Chapter 7 Vocabulary Terms and Definitions
Cold War
1. cold war: intense economic, political, military, and ideological rivalry between nations, short of military
conflict; sustained hostile political policies and an atmosphere of strain between opposed countries
2. capitalism: economic system based on a free market, open competition, profit motive and private
ownership of the means of production.
3. communism: a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common,
actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state
4. Harry S Truman: the president who took over after Franklin Roosevelt. He made the decision to drop
the atomic bombs on Japan.
5. United Nations: an international organization, with headquarters in New York City, formed to promote
international peace, security, and cooperation under the terms of the charter signed by 51 founding
countries in San Francisco in 1945
6. Joseph Stalin: A Soviet political leader of the twentieth century. he ruled the Soviet Union, often with
extreme brutality, from the death of Lenin in the early 1920s until his own death in the early 1950s. His
policies of collectivization, which abolished private ownership, were followed by political purges in which
thousands of Communist party officials were killed, usually on trumped-up charges of treason
7. Truman Doctrine: the policy for the United States to provide military and economic aid to Greece and
Turkey and, by extension, to any country threatened by Communism or any totalitarian ideology
8. containment: the United States did not to let communism to spread
9. Marshall Plan: a plan for aiding the European nations in economic recovery after World War II
10. “Iron Curtain”: used by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe the line of demarcation between
Western Europe and the Soviet zone of influence
11. Berlin Blockade: one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first such crisis
that resulted in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet
Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under their control.
Their aim was to force the western powers to allow the Soviet zone to start supplying Berlin with food and
fuel, thereby giving the Soviets practical control over the entire city.
12. NATO: an military alliance of twenty-eight North American and European countries. The role of the
organization is to safeguard the freedom and security of its member countries by political and military
means.
13. Warsaw Pact: an organization formed 1955 comprising Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,
Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the U.S.S.R., for collective defense under a joint military command
14. Mao Zedong: leader of China after the communist revolution in 1949
15. 2nd Red Scare: fear of communism
16. Joseph McCarthy: United States politician who unscrupulously accused many citizens of being
Communists
17. arms race: a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union to see who could build the
best and most amount of nuclear weapons
18. Korean War: A conflict that lasted from 1950 to 1953 between North Korea, aided by China, and
South Korea, aided by United Nations forces consisting primarily of U.S. troops.
19. General Douglas MacArthur: man in charge of United States troops during the Korean War
20. Sputnik: Any of a series of Soviet satellites sent into Earth orbit, especially the first, launched October
4, 1957
21. NASA: the federal agency that institutes and administers the civilian programs of the U.S.
government that deal with aeronautical research and the development of launch vehicles and spacecraft
22. Yuri Gagarin: a man from the Soviet Union, he was the 1st person put into space in 1961
23. John Glenn: a man from the United States, he was the 1st person to orbit the Earth in 1962
24. Apollo 11: the moon landing mission
25. Great Debates: 4 televised debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon before the election
of 1960
26. Bay of Pigs: unsuccessful attempt by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba,
with support from US government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro
27. Nikita Khrushchev: Soviet leader during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis
28. Berlin Wall: built to separate East and West Berlin
29. Cuban Missile Crisis: A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over
the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war. The Soviet premier,
Nikita Khrushchev, placed Soviet military missiles in Cuba, which had come under Soviet influence since
the success of the Cuban Revolution three years earlier. President John F. Kennedy of the United States
set up a naval blockade of Cuba and insisted that Khrushchev remove the missiles. Khrushchev did.
30. Lee Harvey Oswald: man who shot President Kennedy
31. Warren Commission: group assigned to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy
32. Vietnam War: a conflict, starting in 1954 and ending in 1975, between South Vietnam (later aided by
the U.S., South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, and New Zealand) and the Vietcong and North
Vietnam
33. Indochina: Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia
34. Ho Chi Minh: Communist leader of North Vietnam
35. Tet Offensive: a massive attack by the North Vietnamese on a huge national holiday in 1968