Cold War

Harry Truman

33rd U.S. president (1945–1953) who led the United States at the start of the Cold War, created the Truman Doctrine, supported containment of communism, and authorized the Berlin Airlift and U.S. involvement in the Korean War.

George F. Kennan

American diplomat who proposed the policy of containment, arguing that the U.S. should prevent the spread of communism rather than try to eliminate it.

Marshall Plan

U.S. economic aid program (1947) that provided billions of dollars to rebuild Western European economies after World War II to prevent the spread of communism.

Truman Doctrine

U.S. policy announced in 1947 promising military and economic aid to countries resisting communism, beginning with Greece and Turkey.

Yalta Conference

1945 meeting between Allied leaders (Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin) to decide how Europe would be reorganized after World War II, leading to tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

Berlin Airlift

U.S. and Allied operation (1948–1949) that supplied West Berlin with food and fuel by air after the Soviet Union blockaded land routes into the city.

Containment Policy

Cold War strategy aimed at stopping the spread of communism worldwide without direct military confrontation with the Soviet Union.

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a 1949 military alliance between the United States, Canada, and Western European nations for mutual defense against Soviet aggression.

Iron Curtain

Term used by Winston Churchill describing the division between communist Eastern Europe and democratic Western Europe during the Cold War.

Eastern European Corridor

Region of Eastern European countries controlled or heavily influenced by the Soviet Union after World War II, serving as a buffer zone against the West.

Korean War

Conflict (1950–1953) between communist North Korea (supported by China and the USSR) and South Korea (supported by the United States and United Nations) that ended in a stalemate near the 38th parallel.

HUAC

House Un-American Activities Committee, a U.S. congressional committee that investigated suspected communist influence and subversion in American society.

Warsaw Pact

1955 military alliance between the Soviet Union and Eastern European communist countries formed in response to NATO.

John Foster Dulles

U.S. Secretary of State under Eisenhower who promoted a hardline anti-communist foreign policy and the strategy of brinkmanship.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

American couple executed in 1953 for passing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union, heightening Cold War fears of espionage.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy

U.S. senator who led anti-communist investigations in the early 1950s, making unsupported accusations that many Americans were communist spies.

Army-McCarthy Hearings

1954 televised Senate hearings that exposed McCarthy’s aggressive tactics and led to the decline of his influence.

Fall of China

1949 victory of Mao Zedong’s communist forces over the Nationalists, creating the People’s Republic of China and alarming U.S. policymakers.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

34th U.S. president (1953–1961) and former WWII general who pursued Cold War policies emphasizing nuclear deterrence and containment.

Red Scare

Period of intense fear of communism and political radicalism in the United States, especially during the late 1940s and 1950s.

Senator Margaret Chase Smith

Republican senator who publicly criticized McCarthyism in her 1950 “Declaration of Conscience,” defending civil liberties and opposing fear-based accusations.