What was one of the economic challenges facing the united states after the civil war?

The end of World War II brought a series of challenges to Harry Truman. The entire economy had to be converted from a wartime economy to a consumer economy. Strikes that had been delayed during the war erupted with a frenzy across America. Inflation threatened as millions of Americans planned to spend wealth they had not enjoyed since 1929. As the soldiers returned home, they wanted their old jobs back, creating a huge labor surplus. Truman, distracted by new threats overseas, was faced with additional crises at home.

To provide relief for the veterans of World War II, and to diminish the labor surplus, Congress passed the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944. Known as the GI Bill of Rights, this law granted government loans to veterans who wished to start a new business or build a home. It also provided money for veterans to attend school or college. Thousands took advantage, and Americans enjoyed the double bonus of relieving unemployment and investing in a more educated workforce.

Although Truman maintained wartime price controls for over a year after the war, he was pressured to end them by the Republican Congress in 1947. Inflation skyrocketed and workers immediately demanded pay increases. Strikes soon spread across America involving millions of American workers.

Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which allowed the President to declare a "cooling-off" period if a strike were to erupt. Union leaders became liable for damages in lawsuits and were required to sign noncommunist oaths. The ability of unions to contribute to political campaigns was limited. Truman vetoed this measure, but it was passed by the Congress nonetheless.

Serious issues remained. Now that nuclear power was a reality, who would control the fissionable materials? In August 1946, Truman signed the Atomic Energy Act, which gave the government a monopoly over all nuclear material. Five civilians would head the Atomic Energy Commission. They directed the peaceful uses of the atom. The President was vested with exclusive authority to launch a nuclear strike. The military was also reorganized.

The War Department was eliminated and a new Defense Department was created. The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force were subordinate to the new Secretary of Defense. The National Security Council was created to coordinate the Departments of State and Defense. Finally, a Central Intelligence Agency was established to monitor espionage activities around the globe.

In 1948, Harry Truman faced reelection. Almost every political spin-doctor in the nation predicted a victory by the Republican Governor of New York, Thomas Dewey. The Democratic Party was split three ways. In addition to Truman, Henry Wallace represented the liberal wing on the Progressive Party ticket. J. Strom Thurmond ran as a "Dixiecrat" Southern candidate who thought Truman too liberal on civil rights.

Truman ran a whistle-stop train campaign across the land, hoping to win by holding onto the Solid South and retaining the support of organized labor. He also became the first candidate to campaign openly for the African American vote. Against everyone's predictions but his own, Truman prevailed on election day. He had hoped to enact a socially expansive Fair Deal, much along the lines of the New Deal of FDR, but conservative Democrats and Republicans in the Congress blocked most of his initiatives.

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While many of us have probably seen episodes of the TV show "M*A*S*H," few of us could explain what caused the Korean War. Here's a chance to understand what "Dr. Benjamin Franklin ("Hawkeye") Pierce from Crabapple Cove, Maine, was doing in Korea.

Containment had not gone so well in Asia. When the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan, they sent troops into Japanese-occupied Korea. As American troops established a presence in the southern part of the Korean peninsula, the Soviets began cutting roads and communications at the 38th parallel. Two separate governments were emerging, as Korea began to resemble the divided Germany.

Upon the recommendation of the UN, elections were scheduled, but the North refused to participate. The South elected Syngman Rhee as president, but the Soviet-backed North was ruled by Kim Il Sung. When the United States withdrew its forces from the peninsula, trouble began.

Northern Korean armed forces crossed the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950. It took only two days for President Truman to commit the United States military to the defense of southern Korea. Truman hoped to build a broad coalition against the aggressors from the North by enlisting support from the United Nations.

Of course, the Soviet Union could veto any proposed action by the Security Council, but this time, the Americans were in luck. The Soviets were boycotting the Security Council for refusing to admit Red China into the United Nations. As a result, the Council voted unanimously to "repel the armed attack" of North Korea. Many countries sent troops to defend the South, but forces beyond those of the United States and South Korea were nominal.

The commander of the UN forces was none other than Douglas MacArthur. He had an uphill battle to fight, as the North had overrun the entire peninsula with the exception of the small Pusan Perimeter in the South. MacArthur ordered an amphibious assault at Inchon on the western side of the peninsula on September 15.

Caught by surprise, the communist-backed northern forces reeled in retreat. American led-forces from Inchon and the Pusan Perimeter quickly pushed the northern troops to the 38th Parallel — and kept going. The United States saw an opportunity to create a complete indivisible democratic Korea and pushed the northern army up to the Yalu River, which borders China.

With anticommunism on the rise at home, Truman relished the idea of reuniting Korea. His hopes were dashed on November 27, when over 400,000 Chinese soldiers flooded across the Yalu River. In 1949, Mao Tse-tung had established a communist dictatorship in China, the world's most populous nation. The Chinese now sought to aide the communists in northern Korea.

In no time, American troops were once again forced below the 38th Parallel. General MacArthur wanted to escalate the war. He sought to bomb the Chinese mainland and blockade their coast.

Truman disagreed. He feared escalation of the conflict could lead to World War III, especially if the now nuclear-armed Soviet Union lent assistance to China. Disgruntled, MacArthur took his case directly to the American people by openly criticizing Truman's approach. Truman promptly fired him for insubordination.

Meanwhile, the war evolved into a stalemate, with the front line corresponding more or less to the 38th Parallel. Ceasefire negotiations dragged on for two more years, beyond Truman's Presidency. Finally, on July 27, 1953, an armistice was signed at Panmunjom. North Korea remained a communist dictatorship, and South Korea remained under the control of Syngman Rhee, a military strong man. Over 37,000 Americans were killed in the conflict.

[Note: For decades after the war, the accepted figure for American Korean War deaths was 54,246. In 1993, the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued a statement clarifying that this figure represented all deaths of U.S. military personel worldwide during the war, and not only casualties of the war. The DoD stated that 17,730 deaths during this period were not related to the war in Korea]

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Berlin, Germany's wartime capital was the prickliest of all issues that separated the United States and Soviet Union during the late 1940s. The city was divided into four zones of occupation like the rest of Germany. However, the entire city lay within the Soviet zone of occupation. Once the nation of East Germany was established, the Allied sections of the capital known as West Berlin became an island of democracy and capitalism behind the Iron Curtain.

In June 1948, tensions within Berlin touched off a crisis.

The Soviets decided to seal all land routes going into West Berlin. Stalin gambled that the Western powers were not willing to risk another war to protect half of Berlin. The Allies were tired, and their populations were unlikely to support a new war. A withdrawal by the United States would eliminate this democratic enclave in the Soviet zone.

Truman was faced with tough choices. Relinquishing Berlin to the Soviets would seriously undermine the new doctrine of containment. Any negotiated settlement would suggest that the USSR could engineer a crisis at any time to exact concessions. If Berlin were compromised, the whole of West Germany might question the American commitment to German democracy. To Harry Truman, there was no question. "We are going to stay, period, " he declared. Together, with Britain, the United States began moving massive amounts of food and supplies into West Berlin by the only path still open — the air.

Truman had thrown the gauntlet at Stalin's feet. The USSR had to now choose between war and peace. He refused to give the order to shoot down the American planes. Over the next eleven months, British and American planes flew over 4000 tons of supplies daily into West Berlin. As the American public cheered "Operation Vittles," Stalin began to look bad in the eyes of the world. He was clearly willing to use innocent civilians as pawns to quench his expansionist thirst. In May 1949, the Soviets ended the blockade. The United States and Britain had flown over 250,000-supply missions.

Stalin miscalculated when he estimated the strength of western unity. To cement the cooperation that the western allies had shown during the war and immediate postwar years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in April 1949. The pact operated on the basis of collective security. If any one of the member states were attacked, all would retaliate together. The original NATO included Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, and the United States.

NATO was the very sort of permanent alliance George Washington warned against in his Farewell Address, and represented the first such agreement since the Franco-American Alliance that helped secure victory in the American Revolution.

The United States formally shed its isolationist past and thrust itself forward as a determined superpower fighting its new rival.

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Communism was on the march.

When the Red Army marched on Germany, it quickly absorbed the nearby nations Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the Soviet Union. Soon communist forces dominated the governments of Romania and Bulgaria. By the fall of 1945, it was clear that the Soviet-backed Lublin regime had complete control of Poland, violating the Yalta promise of free and unfettered elections there. It was only a matter of time before Hungary and Czechoslovakia fell into the Soviet orbit. Yugoslavia had an independent communist leader named Tito.

And now Stalin was ordering the creation of a communist puppet regime in the Soviet sector of occupied Germany. How many dominoes would fall? United States diplomats saw a continent ravaged by war looking for strong leadership and aid of any sort, providing a climate ripe for revolution. Would the Soviets get all of Germany? Or Italy and France? President Truman was determined to reverse this trend.

Greece and Turkey were the first nations spiraling into crisis that had not been directly occupied by the Soviet Army. Both countries were on the verge of being taken over by Soviet-backed guerrilla movements. Truman decided to draw a line in the sand. In March 1947, he asked Congress to appropriate $400 million to send to these two nations in the form of military and economic assistance. Within two years the communist threat had passed, and both nations were comfortably in the western sphere of influence.

A mid-level diplomat in the State Department named George Kennan proposed the policy of containment. Since the American people were weary from war and had no desire to send United States troops into Eastern Europe, rolling back the gains of the Red Army would have been impossible.

But in places where communism threatened to expand, American aid might prevent a takeover. By vigorously pursuing this policy, the United States might be able to contain communism within its current borders. The policy became known as the Truman Doctrine, as the President outlined these intentions with his request for monetary aid for Greece and Turkey.

In the aftermath of WWII, Western Europe lay devastated. The war had ruined crop fields and destroyed infrastructure, leaving most of Europe in dire need. On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall announced the European Recovery Program. To avoid antagonizing the Soviet Union, Marshall announced that the purpose of sending aid to Western Europe was completely humanitarian, and even offered aid to the communist states in the east. Congress approved Truman's request of $17 billion over four years to be sent to Great Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium.

The Marshall Plan created an economic miracle in Western Europe. By the target date of the program four years later, Western European industries were producing twice as much as they had been the year before war broke out. Some Americans grumbled about the costs, but the nation spent more on liquor during the years of the Marshall Plan than they sent overseas to Europe. The aid also produced record levels of trade with American firms, fueling a postwar economic boom in the United States.

Lastly and much to Truman's delight, none of these nations of western Europe faced a serious threat of communist takeover for the duration of the Cold War.

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The Allies had won the war, but would they be able to keep the peace?

An examination of the period between WWI and WWII showed a lack of commitment to the spirit of internationalism. The old League of Nations proved too weak in structure to fill this void. Perhaps a stronger international body, as envisioned by Woodrow Wilson, was necessary to keep the world powers from tearing each other apart. It was in this spirit that Franklin Roosevelt championed the creation of a United Nations.

The Big Three of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin had devoted hours of dialogue to the nature of a United Nations. After agreeing on the general principles at the Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta Conferences, delegates from around the world met in San Francisco to write a charter. With the nation still mourning the recent death of Franklin Roosevelt, his wife Eleanor addressed the delegates. Despite considerable enmity and conflicts of interest among the attending nations, a charter was ultimately approved by unanimous consent.

Despite the ideological animosity spawned by the Cold War, a new spirit of globalism was born after WWII. It was based, in part, on the widespread recognition of the failures of isolationism. The incarnation of this global sprit came to life with the establishment of the United Nations in 1945 with its headquarters in New York City.

How does the UN work?

The UN charter called for the establishment of a Security Council, or "upper house." The Security Council serves as the executive branch of the United Nations. The Security Council must authorize any actions, such as economic sanctions, the use of force, or the deployment of peacekeeping troops.

Each of the "Great Powers" — the United States, Great Britain, France, China, and the Soviet Union — holds a permanent seat on the Security Council. The remaining ten seats are elected to two-year terms by the General Assembly. Each permanent member holds the power of veto. No action can go forth if any one of the five objects. As the Cold War crystallized, the countervailing veto powers of the United States and the Soviet Union served often to inhibit the Security Council from taking any forceful or meaningful action.

The main body of the United Nations is called the General Assembly. Every member nation holds a seat in the General Assembly, which is often described as a town meeting for the world. The General Assembly has standing committees to address ongoing issues such as economics and finance, social, cultural and humanitarian concerns, and legal problems. The General Assembly passes resolutions and has the power to make recommendations to the Security Council, but has no power to require any action. In addition to the General Assembly, and Economic and Social Council has committees designed to address a wide array of topics from the Status of Women to the Environment.

A Trusteeship Council was designed to oversee the transition of states from colonies to independent nations.

The Secretariat manages the day-to-day operations of the United Nations. An International Court of Justice was also created.

The UN can point to many solid accomplishments. Among them: sending peacekeepers to war-stricken areas, making recommendations on how to raise literacy and health rates in the Third World, and even authorizing the use of force against aggressor nations.

In 1945 as well as today the UN gives cause for believe that nations can get along together. In a world with conflicting histories, agendas, and political posturing, one international group — the United Nations — remains above the day-to-day fray.

When the Cold War ended in the 1990s, many citizens around the globe once again looked to the United Nations with renewed hope of building a safer, stronger planet.

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In 1945, one major war ended and another began.

The Cold War lasted about 45 years. There were no direct military campaigns between the two main antagonists, the United States and the Soviet Union. Yet billions of dollars and millions of lives were lost in the fight.

The United States became the leader of the free-market capitalist world. America and its allies struggled to keep the communist, totalitarian Soviet Union from expanding into Europe, Asia, and Africa. Theaters as remote as Korea and Vietnam, Cuba and Grenada, Afghanistan and Angola, became battlegrounds between the two ideologies. One postwar pattern quickly became clear. The United States would not retreat into its former isolationist stance as long as there was a Cold War to wage.

The long-term causes of the Cold War are clear. Western democracies had always been hostile to the idea of a communist state. The United States had refused recognition to the USSR for 16 years after the Bolshevik takeover. Domestic fears of communism erupted in a Red Scare in America in the early Twenties. American business leaders had long feared the consequences of a politically driven workers' organization. World War II provided short-term causes as well.

There was hostility on the Soviet side as well. Twenty million Russian citizens perished during World War II. Stalin was enraged that the Americans and British had waited so long to open a front in France. This would have relieved pressure on the Soviet Union from the attacking Germans. Further, The United States terminated Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union before the war was complete. Finally, the Soviet Union believed in communism.

Stalin made promises during the war about the freedom of eastern Europe on which he blatantly reneged. At the Yalta Conference, the USSR pledged to enter the war against Japan no later than three months after the conclusion of the European war. In return, the United States awarded the Soviets territorial concessions from Japan and special rights in Chinese Manchuria.

This map depicts the situation in Europe around the time of V-E Day. Soviet troops (in red) were able to secure Eastern Europe, while the other Allies worked to win the West.

Europe in 1946 was becoming increasingly divided by the "iron curtain" seen in this map. Countries to the east of the orange line remained — or became — communist following World War II.

When the Soviet Union entered the war between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States no longer needed their aid, but Stalin was there to collect on Western promises. All these factors contributed to a climate of mistrust that heightened tensions at the outbreak of the Cold War.

At Potsdam, the Allies agreed on the postwar outcome for Nazi Germany. After territorial adjustments, Germany was divided into four occupation zones with the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union each administering one. Germany was to be democratized and de-Nazified. Once the Nazi leaders were arrested and war crimes trials began, a date would be agreed upon for the election of a new German government and the withdrawal of Allied troops.

This process was executed in the zones held by the western Allies. In the eastern Soviet occupation zone, a puppet communist regime was elected. There was no promise of repatriation with the west. Soon such governments, aided by the Soviet Red Army came to power all across eastern Europe. Stalin was determined to create a buffer zone to prevent any future invasion of the Russian heartland.

Winston Churchill remarked in 1946 that an "iron curtain had descended across the continent."

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Euphoria.

When Japan surrendered to the Allies at the end of the long summer of 1945, Americans were ecstatic. Ticker tape parades were staged in nearly every town to welcome America's returning heroes.

Unquestionably, the United States entry in World War II made the difference for the Allied cause. The American army and navy were now the most powerful in the world. Even those who did not fight could feel proud of the work Americans did in the factories to build the war machine.

The youth of America would never forget the sacrifices of wartime. From rationing food to collecting scrap to buying bonds to fighting in battle, the efforts to defeat the Axis were a product of the collective American will. News anchor, Tom Brokaw, recently labeled the Americans who came of age in World War II the "greatest generation."

Unfortunately, the euphoria could not last long. Although the Soviet Union and the United States were allied in their struggle against Hitler's Germany, Americans distrusted Josef Stalin's Communist government and abhorred his takeover of Eastern European countries immediately after the war. More Soviet citizens were killed in World War II than any other nation, and Josef Stalin was determined to receive compensation for damages and guarantees that such a slaughter could never again plague the Soviet people.

For its part, the United States was unwilling to sit idle while another form of totalitarianism spread westward from Moscow. One war immediately begat another — the Cold War.

No theater of the globe was free from Cold War struggle. From Eastern Europe to China and Korea, the Truman Administration was beset with the challenge of halting the advance of communism. As the wave of decolonization washed through the southern part of the globe, each new nation would be courted by the superpowers. The independence of Israel in 1948 had Cold War implications in the Middle East. Within five years of the end of World War II, American troops were summoned to South Korea to halt the advancing communist forces of the North.

No single foreign policy issue mattered more to the United States for the next 50 years as much as the Cold War. President Truman set the direction for the next eight presidents with the announcement of the containment policy. Crises in Berlin, China, and Korea forced Truman to back his words with actions. The Cold War kept defense industries humming and ultimately proved the limits of American power in Vietnam. Democracy was tested with outbreaks of Communist witch hunts.

Although the United States would emerge triumphant in the Cold War, the last half of the 1940s was marked by an uncertainty that soured the sweet taste of victory in World War II.

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America had the bomb. Now what?

When Harry Truman learned of the success of the Manhattan Project, he knew he was faced with a decision of unprecedented gravity. The capacity to end the war with Japan was in his hands, but it would involve unleashing the most terrible weapon ever known.

American soldiers and civilians were weary from four years of war, yet the Japanese military was refusing to give up their fight. American forces occupied Okinawa and Iwo Jima and were intensely fire bombing Japanese cities. But Japan had an army of 2 million strong stationed in the home islands guarding against invasion.

For Truman, the choice whether or not to use the atomic bomb was the most difficult decision of his life.

First, an Allied demand for an immediate unconditional surrender was made to the leadership in Japan. Although the demand stated that refusal would result in total destruction, no mention of any new weapons of mass destruction was made. The Japanese military command rejected the request for unconditional surrender, but there were indications that a conditional surrender was possible.

Regardless, on August 6, 1945, a plane called the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Instantly, 70,000 Japanese citizens were vaporized. In the months and years that followed, an additional 100,000 perished from burns and radiation sickness.

Two days later, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. On August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, where 80,000 Japanese people perished.

On August 14, 1945, the Japanese surrendered.

Critics have charged that Truman's decision was a barbaric act that brought negative long-term consequences to the United States. A new age of nuclear terror led to a dangerous arms race.

Some military analysts insist that Japan was on its knees and the bombings were simply unnecessary. The American government was accused of racism on the grounds that such a device would never have been used against white civilians.

Other critics argued that American diplomats had ulterior motives. The Soviet Union had entered the war against Japan, and the atomic bomb could be read as a strong message for the Soviets to tread lightly. In this respect, Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been the first shots of the Cold War as well as the final shots of World War II. Regardless, the United States remains the only nation in the world to have used a nuclear weapon on another nation.

Truman stated that his decision to drop the bomb was purely military. A Normandy-type amphibious landing would have cost an estimated million casualties. Truman believed that the bombs saved Japanese lives as well. Prolonging the war was not an option for the President. Over 3,500 Japanese kamikaze raids had already wrought great destruction and loss of American lives.

The President rejected a demonstration of the atomic bomb to the Japanese leadership. He knew there was no guarantee the Japanese would surrender if the test succeeded, and he felt that a failed demonstration would be worse than none at all. Even the scientific community failed to foresee the awful effects of radiation sickness. Truman saw little difference between atomic bombing Hiroshima and fire bombing Dresden or Tokyo.

The ethical debate over the decision to drop the atomic bomb will never be resolved. The bombs did, however, bring an end to the most destructive war in history. The Manhattan Project that produced it demonstrated the possibility of how a nation's resources could be mobilized.

Pandora's box was now open. The question that came flying out was, "How will the world use its nuclear capability?" It is a question still being addressed on a daily basis.

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Early in 1939, the world's scientific community discovered that German physicists had learned the secrets of splitting a uranium atom. Fears soon spread over the possibility of Nazi scientists utilizing that energy to produce a bomb capable of unspeakable destruction.

Scientists Albert Einstein, who fled Nazi persecution, and Enrico Fermi, who escaped Fascist Italy, were now living in the United States. They agreed that the President must be informed of the dangers of atomic technology in the hands of the Axis powers. Fermi traveled to Washington in March to express his concerns to government officials. But few shared his uneasiness.

Einstein penned a letter to President Roosevelt urging the development of an atomic research program later that year. Roosevelt saw neither the necessity nor the utility for such a project, but agreed to proceed slowly. In late 1941, the American effort to design and build an atomic bomb received its code name — the Manhattan Project.

At first the research was based at only a few universities — Columbia University, the University of Chicago and the University of California at Berkeley. A breakthrough occurred in December 1942 when Fermi led a group of physicists to produce the first controlled nuclear chain reaction under the grandstands of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.

After this milestone, funds were allocated more freely, and the project advanced at breakneck speed. Nuclear facilities were built at Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford, Washington. The main assembly plant was built at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Robert Oppenheimer was put in charge of putting the pieces together at Los Alamos. After the final bill was tallied, nearly $2 billion had been spent on research and development of the atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project employed over 120,000 Americans.

Secrecy was paramount. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese could learn of the project. Roosevelt and Churchill also agreed that Stalin would be kept in the dark. Consequently, there was no public awareness or debate. Keeping 120,000 people quiet would be impossible; therefore only a small privileged cadre of inner scientists and officials knew about the atomic bomb's development. In fact, Vice-President Truman had never heard of the Manhattan Project until he became President Truman.

Although the Axis powers remained unaware of the efforts at Los Alamos, American leaders later learned that a Soviet spy named Klaus Fuchs had penetrated the inner circle of scientists.

By the summer of 1945, Oppenheimer was ready to test the first bomb. On July 16, 1945, at Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico, scientists of the Manhattan Project readied themselves to watch the detonation of the world's first atomic bomb. The device was affixed to a 100-foot tower and discharged just before dawn. No one was properly prepared for the result.

A blinding flash visible for 200 miles lit up the morning sky. A mushroom cloud reached 40,000 feet, blowing out windows of civilian homes up to 100 miles away. When the cloud returned to earth it created a half-mile wide crater metamorphosing sand into glass. A bogus cover-up story was quickly released, explaining that a huge ammunition dump had just exploded in the desert. Soon word reached President Truman in Potsdam, Germany that the project was successful.

The world had entered the nuclear age.

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Over 127,000 United States citizens were imprisoned during World War II. Their crime? Being of Japanese ancestry.

Despite the lack of any concrete evidence, Japanese Americans were suspected of remaining loyal to their ancestral land. Anti-Japanese paranoia increased because of a large Japanese presence on the West Coast. In the event of a Japanese invasion of the American mainland, Japanese Americans were feared as a security risk.

Succumbing to bad advice and popular opinion, President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 ordering the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps in the interior of the United States.

Evacuation orders were posted in Japanese-American communities giving instructions on how to comply with the executive order. Many families sold their homes, their stores, and most of their assets. They could not be certain their homes and livelihoods would still be there upon their return. Because of the mad rush to sell, properties and inventories were often sold at a fraction of their true value.

Until the camps were completed, many of the evacuees were held in temporary centers, such as stables at local racetracks. Almost two-thirds of the interns were Nisei, or Japanese Americans born in the United States. It made no difference that many had never even been to Japan. Even Japanese-American veterans of World War I were forced to leave their homes.

Ten camps were finally completed in remote areas of seven western states. Housing was spartan, consisting mainly of tarpaper barracks. Families dined together at communal mess halls, and children were expected to attend school. Adults had the option of working for a salary of $5 per day. The United States government hoped that the interns could make the camps self-sufficient by farming to produce food. But cultivation on arid soil was quite a challenge.

Evacuees elected representatives to meet with government officials to air grievances, often to little avail. Recreational activities were organized to pass the time. Some of the interns actually volunteered to fight in one of two all-Nisei army regiments and went on to distinguish themselves in battle.

On the whole, however, life in the relocation centers was not easy. The camps were often too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. The food was mass produced army-style grub. And the interns knew that if they tried to flee, armed sentries who stood watch around the clock, would shoot them.

Fred Korematsu decided to test the government relocation action in the courts. He found little sympathy there. In Korematsu vs. the United States, the Supreme Court justified the executive order as a wartime necessity. When the order was repealed, many found they could not return to their hometowns. Hostility against Japanese Americans remained high across the West Coast into the postwar years as many villages displayed signs demanding that the evacuees never return. As a result, the interns scattered across the country.

In 1988, Congress attempted to apologize for the action by awarding each surviving intern $20,000. While the American concentration camps never reached the levels of Nazi death camps as far as atrocities are concerned, they remain a dark mark on the nation's record of respecting civil liberties and cultural differences.

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Defeating Germany was only part of America's mission.

Pearl Harbor was only the beginning of Japanese assaults on American holdings in the Pacific. Two days after attacking Pearl Harbor, they seized Guam, and two weeks after that they captured Wake Island. Before 1941 came to a close, the Philippines came under attack.

Led by General Douglas MacArthur, the Americans were confident they could hold the islands. A fierce Japanese strike proved otherwise. After retreating to strongholds at Bataan and Corregidor, the United States had no choice but to surrender the Philippines. Before being summoned away by President Roosevelt, General MacArthur promised: "I shall return."

Before he returned however, the Japanese inflicted the Bataan Death March, a brutal 85-mile forced on American and Filipino POWs. 16,000 souls perished along the way.

In June 1942, Japan hoped to capture Midway Island, an American held base about 1000 miles from Hawaii. Midway could have been used as a staging point for future attacks on Pearl Harbor. The United States was still benefiting from being able to decipher Japanese radio messages. American naval commanders led by Chester Nimitz therefore knew the assault was coming.

Airplane combat decided the Battle at Midway. After the smoke had cleared, four Japanese aircraft carriers had been destroyed. The plot to capture Midway collapsed, and Japan lost much of its offensive capability in the process. After the Battle of Midway, the Japanese were forced to fall back and defend their holdings.

Island hopping was the strategy used by the United States command. Rather than taking every Japanese fortification, the United States selectively chose a path that would move U.S. naval forces closer and closer to the Japanese mainland. In October 1944, MacArthur returned to the Philippines accompanied by a hundred ships and soon the islands were liberated. The capture of Iwo Jima and Okinawa cleared the way for an all-out assault on Japan. Despite heavy losses, the Japanese refused to surrender. They intensified the attacks on American ships with suicide mission kamikaze flights.

In April 1945, President Roosevelt died of a brain hemorrhage, and Harry Truman was unexpectedly left to decide the outcome of the war in the Pacific.

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The time had finally come. British and American troops had liberated North Africa and pressed on into Italy. Soviet troops had turned the tide at Stalingrad and were slowly reclaiming their territory. The English Channel was virtually free of Nazi submarines, and American and British planes were bombing German industrial centers around the clock.

Still, Hitler refused to surrender and hid behind his Atlantic Wall. Since the outbreak of war, Stalin was demanding an all-out effort to liberate France from German occupation. An invasion force greater than any in the history of the world was slowly amassing in southern Britain toward that end.

A great game of espionage soon unfolded. If the Germans could discover when and where the attack would occur, they could simply concentrate all their efforts in one area, and the operation would be doomed to failure. The Allies staged phony exercises meant to confuse German intelligence. Two-dimensional dummy tanks were arranged to distract air surveillance. There was considerable reason to believe the attack would come at Calais, where the English Channel is narrowest. In actuality, Operation Overlord was aiming for the Normandy Peninsula on the morning of June 4, 1944.

Foul weather postponed the attack for two days. Just after midnight on June 6, three airborne divisions parachuted behind enemy lines to disrupt paths of communications. As the German lookout sentries scanned the English Channel at daybreak, they saw the largest armada ever assembled in history heading toward the French shore. There were five points of attack. Gold and Sword Beaches were taken by the British, and Juno Beach was captured by Canadian forces. The American task was to capture Utah and Omaha Beaches. The troops at Omaha Beach met fierce resistance and suffered heavy casualties. Still, by nightfall a beachhead had been established. Eventually, German troops retreated.

After D-Day, the days of the German resistance were numbered. Paris was liberated in August 1944 as the Allies pushed slowly eastward. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was moving into German territory as well. Hitler, at the Battle of the Bulge, launched a final unsuccessful counteroffensive in December 1944. Soon the Americans, British, and Free French found themselves racing the Soviets to Berlin.

Along the way they encountered the depths of Nazi horrors when they discovered concentration camps. American soldiers saw humans that looked more like skeletons, gas chambers, crematoriums, and countless victims. Although American government officials were aware of atrocities against Jews, the sheer horror of the Holocaust of 12 million Jews, homosexuals, and anyone else Hitler had deemed deviant was unknown to its fullest extent.

When the Allies entered Berlin, they discovered that the mastermind of all the destruction — Adolf Hitler — had already died by his own hand. With little left to sustain any sort of resistance, the Germans surrendered on May 8, 1945, hereafter known as V-E (Victory in Europe) Day.

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America was the largest military power in the world — in theory.

The large population, generous natural resources, advanced infrastructure, and solid capital base were all just potential. Centralization and mobilization were necessary to jump-start this unwieldy machine. Within a week of Pearl Harbor, Congress passed the War Powers Act, granting wide authority to the President to conduct the war effort. Throughout the war hundreds more alphabet agencies were created to manage the American homefront.

First the United States needed to enlarge its armed forces. Because of the peacetime draft, the United States Armed Forces boasted over 1.5 million members. By the end of the war, that number rose to 12 million. A more expansive draft and a vigorous recruitment campaign produced these results. Prodded by Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR created women's auxiliary forces for the army (WACs), navy (WAVES), air force (WASPS), and Coast Guard (SPARS). The colossal ranks of the armed services created a huge labor shortage.

Toward this end a "Work or Fight" propaganda campaign was waged. "Rosie the Riveter" posters beckoned housewives to leave the home and enter the nation's factories. About 6.5 million females entered the workforce during the war years, many for the first time. African Americans continued the Great Migration northward, filling vacated factory jobs. Mexican Americans were courted to cross the border to assist with the harvest season in the bracero guest-worker program. Thousands of retirees went back on the job, and more and more teenagers pitched in to fill the demand for new labor.

The United States government spent over twice as much money fighting World War II as it had spent on all previous programs since its creation. Tax rates were raised to generate revenue and control inflation. Some people paid 90% of what they earned toward taxes!

Still, more money was needed so the government again launched Liberty and Victory Loan Drives like those that helped finance the First World War. In addition, the size of the federal government more than tripled from about a million workers in 1940 to almost 3.5 million in 1945.

The United States managed to raise enough food and raw materials in the First World War through voluntary measures. This time, federal officials agreed that only through rationing could the demands be met. Americans were issued books of stamps for key items such as gasoline, sugar, meat, butter, canned foods, fuel oil, shoes, and rubber. No purchase of these commodities was legal without a stamp. Victory speed limits attempted to conserve fuel by requiring Americans to drive more slowly. Rotating blackouts conserved fuel to be shipped overseas. Groups such as the Boy Scouts led scrap metal drives. Consumer goods like automobiles and refrigerators simply were not produced. Women drew lines down the backs of their legs to simulate nylon stockings when there were such shortages. Backyard gardens produced about 8 million tons of food.

Additionally, the Office of War Information sponsored posters and rallies to appeal to patriotic heartstrings. Songs like Bing Crosby's "Junk Will Win the War" and "Goodbye Mama, I'm Off to Yokohama" were on the lips of many Americans. Propaganda movies shot by famed directors such as Frank Capra inspired millions.

The accomplishments of the American public were nothing short of miraculous. The navy had fewer than 5,000 vessels prior to the bombing at Pearl Harbor. By 1945, they had over 90,000. In addition, over 80,000 tanks and nearly 300,000 aircraft were produced during the war years. Millions of machine guns and rifles and billions of ammunition cartridges rolled off American production lines. New industries like synthetic rubber flourished, and old ones were rejuvenated.

At tremendous cost to the American taxpayer, the American people vanquished two evils: the Axis Powers and the Great Depression.

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Three days after Congress declared war on Japan, Germany responded by declaring war on the United States.

Japan had an advance pledge of support from Hitler in the event of war with the United States. Now President Roosevelt faced a two-ocean war — a true world war. Despite widespread cries for revenge against Japan, the first major decision made by the President was to concentrate on Germany first. The American Pacific Fleet would do its best to contain Japanese expansion, while emphasis was placed on confronting Hitler's troops.

Roosevelt believed that a Nazi-dominated Europe would be far more impregnable that any defenses Japan could build in the Pacific. American scientists worried that, with enough time, German scientists might develop weapons of mass destruction. Once Hitler was defeated, the combined Allied forces would concentrate on smashing Japanese ambitions.

American military leaders favored a far more aggressive approach to attacking Germany than their British counterparts. A cross-channel invasion of France from Britain would strike at the heart of Nazi strength, but the British command was dubious. Winston Churchill feared that should such an operation fail, the loss of human life, military resources, and British morale could be fatal.

Instead, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to implement an immediate blockade of supplies to Germany and to begin bombing German cities and munitions centers. The army would attack Hitler's troops at their weakest points first and slowly advance toward German soil. The plan was known as "closing the ring." In December 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to attack German holdings in North Africa first.

That maneuver was finally executed in October 1942. Nazi troops were occupying much of the African Mediterranean coast, which had been controlled by France prior to the war. Led by British General Bernard Montgomery, British forces struck at German and Italian troops commanded by the "Desert Fox," German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, at El Alamein in Egypt. As the British forced a German retreat, Anglo-American forces landed on the west coast of Africa on November 8 to stage a simultaneous assault. Rommel fought gamely, but numbers and positioning soon forced a German surrender. The Allies had achieved their first important joint victory.

Simultaneously, the Soviets turned the tide against Nazi advances into the Soviet Union by defeating the German forces at Stalingrad. When springtime came in 1943, the Allies had indeed begun to close the ring.

Once Northern Africa was secured, the Allies took the next step toward Germany by launching invasions of Sicily and Italy. American and British leaders believed that when the Italian people faced occupation of their homeland, they would rise up and overthrow Mussolini. Fearing that the Allies would have a free road up to the border of Austria, German forces began to entrench themselves in Italy.

Despite German presence in Italy, Mussolini was arrested and the Italians surrendered to the Allies on September 3. There was no free road to Austria, however. German forces defended the peninsula ferociously, and even when the European war ended in May 1945, the Allies had failed to capture much of Italy.

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For the second time in the 20th century, the United States became involved in a devastating world conflict.

The mobilization effort of the government in World War II eclipsed even that of World War I. With major operations in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, American industries literally fueled two wars simultaneously. The social and economic consequences were profound. The Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North was accelerated. New opportunities opened for women. Americans finally enjoyed a standard of living higher than the pre-Depression years.

But the war effort also had a darker side. Civil liberties were compromised, particularly for the 110,000 Japanese Americans who were forcibly uprooted from their West Coast homes to be sent to remote relocation camps.

In both Europe and Asia, the Axis powers had established a firm foothold prior to American entry into the conflict. Slowly, but surely the Allies closed the ring on Nazi Germany after turning points at El Alamein and Stalingrad. Once Italy quit the Axis and the Allies landed successfully at Normandy, it was only a matter of time before the Nazi machine was smashed. Similar failures marked the early war in the Pacific, as the Japanese captured the Philippines. But once Japanese offensive capabilities were damaged at Midway, the United States "island hopped" its way to the Japanese mainland.

New technologies emerged during the war as well. Radar helped the British locate incoming German planes, and sonar made submarine detection much more feasible. German V-1 and V-2 rockets ushered in a new age of long-range warfare. But no weapon compared in destructive capacity to the atomic bomb, developed after a massive, secret research project spearheaded by the United States government.

World War II was fought over differences left unresolved after World War I. Over 400,000 Americans perished in the four years of involvement, an American death rate second only to the Civil War. Twelve million victims perished from Nazi atrocities in the Holocaust. The deaths of twenty million Russians created a defensive Soviet mindset that spilled into the postwar era. After all the blood and sacrifice, the Axis powers were defeated, but the Grand Alliance that emerged victorious did not last long. Soon the world was involved in a 45-year struggle that claimed millions of additional lives — the Cold War.

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While the international picture in Europe was growing increasingly dimmer for the United States, relations with Japan were souring as well. Japan's aggression was literally being fueled by the United States. The Japanese military machine relied heavily on imports of American steel and oil to prosecute its assault on China and French Indochina.

Placing a strict embargo on Japan would have seemed obvious, but Roosevelt feared that Japan would strike at the resource-laden Dutch East Indies to make up the difference. Beginning in late-1940, the United States grew less patient with Japanese atrocities and began to restrict trade with the Empire.

Just prior to Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, Japan signed a nonaggression pact with Stalin. This removed the threat of a Russian attack on Japan's new holdings. With Europe busy fighting Hitler, the United States remained the only obstacle to the establishment of a huge Japanese empire spanning East Asia.

By the end of 1940, the United States had ended shipments of scrap metal, steel, and iron ore to Japan. Simultaneously, the United States began to send military hardware to Chiang Kai-shek, the nominal leader of the Chinese forces resisting Japanese takeover.

Negotiations between Japan and the U.S. began in early 1941, but there was little movement. By midsummer, FDR made the fateful step of freezing all Japanese assets in the United States and ending shipments of oil to the island nation. Negotiations went nowhere. The United States was as unwilling to accept Japanese expansion and Japan was unwilling to end its conquests.

American diplomats did, however, have a hidden advantage. With the help of "Magic," a decoding device, the United States was able to decipher Japan's radio transmissions. Leaders in Washington knew that the deadline for diplomacy set by Japan's high command was November 25. When that date came and passed, American officials were poised for a strike. The prevailing view was that the attack would focus on British Malaya or the Dutch East Indies to replenish dwindling fuel supplies.

Unbeknown to the United States, a Japanese fleet of aircraft carriers stealthily steamed toward Hawaii.

The goals for the Japanese attack were simple. Japan did not hope to conquer the United States or even to force the abandonment of Hawaii with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States was too much of a threat to their newly acquired territories. With holdings in the Philippines, Guam, American Samoa, and other small islands, Japan was vulnerable to an American naval attack. A swift first strike against the bulk of the United States Pacific Fleet would seriously cripple the American ability to respond. The hopes were that Japan could capture the Philippines and American island holdings before the American navy could recuperate and retaliate. An impenetrable fortress would then stretch across the entire Pacific Rim. The United States, distracted by European events, would be forced to recognize the new order in East Asia.

All these assumptions were wrong. As the bombs rained on Pearl Harbor on the infamous morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, almost 3,000 Americans were killed. Six battleships were destroyed or rendered unseaworthy, and most of the ground planes were ravaged as well. Americans reacted with surprise and anger.

Most American newspaper headlines had been focusing on European events, so the Japanese attack was a true blindside. When President Roosevelt addressed the Congress the next day and asked for a declaration of war, there was only one dissenting vote in either house of Congress. Despite two decades of regret over World War I and ostrichlike isolationism, the American people plunged headfirst into a destructive conflict.

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War had finally come.

Two days after Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation of neutrality and ordered the suspension of munitions sales to all belligerents. But Roosevelt stopped short of asking that Americans remain emotionally neutral in the European conflict. FDR knew that the only chance Britain and France would have to defeat the German Reich was to have ample supplies of weaponry. He immediately began to press Congress to repeal the arms embargo.

The request was simple. Allow trade of munitions with belligerent nations on a "cash and carry" basis. There would be no danger to American shipping if the Allies had to carry the supplies on their own ships. Isolationists were concerned, but support for the President's initiative was strong enough. The Neutrality Act of 1939 ended the arms embargo and permitted the sales of munitions on a "cash and carry" basis.

Meanwhile, the European war seemed to be more talk than action. Throughout the fall and winter of 1939-40, Stalin moved Soviet troops into sovereign Eastern European states including eastern Poland, but Hitler's Wehrmacht was silent. Europeans nervously joked of a "phony war" as the winter drew to a close.

Suddenly on April 9, 1940, the German blitzkrieg moved rapidly into Denmark and Norway. As the weeks passed, the German war machine steadily advanced through the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and into northern France. Hitler arrived in France to sign the terms of French surrender. The hapless French were forced to submit to the Germans in the very same railroad car the Germans surrendered twenty-two years previously at the end of World War I. Britain was the only democracy in Europe in open opposition to Germany.

New Prime Minister Winston Churchill desperately pleaded with Roosevelt for assistance. In the summer of 1940, Hitler launched Operation Sea Lion, an all-out assault on the British mainland. The Royal Air Force of Britain battled the German Luftwaffe in the greatest air battle in history as Americans watched nervously.

Slowly but surely American public opinion shifted toward helping the British. The Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies launched a propaganda campaign to mobilize the American public. Groups like the America First Committee, which contained prominent Americans such as Charles Lindbergh, insisted a hemispheric defense was the wisest choice for the United States to follow. A great debate was on.

Miraculously Britain held its own with Germany while America deliberated. In September 1940, the United States agreed to the transfer of 50 old destroyers to the British fleet in exchange for naval bases in the Western Hemisphere. By directly aiding the Allies, America could no longer hide behind the shield of neutrality. At Roosevelt's urging, Congress authorized the construction of new planes to defend America's coast. Congress also enacted the first peacetime draft in the nation's history in September 1940. The interventionist argument seemed to be prevailing, but debate continued into 1941.

The Destroyer Deal was helpful, but Britain simply did not have the financial reserves to pay for all the weapons they needed. Roosevelt feared another postwar debt crisis so he hatched a new plan called Lend-Lease. Roosevelt publicly mused that if a neighbor's house is on fire, nobody sells him a hose to put it out. Common sense dictated that the hose is lent to the neighbor and returned when the fire is extinguished. The United States could simply lend Great Britain the materials it would need to fight the war. When the war was over, they would be returned. The Congress hotly argued over the proposal. Senator Robert Taft retorted: "Lending war equipment is a good deal like lending chewing gum. You don't want it back."

In March 1941 after a great deal of controversy, Congress approved the Lend-Lease Act, which eventually appropriated $50 billion of aid to the Allies. Meanwhile Roosevelt began an unprecedented third term.

Neutrality was no longer a façade behind which America could hide. Hitler saw Lend-Lease as tantamount to a war declaration and ordered attacks on American ships.

Roosevelt urged Congress and Americans to take action. In his famous Four Freedom speech he enumerates what the rights of any citizen of the world are and why it is important for America to lead the way:

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

Congress still vacillated. Roosevelt met with Churchill in the summer of 1941 and agreed to the Atlantic Charter, a statement that outlined Anglo-American war aims. At this point, the United States was willing to commit almost everything to the Allied war machine — money, resources, and diplomacy.

The only thing missing was American troops.

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On July 7, 1937, a skirmish between Chinese and Japanese troops broke out at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing. The cause of the fracas is unknown, but the Japanese government used it as a pretext to launch a full-scale invasion of China. Hoping to deliver a quick knockout punch, the Japanese furiously bombed Chinese cities and advanced with their better-equipped army. Despite enduring heavy losses, the Chinese regrouped in the interior of their vast land and mounted an entrenched resistance.

Reports of the "rape of Nanking," the sacking of the Chinese capital reached the American mainland in the summer of 1937. The brutalities prompted President Roosevelt to abandon cooperation with Congressional isolationists to pursue a more forceful approach against the Japanese.

In October 1937, he delivered his famous Quarantine Speech in Chicago. For the first time, Roosevelt advocated collective action to stop the epidemic aggression. But his hopes of igniting American sensibilities failed. Even when a Japanese plane bombed the USS Panay on December 12, there was no cry for a response. The Panay had been stationed in China on the Yangtze River. Japan apologized and paid an indemnity and the incident was soon forgotten, despite the loss of three American lives. Compared to the public response to the sinking of the Maine in 1898, the American people hardly mustered a whisper.

Emboldened by western inaction, Hitler's troops marched into Austria in 1938 and annexed the country. Then Hitler set his eyes upon the Sudetenland, a region in western Czechoslovakia inhabited by 3.5 million Germans. In September the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy met in Munich attempting to diffuse a precarious situation.

Britain and France recognized Hitler's claim to the Sudetenland and Mussolini's conquest of Ethiopia in exchange for the promise of no future aggressions. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to Great Britain triumphantly proclaiming that he had achieved "peace in our time." It would be one of the most mocked statements of the 20th century.

European appeasement failed six months later, as Hitler mockingly marched his troops into the rest of Czechoslovakia.

In May 1939, Roosevelt urged Congressional leaders to repeal the arms embargo of the earlier Neutrality Acts. Senators from both parties refused the request. Another bombshell crossed the Atlantic on August 24. Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin agreed to put their mutual hatred aside. Germany and the Soviet Union signed a ten-year nonaggression pact. Hitler was now free to seize the territory Germany had lost to Poland as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. On September 1, 1939, Nazi troops crossed into Poland from the west.

Finally, on September 3, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. World War II had begun.

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The day after Franklin Roosevelt took the oath of office the Nazi Reichstag gave Adolf Hitler absolute control of Germany. Hitler had campaigned spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric and vowing to rebuild a strong Germany.

During the week prior to FDR's inauguration, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations for the condemnation of Japanese aggressions in China. Fascism and militarism were spreading across Europe and East Asia. Meanwhile Americans were not bracing themselves for the coming war; they were determined to avoid it at all costs.

The first act of European aggression was not committed by Nazi Germany. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini ordered the Italian army to invade Ethiopia in 1935. The League of Nations refused to act, despite the desperate pleas from Ethiopia's leader Haile Selassie.

The following year Hitler and Mussolini formed the Rome-Berlin Axis, an alliance so named because its leaders believed that the line that connected the two capitals would be the axis around which the entire world would revolve. Later in 1936, Hitler marched troops into the Rhineland of Germany, directly breaching the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed after World War I. A few months later, Fascist General Francisco Franco launched an attempt to overthrow the established Loyalist government of Spain. Franco received generous support from Hitler and Mussolini.

While Fascist aggressors were chalking up victories across Europe, America, Britain, and France sat on the sidelines. The desire to avoid repeating the mistakes of World War I was so strong, no government was willing to confront the dictators. Economic sanctions were unpopular during the height of the Great Depression. The Loyalists in Spain were already receiving aid from the Soviet Union; therefore, public opinion was against assisting Moscow in its "private" war against fascism. As the specter of dictatorship spread across Europe, the West feebly objected with light rebukes and economic penalties with no teeth.

The Neutrality Act of 1935 prohibited the shipping of arms to nations at war, including the victims of aggressions. This would reduce the possibility of maritime attacks on American vessels. A Senate Committee led by Gerald Nye had conducted extensive research on US activities prior to World War I concluded that trade and international finance had been the leading cause of American entry.

The Neutrality Act of 1936 renewed the law of the previous year with the additional restrictions — no loans could be made to belligerent nations. Nor were any Americans permitted to travel on the ships of nations at war. There would be no more Lusitania incidents.

A Neutrality Act of 1937 limited the trade of even non-munitions to belligerent nations to a "cash and carry basis." This meant that the nation in question would have to use its ships to transport goods to avoid American entanglements on the high seas. Isolationists in Congress felt reasonably confident that these measures would keep the United States out of another war.

But as the decade passed, President Roosevelt was growing increasingly skeptical.

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"Leave me alone," seemed to be America's attitude toward the rest of the world in the 1930s.

At the dawn of the '30s, foreign policy was not a burning issue for the average American. The stock market had just crashed and each passing month brought greater and greater hardships. American involvement with Europe had brought war in 1917 and unpaid debt throughout the 1920s. Having grown weary with the course of world events, citizens were convinced the most important issues to be tackled were domestic. Foreign policy leaders of the 1930s once again led the country down its well-traveled path of isolationism.

The Hoover Administration set the tone for an isolationist foreign policy with the Hawley-Smoot Tariff. Trade often dominated international relations and the protective wall of the tariff left little to discuss. The Far East became an area of concern when the Japanese government ordered an attack on Chinese Manchuria. This invasion was a clear violation of the Nine Power Treaty, which prohibited nations from carving a special sphere of influence in China.

The Hoover Administration knew that any harsh action against Japan would be unpopular in the midst of the Great Depression. The official American response was the Stimson Doctrine, which refused to recognize any territory illegally occupied by Japan. As meek as this may sound, it went further toward condemning Japan than the government of Great Britain was willing to do.

One possibility for international economic cooperation failed at the London Conference of 1933. Leaders of European nations hoped to increase trade and stabilize international currencies. Roosevelt sent a "bombshell message" to the conference refusing any attempt to tie the American dollar to a gold standard. The conference dissolved with European delegates miffed at the lack of cooperation by the United States.

Roosevelt did realize that the Hawley-Smoot Tariff was forestalling American economic recovery. Toward this end, Congress did act to make United States trade policy more flexible. Under the Reciprocal Trade Agreement of 1934, Congress authorized the President to negotiate tariff rates with individual nations. Should a nation agree to reduce its barriers to trade with the United States, the President could reciprocate without the consent of Congress. In addition, FDR broke a 16-year-old diplomatic freeze with the Soviet Union by extending formal recognition. Roosevelt hoped to settle some nettlesome outstanding issues with the Soviets, and at the same time stimulate bilateral trade.

Isolationists did not however designate the Western Hemisphere as a dangerous region. On the contrary, as tensions grew in Europe and Asia, a strong sense of Pan-Americanism swept the diplomatic circles. In the face of overseas adversity, strong hemispheric solidarity was attractive. To foster better relations with the nations to the south, Roosevelt declared a bold new Good Neighbor Policy. Marines stationed in Central America and the Caribbean were withdrawn. The (Theodore) Roosevelt Corollary, which proclaimed the right of the United States to intervene in Latin American affairs was renounced.

The United States would soon been intervening in something much bigger.

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Storm clouds were darkening around the world. While Americans struggled to make ends meet during the Great Depression, fascism swept Italy and Germany. Elsewhere, militarists consolidated their hold on the Japanese government. Soon fears of fascist domination were realized as nations fell, hapless victims to new aggressive leaders. Remembering the scars caused by World War I, Americans hoped against hope to remain aloof from the increasingly dangerous world.

Japan struck first, plunging into Chinese Manchuria. Next Italy struck at Ethiopia. Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, was the greatest fear. The industrial potential of Germany was awesome, and the power of the German army to inflict great damage was all too fresh in the minds of Europeans and Americans alike. Like dominoes, the nations surrounding Germany began to fall. First Austria was annexed, then Czechoslovakia. As Hitler set his sights on Poland, the world braced itself for another great conflict.

Meanwhile, Americans clung to their time-tested philosophy of isolationism. A series of Neutrality Acts sought to avoid the entrapments that plunged the nation into World War I. Poll after poll showed an unwillingness to become diplomatically involved in international disputes. Isolationist clubs spread across the land.

Yet when Great Britain became the last bastion of freedom standing against a Nazi-controlled Europe, Americans reluctantly began to act. Led by President Roosevelt, the United States used its industrial might to become the arsenal of democracy for the Allied war effort.

In the end, it was Japan who provoked the United States into war. The United States was the only nation standing against Japanese domination of the entire Pacific Rim. When economic sanctions against Japan produced a diplomatic stalemate, Japan launched a ruthless surprise attack against American naval bases at Pearl Harbor. Faced with an assault on its own forces, the United States finally entered the Second World War.

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How effective was the New Deal at addressing the problems of the Great Depression?

No evaluation of the New Deal is complete without an analysis of Roosevelt himself. As a leader, his skills were unparalleled. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and FDR responded with a bold program of experimentation that arguably saved the capitalist system and perhaps the American democracy. As sweeping as his objectives were, they still fundamentally preserved the free-market economy. There was no nationalization of industry, and the social safety net created by Social Security paled by European standards.

Observers noted that his plan went far enough to silence the "lunatic fringe," but not far enough to jeopardize capitalism or democracy. FDR's confidence was contagious as millions turned to him for guidance during their darkest hours. His mastery of the radio paved the way for the media-driven 20th-century Presidency. His critics charged that he abused his power and set the trend for an imperial Presidency that would ultimately endanger the office in future decades.

The New Deal itself created millions of jobs and sponsored public works projects that reached most every county in the nation. Federal protection of bank deposits ended the dangerous trend of bank runs. Abuse of the stock market was more clearly defined and monitored to prevent collapses in the future. The Social Security system was modified and expanded to remain one of the most popular government programs for the remainder of the century. For the first time in peacetime history the federal government assumed responsibility for managing the economy. The legacy of social welfare programs for the destitute and underprivileged would ring through the remainder of the 1900s.

Laborers benefited from protections as witnessed by the emergence of a new powerful union, the Congress of Industrial Organizations. African Americans and women received limited advances by the legislative programs, but FDR was not fully committed to either civil or women's rights. All over Europe, fascist governments were on the rise, but Roosevelt steered America along a safe path when economic spirits were at an all-time low.

However comprehensive the New Deal seemed, it failed to achieve its main goal: ending the Depression. In 1939, the unemployment rate was still 19 percent, and not until 1943 did it reach its pre-Depression levels. The massive spending brought by the American entry to the Second World War ultimately cured the nation's economic woes.

Conservatives bemoaned a bloated bureaucracy that was nearly a million workers strong, up from just over 600,000 in 1932. They complained that Roosevelt more than doubled the national debt in two short terms, a good deal of which had been lost through waste. Liberals pointed out that the gap between rich and poor was barely dented by the end of the decade. Regardless of its shortcomings, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal helped America muddle through the dark times strong enough to tackle the even greater task that lay ahead.

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FDR was a President, not a king. His goals were ambitious and extensive, and while he had many supporters, his enemies were legion. Liberals and radicals attacked from the left for not providing enough relief and for maintaining the fundamental aspects of capitalism. Conservatives claimed his policies were socialism in disguise, and that an interfering activist government was destroying a proud history of self-reliance.

Despite big numbers at the ballot booth, Roosevelt needed to temper his objectives with the spirit of compromise and hope that his plans were popular enough to weather criticism. Friends and enemies alike had to admit that FDR was a political genius.

One major threat to FDR came from Father Charles E. Coughlin, a radio priest from Detroit. Originally a supporter of the New Deal, Coughlin turned against Roosevelt when he refused to nationalize the banking system and provide for the free coinage of silver. As the decade progressed, Coughlin turned openly anti-Semitic, blaming the Great Depression on an international conspiracy of Jewish bankers. Coughlin formed the National Union for Social Justice and reached a weekly audience of 40 million radio listeners.

Another reformer who felt the New Deal had not gone far enough was Francis Townsend, a doctor from Long Beach, California. Townsend proposed the Old Age Revolving Pension. This plan called for every American over the age of sixty to retire to open up jobs for the younger unemployed. The retirees would receive a monthly check for $200, a considerable income during the Depression. There was one catch. The recipients had to agree to spend the entire sum within a month. Townsend argued that this plan would ignite the economy, as well as provide for a proper pension for those who had worked so hard for so long.

The person considered the greatest threat to Roosevelt politically was Huey "the Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Long was a rollicking country lawyer who became governor of Louisiana in 1928. As governor, Long used strong-arm tactics to intimidate the legislature into providing roads and bridges to the poorest parts of the state. He emerged onto the national scene with his election to the United States Senate in 1930. In 1934, he started a movement called "Share Our Wealth." With the motto "Every Man a King," Long proposed a 100% tax on personal fortunes exceeding a million dollars. The elderly would receive pensions. The poorest Americans were promised an estate worth no less than $5000, with a $2500 yearly minimum income guaranteed. Democrats worried that a Long bid for the Presidency might steal votes from FDR in 1936, but an assassin's bullet ended the Kingfish's life in 1935.

Despite his reelection landslide, Roosevelt's mainstream opponents gained steam in the latter part of the decade. Frustrated by a conservative Supreme Court overturning New Deal initiatives, FDR hatched a "court packing" scheme. He proposed that when a federal judge reached the age of seventy and failed to retire, the President could add an additional justice to the bench. This thinly veiled scheme would immediately enable him to appoint six justices to the high court.

Conservative Democrats and Republicans charged FDR with abuse of power and failed to support the plan. During the 1938 Congressional elections, Roosevelt campaigned vigorously against anti-New deal Democrats. In nearly every case, the conservatives won. This coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans dominated the Congress until the 1960s and effectively ended the reform spirit of the New Deal.

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The New Deal was clearly the most ambitious legislative program ever attempted by Congress and an American President.

Progressive politicians saw their wildest dreams come alive. The Great Depression created an environment where the federal government accepted responsibility for curing a wide array of society's ills previously left to individuals, states, and local governments. This amount of regulation and involvement requires a vast upgrading of the government bureaucracy. An armada of government bureaus and regulatory agencies was erected to service the programs of the New Deal. Collectively, observers called them the "alphabet agencies."

While the CCC, CWA, and WPA were established to provide relief for the unemployed, the New Deal also provided a program intended to boost both industries and working Americans. The National Industrial Recovery Act contained legislation designed to spark business growth and to improve labor conditions. The National Recovery Administration attempted to create a managed economy by relieving businesses of antitrust laws to eliminate "wasteful competition." The NRA, like the AAA for farmers, attempted to create artificial scarcity with commodities. The hope was that higher prices would yield higher profits and higher wages leading to an economic recovery.

To avoid charges of socialism, the NRA allowed each industry to draw up a code setting production quotas, limiting hours of operation, or restricting construction of new factories. Once the President approved each code, pressure was put on each business to comply. A propaganda campaign reminiscent of World War I ensued. Firms that participated in the NRA displayed blue eagles reminding consumers of a company's apparent patriotism.

To enlist the support of labor unions, the NRA outlawed child labor, set maximum hours, and required a minimum wage. The greatest victory for labor unions was the guarantee of the right to collective bargaining, which led to a dramatic upsurge in union membership. Unfortunately, the NRA did little to improve the economy. The increase in prices actually caused a slight slowdown in the recovery. Workers complained that participating industries found loopholes to violate minimum wage and child labor obligations. When the Supreme Court finally declared the NRA unconstitutional in 1936, many had taken to calling it the "National Run Around."

The government blazed other new trails by creating the Tennessee Valley Authority in May 1933. The geography of the Tennessee River Valley had long been a problem for its residents. Centuries of resource exploitation contributed to soil erosion and massive, unpredictable floods that left parts of seven states impoverished and underutilized.

Funds were authorized to construct 20 new dams and to teach residents better soil management. The hydroelectric power generated by the TVA was sold to the public at low prices, prompting complaints from private power companies that the government was presenting unfair competition. Soon flood control ceased to be a problem and FDR considered other regional projects.

There seemed to be no end to the alphabet soup. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was created to serve as a watchdog on the stock market. The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) provided low interest loans for new home construction. The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) allowed homeowners to refinance mortgages to prevent foreclosure or to make home improvements. The United States Housing Authority (USHA) initiated the idea of government-owned low-income housing projects. The Public Works Administration (PWA) created thousands of jobs by authorizing the building of roads, bridges, and dams. The National Youth Administration (NYA) provided college students with work-study jobs. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was designed to protect the right of collective bargaining and to serve as a liaison between deadlock industrial and labor organizations.

Critics bemoaned the huge costs and rising national debt and spoon-feeding Americans. Regardless, many of the programs found in FDR's "alphabet soup" exist to this day.

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Pensions for the retired or the notion of Social Security was not always the domain of the federal government. Individuals were expected to save a little of each paycheck for the day they would at last retire. Those who were aggressive enough to negotiate a pension plan with an employer were few indeed. The majority of working Americans, however, lived check to check, with little or nothing extra to be saved for the future. Many became a drag on the rest of the family upon retirement. The Social Security Act of 1935 aimed to improve this predicament.

Many nations in Europe had already experimented with pension plans. Britain and Germany had found exceptional success. The American plan was a bit different in its design. Social Security was described as a "contract between generations." The current generation of workers would pay into a fund while the retirees would take in a monthly stipend. Upon reaching the age of 65, individuals would start receiving payments based upon the amount contributed over the years.

Employees would have one percent of their incomes automatically deducted from their paychecks, a rate that was originally envisioned to reach 3%. Employers would also contribute for their employees. The plan was mandatory except for individuals in exempted professions. Roosevelt knew that this reform would be permanent. He guessed that once workers had paid into a system for decades, they would expect to receive their checks. Woe to the politician who tried to end the system once it was in place.

A committee of staffers led by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first female ever to hold a Cabinet position, penned the Social Security Act. In addition to providing old- age pensions, the legislation created a safety net for other Americans in distress. Unemployment insurance was part of the plan, to be funded by employers. The federal government also offered to match state funds for the blind and for job training for the physically disabled. Unmarried women with dependent children also received funds under the Social Security Act.

Roosevelt and his advisers knew that the Social Security Act was not perfect. Like other experiments, he hoped the law would set the groundwork for a system that could be refined over time. Social Security differed from European plans in that it made no effort to provide universal health insurance. The pensions that retirees received were extremely modest — below poverty level standards in most cases. Still, Roosevelt knew the plan was revolutionary. For the first time, the federal government accepted permanent responsibility for assisting people in need. It paved the way for future legislation that would redefine the relationship between the American people and their government.

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Farmers faced tough times. While most Americans enjoyed relative prosperity for most of the 1920s, the Great Depression for the American farmer really began after World War I. Much of the Roaring '20s was a continual cycle of debt for the American farmer, stemming from falling farm prices and the need to purchase expensive machinery. When the stock market crashed in 1929 sending prices in an even more downward cycle, many American farmers wondered if their hardscrabble lives would ever improve.

The first major New Deal initiative aimed to help farmers attempted to raise farm prices to a level equitable to the years 1909-14. Toward this end, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration was created. One method of driving up prices of a commodity is to create artificial scarcity. Simply put, if farmers produced less, the prices of their crops and livestock would increase.

The AAA identified seven basic farm products: wheat, cotton, corn, tobacco, rice, hogs, and milk. Farmers who produced these goods would be paid by the AAA to reduce the amount of acres in cultivation or the amount of livestock raised. In other words, farmers were paid to farm less!

The press and the public immediately cried foul. To meet the demands set by the AAA, farmers plowed under millions of acres of already planted crops. Six million young pigs were slaughtered to meet the subsidy guidelines. In a time when many were out of work and tens of thousands starved, this wasteful carnage was considered blasphemous and downright wrong.

But farm income did increase under the AAA. Cotton, wheat, and corn prices doubled in three years. Despite having misgivings about receiving government subsidies, farmers overwhelmingly approved of the program. Unfortunately, the bounty did not trickle down to the lowest economic levels. Tenant farmers and sharecroppers did not receive government aid; the subsidy went to the landlord. The owners often bought better machinery with the money, which further reduced the need for farm labor. In fact, the Great Depression and the AAA brought a virtual end to the practice of sharecropping in America.

The Supreme Court put an end to the AAA in 1936 by declaring it unconstitutional. At this time the Roosevelt administration decided to repackage the agricultural subsidies as incentives to save the environment. After years and years of plowing and planting, much of the soil of the Great Plains and become depleted and weak. Great winds blew clouds of dust that fell like brown snow to cover homes across the region as residents of the "Dust Bowl" moved west in search of better times.

The Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act paid farmers to plant clover and alfalfa instead of wheat and corn. These crops return nutrients to the soil. At the same time, the government achieved its goal of reducing crop acreage of the key commodities.

Another major problem faced by American farmers was mortgage foreclosure. Unable to make the monthly payments, many farmers were losing their property to their banks. Across the Corn Belt of the Midwest, the situation grew desperate. Farmers pooled resources to bail out needy friends. Minnesota and North Dakota passed laws restricting farm foreclosures. Vigilante groups formed to intimidate bill collectors. In Le Mars, Iowa, an angry mob beat a foreclosing judge to the brink of death in April 1933.

FDR intended to stop the madness. The Farm Credit Act, passed in March 1933 refinanced many mortgages in danger of going unpaid. The Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act allowed any farmer to buy back a lost farm at a law price over six years at only one percent interest. Despite being declared unconstitutional, most of the provisions of Frazier-Lemke were retained in subsequent legislation.

In 1933 only about one out of every ten American farms was powered by electricity. The Rural Electrification Authority addressed this pressing problem. The government embarked on a mission of getting electricity to the nation's farms. Faced with government competition, private utility companies sprang into action and by sending power lines to rural areas with a speed previously unknown. By 1950, nine out of every ten farms enjoyed the benefits of electric power.