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Cold War liberal is a term that was used in the United States during theCold War, which began after the end ofWorld War II.[1] The term was used to describe liberal politicians and labor union leaders who supported democracy and equality. They supported the growth oflabor unions, thecivil rights movement, and thewar on poverty and simultaneously opposingtotalitarianism commonly seen underCommunist rule at the time. Cold War liberals supported efforts ofcontainment, such as diplomatGeorge F. Kennan and U.S. presidentHarry S. Truman during the post-World War II era, towardsSoviet Communism.
Modern American liberalism of theCold War era was the immediate heir toFranklin D. Roosevelt'sNew Deal and the slightly more distant heir to theProgressive Era of the early 20th century.[2]Sol Stern wrote that "Cold War liberalism deserves credit for the greatest American achievement sinceWorld War II—winning the Cold War."[3] The essential tenets of Cold War liberalism can be found in Roosevelt'sFour Freedoms (1941); of these,freedom of speech andfreedom of religion wereclassic American liberal freedoms, as was freedom from fear (freedom from tyrannical government), but freedom from want was another matter. Roosevelt proposed a notion of freedom that went beyond government non-interference in private lives. Freedom from want could justify positive government action to meet economic needs, a concept more associated with the concepts ofAbraham Lincoln'sRepublican Party,Henry Clay'sWhig Party, andAlexander Hamilton's economic principles of government intervention and subsidy than the more radicalsocialism andsocial democracy of European thinkers, or with prior versions ofclassical radicalism andclassical liberalism as represented byThomas Jefferson'sDemocratic-Republican Party andAndrew Jackson'sDemocratic Party.
In the 1950s and the 1960s, both majorAmerican political parties included liberal and conservative factions. The Democratic Party had two wings: Northern and Western liberals opposed the generally-conservative Southern whites. Difficult to classify were the northern urban Democraticpolitical machines. They had supported New Deal economic policies but would slowly come apart over racial issues. Some historians have divided the Republican Party into the liberalWall Street and the conservativeMain Street factions; others have said that the party's conservatives came from landlocked states (Robert A. Taft of Ohio andBarry Goldwater of Arizona) and the liberals tended to come from California (Earl Warren andPete McCloskey), New York (Nelson Rockefeller), and other coastal states.
Opposing both Soviet Communism andconservatism, Cold War liberalism resembled earlierliberalisms in its views on many social issues and personal liberty but its economic views were not those offree-market Jeffersonian liberalism or those of European social democrats. Although they never endorsedstate socialism, they called for spending on education, science, and infrastructure, notably the expansion ofNASA and the construction of theInterstate Highway System. Theirprogressivist ideas continued the legacy of Lincoln,Woodrow Wilson,Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Most prominent and constant among the positions of Cold War liberalism were support for a domestic economy built on a balance of power between labor (in the form of organizedtrade unions) and management (with a tendency to be more interested in large corporations than insmall business); a foreign policy focused on containing theEastern Bloc, which according to some was one factor leading to thedissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991; the continuation and expansion of New Deal social welfare programs (in the broad sense of welfare, including programs likeSocial Security); and an embrace ofKeynesian economics. By way of compromise with political groupings to their right, this often became in practicemilitary Keynesianism.
At first, liberals generally did not see Franklin D. Roosevelt's successorHarry S. Truman as one of their own and viewed him as a Democratic Party hack. Other liberal politicians and liberal organizations, such as theAmericans for Democratic Action (ADA), sided with Truman in opposing Communism both at home and abroad, sometimes by sacrificingcivil liberties.[4] At the same time, the ADA succeeded in pushing Truman leftward on issues like thecivil rights movement.[5]Hubert Humphrey was a liberal leader who fought to uphold Truman's veto of theMcCarran Act of 1950.[6] Liberals were united in their opposition toMcCarthyism.[7] Truman would callJoseph McCarthy "the greatest asset theKremlin has" by "torpedo[ing] the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States."[8][9] TheTruman Doctrine was an American foreign policy with the primary goal of containingSoviet expansion during the Cold War.[10]
Some notable pioneers of Cold War liberalism includedHarry S. Truman,John F. Kennedy, andLyndon B. Johnson. World War II ended under Truman, while Johnson succeeded to the presidency after the assassination of Kennedy.[11] Johnson was greatly supported by the Democratic Party, and as president he was responsible for designing theGreat Society legislation for civil rights,public broadcasting,Medicare,Medicaid,environmental protection, aid to education (Elementary and Secondary Education Act), and hiswar on poverty. Johnson was renowned for his domineering personality and the Johnson treatment, his coercion of powerful politicians in order to advance legislation. All of his accomplishments were influenced by the idea of Cold War liberalism. which was according to most implemented by Kennedy.[12]
Henry M. Jackson, first a representative and then senator from Washington state, is widely recognized as a Cold War liberal. A Democrat, his political beliefs were characterized by support of civil rights, human rights, and safeguarding the environment; he had an equally-strong commitment to oppose totalitarianism in general, particularly Soviet Communism. Jackson and his legacy are acknowledged as having significant influence onneoconservatism.[13]Zbigniew Brzezinski,Jimmy Carter'sNational Security Adviser, was a liberal Democrat and a committedanti-communist, favoring social justice while seeing world events in substantially Cold War terms.[14] According toForeign Policy, "Brzezinski’s outlook was anti-Soviet, but he also insisted, likeGeorge Kennan before him, on the necessity of cultivating a strong West."[15]
John F. Kennedy is regarded by some as one of the key players that revived liberalism and was the most influential liberal of the time. During his campaign, Kennedy took the liberal approach by promising voters to revive liberalism, which had withered underDwight D. Eisenhower, with a new set of reforms collectively called theNew Frontier.[16] Kennedy wanted to expand Social Security to benefit more Americans, help the elderly pay their medical costs, fund educational endeavors, raise the national minimum wage, and reduce income inequality. In his famous inaugural address, Kennedy appealed to American youth by instructing them to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country". He later launched thePeace Corps to support this effort, encouraging young Americans to assist people in developing countries. He also responded to national fears and pressures regarding theSpace Race against the Soviet Union by challenging Americans to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His enthusiasm spread across the country. He sought to reform economic issues along with issues of the humanities, which is what paved the way for the future of liberalism.[17] To improve relations with Latin America and guard against pro-Soviet regimes, Kennedy supported theAlliance for Progress, which over ten years provided billions of dollars in foreign aid to Latin American countries, encouraging economic cooperation, and aiming to reduceeconomic inequality in those countries through land reform. The alliance succeeded in some of its goals but faced limitations in its political goals.[18][19]
In the 1970s,Richard Nixon,Gerald Ford, andJimmy Carter pursued a relative reduction of Cold War tensions throughlinkage policy andtriangular diplomacy, while continuing to pressure the Soviet Union in key areas. TheCarter Doctrine, which sought to oppose Soviet expansion toward the Persian Gulf, was expanded and altered by theReagan Doctrine.[20] As the United States president in the 1980s,Ronald Reagan believed that the United States should combat Communism more directly. He regarded the previousdetentes, or the easing of strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, a sign of vulnerability.[21] In 1991, two years after Reagan left office, the Cold War ended. His policies of preserving peace through strength and promoting advancement of democracy around the world had gained him significant foreign policy credibility.[22] TheAmerican conservative Reagan supportedliberal democracy as a system compared to the authoritarian Soviet system, and his policies supported a grand strategy consistent with pressuring the Soviet Union.[23]
