USF The Cold War and the 1950s Discussion & Quiz Questions
READINGS
Required reading: Voices of Freedom
DOCUMENT 159 – THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE (1947)
DOCUMENT 164 – JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY ON THE ATTACK (1950)
Optional reading: Give Me Liberty
CHAPTER 23, PP. 906 – 940
THE COLD WAR AND THE 1950S:
How did the Cold War affect notions of freedom in the United
States in the 1940s and 1950s? In the context of a geopolitical struggle with
Soviet communism, how did Americans come to define freedom at home? How did
they seek to spread it abroad – and at what cost?
What is “containment”?
1.The attempt to root out Communist infiltrators in the U.S.
State Department.
An early Cold War attempt to control and limit the
production of nuclear weapons.
A cornerstone of American foreign policy during the Cold
War, it suggested that the U.S. must “contain” communism within its borders
while supporting democratic and capitalist regimes.
A word that the beatniks and other cultural radicals used to
describe the stifling conservatism and consensus of American culture in the
1950s.
2.A witness famously accused which politician of having “no
sense of decency”?
Joseph McCarthy
Harry Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Richard Nixon
3.In the 1950s, the U.S. actively intervened in the domestic
political affairs of all the following countries, EXCEPT:
Vietnam
Guatemala
France
Iran
4.The Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision
stated that ______________.
A federal income tax was constitutional.
State employees were allowed to form labor unions.
Racial status could be considered in college admissions.
The racial segregation of schools was unconstitutional.
5.All of the following were conscious forms of rebellion
against mainstream American culture in the 1950s, EXCEPT:
The suburbs
Playboy magazine
Beat poetry
Rock n’ Roll music
159), the Cold War presented every country with a choice “between alternative
ways of life,” one advanced by the United States, and the other by the Soviets.
According to Truman, all of the following are characteristics of the free (or
American) way of life, EXCEPT:
Free elections
The will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority
The will of the majority
Freedom of speech and religion
7. In “What Freedom Means to Us” (Document 167), Richard
Nixon makes all of the following arguments, EXCEPT:
Factory earners in the United States can afford to buy a
house, a television set, and a car.
Americans are free to join a union, criticize the president,
and buy a Soviet newspaper.
In the United States, the rich were rich because they had
worked harder and saved more money. It would be unjust to ask them to pay
taxes.
From the standpoint of the equitable distribution of wealth,
the United States comes closer to the idea of “prosperity for all in a
classless society” than the Soviet Union has.
cash and supplies to the struggling economies of Western Europe to help rebuild
after the end of World War II.
The Marshall Plan
The European Relief Fund
The Peace Corps
The Truman Initiative
9.This plan recommended that the President intensify
containment policy against the Soviet Union at home and abroad, increase
military spending, accelerate the nation’s arms program, and engage in “covert
means” to disrupt communist countries.
The Marshall Plan
The Yalta Conference
NSC-68
NATO
10.Although the Second Red Scare of the 1950s unfairly and
unjustly targeted innocent American citizens for being Communists, Soviet
espionage was a legitimate threat at the beginning of the Cold War.
True
False
