Essay Questions for Thinking through Sources 24

Assess Change Over Time: What do these five documents suggest about how the Truman administration’s ideas about and approaches to containment evolved between 1949 and 1951? What did the administration’s vision of containment look like in 1949, and how did developments in Asia before and during the Korean War influence understandings of communism, diplomacy, and military engagement and each one’s place in the Cold War?

Place Sources in Context: Each of these five sources was created by a particular individual for a particular purpose with a particular audience in mind. How was each one shaped by the political, occupational, and geographical circumstances of the author?

Consider Communism: Each of these documents sheds light on questions about communism. Some reveal information about how Americans perceived Communists and communism, while others shed light on Communists’ ideas and actions and the ways communism varied geographically. What does this group of documents suggest about the realities of communism during the 1950s and the degree to which Americans understood Communists and the threat they posed to the world?

Assess Points of View: These sources document the evolution of the Cold War in Asia in the late 1940s and early 1950s and highlight the emergence of policy disputes between Truman and MacArthur over how to approach the Korean War. What was Truman’s approach to containment in Asia, and how did it differ from MacArthur’s approach? From our current vantage point in the post–Cold War world, knowing what we know about the Korean War and the Vietnam War, how do you evaluate both Truman’s and MacArthur’s strategies? Which one do you think was the right strategy to pursue, and how might the world be different today if Truman had gone along with MacArthur’s recommendations?