No sooner had the curtain descended on the tragedy that was World War II when the Allied nations found themselves having to put together a coalition of nations that would be willing to contain Soviet expansion throughout Europe. A COLLIER'S journalist wandered among the rubble of West Germany and found that a great number of draft-age men simply replied "nein" when asked if they would be willing to fight alongside the Americans, French and British. One of the wiser observers opined:
"Remember that Germany is a convalescent country...These people have lost two world wars in a generation. The last one cost them nearly 3,000,000 dead and another 1,000,000 or so still missing, to say nothing of some 4,000,000 wounded. They just don't want to take a chance of being on the losing side again."
The West Germans joined NATO in 1955.
Attached herein is an essay written during the mid-Fifties that briefly summarizes the primary global events spanning the end of World War II through 1955 which set the stage for that period in Twentieth Century history called the Cold War: the global containment of Soviet expansion.
Click here to read about espionage during the Cold War.
Attached is a printable page from an R.O.T.C. primer concerning American Military History outlined the events of 1948 that created the need for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.). "This pact, called the North Atlantic Treaty, united Great Britain, the United States, and ten western European nations in a common security system. Approved by the Senate in April 1949, the treaty provided for mutual assistance, including the use of armed force in the event of a Soviet attack upon one or more of the signatory powers." This well-illustrated article appeared in a middle class American magazine in 1959 and it reported on the rising international sentiments that signaled to the dominate Western powers that the old diplomacy of the wealthy northern nations had to change. It will help to explain why the United States re-fashioned their immigration laws in 1965.
The Department of State hated it when Radio Moscow would depict Americans as simply a bunch of "lynch-happy bigots"...
While serving as FDR's Federal Reserve chairman between 1934 and 1948, Marriner Stoddard Eccles (1890 - 1977) put into play numerous policies that allowed the Federal Reserve to be sublimated to the interests of the Treasury; as a result, he is largely remembered as the patron saint of deficit spending. When he left that position during the Truman administration he went on the lecture circuit where he repeatedly condemned both the post-war economic policy as well as the Cold War policies of the State Department. The attached article summarizes a talk he gave at the University of Maryland in February of 1950.
Click here to read a Cold War editorial by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. In the attached editorial, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (1898 - 1980) weighs in on how the United States could forge stronger Cold War alliances in Asia and the Middle East:
"We have thought that we could stop the spread of communism by guns and by dollars. We have spent billions upon billions and yet the Red tide of communism seems to spread... We should show Asia how her revolution can follow the pattern of 1776. What will win in Asia are not guns and dollars but but ideas of freedom and justice. To win in Asia, America must identify herself with those ideas."
To understand some of the diplomatic challenges Douglas was referring to, click here
More on this topic can be read here... | 
