The Cold War

The early years 1945-1960

Causes of the “Cold War”

• The United States and the Soviet Union were never friendly before World War II.

• Although they fought on the same side during the war, their war aims were different and there was animosity on both sides.

• The Soviets thought that the U.S. should have invaded France earlier.

• The U.S. thought that the Soviet Union should have declared war on Japan earlier.

• Also the U.S. never told the Soviet Union about their nuclear bomb project.

1945-- Yalta• With the defeat of Nazi Germany

imminent, the Big Three Allies meet in the Crimean resort town of Yalta from February 4-11. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agree to jointly govern postwar Germany, while Stalin pledges fair and open elections in Poland.

1946 -- Iron Curtain

On March 5, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill declares, "From Stetting in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent."

1947 -- Truman Doctrine

• On March 12, President Truman requests $400 million in aid from Congress to combat communism in Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine pledges to provide American economic and military assistance to any nation threatened by communism.

1947 -- Marshall Plan

• On June 5, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall proposes a massive aid program to rebuild Europe from the ravages of World War II. Nearly $13 billion in U.S. aid was sent to Europe from 1948 to 1952. The Soviet Union and communist Eastern Europe decline U.S. aid, citing "dollar enslavement."

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1948 -- Berlin airlift• On June 24, the Soviet Union makes a

bid for control of Berlin by blockading all land access to the city. From June 1948 to May 1949, U.S. and British planes airlift 1.5 million tons of supplies to the residents of West Berlin. After 200,000 flights, the Soviet Union lifts the blockade.

1949 -- China• In June, Chinese communists

declare victory over Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces, which later flee to Taiwan. On October 1, Mao Tse-tung proclaims the People's Republic of China. Two months later, Mao travels to Moscow, where he negotiates the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance.

1950 -- Korean War

• On June 25, North Korean communist forces cross the 38th parallel and invade South Korea. On June 27, Truman orders U.S. forces to assist the South Koreans while the U.N. Security Council condemns the invasion and establishes a 15-nation fighting force. Chinese troops enter the conflict by year's end.

Battle Maps

Battle Maps

These maps show four stages of the Korean War. The first map shows the farthest extent of the North Korean invasion—to the Pusan Perimeter in September 1950. The second map shows the site of the Inchon landing by the United Nations (UN) forces. Following this surprise move, the UN troops advanced as far north as the Yalu River by October 1950. The third map shows the extent of the retreat by the UN forces after China entered the war in October 1950. The fourth map shows the territory held by the two sides when they signed an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953.

1951 -- Rosenberg Spy Case

• On March 29, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted of selling U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs are sent to the electric chair in 1953, despite outrage from liberals who portray them as victims of an anti-communist witch hunt.

1952 -- Hydrogen bomb• On November 1, the United States

explodes the first hydrogen bomb at a test site in the Marshall Islands. Less than a year later, the Soviets announce their first test of a hydrogen bomb.

1953 -- Stalin dies; Korean War ends

• Soviet leader Joseph Stalin dies of a stroke on March 5. On July 27, an armistice is signed ending the Korean War, with the border between North and South roughly the same as it had been in 1950. The willingness of China and North Korea to end the fighting was in part attributed to Stalin's death.

1954 -- Guatemalan coup

• A U.S.-sponsored coup topples leftist Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman on June 27. In 1952, his government had nationalized 400,000 acres of unfarmed banana plantations belonging to the American-owned United Fruit Company.

1954 -- Dien Bien Phu

• After a long siege, Vietnamese communists under Ho Chi Minh defeat French colonial forces at Dien Bien Phu on May 7. In July, the Geneva Accords divide the country at the 17th parallel, creating a North and South Vietnam. The United States assumes the chief responsibility of providing anti-communist aid to South Vietnam.

1955 -- Massive Retaliation

• On January 12, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles first announces the doctrine of Massive Retaliation. It threatens full-scale nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in response to communist aggression anywhere in the world. The policy became known as Mutually Assured Destruction.

1956 -- Khrushchev's 'secret speech'

• In a speech before Communist Party members on February 14, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounces the policies of Stalin. Khrushchev rejects the Leninist idea of the inevitability of war and calls for a doctrine

of “peaceful coexistence”

between capitalist and

communist systems.

1957 -- Sputnik• On October 4, the Soviet

Union launches Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth. In 1958, the U.S. creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the space race is in full gear.

Fear in the U.S.

1959 -- Castro takes power

• On January 1, leftist forces under Fidel Castro overthrow the government of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. Castro soon nationalizes the sugar industry and signs trade agreements with the Soviet Union. The next year, his government seizes U.S. assets on the island.

1960 -- The U-2 Affair

• On May 1, an American high-altitude U-2 spy plane is shot down on a mission over the Soviet Union. After the Soviets announce the capture of pilot Francis Gary Powers, the United States recants earlier assertions that the plane was on a weather research mission.

Questions

• What is meant by the term “cold war”?

• Why couldn’t the U.S. and the Soviet Union just agree to disagree?

• What made this confrontation so dangerous?

• Would the “cold war” end in 1960?