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Cold War
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Conferences Near the End of World War II
a. Yalta (Feb. 1945) – Divide Germany (and Berlin) into 4 zones and Soviet
Union promised free elections in their territories
b. Potsdam (July 1945) – Truman has succeeded Roosevelt and has Atomic
Bomb (his big secret); Russia promises to help fight Japan if they don’t
surrender by Aug. 6, 1945 (the reason why the US drops the bomb on
Aug. 6th is because they don’t want the Soviet’s help)
United Nations (UN)
a. Peace keeping organization for all countries of the world
b. Successful because US joins and because it has a military element
Nuremberg Trials
a. War crimes trials conducted by the UN for atrocities of war (mostly
against Nazi leaders)
b. Other countries also hold their own war crimes trials
“Iron Curtain”
a. Division of Europe into Soviet controlled communist Eastern Europe and
non-Communist Western Europe
Germany
Soviets spread communism in Eastern Europe
Truman Doctrine
a. CONTAINment – goal was to stop the spread of communism by offering
protection and support to any nations threatened by communism (first used
in Greece)
Marshall Plan
a. Economic aid to help European countries rebuild after World War II –
focused on democratic nations
b. Soviet Union prohibited Eastern European nations from participating and
created their own aid program COMECON (also known as communform)
Berlin Airlift (1948-1949)
a. Allied efforts beat the Soviet’s attempts to blockade the city of Berlin by
flying in supplies and fuel
b. 32 planes were in the air at all times with a plane taking off and landing
every 90 seconds from Berlin’s airports
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NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) 1949
a. A military alliance of Western European powers and the United States
agreed that an attack on one would be an attack on all
Warsaw Pact (1955)
a. A military alliance of Eastern European states and the Soviet Union
created to rival NATO and to strengthen the Soviets control over Eastern
Europe
Soviets Develop the Atomic Bomb (1949)
a. Through the leaking of secrets by American scientists concerned about
only one nation having a nuclear weapon, the USSR developed and tested
it’s own nuclear weapon eliminating the United State’s major advantage
“Red Scare” (1950)
a. Joseph McCarthy, a senator from Wisconsin, accused 205 Dept. of State
members of being communist and led a crusade to rid the US of
communism
b. Many innocent people were put on trial and accused of being communist
Cuban Revolution (1959)
a. Fidel Castro and his rebel supporters overthrew Batista and seized control
of the country
b. Che Guevara was Castro’s right hand man who led his military forces
Bay of Pigs (1961)
a. The United States responded with an embargo on Cuba and a US planned
attempt to overthrow Castro known as the Bay of Pigs
i. US supplied a group of Cuban exiles, but the mission was a failure
when the US did not provide the promised military support to the
exiles
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
a. Castro gave permission and worked with the Soviet Union to install
nuclear missile installations in Cuba
b. US President Kennedy demanded that these installations be removed or it
would be seen as an attack on the United States and that the US would
respond with nuclear force
c. Soviet Union backs down and removed the installations
Berlin Wall (1961)
a. East Germans create a wall dividing East and West Berlin to keep East
Germans from fleeing to the West
Vietnam War (1963-1975)
a. See China, Korea and Vietnam War PowerPoint
Prague Spring (1968)
a. Uprising in Czechoslovakia overthrew current communist leader and
replaced him with a more liberal communist leader who began to make
changes to economic and social policies
b. Quickly crushed by the Soviets who sent in troops and retook control of
the government
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Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)
a. Idea that if one country was to launch a nuclear attack, the other country
would respond eventually leading to the destruction of the planet
b. This was replaced by the idea of Gradual Response – slowly escalating
military responses and turning to nuclear use only as a last resort
XXI. Nuclear Triad
a. Planes
b. Missiles
c. Submarines
XXII. SALT Talks (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) (1970s)
a. Meetings that led to the cutback in production and overall numbers of
nuclear weapons by both the United States and the Soviet Union
XXIII. Proxy Wars
a. The United States and the Soviet Union cannot fight directly because of
the nuclear threat
b. Instead they fight through other countries by supplying troops and arms to
the side that most resembles their own
i. Vietnam – Soviets support communist N. Vietnam; US supports
democratic S. Vietnam
ii. Angola
XXIV. End of the Cold War
a. Reagan and Gorbachev were the two most influential people in bringing
an end to the Cold War
i. Reagan began to re-arm the United States (star wars, etc.)
ii. Soviet Union’s economy was in shambles and they could not
compete
iii. Gorbachev introduced two new Soviet policies
1. Perestroika – Economic changes
2. Glastnost – Expanded individual and personal freedoms
b. Eastern European nations began to break away from communism and
become more democratic during the 1980s
i. Some places it was a peaceful transition, some places it was violent
c. Fall of the Berlin Wall (1989)
i. Was the symbolic end of the Cold War