Outline of US History by U.S. Department of State - HTML preview

CHAPTER 12: POSTWAR AMERICA

ready to investigate subversive activ-

The most vigorous anti-Commu-

ity, President Truman established a nist warrior was Senator Joseph R .

Federal Employee Loyalty Program . McCarthy, a Republican from Wis-

It had little impact on the lives of consin . He gained national attention

most civil servants, but a few hun- in 1950 by claiming that he had a list

dred were dismissed, some unfairly . of 205 known Communists in the

In 1947 the House Committee State Department . Though McCar-

on Un-American Activities investi- thy subsequently changed this figure

gated the motion-picture industry several times and failed to substan-

to determine whether Communist tiate any of his charges, he struck a

sentiments were being reflected in responsive public chord .

popular films . When some writers

McCarthy gained power when

(who happened to be secret mem- the Republican Party won control

bers of the Communist Party) re- of the Senate in 1952 . As a commit-

fused to testify, they were cited for tee chairman, he now had a forum

contempt and sent to prison . After for his crusade . Relying on exten-

that, the film companies refused to sive press and television coverage,

hire anyone with a marginally ques- he continued to search for treachery

tionable past .

among second-level officials in the

In 1948, Alger Hiss, who had Eisenhower administration . Enjoy-

been an assistant secretary of state ing the role of a tough guy doing

and an adviser to Roosevelt at Yal- dirty but necessary work, he pursued

ta, was publicly accused of being presumed Communists with vigor .

a Communist spy by Whittaker

McCarthy overstepped himself

Chambers, a former Soviet agent . by challenging the U .S . Army when

Hiss denied the accusation, but in one of his assistants was drafted .

1950 he was convicted of perjury . Television brought the hearings into

Subsequent evidence indicates that millions of homes . Many Ameri-

he was indeed guilty .

cans saw McCarthy’s savage tactics

In 1949 the Soviet Union shocked for the first time, and public sup-

Americans by testing its own atomic port began to wane . The Republican

bomb . In 1950, the government un- Party, which had found McCarthy

covered a British-American spy net- useful in challenging a Democratic

work that transferred to the Soviet administration when Truman was

Union materials about the develop- president, began to see him as an

ment of the atomic bomb . Two of embarrassment . The Senate finally

its operatives, Julius Rosenberg and condemned him for his conduct .

his wife Ethel, were sentenced to

McCarthy in many ways repre-

death . Attorney General J . Howard sented the worst domestic excesses

McGrath declared there were many of the Cold War . As Americans re-

American Communists, each bear- pudiated him, it became natural

ing “the germ of death for society .”

for many to assume that the Com-

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OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

munist threat at home and abroad 1950s another wave occurred . Fran-

had been grossly overblown . As the chise operations like McDonald’s

country moved into the 1960s, anti- fast-food restaurants allowed small

Communism became increasingly entrepreneurs to make themselves

suspect, especially among intellectu- part of large, efficient enterprises .

als and opinion-shapers .

Big American corporations also de-

veloped holdings overseas, where la-

THE POSTWAR ECONOMY:

bor costs were often lower .

1945-1960

Workers found their own lives

I

changing as industrial America

n the decade and a half after changed . Fewer workers produced

World War II, the United States ex- goods; more provided services . As

perienced phenomenal economic early as 1956 a majority of employ-

growth and consolidated its position ees held white-collar jobs, working

as the world’s richest country . Gross as managers, teachers, salesper-

national product (GNP), a measure sons, and office operatives . Some

of all goods and services produced firms granted a guaranteed annual

in the United States, jumped from wage, long-term employment con-

about $200,000-million in 1940 to tracts, and other benefits . With such

$300,000-million in 1950 to more changes, labor militancy was under-

than $500,000-million in 1960 . mined and some class distinctions

More and more Americans now began to fade .

considered themselves part of the

Farmers — at least those with

middle class .

small operations — faced tough

The growth had different sourc- times . Gains in productivity led

es . The economic stimulus provided to agricultural consolidation, and

by large-scale public spending for farming became a big business .

World War II helped get it started . More and more family farmers left

Two basic middle-class needs did the land .

much to keep it going . The number

Other Americans moved too .

of automobiles produced annually The West and the Southwest grew

quadrupled between 1946 and 1955 . with increasing rapidity, a trend that

A housing boom, stimulated in part would continue through the end

by easily affordable mortgages for of the century . Sun Belt cities like

returning servicemen, fueled the

Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; Al-

expansion . The rise in defense buquerque, New Mexico; and Phoe-

spending as the Cold War escalated nix, Arizona, expanded rapidly . Los

also played a part .

Angeles, California, moved ahead of

After 1945 the major corporations Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the

in America grew even larger . There third largest U .S . city and then sur-

had been earlier waves of mergers in passed Chicago, metropolis of the

the 1890s and in the 1920s; in the Midwest . The 1970 census showed

267