World History B Seminar

1
The Cold War and the Mushroom Cloud

• World History B Seminar 7

Warm Up Define Containment
Containment Cold War policy of limiting
Communism to areas already under Soviet control.
2
The Foundations of the Cold War

• Following World War II, much of the world became
  embroiled in a decades-long struggle over the
  spread of communism. The main combatants were the
  Soviet Union, which sought to spread communism
  around the globe, and the United States, which
  sought to stop its growth.
• For the next forty years, these two superpowers
  fought a cold war, in which they did not
  physically fight each other but instead supported
  opposing sides in civil wars around the world.
  The Cold War raged throughout Asia, Africa, Latin
  America, and the Middle East, as western
  democracies triedsometimes with the use of their
  own troopsto keep nations from becoming
  Communist. The Cold War thawed briefly in the
  1970s and then intensified again during the 1980s.

3
Postwar Conferences Yalta

• Yalta - February, 1945. Big Three attended.
• Russia Stalin
• Great Britain Churchill
• United States Franklin D. Roosevelt
• United Nations designed
• Germany divided and occupied by Big Three and
  France
• Germany to pay reparations and try Nazis as war
  criminals
• Russia will help to fight Japan in return for
  territory in China

4
Postwar Conferences Potsdam

• Yalta July and August, 1945. Big Three
  attended.
• Russia Stalin
• Great Britain Atlee
• United States Harry S. Truman
• Berlin divided and occupied by Big Three and
  France
• Called for surrender of Japan
• Truman informed of successful Atomic Bomb testing
  while at Potsdam

5
Germany is Divided and the Iron Curtain Falls
Using the map on page 794, list the NATO
countries (purple) and the Warsaw Pact countries
(orange).
6
The Cold War Lineup
7
Truman Doctrine page 793

• Russia refused to withdraw from the countries it
  liberated from Germany
• In Greece, Stalin backed a Communist revolution
• Stalin was also threatening to take over Turkey
• President Truman, in 1947, declared that
  Communism must be contained
• Truman also pledged the United States to support
  free people who are resisting attempted
  subjugation by armed forces.

8
Berlin Airlift page 794

• Stalin dismantled East German industries and used
  them to rebuild Russia
• Berlin, former capital of Germany is divided into
  four zones, although it lies deep within the East
  German zone occupied by Russia.
• Stalin blockades East Germany and Berlin,
  stopping Allied traffic and supplies.
• Allies airlift supplies to Berlin (page 795)
• Stalin builds a wall around Berlin to keep East
  Germans from escaping Soviet territory into
  freedom in West Berlin. (First conflict in the
  Cold War, page 797))

9
Hot Wars in Asia Korea and Vietnam page 839

• 1950 Korean War begins when Communist North
  Korean forces invade non Communist South Korea
• American and other UN forces aid South Korea
• Russia and Communist China aid North Korea.
• Korean War is a standoff. North Korea withdraws.

10
Hot Wars in Asia Korea and Vietnam page 839

• 1963 - Vietnam War draws American involvement
  when Communist North Vietnam tries a forced
  reunification of a divided country. South
  Vietnam wishes to remain non Communist.
• Vietnam War divides Americans
• 1974 United States withdraws from Vietnam.
• Communists take over Saigon and Vietnam is
  currently Communist

11
Cold War Confrontation with Cuba

• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis
• Major confrontation between the United States and
  the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
  over Soviet-supplied missile installations in
  Cuba,
• The world's closest approach to nuclear war.
• In 1960 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev launched
  plans to supply Cuba with medium- and
  intermediate-range ballistic missiles that would
  put the eastern United States within range of
  nuclear missile attack.
• Khrushchev mistakenly assumed that the United
  States would take no action and when questioned
  denied that any missiles were being supplied to
  Cuba.
• By the summer of 1962, U.S. spy planes flying
  over Cuba had photographed Soviet-managed
  construction work and spotted the first ballistic
  missile on October 14.

12
Cold War Confrontation with Cuba

• President Kennedy blockaded Cuba until missiles
  were removed, despite Khruschevs threats
• President Kennedy delivers a television speech
  outlining the blockade and the nuclear threat
• Sale of fallout shelters skyrockets in US.
• Cuban missiles removed after 14 days of fear of
  nuclear war

13
1991 Soviet Union Collapses

• 1991 Communism in Soviet Union proves
  unsupportable
• Soviet soldiers withdraw from Poland,
  Czechoslovakia and East Germany
• The Wall around Berlin is torn down as a symbolic
  end to the Cold War