Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation

People / Organizations:

• Admiral Willian D. Leahy - Joint Chiefs of Staff / Chief of Naval Operations (pg. 7)

• Hans Morgenthau - Treasury Secretary (pg. 7)

• George F. Kennan - American Diplomat (pg. 7)

• Norman Graebner - Political Theorist (pg. 7)

• Louis Halle - Political Theorist (pg. 7)

• Harry S. Truman - American President (pg. 9)

• Averell Harriman - American Diplomat (pg. 9)

• Herbert Feis - American Historian (pg. 9)

• Joseph Jones - American Historian (pg. 9)

• Carl Hovland - Psychologist (pg. 25)

• George Allen - State Department Official (pg. 53)

• Edward Stettinius - Secretary of State (pg. 112)

• Henry Wallace - Vice President (pg. 148)

• Harold Smith - Truman's Budget Director (pg. 163)

• J. Robert Oppenheimer - Atomic Physicist (pg. 270)

Quotes:

• "why did the U.S. adopt Cold War policies in the early postwar period?' - Author (pg. 3)

• "was the American acceptance of Cold War beliefs the cause, concomitant, or consequence of the adoption of the containment policy?" - Author (pg. 4)

• "individual beliefs are the residue of the interactions between a person's conceptual apparatus and the environment" - Author (pg. 12)

• "people often do not know the real causes of their actions" - Author (pg. 17)

• "the influence of a message often depends upon its source…credibility is expertise and trustworthiness" - Author (pg. 27)

• "policymakers do not adequately consider the information conveyed by the nonoccurrence of a foreign policy event" - Author (pg. 39-40)

• "human beings frequently make important decisions and judgements on the basis of sparse information, haphazardly combined. People simply do not have the time or capacity to follow more elaborate, systematic, or thorough decision-making procedures….instead, they make 'snap judgements' about people [or situations] on the basis of appearance, context, or certain actions" - Author (pg. 50-51)

• "foreign policy in the U.S. must have broad public support to be viable. To obtain public backing, U.S. leaders must legitimize policy by explaining and interpreting isolated actions in a wider vision of America's role in world affairs" - Author (pg. 129)

• "in diplomacy, style and nuance can convey substantial meaning" - Author (pg. 158)

• "in international politics, it is possible to win all the chips but lose the game" - Author (pg. 191)

• "the outcome of a dispute is often determined by the relative power of two nations as measured by territory, population, [and] resource" - Author (pg. 191)

• "wars have been fought to determine the relative power of nations" - Author (pg. 192)

• "we tried that once with Hitler…there are no returns on appeasement" - James Forrestal (pg. 217)

• "the British are pulling out everywhere, and if we don't go in, the Russians will" - Dean Acheson (pg. 303)

• "the mass public does not respond 'facts' but rather to 'symbols'" - Author (pg. 309

General Notes:

• "Roosevelt's 'grand design' for the postwar order was premised in the collective enforcement of peace by the great regional powers - U.S., Britain, Soviet Union, and China" (pg. 3)

• "within a short period of time [and shortly after the Truman Doctrine speech of March 1947], the American conception of the Soviet Union as a difficult but trustworthy ally was superseded by the image of a totalitarian state bent on unlimited expansion through subversion and conquest" (pg. 4)

• "throughout 1946, Truman and his advisors continued to vacillate and waver, responding to each instance of Soviet aggression without any overall design" (pg. 5)

• Machtpolitik (pg. 6)

  • "[the] desire to gain a decisive power advantage over [an international competitor]" (pg. 6)

• "Truman reversed FDR's policy of Soviet-American cooperation because he was ignorant, parochial, pugnacious, and prone to rely on the advice of militaristic Cold Warrior Admiral Leahy" -Author on D.F. Fleming's 'The Cold War and Its Origin (1917-1960)' (pg. 7)

  • "because of the naivete of his analysis…Fleming's work is no longer cited" (pg. 7)

• "the Realists view American policymakers as rational, sober individuals with a valid understanding of the requirements of international power situation, who act contrary to U.S. national interests because they are swayed by social or domestic political pressures…the Realist [however] worked without the insights of archival sources" (pg. 8)

• Mercantilist Theory (pg. 10)

  • "state power [is used] to create a territorial and commercial empire not for selfish commercial interests, but for the good of the community as a whole. American mercantilist [seek] a favorable balance of trade through protectionism and promotion of exports [which thus advocates a policy of imports for international counterparts]. Their overriding concern [is] to prevent economic surpluses [which lead to a price reduction holding constant demand] and unemployment that could endanger domestic stability and democracy" (pg. 10)

  • "[John Hay's] open door policy embodied the strategy of creating [an] 'informal empire' based on free trade" (pg. 10)

  • "[William Appleman Williams conveys] American leaders' drive for access and control over foreign markets and raw materials explains our participation in both world wars, the so-called containment policy, and continuing interventions abroad" (pg. 10)

• "alternative policies were possible. In fact, when the Truman Doctrine was promulgated, the Soviets had withdrawn their troops from northern Iran, allowed the puppet state to collapse, made no further demands on Turkey after the U.S. issued a warning in August 1946, and were not responsible for the outbreak of civil war in Greece" (pg. 14)

• "Gaddis rightly points to several factors which influenced American policymakers [at the outset of the Cold War] - the bipolar distribution of power, the ideal of self-determination, domestic political constraints, fear of communism, and the atomic bomb" (pg. 15)

• "using historical documents, I tried to determine what information policymakers were exposed to, how they interpreted it, and its effect on their beliefs" (pg. 62)

• Chapter 1 - Social Psychological Theories of Attitude Change (pg. 24)

  • "social psychological theories of attitude change offer many hypotheses and concepts that help to explain why the American image of the Soviet Union change from benevolent ally to dangerous enemy." (pg. 24)

  • February 22, 1946 - Kenna's Long Telegram (pg. 28)

    • "characteristics of [a] message affects its acceptability. The greater the discrepancy between the communicator's position and preexisting beliefs of the audience, the greater the amount of attitude change achieved, unless the difference is particularly extreme" (pg. 27)

    • "It is difficult to make any firm, unqualified generalizations about the variables that influence attitude change" (pg. 27)

    • "the Hovland approach predicts that U.S. officials adopted Cold War attitudes toward the Soviet Union because they were presented with a more cogent analysis of Soviet behavior and a well-developed alternative policy" (pg. 28)

  • Cognitive Dissonance Theory (pg. 29)

    • "inconsistencies within the cognitive system cause an uncomfortable state of tension that people are then motivated to reduce or eliminate…the greater the dissonance, the greater the pressure for its reduction" (pg. 29-30)

    • "cognitive dissonance theory postulates that U.S. policymakers adopted Cold War beliefs after being forced by situational pressures to act contrary to strongly held, consistent beliefs in favor of Soviet-American cooperation, without adequate justification and in spite of their fear of negative consequences" (pg. 32)

  • Attribution Theory (pg. 34)

    • "in attribution theory, there are not internal pressures to achieve cognitive consistency, no motivational constructs of any kind…people are engaged in a quest for meaning, not cognitive harmony; for validity, not consistency. Thus, attribution theory portrays the person as relatively open-minded in search for the truth. Attribution theory is concerned with people's attempts to explain the events of everyday life." (pg. 35)

    • Harold Kelley theorized that people make use of three types of information in formulating causal explanations [of behavior]:" (pg. 36)

      • Distinctiveness - "the degree to which the effect occurs primarily in the presence of one potential cause instead of another" (pg. 36)

      • Consistency - "the extent to which an effect is observed whenever a potential cause is present" (pg. 36)

      • Consensus - "the degree to which other people respond in the same way whenever the causal candidate is present" (pg. 36)

    • "most attribution theorists classify the reason for people's actions into two categories: dispositional and situational." (pg. 37)

      • Dispositional - "causes [which] refer to enduring characteristics of the individual such as personality traits, ability, character, motive, etc." (pg. 37)

      • Situational - "causes [which] identify transient features of the context that influence people to behave in a certain way" (pg. 37)

    • "attribution theory would suggest that Washington officials were too willing to impute ideological, expansionist motives to Soviet actions that could just as plausibly reflect security calculations similar to those that prompted analogous policies pursued by the U.S." (pg. 38)

    • "attribution theory would lead us to expect that American officials' inferences about the source of Soviet behavior were the most important causes of their changed beliefs" (pg. 41)

    • "attribution theory explains how people infer the motives and personality characteristics of others" (pg. 42)

  • Self-Perception Theory (pg. 42)

    • "is about how [people] know their own attitudes and beliefs…by observing their own behavior and the context in which they are acting" (pg. 42)

    • "behavior leads to the development of attitudes by providing evidence of what we really believe" (pg. 43)

    • "applied to the origins of American Cold War policies, self-perception theory predicts that U.S. leaders accepted major premises of the Cold War belief system after the pressure of external events led them to adopt an anti-Soviet policy…self-perception theory predicts that Washington did not pursue a consistent policy to achieve well-defined ends, but responded to each Soviet overture, rebuff, or violation on its own merits, using the pattern of information available at the time" (pg. 49)

  • Schema Theory (pg. 50)

    • "presents an image of the person as [a] 'categorizer' and 'labeler', overwhelmed by sensations and information, trying to sort out what is important by developing a set of categories into which experiences can be conveniently classified" (pg. 50)

    • "human beings frequently make important decisions and judgements on the basis of sparse information, haphazardly combined. People simply do not have the time or capacity to follow more elaborate, systematic, or thorough decision-making procedures….instead, they make 'snap judgements' about people [or situations] on the basis of appearance, context, or certain actions" (pg. 50-51)

    • "because people are limited in what information the can process, they must resort to stored knowledge or cognitive schemas to make some sense of the world around them" (pg. 51)

    • "a schema is a generic concept stored in memory, referring to objects, situations, events, or people. It is a collection of knowledge related to a concept…a schema describes that is usually the case, not necessarily true." (pg. 51)

    • "[however] the attempt to fit [an] ongoing experience into a priori patterns may induce biases and distortion[s] [in] our understanding of the world" (pg. 53)

    • "three types of schema are relevant for explaining foreign policy-makers' perceptions of the world" (pg. 54)

      • Cognitive Scripts (pg. 54)

      • Metaphors (pg. 55)

      • Persona (pg. 55)

    • "applied to the origins of the Cold War, schema theory suggests that beliefs about the Soviet Union changed because American policymakers adopted new schemas…schema theory suggests that U.S. policymakers' perceptions of the Soviet Union were unduly influenced by their efforts to apply the 'lessons of history' to current problems." (pg. 56)

  • "according to the Hovland [cognitive dissonance theory], attitudes change when people learn and accept new information. From the perspective of attribution theory, people actively seek out information and formulate causal explanations…new attitudes are formed based on the person's own diagnosis of the cause of an event, not [through the] internalization of somebody else's conclusion" (pg. 40)

  • "both attribution and self-perception theories depict the person as a reasonable problem-solver…but self-perception [theory] assumes that people are passive and only rarely generate an explanation for their own actions" (pg. 46)

  • "the archrival of self-perception theory is cognitive dissonance. Both theories argue that attitude change follows from changes in behavior…dissonance theorists contend that people try to rationalize their behavior; self-perception theorists counter that people construct attitudes as a means of explaining their own actions" (pg. 46)

  • "social psychological theories are useful for explaining how American leaders interpreted, analyzed, and utilized information about Soviet actions" (pg. 58)

• Chapter 2 - Taming the Bear (pg. 66)

  • "Harriman [was persistent] in the belief that any major difficulty in Soviet-American relations could be resolved through face-to-face discussions with Stalin…in contrast, Kennan persistency argued against the notion that personal relationships between Western and Soviet leaders had any effect on official Russian policies" (pg. 67-68)

    • "Harriman believed that Soviet policy in the [Eastern European] region was still evolving and amenable to influence" (pg. 78)

    • "Harriman believed that the Russians respected firmness, and regarded forbearance in the face of provocation as a sign of weakness…consequently, [that the U.S.] must be friendly and frank but firm in registering our objectives whenever they violated our standards of international order" (pg. 83)

    • "Harriman recommended that the U.S. adopt a 'firm but friendly' quid pro quo approach in dealing with the Russians" (pg. 104)

    • "as Harriman saw it the Soviet refusal to assist [in the Warsaw Uprising] was only the most recent example of a new, troubling pattern in Soviet behavior" (pg. 101)

    • "Harriman lobbied intensively for the U.S. to prevent the Soviets from importing their political system into Eastern Europe" (pg. 111)

    • "Harriman's apprehensions were temporarily assuaged by the cooperativeness and flexibility shown by the Russians at the Yalta Conference in early February 1945" (pg. 112)

    • "Harriman's firsthand experience with Soviet negotiating tactics and the collapse of the hopes of Yalta left him with a bitter taste in his mouth for Soviet-American collaboration" (pg. 118)

  • "FDR's ambitious 'grand design' for the postwar world order rested on the premise that Russia would be willing to undertake a constructive role in world affairs and to collaborate with the West in maintaining world peace" (pg. 70)

  • "historically, the U.S. national interest lay in preventing a single power from exercising control over the manpower and resources of the European continent" (pg. 73)

  • November 28, 1943 - Teheran Conference (pg. 78)

  • "Roosevelt sought to undermine Russian suspicions [of the U.S.] and to foster a lasting collaborative relationship with the Soviets through a policy of patience and magnanimity" (pg. 83)

  • "economic assistance was one of the few practical means available for influencing Soviet international conduct" (pg. 90)

  • "just as [Harriman] had predicted, the Russians had interpreted our generosity and patience in the face of ample provocation as a sign of weakness and tacit acquiescence to their policies" (pg. 102)

  • The Warsaw Uprising (pg. 92)

    • August 1, 1944 - Poles attack heavily fortified German objectives in the city of Praga (pg. 95)

    • October 3, 1944 - Warsaw insurgents end the Uprising (pg. 106)

      • "nearly 200,000 of the city's inhabitants were killed; the remaining 80,000 were forcibly dispersed by the Nazi's" (pg. 106)

  • October 9, 1944 - Churchill and Stalin meet to discuss 'Spheres of Influence' (pg. 107)

    • "the first Churchill-Stalin meeting was made to recognize formally, in the form of percentages, the varying interests of the great powers in each of the Balkan countries" (pg. 109)

  • "the Yalta Conference reassured Harriman and other policymakers that Soviet-American collaboration to maintain order in the postwar international system was still attainable" (pg. 112)

  • "less than 2 weeks after Yalta, Soviet actions in Rumania shattered any illusions State Department officials may have entertained concerning the Soviets' willingness to renounce power politics and spheres of influence" (pg. 115)

  • "ideology had replaced security as the source of Soviet foreign policy" (pg. 119)

    • "as late as 1945, Harriman attributed Soviet interest in having friendly governments in neighboring countries to their need for security" (pg. 119)

  • "to reestablish world order and preserve democratic institutions, the U.S. must reorient its policy to the containment of communism" (pg. 119)

    • "Harriman failed to make use of the information implied by what the Soviets did not do…if the Soviets intended to establish a one-party, monolithic communist regime in any Eastern European country, Rumania would have been the logical choice…[however] in the midst of the Rumanian political crisis, free elections were conducted in a peaceful, orderly manner without Soviet interference" (pg. 120)

    • "[Harriman] maintained mutually contradictory beliefs simultaneously" (pg. 121)

    • "military officials in Washington were skeptical about the value of retaliation against the Soviets" (pg. 122)

• Chapter 3 - Truman as World Leader (pg. 126)

  • "Truman had a limited understanding of foreign policy affairs [upon] Roosevelt's death" (pg. 126)

  • Great Man Theory (pg. 128)

    • "Truman believed in the 'great man' theory of history, which holds that the willful actions of leaders suffice as explanations of historical accounts" (pg. 128)

  • "because Truman observed the 'code of the politician', one would expect him to observe previous agreements with the Russians - on occupation zones in Germany, armistice arrangements in Eastern Europe, the concessions made in return for Soviet entrance into the war against Japan, and allied military strategy." (pg. 136)

  • "Truman first won national attention as chairman of the Senate Special Committee to investigate the National Defense Program" (pg. 137)

  • "[Truman's] beliefs about world order were a contradictory mishmash of political realism and lofty idealism" (pg. 140)

    • "even if the majority of nations were to renounce war, it would be merely an idle pretense. As long as there exists one single nation that may make a sovereign choice of war, all other nations must be prepared to do likewise" - Truman (Speech before the UN Forum on January 17, 1944) (pg. 141)

  • "the results of appeasement in the thirties had convinced Truman that only the willingness to use preponderant force could deter aggressors" (pg. 141)

  • "throughout much of his senatorial career, Truman had urged that the U.S. undertake and active role in world affairs" (pg. 142)

  • "Truman also recognized that expanding world trade would benefit the U.S…as President, Truman wholeheartedly supported the open-door policy" (pg. 144)

  • "Truman preferred to make decisions using information he had acquired through personal experience" (pg. 145)

    • "I am here to make decisions, and whether they prove right or wrong I am going to take them" - Truman (pg. 145-146)

    • "this type of information processing encourages several major types of errors: the use of inappropriate generalizations, premature cognitive closure, and incomplete or erroneous causal analysis" (pg. 146)

  • "Truman's insecurity about his lack of formal education and expertise probably contributed to his impulsive decision-making" (pg. 147)

  • "Truman had a predilection for agreeing with his advisors. Each of Roosevelt's former cabinet members was impressed with [their] influence over the new President" (pg. 148)

• Chapter 4 - Keeping Agreements (pg. 150)

  • "Harriman assured Truman that the U.S. had nothing to lose by taking a firm stance on important issues because the Russians needed our economic assistance for postwar reconstruction" (pg. 152-153)

  • April 22, 1945 - Truman meets with Molotov (pg. 153)

    • "[Truman] told the Russian foreign minister [Molotov] that settling the Polish question was the most important problem facing them" (pg. 153)

  • April 23, 1945 - Truman meets with Molotov (pg. 155)

    • "Truman had unintentionally reversed FDR's policy of conceding a sphere of influence in Poland to the Russians. He asserted an 'American Interest' in Poland, and refused to accept special Soviet prerogatives based on geographic proximity and history" (pg. 156)

  • "Truman feared that the failure to settle the Polish problem would jeopardize the success of the San Francisco U.N. Conference" (pg. 154)

  • "after Truman's blunt talk with Molotov, relations with the Soviets deteriorated rapidly" (pg. 158)

  • "the Soviet tightened their grip on Eastern Europe, particularly Rumania and Bulgaria" (pg. 159)

    • "Moscow had decided to take advantage of the power vacuum in Eastern Europe and the absence of any positive proposals from the West to protect it frontiers by lining up a set of friendly governments" (pg. 160)

  • May 8, 1945 - "V-E Day only released a flood of new problems for Truman - adjusting lend-lease, land-grabbing by U.S. allies before the Peace Conference, orderly withdraw of U.S. troops to the Pacific, [and] securing Soviet participation in the war against Japan" (pg. 163)

  • "the Russians had not been warned that V-E Day would bring a major change in [lend-lease aid] policy." (pg. 165)

  • May 10, 1945 - "Assistant Secretary Clayton called a meeting of representatives from all agencies involved in the Soviet lend-lease program. Everyone agreed that the unconditional aid policy should be ended" (pg. 166)

    • "U.S. officials knew that the Soviets would be upset when lend-lease was abruptly canceled, but they made no attempt to warn the Russians or cushion the blow" (pg. 168)

    • "the effects were disastrous. U.S.-Soviet relations cooled even further" (pg. 170)

    • "by mid-May, [Truman] had abandoned all of Roosevelt's methods of winning Soviet trust and friendship" (pg. 170)

  • May 16, 1945 - Truman concedes to Roosevelt's daughter that his 'get tough' policy was a mistake (pg. 176)

    • "Truman began to see that the change in strategy and tactics was endangering the success of Roosevelt's 'grand design'" (pg. 170)

  • May 19, 1945 - Truman asks Harry Hopkins to go to Moscow to meet with Stalin (pg. 171)

    • "after Hopkins left Moscow, the Poles were quickly able to agree on a reorganized Warsaw government which provided token representation of the noncommunist opposition" (pg. 181)

    • "with the Polish issue out of the way, the Russians suddenly began to cooperate in other areas of the world" (pg. 182)

  • "Truman later told Hopkins that China was the most important issue as far as the U.S. was concerned" (pg. 182)

  • July 5, 1945 - U.S. and British governments establish diplomatic relations with the new 'provisional' Polish government (pg. 183)

  • "in the opening stages of a negotiation, it is important that the parties have a clear understanding of their common objectives as well as competing interests…[then] a negotiator usually tries to discern the opponent's minimum demands" (pg. 189-190)

  • July 3, 1945 - James Byrnes becomes Secretary of State (pg. 192)

    • "Byrnes' lack of any firm beliefs or principles contributed to his objectivity in dealing with new information" (pg. 193)

  • "the significance of Potsdam for U.S.-Soviet relations lay not just in the agreements reached but in the personal impressions Truman and Stalin formed of each other" (pg. 195)

  • August 15, 1945 - Stalin promises Truman to enter the war against Japan (pg. 196)

  • "the 1936 Montreux Convention gave Turkey control of the Straits and the right to exclude all warships whenever Turkey was at war or threatened by aggression" (pg. 203)

    • "Truman said that the Montreux Convention should be revised" (pg. 205)

• Chapter 5 - Power Politics (pg. 213) [Avalon Project - A Decade of American Foreign Policy 1941-1949 (yale.edu)]

  • August 6, 1945 - Hiroshima Bomb (pg. 213)

  • August 9, 1945 - Nagasaki Bomb (pg. 213)

  • August 14, 1945 - Japan surrendered (pg. 213)

  • "if we fail to approach [the Russians] now and merely continue to negotiate with them, having this weapon rather ostentatiously on our hip, their suspicions and their distrust of our purposes and motives will increase" - Henry Stimson to Truman (pg. 213)

    • "Acheson deduced [that] we could not hope to secure Soviet cooperation in maintaining world peace if we confronted them with evidence of an Anglo-American bloc and supported the atomic monopoly" (pg. 215)

    • "Acheson realized that world order could only be maintained by the joint effort of the U.S. and the Soviet Union…Acheson believed that peace could only be maintained by a great power concert" (pg. 216)

  • "American troop strength was declining rapidly in response to overwhelming public demands for demobilization. The atomic bomb, therefore, was the only means of countering Soviet strength on the European continent" (pg. 219)

    • "the atomic bomb seemed to eliminate the need for conventional military forces" (pg. 227)

  • "contrary to Byrnes' expectations, U.S. possession of atomic weapons had no effect on Molotov's willingness to make concessions to American ideals in Eastern Europe" (pg. 223)

    • "Truman was greatly disturbed by this evidence of the bomb's impotence as a weapon of influence" (pg. 223)

  • "men were being discharged from the Army at the rate of 15,200 a day in September [1945]" (pg. 227)

  • "Truman viewed the Soviet Union not as a revolutionary power with unlimited ambitions, but rather as a traditional imperialist power, bent on obtaining warm-water ports, territorial concessions, and other spoils of war" (pg. 227)

  • November 1, 1945 - General Marshal notifies Truman about increased Russian troops in Northern Iran and were conducting maneuvers along the Bulgar-Turkish border (pg. 231)

    • "all of this occurred at a time when the Soviets were demanding that the Turks return the Kars Plateau area to the USSR and grant them bases on the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus" (pg. 231-232)

  • "since Potsdam, State Department officials had gone to greater lengths to meet perceived Soviet security needs" (pg. 232)

  • November 19, 1945 - large-scale uprising in the Azerbaijan province of northern Iran (pg. 234)

    • "Soviet subversion in northern Iran appeared to be aimed at Turkey" (pg. 240)

    • "Truman viewed Soviet subversion in Iran and territorial demands on Turkey as a campaign for the Dardanelles, [however] the State Department adopted a broader geopolitical persepctive" (pg. 241)

    • "Great Britain was pursuing its traditional policy of using the Near East as a dam to hold back the flow of Russia and maintain its lines of communication to India.at the same time, the Soviet Union was determined to break through the structure built by Britain so that Soviet influence could flow unimpeded into the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean" (pg. 241-242)

    • "after resolution of the Iranian Crisis in early April 1946, 45% of a national sample thought Russia could be trusted" (pg. 260)

  • "Byrnes planned to abandon the 'bomb in the pocket' tactics…instead of using the bomb as an implied 'threat', Byrnes would offer to share information on atomic energy as an inducement for the Soviets to cooperate with the U.S. on other issues" (pg. 237)

    • "the main purpose of the Moscow Conference was to 'keep our shirt clean' on the atomic bomb" (pg. 237)

  • "Truman had no policy in reserve in case FDR's 'grand design' proved to be infeasible" (pg. 239)

  • "members of Congress were under heavy pressure from constituents to increase the rate of demobilization" (pg. 240)

  • "the State Department couldn’t formulate a policy for Truman because they couldn't agree on an 'accepted interpretation of Soviet intentions'. As a result, U.S. policy toward the Soviets was fundamentally inconsistent" (pg. 249)

• Chapter 6 - Drift and Indecision (pg. 250)

  • "throughout 1946, Truman improvised, following no consistent policy toward the Soviet Union" (pg. 250)

    • "Truman's foreign policy was criticized as weak, inconsistent, incoherent, and reactive to initiatives of Britain and the Soviet Union" (pg. 261)

  • February 9, 1946 - Stalin makes speech called ' Declaration of Cold War' (pg. 252) [116179.pdf (wilsoncenter.org)]

    • February 22, 1946 - Kennan's Long Telegram (pg. 257) [116178.pdf (wilsoncenter.org)]

  • "[Chip] Bohlen defined three alternative policies that the U.S. could pursue toward the Soviet Union:" (pg. 257)

    • Cooperation based on a division of the world into spheres of influence

    • Limiting Soviet expansion through acquisition of U.S. military bases and use of economic pressure

    • Persuade the Soviets to support the principle of world cooperation and collective solutions of political and territorial issues

  • "according to John Lewis Gaddis, the period between late February and early March 1946 marked a turning point in American foreign policy" (pg. 259)

  • "[in 1946] the American people were more concerned with problems [such as] strikes, inflation, food shortages, price controls, and the housing crisis" (pg. 260)

  • March 2, 1946 - Treaty deadline for Soviet withdrawal from Iran. The Soviet showed no sign of leaving (pg. 267)

  • March 5, 1946 - Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' Speech (pg. 263) [116180.pdf (wilsoncenter.org)] [Wilson Center Digital Archive]

  • March 15, 1946 - the New York Times reports that Russia has doubled its troop strength in Azerbaijan to 60,000 (pg. 268)

  • "Truman had confided to [Adolf] Berle that he had decided on a policy toward Russia: to keep every agreement we make and to expect them to keep every agreement they make" (pg. 296)

  • March 27, 1946 - the New York Times reports that Soviet troops had withdrawn from Karaj (pg. 272)

  • "the official State Department estimate was that the Soviet Union was an expansionist totalitarian state [and] should there be war, the U.S. would need a 'cushion of states' between Russia and vital strategic areas such as Suez and Gibraltar to prevent Eurasia from being subjugated by a rapid Russian blitz" (pg. 276)

  • "Truman requested that [Clark] Clifford compile a list of U.S.-Soviet agreements and the manner in which the Soviets had their commitments [to be known as the Clifford-Elsey Report]" (pg. 278, 295)

    • "the document warned that 'it is highly dangerous to conclude that hope of international peace lies only in 'accord', 'mutual understanding', or 'solidarity' with the Soviet Union" (pg. 295) [Report, "American Relations With The Soviet Union" by Clark Clifford ["Clifford-Elsey Report"] | Harry S. Truman (trumanlibrary.gov)] [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/coldwar/documents/index.php?date=1946-09-24&documentid=4-1&print=true (ysmithcpallen.com)]

    • "contrary to most historians, Truman did not immediately decide to adopt the Clifford-Elsey Report as the basis of [U.S.] foreign policy" ()pg. 297

  • August 7, 1946 - Russia escalates pressure on Turkey by formally requesting a share in the defense of the Dardanelles (pg. 279)

    • "[the War Department rationalized that] the operation of a base would enable the Soviets to exert intolerable pressure on Turkey, transforming that country into a Soviet satellite. A Russian military presence in Turkey could also be used to threaten Crete, Cyprus, and Greece" (pg. 280)

    • "Yet, the Soviets were asking for no more than the privileges enjoyed by the U.S. in the Panama Canal and the British in the Suez and Gibraltar Straits…American policymakers [however] assumed that American control over the Panama Canal was justified because of U.S. security requirements, while inferring that the Soviets' demand for a comparable position in the Turkish Straits was evidence of aggressive intent" (pg. 280-281)

    • August 15, 1946 - Acheson presented a policy proposal that would later come to be known as the 'Domino Theory', stressing that giving Russia privileges to the Strait would lead to them gaining a foothold over Turkey which could compromise security in the Near East and Mediterranean (pg. 282, 313)

      • "the failure of the Soviets to respond belligerently to the U.S. note of August 19 should have suggested that the Soviet bargaining position was weak" (pg. 285)

    • "in pressing the Turkish government for a naval base, the Soviet government was undoubtedly probing for the U.S. reaction to their inclusion of Turkey in the Soviet 'security belt'; there had been no serious discussions between the two countries concerning the division of influence in the Near and Middle East" (pg. 285)

  • "the Czech hand-clapping incident led to a fundamental reorientation of U.S. foreign economic policy. In the past, U.S. economic assistance was granted on the basis of a country's need…but from now on, the establishment of a liberal international economic system would be subordinated to the task of rebuilding Western economic and politcal strength against the threat of communist penetration" (pg. 286-287)

• Chapter 7 - This Terrible Decision (pg. 302)

  • February 27, 1947 - Truman calls a meeting with congressional leaders to discuss the Greek Crisis (pg. 306)

    • "if Greece should dissolve into civil war it is altogether probable that it would emerge as a communist state under Soviet control…it is not alarmist to say that we are faced with the first crisis of a series of which might extend Soviet domination to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia" - General Marshall at the meeting (pg. 306)

    • "recognizing the persuasiveness of the ideological appeal, Acheson made sure that staff members assigned to draft the president's speech highlighted the theme of a 'global struggle between freedom and totalitarianism'" (pg. 308)

    • "Kennan approved of aid to Greece and Turkey, but objected to the portrayal of the world as polarized between opposing ways of life" (pg. 309)

  • March 12, 1947 - Truman asks Congress for $400 Million in aid for Greece and Turkey (pg. 311)

  • "the principle aim of the containment policy was to block further Soviet expansion and political infiltration…the instruments of the containment policy were economic assistance, propaganda, military power, and diplomacy." (pg. 315)

    • "military power was useful primarily as a means of deterring forcible Soviet expansion" (pg. 315)

  • "in the American pluralist system, instead of a foreign ministry there are numerous independent agencies sharing powers, so rational deliberation by a unified elite is replace by bargaining and logrolling" (pg. 317)

  • "several months later, Truman believed in the validity of the domino theory…Truman no longer had any faith in negotiations as a means of settling difference" (pg. 318)

Further Readings:

• The Cold War and Its Origins (1917-1960), by D.F. Fleming

• The Cold War, by Walter Lippmann

• In Defense of National Interest, by Hans Morgenthau

• Cold War Diplomacy: American Foreign Policy (1945-1960), by Norman Graebner

• Walter Lippmann, Strategic Internationalism, The Cold War, and Vietnam, 1943-1967 (Dissertation), by Matthew A. Wasniewski [umi-umd-1741.pdf]

• Beginnings of the Cold War, by Martin F. Herz

• The Shaping of American Diplomacy: Readings and Documents in American Foreign Relations Vol. II 1900-1955,  by William Appleman Williams

• The Age of Containment: The Cold War (1945-1968), by David Rees

• The U.S. and the Origins of the Cold War (1941-1947), by John Lewis Gaddis

• The Cold War as History, by Louis J. Halle

• A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, by Leon Festinger

• Attribution Theory in Social Psychology, Harold Kelley

• Makers in American Diplomacy, by Frank J. Merli

• Price of Vision: The Diary of Henry A. Wallace (1942-1946) , by Henry Wallace

• I Was There, by Admiral William Leahy

• Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War, by Tim Bouverie

• Cold War as History, by Louis Halle