The Cold War
A Bi-Polar and Dangerous World
1945-1991
Origins
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Historical Antagonisms
Ideological Differences
Fractures in the Great Alliance
Problem of Perception—events
“confirmed” the worst
End of World War II
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Yalta Conference
Death of FDR
Potsdam Conference
Division of Germany
Elections
Need for security—understandable
paranoia
Division of
Germany
Evolving Strategies
• Collective Security—Eastern Europe—
Warsaw Pact
• Western Europe—NATO
• George Kennan—Containment
• Truman Doctrine
• Berlin Airlift
• Arms Race: “Super” and Missiles
Divided Europe along an Iron Curtain
Cold War Become Global
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Mao and China
Korean War
Vietnam
3rd World
Cuban Revolution
Cold War Images
“Temporarily divided at the
17th parallel, Vietnam became
a quagmire—the Iraq of U. S.
policy in the 1960s
KOREAN
WAR
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
(1926- )
Cuban Revolution spurred fear of
Communism in Western Hemisphere
Key Episodes (1950-1981)
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Berlin Blockade
Hungarian Uprising
U-2 Spy Plane
Espionage—Joe McCarthy
Cuban Missile Crisis
“Détente”
Re-escalation in late 1970
El Salvador and Nicaraugua
Sputnik—1957
Apollo 11—1969
Taking the Cold War to
space
• Ideology and
mortality
• Star Wars
• Nationalities and
economic problems
in Soviet Union
• Glasnost
• Perestroika
• Arms Reduction
Treaties
• Collapse of Berlin
Wall
Collapse of Berlin Wall, 1989.
Boris Yeltsin during 1991 Coup