Early Cold War: Containment under Truman & Eisenhower

The through-line

Containment abroad and fear at home were the same story — and Guatemala is where a teacher can show it.

Content overview

The Americas were profoundly affected by the Cold War and it affected the domestic and foreign policies of all countries in this region. This unit overlaps with the Cold War Topic on Paper 2: Topic 12 The Cold War: Superpower tensions and rivalries and the case study of Vietnam as part of the Wars Topic 11 on Paper 2: Case Study: The Vietnam War (ATL).

How to use the lesson pages

• Sixteen lessons from fourteen day labels. The source's numbering is broken, so the pages are renumbered contiguously. Lessons 1 and 2 are its Day 0, which the page itself splits across two class periods (the second headed "DAY 0 – CLASS 2"); Lesson 3 is Day 1; Lesson 4 is Day 2; Lesson 5 is its "Day 2.5 (B)" half day; Lessons 6 and 7 are Days 3 and 4; Lesson 8 is Day 6 — the source has no Day 5 at all; Lessons 9 and 10 are Days 7 and 8; Lesson 11 is the first of its two "Day 9" entries ("Eisenhower, Part IV") and Lesson 12 is the second ("Eisenhower --> Guatemalan Coup"); and Lessons 13–16 are Days 10–13. Every page names its own source day label.
• Each lesson offers a 90-minute block and a short period, matching the course's A/B block schedule. Only the block is timed.
• Only Lessons 1 and 2 carry real timings. The Day 0 current-events activity states them per phase (5 minutes, 40–45, 30–35, 15–20) and those are used as given. Every other lesson's minutes are estimates, and each of those pages says so.
• The unit opens on a current event, not on history. Lessons 1 and 2 are a three-phase research, debate and reflection activity on US intervention in Venezuela, used as an on-ramp to Cold War interventions and bridged explicitly to Guatemala 1954, Cuba 1961, Chile 1973. It will date — the debate prompt names the capture and removal of Venezuela's president — so check it still reads as current before teaching it. It also carries the source's own guardrail, that students may be assigned positions they do not personally hold and the goal is defensible argumentation.
• The Guatemala coup is dated inconsistently, and this matters. Lesson 12's objective and its assignment title both say the intervention was 1957; Lessons 13, 14, 15 and 16 say 1954. Lesson 13 contradicts itself inside a single day — its essential question says 1954 while the assignment immediately below is titled "Guatemalan Coup of 1957". Every page keeps whatever its own day says and flags the clash; none of them silently picks a year. The coup was 1954, so the 1957 labels are the ones to fix, including inside the linked assignment document.
• Dates on the page are unreliable and none are printed on the lesson pages. Only three days carry one (2/16/26, 2/19/26, 3.2.26), and homework due dates stamped 2/16/24, 1/6/23 and 2/8/23 sit right beside them. Check the calendar rather than the page.
• Two objectives break off mid-sentence. Lessons 13 and 14 both end "...specifically the US intervention in Guatemala in" with no year. Kept truncated.
• Several days carry a header block that does not match what they teach. Lessons 4, 6, 7 and 8 still say "Day 2" or "Truman, Pt. I"; Lesson 5 asks a key question about Canada after WWII on a McCarthyism day; Lesson 10's objective is about Truman on a Korea-and-Eisenhower day. These read as carryover from copying the previous day's plan. Each page keeps its own version and flags the mismatch.
• Three things the source leaves empty stay empty: a "Reading = _______________" blank on Lesson 13, and a bare "- Closer" with nothing under it on Lessons 15 and 16. Two "Assignment: TBD" items and an "Open Note?" question about a quiz are also left unresolved.
• Resources repeat heavily across consecutive days. The Truman presentation, the Red Scare CNN episode, the "Promoted/Challenged: McCarthyism" activity, the OPVL forms and the umbc.edu Guatemalan Coup history-lab resources each appear on three or four lessons in a row. Each page lists what its own day named and notes the carryover.
• Lesson 15 is the strongest lesson in the unit and worth protecting. It is the second day of the Guatemalan Coup History Lab: seven sources analysed in groups, then a physical continuum on the board with "Bananas" at one end and "Containment" at the other, students placing sticky notes by their evidence. It is the payoff of the question posed across Lessons 13 and 14.
• Lesson 13 is overloaded. The source packs nine items into one meeting; the estimates fit 90 minutes only on paper. Expect to carry work into the next class, which is what the source does.
• No standards codes. This is an IB course; the page carries none, and the NC codes used elsewhere in this repo do not apply.