22. After the wwii: prodperity and problems - presidencies of Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. "McCarthyism". Cold War with the Soviet Union.

"T he war?" the former Red Cross worker said to the

interviewer. " T he war was fun for America. " A

st range th ing to say . yo u may think. lim Ame ricans

wer e the only people III the wor ld that th e Second

Worl d War had made better o ff. T heir hom es had not

been bombed o r their land fo ug ht over. Busy

wartime facto ries had given them good wages.

in the years th at followed the war Americans became

be tte r otTstill. Between 1947 and 1971 rhc value of

th eir wages in buying po wer- their " real incomes' as

th is is callcd c-morc than doubled. Americans bo ug ht

more houses, cars. telev ision sets. consum er goods of

every kind. They became the most prosperou s

peo ple the world had ever seen. As early as 19W.

55 percent ofall famili es owned washing machines.

75 percent ovvned car s, 90 percent had television sets

and nea rly all had refr igerato rs.

During these years ofprosperity the Uni ted States

was led first by Pr esident Tru man (1945- 53), then

by President E isenhowe r (1953 - ( 1). III IW)1 a new

President called John F. Kenn edy (1t)61-3) was

elected.

Kennedy to ld the American people th at th ey were

facing a " new frontier;" aile with bo th opport unities

and problems. One big problem III their own

count ry was po vert y, Although most Americans

were well-off million s ofothers were too poor to

lead decent lives. Some we re crowded together in

city slums. O thers lived in places like old coal producing

districts where the mi nes had close d.

Kennedy was a Dem ocrat. as Roosevelt had been. He

tr ied to help [he poor with govern nu'm money and

food , He also wanted to help e ther groups who we re not getting J. fair dea l. like blac k America ns. Hut

before Kenn ed y could do J.11 these things he was sho t

and killed. This happened while he was driving

through the streets ofDallas in November 1% 3.

Lyndon U.Johnson (1% 3 - 9) took over from

Kennedy as President. Johnson had been Kennedy's

Vice President . He had spent years as a member of

Congr ess, ma king political friends and winning

influence there, I Ic used this influence: to speed up

Kenn edy's plans for reform. One of hi s firs t actions

was to persuade Congress to pass Kenn edy's plan to

Improve the position ofAmerican blac ks. In 1%4

rhis beca me law as the Civi l Rights Act.

Johnson also pro mised the American people a .. "var

0 11 pover ty;" I Ic set up systems of health care for the

elderly (Medica re) and for th e poor (Medic aid). l ie

also increased federal aid to education. l it' said that

he want ed to turn the United States into " the gre at

society" -;1 cou nt ry where everyone received fair and

dece nt trearmcn r.

llmJohn so n himselfcaused his plans to fail. In the

lata 1960s he involved the United States more and

more: deeply in war in Vietnam. The huge cost ofth e

war forced Johnson to give up many ofhis plans for

improvements. Riots and protests flared up all over

the country - against the war, aga inst poVCrty,

against co ntinuing racial injustice.

By 1% 8 tilt' American people were bitterly div ided.

Many blamed johnson for the country's problems.

He became so unpopular that he decided not even to

try to get re-elected. In 1969 he ga"·t' up the

Presid ency and retired .

Richard Nixon (1969-74) was elected to take

J oh nson's place as President. Nixon was a

Republican. lie "vas much less interest ed than

Kenne dy and j ohnson in help ing the poor. T he

gove rn ment was paymg om mor e than enough

money 011 welfare schemes alread y, he said. I Ic

believed that people should overcome hardship by

th eir own efforts.

In November 1972. the American people re-elected

Nixon. The mam reason fo r this was th at by then he

was close to getting the United Sta tes out ofthe

hated wa r III Vietnam. A cease-fi re was finally signed

in j.anuar y 1973. Arrangements were made for all

American fighnng men to come home. The

American people fdt a huge sense ofrelief It was Nixon 's moment of g reatest triumph. But

soon he was in trouble. HlC was accu sed o f being

involved in an illegal plan to discredit his political

opponents. called th e "Warergarc Affair. " Congr ess

threatened to put him 011 trial- " impeach" him - for

misusing his powers. To avoid this. Nixon resigned

as President.

Nixon was followed as President first by Cc rald Ford

(1974 - 7) and then by Jimmy Carter (19n - 81).

Neith er Ford no t Ca rter won much success or

popularity as President. O ne reason fo r this was that

both fou nd it difficult to comrolinflano n. The

United States now imported lot s ofoi l. Afte r an

Arab- Israeli war in 1973 international oil prices rose

steeply. These oil-price in creases caused general

inflation. By 1980 prices in the United States were

rising by 13.5 percent a year and this was making life

difficult for many people.

In 1980 Americans elected a President they ho ped

would make a better job of ru nni ng the country . l ie

was a former film actor named Ronald Reagan. Like

Nixon, Reagan was a Republican . At home, he

showed little sympathy fo r the poor. He said that he

aim ed to make Americans depend less a ll

go vernment help and more on self-help. Abroad .

Reagan was determined to make the United Sta tes

stronger than its old rival. the So viet Union. l ie

spent many millions ofdollars on developing

powerful new missiles and on resea rch IIU O weapo1l s

to knock out enemy missiles from space.

Many people at home and abroa d criticized Reagan.

Some said that he was unfeeling. Other s believed that

he was incompetent. Still others called him a

dangerous warmonger. But Reag an's poli cies including

the spending on weapons- helped more

Americans eo fmdjobs. Businessmen made bigger

profits . Most Amcr iransc-all exce pt the poorest of

them- beca me better off This helped to make

Reagan pop ular , So did his relaxed and friendly

manner. which came ove r well on televis ion.

Reagan was popular for another reason. too . Aftt'r

[he shame of Vietnam and Watergate his simple

"stand on your own feet and act tou gh" policies

made many Americans feel proud o f their country

again. In 19H4 they re-elec ted him as President by one

of the biggest majorities in American history. He was

still popular . and for much the same reasons. when

his second term as President end ed in 1989.

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, "McCarthyism" soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.

During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment, destruction of their careers, and even imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned, laws that would be declared unconstitutional, dismissals for reasons later declared illegal or actionable, or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute.

The most famous examples of McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations, and hearings of Senator McCarthy himself; the Hollywood blacklist, associated with hearings conducted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC); and the various anti-communist activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover. McCarthyism was a widespread social and cultural phenomenon that affected all levels of society and was the source of a great deal of debate and conflict in the United States.

The Cold War (Russian: Холо́дная война́, Kholodnaya voĭna) was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World – primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies – and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States and its allies. Although the chief military forces never engaged in a major battle with each other, they expressed the conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, conventional and nuclear arms races, appeals to neutral nations, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.

After the success of their temporary wartime alliance against Nazi Germany, the USSR and the US saw each other as profound enemies of their basic ways of life. The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc with the eastern European countries it occupied, annexing some and maintaining others as satellite states, some of which were later consolidated as the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991). The US financed the recovery of western Europe and forged NATO, a military alliance using containment of communism as a main strategy (Truman Doctrine).

The US funded the Marshall Plan to effectuate a more rapid post-War recovery of Europe, while the Soviet Union would not let most Eastern Bloc members participate. Elsewhere, in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the USSR assisted and helped foster communist revolutions, opposed by several Western countries and their regional allies; some they attempted to roll back, with mixed results. Among the countries that the USSR supported in pro-communist revolt was Cuba, led by Fidel Castro. The proximity of communist Cuba to the United States proved to be a centerpoint of the Cold War; the USSR placed multiple nuclear missiles in Cuba, sparking heated tension with the Americans and leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where full-scale nuclear war threatened. Some countries aligned with NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and others formed the Non-Aligned Movement.

The Cold War featured periods of relative calm and of international high tension – the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), and the Able Archer 83 NATO exercises in November 1983. Both sides sought détente to relieve political tensions and deter direct military attack, which would probably guarantee their mutual assured destruction with nuclear weapons.

In the 1980s, under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the nation was already suffering economic stagnation. In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of perestroika ("reconstruction", "reorganization", 1987) and glasnost ("openness", ca. 1985). The Cold War ended after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the dominant military power. Russia rejected Communism and was no longer regarded as a threat by the U.S. The Cold War and its events have had a significant impact on the world today, and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially films and novels about spies.