GI Bill
Provided for college or vocational training for returning WWII veterens as well as one year of unemployment compensation. Also provided for loans for returning veterens to buy homes and start businesses.
Bretton Woods Agreement
all exchange rates were fixed in terms of the dollar; the US stood ready to convert foreign holdings of dollars into gold at a rate of $35/ounce; created the IMF
International Monetary Fund
a United Nations agency to promote trade by increasing the exchange stability of the major currencies
World Bank
A specialized agency of the United Nations that makes loans to countries for economic development, trade promotion, and debt consolidation. Its formal name is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Employment Act of 1946
Enacted by Truman, it committed the federal government to ensuring economic growth and established the Council of Economic Advisors to confer with the president and formulate policies for maintaining employment, production, and purchasing power
Council of Economic Advisers
A three-member body appointed by the president to advise the president on economic policy.
containment policy
a doctrine uniting military, economic, and diplomatic strategies to turn back communism and to secure for the United States the leading role in world affairs. Became the linchpin of US foreign policy.
George F. Kennan
an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. He later wrote standard histories of the relations between Russia and the Western powers.
iron curtain speech
Given by the former Prime Minister of Britain, Winston Churchill, in Missouri, in which he talks about the dangers of communism engulfing Europe.
Atomic Energy Act
Federal law that a commission to oversee nuclear weapons and to promote peacetime uses of atomic energy
Atomic Energy Commission
a former executive agency (from 1946 to 1974) that was responsible for research into atomic energy and its peacetime uses in the United States, Created a monopoly for the Federal government's control of fissionable materials (Uranium and Plutonium), Contr
Truman Doctrine
First established in 1947 after Britain no longer could afford to provide anti-communist aid to Greece and Turkey, it pledged to provide U.S. military and economic aid to any nation threatened by communism.
Marshall Plan
Introduced by Secretary of State George G. Marshall in 1947, he proposed massive and systematic American economic aid to Europe to revitalize the European economies after WWII and help prevent the spread of Communism.
Berlin blockade
The blockade was a Soviet attempt to starve out the allies in Berlin in order to gain supremacy. The blockade was a high point in the Cold War, and it led to the Berlin Airlift.
Berlin Airlift
Joint effort by the US and Britian to fly food and supplies into W Berlin after the Soviet blocked off all ground routes into the city
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
1949, created in 1949 organization whose members include the US, Canada, most western european nations and turkey all of whom agreedd to combine military forces and to treat a war against one as a war against one as a war against all.
Warsaw Pact
The 1955 treaty binding the Soviet Union and countries of eastern Europe in an alliance against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Douglas MacArthur
commanded US army in Pacific during WWII; oversaw Am. occupation of Japan; led troops in Korean War; sought to conquer all of Korea and move into China; publicly denounced president-> relieved from duty in April 1951
National Security Council
a committee in the executive branch of government that advises the president on foreign and military and national security
NSC-68
blueprint for U.S. militarization of the cold war
Taft Hartley Act
allowed states to outlaw the "closed shop" unions, boycotts by unions; allowed the pres to call for an 80 day cooling period before a strike
To Secure These Rights
A report by the President's Committee on Civil Rights, it was given a year after the Committee was formed, and helped pave the way for the civil rights era. It recommended that the government start an anti-lynching campaign and ensure that Blacks got to v
J. Strom Thurmond
Dixiecrat candidate for President
Henry Wallace
A former Democratic who ran on the New Progressive Party due to his disagreement on Truman's policy with the Soviets. He caused the Democratic party to split even more during the election season.
Thomas Dewey
He was the Governor of New York (1943-1955) and the unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 1944 and 1948. As a leader of the liberal faction of the Republican party he fought the conservative faction led by Senator Robert A. Taft, an
conservative coalition
An alliance of Republicans and southern Democrats that can form in the House or the Senate to oppose liberal legislation and support conservative legislation.
House Un-American Activities Committee
investigate disloyalty in the u.s.
Federal Employee Loyalty Program
United States Executive Order 9835, sometimes known as The Loyalty Order, was signed March 21, 1947[1] by U.S. President Harry S. Truman. The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, which was designed to root out communis
Smith Act
1940 act, made it illegal to speak of or advocate overthrowing the U.S. government (used to prosecute communists)
Dennis versus United States
a United States Supreme Court case involving Eugene Dennis, general secretary of the Communist Party USA, which found that Dennis did not have a right under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to exercise free speech, publication
Alger Hiss
A former State Department official who was accused of being a Communist spy and was convicted of perjury. The case was prosecuted by Richard Nixon.
Whittaker Chambers
TIME magazine editor and former communist. Confessed to spying for the Soviet Union during the 1930's. Named fellow spies, some of them in Roosevelt's cabinet.
Richard M. Nixon
He was a committee member of the House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities (to investigate "subversion"). He tried to catch Alger Hiss who was accused of being a communist agent in the 1930's. This brought Nixon to the attention of the
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
were American communists who were executed after having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. The charges were in relation to the passing of information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. Theirs was the first execution of civilians
McCarthyism
In 1950, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy began a sensational campaign against communists in government that led to more than four years of charges and countercharges, ending when the Senate censured him in 1954. McCarthyism became the contemporary name for the
Los Alamos
This is the national laboratory in New Mexico founded during WWII to develop the atomic bomb.
Adlai Stevenson
The Democratic candidate who ran against Eisenhower in 1952. His intellectual speeches earned him and his supporters the term "eggheads". Lost to Eisenhower.
McCarran Internal Security Act
United States federal law that required the registration of Communist organizations with the Attorney General in the United States and established the Subversive Activities Control Board to investigate persons thought to be engaged in "un-American" activi