Comparative Questions

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

Document Links

Document 26-1: General Marshall Summarizes the Lessons of World War II

Document 26-2: George F. Kennan Outlines Containment

Document 26-3: Cold War Blueprint

Document 26-4: Senator Joseph McCarthy Hunts Communists

Document 26-5: A Veteran Recalls Combat in the Korean War

  1. How did George F. Kennan's views of Communists differ from those in NSC-68? How did they compare to Joseph R. McCarthy's? How did Kennan's views of the internal dangers of the Cold War differ from McCarthy's and those of NSC-68?
  2. To what degree was General Marshall's plan for military readiness consistent with Kennan's proposal for confronting the Soviet threat? Did Marshall perceive the Soviet Union as the major danger facing the United States, as Kennan and NSC-68 did?
  3. To what extent did Donald Griffith's experiences confirm McCarthy's, Kennan's, and NSC-68's views about the threat of communism?
  4. To what extent were the views of the individuals in these documents shaped by what they perceived as the lessons of World War II? What were those lessons, according to the documents in this chapter? Did the Cold War suggest new lessons?