The Cold War

United States vs. Soviet Union1945 - 1991

Intro• Started with bad feelings from WWII• U.S. was weary of communism and Stalin• Soviet Union blamed U.S. for late entry into

WWII, which cost millions of Soviet lives• Post war Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe

worried U.S. (USSR taking over the world)

Post War Europe• Europe is split into two• Soviet Union claimed majority of Eastern Europe• U.S. and NATO rebuilt countries of Western Europe• U.S begins to feel that Soviet Union may try to take

over world• President Harry Truman “It must be the policy of

the United States,” he declared before Congress in 1947, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures.”

The Cold War: The Atomic Age• Containment strategy provided rationale for U.S. to start

their arms buildup (1949)• U.S. officials encouraged building of the hydrogen bomb• Soviet Union soon built their own• The first H-bomb test, in the Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall

Islands, showed just how fearsome the nuclear age could be. It created a 25-square-mile fireball that vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the ocean floor and had the power to destroy half of Manhattan. Subsequent American and Soviet tests spewed poisonous radioactive waste into the atmosphere.

The Cold War Extends to Space• Space was the next challenge between the U.S. and

Soviet Union• The Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite,

Sputnik (1957)• 1958, U.S. launches its own satellite, Explorer 1• President Eisenhower signed order to create NASA

(National Aeronautics and Space Administration)• JFK made prediction that U.S. would be first on the

moon, and we were (Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, 1969)

The Cold War: The Red Scare• 1947, House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)• HUAC forced hundreds of Hollywood workers to testify against

each other• Senator Joseph McCarthy was leader in movement to reveal

supposed Communists• McCarthy accused and prosecuted federal employees of being

Communists• People all across U.S. were effected• Era becomes known as McCarthyism

The Cold War Abroad• First military action of “CW” was the Korean War• Soviet backed North Korea invaded South Korea

(1950-1953), Truman orders U.S. troops to take action.

• 1961, Kennedy ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba trying to overthrow Fidel Castro

• Vietnam War (1965 – 1973)

The Close of the Cold War• President Richard Nixon tried to calm tensions• Nixon encouraged the UN to build diplomatic relations with

communist nations• President Ronald Reagan challenged communism• USSR premier Mikhail Gorbachev introduced

“glasnost”/”perestroika” – political openness/economic reform

• 1991, Berlin Wall falls – Cold War Ends