THE COLD WAR
SCALED DOWN
1945-1991
COLD WAR:


a bitter indirect conflict between the USSR & the
U.S. that lasted for 4 decades after the end of
WWII.
THE HISTORY BEHIND IT:
Russian Revolution of 1917 U.S. says will not
recognize USSR as government. Does not
recognize them as the government until 1933.
 Non-aggression pact with Hitler then they fight
on our side
 USSR blamed U.S. for delay of western front
 Atomic bomb project (U.S. kept USSR in dark but
told G.B.)

DIFFERENT VISIONS OR PATHS
U.S. hopes after WWII share democratic ideas
with the world. Liberty, Equality, Representative
government.
 Economic markets
 USSR Communism predicts through class
struggle the world will eventually triumph
 USSR= Totalitarian Dictatorship: central
government rules by terror and his complete
control over people’s lives


DIFFERENT VISIONS OR PATHS
Dispute over Poland- USSR says they must have
biggest influence on Poland- Satellite Nations:
Soviet dominated countries, Poland, Romania,
Bulgaria
 Iron curtain: now dropped divided Europe:
Capitalist West --- Communist East this
curtain must not be allowed to close around more
nations (PIGS STORY 4 walls food) (CUBA story
of schools prayer candy story and plant story God
and Cuba)

TENSIONS INCREASE
League of Nations has failed
 1945 The United Nations (UN): formed U.S.
supports this time. 50 nations agree to join &
pledge to settle their different peacefully, try &
end wars that do start
 Containment: U.S. policy goal to contain the
spread of communism in the World. Stop spread
of We would apply this.

TENSIONS INCREASE
1947 Greece and Turkey in bad shape
economically: G.B. had been supplying
economic and military aid they can no longer--Truman afraid they will fall to the communist---U.S. gives Greece & Turkey 400million in aid
 Truman Doctrine: cold war policy pledging U.S.
support to all free people resisting communism
 1947 Marshall Plan: plan to rebuild Europe
Economically so it can withstand the threat of
communism puts 13 billion dollars in Europe
over next 4 years--- benefit to U.S. give strong
trade partners----Biggest aid package 3.1 billion
Great Britain----32 million Iceland

TENSIONS INCREASE
Yalta Conference: During war GB, US, France,
& USSR agree to occupy Germany after war is
over---divided into East & West Germany
 1948 Berlin Airlift: Stalin tries to force western
allies out of Berlin. Closes roads and railroads
West response around the clock airlift over 1
year--- USSR finally lifts blockade---- hostility
grows---- lasted 10 months
 NATO: North Atlantic Treaty organization
(collective security)m12 nations in this alliance--most important U.S.--- attack on one is an attack
on all---- U.S now involved in European affairs
(USSR responds with Warsaw Pact)

WORRY IN ASIA
1949 Mao Zedong & communist party come
to power in China--- spread of communism in
Asia?
 1949 atomic explosion takes place in USSR
now we are not alone [ARMS RACE]
 U.S. Military budget increased another
containment measure an arms race.
 During 1950’s U.S. will continue
containment Some want to liberate satellite
nations (countries controlled politically &
economically by USSR)

EXAMPLES OF CONTAINMENT LEADING TO WAR
Korean War: Japan had controlled Korea for
several years. Japan will have to give up Korea @
the end of the war. USSR accepts surrender in
North above 38th parallel---USA accepts
surrender below 38th South
 Both North and South Korea want to be unified
 1950 North Korea makes moves across 38th
parallel: UN declares North Korea aggressor--UN must restore peace
 Truman did not ask Congress to Declare
War

EXAMPLES OF CONTAINMENT LEADING TO WAR
UN troops lead by Douglas MacArthur push
back North Korean troops back across 38th nearly
to China---want to unify on South Korean terms--China says stop
 China enters & forces UN troops back to
South MacArthur wants to use nuclear weapons
, Truman no, fires MacArthur
 War finally ends 1953 actually truce signed
Korea still divided--- over 50,000 Americans die

EXAMPLES OF CONTAINMENT LEADING TO WAR
Americans unsure about this war this war
was not very popular people do question it---1950
PRESIDENT SAID FIGHT o.k.
 54,000 Americans die, 100,000 casualties, 2
million Koreans 422,000 Chinese killed
 Communism contained Korea same
 Military build up continues

ASSIGNMENT:

Students write essay on containment--evaluate was it a success in Korea. Smart
policy? Why? Middle East?
RED SCARE PART II
Truman administration worries about
communism entering the U.S.
 Communist party grew during depression
 1946 spy rings exposed
 EST. Fed employee Loyalty Program--- FBI
checks files of suspicious employees--- several
1000 employees dismissed --- hurts many
reputations
 HVAC---established by congress to investigate
Hollywood & others 500 black listed

SPIES AMONG US
Alger Hiss: high ranking government official
accused of being a communist spy 1930’s (by a
former communist) espionage not proved goes to
jail for perjury
 Most people believe there is a real communist
threat: Proof: knows intimate details about Hiss
life Hiss had given old car away 5yrs for perjury

SPIES AMONG US

The Rosenberg’s: accused of being Soviet spies
refused to give any information to the
government--- executed in 1953 (make example)
pled the 5th when asked if communist--- 1st
civilians executed for espionage in the U.S.
(electric chair)
SPIES AMONG US
McCarthyism background: Senator Joseph
McCarthy: republican senator from Wisconsin
(worst senator in senate at this time) speaking in
West Virginia at a women ‘s club (1950) claims he
can point out 2005 “card carrying” communist--working for government
 Why did people believe him?
 Lied about war service “tail gunner Joe” (really a
secretary)
 He was an alcoholic (brief case of bourbon)
 Carried a brief case full of so called documents
against the communist

SPIES AMONG US
Cause scare
 Join communist party in Texas 20yrs in jail
 Fluoridation in water? Robin Hood banned
 Accused the U.S. Army of harboring communist
 They say prove it
 McCarty takes them to trial
 News catches him yelling, belching, picking his
nose etc…
 Only “evidence” a dentist who wouldn’t sign a
pledge of dedication to the US govt.
 McCarthy lost trial

SPIES AMONG US
Never uncovered a single communist
 McCarthyism definition: (witch hunt) 1950
Brave patriotic stand against communism
 Today:
 A smear campaign of groundless accusations
from which the accused could not escape: only
confessions accepted people blacklisted
accused go to trial

TRUMAN YEARS

Economy: Postwar economy one of the greatest
periods of expansion in history---- computers are
put into use by factories & business--- TV makes
it big---- movement to the suburbs

Truman: #1 job after WWII get soldiers home “no
boats no votes” by 46 most soldiers are home
 Truman: #2 consumer goods had been limited
during the war (greatest challenge keep inflation
in check) war is over consumers want goods have
money to spend
 Huge demand inflation soars 25%
)

TRUMAN YEARS
Wages will not keep up, people not enjoying the
fruits of sacrifice
 1946 4.6 million workers on strike, more than
any time in history, many major industries
impacted (Truman wants to draft striking RR
workers)
 Truman afraid wage increase will drive prices
even higher
 Taft-Hartley: passed by Congress in 1947 If
strike effects National interest, President can
order them back to work (80 day cool off) govt.
will conduct study (Truman did not support

TRUMAN YEARS
Truman’s Fair Deal: 21 point extension of
FDR’s New Deal will promote
 Employment
 More unemployment compensation
 Higher minimum wage
 National Health Insurance
 Control Atomic energy

TRUMAN YEARS
Conservatives: (Democrats and Republicans)
oppose & block most Fair Deal Legislation
 Most Americans wear about expanding
 Fair Deal Legislation
 Did extended Social Security to 10 million more
people
 Raised minimum wage 40cents to 75 cents
 Many people see Truman as a bungling
Bureaucrat
 “To err is Truman”

TRUMAN YEARS
Midterm elections Republicans win majorities in
both
 46-48 Republicans focus on
 Decrease taxes
 Reduce size and power of federal government
 Block Truman’s liberal goals

TRUMAN YEARS
Truman also hurt by stance he takes on
Civil Rights
 He supported Civil Rights & hoped for:
 Gain Federal support for anti-lynching law
 Abolish the poll tax
 Create a board to prevent discrimination



Congress Refused All
1948 Truman did ban discrimination in hiring of
Federal employees
 Ordered end to segregation in Armed forces
THINGS TO REMEMBER
•
•
•
•
•
Germany, and most specifically Berlin is divided
after WWII
The Marshal Plan rebuilds Germany and Japan
after the war
Communist are bad-The Soviet Union and China(boo)
Korea is cold in the winter
Harry S. Truman (HST) is still the best President
ever!
THE BERLIN AIRLIFT
•
•
•
The Berlin Blockade was one of
the first major international
crises of the Cold War.
During the multinational
occupation of post-World War II
Germany, the Soviet Union
blocked the three Western
powers' railroad and street
access to the western sectors of
Berlin that they had been
controlling.
Their aim was to force the
western powers to allow the
Soviet controlled regions to
start supplying Berlin with food
and fuel, thereby giving them
nominal control over the entire
city.
•
•
•
•
In response, the Western Allies
formed the Berlin Airlift to supply
the city over pre-arranged air
corridors.
The effort was initially viewed with
skepticism even in the countries
mounting the attempt, as this sort
of logistical effort had never been
mounted before.
The airlift to supply the German
6th Army at Stalingrad required
300 tons per day and rarely came
even close to delivering this; the
Berlin effort would require at least
5,000 tons a day, well over ten
times as much.
In spite of this, by the spring of
1949 the effort was clearly
succeeding, and by April the airlift
was delivering more cargo than had
previously flowed into the city via
rail.
AIR CORRIDORS TO BERLIN
OPERATION LITTLE VITTLES
•
•
•
•
Gail Halvorsen, one of the many Airlift pilots, decided
to use his off time to fly into Berlin and make movies
with his handheld camera.
As a goodwill gesture, he handed out his only two
sticks of Wrigley's Doublemint Gum, and promised
that if they did not fight over them, the next time he
returned he would drop off more.
Before he left them, a child asked him how they
would know it was him flying over, and he replied,
"I'll wiggle my wings."[
The very next day, on approach to Berlin, he rocked
the aircraft and dropped some chocolate bars attached
to a handkerchief parachute to the children waiting
below.
•
•
•
•
•
Every day after that the number of
children would increase and he
made several more drops.
Soon there was a stack of mail in
Base Ops addressed to "Uncle Wiggly
Wings", "The Chocolate Uncle" and
"The Chocolate Flier".
His commanding officer was upset
when the story appeared in the
news, but when Tunner heard about
it he approved of the gesture and
immediately expanded it into
"Operation Little Vittles".
Soon the major candy companies
joined in as well. In the end, over
three tons of candy were dropped on
Berlin,[ and the "operation" became a
major propaganda success.
The candy-dropping aircraft were
quickly christened "raisin bombers"
by the German children.
THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE
•
•
•
•
The Truman Doctrine is a
proclamation by Harry S. Truman
on March 12, 1947.
It stated that the U.S. would
support the Kingdom of Greece and
Turkey economically and militarily
to prevent their falling under Soviet
control.
Truman called upon the U.S. to
"support free peoples who are
resisting attempted subjugation by
armed minorities or by outside
pressures," which generalized his
hopes for Greece and Turkey into a
doctrine applicable throughout the
world.
The Soviet Union was clearly at the
heart of Truman's thoughts, but the
nation was never directly
mentioned in his speech.
•
•
Truman was attempting
to solve Eastern
Europe's instability
while making sure the
spread of communism
would not affect nations
like Greece and Turkey.
The Truman Doctrine
represented the hard
side of containment
policy, while the
Marshall Plan
constituted the soft side.
THE FORGOTTEN WAR
•
•
•
The war starts, as you
read, in June of 1950
when the North
Koreans invade South
Korea
It ends on June 27,
1951 when a cease fire
is signed and the 38th
Parallel is established
as the border
The Korean Conflict
(technically) is still
going on
M*A*S*H
•
•
•
•
•
The MASH unit was conceived by
Michael E. DeBakey as the "mobile
auxiliary surgical hospital".
It was an alternative to the system of
portable surgical hospitals, field
hospitals, and general hospitals used
during World War II.
It was designed to get experienced
personnel closer to the front, so that
the wounded could be treated sooner
and with greater success.
Casualties were first treated at the
point of injury through buddy aid,
then routed through for emergency
stabilizing surgery, and finally
routed to the MASH for the most
extensive treatment.
This proved to be highly successful;
it was noted that during the Korean
War, a seriously wounded soldier
that made it to a MASH unit alive
had a 97% chance of survival once he
received treatment
MAC IN KOREA
•
•
•
•
•
MacArthur, as US theater
commander, became commander of
the UN forces in South Asia.
In September, despite lingering
concerns from superiors,
MacArthur's army and marine troops
made a daring and successful
combined amphibious landing at
Incheon, deep behind North Korean
lines.
Launched with naval and close air
support, the daring landing
outflanked the North Koreans,
forcing them to retreat northward in
disarray.
UN forces pursued the North Korean
forces, eventually approaching the
Yalu River border with China.
MacArthur boasted: "The war is over.
The Chinese are not coming... The
Third Division will be back in Fort
Benning for Christmas dinner."[
•
•
•
•
•
In April 1951, MacArthur's habitual
disregard of his superiors led to a
crisis.
He also sent an ultimatum to the
Chinese Army which destroyed
HST’s cease-fire efforts.
This was seen by HST as a violation
of the American constitutional
principle that military commanders
are subordinate to civilian
leadership, and usurpation of the
President's authority to make
foreign policy.
By this time HST decided
MacArthur was insubordinate, and
relieved him of command on April
11, 1951, leading to a storm of
controversy.
HST received criticism from WWII
vets as well as his own mother in
law
BACK TO HST
During this time HST
is also going to enact
what he calls the
“Fair Deal”
 This was designed to
strengthen New Deal
legislation and create
new programs


This legislation never
made it through the
“Do Nothing”
Congress and Truman
leaves the Presidency
with approval ratings
in the 20 to 30% range
1948 ELECTION
Truman decides to run seems like a bad idea he
was having problems with his own party
 Democrats Split--- Truman will be democratic
candidate
 Southern Democrats: form a party called
“Dixiecrats” choose Strom Thurmond of South
Carolina as their candidate----They opposed
segregation
 Progressive Party: liberal democrats choose
Henry Wallace 1 time VP of FDR maybe he could
carry out FDR’s plans
 Split seemed to spell doom for Truman

1948 ELECTION
Republicans nominated: Thomas E. Dewey
 Truman ran a whistle stop campaign & pulls
biggest upset in history[Truman tactic was to
attack the Republican: “Do Nothing Congress”]
 Democrats also gain control of Congress
 Republicans were frustrated push for 22nd
amendment that limits a president to 2
terms

1952 ELECTION
Truman Out
 Democrat Adalai Stevenson
 Republican Dwight Eisenhower [former
Military General]
 “I Like IKE”
 K1C2 Formula for victory:

End Korean War with honor
 Tough approach to communism
 Running mate R. Nixon promised to hammer govt.
corruption

1952 ELECTION

Eisenhower was a very popular candidate
but his campaign ran into a snag
 Richard Nixon V.P. Candidate accused of
having a special fund set up by rich republican
supporters

Nixon Response: The Checkers Speech
 Denied any wrong doing
 Gave personal account of finance



“wife wears a respectable republican cloth coat”
Had received a gift he would not return black and white
cocker spaniel little girl named Checkers
Nixon stays V.P. IKE becomes president 55%
of popular vote will serve 2 terms
EISENHOWER AS PRESIDENT

Brought with him approach called:
 Modern Republicanism: conservative when
it comes to money but liberal when it comes to
human beings
Favored big business
 Cut government spending, but did not try to reverse the
New Deal (Social Security extended minimum wage
increased)
 Economy Slumped

THINGS TO REMEMBER
Soviets don’t like us at the point
 Nukes are powerful
 General Dwight David Eisenhower (Ike) is the
President after Truman and though he is good
he’s no Harry Truman
 We would also like to Welcome the Central
Intelligence Agency into the picture

BUILDING AN EMPIRE

As we talked about
yesterday, after WWII
the world broke into
two different groupsus (The Free World)
and them (The
Communist World)
Each set out to collect
colonies and out posts
to expand their ideals
 Whenever one side
would gain a colony,
the other would
struggle to create a
colony of their own
near it to keep the
other from gaining the
upper hand

U.S V.S THEM
BUILDING A NUCLEAR FORCE

In the back of the Soviet
and American was the
idea of developing a
colony that was close
enough to strike their
enemy with a nuke
In 1952 the U.S tested
it’s first Hydrogen
Bomb
In 1953 the Soviet
tested their first HBomb
The Hydrogen Bomb
was even more
effective and deadly
than the atom bomb,
but hey when you’re
wiping whole towns
off the map- what’s a
few more blocks
ZERO SUM
This arms race, and
the Cold War, are
often called an
exercise in
Brinkmenship
 Brinkmenship is the
idea that both sides
have roughly the same
weapons and try to
gain a upper hand
without going over the
brink

However, many
opponents (to this
day) say that building
a large nuclear
arsenal is a zero sum
exercise because in
the end no one would
win
 Your text calls this
mutually assured
destruction

IKE STEPS IN




Ike opposed spending
billions of dollars on
regular forces (armies,
navies, and air forcesoh my) and favored
stockpiling nuclear
weapons
His approach did save
money
In 1953 the defense
budget was $50.5 billion
In 1955 it was only $35.8
THE EISENHOWER DOCTRINE
Ike (in response to
then recent events in
Egypt) announced
that the U.S would
use force in any
Middle Eastern
country that was
threatened by
Communism
 He would use this to
justify sending troops
into Lebanon

WHO CALLED THE CIA?
The Central Intelligence Agency was working
within then Soviet Union as well as countries
that would potentially fall to the Communist
After Stalin dies in 1953, the U.S saw an
opportunity to stave off Communist Growth
In places like Poland, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia the CIA helped fund and support
rebellions against the Soviets
THE CIA IN IRAN & GUATEMALA


Ike approves the CIA
to use covert
measures to form a
coup that over
throws the unfriendly governments
in Iran in 1953 and
Guatemala in 1954
Both were successful
but create long
standing hatred of
the U.S in both
countries

Many historians
debate why the CIA
was involved with a
coup in what seemed
to be a harmless
government in
Guatemala, but upon
further inspection,
you see that the
United Fruit
Company had lobbied
the CIA to over-throw
the government that
purposed Communist
ideals
FINAL QUESTIONS


What methods did the U.S use in its global
struggle against the Soviet Union
How was the Eisenhower Doctrine similar to the
Truman Doctrine?
COLD WAR CONTINUED
1957 USSR launched Sputnik: 1st artificial
satellite to orbit earth, weighed about 185lbs
little bigger than basketball
 Sputnik II: launched a few months after
Sputnik 1---bigger---carried a dog
 These Satellites Caused:
 Fear (Fall Out Shelters)
 Education failing/ science & math (National
Defense Education Act)
 NASA (National Aeronautics & Space
Administration) caused Space Race

THE CULTURE OF THE 1950’S
For Bell Work: Get out a piece of paper and write
down as many things about the 1950’s American
culture you can think of
 Items you might know can include: musicians or
musical groups, TV shows, famous people, toys,
games, ideas, events,

THINGS TO REMEMBER
We’re in the same time frame as we have been
 Cars were made of metal
 Paint had lead in it
 This is, mostly likely, the decade many of your
parents were born in
 Johnny Cash becomes famous as well as this guy
named Elvis-who names their kid Elvis?

ROLE OF MEN AND WOMEN (50’S
STYLE)
Men
 go to school, find a job, support wife & family
 For most part they continue to make most
important: political, economic, & social
decisions
 Women
 Take care of home not unusual to be married
at age 16,attend school functions, raise
children

ROLE OF MEN AND WOMEN (50’S
STYLE)
1950 24% married women work outside the
home it did increase 31% by 1960
 1963 Betty Friedan published The Feminine
Mystique declared women were frustrated &
had a difficult time choosing alternative roles.

THE G.I BILL
As World War Two
came to a close, they
Federal government
had a large problem
 What would it do with
all the men that had
either joined or were
drafted into the
military


In an attempt to
combat the typical
post-war economic
depression, with high
jobless rates, the
federal government
decided to enact the
laws that became
known as the
Montgomery G.I. Bills
or G.I Bill for short
Under the G.I Bill returning veterans were
given money and encouraged to enter
college.
 It also gave money to those who could not
find a job
 Many veterans took this money and either
entered or returned to college, and
increased the amount of college degrees
drastically
 Many modern historians have argued that
the G.I Bill is one of the most significant
pieces of legislation ever passed Partially (my opinion) because it inspired
many African Americans to enter what
were then segregated college

THE BABY BOOM
Another culturally
significant event was
the baby boom
 As the name suggests
it was a large increase
of babies born
 But as these babies
grow up there is going
to be an increase
demand for
everything in lifecollege degree, homes,
job, and now health
care

LEAD SLEDS
With a growing
number of families
moving into suburban
homes the need for
cars also increased in
the post war years
 The number of
registered cars
jumped from 26
million in 1946 to 60
million in 1960

THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY ACT
Ike saw the increased
traffic on America’s
roads to be a problem
so in 1956 he had
Congress pass the
Interstate Highway
Act
 These new roads
allowed the average
Americans the
opportunity to travel
to places like Disney
World

While this helped the
American public it
also had military
benefits
 In the case of a
Nuclear Attack or
Russian Invasion the
military could use the
highways to rush
forces quickly to
where they were
needed*

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL
A form of popular music arising from and
incorporating a variety of musical styles,
especially rhythm and blues, country music, and
gospel.
 Originating in the United States in the 1950s, it
is characterized by electronically amplified
instrumentation, a heavily accented beat, and
relatively simple phrase structure

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL IN THE ‘50’S
The United States was divided by racial problems
during the 1950's, but many people sensed a
spirit of equality in Rock and Roll.
 With the rise of Rock and Roll's new popularity,
black artists were becoming more popular with
audiences of all colors.
 Chuck Berry was one of the first black Rock and
Roll performers to appeal to black and white
audiences by combining the popular black
Rhythm-and-Blues sound with Rock and
Roll. His powerful guitar playing and energetic
dancing thrilled audiences.

CHUCK BERRY AND THE DUCK WALK



When Bill Haley's Rock
Around the Clock
appeared in 1955,
America started to
swing to a whole new
sound.
Rock Around the Clock
was used in a popular
movie named
Blackboard Jungle.
This movie gave Rock
and Roll a huge
audience and made Bill
Haley and the Comets
famous overnight.
BUDDY HOLLY
 Holly
is described by critic Bruce Eder as
"the single most influential creative force
in early rock and roll.”
 His works and innovations were copied by
his contemporaries and later musicians,
notably The Beatles and The Rolling
Stones, and exerted a profound influence
on popular music.
 In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked
Holly #13 on their list of the 100 Greatest
Artists of All Time.



Holly’s career only span
about a year before he,
Richie Valens, and The Big
Bopper were killed in a
plane crash
In a strange twist of fate a
young man by the name of
Waylon Jennings was
supposed to have had
Holly’s seat on the plane
that crashed
Holly’s death was the
inspiration for Don
McLean’s “Bye, Bye Miss
American Pie”
MY FAVORITE OF THE 1950’S



Johnny Cash was born J. R.
Cash in Kingsland,
Arkansas and raised in
Dyess, Arkansas
Cash started a band with
Luther Perkins and
Marshal Grant, and would
eventually audition for Sam
Phillips at Sun Records in
Memphis, Tennessee
Sun was famous already for
having signed Elvis Presley,
and the more popular at the
time, Jerry Lee Lewis

Cash and his band the
Tennessee Three
would spend most of
the 1950’s touring
with the likes of Elvis,
Roy Orbison, and
Jerry Lee Lewis
ELVIS


Elvis is by far the
popular musician of all
times, but in the 1950’s
he was just starting out
On July 18, 1953,
Presley went to Sun
Records' Memphis
Recording Service to
record "My Happiness"
with "That's When Your
Heartaches Begin",
supposedly a present for
his mother
On January 10, Presley made his first recordings
for RCA in Nashville, Tennessee. The session
produced "Heartbreak Hotel/I Was The One"
which was released on January 27.
 The public reaction to "Heartbreak Hotel"
prompted RCA to release it as a single in its own
right (February 11). April it had hit number one
in the U.S. charts, selling in excess of one million
copies.





After more hectic touring,
Presley returned to The
Milton Berle Show on June
5 and performed "Hound
Dog" (without his guitar).
Singing the song up tempo,
he then began a slower
version.
Presley's "gyrations" created
a storm of controversy—
even eclipsing the
'communist threat'
headlines prevalent at the
time.
The press described his
performance as "vulgar" and
"obscene".

On March 24, 1958, he
was inducted as US
Army private
#53310761 and
completed basic training
at Fort Hood, Texas on
September 17, 1958,
before being posted to
Friedberg, Germany
with the 3rd Armored
Division, where his
service took place from
October 1, 1958
ELVIS IN THE ARMY
DISSENT AND DISCONTENT



Despite the relative
prosperity of the 1950’s
Many felt as is the
material conditions had
improved during the
1950’s but the quality of
life had not
These protest that start in
the 1950’s are going to be
what plants the seed for
the mass protests of the
1960’s..you can’t have
Hippies without Beatniks
LITERARY PROTEST
The protest would
primarily come from
writers like J.D
Salinger, Sloan
Wilson, Jack Kerouac
Truman Capote, and
William S. Burroughs
 Where writers like
Hemmingway,
Faulkner, Wolfe, and
Fitzgerald made up
the “Lost Generation”
these writers become
the “Beat Generation”

THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT




The novel about the
American search for
purpose in world
dominated by business.
Tom and Betsy Rath share
a struggle to find
contentment in their
hectic and material
culture.
In the end, it is a story of
taking responsibility for
one's own life.
The book was largely
autobiographical, drawing
on Wilson's experiences as
assistant director of the
US national citizen
commission for the public
schools.
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE


First published in the
United States in 1951, the
novel has been frequently
challenged in its home
country for its liberal use
of profanity and portrayal
of sexuality and teenage
angst.
Originally published for
adults, the novel has
become a common part of
high school and college
curricula throughout the
English-speaking world; it
has also been translated
into almost all of the
world's major languages.


Written in the first
person, The Catcher in
the Rye follows a young
man’s (Holden Caulfield)
experiences in New York
City in the days
following his expulsion
from Pencey Prep, a
college preparatory
school.
As Holden shares his
experiences, it becomes
evident that he is talking
from a mental facility
where he is being
psychoanalyzed




Holden spends a total of
two days in the city,
characterized largely by
drunkenness and
loneliness.
At one point he ends up
at a museum, where he
contrasts his life with
the statues of Eskimos on
display
Holden intends to move
out west, in the end he
doesn’t go
His voice in the novel's
last few pages indicates
more perspective, yet he
remains lonely and
without definite
direction
ON THE ROAD



It is a largely
autobiographical based on
the road trips of Kerouac
and his friends across midcentury America.
It is often considered a
defining work of the postwar
Beat Generation that was
inspired by jazz, poetry, and
drug experience
The novel was chosen by
TIME Magazine as one of
the 100 best Englishlanguage novels from 1923
to 2005.
PLOT
 The
book begins by introducing the
catalyst for most of the adventures of the
story: Dean Moriarty.
 The narrator, Sal Paradise, is fascinated
with the idea of humanity, and
particularly his eclectic group of friends,
jazz, the landscapes of America, and
women.
 The opening paragraph states that "with
the coming of Dean Moriarty began the
part of my life you could call my life on the
road."
His friend Remi Boncœur has sent an invitation
to join him, with hints of worldwide travels
aboard a ship.
 He sets out with fifty dollars in his pocket.
 From there he travels across the world and
America
 Dean comes back to New York to see Sal and
steal Sal’s girl, but it doesn’t work so Dean
returns to the West alone.
 Sal closes the novel sitting on a pier during
sunset, looking west reminiscing on God,
America, and the idea that "nobody knows what’s
going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn
rags of growing old,"

VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW




1945
Ho Chi Minh Creates Provisional
Government: Following the surrender of Japan to Allied
forces, Ho Chi Minh and his People's Congress create the
National Liberation Committee of Vietnam to form a
provisional government. Japan transfers all power to Ho's
Vietminh.
Ho Declares Independence of Vietnam
British Forces Land in Saigon, Return Authority to
French
First American Dies in Vietnam: Lt. Col. A. Peter
Dewey, head of American OSS mission, was killed by
Vietminh troops while driving a jeep to the airport. Reports
later indicated that his death was due to a case of mistaken
identity -- he had been mistaken for a Frenchman.
VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW
1954



Eisenhower Cites "Domino Theory" Regarding Southeast
Asia: Responding to the defeat of the French by the Vietminh at
Dienbienphu, President Eisenhower outlines the Domino Theory:
"You have a row of dominoes set up. You knock over the first one,
and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will
go over very quickly."
Geneva Convention Begins: Delegates from nine nations
convene in Geneva to start negotiations that will lead to the end
of hostilities in Indochina. The idea of partitioning Vietnam is
first explored at this forum.
Geneva Convention Agreements Announced: Vietminh
General Ta Quang Buu and French General Henri Delteil sign
the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam. As part
of the agreement, a provisional demarcation line is drawn at the
17th parallel which will divide Vietnam until nationwide elections
are held in 1956. The United States does not accept the
agreement, neither does the government of Bao Dai.
VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW
1960

Vietcong Formed: Hanoi forms National Liberation Front for
South Vietnam. Diem government dubs them "Vietcong."
1961

Vice President Johnson Tours Saigon: During a tour of
Asian countries, Vice President Lyndon Johnson visits Diem in
Saigon. Johnson assures Diem that he is crucial to US objectives
in Vietnam and calls him "the Churchill of Asia."
1962

US Military Employs Agent Orange: US Air Force begins
using Agent Orange -- a defoliant that came in metal orange
containers-to expose roads and trails used by Vietcong forces.
1963

Diem Overthrown, Murdered: With tacit approval of the
United States, operatives within the South Vietnamese military
overthrow Diem. He and his brother Nhu are shot and killed in
the aftermath.
VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW
1964



General Nguyen Khanh Seizes Power in Saigon: In a bloodless
coup, General Nguyen Khanh seizes power in Saigon. South Vietnam
junta leader, Major General Duong Van Minh, is placed under house
arrest, but is allowed to remain as a figurehead chief-of-state.
Gulf of Tonkin Incident: On August 2, three North Vietnamese PT
boats allegedly fire torpedoes at the USS Maddox, a destroyer located in
the international waters of the Tonkin Gulf, some thirty miles off the
coast of North Vietnam. The attack comes after six months of covert US
and South Vietnamese naval operations. A second, even more highly
disputed attack, is alleged to have taken place on August 4.
Debate on Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: The Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution is approved by Congress on August 7 and authorizes President
Lyndon Johnson to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed
attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further
aggression." The resolution passes unanimously in the House, and by a
margin of 82-2 in the Senate. The Resolution allows Johnson to wage all
out war against North Vietnam without ever securing a formal
Declaration of War from Congress.
VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW
1965


Operation "Rolling Thunder" Deployed: Sustained
American bombing raids of North Vietnam, dubbed Operation
Rolling Thunder, begin in February. The nearly continuous air
raids would go on for three years.
US Troop Levels Top 200,000
1966


Veterans Stage Anti-War Rally: Veterans from World Wars I
and II, along with veterans from the Korean war stage a protest
rally in New York City. Discharge and separation papers are
burned in protest of US involvement in Vietnam.
CORE Cites "Burden On Minorities and Poor" in
Vietnam: The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) issues a
report claiming that the US military draft places "a heavy
discriminatory burden on minority groups and the poor." The
group also calls for a withdrawal of all US troops from Vietnam.
VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW
1968


Launch Tet Offensive:
In a show of military might that catches the
US military off guard, North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces sweep down
upon several key cities and provinces in South Vietnam, including its
capital, Saigon. Within days, American forces turn back the onslaught and
recapture most areas. From a military point of view, Tet is a huge defeat
for the Communists, but turns out to be a political and psychological
victory. The US military's assessment of the war is questioned and the
"end of tunnel" seems very far off.
My Lai Massacre: On March 16, the angry and frustrated men of
Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, Americal Division entered the village of
My Lai. "This is what you've been waiting for -- search and destroy -- and
you've got it," said their superior officers. A short time later the killing
began. When news of the atrocities surfaced, it sent shockwaves through
the US political establishment, the military's chain of command, and an
already divided American public.
VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW
1968 Continued

Paris Peace Talks Begin: Following a lengthy period of debate and
discussion, North Vietnamese and American negotiators agree on a
location and start date of peace talks. Talks are slated to begin in Paris on
May 10 with W. Averell Harriman representing the United States, and
former Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy heading the North Vietnamese
delegation.
1969


Nixon Begins Secret Bombing of Cambodia: In an effort to destroy
Communist supply routes and base camps in Cambodia, President Nixon
gives the go-ahead to "Operation Breakfast." The covert bombing of
Cambodia, conducted without the knowledge of Congress or the American
public, will continue for fourteen months.
Policy of "Vietnamization" Announced: Secretary of Defense Melvin
Laird describes a policy of "Vietnamization" when discussing a
diminishing role for the US military in Vietnam. The objective of the
policy is to shift the burden of defeating the Communists onto the South
Vietnamese Army and away from the United States.
VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW
1969 Continued
 Ho Chi Minh Dies at Age 79
 News of My Lai Massacre Reaches
US: Through the reporting of journalist
Seymour Hersh, Americans read for the first time
of the atrocities committed by Lt. William Calley
and his troops in the village of My Lai. At the
time the reports were made public, the Army had
already charged Calley with the crime of murder.
VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW
1972


Nixon Cuts Troop Levels by 70K: Responding to charges by
Democratic presidential candidates that he is not moving fast enough to
end US involvement in Vietnam, President Nixon orders troop strength
reduced by seventy thousand.
Secret Peace Talks Revealed
1973

Cease-fire Signed in Paris: A cease-fire agreement that, in the words
of Richard Nixon, "brings peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast
Asia," is signed in Paris by Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. The
agreement is to go into effect on January 28.

End of Draft Announced

Last American Troops Leave Vietnam
VIETNAM WAR OVERVIEW
1975


Ford Calls Vietnam War "Finished": Anticipating the fall of
Saigon to Communist forces, US President Gerald Ford, speaking
in New Orleans, announces that as far as the US is concerned, the
Vietnam War is "finished."
Last Americans Evacuate as Saigon Falls to
Communists: South Vietnamese President Duong Van Minh
delivers an unconditional surrender to the Communists in the
early hours of April 30. North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin accepts
the surrender and assures Minh that, "...Only the Americans have
been beaten. If you are patriots, consider this a moment of joy."
As the few remaining Americans evacuate Saigon, the last two US
servicemen to die in Vietnam are killed when their helicopter
crashes.
KHRUSHCHEV, EISENHOWER AND
DE-STALINIZATION

In 1953, changes in political leadership on both
sides shifted the dynamic of the Cold War.[71]
Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated
president that January. During the last
18 months of the Truman administration, the
American defense budget had quadrupled, and
Eisenhower moved to reduce military spending
by a third while continuing to fight the Cold War
effectively
KHRUSHCHEV, EISENHOWER AND
DE-STALINIZATION

After the death of Joseph Stalin, Nikita
Khrushchev became the Soviet leader following
the deposition and execution of Lavrentiy Beria
and the pushing aside of rivals Georgy Malenkov
and Vyacheslav Molotov. On February 25, 1956,
Khrushchev shocked delegates to the 20th
Congress of the Soviet Communist Party by
cataloguing and denouncing Stalin's crimes.[106]
As part of a campaign of de-Stalinization, he
declared that the only way to reform and move
away from Stalin's policies would be to
acknowledge errors made in the past
KHRUSHCHEV, EISENHOWER AND
DE-STALINIZATION

On November 18, 1956, while addressing Western
ambassadors at a reception at the Polish embassy in
Moscow, Khrushchev used his famous "Whether you like it
or not, history is on our side. We will bury you" expression,
shocking everyone present.[107] He later claimed that he
had not been talking about nuclear war, but rather about
the historically determined victory of communism over
capitalism.[108] In 1961, Khrushchev declared that even if
the USSR was behind the West, within a decade its
housing shortage would disappear, consumer goods would
be abundant, and within two decades, the "construction of a
communist society" in the USSR would be completed "in
the main"
KHRUSHCHEV, EISENHOWER AND
DE-STALINIZATION

Eisenhower's secretary of state, John Foster
Dulles, initiated a "New Look" for the
containment strategy, calling for a greater
reliance on nuclear weapons against US enemies
in wartime.[71] Dulles also enunciated the
doctrine of "massive retaliation", threatening a
severe US response to any Soviet aggression.
Possessing nuclear superiority, for example,
allowed Eisenhower to face down Soviet threats
to intervene in the Middle East during the 1956
Suez Crisis.
WARSAW PACT AND HUNGARIAN
REVOLUTION


While Stalin's death in 1953 slightly relaxed tensions, the
situation in Europe remained an uneasy armed truce.[110] The
Soviets, who had already created a network of mutual assistance
treaties in the Eastern Bloc by 1949,[111] established a formal
alliance therein, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955.[32]
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 occurred shortly after
Khrushchev arranged the removal of Hungary's Stalinist leader
Mátyás Rákosi.[112] In response to a popular uprising,[113] the new
regime formally disbanded the secret police, declared its intention
to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish
free elections. The Soviet army invaded.[114] Thousands of
Hungarians were arrested, imprisoned and deported to the Soviet
Union,[115] and approximately 200,000 Hungarians fled Hungary
in the chaos.[116] Hungarian leader Imre Nagy and others were
executed following secret trials
WARSAW PACT AND HUNGARIAN
REVOLUTION

From 1957 through 1961, Khrushchev openly and repeatedly
threatened the West with nuclear annihilation. He claimed that
Soviet missile capabilities were far superior to those of the United
States, capable of wiping out any American or European city.
However, Khrushchev rejected Stalin's belief in the inevitability
of war, and declared his new goal was to be "peaceful
coexistence".[118] This formulation modified the Stalin-era Soviet
stance, where international class struggle meant the two opposing
camps were on an inevitable collision course where Communism
would triumph through global war; now, peace would allow
capitalism to collapse on its own,[119] as well as giving the Soviets
time to boost their military capabilities,[120] which remained for
decades until Gorbachev's later "new thinking" envisioning
peaceful coexistence as an end in itself rather than a form of class
struggle
WARSAW PACT AND HUNGARIAN
REVOLUTION

The events in Hungary produced ideological fractures
within the Communist parties of the world, particularly in
Western Europe, with great decline in membership as
many in both western and communist countries felt
disillusioned by the brutal Soviet response.[122] The
communist parties in the west would never recover from
the effect the Hungarian Revolution had on their
membership, a fact that was immediately recognized by
some, such as the Yugoslavian politician Milovan Djilas
who shortly after the revolution was crushed said that "The
wound which the Hungarian Revolution inflicted on
communism can never be completely healed
WARSAW PACT AND HUNGARIAN
REVOLUTION

America's pronouncements concentrated on
American strength abroad and the success of
liberal capitalism.[123] However, by the late 1960s,
the "battle for men's minds" between two systems
of social organization that Kennedy spoke of in
1961 was largely over, with tensions henceforth
based primarily on clashing geopolitical
objectives rather than ideology
BERLIN ULTIMATUM AND EUROPEAN
INTEGRATION


The maximum territorial extent of countries in the world
under Soviet influence, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959
and before the official Sino-Soviet split of 1961
During November 1958, Khrushchev made an unsuccessful
attempt to turn all of Berlin into an independent,
demilitarized "free city", giving the United States, Great
Britain, and France a six-month ultimatum to withdraw
their troops from the sectors they still occupied in West
Berlin, or he would transfer control of Western access
rights to the East Germans. Khrushchev earlier explained
to Mao Zedong that "Berlin is the testicles of the West.
Every time I want to make the West scream, I squeeze on
Berlin."[125] NATO formally rejected the ultimatum in midDecember and Khrushchev withdrew it in return for a
Geneva conference on the German question.
BERLIN ULTIMATUM AND EUROPEAN
INTEGRATION
More broadly, one hallmark of the 1950s was the
beginning of European integration
 a fundamental by-product of the Cold War that
Truman and Eisenhower promoted politically,
economically, and militarily, but which later
administrations viewed ambivalently, fearful
that an independent Europe would forge a
separate détente with the Soviet Union, which
would use this to exacerbate Western disunity

WORLDWIDE COMPETITION

1961 Soviet postage stamp
demanding freedom for
African nations.

1961 Soviet stamp
commemorating Patrice
Lumumba, prime minister
of the Republic of the
Congo.
WORLDWIDE COMPETITION


1961 Soviet stamp commemorating Patrice Lumumba,
prime minister of the Republic of the Congo.
Nationalist movements in some countries and regions,
notably Guatemala, Indonesia and Indochina were often
allied with communist groups, or perceived in the West to
be allied with communists.[71] In this context, the United
States and the Soviet Union increasingly competed for
influence by proxy in the Third World as decolonization
gained momentum in the 1950s and early 1960s;[128]
additionally, the Soviets saw continuing losses by imperial
powers as presaging the eventual victory of their ideology
WORLDWIDE COMPETITION

The United States made use of the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) to do away with a string of unfriendly Third World
governments and to support allied ones.[71] In 1953, President
Eisenhower's Central Intelligence Agency implemented Operation
Ajax, a covert operation aimed at the overthrow of the Iranian
prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. The popularly-elected
and non-aligned Mosaddegh had been a Middle Eastern nemesis
of Britain since nationalizing the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company in 1951. Churchill told the United States that
Mosaddegh was "increasingly turning towards communism" and
was moving Iran towards the Soviet sphere.[130][131][132][133] The
pro-Western shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, assumed control as
an autocratic monarch.[134] The shah's policies included the
banning of the communist Tudeh Party and general suppression
of political dissent by SAVAK, the shah's domestic security and
intelligence agency.
WORLDWIDE COMPETITION



In Guatemala, a CIA-backed military coup ousted the left-wing
President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954.[135] The post-Arbenz
government, a military junta headed by Carlos Castillo Armas,
returned nationalized American property, set up a National
Committee of Defense Against Communism, and decreed a
Preventive Penal Law Against Communism at the request of the
United States.
In the Republic of the Congo, newly independent from Belgium
since June 1960, the CIA-cultivated President Joseph Kasa-Vubu
ordered the dismissal of the democratically-elected Prime
Minister Patrice Lumumba and the Lumumba cabinet in
September; Lumumba called for Kasa-Vubu's dismissal instead.
In the ensuing Congo Crisis, the CIA-backed Colonel Mobutu
quickly mobilized his forces to seize power through a military
coup d'état
WORLDWIDE COMPETITION

In British Guiana, the leftist People's Progressive Party (PPP)
candidate Cheddi Jagan won the position of chief minister in a
colonially-administered election in 1953, but was quickly forced to
resign from power after Britain's suspension of the stilldependent nation's constitution.[138] Embarrassed by the landslide
electoral victory of Jagan's allegedly Marxist party, the British
imprisoned the PPP's leadership and maneuvered the
organization into a divisive rupture in 1955, engineering a split
between Jagan and his PPP colleagues.[139] Jagan again won the
colonial elections in 1957 and 1961; despite Britain's shift to a
reconsideration of its view of the left-wing Jagan as a Soviet-style
communist at this time, the United States pressured the British
to withhold Guyana's independence until an alternative to Jagan
could be identified, supported, and brought into office
WORLDWIDE COMPETITION

Worn down by the communist guerrilla war for Vietnamese
independence and handed a watershed defeat by
communist Vietminh rebels at the 1954 Battle of Điện Biên
Phủ, the French accepted a negotiated abandonment of
their colonial stake in Vietnam. Peace accords signed in
Geneva left Vietnam divided between a pro-Soviet
administration in North Vietnam and a pro-Western
administration in South Vietnam at the 17th parallel
north. Between 1954 and 1961, Eisenhower's United States
sent economic aid and military advisers to strengthen
South Vietnam's pro-Western regime against communist
efforts to destabilize it
WORLDWIDE COMPETITION

Many emerging nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America
rejected the pressure to choose sides in the East-West
competition. In 1955, at the Bandung Conference in
Indonesia, dozens of Third World governments resolved to
stay out of the Cold War.[141] The consensus reached at
Bandung culminated with the creation of the Belgradeheadquartered Non-Aligned Movement in 1961.[71]
Meanwhile, Khrushchev broadened Moscow's policy to
establish ties with India and other key neutral states.
Independence movements in the Third World transformed
the post-war order into a more pluralistic world of
decolonized African and Middle Eastern nations and of
rising nationalism in Asia and Latin America
SINO-SOVIET SPLIT, SPACE RACE, ICBMS

Charting the progress of the Space Race in 1957-1975.
SINO-SOVIET SPLIT, SPACE RACE, ICBMS

The period after 1956 was marked by serious
setbacks for the Soviet Union, most notably the
breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, beginning
the Sino-Soviet split. Mao had defended Stalin
when Khrushchev attacked him after his death
in 1956, and treated the new Soviet leader as a
superficial upstart, accusing him of having lost
his revolutionary edge
SINO-SOVIET SPLIT, SPACE RACE, ICBMS

After this, Khrushchev made many desperate
attempts to reconstitute the Sino-Soviet alliance,
but Mao considered it useless and denied any
proposal.[142] The Chinese-Soviet animosity
spilled out in an intra-communist propaganda
war.[143] Further on, the Soviets focused on a
bitter rivalry with Mao's China for leadership of
the global communist movement,
SINO-SOVIET SPLIT, SPACE RACE, ICBMS

On the nuclear weapons front, the United States
and the USSR pursued nuclear rearmament and
developed long-range weapons with which they
could strike the territory of the other.[32] In
August 1957, the Soviets successfully launched
the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM)[145] and in October, launched the first
Earth satellite, Sputnik.[146] The launch of
Sputnik inaugurated the Space Race. This
culminated in the Apollo Moon landings, which
astronaut Frank Borman later described as "just
a battle in the Cold War.
CUBAN REVOLUTION AND THE BAY OF PIGS


In Cuba, the 26th of July Movement seized power in
January 1959, toppling President Fulgencio Batista, whose
unpopular regime had been denied arms by the Eisenhower
administration.[148]
Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States
continued for some time after Batista's fall, but President
Eisenhower deliberately left the capital to avoid meeting
Cuba's young revolutionary leader Fidel Castro during the
latter's trip to Washington in April, leaving Vice President
Richard Nixon to conduct the meeting in his place.[149]
Eisenhower's officials were not sure as to whether Castro
was a communist, but hostile toward the Cubans' efforts to
decrease their economic reliance on the United States
CUBAN REVOLUTION AND THE BAY OF PIGS

n January 1961, just prior to leaving office,
Eisenhower formally severed relations with the
Cuban government. In April 1961, the
administration of newly-elected American
President John F. Kennedy mounted an
unsuccessful CIA-organized invasion of the island
at Playa Girón in the Bay of Pigs — a failure that
publicly humiliated the United States.[150] Castro
responded by embracing Marxism-Leninism, and
the Soviet Union pledged to provide support.
BERLIN CRISIS OF 1961


The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was the last major incident in the Cold War
regarding the status of Berlin and post–World War II Germany. By the
early 1950s, the Soviet approach to restricting emigration movement was
emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc.[151] However, hundreds
of thousands of East Germans annually emigrated to West Germany
through a "loophole" in the system that existed between East and West
Berlin, where the four occupying World War II powers governed
movement.
The emigration resulted in a massive "brain drain" from East Germany to
West Germany of younger educated professionals, such that nearly 20% of
East Germany's population had migrated to West Germany by 1961.[153]
That June, the Soviet Union issued a new ultimatum demanding the
withdrawal of Allied forces from West Berlin.[154] The request was
rebuffed, and in August, East Germany erected a barbed-wire barrier that
would eventually be expanded through construction into the Berlin Wall,
effectively closing the loophole
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS AND KHRUSHCHEV OUSTER

A U.S. Navy P-2 of VP-18 flying over a Soviet
freighter during the Cuban Missile Crisis
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS AND KHRUSHCHEV OUSTER


Continuing to seek ways to oust Castro following the Bay of
Pigs, Kennedy and his administration experimented with
various ways of covertly facilitating the overthrow of the
Cuban government. Significant hopes were pinned on a
covert program named the Cuban Project, devised under
the Kennedy administration in 1961.
In February 1962, Khrushchev learned of the American
plans regarding Cuba: a "Cuban project" — approved by
the CIA and stipulating the overthrow of the Castro
government in October, possibly involving the American
military — and yet one more Kennedy-ordered operation to
assassinate Castro.[156] Preparations to install Soviet
nuclear missiles in Cuba were undertaken in response.
CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS AND KHRUSHCHEV OUSTER



Alarmed, Kennedy considered various reactions, and ultimately
responded to the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba with a naval
blockade and presented an ultimatum to the Soviets. Khrushchev backed
down from a confrontation, and the Soviet Union removed the missiles in
return for an American pledge not to invade Cuba again.[157]
The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world closer to nuclear war than
ever before.[158] It further demonstrated the concept of mutually assured
destruction, that neither nuclear power was prepared to use nuclear
weapons fearing total destruction via nuclear retaliation.[159] The
aftermath of the crisis led to the first efforts in the nuclear arms race at
nuclear disarmament and improving relations,[110] although the Cold
War's first arms control agreement, the Antarctic Treaty, had come into
force in 1961.[160]
In 1964, Khrushchev's Kremlin colleagues managed to oust him, but
allowed him a peaceful retirement.[161] Accused of rudeness and
incompetence, he was also credited with ruining Soviet agriculture and
bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.[161] Khrushchev had
become an international embarrassment when he authorized construction
of the Berlin Wall, a public humiliation for Marxism-Leninism
CONFRONTATION THROUGH DÉTENTE (1962–79)

The United States reached the moon in 1969—a
milestone in the space race.
CONFRONTATION THROUGH DÉTENTE (1962–79)

United States Navy F-4 Phantom II intercepts a
Soviet Tupolev Tu-95 D aircraft in the early
1970s
CONFRONTATION THROUGH DÉTENTE (1962–79)


In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, Cold War participants struggled to
adjust to a new, more complicated pattern of international relations in
which the world was no longer divided into two clearly opposed blocs. [71]
From the beginning of the post-war period, Western Europe and Japan
rapidly recovered from the destruction of World War II and sustained
strong economic growth through the 1950s and 1960s, with per capita
GDPs approaching those of the United States, while Eastern Bloc
economies stagnated.[71][162]
As a result of the 1973 oil crisis, combined with the growing influence of
Third World alignments such as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) and the Non-Aligned Movement, less-powerful
countries had more room to assert their independence and often showed
themselves resistant to pressure from either superpower.[97] Moscow,
meanwhile, was forced to turn its attention inward to deal with the Soviet
Union's deep-seated domestic economic problems.[71] During this period,
Soviet leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin embraced the
notion of détente
FRENCH NATO WITHDRAWAL


The unity of NATO was breached early in its history, with a crisis
occurring during Charles de Gaulle's presidency of France from
1958 onwards. De Gaulle protested at the United States' strong
role in the organization and what he perceived as a special
relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.
In a memorandum sent to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on 17 September 1958, he
argued for the creation of a tripartite directorate that would put
France on an equal footing with the United States and the United
Kingdom, and also for the expansion of NATO's coverage to
include geographical areas of interest to France, most notably
French Algeria, where France was waging a counter-insurgency
and sought NATO assistance
Considering the response given to be unsatisfactory, de Gaulle
began the development of an independent French nuclear
deterrent and in 1966 withdrew from NATO's military structures
and expelled NATO troops from French soil
CZECHOSLOVAKIA INVASION


In 1968, a period of political liberalization in
Czechoslovakia called the Prague Spring took place that
included "Action Program" of liberalizations, which
described increasing freedom of the press, freedom of
speech and freedom of movement, along with an economic
emphasis on consumer goods, the possibility of a
multiparty government, limiting the power of the secret
police[165][166] and potentially withdrawing from the Warsaw
Pact.[167]
The Soviet army, together with most of their Warsaw Pact
allies, invaded Czechoslovakia.[168] The invasion was
followed by a wave of emigration, including an estimated
70,000 Czechs initially fleeing, with the total eventually
reaching 300,000.[169] The invasion sparked intense
protests from Yugoslavia, Romania and China, and from
Western European communist parties
BREZHNEV DOCTRINE





Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon during Brezhnev's June 1973 visit to
Washington; this was a high-water mark in détente between the United
States and the Soviet Union.
Main article: Brezhnev Doctrine
In September 1968, during a speech at the Fifth Congress of the Polish
United Workers' Party one month after the invasion of Czechoslovakia,
Brezhnev outlined the Brezhnev Doctrine, in which he claimed the right
to violate the sovereignty of any country attempting to replace MarxismLeninism with capitalism. During the speech, Brezhnev stated:[167]
When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of
some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem
of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all
socialist countries.
The doctrine found its origins in the failures of Marxism-Leninism in
states like Poland, Hungary and East Germany, which were facing a
declining standard of living contrasting with the prosperity of West
Germany and the rest of Western Europe
THIRD WORLD ESCALATIONS

Alexei Kosygin (left) next to U.S. President
Lyndon B. Johnson (right) during the Glassboro
Summit Conference
THIRD WORLD ESCALATIONS


In late April 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson landed some
22,000 troops in the Dominican Republic for a one-year occupation
of the republic in an invasion codenamed Operation Power Pack,
citing the threat of the emergence of a Cuban-style revolution in
Latin America.[17] Presidential elections held in 1966, during the
occupation, handed victory to the conservative Joaquín Balaguer.
Although Balaguer enjoyed a real base of support from sectors of
the elites as well as peasants, his formally running Dominican
Revolutionary Party (PRD) opponent, former President Juan
Bosch, did not actively campaign.[172] The PRD's activists were
violently harassed by the Dominican police and armed forces.[172]
In Indonesia, the hardline anti-communist General Suharto
wrested control of the state from his predecessor Sukarno in an
attempt to establish a "New Order". From 1965 to 1966, the
military orchestrated the mass killing of an estimated half-million
members and sympathizers of the Indonesian Communist Party
and other leftist organizations
THIRD WORLD ESCALATIONS


Escalating the scale of American intervention in the ongoing conflict
between Ngô Đình Diệm's South Vietnamese government and the
communist National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF)
insurgents opposing it, Johnson stationed some 575,000 troops in
Southeast Asia to defeat the NLF and their North Vietnamese allies in
the Vietnam War, but his costly policy weakened the US economy and, by
1975, ultimately culminated in what most of the world saw as a
humiliating defeat of the world's most powerful superpower at the hands
of one of the world's poorest nations.[17]
In Chile, the Socialist Party candidate Salvador Allende won the
presidential election of 1970, becoming the first democratically elected
Marxist to become president of a country in the Americas.[174] Backed by
the CIA, General Augusto Pinochet carried out a violent coup against the
government on September 11, 1973 and quickly consolidated all political
power as a military dictator. Allende's reforms of the economy were rolled
back and leftist opponents were killed or detained in internment camps
under the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA).
THIRD WORLD ESCALATIONS


Additionally, the continent-wide South American
Operation Condor — employed by dictators in Argentina,
Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay to suppress
leftist dissent — was backed by the United States, which
(sometimes accurately) perceived Soviet or Cuban support
behind these opposition movements.[175]
Displeasing the United States, Jamaica began pursuing
closer relations with the Cuban government as a result of
Michael Manley's election in 1972.[176] The United States'
covert response included financing Manley's political
opponents, the instigation of mutiny in the Jamaican army,
and the fitting out of a private mercernary army against
the Manley government.[139] Violence ensued
THIRD WORLD ESCALATIONS

Moreover, the Middle East continued to be a source of contention.
Egypt, which received the bulk of its arms and economic
assistance from the USSR, was a troublesome client, with a
reluctant Soviet Union feeling obliged to assist in both the 1967
Six-Day War (with advisers and technicians) and the War of
Attrition (with pilots and aircraft) against pro-Western Israel.[177]
Despite the beginning of an Egyptian shift from a pro-Soviet to a
pro-American orientation in 1972 (under Egypt's new leader
Anwar El Sadat),[178] rumors of imminent Soviet intervention on
the Egyptians' behalf during the 1973 Yom Kippur War brought
about a massive American mobilization that threatened to wreck
détente.[179] Although pre-Sadat Egypt had been the largest
recipient of Soviet aid in the Middle East, the Soviets were also
successful in establishing close relations with communist South
Yemen, as well as the nationalist governments of Algeria and
Iraq.[178] Indirect Soviet assistance to the Palestinian side of the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict included support for Yasser Arafat's
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
THIRD WORLD ESCALATIONS

In Africa, Somali army officers led by Mohamed Siad Barre
carried out a bloodless coup in 1969, creating the socialist
Somali Democratic Republic. The Soviet Union vowed to
support Somalia. Four years later, the pro-American
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown in a
1974 coup by the Derg, a radical group of Ethiopian army
officers led by the pro-Soviet Mengistu Haile Mariam, who
built up relations with the Cubans and Soviets.[181] When
fighting between the Somalis and Ethiopians broke out in
the 1977-1978 Somali-Ethiopian Ogaden War, Barre lost
his Soviet support and allied with the United States.
Cuban troops took part in the war on the side of the
Ethiopians.[181]
THIRD WORLD ESCALATIONS

The 1974 Portuguese Carnation Revolution against the authoritarian
Estado Novo returned Portugal to a multi-party system and facilitated the
independence of the Portuguese colonies Angola and East Timor. In
Africa, where Angolan rebels had waged a multi-faction independence war
against Portuguese rule since 1961, a two-decade civil war replaced the
anti-colonial struggle as fighting erupted between the communist People's
Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), backed by the Cubans
and Soviets, and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), backed
by the United States, the People's Republic of China, and Mobutu's
government in Zaire. The United States, the apartheid government of
South Africa, and several other African governments also supported a
third faction, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola
(UNITA). Without bothering to consult the Soviets in advance, the Cuban
government sent its troops to fight alongside the MPLA.[181] Apartheid
South Africa sent troops to support the UNITA, but the MPLA, bolstered
by Cuban personnel and Soviet assistance, eventually gained the upper
hand
THIRD WORLD ESCALATIONS

In southeast Asia, the colony of East Timor
unilaterally declared independence under the
left-wing Revolutionary Front for an Independent
East Timor (Fretilin) in November 1975.
Supported by Australia and the United States,
Suharto's Indonesia invaded in December — the
beginning of an occupation that would last a
quarter-century
SINO-AMERICAN RAPPROACHMENT

1972 Nixon with Mao Ze Dong on his visit to China
SINO-AMERICAN RAPPROACHMENT


As a result of the Sino-Soviet split, tensions along the ChineseSoviet border reached their peak in 1969, and United States
President Richard Nixon decided to use the conflict to shift the
balance of power towards the West in the Cold War.[183] The
Chinese had sought improved relations with the Americans in
order to gain advantage over the Soviets as well.
In February 1972, Nixon announced a stunning rapprochement
with Mao's China[184] by traveling to Beijing and meeting with
Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. At this time, the USSR achieved
rough nuclear parity with the United States; meanwhile, the
Vietnam War both weakened America's influence in the Third
World and cooled relations with Western Europe.[185] Although
indirect conflict between Cold War powers continued through the
late 1960s and early 1970s, tensions were beginning to ease
NIXON, BREZHNEV, AND DÉTENTE



Following his China visit, Nixon met with Soviet leaders, including
Brezhnev in Moscow.[186] These Strategic Arms Limitation Talks resulted
in two landmark arms control treaties: SALT I, the first comprehensive
limitation pact signed by the two superpowers,[187] and the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, which banned the development of systems designed to
intercept incoming missiles. These aimed to limit the development of
costly anti-ballistic missiles and nuclear missiles.[71]
Nixon and Brezhnev proclaimed a new era of "peaceful coexistence" and
established the groundbreaking new policy of détente (or cooperation)
between the two superpowers. Meanwhile, Brezhnev attempted to revive
the Soviet economy, which was declining in part because of heavy military
expenditures.[17] Between 1972 and 1974, the two sides also agreed to
strengthen their economic ties,[17] including agreements for increased
trade. As a result of their meetings, détente would replace the hostility of
the Cold War and the two countries would live mutually.[186]
Meanwhile, these developments coincided with the "Ostpolitik" of West
German Chancellor Willy Brandt.[170] Other agreements were concluded to
stabilize the situation in Europe, culminating in the Helsinki Accords
signed at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975
LATE 1970S DETERIORATION OF RELATIONS

Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter sign SALT II
treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna
NIXON, BREZHNEV, AND DÉTENTE


In the 1970s, the KGB, led by Yuri Andropov, continued to
persecute distinguished Soviet personalities such as
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, who were
criticising the Soviet leadership in harsh terms.[189] Indirect
conflict between the superpowers continued through this
period of détente in the Third World, particularly during
political crises in the Middle East, Chile, Ethiopia, and
Anglo.[190]
Although President Jimmy Carter tried to place another
limit on the arms race with a SALT II agreement in
1979,[191] his efforts were undermined by the other events
that year, including the Iranian Revolution and the
Nicaraguan Revolution, which both ousted pro-US regimes,
and his retaliation against Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan in December
SECOND COLD WAR (1979–85)

The term second Cold War has been used by
some historians to refer to the period of intensive
reawakening of Cold War tensions and conflicts
in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Tensions
greatly increased between the major powers with
both sides becoming more militaristic
WAR IN AFGHANISTAN


During December 1979, approximately 75,000 Soviet troops
invaded Afghanistan in order to support the Marxist government
formed by ex-Prime-minister Nur Muhammad Taraki,
assassinated that September by one of his party rivals.[192]
In a post-Afghan War interview conducted by French weekly
newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur, President Jimmy Carter's
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski stated that the
president had already signed a directive to provide aid to the anticommunist mujahideen insurgency against the pro-Soviet PDPA
government of Afghanistan in July, some six months prior to the
Soviet military intervention.[193] Asked by the interviewer if he
had regrets, given that "the Soviets justified their intervention by
asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement
of the United States in Afghanistan" and that "people didn't
believe them," Brzezinski responded:
WAR IN AFGHANISTAN


“Regret what? The secret operation was an excellent idea. It had
the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you
want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed
the border, I wrote to President Carter: we now have the
opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam...”
Carter responded to the Soviet intervention by withdrawing the
SALT II treaty from the Senate, imposing embargoes on grain
and technology shipments to the USSR, and demanding a
significant increase in military spending, and further announced
that the United States would boycott the 1980 Moscow Summer
Olympics. He described the Soviet incursion as "the most serious
threat to the peace since the Second World War
REAGAN AND THATCHER

Thatcher's Ministry meets with Reagan's Cabinet
at the White House, 1981
REAGAN AND THATCHER

In January 1977, four years prior to becoming president,
Ronald Reagan bluntly stated, in a conversation with
Richard V. Allen, his basic expectation in relation to the
Cold War. "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet
Union is simple, and some would say simplistic," he said.
"It is this: We win and they lose. What do you think of
that?"[196] In 1980, Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter
in the 1980 presidential election, vowing to increase
military spending and confront the Soviets everywhere.[197]
Both Reagan and new British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher denounced the Soviet Union and its ideology.
Reagan labeled the Soviet Union an "evil empire" and
predicted that Communism would be left on the "ash heap
of history"
REAGAN AND THATCHER

Despite anti-American sentiment in Iran as a result of the 1979
Iranian Revolution against the pro-American shah and an
accompanying breakdown in relations with the new Ayatollah
Khomeini government over the Iran hostage crisis, the Reagan
administration reached out to the anti-communist Khomeini in an
effort to recruit the theocracy into the American camp in the early
1980s. Then-CIA director William Casey described the Khomeini
government as "faltering and [possibly] moving toward a moment
of truth... The U.S. has almost no cards to play; the USSR has
many."[199] One mode of American support for the Iranians
consisted of secret arms sales. In 1983, the CIA passed an
extensive list of Iranian communists and other leftists secretly
working in the Iranian government to Khomeini's
administration.[200] A Tower Commission report later observed
that the list was utilized to take "measures, including mass
executions, that virtually eliminated the pro-Soviet infrastructure
in Iran."
REAGAN AND THATCHER

By early 1985, Reagan's anti-communist position had
developed into a stance known as the new Reagan
Doctrine — which, in addition to containment, formulated
an additional right to subvert existing communist
governments.[201] Besides continuing Carters' policy of
supporting the Islamic opponents of the Soviet Union and
the Soviet-backed PDPA government in Afghanistan, the
CIA also sought to weaken the Soviet Union itself by
promoting political Islam in the majority-Muslim Central
Asian Soviet Union.[202] Additionally, the CIA encouraged
anti-communist Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
agency to train Muslims from around the world to
participate in the jihad against the Soviet Union
POLISH SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT AND MARTIAL LAW


Pope John Paul II provided a moral focus for anticommunism; a visit to his native Poland in 1979 stimulated
a religious and nationalist resurgence centered on the
Solidarity movement that galvanized opposition and may
have led to his attempted assassination two years later.[203]
In December 1981, Poland's Wojciech Jaruzelski reacted to
the crisis by imposing a period of martial law. Reagan
imposed economic sanctions on Poland in response.[204]
Mikhail Suslov, the Kremlin's top ideologist, advised Soviet
leaders not to intervene if Poland fell under the control of
Solidarity, for fear it might lead to heavy economic
sanctions, representing a catastrophe for the Soviet
economy
SOVIET AND US MILITARY AND ECONOMIC ISSUES

Delta 183 launch vehicle lifts off, carrying the
Strategic Defense Initiative sensor experiment
"Delta Star".
SOVIET AND US MILITARY AND ECONOMIC ISSUES


Moscow had built up a military that consumed as much as
25 percent of the Soviet Union's gross national product at the
expense of consumer goods and investment in civilian sectors.[205]
Soviet spending on the arms race and other Cold War
commitments both caused and exacerbated deep-seated structural
problems in the Soviet system, which saw at least a decade of
economic stagnation during the late Brezhnev years.
Soviet investment in the defense sector was not driven by military
necessity, but in large part by the interests of massive party and
state bureaucracies dependent on the sector for their own power
and privileges.[206] The Soviet Armed Forces became the largest in
the world in terms of the numbers and types of weapons they
possessed, in the number of troops in their ranks, and in the
sheer size of their military–industrial base.[207] However, the
quantitative advantages held by the Soviet military often
concealed areas where the Eastern Bloc dramatically lagged
behind the West
SOVIET AND US MILITARY AND ECONOMIC ISSUES


By the early 1980s, the USSR had built up a military arsenal and
army surpassing that of the United States. Soon after the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, president Carter began massively
building up the United States military. This buildup was
accelerated by the Reagan administration, which increased the
military spending from 5.3 percent of GNP in 1981 to 6.5 percent
in 1986,[209] the largest peacetime defense buildup in United
States history.[210]
Tensions continued intensifying in the early 1980s when Reagan
revived the B-1 Lancer program that was canceled by the Carter
administration, produced LGM-118 Peacekeepers,[211] installed
US cruise missiles in Europe, and announced his experimental
Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars" by the media, a
defense program to shoot down missiles in mid-flight
SOVIET AND US MILITARY AND ECONOMIC ISSUES


With the background of a buildup in tensions between the Soviet Union
and the United States, and the deployment of Soviet RSD-10 Pioneer
ballistic missiles targeting Western Europe, NATO decided, under the
impetus of the Carter presidency, to deploy MGM-31 Pershing and cruise
missiles in Europe, primarily West Germany.[213] This deployment would
have placed missiles just 10 minutes' striking distance from Moscow.[214]
After Reagan's military buildup, the Soviet Union did not respond by
further building its military[215] because the enormous military expenses,
along with inefficient planned manufacturing and collectivized
agriculture, were already a heavy burden for the Soviet economy.[216] At
the same time, Reagan persuaded Saudi Arabia to increase oil
production,[217] even as other non-OPEC nations were increasing
production.[218] These developments contributed to the 1980s oil glut,
which affected the Soviet Union, as oil was the main source of Soviet
export revenues.[205][216] Issues with command economics,[219] oil prices
decreases and large military expenditures gradually brought the Soviet
economy to stagnation
SOVIET AND US MILITARY AND ECONOMIC ISSUES


On September 1, 1983, the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines Flight
007, a Boeing 747 with 269 people aboard, including sitting Congressman
Larry McDonald, when it violated Soviet airspace just past the west coast of
Sakhalin Island near Moneron Island —an act which Reagan characterized as
a "massacre". This act increased support for military deployment, overseen by
Reagan, which stood in place until the later accords between Reagan and
Mikhail Gorbachev.[220] The Able Archer 83 exercise in November 1983, a
realistic simulation of a coordinated NATO nuclear release, has been called
most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the Soviet
leadership keeping a close watch on it considered a nuclear attack to be
imminent.[221]
US domestic public concerns about intervening in foreign conflicts persisted
from the end of the Vietnam War.[222] The Reagan administration emphasized
the use of quick, low-cost counter-insurgency tactics to intervene in foreign
conflicts.[222] In 1983, the Reagan administration intervened in the multisided
Lebanese Civil War, invaded Grenada, bombed Libya and backed the Central
American Contras, anti-communist paramilitaries seeking to overthrow the
Soviet-aligned Sandinista government in Nicaragua.[97] While Reagan's
interventions against Grenada and Libya were popular in the United States,
his backing of the Contra rebels was mired in controversy
SOVIET AND US MILITARY AND ECONOMIC ISSUES

Meanwhile, the Soviets incurred high costs for their own
foreign interventions. Although Brezhnev was convinced in
1979 that the Soviet war in Afghanistan would be brief,
Muslim guerrillas, aided by the US and other countries,
waged a fierce resistance against the invasion.[224] The
Kremlin sent nearly 100,000 troops to support its puppet
regime in Afghanistan, leading many outside observers to
dub the war "the Soviets' Vietnam".[224] However, Moscow's
quagmire in Afghanistan was far more disastrous for the
Soviets than Vietnam had been for the Americans because
the conflict coincided with a period of internal decay and
domestic crisis in the Soviet system.
SOVIET AND US MILITARY AND ECONOMIC ISSUES

A senior US State Department official predicted such an
outcome as early as 1980, positing that the invasion
resulted in part from a "domestic crisis within the Soviet
system. ... It may be that the thermodynamic law of
entropy has ... caught up with the Soviet system, which
now seems to expend more energy on simply maintaining
its equilibrium than on improving itself. We could be seeing
a period of foreign movement at a time of internal
decay".[225][226] The Soviets were not helped by their aged
and sclerotic leadership either: Brezhnev, virtually
incapacitated in his last years, was succeeded by Andropov
and Chernenko, neither of whom lasted long. After
Chernenko's death, Reagan was asked why he had not
negotiated with Soviet leaders. Reagan quipped, "They
keep dying on me".
FINAL YEARS (1985–91)

Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan sign the
INF Treaty at the White House, 1987
FINAL YEARS (1985–91)

Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988
FINAL YEARS (1985–91)
GORBACHEV REFORMS:


By the time the comparatively youthful Mikhail Gorbachev
became General Secretary in 1985,[198] the Soviet economy was
stagnant and faced a sharp fall in foreign currency earnings as a
result of the downward slide in oil prices in the 1980s.[228] These
issues prompted Gorbachev to investigate measures to revive the
ailing state.[228]
An ineffectual start led to the conclusion that deeper structural
changes were necessary and in June 1987 Gorbachev announced
an agenda of economic reform called perestroika, or
restructuring.[229] Perestroika relaxed the production quota
system, allowed private ownership of businesses and paved the
way for foreign investment. These measures were intended to
redirect the country's resources from costly Cold War military
commitments to more productive areas in the civilian sector
FINAL YEARS (1985–91)
GORBACHEV REFORMS:

Despite initial skepticism in the West, the new Soviet
leader proved to be committed to reversing the Soviet
Union's deteriorating economic condition instead of
continuing the arms race with the West.[110][230] Partly as a
way to fight off internal opposition from party cliques to his
reforms, Gorbachev simultaneously introduced glasnost, or
openness, which increased freedom of the press and the
transparency of state institutions.[231] Glasnost was
intended to reduce the corruption at the top of the
Communist Party and moderate the abuse of power in the
Central Committee.[232] Glasnost also enabled increased
contact between Soviet citizens and the western world,
particularly with the United States, contributing to the
accelerating détente between the two nations
FINAL YEARS (1985–91)
THAW IN RELATIONS:

In response to the Kremlin's military and political concessions,
Reagan agreed to renew talks on economic issues and the scalingback of the arms race.[234] The first was held in November 1985 in
Geneva, Switzerland.[234] At one stage the two men, accompanied
only by an interpreter, agreed in principle to reduce each
country's nuclear arsenal by 50 percent.[235] A second Reykjavík
Summit was held in Iceland. Talks went well until the focus
shifted to Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative, which
Gorbachev wanted eliminated: Reagan refused.[236] The
negotiations failed, but the third summit in 1987 led to a
breakthrough with the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces Treaty (INF). The INF treaty eliminated all nucleararmed, ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges
between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (300 to 3,400 miles) and their
infrastructure
FINAL YEARS (1985–91)
THAW IN RELATIONS:

East–West tensions rapidly subsided through the mid-tolate 1980s, culminating with the final summit in Moscow in
1989, when Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush signed the
START I arms control treaty.[238] During the following year
it became apparent to the Soviets that oil and gas
subsidies, along with the cost of maintaining massive
troops levels, represented a substantial economic drain.[239]
In addition, the security advantage of a buffer zone was
recognised as irrelevant and the Soviets officially declared
that they would no longer intervene in the affairs of allied
states in Eastern Europe
FINAL YEARS (1985–91)
THAW IN RELATIONS:
In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from
Afghanistan[241] and by 1990 Gorbachev
consented to German reunification,[239] the only
alternative being a Tiananmen scenario.[242]
When the Berlin Wall came down, Gorbachev's
"Common European Home" concept began to take
shape.[243]
 On December 3, 1989, Gorbachev and Reagan's
successor, George H. W. Bush, declared the Cold
War over at the Malta Summit;[244] a year later,
the two former rivals were partners in the Gulf
War against Iraq

FINAL YEARS (1985–91)
FALTERING SOVIET SYSTEM:

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
FINAL YEARS (1985–91)
FALTERING SOVIET SYSTEM:


By 1989, the Soviet alliance system was on the brink of collapse,
and, deprived of Soviet military support, the Communist leaders
of the Warsaw Pact states were losing power.[241] In the USSR
itself, glasnost weakened the bonds that held the Soviet Union
together[240] and by February 1990, with the dissolution of the
USSR looming, the Communist Party was forced to surrender its
73-year-old monopoly on state power.[246]
At the same time freedom of press and dissent allowed by
glasnost and the festering "nationalities question" increasingly led
the Union's component republics to declare their autonomy from
Moscow, with the Baltic states withdrawing from the Union
entirely.[247] The 1989 revolutionary wave that swept across
Central and Eastern Europe overthrew the Soviet-style
communist states, such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and
Bulgaria,[248] Romania being the only Eastern-bloc country to
topple its communist regime violently and execute its head of
state
FINAL YEARS (1985–91)
SOVIET DISSOLUTION:

Gorbachev's permissive attitude toward Eastern Europe
did not initially extend to Soviet territory; even Bush, who
strove to maintain friendly relations, condemned the
January 1991 killings in Latvia and Lithuania, privately
warning that economic ties would be frozen if the violence
continued.[250] The USSR was fatally weakened by a failed
coup and a growing number of Soviet republics,
particularly Russia, who threatened to secede from the
USSR. The Commonwealth of Independent States, created
on December 21, 1991, is viewed as a successor entity to
the Soviet Union but, according to Russia's leaders, its
purpose was to "allow a civilized divorce" between the
Soviet Republics and is comparable to a loose
confederation.[251] The USSR was declared officially
dissolved on December 25, 1991
AFTERMATH OF THE COLD WAR


NATO has expanded eastwards into the former Warsaw Pact and
former parts of the Soviet Union since the end of the Cold War.
Following the Cold War, Russia cut military spending
dramatically, creating a wrenching adjustment as the militaryindustrial sector had previously employed one of every five Soviet
adults,[253] meaning its dismantling left millions throughout the
former Soviet Union unemployed.[253] After Russia embarked on
capitalist economic reforms in the 1990s, it suffered a financial
crisis and a recession more severe than the US and Germany had
experienced during the Great Depression.[254] Russian living
standards have worsened overall in the post–Cold War years,
although the economy has resumed growth since 1999
AFTERMATH OF THE COLD WAR

The aftermath of the Cold War continues to influence world
affairs.[13] After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the post–Cold
War world is widely considered as unipolar, with the United
States the sole remaining superpower.[255][256][257] The Cold War
defined the political role of the United States in the post–World
War II world: by 1989 the US held military alliances with
50 countries, and had 526,000[258] troops posted abroad in dozens
of countries, with 326,000 in Europe (two-thirds of which in west
Germany)[259] and about 130,000 in Asia (mainly Japan and South
Korea).[258] The Cold War also marked the apex of peacetime
military-industrial complexes, especially in the USA, and largescale military funding of science.[260] These complexes, though
their origins may be found as early as the 19th century, have
grown considerably during the Cold War. The military-industrial
complexes have great impact on their countries and help shape
their society, policy and foreign relations
AFTERMATH OF THE COLD WAR


Military expenditures by the US during the Cold War years
were estimated to have been $8 trillion, while nearly
100,000 Americans lost their lives in the Korean War and
Vietnam War.[262] Although the loss of life among Soviet
soldiers is difficult to estimate, as a share of their gross
national product the financial cost for the Soviet Union was
far higher than that incurred by the United States.[263]
In addition to the loss of life by uniformed soldiers, millions
died in the superpowers' proxy wars around the globe, most
notably in Southeast Asia.[264] Most of the proxy wars and
subsidies for local conflicts ended along with the Cold War;
interstate wars, ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, as well as
refugee and displaced persons crises have declined sharply
in the post–Cold War years
AFTERMATH OF THE COLD WAR


The aftermath of Cold War conflict, however, is not always
easily erased, as many of the economic and social tensions
that were exploited to fuel Cold War competition in parts of
the Third World remain acute.[13] The breakdown of state
control in a number of areas formerly ruled by Communist
governments has produced new civil and ethnic conflicts,
particularly in the former Yugoslavia.[13]
In Eastern Europe, the end of the Cold War has ushered in
an era of economic growth and a large increase in the
number of liberal democracies, while in other parts of the
world, such as Afghanistan, independence was
accompanied by state failure
HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE COLD WAR


As soon as the term "Cold War" was popularized to refer to postwar tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union,
interpreting the course and origins of the conflict has been a
source of heated controversy among historians, political scientists,
and journalists.[266] In particular, historians have sharply
disagreed as to who was responsible for the breakdown of Soviet–
US relations after the Second World War; and whether the
conflict between the two superpowers was inevitable, or could
have been avoided.[267] Historians have also disagreed on what
exactly the Cold War was, what the sources of the conflict were,
and how to disentangle patterns of action and reaction between
the two sides.[13]
Although explanations of the origins of the conflict in academic
discussions are complex and diverse, several general schools of
thought on the subject can be identified. Historians commonly
speak of three differing approaches to the study of the Cold War:
"orthodox" accounts, "revisionism", and "post-revisionism
HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE COLD WAR



"Orthodox" accounts place responsibility for the Cold War on the
Soviet Union and its expansion into Eastern Europe.[260]
"Revisionist" writers place more responsibility for the breakdown
of post-war peace on the United States, citing a range of US
efforts to isolate and confront the Soviet Union well before the end
of World War II.[260]
"Post-revisionists" see the events of the Cold War as more
nuanced, and attempt to be more balanced in determining what
occurred during the Cold War.[260] Much of the historiography on
the Cold War weaves together two or even all three of these broad
categories
PRESIDENTS OF THE COLD WAR

Harry S Truman

33rd President

1945-1953

Democratic

Accomplishments














Atomic Bomb
United Nations
Truman Doctrine
Marshall Plan
Containment
National Security Act 1947
Berlin Airlift
NATO
NSC-68
Desegergated the military
outlawed discriminational hiring in civil service
positions
Bussiness with Government Contracts were
forbidden to hire on a basis of race.
Korean War
Israel becomes a Nation
PRESIDENTS OF THE COLD WAR

Dwight D. Eisenhower

34th President

1953-1961

Republican

Accomplishments







Armistace in Korea
Interstate Highway System
Civil Rights Act 1957
Civil Rights Act 1960
NASA
FAA
Vietnam War
PRESIDENTS OF THE COLD WAR

John f. Kennedy

35th President

1961-1963

Democratic

Accomplishments
 Bay of Pigs
 Cuban Missle Crisis
 Peace Corps
 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
 New Frontier
 Vietnam War
PRESIDENTS OF THE COLD WAR

Lyndon B. Johnson

36th President

1963-1969

Democratic

Accomplishments










Warren Commission
Great Society
“War on Poverty”
Federal Funding for Education
Medicare/Medicaid
Head Start
Gun Control
Gulf of Tonkin Resoultion
Vietnam War
Six Day War
PRESIDENTS OF THE COLD WAR

Richard M. Nixon

37th President

1969-1974

Republican

Accomplishments





















Ended Vietnam War
Ended the Gold Standard
EPA
OSHA
War on Drugs
Title IX
Title X
Equal Employment Opportunity Act
Comprehensive Child Development Act
Roe v. Wade
3 Man mooned nnissions (including first landing)
Indo Pakistani War
Visited Communist China
SALT I
Anti Ballistic Missle Treaty
Détente
Appeared on five presidential tickets (tied for most with FDR)
Yom Kippur War
Oil Crisis of 1973
Maximum Speed Limit of 55 (lasted until Bill Clinton)
Watergate
PRESIDENTS OF THE COLD WAR

Gerald R. Ford

38th President

1974-1977

Republican

Accomplishments
Pardoned Nixon
 Only President to never be elected to
the office (appointed to both VP & Pres)
 Helsenki Accords
 Education for All Handicapped Children
Act of 1975

PRESIDENTS OF THE COLD WAR

Jimmy E. Carter

39th President

1977-1981

Democratic

Accomplishments





Chrysler Loan Act of 1979
Moscow 1980 Olympics Boycott
Signed the Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
SALT II
Iran Hostage Crisis
PRESIDENTS OF THE COLD WAR

Ronald W. Reagan

40th President

1981-1989

Republican

Accomplishments













Reagonomics
INF Treaty
Iran Contra Affair
Operation Urgent Fury
Reagan Doctrine
Strategic Defense Initiative (STAR Wars)
525 electorial votes (1984 record)
Challenger Explosion
War on Drugs (Just Say No)
Gulf of Sidra incident in 1981
Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986
Iran-Contra affair
Cold War ends 1989
PRESIDENTS OF THE COLD WAR

George H.W. Bush

41st President

1989-1993

Republican

Accomplishments








Fall of Berlin Wall
Collapse of Soviet Union
Space Station Freedom
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
reauthorized the Clean Air Act
Immigration Act of 1990,
Persian Gulf War
Proposed North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) (signed by Bill Clinton