Download - The Cold War
The Cold War
Allies Become Enemies• US and Soviet Union two powerful countries after
WWII, rest of Europe and world hurt by the war• Different economic and political ideas:
Democracy and capitalism versus communism• Potsdam conference– Truman, Stalin, Churchill
meet, divide Germany and Berlin into four zones
• Soviet Union creates satellite states in Eastern Europe which were controlled by Stalin and used communism
• Churchill calls it an “Iron Curtain”• US supports democratic governments in Western
Europe • Marshall Plan- US gives aid/$$ to countries, hope
they don’t fall to communism
• USSR cuts off supplies to Berlin, we drop in supplies w/planes– Berlin Airlift
• NATO– North Atlantic Treaty Org., US and W. Europe have each others backs
• Warsaw Pact– Soviet Union and E. Europe have each others backs
The Korean War• Korea taken over by Japan in WWII, USSR and
US divide it after, then pull out of countries• N and S both claim entire country– war breaks
out• N is supported by USSR, S by the US• Border is the 38th parallel
• Fighting goes back and forth, USSR, China, US, UN, N and S Koreans involved at one time or the other
• Eisenhower is elected– promises to get us out of Korea
• War ends with N and S separated with a DMZ (demilitarized zone) between them
Red Scare• Both countries stock pile and
develop hydrogen bombs/nuclear • Fallout shelters built, schools have
bomb drills• Communists become the evil in
America• People blacklisted as “commies”• Fingers are pointed at people
thought to be spies for the USSR• Senator Joseph McCarthy charges
people of being communists without proof-- McCarthyism
Cuba and Bay of Pigs• JFK is President, Soviet Union wants to put
nuke missiles in Cuba (Communist)• US blockades Cuba, very tense time in US• CIA tries to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel
Castro and form new gov.– Bay of Pigs– major failure and embarrassment
Berlin Wall and U2• Stalin dies, Khrushchev
takes over• Many East Berlin peeps
flooding to freedom in West Berlin
• Soviets construct concrete and barbed wire Berlin Wall with soldiers patrolling
• Around same time USSR shoots down a U2 spy plane
Vietnam War• US starts policy of Containment– don’t let
communism spread• N. Korea, China, fall to communism, worry
about a domino theory in SE Asia• Vietnam controlled by France, then Japan
takes over in WWII, after is divided up N (Comm) and S (dem)
• At first we send a few thousand troops to train S Vietnamese, slowly grows into the US fighting the N. Vietnamese
• Mainly fought in jungles, search and destroy missions, jungles, tunnels
• Many civilian causalities– makes the war unpopular here and with the Vietnamese N & S
• Becomes very bloody, hard to find a way out of the war without looking bad to the world/USSR
Anti-War Movement
• Baby boomers reach young adulthood• Generation gap– difference in values/beliefs between
adults and their kids• Hippies– reject material things, embrace
counterculture– freedom, nonviolence, drugs• Protests against Vietnam and in support of Civil Rights
• Kent State-- college students killed in protest against Vietnam
• Woodstock– music festival for peace
Space Race• USSR vs US to travel/explore space, saw
space as a weapon in cold war– satellites to spy, space missiles
• USSR launches Sputnik– first satellite to orbit Earth, first man to orbit
• JFK challenges the US to put a man on moon by end of the 60’s– Apollo Program program
Star Wars• 70’s and 80’s both sides develop new weapons• Want to develop high tech lasers, use
satellites, massive build up of nuclear weapons-- proliferation
End of the Cold War
• Berlin Wall is torn down in 1989– protestors from E. Berlin begin, W. follows– huge party
• Soviet Union begins to collapse:– Communism doesn’t work– Huge military, run out of $– Too many republics– War in Afghanistan