Part 1 American High: 1945-1963 ISSUE
1 Was the United States Responsible for the Cold War? YES Thomas G. Paterson
from Meeting the Communist Threat: Truman to Reagan NO: John Lewis Gaddis, from Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States: An Interpretive History, 2d ed. Professor of history Thomas G. Paterson argues that the Truman administration exaggerated the Soviet threat after World War II because the United States had expansionist political and economic global needs
Professor of history John Lewis Gaddis argues that the power vacuum that existed in Europe at the end of World War II exaggerated and made almost inevitable a clash between the democratic, capitalist United States and the totalitarian, communist USSR
Issue
2 Did Communism Threaten America's Internal Security After World War II?
YES: John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, from Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America NO Richard M. Fried
from Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective History professors
John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr argue that army code-breakers during World War II's "Venona Project" uncovered a disturbing number of high-ranking U.S. government officials who seriously damaged American interests by passing sensitive information to the Soviet Union. Professor of history Richard M. Fried argues that the early 1950s were a "nightmare in red" during which American citizens had their First and Fifth Amendment rights suspended when a host of national and state investigating committees searched for Communists in government agencies, Hollywood, labor unions, foundations, universities, public schools, and even public libraries
Issue
3 Should President Truman Have Fired General MacArthur? YES John S. Spanier
from "The Politics of the Korean War", in Phil Williams Donald M. Goldstein and Henry L. Andrews, Jr
eds., Security in Korea: War, Stalemate, and Negotiation NO: D. Clayton James with Anne Sharp Wells, from Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea, 1950-1953 Professor of political science John S. Spanier argues that General Douglas MacArthur was fired because he publicly disagreed with the Truman administration's "Europe first" policy and its limited war strategy of containing communism in Korea. Biographer D. Clayton James and assistant editor Anne Sharp Wells argue that General MacArthur was relieved of duty because there was a lack of communication between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the headstrong general, which led to a misperception over the appropriate strategy in fighting the Korean War
Issue
4 Were the 1950s America's "Happy Days?''
YES: Melvyn Dubofsky and Athan Theoharis, from Imperial Democracy: The United States Since 1945, 2d ed. NO Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak
from The Fifties: The Way We Really Were Professor of history and sociology Melvyn Dubofsky and professor of history Athan Theoharis argue that throughout the 1950s, the U.S. economy dominated much of the globe and created a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity for the percentage of the American population that made it into the middle class
Professor of history Douglas T. Miller and journalist Marion Nowak argue that the nostalgia craze, which re-creates the 1950s as a sweet, simple, golden age of harmony, masks the fact that the decade was an era of conformity in which Americans feared the bomb, Communists, crime, and the loss of a national purpose
Issue
5 Did Lee Harvey Oswald Kill President Kennedy by Himself? YES: President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, from The Warren Report: Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy NO Michael L. Kurtz
from Crime of the Century: Th