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From this stemmed the Cold War, the threat and stand still stance of nuclear missile attacks on bother nations. Starting with the first of three documents of investigation is the Statement on the Korean War (1950) dictated by President Harry S. Truman. His statement was directed to inform the US citizen and to express the actual implications of his administration, as well their military position relating to Korea. With the rising scare of communist expansion on the forefront, and a clear intention from their organization, Truman had a delicate balance.
How could he assure the American public that this matter is of the most importance to our western philosophy, to protect all sovereign nations, and cohesively avoid another subsequent World War? In such decisions to try and circumvent the possibility of creating or becoming embroiled in World War Ill, he made the executive decision to relieve U. S. General Douglas Macarthur of his duties. While highly respected by President Truman, and recognized as an outstanding General, there was simply a errors difference of opinion.
Macarthur believed it was necessary and important to take the Korean conflict to Mainland China, while Truman recognized this very likely would start World War Ill. He made it very clear, in limiting the role of the United States in the Korean conflict that there would be no appeasement with the communist government, and was more than open to a circumventing settlement. His basic requirements were; [1] the fighting must end [2] verifiable measure to insure there would be no chance of possible retribution [3] and end to the aggression, and sentimental of foreign communist military occupation in Korea.
However you want to Judge the success of President Trauma’s Korean strategy, the spread of communism was halted at the demoralized zone separating North and South Korea. There was never a formal declaration of the end of war and to this day the threat of aggression from North Korean continues. However, while many American soldiers lost their life in this conflict, this loss of life is far less than what would have been had World War Ill been ignited.
As a final note, the position President Truman took elated to the Korean Conflict is not too dissimilar to the position the United States took with Vietnam. How to stop the spread of communism and protect the sovereignty of South Vietnam? Unfortunately in the case of Vietnam, many American soldiers gave their life and communist North Vietnam, with the backing of China eventually took over South Vietnam Second on the list of inspection, is a series of statements of accusations from the Republican U.
S. Senator of Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy claimed that he had accounts of 205 individual cases of people irking within the United States Government “who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist party. Individuals he would have you believe who had a supposed political alignment opposite of that of the United States who nevertheless were still helping to shape our foreign policy'(Shih/ Mayer, pig. 248).
With scare of the communist ploy for increasing coverage, McCarthy accusations where timely developed, and bread a following with his nativities. He rightfully states that in Just a short recess from war, we should be anticipating a long Romano period of peace. However, currently he believed there was a figurative iron sight like on a barrel of a gun that the Communist were trying to use subversive tactics to over throw our Government from within the boundaries of our shores.
Instead of taking over the United States through sheer military force from the outside, McCarthy had a paranoia that the Communist were attempting to seize control of the United States internally through the support of many who worked within our Government. The reason stated in his address, for possible engagements f foreign war, were not because of the increasing powers of our “potential” enemy, but that of the tainted disloyal, subversive and traitorous members of our State Department.
The implied exact people who have been born with a “silver spoon” in their mouth provided by our nation. People who were the benefactors of what the United States offered its’ people, where the ones intent on changing our form of Government to Communism. This is what we now know as McCarthy. While admittedly somewhat of a stretch, the era of McCarthy to a similar degree is memorable to the witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts in the sass’s. There was a paranoia that swept over that area and many innocent people were burned at the stake based purely on the belief they were a witch.
A belief that was fueled with little or no evidence, but simply based on the accusation by someone who believed him or her to be a witch. While under the era of McCarthy no one was ever literally burned at the stake, there were, however, numerous people who had their lives and carriers seriously impacted because someone believed them to be communist or sympathetic towards Communism. Paranoia is always harmful, yet left unchecked it is also destructive. The third and last document is that of one from William O. Douglas, The Black Silence of Fear (1952).
Douglas was a Supreme Court Justice, appointed in 1939, at the shy age of 40, who was an advocate of defending civil liberties. One of Douglass point/theories for the sudden shift towards conformity was the fear of questioning. That any different thought would be deemed as communistic, thus silencing thoughts. This was his main basis for this document and it goes hand-in- hand with the title, The Black Silence of Fear. People were afraid to dispute any matter in fear of being labeled, which consequently led people to keep their thoughts and ideas dormant.
Douglas argues, “this fear has stereotyped our thinking, narrowed the range of free public discussion, and driven many thoughtful people to despair”. In conjunction with this statement the fear disables our permissible thoughts and discussions, which in turn could lead to the ultimate disruption of a sovereign society foundation (Shih/Mayer pig. 250). In their origin, all of the three previously reviewed documents share basic similarities ND topic. All three thoughts are allocated to the issue of communism or the “Red Scare” and a Soviet nuclear crisis.
Within all authors, though each one addresses joint issues differently, and theorizes separately. Ruling factors apparent for the distance between each is that they all [1] have different backgrounds, both, privately and socially, and [2] all three serve in different political positions. These differences weigh and influence their views on the same topic at hand. Pres. Truman addresses the problem from a business standpoint, he states his intentions, identifies the robber and provides a solution to it.
Both Macarthur and Douglas expound their position with a degree of skepticism with their beliefs of the problem, or the root if you will. Macarthur proposes the idea of communistic infiltration into the governing body, while Douglas on the other hand suspects that it’s our own society that’s intolerant to adverse thinking and promotes fear of municipal expression. As asked to find (if any) unconditional honesty based on these statements, I found it posed to be quite problematic while trying to decrypt the validity of each author’s statements; homo am I to say.