JUNE 1948–MAY 1949 Berlin Blockade Generates Allied Air Lift Accelerating efforts to strengthen Europe by rebuilding the West German economy, the United States, Britain, and France agreed in the spring of 1948 to fuse their zones of occupation and begin currency reform that included West Berlin. Soviet policy-makers, fearing increasing westernization of a city deep within their zone, imposed a blockade in July 1948 on all land traffic to and from West Berlin. President Truman responded with an airlift of supplies, and American and British pilots flew nearly 2.5 million tons of food and fuel a day into the former German capital until Stalin lifted the blockade in May 1949. The Berlin Blockade and an earlier communist coup in Czechoslovakia were crucial catalysts in Allied decisions to create a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance and establish a West German state in May of 1949. SEE FIGURE 44 JULY 26, 1948 Racial Integration of U.S. Military After their considerable contribution to the war effort, Black Americans were determined to end racial injustices in American society persisting since the end of the Civil War. They faced considerable resistance, however, especially in the South, where they encountered violence upon asserting their rights. Pressured by civil rights leaders and their liberal allies, President Truman concluded that presidential action was necessary. In 1946 he created a Committee on Civil Rights that recommended various measures to protect voting privileges and to eliminate segregation. Following up on this report, in 1948 Truman issued an executive order to desegregate the nation’s armed services. Though it attracted considerable attention, the order was not fully implemented until the Korean War in 1950. JANUARY 20, 1949 Harry Truman at Inaugural Proclaims Fair Deal In the 1948 presidential election Harry Truman encountered a resurgent Republican party emboldened by its successes in the 1946 congressional elections. He also faced revolts within his own party from Progressives on the left and a States’ Rights Party (the “Dixiecrats”) on the right. Nonetheless, he surprised everyone by handily defeating his Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey. Truman proclaimed his victory a mandate for a domestic agenda he called the
Figure 43. (Right) Post war economic aid under the Marshall Plan enabled Germany to quickly surpass pre-war production levels. Image courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration. Figure 44. (Below) The Berlin airlift broke a lengthy Soviet blockade of a divided, war torn city. Image courtesy of Library of Congress.
OCTOBER– NOVEMBER 1947 “Witch-Hunt” for Communists in Hollywood
As American relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated, suspicion, fear, and partisanship spawned widespread public concern regarding communist subversion. In the 1940s this was particularly evident in the investigations of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a body formed before World War II but newly active in the context of the Cold War. In 1947 HUAC helped launch what many saw as a “red scare” by holding hearings on communist infiltration of the film industry. A group of writers and directors (the “Hollywood Ten”) were jailed when they refused to testify about past associations, and motion picture artists identified as “Reds” found themselves blacklisted. The anti-communist crusade intensified in 1948 when Orange County Congressman Richard Nixon began an investigation of Alger Hiss, a former State Department official later convicted of perjury for lying about his communist connections.
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