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H.U.A.C
An investigation of the United States House of Representatives. Created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties. -
Massive Retaliation
an “all or nothing” strategy created by Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, that threatened to decimate the Soviet Union. Dulles announced that “any Soviet attack on American ally would be countered by a nuclear assault on the Soviet Union” The threat was an attempt to defuse the Cold War by preventing the Soviet Union from retaliating out of a fear of complete nuclear warfare. Both Americans and Soviets became fearful and planned for disaster with shelters, drills, and programs -
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference was held February 4 through February 11 1945 and was codenamed the Argonaut Conference. This Conference was the post-World War II meeting of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. The United States was represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United Kingdom was represented by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the Soviet Union was represented by Premier Joseph Stalin. These world leaders meet in Livadia Palace near Yalta, in Crimea. The purpos -
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Chinese Communist Revolution
Between the Communist Party and Republic of China. It was the second part of the Chinese Civil War. The results were: communist takeover of mainland China, People's Republic of China established in mainland China and government of the Republic of China relocated to Taiwan. -
Iron Curtain Speech
The Iron Curtain Speech given by Winston S. Churchill on March 5, 1946. The Iron Curtain symbolized the conflict and physical boundary which divided Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II to the end of the Cold War. This term symbolized the Soviets efforts to block itself from non- Soviet controlled areas. On each side of the Iron Curtain each state developed its own economic and military alliances. The most well-known border of the Iron Curtain was the Berlin Wall. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an international relationship policy instated by President Harry Truman in a speech that he delivered on March 12, 1947. This doctrine stated that the United States would support Greece and Turkey with any aid they needed to prevent them from falling into the Soviet sphere. Truman said that if they didn’t give Greece and Turkey this aid that they would fall to communism. This role regarding Greece was typically something that Britain controlled, but due to lack of economi -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the American aid to Europe. The United States offered to give economic support to help rebuild Europe’s economies after World War II was over to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism in Europe. Beginning in April of 1948, this was a four year plan. The United States was trying to rebuild a devastated area after World War II by way of removing trade barriers, modernizing industry and making Europe prosperous again. The Secretary of State, George Marshall spoke about this p -
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Berlin Airlift
The Berlin blockade lasted from June 24, 1948- May 12, 1949. This was one of the first international crises of the Cold War. In post- World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked all of the Western Allies’ paths to the Allie controlled section of Berlin. The goal of the Soviet was to force the Allies to stop giving Berlin food, fuel and aid which basically gives the Soviet Union control of the city. In response to this the Allies began organizing and airlift which carried supplies to the peopl -
Alger Hiss
Former high-ranking State Department official, accused by Whittaker Chambers in August 1948 of being a communist and Soviet spy. He was found guilty on two counts of perjury. -
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Arms Race
The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies during the Cold War. In addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, but none produced more than the two superpowers. Initially, only the United States possessed atomic weapons, but in 1949 the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb and the arms race began. Both countries continued building more and bigger bombs -
NATO
NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is an intergovernmental military alliance based off of the North Atlantic Treaty, signed on April 4, 1949. The organization basically is a system of defense when a member state is attacked by an external party. The headquarters is in Belgium, which is only one of the 28 countries in NATO. NATO was nothing but a political association until the Korean War. The course of the Cold War initiated a rivalry with the Warsaw Pact. The creation of NAT -
Soviet's Detonation of the Atomic Bomb
This was the first detonation of an atomic bomb by the Soviets. The occurrence was a surprise because the U.S. was unaware of the fact that the Soviets possessed nuclear technology. The detonation was such a surprise that it made American’s question their safety. -
Domino Theory
Promoted by the U.S. government. If one state falls to communism in a region, all the states in that region will also fall to communism -
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McCarthyism/Red Scare
The practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means “the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism. Also related to the Second Red Scare in the US lasting from 1950 to 1956 and characterized by the fear of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. -
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Korean War
In 1950 the US, made a commitment to form a peace treaty with Japan. Some think that this treaty led Stalin to approve a plan to go into U.S. supported South Korea on June 25, 1950. North and South Korea had been divided at the 38th parallel at the close of World War II. In June of 1950, the North Korean People’s Army went into South Korea. Truman, who was afraid that North Korea would threaten Japan into being a communist country, sent in US forces and got help from the U.N. to counter act the -
McCarren Internal Security Act
This was an act created to protect the United States against those suspected of engaging in subversive activities or otherwise promoting the establishment of a “totalitarian dictatorship,” by requiring the registration of Communist organizations, and for other purposes. -
Rosenberg Spy Case
The trial of the Rosenberg Spy Case began on March 6, 1951. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg were American citizens who were put to death for giving up information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. In 1955 the United States released information about Julius and Ethel. They said that other atomic spies who were caught by the FBI and gave confessions were not executed. The information released confirmed that Julius was a big part of the confessions but they were unclear abo -
H Bomb
The H Bomb is a hydrogen bomb. This is new because instead of producing nuclear fission, it produces nuclear fusion. In November 1952, it was first tested by the United States and in August 1953 it was tested by the Soviet Union. These bombs became deployed in the 1960’s. -
Dien Bien Phu
This was the climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist-nationalist revolutionaries. The battle occurred between March and May and ended in a French defeat that influenced negotiations over the future of Indochina at Geneva. -
Stalin's Death
Died on March 5, 1953, at the age of 74 in Kuntsevo, Dacha. He had been a powerful influence on the spread of communism, and was still very popular in the Soviet Union after his death. -
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Vietnam War
A conflict fought between North Vietnam that was supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam that was supported by the United States and other anti-communist countries. The war began in 1954 (though conflict in the region started in the mid-1940s), after the rise to power of Ho Chi Minh and his communist Viet Minh party in North Vietnam. By 1969, at the peak of U.S. involvement in the war, more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were inv -
Guatemalan Coup
CIA covert operation that deposed President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán with a paramilitary invasion by an anti–Communist army of liberation, titled Operation PBSUCCESS. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact is the treaty between Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union, which was signed in Poland in 1955 and was officially called 'The Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance'. A military treaty, it bound its members to come to the aid of the others, should any one of them be the victim of foreign aggression. The pact was a response to a similar treaty made by the Western Allies in 1949 (the North Atlantic Treaty -
Kruschev’s Secret Speech
A speech to a closed session of party leaders in which he dismantled the legend of the recently deceased Joseph Stalin and criticized almost every aspect of Stalin’s method of rule. The speech entitled On the Cult of the Individual and Its Consequences would become known as simply Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’. -
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Space Race
competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in spaceflight capability. The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. It began on October 4, 1957 with the Soviet launch of the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1, reached its zenith with the July 20, 1969 US landing of the first humans on the Moon on Apollo 11, and concluded in a period of détente the April 1972 agreemen -
Sputnik
Sputnik was launched on October 4, 1957 by the Soviet Union. Sputnik was the world’s first artificial satellite. It measured 23 inches in diameter and it had four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. This launch into outer space began the Space Age and it began the Space Race, which is a key part to the Cold War. The launch of Sputnik began new political, military, technological and scientific developments. This itself, proved that the Soviet Union had the scientific power to send -
Neutron Bomb
a fission-fusion thermonuclear weapon (hydrogen bomb0 in which the burst of neutrons generated by a fusion reaction is intentionally allowed to escape the weapon, rather than being absorbed. -
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Fidel Castro
a Cuban communist revolutionary and politician who was Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the Commander in Chief of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces from 1959 to 2008, and as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, under his administration the Republic of Cuba became a one-party socialist state; industry and businesses were nationalized, and socialist reforms implemented -
U-2 spy plane affair
when a US U-2 spy plane was shot down over the airspace of the Soviet Union. After denying the mission of the plane, the US was forced to admit that it was a covert surveillance aircraft. The incident was an embarrassment to the US and prompted deterioration its relations with the Soviet Union. -
Bay of Pigs
was an unsuccessful military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the American funded and CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506. Brigade 2506 fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF) and intended to overthrow the revolutionary left wing government of Fidel Castro. Launched from Guatemala, the invading force was defeated within three days by the Cuban armed forces, under the direct command of Prime Minister Fidel Castro. Eisenhower allocated the $13.1 million needed to -
Berlin Wall
A barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic that completely cut off West Berlin from East Germany and East Berlin. The Eastern bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to build a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the wall served to prevent the massive emigration of those trying to cross the border from East Berlin into West Berlin and other Western European countries. The building of the Berlin wall increased tensio -
M.A.D: Mutually Assured Destruction
A doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. This raised tensions between the two super powers because we were saying that if you try to attack any of our allies we will blow up the Earth. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
A 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the US on the other side. The crisis is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict. After the US had placed missiles in Turkey and attempted to overthrow the Cuban regime, the leader of the Soviet Union and Castro began constructed missiles in Cuba to deter any future attacks. The US noticed this construction after a U-S aircraft scan and demanded the return of Sov -
The B-59 Submarine Incident
It was a Project 641 or Foxtrot-class diesel-electric submarine of the Soviet Navy. It played a key role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when senior officers – believing they were under attack – considered launching a nuclear torpedo with an 10 kiloton warhead. -
Hotline
It was a direct link of communication between the USA and Russia in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. -
Nuclear Test Band Treaty
A treaty signed in Moscow on Aug. 5, 1963, by the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom that banned all tests of nuclear weapons except those conducted underground. Previous aboveground testing of nuclear weapons caused worldwide concern over the danger of radioactive fallout and the first negotiations to ban nuclear tests foundered on proposals made by the US and Soviet Union, but the process was sped up the Cuban Missile Crisis. The treaty did not reduce the number of nuclear -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
An approval for the expansion of the Vietnam war in response to a set of proposed, detailed plans to attack North Vietnam. This was to prevent any further “open aggression on the high seas” from the Vietnamese. Lyndon B. Johnson was criticized for his proposal, however, in all actuality, congress was the main power in the continuation of the war due to their consistent funding of it. -
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Leonid Brezhnev
A Soviet Union political leader, Brezhnev joined the Communist Party in 1931. Following Nikita Khrushchev’s fall from power in 1964, he was named first secretary of the Communist party. Afterward, he emerged as the chief figure in Soviet politics. In 1968, in support of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, he produced the “Brezhnev doctrine,” stating that the USSR could intervene in the domestic affairs of any Soviet bloc nation if Communist rule were threatened. In 1977 he assumed the preside -
Trssom
Had the advantage of being able to transmit large quantities of intelligence information very rapidly without giving away the ship’s location to hostile direction finding equipment or interfering with incoming signals. The major disadvantage is that it could only work if the moon was visible and the stabilization system worked properly. This new technology made it harder for countries to intercept another country’s information so the countries had to find new ways to extract intelligence from ot -
Indonesian Coup
Indonesian National Armed Forces members in the early hours of October 1, 1965, assassinated six Indonesian Army generals in an abortive coup d'état. Later that morning, the organization declared that it was in control of media and communication outlets and had taken President Sukarno under their protection. By the end of the day, the coup attempt had failed in Jakarta. However, in central Java there was an attempt to take control over an army division and several cities. By the time the rebelli -
USS Liberty
A Belmont-class technical research ship that was attacked by Israel Defense Forces during the 1967 Six-Day War. 34 crewmen were killed and 173 wounded. Even though the ship had a 39 foot wide hole amidships and a twisted keel the boat left the area under her own power. -
Six Day War
A war in the Middle East for land that lasted six days between Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Israel in which Israel had captured large regions of Arab territory, including the Gaza strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, alongside the Golan Heights from Syria. The war sparked due to Israel’s surprise attacks on Egypt in response to Egypt’s mobilization of their military forces on the Israeli border. Troops were also sent in from the United Nations. -
Tet Offensive
The most major campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian commands or control centers in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The campaign was by the Vietcong and North Vietnam towards South Vietnam. the U.S, and their allies. -
USS Scorpion
a Skipjack-class nuclear submarine of the United States Navy and the sixth vessel of the US Navy to carry the name. The submarine was declared lost at sea on June 5, 1968 with 99 crewmen dying in the incident. The USS Scorpion is one of two nuclear submarines the US Navy has lost. Later found that the Soviets sunk the submarine. -
Prague Spring Rebellion
Czechoslovakia was experiencing an economic crisis and began stressing industry as well as consumer goods rather than agriculture and services. A Soviet invasion of Prague, Czechoslovakia with Warsaw Pact troops to deter a potential liberal reform. -
Brezhnev Doctrine
This doctrine was announced to retroactively justify the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 that ended the Prague Spring, along with earlier Soviet military interventions, such as the invasion of Hungary in 1956. Named "Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries." The policy amounted to the USSR reserving the right to use military force to prevent any socialist country from turning to capitalism. -
Detente
A French term for the easing of strained relations, more so in political situations. This term is often used in reference to the stressed relationship between the Soviets and the Americans regarding geo-political tension. Détente was a period of attempted peace between the two nations. -
SALT
This consisted of two bilateral talks as well as corresponding treaties regarding armament control. These led to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which proposed specific capacities for nuclear weapons on both sides of war. -
Vietnamization
A new strategy that focused on ending American involvement in the Vietnam War and pushing military responsibilities to South Vietnam in case of a communist takeover. The U.S. proposed the treaty with North Vietnam and began the process by removing troops, while South Vietnam fell to communism. This made U.S. citizens happy because they didn’t want the U.S. to be involved in the Vietnam war anymore, but by removing the troops we let South Vietnam fall to Communism by way of the North Vietnamese. -
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Cambodia & Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge period was the rule of the Communist Party of Kampuchea over Cambodia starting in 1975. Over the next four years, two million people were killed by political executions, disease, starvation, and forced labor. The Khmer Rouge took power at the end of the Cambodian Civil War and in 1979 was invaded by neighbor and former ally, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, which left Cambodia under Vietnamese occupation for over a decade. -
Helinski Accords
The final act of the Conference on Security Co-operation in Europe which was a declaration with the attempt to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West. The Helsinki Accords were not of binding legal force, because they were not treaties. This included the U.S, Canada, and European states except for Albania and Andorra. -
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Afghanistan War
As one of its bordering neighbors, the Soviet Union had a long history of supporting and providing aid to Afghanistan and on April 27, 1978 a Soviet supported communist government took over the country. The new government was called the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). The new communist government went against Muslim religion, and the Musahideen, a rebel group, emerged. In September 1979, Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin had the current president killed and took control of the communist go -
NORAD Computer Glitch
A buggy hard drive deep in the NORADs headquarters nearly fooled the US into launching a full retaliatory strike on a bogus Soviet sneak attack. The Strategic Air Command and the National Military Comman Center, began displaying what appeared to be hundreds of ICBMs lifting off from silos across the Soviet Union and heading toward targets in the US. It caused a state of absolute panic in NORAD. To make matters worse the commanders were unable to determine the president’s whereabouts throughout -
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement for reformation within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s that was widely associated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system. The goal of the perestroika was to make socialism work more efficiently to better meet the needs of Soviet consumers, but it may have worsened already exist -
Glasnost
Glasnost was General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy for a new, open policy in the Soviet Union where people could freely express their opinions. Glasnost, which translates to “openness” in English, opened the door for the Soviet people to re-examine their history and to voice their opinions on governmental policies. -
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Solidarity
Political movement in Poland during 1980 in which the Polish government allowed Polish workers to be represented by an independent trade union against the workers' state. -
Ronald Reagan
During his first term he created the Strategic Defense Initiative to develop weapons based in space to protect the U.S. against Soviet attacks. He also took a strong stance against labor unions as well as ordered the Granada invasion. -
SDI (Star Wars)
) Proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983, to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. This enhanced tensions in the Cold War because it was showing the Soviets that we are preparing for a possible war against them. -
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Able Archer 83 Exercise
Was a five- day NATO command post exercise starting on November 7, 1983 that spanned Western Europe, centered on the SHAPE Headquarters in Casteau. The exercise simulated a period of conflict escalation, culminating in a coordinated nuclear attack. The exercise incorporated a new, unique format of coded communication, radio silences, participation by heads of government and a simulated DEFCON 1 nuclear alert. The exercise combined deteriorating relations between the US and the Soviets and the an -
John Walker
Convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. His son was also involved in the spy ring. Walker helped the Soviets decipher more than one million encrypted naval messages. Additionally, he helped them organize a spy operation that The New York Times reported in 1987 as the worst spy ring in history. -
INF Treaty
The INF Treaty was signed by President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev at a Washington Summit on December 8, 1987. It eliminated all nuclear-armed ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (about 300 to 3400 miles) and their infrastructure. Thirty days after the INF Treaty entered into force on June 1, 1988, OSIA (On-Site Inspection Agency) began inspections of 130 Soviet INF sites in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union -
German Unification
German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by the Grundgesete Constitution Article 23 -
Gorbachev
His presidency was during the height of the Cold War. Soviet statesman whose foreign policy brought an end to the Cold War and whose domestic policy introduced major reforms.