all right folks welcome to episode two and we'll talk a little bit about Harry Truman and his foreign policy Outlook so after World War II or during World War II the adversaries were Imperial Japan fascist Italy and Nazi Germany so just a quick reminder that Great Britain free France China the United States were allies along with the Soviet Union who was a communist power you folks read about their Revolution now since World War II is over the world is going to find itself in competition with the Communist world so you have the United States western Europe Britain that are going to be competing to the point where they're adversaries against the Soviet Union so there is this is the Cold War the cold war is the first world meaning the West so the United States North America Western Europe Japan they stand for things like lowercase L liberalism free markets capitalism democracy rule of law you name it they're in competition with the Communist Powers this is the second world and this is the Soviet Union eventually it will be the People's Republic of China and they want to spread communism the first world wants to spread capitalism rule of law liberalism representative government now it's the first worlds in competition with the second world and where they're competing is the third world the third world are former colonies and now since World War II has obliterated imperialism that's what's up for grabs that's where a lot of the Cold War will be fought so the Truman Doctrine when he's president he goes from winning the second world war to Cold War it must be the policy of the United States to support the free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by our minorities and outside pressures he's referring to Communism and if we looked at some of the tactics that the second world war was won so if you can imagine Europe and Asia at this time it's moonscape there is no infrastructure there are no factories there are no um you know readily accessible Food Supplies because it's all been bombed and it's still being occupied by armies so now that we're in competition with the Communists um we have to show the Europeans and the Asians and also eventually in the third world which system's better for them capitalism rule of law free markets democracy or communism so George Marshall who was Steve Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the second world war is Harry Truman's Secretary of State and he's going to develop the Marshall Plan which is economic and financial aid to Europe that's where it starts but eventually it's going to be uh sent out to Asia as well so the argument is that if economies are destitute if they're destroyed that makes them vulnerable to political extremism like communism or fascism so George Marshall thought that if you help prop up economies you give them stuff you sell them stuff you loan the money you give them money they'll be more likely to align themselves with the United States in the first world powers and it was arguably successful that it's a psychological Boon to Europe and they're encouraged by American Goods so that demand for American-made products is going to keep on putting Americans back to work and if you think about it who else is the United States is competition at the end of the second world war it's not Europe because that was all bombed it's not Japan because that was all Bond it's not China because that featured War millions of deaths so it's really the Soviet Union's only game in town foreign and one example of to show Europe that we were in support was the Berlin Airlift of 1948 . so during the early Cold War period there were two germanies there was a West Germany that was part of the first world and East Germany which is part of the Communist Bloc the second world East Germany was Communist but within East Germany there's this time if you look at a map of the Cold War you'll see this tiny little dot which is West Germany West Germany was a little pocket inside this communist area that was still a free City so Stalin who's head of the Soviet Union decides who wants to cut off West Germany he wants to occupy it so he cuts off access from food and supplies from getting there by Rail and by road so this leaves the United States an alternative but to send a bunch of aircraft over there continuously delivering Goods parachuting Goods into West Germany it's there to save a city because they cannot let that fall if West if West Berlin Falls then that's going to look like defeat to all the Europeans and pretty much the world who are you know who are debating which power to side with so that's the Berlin airlift it's the propping up West Germany so it doesn't fall and it's a success so not only were there two germanies but there were two berlins and it's going to be West Berlin until the end of the Cold War this was a diplomat whose name was George Cannon and George Cannon was a state department official who was based in Russia for a long time and in this early Cold War period he's going to send a memo to Washington and it's going to say that essentially communism is not sustainable because the system is corrupted you cannot survive without free markets and democracy and it's not as strong as what it may appear so you don't have to fight it you don't have to um go to a third world war against communism in the Soviet Union all you have to do is stop its spread you don't even have to do this militarily just prevent it from spreading and it'll collapse under its own weight eventually because in the long run it's not a good system and for the rest of our term we'll kind of talk about how he was proved correctly um but we do shoot ourselves in the foot every once in a while because we get close to military intervention or we uh intervene through the third world militarily so President Truman one of the things that he does is he's going to sign the National Security Act of 1947 into law this is what creates the National Security Council the Department of Defense which takes all the branches of the military it was formerly known as the war department but then all organizes all those branches of the military Under One Roof uh they're housed in the Pentagon and we also get the Central Intelligence Agency out of the National Security Act which is foreign Espionage intelligence covert operations uh it's it's one of the spy agencies that we have this all comes from 1947 and President Truman one of the things that's also going to be part of the new international institutions of the post-war period is NATO NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization and it started off being an agreement between these countries North Atlantic so think about the ocean and it's there to do it's it's a collective security Alliance and the big thing that they agree on is Article 5 Collective defense an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all now if you look at this list so this means that if the United States attacked big and powerful Luxembourg is going to come to its defense that's a joke Russia is not on here so NATO exists in case Russia attacks Western Europe that's it and then the big dog the United States is going to come intervene on behalf of the first world that's what NATO is that's why it was created it was there to keep Russia out Germany down and the United States in that's why NATO exists and it's really important during the Cold War so in 1949 there's a few foreign policy setbacks in August of 1949 the Soviets will explode their own nuclear device part of the power of the post-war period with nuclear weapons was of course capitalist countries in the United States that have free markets rule of law look at our scientific Innovations look look at what we created we had the new we had the Monopoly on nuclear bombs well that goes away in August because people are starting to think well maybe communism isn't so bad is what we had given it you know uh for as in August they just blow their owner bias their system can't be that backward if they're developing nuclear weapons now let's not forget that they had spies in throughout the Manhattan Project that gave them a leg up and this one right here this is a biggie on October 1st 1949 the People's Republic of China is the Communist party that's going to take over that political system and China is now a communist Nation this is a big deal that we still wrestle with today as Chinese communism has morphed over time [Music] but this is the birth of our current competitor and if you're fighting a cold war against communism when the country with the largest population in Asia goes communist that's a big deal so Harry Truman is a member of the democratic party Franklin Roosevelt was a member of the democratic party those foreign policy setbacks give the Republicans all the ammunition that they need to paint Truman his administration the foreign policy establishment but most importantly and made the reason why they're doing this the Democratic party as weak on communism that they argue that well this wouldn't have happened if a republican would have been president this wouldn't have happened if so and so and the people who are really leading this charge was the director of the FBI J Edgar Hoover and the senator from Wisconsin Joe McCarthy Joe McCarthy is particularly interesting as he was in democracies you get them they're called demagogues he gave a big time speech in Wheeling West Virginia where he pointed to the co-pocket of his suit and he goes in my pocket here I have a list of 250 communists and their names of and they all work in the state department and the state department is our foreign Ministry they handle um diplomacy Foreign Relations so on and so forth now if you have 250 Communists who have infiltrated the state department that's a big deal and Joseph McCarthy knew that but get a load of this there were zero people on his list he made it all up nevertheless his rhetoric is very popular and it's going to add to the hysteria of anti-communism of the time period Congress is going to have the house committee on on American activities which is going to bring people forward that are accused of being communist or having been Communists and they're pretty much going to violate their civil liberties there are many lives who are ruined particularly in Hollywood and it's part of that anti-communist Hysteria if you also stop and think about what came before World War II the Great Depression when the bottom drops out of capitalism they're going to be many Americans who look for an alternative communism was one of them regardless of how serious they took it they might have attended a meeting they might have gotten a free glass of punch and a hot dog at a meeting then that was it now that the second world war is over and the Great Depression has ended and they're using communism as a way of going after the Democratic party and its allies if you went to a meeting in 1933 that's going to be held against you now in the 1950s so the response to Communism or sorry the response to McCarthyism is anti-communism is the mainstream rhetoric sentiment in the United States Truman as president is going to issue an executive order that requires loyalty Oaths for federal employees anti-communist rhetoric and fear-mongering are going to Target institutions of education and Academia and everybody must be tough on communism from politicians to military leaders you can even see it in the movies I suggest you take a look at just one off the top of my head is the trailer you can watch on YouTube for John Wayne movie called Big Jim McLean and he's you know kicking ass you know of of Communists in that trailer so Alger Hiss was a member of the state department who actually more than likely was a spy for the Soviets this is a big time trial that's going to make the name of a young congressman from California whose name was Richard Nixon he's going to be one of the prosecutors in this trial that'll eventually get him for perjury the world becomes more dangerous um this is Edward Teller he was involved in the Manhattan Project but he was a scientist that didn't think that nuclear weapons that were dropped in Hiroshima Nagasaki that they weren't big enough so the super which is another it's slang for thermonuclear weapons it's a bigger and badder bomb than we're dropped at the end of the second world war on November 1st 1952 the United States are going to detonate its first thermonuclear weapon this is also in response to the fact that the Soviets developed regular old Atomic weapons well now there's a competition in an arms race not too long after that and August 12 1953 the Soviets are going to explode their first thermonuclear weapon so the world can blow itself up now and if you fast forward this one's interesting it's called Tsar Bama that the Soviets detonated in Siberia in 1961 its yield [Music] uh was 50 megatons and little boy at Hiroshima was 15 kilotons so that's about you know over 3 000 times the size of little boy imagine how dangerous the world is through weapons technology I'll leave it at that and then I'll catch you in episode three