USH Timeline: 1940's to 1950's

The Hollywood blacklist was the mid-20th-century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or associations, real or suspected. Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy toward the American Communist Party, involvement in liberal or humanitarian political causes that enforcers of the blacklist associated with communism, and/or refusal to assist investigations into Communist Party activities. The idea first originated on July 29, 1946, when William R. Wilkerson, publisher and founder of The Hollywood Reporter, published a "TradeView" column entitled "A Vote for Joe Stalin"; it named as eleven people as alleged Communist sympathizers.

In April 1948, Congress passed the Economic Cooperation Act, better known as the Marshall Plan. The plan was economic arm of the Truman Doctrine. Named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the plan offered money to war-torn areas for the rebuilding of cities and their infrastructures. American policy-makers recognized that, without quick rebuilding of war damage, countries across Europe were likely turn to Communism. During the years of the plan receiving nations experienced an economic growth of between 15% - 25%. This boom helped push communist groups out of power and created an economic divide between the rich west and poor east as clear as the political one.

On Dec. 31, 1948, Allied aircraft logged the 100,000th flight of the Berlin airlift. The airlift began after World War II when Germany was occupied territory and Berlin was surrounded by the Soviet zone. The city itself was divided into four sectors controlled by Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The Soviets tried to dissuade a West German government in the city by gradually escalating harassment of Western traffic to and from Berlin, which culminated in the Berlin blockade, imposed June 24, 1948. Royal Air Force Dakotas deployed from the United Kingdom to Germany and flew their first missions into Berlin. On June 28, the Air Force ordered C-54s from Alaska, Hawaii, and the Caribbean to Germany to reinforce the airlift. These were the first U.S. and British cargoes for Berliners. On May 12, 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade and by Sept. 30, 1949, the airlift ended.

The Berlin blockade increased Western European fear of Soviet aggression. As a result, ten western nations formed a defensive military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Canada, and the US. With the establishment of NATO, it was the first time the US had entered a military defense treaty during peacetime and any chance of a return to isolationism ended.

Brinkmanship is the practice of pushing dangerous events to the verge of--or to the brink of--disaster in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome. It occurs in international politics, foreign policy, labor relations, and military strategy involving the threatened use of nuclear weapons. The term brinkmanship was coined by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles under the Eisenhower administration, during the Cold War. This maneuver of pushing a situation with the opponent to the brink succeeds by forcing the opponent to back down and make concessions. This might be achieved through diplomatic maneuvers by creating the impression that one is willing to use extreme methods rather than concede. During the Cold War, the threat of nuclear force was often used as such an escalating measure. Adolf Hitler also used brinkmanship conspicuously during his rise to power. Eventually, the threats involved might become so huge as to be unmanageable at which point both sides are likely to back down. This was the case during the Cold War; the escalation of threats of nuclear war, if carried out, is likely to lead to mutually assured destruction.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of communism growing in Eastern Europe and China. Capitalizing on those concerns, a young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred “card-carrying” communists had infiltrated the United States government. Though eventually his accusations were proven to be untrue, and he was censured by the Senate for unbecoming conduct, his zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most repressive times in 20th-century American politics.While the House Un-American Activities Committee had been formed in 1938 as an anti-Communist organ, McCarthy’s accusations heightened the political tensions of the times. Known as McCarthyism, the paranoid hunt for infiltrators was notoriously difficult on writers and entertainers, many of whom were labeled communist sympathizers and were unable to continue working. In all, three hundred and twenty artists were blacklisted, and for many of them this meant the end of exceptional and promising careers. By 1954, the fervor had died down and many actors and writers were able to return to work. Though relatively short, these proceedings remain one of the most shameful moments in modern U.S. history.

On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself.

Enacted over President Truman’s veto, The Internal Security Act of 1950, also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act or the McCarran Act, named after its principal sponsor Sen. Pat McCarran, is a United States federal law of the McCarthy era. It was enacted over President Harry Truman's veto. The act required Communist organizations to register with the United States Attorney General and established the Subversive Activities Control Board to investigate persons suspected of engaging in subversive activities or otherwise promoting the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship, either fascist or communist. The act also contained an emergency detention statute, giving the President the authority to apprehend and detain each person as to whom there is a reasonable ground to believe that such person probably will engage in, or probably will conspire with others to engage in, acts of espionage or sabotage. It tightened alien exclusion and deportation laws and allowed for the detention of dangerous, disloyal, or subversive persons in times of war or internal security emergency.

On April 11, 1951, US President Harry S. Truman relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of his commands for making public statements that contradicted the administration's policies. Leading up to MacArthur’s relief were the events of the Korean War, the Battle of Inchon, the Wake Island Conference, and MacArthur’s public statements about those events. He was seen as an irritant between Asia and Truman.

The concept of the thermonuclear weapon was first developed and used in 1952 and has since been used in most of the world's nuclear weapons. The first thermonuclear bomb was exploded in 1952 at Enewetak by the United States, the second in 1953 by the USSR. Great Britain, France, and China have also exploded thermonuclear bombs, and these five nations comprise the so-called nuclear club—nations that have the capability to produce nuclear weapons and admit to maintaining an inventory of them. The hydrogen bomb is the single most destructive weapon ever devised by man, and is the only successful effort by mankind to harness the same basic process that is created deep inside the sun to generate energy.

Found guilty of relaying U.S. military secrets to the Soviets, the Rosenbergs were the first U.S. civilians to be sentenced to death for espionage. The Rosenbergs were accused of persuading Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, to provide them with confidential U.S. military information gained from his involvement in the development of nuclear weapons. It was believed that Julius, who was an active member of the Communist party, then funneled the top-secret information on to Soviet intelligence. Although the court found the evidence strong enough for a conviction, the ruling and the Rosenberg's death sentence became a controversial topic among the American public. Many believed that the anti-Communist political climate, which was being stirred up by the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy, made for an unfair trial.

After some early back-and-forth fighting across the 38th parallel in Korea, the fighting stalled and casualties mounted with nothing to show for them. Meanwhile, American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort of armistice with the North Koreans. The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia and China–or even, as some warned, World War III. Finally, in July 1953 with the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement, the Korean War came to an end. In all, some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives during the war. The Korean peninsula is still divided today.

The death of Joseph Stalin on March 5, 1953 created a tremendous vacuum in Soviet leadership. With his passing, the heir apparent was Georgi Malenkov, who was named premier and first secretary of the Communist Party the day after Stalin's death. Yet, when Stalin died in March 1953, Khrushchev was overlooked in favor of Malenkov. To replace Malenkov, the party announced the establishment of a new position, a five-man Secretariat. Even Western journalists noted that in announcing the five-person position, Khrushchev's name was always listed first, while the others were in alphabetical order. It was soon apparent that Khrushchev was the driving power in the Secretariat, and in September 1953, he secured enough backing to be named secretary of the Communist Party. In February 1955, he and his supporters pushed Malenkov out of the premiership and replaced him with a Khrushchev puppet, Nikolai Bulganin. In March 1958, Khrushchev consolidated his power by taking the office of premier himself. Officials in the United States, including Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, badly underestimated Khrushchev. Despite their concern, Khrushchev's rise to power did initiate a period in which tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began slightly to ease, as he called for "peaceful coexistence" between the two superpowers.

On April 27, 1954, the Conference produced a declaration which supported the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Indochina. In addition, the Conference declaration agreed upon the cessation of hostilities and the introduction of foreign involvement (or troops) in internal Indochina affairs. Northern and southern zones were drawn into which opposing troops were to withdraw, to facilitate the cessation of hostilities between the Vietnamese forces and those that had supported the French. Viet Minh units, having advanced to the far south while fighting the French, retreated from these positions, in accordance with the Agreement, to north of the ceasefire line, awaiting unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections to be held in July 1956. Most of the French Union forces evacuated Vietnam, although much of the regional governmental infrastructure in the South was the same as it had been under the French administration. An International Control Commission was set up to oversee the implementation of the Geneva Accords, but it was essentially powerless to ensure compliance. It was to consist of India, Canada, and Poland. The agreement was among Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, France, Laos, the People's Republic of China, the State of Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom. The United States took note and acknowledged that the agreement existed, but refused to sign the agreement, to avoid being legally bound to it. The U.S. government undertook to build a separate anticommunist state in South Vietnam and in 1956 supported South Vietnam’s refusal to hold nationwide elections in consultation with North Vietnam.

On May 14, 1955, the USSR established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO in October 1954. The Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members. The treaty called on the member states to come to the defense of any member attacked by an outside force and it set up a unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union. The introduction to the treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact indicated the reason for its existence. This revolved around "Western Germany, which is being remilitarized, and her inclusion in the North Atlantic bloc, which increases the danger of a new war and creates a threat to the national security of peace-loving states." This passage referred to the decision by the United States and the other members of the NATO in May 1955 to make West Germany a member of NATO and allow that nation to remilitarize. The Soviets obviously saw this as a direct threat and responded with the Warsaw Pact.

In response to developments in the Middle East with Egyptian leader Nasser’s anti-Western nationalism, in a January 5, 1957 address to Congress, President Eisenhower called for "joint action by the Congress and the Executive" in meeting the "increased danger from International Communism" in the Middle East. Specifically, he asked for authorization to begin new programs of economic and military cooperation with friendly nations in the region. He also requested authorization to use U.S. troops "to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations." The Eisenhower Doctrine received its first call to action in the summer of 1958, when civil strife in Lebanon led that nation's president to request American assistance. Nearly 15,000 U.S. troops were sent to help quell the disturbances. With the Eisenhower Doctrine and the first action taken in its name, the United States demonstrated its interest in Middle East developments.

The Soviet Union inaugurates the "Space Age" with its launch of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. However, many Americans feared more sinister uses of the Soviets' new rocket and satellite technology, which was apparently strides ahead of the U.S. space effort. Sputnik was some 10 times the size of the first planned U.S. satellite, which was not scheduled to be launched until the next year. The U.S. government, military, and scientific community were caught off guard by the Soviet technological achievement, and their united efforts to catch up with the Soviets heralded the beginning of the "space race."

The Batista regime, which maintained close relation with the United States, was corrupt and unpopular with the Cuban population.Fidel Castro led a nationalistic movement against Batista, launching an armed attack on the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953. The assault was put down and many of the revolutionaries—including Castro and his brother Raul—were imprisoned. Though the attack was a military failure, it helped spark the Cuban Revolution. Batista released Castro in 1955 at the urging of the Cuban public. Over the next several years, Castro’s 26th of July Movement waged a guerilla war against the Cuban government, gaining widespread support of the Cuban people. The guerillas seized Santa Clara on Dec. 31 and the Cuban army collapsed; Batista’s reign had become untenable. In the early hours of Jan. 1, Batista and many of his aides escaped the country. “For the salvation of the republic,” declared General Eulogio Cantillo, “the military forces have decided that it is necessary for General Batista to withdraw from power.” Celebration and rioting overtook the streets of Havana, as Castro’s forces gained control of the city. Castro descended from the mountains to Santiago, where he declared the formation of a new government. He triumphantly arrived in Havana on Jan. 8 and officially became Prime Minister a month later.

On May 1, 1960, a U.S. U-2 (spy) plane departed from Peshawar, Pakistan, on a reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union. It never arrived at its destination—Bodo, Norway. On May 6, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev announced that the aircraft had been shot down by a surface‐to‐air missile deep inside Soviet territory. Washington countered by saying that the aircraft was on a weather research mission when it strayed off course after the pilot's oxygen system failed. Khrushchev then revealed that the U‐2's film magazines had been recovered and that the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was alive and in Soviet custody. The incident created a sensation and threatened to scuttle the Soviet‐American summit conference scheduled to convene in Paris on May 16. In a controversial move, President Dwight D. Eisenhower accepted responsibility for the flights rather than let the world believe that lower‐level functionaries had such authority. He also promised an end to the missions, but refused to apologize. The overflights, he asserted, had been necessary to safeguard American security. An angry Khrushchev refused to attend the summit conference. The summit's cancellation was both a public humiliation and a personal blow to Eisenhower. He had hoped to make what would have been his final summit meeting a fitting capstone to his presidency by reaching agreement on a number of critical issues.