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The Cold War at
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18.3 and 18.4
Communists and Spies!!!
• After WWII, many Americans felt that
Communism was going to spread
throughout the US and they began
investigating Americans to see who these
subversive people were.
• The House Un-American Activities
Committee began investigating the movie
industry in 1947.
• The “Hollywood Ten” refused to testify
before Congress because they said it was
unconstitutional. 5th Amendment much??
• Hollywood created a “blacklist” which
banned 500 actors from ever working again.
• Alger Hiss – in 1948 a former Communist spy
named Whittaker Chambers accused Alger
Hiss of being a spy for the Soviet Union.
• The government was unable to charge Hiss
with espionage (spying), but instead
convicted him of perjury.
• Hiss never admitted guilt, but in the 1990s
Soviet documents indicated he was guilty.
The Rosenbergs…
•
The USSR exploded an atomic bomb in
1949, about 3-5 years early. In 1950 a
German-born physicist admitted giving the
USSR information about our bomb.
•
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were implicated
in this crime.
They were minor activists in the American
Community Party, they pleaded the 5th, and
denied the charges.
•
•
The judge said that they were guilty and
there crime was “worse than murder.”
•
Despite international protests, the
Rosenbergs were executed using the
electric chair for espionage—the first
civilians executed for such crime in the US.
McCarthyism –
Attacking the Unknown!
•
•
•
•
Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin,
claimed that Communists were taking over the
government.
He claimed to have the evidence in his hands, but never
proved anything he claimed.
McCarthy always made his accusations on the Senate
floor where he had immunity.
Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine,
finally spoke out against McCarthy:
(Don’t write the quote!)
“I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a US
Senator. I speak as an American… I am not proud of the way in
which the Senate has been made a publicity platform for
irresponsible sensationalism. I am not proud of the reckless
abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this
side of the aisle.” (Don’t write the quote!)
•
Mc Carthy finally accused the Army of being Communist.
He was reprimanded by the Senate and died three years
later of alcoholism.
Two Nations Live on the Edge
• The Hydrogen Bomb – On Nov 1, 1952 the US
tested the first H-Bomb. It was 67 times more
powerful than the bomb dropped on
Hiroshima. Just 10 months later the USSR
tested their own bomb.
• Brinkmanship – President Eisenhower
developed the plan that we would be
prepared to go to the edge of all-out war by
developing nuclear weapons and scaling back
the traditional navy and army.
• Schools did nuclear drills and Americans built
bomb shelters in case of nuclear attack. The
threat existed at any moment and lasted for
the next 30 years.
NATO vs. The Warsaw Pact
• The North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) was created as a mutual
defense organization after WWII for
Western Europe, the US, and Canada.
• In response the USSR formed the
Warsaw Pact with Eastern Europe.
• President Eisenhower issued the
Eisenhower Doctrine which stated the
US would block the spread of
Communism in the Middle East. This
was a warning to the USSR.
The Space Race and a U-2
•
After Stalin died, Nikita Krushchev became the leader of
the Soviet Union. He believed that Communism would
take over the world through scientific advancement.
•
In October 1957 the USSR launched Sputnik, the first
satellite to orbit the Earth. The Russians had beaten the
Americans!
•
Americans developed the U-2 spy plane to take high
altitude spy photos over the USSR. The flights were very
controversial.
•
In 1960, the last scheduled flight took place. The plane
was shot down by the Russians. Eisenhower was forced
to stop the flights, but he refused to apologize to
Krushchev.
•
The “U-2 Incident” caused a joint conference to be
cancelled and made the 1960s a very tense decade
between both the USA and the USSR.
•
Kennedy
and
Cuba
Fidel Castro was a communist revolutionary
leader of Cuba. He welcomed military aid from
the USSR. Two weeks before Kennedy took office,
Eisenhower cut off all relations with Cuba.
•
10% of the Cuban population fled in exile because
Castro was a tyrant.
•
Bay of Pigs –
Eisenhower gave permission for the CIA to train
Cuban exiles and to invade Cuba. Kennedy gave
permission for the plan, even though he wasn’t
sure it was a good idea.
•
On April 17, 1961 1,500 exiles with the US
military landed in the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The
plan was a disaster. The CIA reported the Air
Force had taken out the Cuban Air power, but
they had not.
•
The American forces were captured by 25,000
Cuban troops. This was a HUGE embarassment.
•
Kennedy had to pay Castro $35 Million in food
and medical supplies in order to get the release
of the surviving commandos.
•
The Cuban Missile Crisis –
On October 14, 1962 Kennedy learned that the
USSR had put nuclear weapons in Cuba that
were ready to launch and could hit US cities in
minutes.
•
On October 22 Kennedy informed the US that
he was going to blockade Cuba and prevent any
Russian weapons from reaching Cuba. He also
said that an attack on the US would trigger an
automatic attack on the USSR.
•
The crisis ended with the USSR turning their
boats around. The US promised not to invade
Cuba, and the USSR removed all missiles from
Cuba. The US removed missiles from Turkey.
•
Krushchev’s reputation was damaged and
Kennedy became a hero.
The Berlin Wall
•
Berlin was divided into East and West Berlin. From
1950 to 1961, 3 million East Germans fled into West
Germany to escape the Communist rule. This
weakened their economy and embarrassed the USSR.
•
Kennedy and Krushchev fought over the closing of
road and air access into West Berlin. After very tense
exchanges Kennedy won.
•
Krushchev kept access open to West Berlin for the
western countries, but he built the Berlin Wall which
divided Berlin in half.
•
This stopped the flow of refugees, but it also became
a symbol of communist oppression.
•
In 1987 President Reagan spoke at the wall
challenging the Soviet leader Gorbachev: “Mr.
Gorbachev, Tear down this wall!” It was done in 1989.
•
The wall officially was gone by 1990 when Germany
reunified.
In Summary…
• The Cold War Video.