The Cold War

Policy of Containment

• trying to contain communism from spreading

Iron Curtain

• border of where the soviet union ends

  • satellite countries → countries that russia has gained into the soviet union

Truman Doctrine

• gives money and supplies to both turkey and greece to protect them from communism

  • $400M and weapons (missiles)

The Marshall Plan

• providing economic aid to western europe after world war ii to help rebuild war-torn economies

West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) and East Germany

• originally, germany was divided into four quarters, each controlled by a different country

• three of those countries were allies, so they grouped up to form west germany, while east germany was ruled by the soviet union

Berlin

• berlin was divided up into four quarters

• berlin blockade

• berlin airlift

  • americans flying over berlin to drop supply packages to the americans that are in berlin

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

• established to come together to protect each other from communism

  • known as collective security

Warsaw Pact

• soviets formed an opposing alliance with seven eastern european nations

“Duck and Cover!” 🐢💣

McCarthyism

• HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) was in charge of investigating people to find out of they were communist

  • investigated hollywood to make sure they did not have a negative influence on usa

  • people who are suspected of being communist are “blacklisted” (can no longer find work)

  • also investigated government system

• The Loyalty Program

  • truman ordered a loyalty review board to make his government employees sign an oath to ensure that they were not communist

• The Alger Hiss Case

  • led many americans to believe there was reason to fear that there were communists in the government

  • senator joseph mccarthy of wisconsin → charged that he had a list of state department employees who were communist

    • continued to charge many others as communist

    • he made many bold accusations without any evidence

      • known as “mccarthyism”

    • ruined the reputations of many

John F. Kennedy

• 1960 Presidential Election

  • 1st televised presidential debate

  • radio listeners → either thought nixon had won or that the debates were a draw

  • tv viewers → nixon perspired, had a “five o’clock shadow"“, and looked tense and uncomfortable; while jfk chose makeup services, appeared relaxed leading a huge win

• Peace Corps

  • americans volunteer to help underdeveloped nation in areas such as education, farming, health cares, and construction

  • 1st director was jfk’s bil, sargent shriver

  • “ich bin ein berliner” - i am a berliner

• Civil Rights

  • did not take civil rights to be his top priority

    • top priority was cold war

  • did not address much

• Vietnam

  • nov 1, 1963 → south vietnamese govt is overthrown and president diem is assassinated, after refusing an american offer of safety if he agreed to resign

    • president kennedy approved this

• Bay of Pigs

  • operation created by CIA and eisenhower

    • kennedy signs off

  • fidel castro vs fulgencio batista

    • 1956 - 1959 → castro led guerilla movement to topple dictator batista

      • seized us oil refineries

      • broke up commercial farms

      • relied on society aid

      • politically repressed those who did not agree with him

  • eisenhower’s response

    • march 1960 → gave cia permission to secretly train cuban exiles for an invasion of cuba

    • cut off diplomatic relations with cuba on jan 3, 1961 (about 2 weeks before kennedy came into office)

  • kennedy’s response

    • publicly → jfk accepted blame

    • privately → “how could that crowd at the cia and the pentagon be this wrong??”

• Cuban Missile Crisis

  • after the bay of pigs, soviet union provided cuba with arms (missiles)

  • kennedy learned of the plan while the bases were under construction

  • oct 22, 1962 → kennedy announced a naval blockade/quarantine of cuba and demanded that the soviets withdraw the missiles

    • blockade → putting something up to not let anything out or in

  • CMC brought the us and the ussr to the brink of war, but the soviets backed down and withdrew their missiles

  • kennedy agrees to…

    • never invade cuba

    • dismantle us missiles in turkey

  • khrushchev agreed to…

    • dismantle missiles in cuba

    • allow UN inspection in cuba

  • crisis averted!

    • CMC was closest us has come to nuclear attack

    • jfk’s greatest foreign policy success

    • a “hot-line” was established on june 205ht, 1963 between usa and ussr

• The Space Program

  • jfk committed the nation to a space program, with the goal of landing a person on the moon by end of 1960s

    • alan shepard → first american in space

    • john glenn → first man to orbit earth

    • neil armstrong → first man to step on moon

  • sputnik 1 → first artificial satellite

    • american response → massive amounts of federal aid go higher education

  • apollo 1 tragedy

    • fire broke out during launch rehearsal; could not get capsule open

      • virgil grissom, ed white, roger chaffee lost their lives

  • apollo 11

    • moon landing mission

    • “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

    • july 20th, 1969

      • neil armstrong

      • buzz aldrin

      • michael collins

  • apollo 12

  • apollo 13

    • “houston, we have a problem”

    • oxygen starts leaking out

  • apollo 14

    • 1st man to hit golf ball on moon (alan shepard)

  • apollo 15

    • 1st moon rover

  • apollo 16

  • apollo 17

  • apollo 18, 19, 20

    • cancelled

      • very, very costly and decreased popularity

• JFK’s Assassination

  • november 22, 1963

  • dallas, tx

  • govt john connally

    • in convertible car driving jfk and wide

  • lee harvey oswald

    • fired 3 times (1st - miss, 2nd - jfk’s neck, 3rd - jfk’s skull)

  • jack ruby

  • conspiracy theory

    • zapruder film

    • lee bowers claims that there were police officers with rifles