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