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The Cold War

By m3laporte

  • Potsdam Conference

    Potsdam Conference
    At the conference Truman, Churchill, and Stalin met to coordinate the division of Germany into occupation zones and plan for the Nuremberg Trials. Potsdam was the final meeting between the Big Three powers under the pretense of a wartime alliance.

  • Iron Curtain

    Iron Curtain
    A term coined by Winston Churchill for the area of Eastern Europe controlled indirectly by the USSR, usually through puppet governments. This area was cut off from noncommunist Europe.

  • Truman Doctrine

    Truman Doctrine
    In March 1947, Truman proclaimed before Congress that the U.S. would support people anywhere in the world facing attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. The Truman Doctrine committed the U.S. to a role of global policeman.

  • Marshall Plan

    Marshall Plan
    A four-year plan to provide American aid for the economic reconstruction of Europe.The U.S. government hoped that this plan would prevent further communist expansion by eliminating economic insecurity and political instability in Europe. By 1952, Congress had appropriated some $17 billion for the Marshall Plan, and the Western European economy had largely recovered.

  • North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

    North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
    Formed in 1949 to counter the Soviet threat in Eastern Europe. NATO members agreed to be a part of a unified coalition in the event of an attack on one of the nations. Throughout the Cold War, NATO was the primary Western alliance in opposition to communist forces.

  • Berlin Airlift

    Berlin Airlift
    American effort that flew in supplies to West Berlin afteer the Soviet Union and the East German government blocked the roads to that city beginning in June 1948. American airplanes flew in supplies for 15 months, causing the Soviets to call off the blockade.

  • McCarthyism

    McCarthyism
    The extreme anticommunism in American politics and society during the early 1950s. The term derives from the actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led an intense campaign against alleged subversives during this period.

  • Domino Theory

    Domino Theory
    The theory that if any nation fell to communism, the surrounding nations would likely fall as well. Expounded by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the domino theory served to justify U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

  • Warsaw Pact

    Warsaw Pact
    Signed in 1955 between the USSR and its Eastern European satellites, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. The Warsaw Pact allowed the stationing of Soviet troops in each participating country. It was seen as the Soviet response to the formation of NATO.

  • Sputnik

    Sputnik
    The first artificial satellite to orbit the earth, launched by the USSR on October 4, 1957. The launch prompted the space race between the U.S. and USSR. Americans were jealous of Soviet technological skill and afraid that the same rockets that launched Sputnik could be used to deliver nuclear warheads anywhere on the globe.