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Cold War Vocab

Key Concepts:

Terms in this set (31)

United Nations
An international organization formed after WWII to promote international peace, security, and cooperation.
Satellite nation
Communist nations in Eastern Europe on friendly terms with the USSR and thought of as under the USSR's control
containment
American policy of resisting further expansion of communism around the world
iron curtain
A political barrier that isolated the peoples of Eastern Europe after WWII, restricting their ability to travel outside the region
Cold War
A conflict that was between the US and the Soviet Union. The nations never directly confronted each other on the battlefield but deadly threats went on for years.
Truman Doctrine
(HT) , 1947, President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology, mainly helped Greece and Turkey
Marshall Plan
A United States program of economic aid for the reconstruction of Europe (1948-1952)
Berlin Airlift
Joint effort by the US and Britian to fly food and supplies into W Berlin after the Soviet blocked off all ground routes into the city
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
In 1949, the United States, Canada, and ten European nations formed this military mutual-defense pact. In 1955, the Soviet Union countered NATO with the formation of the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance among those nations within its own sphere of influence.
Chiang Kai-shek
General and leader of Nationalist China after 1925. Although he succeeded Sun Yat-sen as head of the Guomindang, he became a military dictator whose major goal was to crush the communist movement led by Mao Zedong.
Mao Zedong
(1893-1976) Leader of the Communist Party in China that overthrew Jiang Jieshi and the Nationalists. Established China as the People's Republic of China and ruled from 1949 until 1976.
Taiwan
..., a government on the island of Taiwan established in 1949 by Chiang Kai-shek after the conquest of mainland China by the communists led by Mao Zedong
38th parallel
Dividing line between North and South Korea
Korean War
(1950-3) A conflict between UN forces (primarily US and S Korea) against North Korea, and later China; Gen. Douglas Macarthur led UN forces and was later replaced by Gen. Ridgeway; Resulted in Korea remaining divided at the 38th parallel.
HUAC
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) was an investigating committee which investigated what it considered un-American propaganda,
Hollywood Ten
Group of people in the film industry who were jailed for refusing to answer congressional questions regarding Communist influence in Hollywood
Blacklist
A list of people or products viewed with suspicion or disapproval
Alger Hiss
A former State Department official who was accused of being a Communist spy and was convicted of perjury. The case was prosecuted by Richard Nixon.
Eithel and Julius Rosenberg
convicted in 1951 of giving atomic bomb data found by American scientists to the Soviet Union; only Americans ever executed during peacetime for espionage
Joesph McCarthy
republican senator, accused many prominent figures of being communists, played a prominent role in the red scare of the 1950's
McCarthyism
The term associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy who led the search for communists in America during the early 1950s through his leadership in the House Un-American Activities Committee.
H-Bomb
hydrogen bomb invented in 1950's, MORE powerful than atomic bomb, example of Cold War arms race
Dwight D. Eisenhower
leader of the Allied forces in Europe during WW2--leader of troops in Africa and commander in DDay invasion-elected president-president during integration of Little Rock Central High School
John Foster Dulles
As Secretary of State. he viewed the struggle against Communism as a classic conflict between good and evil. Believed in containment and the Eisenhower doctrine.
Brinkmanship
A 1956 term used by Secretary of State John Dulles to describe a policy of risking war in order to protect national interests
Central Intelligence Agency
An agency created after World War II to coordinate American intelligence activities abroad. It became involved in intrigue, conspiracy, and meddling as well.
Warsaw Pact
An alliance between the Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations. This was in response to the NATO
Eisenhower Doctrine
Policy of the US that it would defend the Middle East against attack by any Communist country
Nikita Khrushchev
Aggressive Soviet leader whose failed gamble of putting missiles in Cuba cost him his job
Francis Gary Powers
American pilot that is shot down over the Soviet Union; US had been sending spy planes over Russia for over 3 and a half years; When this plane is shot down Eisenhower denied sending the spies but after investigation the Russians uncover enough photos and evidence to force Eisenhower to take responsibility for his actions; Right before the East-West Summit a meeting in Paris between Eisenhower and Khrushchev; Great embarrassment to US
U-2 incident
The incident when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. The U.S. denied the true purpose of the plane at first, but was forced to when the U.S.S.R. produced the living pilot and the largely intact plane to validate their claim of being spied on aerially. The incident worsened East-West relations during the Cold War and was a great embarrassment for the United States.
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