Cold War Justified

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To what extent did international events justify the American Responses at home? Use the documents and your knowledge of american history in the period between 1945 and 1961 to address the prompt.

The United States and Soviet Union became well known rivals following World War II, this antagonism between the two superpowers develops as the Cold War. Obviously this directly affected US foreign policy, but also our country’s domestic policy at home. The justification by international events of American responses at home between 1945 and 1961 is a controversial issue, and ultimately, the answer is that they were not; The evidence supporting a justified cause just does not live up to that of the opposing side.

There is not a great deal of evidence
…show more content…
Executive order 9835 was issued by president Harry Truman in 1947. The order was implemented to investigate new government job applicants and make sure they were loyal to the US and not Communists. Although on the surface this may seem like a reasonable order given the situation, communism was associated with many groups. What this means is, for solely being a part of a group or association, one may be denied a job opportunity, termination, or worse. In a cartoon called, “It’s Okay--We’re hunting Communists” from 1947, it depicts the Committee on Un-American Activities(HUAC) driving recklessly down the street, running over people. In the hunt for communists, the HUAC did not care who they hurt, they believed exposing communists came before safety and American civil rights. The House of Un-American Activities Committee put their pursuit of communists before our citizens safety. Loomis Dean took a photograph of a bomb shelter being constructed behind someone 's house entitled, “Building a Bomb Shelter,” it was seen in Life Magazine in 1951. As a result of rising tensions in The Cold War, the US government recommended the building of bomb shelters. This issue sprouts from the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. People in the US became terrified of nuclear war, destruction of their homes and cities, and death. Sputnik was the world’s first Satellite, it was put into the Earth’s orbit by the USSR. The United States Information Agency(USIA) released a document titled, “Impact of U.S. and Soviet Space Programs on World Opinion”, concerning this on July 7, 1959. Despite the fact that the USSR had just achieved something amazing, the US jumped immediately to try to get ahead in “The Space Race”. If we had not been so busy changing US domestic policy, our government could have focused more on developing our aeronautics and space program

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