Markedly the higher birth rate in the years following WW2; led to the biggest demographic "bubble" in American history
Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill)
Act of 1944 which provided money for education and other benefits to military personnel returning from WW2
Employment Act of 1946
Act which set up a three member Council of Economic Advisers to make appraisals of the economy with regard to employment levels and advise the president in annual economic report, while a new congressional Joint Committee on Economic Report would propose legislation.
Passed over President Truman's beto, the law contained a number of provisions to control labor unions, including the banning of closed shops.
National Security Act
Authorized the reorganization of government to coordinate military branches and security agencies; created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Military Establishment (Department of Defense).
Term coined by Winston Churchill to describe the cold war divide between western Europe and the Soviet Union's eastern European satellites
General US strategy in the cold war threat called for containing Soviet expansion; originally devised by US diplomat George F. Kennan.
George F. Kennan
Diplomat who authored the 1947 Foreign Affairs article that introduced the theory of containment.
President Truman's program of post WW2 aid to European countries-particularly Greece and Turkey in danger of being undermined by communism.
1945-1989, tensions between the US and the Soviet Union, the two major world powers after WW2.
George C. Marshall
Army general during WW2 who orchestrated the Allied victories over Germany and Japan, and later Secretary of State who developed the Marshall PLan in 1947, a program of marrive aid for the reconstruction of Europe.
US program for the reconstruction of post WW2 Europe throught massive aid to former enemy nations as well as allies.
Allied air forces flew food, medicine, coal, and equipment into Berlin to counteract the Russion blockade of the city from June 1948 to May 1949
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) Defensive alliance founded in 1949 by 10 western European nations, the US, and Canada to deter Soviet expansion in Europe.
Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC)
Committee established by Roosevelt administration in 1941 that offered willing employers the chance to say they were following govt. policy in giving jobs to black citizens; the FEPC's authority was chiefly moral, since it had no power to enforce the directives.
Army veteran who joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and became the first black play in major league baseball.
Americans of Democratic Action
Democratic faction, formed in 1947, that criticized Truman but also took firm anti-Communist stance
Henry A. Wallace
Secretary of Congress under Truman who was fired in 1946 over disagreemnt in foreign policy; ran for president against Truman in 1948 on the Progressive party ticket.
J. Strom Thurmond
South Carolina governor who ran for president against Truman in 1948 on the Dixiecrat ticket.
Also known as the States Rights Party, a group of Deep South delegates who walked out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention in protest of the party's support for civil rights legislation.
Created when former president Teddy Roosevelt broke away from the Republican party in run for president again in 1912; the party supported progressive reforms similar to the democrats but stopped shorts of seeking to eliminate trusts.
Domestic reform proposals of the second Truman administartion; included civil rights legislation and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, but only extenzions of some New Deal programs were enacted.
A plan for technical assistance to underdeolped parts of the world that was the forth part of Truman's anti-Communist foreign policy, whoch included the UN, the Marshall Plan, and NATO; it was never put into effect
A top secret document produced by the National Security Council that called for the rebuilding of conventional military forces to provide options other than nuclear war.
Popular general who aggressively directed American forces during the Korean war and clashed with Truman; who removed him form command in 1951.
Port city for Seoul, Korea, where MacArthur landed an American force to the North Korean rear, a brilliant play that pushed the North Koreans back across the border.
Second Red Scare
Post WW2 Red Scare focused on the fear of Communists in US government positions; peaked during the Korean War and declined soon thereafter, when the US Senate censored Joseph McCarthy , who had been a major instigator of the hysteria.
House Un-Emerican Activities Committee (HUAC)
Formed to investigate sibversives in the goverment; best known investigations were of Hollywood notables and of former State Department ossical Alger Hiss; who was accused of espionage and Communist party membership.
CA congressman who rose to national prominence for pursuing the case against Alger Hiss and exploiting an anti-Communist stance to win election to the Senate in 1950; later elected president in 1969.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Couple convicted of transmitting atomic secrets to the Russians and executed on June 19, 1953.
Joseph R. McCarthy
republican senator from Wisconsin whoa ccusing the State Department of being infested with Communists and was a major instigator of the Red Scare, McCarthy was later censured by the Senate.