larger military program,

98, 105; radio, 25, 95–96; television’s

156; support of containment policy,

impact on, 95, 96–97. See also race

148–49, 154; support of wartime

relations

efforts, 45–46; Truman and, 116–19,

Czechoslovakia, 1, 2, 17, 50, 152

121–22, 124–25, 131, 133, 134–36, 145, 164–66; Truman Doctrine and, 146; Truman’s criticism of, 133; War

Darlan, Jean-François, 54

Powers Act, 167

Davis, Benjamin, 38

congressional elections: in 1934, 116; of 1940, 117, 120; of 1942, 42; of 1946, 108–9, 124–25, 127, 129; of 1948, 133 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 107–8, 123

D-Day, 62, 63–64 declaration of war: Allies against Germany, 3, 4; Germany against U.S., 22, 47, 48; president’s right to initiate, 167; Russia against Japan, 90, 92, 93

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 37

defense industry, 30, 37

conservatism: election of 1944 and,

defense spending: effect on economy, 9,

118–19; Roosevelt administration and,

29; fi nancing of, 29–30; increase in

41–44, 122; Truman and, 108, 109,

following fall of France, 5–6, 9–10;

113, 121–26, 134–35, 164

Truman Committee investigation of,

consumer goods: consumption follow-

44, 117–18; during WWII, 30

ing WWII, 95, 166–67; government

defensive perimeter speech, 158–59

regulation of, 27–28, 31, 32–33, 96;

DeForrest, Lee, 97

196

I N DEX

demobilization of armed forces, 99,

136, 165; against Japanese Americans,

100–101, 106, 108, 122, 125

23, 40–41, 45, 165; against Mexicans,

democracy: Nazi threat to, xii, 1–2, 11–12;

24, 39–40; in public accommodations/

Russian expansion as threat to, 141

housing, 36, 37, 38, 102, 105; Wilkie’s

Democratic National Convention, 45, 130

position on, 44; against women,

Democratic Party: congressional elections,

38–39; after WWII, 103–4. See also

42, 108–9, 116, 117, 120, 124–25,

integration

129, 133; control of Congress in 1948,

divorce rate, 24–25, 97, 98

133; labor’s alliance with, 127, 128;

Dixiecrat Party, 132, 133

labor unions’ influence in, 107; presi-

Doenitz, Karl, 48–49, 50, 57, 69

dential elections, 8–9, 12, 42–45, 117,

domestic policies: of Roosevelt, 31–32,

118–19, 120, 126, 128–34, 164–65;

35–36, 38, 42, 122; Truman’s dif-

rejection of civil rights bills, 103;

ficulties with, 114–15, 121–22, 124,

southern Democrats and, 36, 42, 130;

129–30, 131, 134–35, 136. See also

on Truman, 129; on Wallace, 43. See

Fair Deal; New Deal; and specific

also New Deal; Roosevelt, Franklin D.;

domestic issue

Truman, Harry S. demographic changes: arrival of immi-

Doolittle, James, 77 Douglas, William, 43, 131

grants, 102; influx of migrant workers,

downtown districts, 101

24, 39; marriage/divorce/birth rates,

draft: age group eligible for, 27; reinstitu-

24, 97–98, 101, 106; migration to

tion of in 1948, 153, 156; reinstitution

urban areas, 23, 35, 102, 103; shift to

of prior to WWII, 6, 9, 24; strengthen-

suburbs, 31, 101–2, 105; shift west-

ing of in 1941, 13

ward, 102; work patterns of women,

Dresden, Germany, 68

23, 24, 29, 38–39, 95, 99, 105–6, 165,

Dunkirk, 5, 24, 50, 52

168. See also demobilization of armed forces; draft; workforce Denmark, 5, 150, 154

eastern European nations: Churchill’s

Depression, 23, 26, 28–29, 132

concerns about Stalin’s plans for, 55,

Destroyers Deal, 7, 9, 12

59, 60, 65–66, 69, 137, 142, 144;

detention camps, 23, 40–41

Communist governments in, 145; Hit-

Detroit riot, 38

ler’s invasion of, 3, 13; Soviet takeover

Dewey, Thomas, 44–45, 131, 132,

of, 137, 140, 142, 147; Stalin’s plans

133–34, 164 Dieppe, France, 52 discrimination: in armed forces, 24, 36, 37, 103, 130, 165; black protests

for, 137, 138, 139; U.S. concerns about Russian domination of, 140–43, 145 Eckert, John, 97 economy: adjustment to peace, 94,

against, 95, 103–5; against blacks

99–100, 114–15; adjustment to WWII,

during WWII, 24, 35–38; in federal

24; demobilization of armed forces

employment, 103–4, 126, 130, 133,

and, 100; deregulation of prices,

197

I N DEX

125; effect of defense spending, 9,

electronics, 28, 97, 166–67

26, 29–30; effect of strikes follow-

embargo of Japan, 17, 18, 19–20, 27

ing WWII, 94–96, 99, 107, 108, 113,

employment: for black Americans, 36–37,

122–23, 125, 128; of Germany at end

103, 104, 105; closed shop, 34, 122,

of war, 68; government regulation of

127; in federal government, 29, 103–4,

wages/prices, 27, 30–31, 45, 145; infla-

109–10, 126, 130, 133, 136; open

tion in postwar era, 94, 99, 109–10,

shop, 34; union shop, 127–28; for

114, 122, 124–25, 133, 145; prepara-

veterans, 45; for women, 23, 24, 29,

tions for war, 23; productivity during

38–39, 95, 99, 105–6; after WWII,

WWII, 27, 28, 29; prosperity in post-

107; during WWII, 23–24, 26, 28–29.

war years, 94, 98–99, 112, 166–67;

See also labor-management relations;

revival of auto industry, 101; role of

unions; wages; workforce

teenagers in, 98; in western European

Employment Act (1946), 124, 131

nations after WWII, 148, 150

England: abandonment of Czechoslovakia,

education: desegregation of universities,

17; abandonment of Greece/Turkey,

104; fear of Communists in universi-

148; battle of the Atlantic, 14–15, 54;

ties, 111; federal aid to, 100–101,

Battle of Britain, 6–7, 12, 50; begin-

135, 136, 166; GI Bill for college stu-

ning of WWII, 1; Brussels Pact, 152–

dents, 45, 100; segregation of public

53; concerns about Russian domination

schools, 104

of Europe, 59; cracking of German

Edward VIII (king of England), 7

code, 57; creation of Jewish state, 154–

Egypt, 53, 54

56; declaration of war against Germany,

Eisenhower, Dwight D.: advance into Ger-

3; Destroyers Deal, 7, 9, 12; economic

many, 67, 69; on battle of Berlin, 69;

crisis in, 150; forces confronting Japan,

as commander of European operations,

20; German air assault on, 28; Japanese

53; as commander of Italian cam-

defeat of colonies in Pacific, 75–76;

paign, 57; as commander of Normandy

Lend-Lease program, 10–12, 14–15;

landing, 61, 63; election of 1948 and,

misconceptions about WWII, 3–4;

131; on Falaise campaign, 66; on New

NATO alliance, 154; occupation of

Deal, 164; Red Scare and, 167; strategy

Iran, 145; retreat at Dunkirk, 5, 24, 50,

against Germany, 48, 51, 52, 59, 66;

52; significance of defeat of, 2; strategy

strategy for war in Pacific, 73–74; team

against Germany, 51, 55, 56–57, 58,

of generals under, 54

59; U.S. aid to, 1, 2–3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9–17,

El Alamein battle, 53

161; V-1/V-2 attacks on London, 63;

Elbe River, 69

view of U.S. entrance into war, 47. See

elections. See congressional elections;

also Allies; Churchill, Winston; Pacific

presidential elections electricity, 95 Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), 97

war; World War II (Germany); and specific battle or campaign ENIAC, 97 Enola Gay, 92

198

I N DEX

entertainment industry, 25–26, 95–97, 98,

food, 27, 95, 99

105, 110, 111, 166. See also movies;

football, 26, 104

radio; television

foreign policy: Acheson’s defensive

Equal Rights Amendment, 107

perimeter speech, 158–59; aid to

Europe, 138, 143. See also eastern Euro-

China, 16–17; aid to England, 1, 4,

pean nations; Marshall Plan; North

5, 6, 7, 9, 10–17, 161; arms embargo,

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO);

4; arms limitation agreements, 15, 16;

western European nations; World War

cash-and-carry system, 4; concern-

II (Germany); and specific nation

ing Japanese expansionism, 15–19,

executive orders, 103, 126, 130, 133, 136, 165

71, 72; conservative trend and, 110; creation of Jewish state and, 154–56, 163–64; creation of NATO, 153–54, 156; Destroyers Deal, 7, 9, 12; doctrine

Fair Deal, 114, 124, 134, 135

of unconditional surrender, 56, 90,

Fair Employment Practices Commission,

92, 93; embargo of Japan, 18, 161;

36–37, 38, 105

intervention in Korean War, 158–59;

Falaise campaign, 66

isolationism, xii, 7, 9, 10, 13, 17, 22,

family life, 23, 24–25, 96, 97–98

160, 161; of Japan, 15–16, 71, 72,

Farmer, James, 37

161; Kennan’s Long Telegram and,

farmers, 30–31, 95, 135. See also

142–44, 148, 150, 157; Lend-Lease

agriculture

program, 10–12, 13, 14–15, 56, 140,

Farnsworth, Philo, 96

141; Marshall Plan, 144, 150–52,

federal government: ban on housing con-

156; Monroe Doctrine, 14, 161;

struction, 35; ban on racial discrimina-

NATO, 144, 153–54; necessity of

tion in, 103–4, 126, 130, 133, 136,

intervention in WWII, 13–14; on post-

165; black employees in, 37; fear of

war China, 157–58, 164; Roosevelt’s

Communist infi ltration of, 110–12,

Asian policy, 17–18, 19–21; South

129–30, 136, 158, 167; growth of

Korea and, 158–59; trade relations

bureaucracy, 29, 35, 46, 109–10, 121,

with Japan, 17–18; of Truman, xii,

164; regulation of economy during

110–11, 134–35, 137, 146–47, 148–

WWII, 24, 26, 27–28, 30–34, 125

57, 162–64, 168; Truman Doctrine,

Feis, Herbert, 17

144, 148–50, 156, 160

feminism, 165, 168

Formosa, 85

Fermi, Enrico, 91

Forrestal, Thomas, 141

Fiji, 76

Four Freedoms idea, 14

fi lms, 25, 98

France: abandonment of Czechoslovakia,

Finland, 13, 50

17; Allies’ bombing of, 58–59; Allies’

Fish, Hamilton, 13

landing at Dieppe, 52; beginning of

Fitzgerald, Ella, 105

WWII, 1; Brussels Pact, 152–53; Com-

Flying Tigers, 80

munist activity in, 150; declaration

199

I N DEX

of war against Germany, 3; German

pact with Russia, 2, 13, 51, 73; prewar

defeat of, 5, 18, 24, 50; under German

aggression, 1–2; relations with Greece/

occupation, 53–54; misconceptions

Rumania/Spain, 1; significance of vic-

about WWII, 3–4; NATO alliance,

tory of, 2, 5; Stalin’s distrust of/plans

154; Operation Overlord in, 62–67,

for, 137, 138–39; strategy in WWII,

161; significance of defeat of, 2; Stalin’s

13, 61–62, 67–68; surrender of, 69;

desire for U.S. to attack German forces

surrender of Paris, 66–67; Tripartite

in, 48, 51; U.S. aid to, 1, 2–3, 4

Pact, 18. See also Axis Powers; Hitler,

French Morocco, 53

Adolph; Nazis; World War II (Ger-

French resistance fighters, 62

many); and specific battle, campaign,

Fuchs, Klaus, 112

or leader

Fulbright, J. William, 125

ghettoes, 105 GI Bill of Rights, 45, 100, 101 golf, 26

Gallipoli, Battle of, xi, 52

Göring, Hermann, 33

gangs, 39–40

Grand Alliance. See Allies

Garner, John Nance, 8, 120

Great Society, 166

Garvey, Marcus, 36

Greece: Communist pressure in, 145, 148;

General Maximum Price Regulation (General Max), 32

German invasion of, 14; German relations with, 1; U.S. aid to, 148, 149–50

General Motors, 32

Greenland, 14

George, Walter, 155

Grew, Joseph, 20, 92

German American Bund, 3

Groves, Leslie, 90

German Americans, 40

Guadalcanal, 78–80

Germany: advances in North Africa, 13,

Guam, 75, 82, 83, 84, 89

52; air war over, 58–59, 67, 68, 69; Allies’ advance into, 67; attempts to surrender, 69; Berlin Blockade, 153;

Halsey, William, 86

casualties of WWII, 54–55, 66, 67, 68;

Hannegan, Robert, 119

code cracked by British, 57; collapse

Harriman, Averill, 60, 141, 142

of, 69; construction of Atlantic Wall,

Hastie, William, 37

61; declaration of war against U.S., 22,

Hawaii, 41, 77, 78, 84–85

47, 48; defeat in Russia, 66; defeat of

health care: national health insurance, 121,

France, 5, 18; desire for U.S. neutrality, 3; division of, 153; France’s/England’s

134, 135, 136, 166; research for during WWII, 28; use of penicillin, 167

declaration of war against, 3; invasion

Hideki Tojo, 19

of Balkans, 13; invasion of Greece/

Himmler, Heinrich, 69

Yugoslavia, 14; invasion of Poland, 1,

Hirohito (emperor of Japan), 88, 93

2, 3; invasion of Russia, 73; invasion

Hiroshima, 92

of western Europe, 3; nonaggression

Hiss, Alger, 111, 158

200

I N DEX

Hitler, Adolph: on Allies’ attack in France, 60–61; annexation of Sudetenland, 1; area controlled in 1942, 54; assassination plot against, 65; attack on Soviet Union, 50; attempt to convert Edward

of during WWII, 23; shortages, 35, 38, 95, 101, 134; Truman’s proposal for, 121 Housing Act (1949), 101, 134–35, 136, 166

VIII into Quisling, 7; construction

Hull, Cordell, 17, 20, 92, 139

of Atlantic Wall, 61; death of, 69;

Humphrey, Hubert, 130

declaration of war on U.S., 22, 47,

Hungary, 9

48; desire for Western acknowledg-

Hurst, Fanny, 106

ment of conquests, 3–4; on England, 13; execution of military leaders, 65, 69; invasion of Czechoslovakia, 2, 17;

Iceland, 14, 154

invasion of Greece/Yugoslavia, 14;

Ickes, Harold, 128

invasion of Poland, 1, 2, 3; invasion

immigration, 16, 102

of Russia, 13, 14, 50–51; invasion of

incendiary bombs, 89

western Europe, 3–4, 5; legacy of,

income tax, 29–30, 125

160; nonaggression pact with Russia,

India, 75

2, 13, 51, 73; Normandy landing and,

Indochina, 16, 19, 75

63–65; plans for Battle of the Bulge,

Indonesia: Japanese control of rubber, 33;

67–68; racism of, 50; relationship with

Japanese interest in, 16, 18, 19, 74,

Lindbergh, 7; rescue of Mussolini,

161; Japanese seizure of several islands,

57; response to Normandy landing, 63, 64; Roosevelt’s concerns about,

75 industry: black American workers in,

11; strategy of, 2, 47, 50, 54, 67–68;

103; conversion of plants for defense,

Tripartite Pact, 18, 22; on U.S. aid to

27, 32–33, 45, 96; destruction of in

England, 14, 161; on U.S. entrance

Germany, 68, 69; development of

into war, 47; V-1/V-2 attacks on Lon-

new technology, 28; growth of unions

don, 63. See also Germany; World War

during W WII and, 33–35; productiv-

II (Germany)

ity in postwar era, 96, 98, 99–100;

Holland, 5, 20, 75–76, 154

removal of wartime regulations on,

Holocaust, 154

99; strikes following W WII, 94–95,

Hong Kong, 75

107, 108, 113, 122–23, 125, 128;

Hornet (aircraft carrier), 77

wartime production, 23, 27–28,

House Un-American Activities Committee, 111 housing: 1949 Housing Act, 101, 134–35,

30, 45 inflation: control of in wartime economy, 23, 32; deregulation of prices and, 125,

166; abolition of restrictive covenants,

133; extension of New Deal and, 121;

103; for black Americans, 38, 102,

as justification for wage hikes, 108; in

105; GI Bill loans, 100, 101; Levittown

postwar years, 94, 99, 109–10, 114,

development, 101–2; shift in patterns

122, 124–25, 128, 133, 145

201

I N DEX

integration: of federal employment/armed

conquest of Philippines, 40; control of

forces, 103–4, 105, 126, 130, 133,

rubber production, 33; defeat of Rus-

136, 165; of housing/public accommo-

sia, 16; expansionism of, 15–18, 71, 72,

dations, 105

161; fi nal battle in, 84; Hiroshima/

Interim Committee, 91

Nagasaki bombings, 92, 161–62; inter-

internment policies, 40–41, 45

est in European colonies in Asia, 16;

interventionists, 7–8, 11

invasion of Indochina, 19; invasion of

Iran, 145

Manchuria, 71; military strength on

Iraqi-Afghan War, 161

home islands, 89; nonaggression pact

“Iron Curtain” speech, 144

with Russia, 73, 90; peace negotia-

isolationist mentality: America First Com-

tions, 90, 92–93; postwar control of,

mittee, 7; benefit to Germany, 3; effect

143; pressure on Vietnam, 18; rationale

of “arsenal of democracy” address on,

for attacking Pearl Harbor, 19–20,

10; Pearl Harbor and, 10; after Pearl

72–73; rearmament of, 71; relations

Harbor, 22; Roosevelt’s Asian policy

with U.S., 15–18; Russo-Japanese War,

and, 17; Roosevelt’s denunciation of,

16, 19, 72, 74, 77; strategy of, 19, 20,

9; in U.S. prior to Pearl Harbor, xii, 2,

40, 72–73, 74–77, 84; surrender of, 93;

4–5, 6, 12, 160, 161; view of draft-law

sweep of Pacific, 74–75; terms of peace

amendment, 13

with U.S., 20–21; trade with U.S.,

Israel, 154–56, 163–64

17–18, 19–20, 161; transition follow-

Italian Americans, 40

ing WWII, 93; Tripartite Pact, 18; U.S.

Italian campaign, 55–57, 58, 59, 65

air raids on, 84; war against China,

Italy: Communist activity in, 150; defeat

1, 2, 15, 16, 72, 80–81. See also Axis

in North Africa, 55; defeat of, 56–57, 58, 59, 65; NATO alliance, 154;

Powers; Pacific war; and specific battle or campaign

replacement of Mussolini, 56–57; Tri-

Japanese Americans, 23, 40–41, 45, 165

partite Pact, 18. See also Axis Powers

Java, 73

Iwo Jima, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91

Jewish community, 1, 154–56, 163–64 Johnson, Hugh, 5 Johnson, Lyndon, 166, 167

Japan: advances toward Vietnam, 18; assassination of conservative leaders, 15;

Johnson Act (1934), 4, 10 juvenile delinquency, 24, 98

attack on Pearl Harbor, 72; battle of Midway, 82; bombing raids on, 76–77, 84, 86, 89–90; capture of western

kamikazes, 84, 85, 88

Pacific island group, 40; casualties

Kansas City Democrats, 116

of WWII, 75, 83, 85, 87, 88, 92;

Kearney (destroyer), 15

code cracked by U.S., 76, 77–78, 80;

Kennan, George, 142–44, 148, 150, 157

collapse of militant government, 88;

King, Ernest, 49, 61

collapse of Tojo government, 83–84;

Kluge, Günther Von, 65

202

I N DEX

Knox, Frank, 6, 31 Kokura, 92

lifestyle: adjustments to WWII, 23, 24–28, 38–39; changes following

Konoye government, 18, 19

WWII, 95–97, 102–3, 165–67. See also

Korea: Communist aggression in,

cultural life; living standard; society

158–59, 160, 167, 168; Japanese expansionism and, 15, 84 Korean War: cost of, 160; effect on

Lincoln, Abraham, 117, 120, 161, 165, 166 Lindbergh, Charles, 7

Truman’s domestic policies, 96,

Lippman, Walter, 41, 94, 134

135, 136; public support of, 161,

living standard, 26, 95, 98–99, 166–67

168; U.S. defense perimeter excluding,

London, 63

158–59; U.S. involvement in, 159–60,

Long Telegram, 142–44, 148, 150, 157

167, 168

Louis, Joe, 26

Korematsu v. United States, 40–41

Lovett, Robert, 155

Kristalnacht, 1

loyalty boards, 111, 129–30, 167

Krock, Arthur, 152

Luce, Claire Boothe, 131

Kursk, battle of, 55

Luce, Henry, 94

Kyushu, 89

Luxemburg, 68, 152–53, 154 Luzon, 75, 86

labor-management relations: growth of unions, 33–35; no-strike agreement,

MacArthur, Douglas: on control of Gua-

23, 34; Smith-Connally Act and,

dalcanal, 79; offensive against Japan,

34–35; strikes after WWII, 94–95,

82; Philippines campaign, 74–75,

107, 108, 113, 122–23, 125, 128;

83–84, 86; strategy for winning Pacific

strikes during WWII, 34, 123; TaftHartley Act and, 127–28

war, 84–85 Maginot Line, 3, 4

labor shortages, 23–24. See also workforce

Malaya, 16, 18, 19, 33, 75, 161

labor unions. See unions

Manchuria, 15, 16, 17, 71, 158

Lawrence, E. O., 91

Manhattan Project, 90, 112, 118, 158

League of Nations, 15, 138, 154

Manila, 75, 86

Leahy, William, 141

manufacturing, 23, 30, 32, 39, 109. See

leisure industry, 25–26, 95–97, 166

also automobile industry; industry

LeMay, Curtis, 89

Mao Tse-tung, 157

Lend-Lease program, 10–12, 13, 14–15,

Marianas campaign, 82–84, 86, 87, 89

56, 140 Lerner, Max, 39, 128

marriage rate, 24, 97, 101 Marshall, George C.: advice on use of

Levitt, William, 101

atomic bomb, 90; attempt to warn

Levittown development, 101–2

Hawaii, 21; on battle of the Atlantic,

Lewis, John L., 34–35, 123, 125, 128

49; on China, 157; creation of NATO,

Leyte Gulf, 83, 85–86

153; euphoria following surrender of

203

I N DEX

Paris, 67; on Italian campaign, 56; on

movies, 25, 98

Jewish state, 155–56; Marshall Plan,

music, 98, 105

150–51, 152; McCarthy’s attack on,

Mussolini, Benito, 40, 56, 57

112; at Moscow Conference, 149; Nor-

Myrdal, Gunnar, 37

mandy operation and, 61; preparation for war, 6; promotion of Eisenhower, 53; push for second front in France,

NAACP, 37–38, 103, 104, 130, 166

48; on racial issues in armed forces, 36;

Nagasaki, 92

rejection of Balkan strategy, 66; as sec-

Nation, The, 5

retary of state, 146–47, 156; strategy

national debt, 29

against Germany, 51, 52; on strength

National Industrial Recovery Act (1933),

of Maginot Line, 3; suggestions for draft law, 13

33 National Security Act, 150

Marshall Plan, 144, 148, 150–52, 156

National Security Council, 150

Martin, Joseph, 8, 121

National War Labor Board, 39

Mauchley, Chester, 97

naval battles: Atlantic, 10, 14–15, 48–50,

McCarthy, Joseph, 112, 136

54, 57; Coral Sea, 76–77; Guadalcanal

McCloy, John, 2

campaign, 79–80; Iwo Jima, 84, 86,

McCormick, Anne, 149–50

87, 89, 91; limitations of, 14; Marianas

McCullough, David, 152

campaign, 82–84; Midway, 76–78, 82,

McNary, Charles, 8

83; Okinawa, 88; Pearl Harbor, 21–22;

Medicaid, 166

Philippines, 70, 74–75, 76, 78, 83,

Medicare, 166

84–85

medicine, 28, 166, 167

navy, 71

Mexicans, 24, 39

Nazis, xii, 1–2, 10, 11–12, 13–14. See also

Middle East, 154–56, 163–64 Midway, battle of, 76–78, 82, 83 migrant workers, 24, 39 migration: to cities, 23–24, 35, 39, 102,

Germany; Hitler, Adolph Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 2, 13, 51, 73 Netherlands, 152–53

103, 165; to suburbs, 101, 102, 105; to

neutrality, 2–3, 4–5, 12–13

west, 102

Neutrality Act (1935), 4, 11, 15

military. See armed forces

New Caledonia, 76

minorities, 35–39, 102. See also black

New Deal: black American’s share in, 35;

Americans; civil rights movement;

maintenance of, 114, 115, 125, 135,

Japanese Americans; Mexicans

136, 164; Republican efforts to roll

Molotov, Vyacheslav, 139, 141

back, 42, 125–27; southern Demo-

Moluccas, 73

crats’ efforts against, 42; Truman’s

Monroe Doctrine, 14, 161

attempt at extension of, 109–10, 121,

Montgomery, Bernard, 57, 61, 67

122; Truman’s support of, 116–17,

Moscow Conference, 149

133; unemployment and, 33

204

I N DEX

New Dealers, 117, 118, 121, 129, 131

Operation Dixie, 109

New Guinea, 76, 78, 80

Operation Overlord, 62–67, 161

New Left historians, 162

Operation Vittles, 153

news media, 25, 95–96, 110, 166

Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 91

Newsweek, 134

organized labor. See unions

New York City riot, 38

Ozawa, Jisaburo, 83

New York Times, 118, 125, 132, 149–50, 152, 163 Nigato, 92 Nimitz, Chester: battle for Iwo Jima/

Pacific war: Allies’ capture of Solomon Islands, 78–80; Allies’ island-hopping

Okinawa, 86; battle of Midway, 77–78,

offensive, 80; Allies’ move into Burma,

82, 83; as co-commander of Pacific

84; Allies’ strategy, 47–48, 73–74,

Command, 74; offensive against Japan,

81–82, 84–85, 87; Allies’ victories,

82; strategy for winning Pacific war,

45; American casualties of, 79, 83, 87,

84–85, 87

88; battle in Japan, 84; battle of Coral

Nixon, Richard, 164

Sea, 76; battle of Midway, 76–78, 82,

Normandy operation: Allies’ success,

83; bombing of Japan, 76–77, 84, 86,

62–64, 66; commanding officers of,

89–90; in China, 80–81, 86; China’s

61; effect on election in 1944, 45;

role in, 81–82, 157; civilian casualties,

Hitler’s hopes for victory at, 60–61;

89–90; events leading to, 15–20, 70,

postponement of, 55, 56, 57; prepa-

71, 72; Guadalcanal campaign, 78–80;

rations for, 58, 63, 74; Roosevelt’s

Hitler’s strategy concerning, 48; Iwo

control of, 161

Jima, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91; Japanese casu-

North Africa: Allies’ campaign in, 53–55,

alties, 75, 83, 85, 87, 88, 92; Japanese

57, 59; German advancement in, 13,

defeat of American/European colonies,

14, 51–52

75–76; Japanese peace negotiations,

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 144, 153–54, 156

90, 92–93; Japanese strategy, 72–73, 74–77, 82, 84; Japanese surrender,

North Korea, 158, 168

93; Marianas campaign, 82–84, 86;

Norway, 5, 154

Okinawa, 84, 86, 87–89, 91; Philippine campaign, 40, 74–75, 76, 78, 83, 84–86; Russian declaration of war on

Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (OPA), 32, 125, 133

Japan, 92, 93; Solomon Islands, 76; Southern Operation, 19, 40, 72–73,

Office of War Mobilization, 31–32

74–76; use of atomic bomb on Japan,

Okinawa, 84, 86, 87–89, 91

90–93, 161–62. See also Pearl Harbor

One World (Wilkie), 44

Palestine, 154–56, 163–64

open shop, 34

Palmer, A. Mitchell, 36

Operation Anvil, 65–66

Panay (ship), 17

Operation Bolero, 63, 74

Papua, 76

205

I N DEX

Paris, 66

mentality, xii, 2, 3, 4–5, 6, 7, 9, 10,

Patton, George, 54, 57, 67

12–13, 17, 22, 145, 160, 161; labor

peace negotiations: with European nations

unions’ alliance with Democrats, 127,

prior to WWII, 2; with Japan, 20–21,

128; labor unions’ influence in, 107–9;

86–87; with Russia, 140–41

Truman’s entrance into, 116; during

Pearl Harbor: events leading to, 15–19, 71,

WWII, 23, 41–44. See also Cold War;

72; Hitler’s strategy concerning, 47–48;

Congress; congressional elections;

internment of Japanese Americans due

presidential elections; Red Scare; Tru-

to, 40–41; isolationist mentality and,

man, Harry S.

10; Japanese military strength at time

Port Moresby, 76

of, 71; Japanese rationale for attack on,

Portugal, 154

19–20, 72–73, 161; as tactical victory/

Potsdam Conference, 90, 91–92, 138–39

lost opportunity for Japan, 21–22; uni-

poverty, 98–99, 103, 104

fication of U.S. public opinion on war,

presidential elections: of 1940, 8–9, 12;

2, 10, 22, 26; U.S. entrance into WWII

of 1944, 42–45, 117, 118–19, 120; of

following, 1, 22, 47, 161

1948, 126, 128–34, 164–65

Pegler, Westbrook, 41

presidential succession, 125, 139

Pendergast, Tom, 43, 116, 117, 119, 138

Presidential Succession Act, 125

penicillin, 167

prices: government control of during

Pershing, John, 57, 61

WWII, 26, 27, 30–31, 32, 45, 125,

pharmaceuticals, 28, 167

133; inflation during WWII, 23;

Philippines: Allies’ victory in, 83, 84–86;

inflation in peace-time economy, 94,

Japanese conquest of, 40, 74–75, 76,

124–25, 128

78; Japan’s Southern Operation includ-

prisoners of war, 75

ing, 19, 73

Progressive Party, 110, 131

Philippine Sea, battle of the, 82–83

public accommodations, 36, 37, 104, 105

Phony War, 3

public opinion: about economic adjust-

Poland: German invasion of, 1, 2, 3;

ments to war, 26, 28; on internment of

Hitler’s plans for, 50; postwar status of,

Japanese Americans, 41; about Korean

137, 138, 140–41; Russian offensive in,

War, 159; Pearl Harbor’s unification

66; Stalin’s plans for, 60

of, 22; on policies toward Russia, 144,

political scene: abolition of white primary,

146, 149, 150–51; Roosevelt’s Asian

37–38, 103, 104–5; antilabor backlash,

policy and, 17; Roosevelt’s foreign

94–95, 108, 123–24, 127–28; black

policy and, 2, 4; about Russia, 140;

Americans’ influence, 35, 104–5; civil

support of Allies, 3, 4–5, 12; support

rights movement and, 103–5; conserva-

of containment policy, 148–49; of

tive trend, 41–44, 108, 109–10, 113,

Truman, 128–29, 145–46; on wars,

118–19, 121–26, 134–35, 164; con-

161; on war with Germany, 9, 14, 15,

tainment policies, 147, 148–54; impact

161. See also conservatism; isolationist

of television, 96, 166; isolationist

mentality

206

I N DEX

Quislings, 7, 53–54

restrictive covenants, 105 Reuben James (destroyer), 15 Rhee, Syngman, 159

Rabaul, 76, 79, 80

Rhine River, 67, 69

race relations: in armed forces, 36–37, 38;

Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 69

as issue in 1948 election, 133; Roosevelt

riots, 38, 103, 105

and, 36–37; Thurmond’s approach to,

Robin Moor (merchant ship), 15

132; Truman’s program for civil rights,

Robinson, Jackie, 104

103–4, 126, 129, 130; in urban areas

Romania, 9

during WWII, 23, 35–37, 38; Wilkie’s

Rommel, Erwin, 55, 57, 61–62, 64, 65

position on, 44; after WWII, 102–3,

Roosevelt, Franklin D.: agreements at

165. See also civil rights movement

Tehran Conference, 60; agreement to

race riots, 38, 103, 105

use atomic bomb, 91; appeal for peace

racism, 50

in Europe, 2; appointment of Stet-

radio, 25, 95–96, 166

tinius, 139; “arsenal of democracy”

railroads, 25, 28, 58, 64, 101

address, 10; Asian policy prior to Pearl

Randolph, Philip A., 36, 126

Harbor, 17–18, 19–20; Atlantic Char-

rationing, 26, 27–28, 31, 33, 99

ter, 14; Atlantic First policy, 47–48;

RCA corporation, 96

background of, xi–xii; on battle of

Reagan, Ronald, 164

Berlin, 69; on Battle of the Atlantic, 48;

rearmament program: in Japan, 71; in

cash-and-carry system, 4; Churchill’s

U.S., 6, 9–10, 12–13, 24 Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), 119 Red Scare, 107–8, 110–12, 129–30, 136, 158, 167

pleas for U.S. entrance into war and, 6, 10, 12; concern about Australian command center, 74; concerns about Guadalcanal, 79; conference in Hawaii, 84–85; conservative trend and, 41–44,

Remagen bridge, 69

110, 122; court-packing controversy,

Remington Rand Corporation, 97

42; creation of war cabinet, 6; death of,

Republican Party: antilabor backlash,

xii, 45, 119–20, 162; denunciation of

94–95, 123–24, 127–28; attempt to

isolationism, 9, 161; Destroyers Deal,

roll back New Deal, 42, 125–27; con-

7, 9; on Dewey, 44; domestic policies,

gressional elections, 42, 108–9, 116,

31–32, 35–36, 38, 42, 122; election

117, 124–25, 127, 129, 133; Marshall

of 1940, 8–9, 12; election of 1944,

Plan and, 151; members in war cabi-

42–44, 118–19; embargo of Japan, 18,

net, 6; position on China, 157, 158;

161; endorsement of Italian campaign,

presidential elections, 8–9, 12, 42–45,

55–56; escalation of U.S. involve-

117, 118–19, 126, 128–30, 131, 132,

ment in prewar crisis, 2; evacuation of

133–34, 164–65; strengthening of

MacArthur to Australia, 75; on Hitler’s

after WWII, 164; Truman’s China

intentions, 11–12; internment policy,

policy and, 157

23, 40–41, 45; on Japanese war with

207

I N DEX

China, 17; on Japan’s success in Pacific,

65–66, 137, 142, 144; collaborators in

75; legacy of, 161–62, 164; Lend-Lease

U.S., 110–12; coup in Czechoslovakia,

program, 10–12, 14–15, 56, 140–41;

152; declaration of war on Japan, 90,

Marshall as military advisor to, 146;

92, 93; defeat of Germany in East,

as military leader, 161; permission to

67, 68–69; division of Germany, 153;

attack Yamamoto’s plane, 80; prepa-

expansionist policies of, 60, 137, 138,

rations for war, 23; pursuit of peace

139–42, 145, 147, 162; fight against

options with Japan, 20–21; on racial

Hitler, 48, 51–52, 56; German invasion

issues, 35–38; rearmament program,

of, 13, 14, 15, 50–51, 73; insecurity of,

5–6; regulation of economy during

137, 141, 142; Lend-Lease program to,

WWII, 30–31, 45; reinstitution of

13, 56, 140, 141; Marshall Plan and,

draft, 6, 9, 13, 24; rejection of Balkan

151; Moscow Conference, 149; Nazi-

strategy, 66, 137; relationship with

Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 2, 13, 51,

Churchill/Stalin, 137–38; relation-

73, 90; occupation of eastern Europe,

ship with Congress, 41–42; relation-

137, 140, 142, 147; occupation of

ship with Lewis, 34; relationship with

Iran, 145; response to England’s fight

Truman, 117, 120; respect for public

against Germany, 53; revolution in,

opinion, 2, 17; role in creation of UN,

143; defeat of Germany in East, 68–69;

138; situation confronting upon taking

Russo-Japanese War, 16, 19, 72, 74,

office, 114, 120; on Stalin, 60; strategy

77; strategy against Germany, 51,

against Germany, 51–52, 55–56, 65;

52, 53; testing of atomic bomb, 158,

on strength of Axis Powers in 1942, 54;

162; Truman’s approach to, 138–39,

on Truman Committee, 117; war mes-

140–41, 142–44, 147, 149–50; U.S.

sage, 25; warnings to Congress about

containment policy, 142–49, 163; use

Nazis, 1–2; Yalta Conference, 111

of atomic bomb on Japan and, 162;

Roper, Elmo, 133–34

Wallace and, 131; war with Finland,

Rosenberg, Ethel, 112

50. See also Cold War; Stalin, Joseph;

Rosenberg, Julius, 112

World War II (Germany)

rubber industry, 25, 33

Russian Revolution, 143

Ruhr Valley, 67, 69

Russo-Japanese War, 16, 19, 72, 74, 77

Rumania, 1 Runstadt, Gerd Von, 61–62, 63, 64 Russia: absorption of Poland, 137, 138;

Saar Basin, 67, 69

Acheson’s view of, 156; advance into

Saipan, 82, 83, 86, 89

Poland, 66; annexation of Baltic states/

Saudi Arabia, 155

pressure on Finland, 13; battle of

schools. See education

Berlin, 69; battle of Kursk, 55; battle of

segregation: of armed forces, 36, 37, 103;

Stalingrad, 54, 55, 57; Berlin Block-

of housing, 105; of public accommo-

ade, 153; casualties of WWII, 137;

dations, 36, 37, 104, 105; of schools,

Churchill’s concerns about, 55, 59, 60,

104; Truman’s view of, 126

208

I N DEX

Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, 45, 100, 101

Soviet Union. See Cold War; Russia; Stalin, Joseph

Shanghai, 84

space program, 28, 166

Sherman, William, 125

Spain, 1

Shockley, William, 97

Speer, Albert, 68

“shoot on sight” policy, 14–15

Spock, Benjamin, 106

Sicilian campaign, 56, 57–58, 59

sports, 25–26, 104

Siegfried Line, 67, 69

Stalin, Joseph: agreements at Tehran

Sinatra, Frank, 97, 98

Conference, 60; on American produc-

Singapore, 19, 75

tion, 30; on Anglo-American strategy

sit-ins, 37

in WWII, 48, 53, 56; annexation of

Smith, Walter Bedell, 65

Baltic states/pressure on Finland, 13;

Smith Act (1940), 111

Byrnes’s approach to, 139–40; division

Smith-Connally Act (1943), 34

of Germany, 153–54; expansionist

Smith v. Alwright, 37–38

policies of, 137, 138, 139–42; fear/

Socialist Party, 107

distrust of West, 53, 56, 59, 66, 137,

Social Security, 42, 117, 121, 136

141–42, 162; leadership abilities of, 60;

society: changes after WWII, 95–98;

legacy of, 160; Moscow Conference,

changing role of women, 23, 24, 26,

149; nonaggression pact with Germany,

27, 29, 38–39, 95, 99, 105–6, 165,

2, 13, 51, 73; pressure for French

168; detention of Japanese Americans,

campaign, 51, 56, 58, 59; response

23, 40–41, 45, 165; marriage/divorce/

to England’s fight against Germany,

birth rates, 24, 97–98, 101, 106; role

53; strategy against Germany, 51, 52,

of youth, 23, 24, 29, 39–40, 98, 99;

53; Truman’s approach to, 138–39,

shift to suburbs, 31, 101, 102, 105;

140–41, 142–44, 147, 149–50; ulti-

shift westward, 102; standard of living,

matum to non-Communist world, 142;

26, 95, 99, 166–67; television’s impact

war with Finland, 50; Yalta Confer-

on, 95, 96–97; WWII’s effects on, 23,

ence, 111

24–26. See also civil rights movement;

Stalingrad, battle of, 54, 55, 57

housing; integration; race relations

Stauffenberg, Kaus Von, 65

Solomon Islands, 76, 78–80

Stettinius, Edward, 139

Somme, battle of, 55

Stilwell, Joseph, 81

South, 36, 38, 104–5, 109

Stimson, Henry: decision to use atomic

southern Democrats: coalition with

bomb, 90, 91; on internment of

Republicans, 134; drift from Demo-

Japanese-Americans, 41; on Japanese

cratic Party, 130; efforts to cut New

surrender, 92; on Lend-Lease, 12; on

Deal, 42; racial issues and, 36, 103,

racial issues, 36, 37; strategy against

129, 130

Germany, 52; Truman’s investigation

Southern Operation, 19, 40, 72–73, 74–76

of defense spending and, 118; in war

South Korea, 158, 168

cabinet, 6; on wartime production, 31

209

I N DEX

Stimson Doctrine, 16

Togo, Heihachiro, 77

St. Lo, 65

Tojo, Hideki, 18

St. Louis Post Dispatch, 131

Tojo government, 83, 88

strikes: unions’ agreement to halt during

Tokyo, 76–77, 86, 89

war, 23, 34; after WWII, 94–95, 99,

trade, 2, 17–18, 19–20, 27, 93

107, 108, 113, 122–23, 125, 128; dur-

transistors, 97, 167

ing WWII, 34–35, 123

transportation, 25, 28. See also automobile

submarine war, 85, 86, 92

industry; railroads

suburbs, 35, 101, 102, 105

triode vacuum tube, 97

Sudetenland, 1

Tripartite Pact, 18, 22, 47

Sumatra, 20, 73, 75

Truman, Harry S.: appointment of Byrnes,

synthetic chemicals, 28

139; approach to Stalin, 138–39, 140– 41, 142–44, 147, 149–50; attempt to extend New Deal, 121–22; back-

Taft, Robert: authorization of housing

ground of, xii, 114, 115–16; Brannan

construction, 134–35; on foreign

Plan, 135, 136; civil rights program,

policy, 163; on Marshall Plan, 151,

103–4, 126, 130, 134, 136, 165–66,

152; on New Deal, 164; Taft-Hartley

168; committee to investigate defense

Act, 127–28; on Truman’s campaign

spending, 44, 117–18; concerns

tactics, 132

about Russian domination of Europe,

Taft-Hartley Act, 127–28, 130, 133, 135

140–43; containment policies, 144,

Taiwan, 15, 84

148–54, 163; at death of Roosevelt,

taxes, 26, 29–30, 31, 125

119–21, 162; decision to use atomic

technology. See computers; electronics;

bomb, 90, 91–92, 162; desegregation

radio; television teenagers, 23, 24, 98, 99, 100–101. See also juvenile delinquency

of military, 103; domestic policies, 114–15, 121–22, 124, 129–30, 131, 134–35, 136; economic adjustment to

Teheran Conference, 30, 59–60, 138

peace, 94, 99, 109–10, 114–15, 122,

telecommunication, 28, 95–96, 166–67

124, 128, 133, 145; election of 1944,

telephones, 95

43–44, 118–19; election of 1948, 8,

television, 95, 96–97, 166

128–34, 164–65; endorsement of

tennis, 26

Jewish state, 154–56, 164; fall of

terrorist attacks (9/11/2001), 167

China and, 157–58, 164; foreign

Thailand, 73

policy, xii, 134–35, 137, 148–54,

Thurmond, Strom, 130, 131, 132, 133

162–64, 168; Hiss case and, 111, 158;

Tibbetts, Paul, 92

Housing Act, 134, 136; on invasion of

Time, 111, 118, 125, 130

Japan, 88; Korean War, 159, 167, 168;

Timur, 73

labor relations and, 108, 121, 122–23,

Tinian, 82, 83, 89

128, 130, 133, 135, 136; loyalty

Tito, Josip, 59

boards created by, 111, 129–30, 167;

210

I N DEX

Truman, Harry S. (cont.) maintenance of New Deal, 114, 162; opposition to women’s movement, 106;

and, 124; in late 1940s, 98, 99; during WWII, 26, 28–29 unions: alliance with Democratic Party, 127,

on postwar America, 128–29; Red

128; antilabor backlash, 94–95, 108,

Scare and, 135, 136, 167; relation-

123–24, 127–28; ban on black Ameri-

ship with Churchill, 138; relationship

cans, 104; Communists in, 107, 110,

with Congress, 46, 110, 113, 116–19,

128; growth of, 33–35, 107, 109; main-

121–22, 124–25, 131, 133, 134–36,

tenance of membership policy, 33–34;

145, 164–66; response to Berlin Block-

no-strike agreement with government,

ade, 153–54; restoration of draft, 153,

23, 34; postwar demands, 121, 122–23,

156; as senator, 116–18; situation con-

136; preservation of power/gains,

fronting upon taking office, 114–15,

168; purge of radicals, 107–8; Smith-

120–21, 162; support of creating UN,

Connally Act and, 34–35; strikes after

138; as vice president, 119

WWII, 94–95, 107, 108, 113, 122–23,

Truman, John, 115

125, 128; strikes during WWII, 34–35,

Truman administration: approach to

123; support of Taft, 133; Taft-Hartley

Stalin, 110, 141–45; challenge to

Act and, 127–28; Wagner Act and, 33,

Russia to leave Iran, 145; creation

117, 123, 127, 128

of NATO, 153–54; crisis in Middle

union shop, 127–28

East, 154–56; foreign aid to Europe,

United Nations (UN), 43, 44, 138, 139,

147–48; Housing Act, 101; loyalty boards created by, 111, 129–30, 167;

156 United States: agreement to terms of Japa-

Marshall Plan, 144, 148, 150–52;

nese surrender, 93; aid to England, 1,

National Security Act, 150; Truman

4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10–17; air bases in Guam,

Doctrine, 144, 148–49

84; army/naval strength in 1941, 71;

Truman Committee, 44, 117–18

concerns about Russian domination of

Truman Doctrine, 144, 148–50, 156

Europe, 140–43; cracking of Japanese

Tunisia, 54

code, 21, 76, 77–78, 80; debate on

Turkey, 55, 145, 148, 149–50

involvement in WWII, 4; economic

Twenty-Second Amendment to Constitu-

domination, 99, 162; entrance into

tion, 125

WWII, 1, 22, 47, 48; forces confronting Japan, 20; internment of Japanese Americans, 23, 45, 162, 165; Pearl

U-boat campaign, 10, 14–15, 48–50, 54, 57 unconditional surrender doctrine, 56, 90, 92, 93 unemployment: demobilization of armed

Harbor, 10, 19–20, 21–22, 161; rearmament program, 6, 9–10, 12–13, 24; relationship with China, 15, 16–17; rise of Cold War, 137–49; role in Allies’ victory, 70; Stalin’s distrust of, 53,

forces and, 100, 122; during Depres-

56, 59, 66, 137, 141, 142, 162; strate-

sion, 23, 26, 28–29; Employment Act

gies for war against Germany, 51–52,

211

I N DEX

55–56, 58, 59, 65–66; strategy for war

Vichy French government, 53–54

in Pacific, 47, 73–74, 81–82, 84–85,

victory gardens, 27

87; trade with Japan, 17–18, 19–20;

Vietnam, 18, 161

use of atomic bomb on Japan, 90–93,

voting rights, 37–38, 103, 104–5

161–62. See also Allies; armed forces;

Voting Rights Act (1965), 104

civil rights movement; Cold War; Congress; demographic changes; economy; foreign policy; industry; integration;

wages: government control of during

labor-management relations; Pacific

WWII, 26, 27, 32; increases in during

war; Pearl Harbor; political scene;

WWII, 26, 34; for women, 39; after

Roosevelt, Franklin D.; segregation;

WWII, 107, 108, 121, 122

society; Truman, Harry S.; unemploy-

Wagner Act (1935), 33, 117, 123, 127, 128

ment; unions; World War II (Ger-

Wainwright, Jonathan, 75

many); World War II (home front); and

Wake Island, 75

specific battle, campaign, or leader

Wallace, Henry: election of 1940, 8; elec-

urban areas. See cities

tion of 1944, 43, 44, 118, 119; election

urbanization, 23, 35, 39, 102, 103, 165

of 1948, 130, 131, 133; opposition to

Urban League, 104

Marshall Plan, 151; on policies toward

U.S. Congress. See Congress

Russia, 147; political viewpoint, 110; as

U.S. immigration law (1924), 16

secretary of commerce, 119, 124, 147

U.S.-Japanese relations, 15–19, 71, 72. See also Pacific war; Pearl Harbor U.S. regular army, 6, 13–14. See also armed forces U.S.-Soviet relations, 48, 53, 56, 58, 59. See also Allies; Cold War U.S. Supreme Court: abolition of white

war bonds, 29 war cabinet, 6, 9 war debts, 4, 5, 10 war materials, 23, 30, 32–33, 80, 81–82 War Powers Act (1973), 167 War Production Board, 31–32 Warren, Earl, 132

primary, 37–38, 103, 104–5; civil

wartime production, 23, 27–28, 29–33

rights decisions, 103, 104, 105; on

Washington, D.C., 35, 36

convictions based on Smith Act, 111;

Washington Conference agreements

court-packing controversy, 42; decision

(1922), 16

on Japanese internment, 40–41; sup-

Wedemeyer, Albert, 81

port of wartime efforts, 45–46

welfare state, 109 western European nations: Brussels Pact, 152–53; German invasion of, 3–4,

V-1/V-2 rockets, 63

5; Marshall Plan and, 148, 150–52;

vacations, 25, 28

NATO alliance, 153–54; U.S. concerns

Vandenberg, Arthur, 144, 145, 147, 148,

about Russian domination of, 140–43.

149, 151 veterans, 45

See also World War II (Germany); and specific nation

212

I N DEX

western region of United States, 40–41, 102

World War II: American casualties of,

West Germany, 156

15, 27, 68, 79, 83, 87, 88, 160; fund-

West Wall, 67

ing for, 29–30; necessity of Allies’

Wheeler, Burton, 12, 22

victory, xii, 2; public support for,

White, Walter, 37, 38

161; U.S. entrance into, 1, 22, 47,

White, William Allen, 7–8

48, 161; use of penicillin during, 167;

white fl ight, 105

U.S. military service during, 27. See

White Paper (1949), 158

also Allies; Axis Powers; England;

white primary, 37–38, 103, 104–5

Germany; Japan; Pacific war; Pearl

white supremacy, 104–5 Wilkie, Wendell, 8–9, 12, 44

Harbor; Russia World War II (Germany): air war over

Wilkins, Roy, 126, 166

Europe, 58–59, 68; air war over Ger-

Wilson, Woodrow, 6

many, 67, 68, 69; Allies’ advance into

withholding tax system, 30

Germany, 67, 69; Allies at Siegfried

women: antifeminism, 106; in armed

Line, 67; Allies’ breakthrough at St.

forces, 39; baseball league for, 26;

Lo, 65; Allies’ declaration of war, 3,

clothing changes during WWII, 27; in

4; Allies’ operation at Dieppe, France,

workforce during WWII, 23, 24, 29,

52; Allies’ sweep across France, 65–67;

38–39, 165; work patterns after WWII,

American/British strategy, 47–48,

95, 99, 105–6, 168

51–53, 55–56, 65–66; battle of the

Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), 39 Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs), 39

Atlantic, 10, 14–15, 48–50, 54, 57; battle of Berlin, 69; Battle of Britain, 6–7, 12, 50; battle of Kursk, 55; battle of Stalingrad, 54, 55, 57; Battle of the

Women’s Army Corps (WACs), 39

Bulge, 67–68, 147; civilian casualties,

workforce: black Americans in, 36–37,

68; defeat of France/disarmament of

103, 104, 105; older, 29; women in,

England, 5; Dunkirk, 5, 24, 50, 52; El

23, 24, 29, 38–39, 95, 99, 105–6, 165;

Alamein battle, 53, 54; Falaise cam-

during WWII, 23–24, 26, 27, 28–29,

paign, 66; fi rst U.S. casualties of, 15;

32, 33–35. See also labor-management

German advances in North Africa, 13,

relations; strikes; unions

14, 51–52; German aggression leading

work week, 26, 29, 34

to, 1–2; German defeat of France, 5,

World’s Fair (1939), 96

24, 52; German invasion of Greece/

worldview, 95

Yugoslavia, 14; German invasion of

World War I: Battle of Gallipoli, xi, 52;

Poland, 1, 2, 3; German invasion of

battle of Somme, 55; German violation

Russia, 13, 14, 15, 50–51, 53; German

of peace agreements, 1; isolationist

invasion of western Europe, 3–4, 5;

mentality following, 5; unpaid debts

German/Italian casualties, 54–55,

of England/France, 4, 10; Wilson’s

66, 67, 68; German surrender of Paris,

refusal to work with Republicans, 6

66; Germany’s Russian campaign, 13,

213

I N DEX

15, 48, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57; Germany’s

45, 165; as issue in 1940 elections,

surrender, 69; Hitler’s strategy, 13, 48,

9; labor force, 23–24, 26, 28–29,

67–68; Holocaust, 154; Italian cam-

38–39; labor-management relations,

paign, 55–57, 58, 59, 65; misconcep-

23, 33–35, 123; leisure/entertainment

tions about, 3; Normandy operation,

industries’ roles in, 25; political scene

45, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60–64, 66, 161;

in U.S. during, 41–45; rationing, 26,

North African campaign, 53–55,

27–28, 31, 33, 99; research in high-

57; occupation of Iran, 145; Russian

tech industries, 28; role of women in,

advance into Poland, 66; Russian

38–39

casualties of, 137; Sicilian campaign,

World War II (Japan). See Pacific war

56, 57–58, 59; Stalin’s strategy, 51, 52,

Wrigley, Philip, 26

53; Stalin’s view of Anglo-American strategy, 48, 53, 56, 66; U.S. aid to England, 1, 2–3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9–17, 161;

Yalta Conference, 110, 111–12, 138, 140

U.S. aid to Russia, 56, 140; U.S. role

Yamamoto, Isaroku, 19, 72, 77, 78, 80

in, 70; V-1/V-2 attacks on London, 63

Yamashita, Tomoyuki, 86

World War II (home front): changes in family life due to, 23, 24–25; civil

Yamato (battleship), 88 youth: buying power/tastes of, 98; “cult

rights movement during, 35–38, 126;

of,” 24; gangs of Mexicans, 39–40;

coal strikes, 34–35, 123; economy,

juvenile delinquency, 98; in labor pool,

23–24, 26, 27–34; effect on minorities, 23–24; government regulation

23, 24, 29, 99 Yugoslavia, 14, 153

during, 27–28, 30–33, 96; housing problems, 23, 35, 38; internment of Japanese Americans, 23, 40–41,

Zworykin, Vladimir, 96