The Cold War

Following the end of WWII, the USSR and the US emerged as Nuclear Superpowers
• The Soviets established an “Iron Curtain”
○ A buffer zone of friendly communist governments in Satellite States surrounding the
USSR
• US Ambassador to Moscow (Kennan) talks to Truman
○ Advocates a policy of Containment: stopping the spread of communism

>>Pg. 503 (Yellow Book)<<

Truman Doctrine
• The US will aid any country in need
• Aimed at stopping the spread of communism
• Civil War in Greece
• Turkey under pressure from the USSR
• Britain leaves their mandate in Greece and Turkey because of economic stress
• US gave Greece and Turkey $400 million in aid -> prevents communism takeover

Marshall Plan
• The US will provide economic aid to countries in need after WWII
• Geared to stop the spread of depression after WWII (avoid economic fallout that followed
WWI)
• Helped rebuild the damaged areas of WWII
• Aka: The European Recover Plan

Berlin Airlift
• Rising tensions between the West and the USSR
• Stalin felt he was being cheated out of reparations
• Soviets Blockade West Germany and West Berlin
○ Allied section of Berlin is within Soviet East Germany
○ Allies fly in food, supplies, etc. into west Berlin (1948-1949)
• West Germany: Federal Republic of Germany (FDR)
• East Germany: German Democratic Republic

What is Cold War?

• War that is fought indirectly using influence and proxy nations
• Buildup of tensions without direct conflict
• MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction, prevented direct conflict

NATO(aka: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

• Included: GB, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Canadan Italy, Iceland,
Norway, Denmark, Portugal (eventually Greece, Turkey, West Germany, and Spain)
• Mutual Defense Pact
• Western Democratic Ideals
Warsaw Pact
• Eastern Communist reaction to NATO
• USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Rumania

Soviet Response to the Marshall Plan

• COMITERN
• COMECON: eastern command economy controlled by Moscow
○ Expanded soviet control of satellite states through economic control
 Proxies dependent on Moscow

Nikita Khrushchev
• Comes to power 1956
• “secret speech”
○ Isolationist
○ Desalinization
○ Coexistence
 Cultural Thaw: an increase in freedom in Soviet Societies
• Made the US hopeful
• Yugoslavia
○ Red Army never reached Yugoslavia, Tito pushed Nazis out
 Made Yugoslavia independent (Communist but not Soviet Satellite)
○ Ruled by Dictator: Marshall Tito
○ Policy of Reproachment
○ Bettering of relations (between Khrushchev and Tito)
• Space Race
○ Sputnik (1957) -> major wakeup call
 Proved Soviet’s ICBM capability
 Initiated Red Scare
• Proved that the US is behind technologically
○ Extension of the arms race
• US U2 spy plane captured by USSR
○ Pilot Gary Powers captured -> eventually traded for Soviet spies
○ Eisenhower claimed it was a weather or civilian aircraft
○ Khrushchev presents signed paper from Gary Powers stating that it was a spy
plane -> hugely embarrassing for the US
• Cuba
○ Fidel Castro comes to power
 Befriends Khrushchev and the USSR
 Cuban Missile Crisis
• U2 spy plane identifies missile silos in Cuba
○ Very close to the US
• Khrushchev wants US missiles out of Turkey (and Europe)
○ US missiles remain but Soviets remove theirs
• World came closest its ever been to Nuclear War
• Hotline from Moscow to Washington established
○ Initiates period of Détente: relaxation of tension
 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
 • Hungary
○ Imre Nagyin comes to power
○ Hungarian Uprising 1956
 Started by Students protesting for democratic reform and against Red
Army Occupation

Soviet Leaders
Stalin-----Khrushev (1956)-----Breshnev----Andrapov----Cherneko----Gorbachev(1985)

German Reunification
• West Germany received aid under the Marshall plan
• Wurshaftwunder: “Economic Miracle” -> describes the speedy and successful recovery
of W. Germany following the devastation of WWII
• Adenaur (1949-63)
• Willy Brent: Ostpolitik