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23-04-2015, 10:46

The emergence of an American grand strategy, 1945-1952

Memoirs, diaries, and printed letters vividly illustrate the thinking of US policymakers during the Truman era. See Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, 2 vols. (New York: Signet, 1955 and 1956); Robert H. Ferrell (ed.), Dear Bess: Letters from Harry to Bess Truman (New York: Norton, 1983); Dean G. Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department (New York: Norton, 1969); George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925-1950 (New York: Bantam, 1967); Joseph M. Jones, Fifteen Weeks (New York: Viking, 1955); Walter Millis (ed.), The Forrestal Diaries (New York: Viking, 1951); and Jean Edward Smith (ed.), The Papers of General Lucius D. Clay: Germany, 1945-1949, 2 vols. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1974).

There are very useful "official” histories of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. See, for example, Steven L. Rearden, History of the Office of the Secretary of Defense: The Formative Years, 1947-1950 (Washington, DC: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1984); and James F. Schnabel, The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy, 1945-1947 (Washington, DC: Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1996).

There are several excellent biographies of President Truman. For incisive criticism, see Arnold A. Offner, Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002); for an evocative and heroic portrait, see David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992); for a scholarly and thoughtful analysis, see Alonzo L. Hamby, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Truman relied heavily on his advisers and there are excellent biographies of the president's most important assistants. See especially Robert L. Beisner, Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Statesman, 1945-1959 (New York: Viking, 1987); Kai Bird, The Chairman. John J. McCloy: The Making of the American Establishment (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992); Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal (New York: Knopf, 1992); Robert L. Messer, The End of an Alliance: James F. Byrnes, Roosevelt, Truman, and the Origins of the Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982); David Allan Mayers, George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Lloyd C. Gardner, Architects of Illusion: Men and Ideas in American Foreign Policy, 1941-1949 (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1972); and Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986).

Among the most important analyses of US policy and the origins of the Cold War are: Gabriel Kolko and Joyce Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954 (New York: Harper, 1972); Thomas G. Paterson, Soviet-American Confrontation: Postwar Reconstruction and the Origins of the Cold War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973); John L. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972); Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992); Michael J. Hogan, A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 3-145; and John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal ofAmerican National Security Policy during the Cold War (rev. and expanded, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 3-124.

There are important books and articles on the atomic bomb and its impact on the diplomacy and strategy of the Truman administration. See, for example, Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (New York: Vintage, 1965); Martin J. Sherwin, A World Destroyed: The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance (New York: Vintage, 1977); David Alan Rosenberg, "American Atomic Strategy and the Hydrogen Bomb Decision," Journal of American History, 66 (June 1979), 62-87; Gregg Herken, The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War (New York: Knopf, 1980); Barton J. Bernstein, "Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender," Diplomatic History, 19 (Spring 1995), 227-73; J. Samuel Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use ofAtomic Bombs against Japan, rev. ed. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).

For excellent analyses of Truman's policies in different regions and countries, see Geir Lundestad, The American Non-Policy towards Eastern Europe, 1943-1947 (Tromso, Norway: Universitetsforlaget, 1978); Eduard Mark, "American Policy towards Eastern Europe and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1946: An Alternative Interpretation," Journal of American History, 68 (September 1981), 313-36; Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Carolyn Eisenberg, Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Bruce R. Kuniholm, The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980); Peter L. Hahn, The United States, Great Britain, and Egypt, 1945-1956: Strategy and Diplomacy in the Early Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991); Michael Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of the Cold War in Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Thomas J. Christensen, Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947-1958 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996); John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: Norton, 1999); and Mark A. Lawrence, Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).

For literature on the Korean War, see section 13 of this bibliographical essay; for literature on domestic political culture, see section 20.