Grants Pass High School

World Cultures

The Cold War

Handouts and Primary Documents

Name: _____________________________________________ Period: _________

1

2

Table of Contents

Cold War Unit Overview 4Secondary Sources

Red Scared: The Cold War 6Berlin Airlift 25War in the “Land that God Forgot”: Korea 28

Primary DocumentsExcerpts from the Truman Doctrine 38Reading Like A Historian: Who Started the Cold War? 41Peace Without Conquest, Lyndon B. Johnson 4510 Amazing Cold War Propaganda Posters 48

Notes and ActivitiesCold War Fill in Notes 61Event Cards for Cold War Map and Timeline 66The Butter Battle Book 68Inside North Korea Film Notes 69Blank Cornell Notes 71

Maps and Graphs 89Index

3

Cold War Conflicts Overview

Prior to the day of the test, you need to define all of the key terms/people (about 1 sentence). You also need to thoroughly answer all of the key concepts (2-4 sentences). Do this on

separate sheets of paper.

Key Terms / People Key Locations Key Concepts1. Cold War2. Ideological Conflict3. 1st World/2nd World4. Proxy War5. Berlin Blockade /

Airlift6. Iron Curtain7. Domino Theory8. Truman Doctrine9. Marshall Plan10. Warsaw Pact11. East Germany12. Korean War13. Vietnam War14. DMZ15. Kim Il Sung16. Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea17. U.N. Security Council18. Guerilla Warfare19. NATO20. Mujahedeen21. Taliban22. Perestroika23. Glasnost

1. USSR2. Berlin3. China4. North Korea5. South Korea6. Vietnam7. Afghanistan8. 38th Parallel 9. Eastern Bloc

1) How did the Domino Theory shape Western thinking and approach to Communism?

2) Explain why the Cold War was considered an ideological conflict.

3) What kind of countries became Communist and why?

4) Explain the significance of the Berlin Wall?

5) What led to the fall of the Soviet Union?

6) In what ways were the Proxy Wars of the Cold War similar/different?

4

Secondary Sources

5

Red Scared: The Cold War, 1944-1980s

Northern Vietnam, 1954

Colonel Nguyen peered through the binoculars at the French encampment in the valley below. From his left, he heard the pop and crack of mortars while down below, the puff of dirt and clouds of smoke signaled the impact of the shelling.

"Do you think the Americans will come?" asked Lt. Kam, Nguyen's aide. He stood beside but slightly behind his superior.

A third man stood alongside the two Viet Minh officers, also viewing the scene below with binoculars. His white skin and blond hair obviously marked him a foreigner, Rather than the usual brown uniform with major’s epaulets and insignia in Cyrillic script that he wore in his barracks at home outside Minsk, he now wore nondescript green camouflage fatigues without official markings, and he snorted as he spoke badly accented French, the only language they shared in common. "The Americans are still stinging from Korea. They send their dollars to the French, but they would not send their men to die here."

Nguyen slowly lowered the binoculars and turned. "And why would they not Ivan? You are here. They are here," he said, gesturing toward the French below. "Why will the Americans not come as well?"

"Because, comrade," replied the Russian, "Americans are comfortable people. They are tired of war. They are fat and happy. And to be blunt, Vietnam has nothing they want."

"And if our country is so insignificant," Nguyen challenged, "why are you here? What do you want?"

The Russian paused, then grinned wolfishly. "But of course you know, Comrade Nguyen, we are here to show solidarity for our communist brothers in arms and for the greater good of world socialism."

Lt. Kam undiplomatically spat on the ground. They all looked up as a bladed roar overhead announced the arrival of a French cargo plane. They watched it swoop heavily down over the surrounded French encampment, noted the blossoming white parachute bundles tumbling out of its hold, and followed its line of flight up out of the valley. They raised their binoculars again to more closely watch the scramble for the fallen supply blossoms; some fell in the camp, but many fell in the no man's land beyond the French defenses. For the next thirty minutes they watched as French Legionnaires and their Vietnamese allies made brave attempts to procure the supplies, engaging in brief but sporadic gun battles over the boxes of food and ammunition with the attacking Viet Minh.

"It will not be enough," said Nguyen. He let his binoculars hang by the leather strap around his neck, rubbed his eyes gently for a moment, then spoke confidently. "The French are finished. And I agree, comrade major, the Americans will not come here, not now. Their president, Eezen-, Ice-an..."

"Eisenhower," Ivan said helpfully."Yes. He is a war hero, is he not? A real fighter, not a bureaucrat or

demagogue like their Rose-felt...""Roosevelt," said Ivan."And you say our language is hard," muttered Kam.

6

Historical Fiction

"Quite so," continued Colonel Nguyen. "This American knows not to come. He knows not to waste his men, because he is a soldier himself. He ended the war in Korea, did he not?"

"Yes," Ivan pointed out emphatically, "by threatening to use the atomic bomb."

"Ah yes. Well, if he would not actually use the bomb to win against the Chinese, but rather only to get out of a stalemate, he will certainly not risk an atomic war with...," and here the Viet Minh officer smiled ever so slightly, "...our dear socialist brethren in Moscow, especially over such a – How did you say it Major Timoteovich? – a country as insignificant as ours. And yet," the colonel said, shaking his head, "the French still control Saigon and the south. The Americans will most likely prop up a government there. They will use either that fat fool Bao Dai or some other French puppet."

"But we will defeat the Americans more easily than we would the French," protested Kam. "After all, the French have been here for a century. If they cannot win, how can the southern puppets of Paris or the Americans who know nothing of our country or General Giap and his brilliant tactics?"

The Russian looked at the colonel who was shaking his head again."They can’t, comrade Kam, though of course they don’t know that yet,”

Nguyen said, "because we Vietnamese are like fighting roosters. We are fed and bred by our masters to be set upon other roosters, like the French or the Saigon traitors. But we are, like puppets, controlled by events and great powers. Our strings run to Moscow. Others have strings to Paris, and even Paris now has strings that stretch tightly to Washington. We Vietnamese will have to fight more wars before the present puppet masters of the world leave us alone."

The Russian major opened his mouth to protest but Nguyen cut him off."Please, my dear Comrade Major." The colonel dismissed the Russian’s

aborted words with an almost disdainful hand gesture. “Spare me the propaganda about socialist brotherhood. We are soldiers, not politicians, so let us be frank. I fight to liberate Vietnam, not for the economic theories of some long dead European theoretician, even if I do prefer Das Kapital to Wealth of Nations." He glanced at the major whose eyebrows were raised, somewhat surprised but definitely impressed.

"Oh yes," Nguyen continued, "I have read them. I studied in Paris in the 30’s. I am not the ignorant, malleable Asian you think I am. I know you are here to fight for the glory of Russia, Comrade Major, that you think of us Vietnamese no better than the French do, and I know that those Legionnaires down there," he waved his hand over the valley, "are dying for the same reasons Napoleon’s legions died in the last century. We may discuss socialist and capitalist and democratic theory all we wish, Comrade Major, but we still die for the same old reasons – our race and our pride. Nothing has changed, Comrade Major, nothing."

The Russian saluted Nguyen’s speech with a nod and said, "Spoken bluntly Comrade Colonel, as soldiers should speak to each other."

All three again turned to survey the valley of the shadow of death below as black clad Viet Minh fighters began to close the noose tighter around the embattled French. All three also knew time was running out for the French in the steamy, jungle basin known as Dienbienphu.

Ice Age: The Cold War Begins 1944-1961

7

Until 1944, Franklin Roosevelt and most Americans were under the impression that Josef Stalin would be content with defeating Hitler. But they forgot that Russia has suffered a long history of foreign intervention through the flat lands stretching from Germany to Moscow. Stalin certainly had not forgotten that Russia had often been attacked over the flat plains of Poland by western nations,

particularly France and Germany. Stalin also had not forgotten western interference in the birth of the USSR, so he had no trust whatsoever for the West, though he certainly exploited Roosevelt's war-time alliance as much as he could. As early as 1944, he propagated the slogan, "The war on fascism ends; the war on capitalism begins."At the Yalta conference of 1945, Stalin asserted control over Eastern

Europe. His mighty Red Army already occupied the area, and even his arch-foe Winston Churchill had been forced to acknowledge that the Soviets would dominate that sphere of influence in the postwar world. However, Marxist ideology called for world revolution and domination, rhetoric not forgotten by the opponents of communism.

After Hitler's defeat, the wartime alliance continued to disintegrate rapidly. Stalin was not able to outwit the dry and direct Harry Truman (Pres. Dem. 1945-53), who nevertheless could do little about Soviet control of east Europe. In June 1945, the Truman and Stalin confronted each other in Germany at the Potsdam Conference. Tensions ran high, because, after World War II, the USA and the USSR were the only powers still standing, and they were not only geopolitical rivals but ideological enemies as well. Yet the carnage of two world wars combined with the realization that atomic weapons had created a war scenario in which the victors stood to lose as much as the vanquished. Both sides want to avoid direct confrontation.

For almost half a century afterwards, the world stage was dominated by the Cold War (a term coined by George Orwell in October, 1945) which was a succession of crises between the United States and the USSR that occurred as the two superpowers waged a war of diplomacy and manipulation, dares and bluffs and standoffs through proxies, their protectorates and smaller allies. Both sides aimed rhetorical and economic weapons at each other, played spy games, and fought propaganda battles trying to outmaneuver each other in a game of political chess that most often involved no actual military engagement. Despite Western efforts to contain the spread of Soviet influence, and even though Marx had predicted the spread of communism by revolution, it was initially spread by Soviet conquest.

A New Kind of War In Eastern Europe, the battle against Hitler had spawned both communist

and non-communist resistance groups. The Polish resistance, for example, rose up against the Nazis at a time when Stalin's Red Army was approaching. Stalin intentionally stalled his army's advance to allow the Germans and Poles more time to kill each other; this made it easier for him, once he did enter Poland, to win. The Communists executed Polish officers, bureaucrats, and other enemies, just as Stalin had done at the start of the war. Stalin placed Polish communists in power, ignoring the democratic Polish government exiled in London which had continued to function throughout the war. The Soviets also instated former resistance leaders who embraced communism in the seats of power in Bulgaria, Romania,

8

Albania, and Hungary. The Czechs, who had the only true democracy before the war, restored their democratic system in 1945.

Throughout Eastern Europe, Soviet troops and local communist movements marched to grab power. In some places like Yugoslavia, the communists had a large, armed contingent that had fought the Nazis; they not only hunted down collaborators, but killed other anti-Nazi resisters that wanted to bring back the

king. In other places like Romania and Hungary, where the communist party was a tiny couple thousand, resistance to the occupying Soviets proved futile.

In Greece and Turkey, communist movements attacked the established, pro-western governments in 1945. The British helped Greece, but devastated by their own war losses, could not afford to support the Greek government very long. By 1946, Great Britain turned to the United States for help. Winston

Churchill1 stated at a speech in Missouri that an "iron curtain" had descended across the center of Europe, and he urged Americans to lead the resistance to the new threat of global communism. Declared the old warrior:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic2 an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.

…In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization.

Truman faced a difficult decision. The United States had already decommissioned millions of troops and equipment, reducing the U.S. presence in Europe from 3 million in 1945 to only 500,000 in 1946. The American people were tired of war. But could he convince the nation that there was a new enemy, the Soviets, who had so recently been an ally? In a crucial speech to Congress in 1946, the President proposed the Truman Doctrine. The United States, he declared, would not attack a nation with an existing communist government, but it would provide aid to any democratic government seeking to defend itself against internal communist insurgents or external invasions. He then appealed for assistance and 1 Churchill and the Conservative Party had been ejected from power in the election of 1945; Labour Prime Minister Clement Atlee led Britain from 1945-51; then Churchill – in his 80s – returned for a brief last term as Prime Minister, 1951-55.2 Stettin is on the border between east and west Germany; Trieste on the Yugoslav border with Italy.

9

Primary Source Fiction

military advisors for the Greek and Turkish governments. Congress approved the funds and the two Mediterranean nations repelled the communist threat. The battle lines between Moscow and Washington had been `

In addition, American Secretary of State George Marshall (1880-1959) announced the Marshall Plan, which gave European nations U.S. dollars to rebuild if the countries guaranteed free elections. Western European nations quickly accepted the offer, and growing communist movements in Italy and France lost momentum and appeal as prosperity was quickly restored by American funds. The United States spent $12.5 billion (at 1950s rates), and by 1963 Western Europe was producing double its 1940 industrial output. The eastern Europeans, on the other hand, were not allowed by their puppeteers in Moscow to accept the plan; instead they rebuilt with Soviet funds, sparse as those were. In fact, the allies created a world wide financial agreement at the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire in 1944 which led to the founding of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in 1946. These organizations issued loans and monetary aid to nations to encourage free trade in a capitalist context and to avert future financial crises by unifying all economies in a global network. The Soviet bloc opted out of this network which was eventually dominated by the so-called G7 nations.3

Any doubts about Soviet imperialism evaporated with the Czech crisis in 1948. When Czech Marxists lost the election of 1948, Soviet troops and Czech communists murdered the elected prime minister, Jan Masaryk, and forcibly put a communist regime in power. Also, in 1948, Stalin created a face-off in Germany tantamount to drawing a line and daring the western Allies to cross it. After WWII, Germany had been divided into three western zones controlled by France, Britain, and the United States, while the remaining eastern zone had been left under Russia's control. When anti-Russian demonstrations in the Soviet occupied zone of Germany were crushed, thousands of Germans fled the eastern zone for the three areas occupied by the western nations.

Similarly, the old German capital of Berlin had been divided among the four occupying powers, except that geographically the city itself was completely enclosed by the Soviet controlled East German territory. This island of western influence in a sea of communism was a constant irritant to Stalin, and in 1948, ostensibly in response to a new Allied economic restructuring of West Germany, he cut off all supply corridors through eastern Germany to Berlin, essentially daring the west to challenge his Soviet strength and resolve.

This created a new dilemma for the Western powers: if they tried to run the blockade, they ran the risk of instigating a wider, and potentially, a more dangerous and destructive conflict. Instead, they decided to provide supplies for the entire city of West Berlin by air. This seemed an impossible task, but for the next few months, the Allies successfully conducted the Berlin Airlift, completing thousands of supply flights to the besieged city, and West Berlin hung on. Then it was Stalin's turn to take the dare or avoid conflict; he feared triggering a war by shooting down a supply plane, but he did not believe the Allies could supply a major city by air for so long. He was wrong. By 1949, the Allies had proven their resolve and Stalin had agreed to reopen the supply corridors.

The Berlin incident convinced all doubters that the world was in for a protracted conflict between the East (the Soviet bloc) and the West (the "Free

World"). In 1949, the democratic states of Western Europe (including 3 USA, Canada, Britain, France, (West) Germany, Holland, and Japan.

10

Greece and Turkey) joined the United States and Canada in a permanent anti-Soviet alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).4 Included in the alliance was the new German Federal Republic, or West Germany, formed from the three western zones. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, the Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955, the same year they created a German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany). While the nations of Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, and Austria (whose occupation ended in 1955) all embraced capitalist economies, they remained politically neutral.

Two communist states refused to join the Warsaw Pact and frustrated the Soviets by their independence: the tiny and mysteriously isolated dictatorship of Enver Hoxha in Albania, and Yugoslavia, ruled by an anti-Nazi guerrilla fighter and socialist named Josef Broz Tito (1892-1980). By 1948, Yugoslavia had sent its Soviet advisors home and established a stubborn independence from Moscow, one it maintained for years under Tito's dictatorship, even though it was also hostile to the west. The Yugoslav state hoped to use force and Marxist brotherhood to hold together a nation composed of three faiths and several ethnicities.

Dr. Strangelove: Nuclear PolicyThe Soviets and Americans continued their research and development of

nuclear science and atomic weapons. In 1948, the Soviets announced a successful atomic program, and in 1951, tested their first bomb. The U.S. countered by testing a hydrogen bomb on the Bikini atoll in the Pacific in 1952, but the Soviets followed suit in 1953. The realization that both superpowers had the capacity to wage nuclear war sent a chill of horror throughout the world. Albert Einstein once quipped that he did not know what World War III would be like but that the fourth world war would be fought with only sticks and stones.

Originally, atomic weapons were designed to be delivered by bombers, but both nations recruited former Nazi rocket scientists to develop missile and space technology to be used as payload carriers. Meanwhile, terrified Americans were swept up in a wave of fear that communist spies were everywhere, especially after two American born scientists, Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, were convicted of passing highly classified military secrets to the Soviets during WW II that purportedly enabled Russia to develop its first atomic bomb. In 1953, they became the first American civilians to be put to death for spying during peace time.

4 USA, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and Britain as well as the West Germans, Greeks, and Turks formed NATO. After the death of the fascist Franco in Spain in 1975 and the fascist Salazar in Portugal that same year, those two nations eventually joined NATO as well. The Warsaw Pact included Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the USSR.

11

The hysteria died down significantly after the death of Stalin in 1952 and the end of the Korean War in 1953, but the threat of nuclear annihilation caused both superpowers to sidestep carefully around any direct confrontation. By the 1960’s, both sides had developed long range missiles and Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that could be launched from the homeland and hit enemy cities within an hour or even minutes. Ironically, the arms race itself made each superpower less likely to actually use the weapons, because the devastating destruction of such a war would negatively affect everyone, win or lose. The acronym MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction – was used to describe the reality that essentially nobody would win in a nuclear conflict; so, in theory anyway, the fact that both sides had missiles is what would ultimately keep both sides from using them.

That is, unless something went terribly wrong.Peninsula Problems

12

Get Technical: Ballistic means it goes in space.

Warsaw PactCommunist, not in Warsaw PactAnti-communist risings

Communist rebels suppressed, 1945-

Nationalist rebels

France out of NATO from 1960s to

The major confrontation in Asia exploded on the Korean peninsula, which was occupied by the Soviets in the north and the Americans in the south. As in Germany, the Soviets created a puppet state, led by Korean KGB major Kim Il Sung (r.1945-1994). Syngman Rhee (r.1945-1964), a pro-American, along with his successors, ruled South Korea with an iron hand.

When the United States in 1950 declared Japan its forward base in Asia, Kim Il Sung assumed the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula was excluded from American protection, and surprised everyone with an invasion of South Korea.5 Under the unexpected onslaught, American and South Korean forces reeled backwards to the southeast corner of the country, the "Pusan pocket."

The UN (with the USSR absent from the Security Council meeting) voted to condemn the North and organize a "police action," but of course, it was a war. The U.S. went back on a full war alert, and along with the South Koreans provided 95% of the forces in the Korean War (1950-53). It was an odd war because most Americans at home were hardly affected by it. In fact, to this day it is often called the Forgotten War, even though 45,000 Americans and a million Koreans were killed.

General MacArthur led the counterstrike after the initial invasion, staging a brilliant amphibious assault at Inchon behind communist lines. The North Koreans were hurled back Yalu River, the border with the new Peoples Republic of China, Mao flexed his military muscle and warned the UN forces to back off. The Chinese feared the Americans would not stop at the Yalu but keep advancing instead, following the same route through Manchuria that Russia and Japan had used to invade China in previous wars. President Truman had no such intention, but he asked MacArthur about the Chinese threat. MacArthur confidently predicted that the Chinese did not dare attack and that if they did, the threat of atomic weapons would scare them off.

However, in December 1950, a million Chinese troops crossed the Yalu and the UN forces were once again taken by surprise. The Americans and their allies fled back down the peninsula. MacArthur asked for atom bombs; Truman turned him down. The president had no desire to bring the Soviets into the war or allow this skirmish over Korea to escalate into World War III. MacArthur criticized Truman to the press, and Truman fired him. The war stalled in the center of Korea until 1953, when the new president, Dwight Eisenhower (Pres. Rep. 1953-61), forced an end to the fighting.6

The Korean War was a stalemate. The United States had defended its client state, but it had also been dealt a severe blow by the Chinese who drove back American forces. It also raised the level of world tension by reinforcing western fears of the Soviet goal of global Marxist hegemony. Though in truth the North Koreans, Soviets, and Chinese coordinated their efforts poorly, at the time it seemed like a smoothly implemented component of a Moscow driven plan for conquest. On the other hand, American restraint in not using nuclear weapons provided a hopeful signal to everyone. Finally, it reaffirmed the American doctrine of avoiding wars on the Asian land mass, a policy that later affected a decision by Eisenhower regarding Southeast Asia, but one evidently forgotten almost entirely by his Democratic successors.

5 Even Stalin was taken by surprise – his puppet had acted independently.6 Technically, no peace has been signed between North and South which are still in a state of war, but very little shooting has occurred since 1953.

13

Chinese attack Dec 1950-1951

Spring ‘50North attacks

Khrushchev and IkeToward the end of his rule, Stalin showed signs of renewing his purges. In

1945 and 1946, thousands of Red Army veterans were exiled or killed, because Stalin thought they had been contaminated by their contact with Allied forces during travels in Europe. In 1949, in order to win friends in the Arab world, he made Jews in the Soviet Union the target of his brutal exterminations.

But in 1953 Stalin suddenly died. There was a brief power struggle between several high-ranking Politburo members, or upper level Soviet bureaucrats.7 By

1954 though, Nikita Khrushchev (r.1954-1964), Stalin’s ruthless Ukrainian lieutenant, emerged as the leader of the USSR. Khrushchev was directly responsible for the execution of thousands under Stalin, so it shocked the USSR and the world when, in 1956, he publicly and thoroughly denounced Stalin’s cruelty. However, Khrushchev knew the only way he could take Stalin's place in the hearts of the Soviet people was to destroy the Stalin cult. Khrushchev went on to blame Stalin for underestimating Hitler in 1941 and for abandoning true Marxism to create and nurture his cult of personality. In a speech to party leaders he presented a list of accusations:

Stalin…used extreme methods and mass repression at a time when the revolution was already victorious, when the Soviet state was strengthened, when the exploiting classes were

already liquidated and Socialist relations were rooted solidly in all phases of national economy, when our Party was politically consolidated and had strengthened itself both numerically and ideologically. It is clear that here Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality and his abuse of power. Instead of proving his political correctness and mobilizing

the masses, he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the Party and the Soviet government....

Khrushchev’s speech also signaled (if only slightly) an easing of the Soviet police state. Artists and intellectuals began to tentatively experiment with ideas beyond the narrow, prescribed Stalinist party outlines. In 1956, Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) was allowed to release Dr. Zhivago, a novel about a pre-revolutionary intellectual who suffers during the Bolshevik era, but survives because of his Christian faith.8 In 1962, Alexander Solzynetsin (b.1918) released

his condemnation of the gulag penal system, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a novel in the classic Russian psychological style of Dostoevsky and Chekhov.

Eastern Europeans hoped that a softer Khrushchev would allow them national expression. In 1956, the Poles rejected Moscow’s choice of a new leader and were allowed to choose a moderate communist, Wladyslaw Gomulka (1905-1982) instead, and within a decade, most Polish farmland was privatized. 7 Rumor has it that Stalin was planning another purge when he died suddenly – (back) in the USSR, one is left to wonder about causes of death.8 Pasternak was not allowed, however, to accept the 1960 Nobel Prize for literature.

14

Primary Source

Encouraged by this, moderate socialist leader Imre Nagy (1896-1958) actually withdrew his country of Hungary from the Warsaw Pact and appealed to the west for aid in gaining freedom from beneath the Soviet boot. But even though Khrushchev was no Stalin, he was not about to lose the Soviet empire either. After several weeks of fighting in the streets of Budapest, while the west did nothing, the Red Army crushed the 1956 Hungarian uprising, and Nagy later died mysteriously under a cloud of suspicious circumstances.

At the same time, another crisis occupied Eisenhower. Egypt’s monarchy had fallen in a military coup to Gamel Abdel Nasser (r.1954-1970). Emboldened by Soviet aid and support, Nasser expelled the British from the Suez Canal. Israel (newly formed in 1948 and angry at cross-border raids from Egypt) retaliated and attacked Egypt in alliance with France and Britain, but without consulting the United States. The Soviets threatened to send forces to the region, until Eisenhower angrily pressured Britain and France to withdraw – a sign to those nations that the age of Europe was over – and the Soviets backed away. Egypt and Israel (which had seized the Sinai Peninsula) agreed to a cease fire and Nasser kept the canal, though he was required to leave it open to all nations. Eisenhower had averted another potential world war.

So no one would mistake America's intentions in the Middle East however, the Eisenhower Doctrine declared unequivocally that the U.S. would act assertively to protect its Middle Eastern interests – Oil. In 1954, the CIA engineered a coup to remove a socialist president in Iran and gave power directly to pro-western Shah Reza Pahlavi II. In 1958, U.S. marines intervened in Lebanon to stop a communist coup, while British paratroops intervened in Iraq and Jordan to prevent socialist takeovers there.

America also acted to sustain client states closer to home by lending support to a wide range of corrupt but anti-communist dictators in Latin America, like Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, Papa Doc Duvalier (and his son "Baby Doc") in Haiti, and Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, and by sponsoring another CIA conducted coup in 1954 against the democratic socialist Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. Arbenz, elected in 1951, had moved to end the United Fruit Company’s control of vast banana estates in his country and to nationalize the land. The army took over and brutally crushed the socialists and the minority Mayan natives in the highlands. These actions ended the good will image of Franklin Roosevelt’s "Good Neighbor" policy and generated resentment against the USA in Latin nations. Indeed, during a trip to Latin America in 1959, angry mobs attacked Vice President Richard Nixon’s motorcade, almost overturning his limousine.

Nevertheless, there appeared to be a "thaw" in the Cold War when Premier Khrushchev visited the United States in 1959, and at a world exposition engaged Vice President Nixon in a "kitchen debate" over the merits of capitalism and communism. Khrushchev seemed to respond positively to

Eisenhower, and they planned to meet for talks in Paris at a "summit" in 1960.

The friendliness fell back into a deep freeze before the summit because the Soviets downed a U2 spy plane conducting surveillance over Russia. Eisenhower, who had

denied the over-flights, was caught red-faced in a blatant lie.

15

The other

Khrushchev made threatening noises about the western presence in Berlin, and in 1961, the flood of East German refugees trying to escape to western zones was blocked by the Soviets' construction of the Berlin Wall, a concrete and wire barrier. Over the next two decades, dozens of would-be refugees were killed trying to escape over or through the armed border. A coup by the pro-Soviet Fidel Castro in Cuba and other Third World communist movements also contributed to increased tensions, and Eisenhower left office with US-Soviet relations as cold and strained as they had been when he took over.

Red Stars?Soviet citizens continued to be part of a massive industrial economy that

accomplished large scale projects but failed to adequately provide the basic necessities of life. While the Soviets rapidly recovered from World War II, their economy by the early 1960s had once again stagnated under the burden of inefficient, centralized, bureaucratic management, though they had at least recovered to pre-Stalinist levels of production. The Cold War itself is to blame, because the Soviets spent 40-50% of their budget on defense and space programs, while the Americans spent only 15% on average (25% during the Vietnam conflict). Soviet citizens began to wonder when the workers paradise would deliver its blessings.

Indeed, the standard of living for Soviet citizens did gradually improve, and by the mid-1950s, old age pensions and minimal free health care had been instituted. But bureaucratic torpor, stasis, and inefficiency plagued the system. Party members, who comprised only 10% of the population, received the best goods. But even those were limited; members had to wait several years for a better apartment, a car, or even a refrigerator. While czarist Russia had fed Europe, Soviet agriculture could not feed itself, and the USSR was forced to import grain from the United States. In addition, the Soviet military and industrial complexes caused massive environmental destruction and degradation. Unlike American

industry, which by the late 1970s was under government regulation to protect the environment, the Soviets made almost no provision to protect its natural setting and ecosystems.Satellite development and rocket science advances were used not just as propaganda games played to claim cultural and national superiority, but more importantly as technology vital to the development of more efficient, accurate, and powerful military missiles. In 1957, the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite. Aided by a former Nazi rocket

scientist, Werner von Braun, the United States joined the space race and established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to chase the Russians, launching a satellite of its own in 1958. In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1978) became the first man in space, and in 1963 Valentina Tereshkhova became the first woman. Increasing the stakes of the game, President John F. Kennedy (Pres. Dem. 1961-63) vowed the U.S. would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and in 1969, Neil Armstrong (b.1930) became the first man to set foot on the lunar surface. Both sides accomplished amazing technological and scientific feats in the space race, but they came at tremendous economic costs, especially for the Soviets.

16

Under Khrushchev, some limited freedoms were allowed, though both he and his successor, Leonid Brezhnev (r.1964-1982), continued to arrest, harass, exile, and execute political and religious dissidents. Because of the Soviet alliance with Arab states, Jews again became targets of harassment, echoing the old czarist pogroms. Other ethnic groups also faced persecution and discrimination after 1970 when Russian speaking citizens became the minority in the USSR. Brezhnev continued the Soviet

military buildup and Russian people saw their consumer needs sacrificed so the country could build MiG fighters and nuclear missiles.

Meanwhile the United States (and to a lesser extent Western Europe) created and enjoyed the longest run of uninterrupted prosperity and growth in human history. Although they made up only 6% of the global population, Americans produced half the world's goods during the first two decades after World War II. With years of war savings at their disposal, American consumers became a powerful force. The American government maintained the welfare state, and even under Republican presidents, expanded the social safety net. The U.S. government became ubiquitous in American life and the American economy, and not until the 1970s did the nation experience any leveling of its amazing economic climb or face any serious economic competition.

Rumbles in the Jungles: 1959-1975

As the European brand of nationalism spread to the rest of the world and contributed to the demise of imperialism, former colonies that became nations were also dragged into the Cold War. Some of them embraced Marxism, others allied with the West, and still others tried to stay on a neutral course, but several became battlegrounds for the Cold War. At times, the United States and the Socialist Soviets used proxies, or client states to fight each other; on occasion, the two superpowers intervened directly. It was a global game of geopolitical chess that often caused far too real suffering.

Yanqui Go HomeBeginning in 1952, the United States supported the brutal regime of former

Cuban army sergeant Fulgencio Batista. Havana was an accessible, elite playground for gangsters, gamblers, and wealthy Americans, Cuban agricultural income was almost entirely dependent on sugar exports to the United States, which controlled fully 25% of the Cuban economy. Batista himself was cruel and corrupt, and by the late 1950s even the U.S. was soured by his excesses.

In 1958, Fidel Castro (r.1959-p), who led a small band of rebels in the mountains of Cuba, along with his associate Che Guevara (1928-1967), staged a revolt against Batista. Castro was a former lawyer and minor league baseball player, and Guevara was an Argentine communist prophet /mercenary /doctor who was involved in several other Latin American nations spreading Marxist ideals. Castro was as popular as Batista was despised, and by 1959 he had seized power. At first, the US welcomed Castro, because he seemed to be an only vaguely socialist

popular leader. But when Castro also seized U.S. assets and confiscated property from the wealthy, the United States condemned

17

him as a radical. By 1960, refugees had begun to flee to Florida, because Castro and Guevara were rounding up and killing opponents. Even worse for the U.S. he was welcoming Soviet military advisers. Americans were shocked at the establishment of a communist state less than 90 miles from Miami.

In 1961, President Kennedy authorized the CIA to fund the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by political exiles. The invasion was a disaster, and the Cuban people, still nationalistically proud of a leader who would not kowtow to the mighty Americans, backed Castro. Castro, fearful of U.S. attacks, called on Khrushchev for aid.

Although he denied it, Khrushchev placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. At that time, missiles had a range of about 3000 miles, which meant that placement in Cuba threatened most American cities. Kennedy revealed to the world U2 spy plane photos of the missiles and angrily demanded their withdrawal. Further, Kennedy blockaded Cuba with U.S. navy ships and the world waited tensely as a Soviet fleet steamed toward Cuba. Indeed, it seemed as if the goblin of nuclear war would be let loose in a Cuban Missile Crisis.

At the last minute, Khrushchev backed off. Secretly, in exchange, Kennedy agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey, near the Soviet border. Publicly, Khrushchev removed the missiles from Cuba. The United States promised not to invade Cuba, though U.S. economic sanctions remained in place.

The leaders on both sides were sobered by their brush with nuclear war, and a direct phone line was established between the two capitals to avert future misunderstandings at moments of crisis.9 In 1963, the two powers (and several others) signed a ban on above-ground tests, the first agreement regarding nuclear weapons. In 1968, Russia and the U.S. signed a treaty to slow the spread, or proliferation, of nuclear weaponry. As for Khrushchev, his actions discredited him among his own comrades and in 1964, he was quietly removed (though not killed) and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.

The United States continued to intervene in Latin America, however. Kennedy tried to use aid and American expertise to win friends and allies, but force remained an option. President Lyndon B. Johnson (Pres. Dem. 1963-1969) used 20,000 marines to prop up the dictatorship of a pro-American general in the Dominican Republic in 1965. These Machiavellian maneuvers backfired in later years though. When the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende (r.1970-73) appeared to drift toward Marxism in Chile, American President Nixon allowed the CIA to sponsor a coup, and the dictatorship of General Augustin Pinochet (r.1973-89) began with the murder of Allende and continued with the killing of hundreds of opponents.

As guerrilla movements appeared throughout Latin America, the United States acted assertively to send aid and intelligence to pro-American leaders engaged in counterinsurgency efforts. Che Guevarra was killed in 1967 in Bolivia by government forces aided by the CIA. While communist guerrillas created havoc in El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Nicaragua, and Honduras, opposition right wing "death squads" (often aided and abetted by pro-U.S. governments) murdered anyone – including peasants, Catholic priests, nuns, and occasionally visiting American activists – who dissented against the state or spoke 9 During the Cuban crisis, the two sides had actually communicated by passing messages to journalists and making public radio broadcasts.

18

out against government abuses. Threatened by socialist victories at the polls, military dictators in Brazil and Argentina took power with American support. There was blood guilt on both the right and left, while the moderate middle and poor peasants paid the price.

The Vietnam FiascoIn 1960, few Americans could locate Vietnam on a map. Unlike the Middle

East, it was not an important contributor to the American economy, and unlike Latin America, it did not seem to pose a geographic threat or even have any

noteworthy significance. Yet the Vietnam conflict became the crisis of conscience for America and one of the bloodiest confrontations of the Cold War.

The French reasserted their imperial hold on Indochina in 1945, ignoring Ho Chi Minh’s (1890-1969) declaration of a Vietnamese republic. Ho had studied and trained in Paris and Moscow. He had also established the Viet Minh, a nationalist and communist movement in

1930; these forces received American aid to resist Japanese occupation during the Second World War. But after the war, Truman ignored Ho and acquiesced to the French return to Vietnam.

A bloody conflict, the First Indochinese War (1945-54) erupted as the Viet Minh, led by their brilliant General Vo Nguyen Giap (b.1912), waged a canny guerrilla war against the French. Eventually, the United States was paying 80% of French costs. The French set up the Vietnamese emperor, Bao Dai, as a puppet ruler, but the Vietnamese people were not fooled. Bao Dai’s cronies were all French-speaking, Catholic Vietnamese, but the vast majority of Vietnamese (90%) were Buddhists who, of course, did not speak French. Ho wisely appealed to the Vietnamese with nationalist terms rather than with Marxist rhetoric.

In 1953, France recognized the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. Then, in 1954, half the French forces in Vietnam were trapped in the valley of Dienbienphu. Eisenhower resolutely refused to commit American forces to an

Asian war that, as far as he could see, was pointless for the United States. The French surrendered, and all sides sat down in Paris to negotiate.The 1954 agreement created a northern zone

under Ho Chi Minh with its capital at Hanoi. The southern zone passed to a Francophile10 leader named Ngo Dien Diem (r. 1954-1963), with its headquarters in Saigon. In 1956, an election was supposed to be held to unite the two zones under one ruler, but the CIA warned Eisenhower that Diem, seen as a collaborator with the French, would lose overwhelmingly to Ho, a nationalist hero: the election was never held and two separate nations emerged.North Vietnam began to sponsor the Viet Cong, a

communist insurgency in the south. Diem’s 10 Pro-French

19

government, which was corrupt, cruel, and inefficient, was propped up by American funds, but it quickly lost control of the countryside. In 1961, President Kennedy dispatched American "advisors" to teach the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) counterinsurgency methods. Finally, Kennedy agreed to look the other way as South Vietnamese generals overthrew and killed Diem. The military took over South Vietnam and Kennedy began to consider pulling out of Vietnam altogether, but six weeks after Diem’s assassination, Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas.

President Johnson subsequently raised the amount of aid to South Vietnam. Fearful that the fall of Vietnam would lead to an explosion of communism throughout Southeast Asia, Johnson was determined to hold the line at Vietnam.11 In 1964, Johnson alleged that North Vietnamese gunboats had attacked U.S. naval vessels, and as a result, Congress issued the Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing Johnson to use any amount of force he deemed necessary. By 1967, the U.S. (and a smattering of allies) had 500,000 troops in Vietnam, embroiled in what became the Second Indochinese War (1964-75), or what Americans call the Vietnam War.

Much of the war was fought in South Vietnam, as combined ARVN and US forces battled against the Viet Cong (VC). The VC were supplied from the north via sea and by the land route called the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran along the border with Cambodia and Laos. The U.S. staged air raids on North Vietnam, in part to try to cut off these supply lines. In Laos, the Pathet Lao, a Chinese sponsored communist group, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia waged parallel wars against their respective ruling parties.

The Vietnamese people suffered from the ravages of war and the brutality of both the Viet Cong, who used assassination, random terror, and extortion against civilians, and the ARVN, whose methods were equally brutal. American soldiers who initially believed they were fighting for democracy, instead found themselves fighting in a new kind of war, a civil war, a war that was less about Marxist theory than about nationalism. Frustration also mounted because the Viet Cong tactics defied American experience and attempted to minimize American technological advantages by engaging in unorthodox guerrilla warfare. The peasant who smiled at American soldiers by day might very well be a Viet Cong commander who launched mortars at the U.S. base by night.

In 1967, American commander William Westmoreland announced that victory was "just around the corner." But shortly thereafter the communists staged a major attack, the Tet Offensive.12 Communist guerrillas penetrated the heavily defended American embassy in Saigon, seized the old Vietnamese capital of Hue for a month, and trapped American troops for a time at a rural base called Khe Sanh. Though the offensive cost the Viet Cong heavily and they were driven off, it was a major blow to the American psyche. Americans had been generally positive about the war, but after Tet, public opinion in the States gradually turned against the war as people began to question the validity of U.S. presence and involvement in far off Asia, as well as the cost in deaths of American soldiers.

Privately, Johnson had always harbored doubts about the war.13 His presidency was made unpopular by the war, and in 1968 Johnson announced he would not run for reelection, even if he were nominated by his Democratic Party. 11 In 1957, the British had stopped a communist insurgency in nearby Malaysia, inspiring Johnson, however, the Malaysian situation had subtle but vital differences not comprehended by the Americans. (More in next chapter.)12 Tet was the name of the Vietnamese New Year, a traditional period of cease-fire.13 Revealed recently (2001) by previously secret White House tapes.

20

The new president, Richard Nixon, immediately began to reduce American efforts in Vietnam, though he combined escalated bombings of the North with secret negotiations with the North Vietnamese (beginning in 1970) to end the war. The carnage dragged on and for a while the U.S. actually spread its efforts to an invasion of Cambodia, but by 1973 the Americans had withdrawn from the area.

However, Hanoi and Saigon continued their war. The U.S. stopped giving aid to Saigon in early 1975, and by the end of the year, communists ruled Laos and Cambodia and had unified Vietnam, renaming Saigon "Ho Chi Minh City" in memory of their leader who had died in 1969. Over a million Vietnamese were dead, as were 54,000 Americans, and Southeast Asia remained one of the poorest places in the world. In all three nations, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, brutal communist dictators murdered thousands

of opponents, put thousands more into forced labor in “re-education camps,” and created yet again totalitarian states.

In Cambodia, a particularly brutal Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot (r. 1975-78) was directly responsible for the mass murder of 2 million Cambodians. The Khmer Rouge leaders, trained in France, tried to carry out a bizarre combination of Rousseauist idealism, Marxist collectivism, and anti-Western fanaticism. They evactauted cities and armed children, echoing a strange interpretation of Rousseau’s belief in nature and childhood goodness in pursuit of a new utopia. But what resulted was more like Lord of the Flies and resulted in a genocide. Anyone who spoke French or English, anyone with an education, anyone even remotely suspected of less than total loyalty to Pol Pot was rounded up and placed in a death camp. The capital of Phnom Penh was emptied out; within 24 hours a city of a million was reduced to 100,000. The bones and skulls of the "killing fields" piled up as about 2.5 million people in a nation of 8 million died in a 3 year holocaust.

In 1978 the pro-Soviet Vietnamese invaded Cambodia. By this time, China and the USSR were in their own inter-communist cold war over who would control the Southeast Asian sphere, long the domain of the Chinese empire. The Chinese invaded northern Vietnam, but after a few months, retreated. The thousand year old ethnic strife between the two nations was far more significant than any imported European economic doctrine. The Khmer Rouge were driven from power by Vietnamese forces in the Third Indochinese War (1978-1990). The Vietnamese withdrew in 1990 and by 2000 the last of the Khmer Rouge had been hunted down. Today Cambodia, under a UN peacekeeping regime, is rebuilding after decades of war. Laos remains a hidden, mysterious, and desperately poor communist state, and Vietnam has begun to open to the world, allowing some capitalism and foreign investment in the late 1990s.

Evil Empire: Detente and One Last Deep Freeze 1970-1985

By the 1970s, when neither side in the Cold War feared world domination by the other, both sides abandoned the fiery rhetoric of victory for the cool composure

21

An accused Viet Cong is executed by a South Vietnamese

of realpolitik and a balance of power. Though both sides continued the battle of ideological propaganda, the Cold War may be better understood in terms of geopolitical calculations, rather than through abstract discussions of socioeconomic theory. And, the socioeconomic reality was this: the Free World was tremendously wealthy and successful (though its blessings were, as Churchill put it, unevenly spread), while the Soviets and Chinese and their minion states languished in a gloomy, drab, bureaucratic swamp of near-poverty and mediocrity.

Not all was dreary though. The socialist world had its accomplishments: there was little unemployment; health care and education, though of only middling quality, were wide spread and free; sports and the arts were sponsored by the state for those who were adequately talented (an oddly competitive anomaly in the supposed egalitarian paradise); and women achieved a measure of equality in previously male-dominated societies (still, socialist women ran into a glass ceiling, too; for example, they made up more than 50% of the doctors in the USSR, but few were allowed to rise above that level to become surgeons or administrators). By the 1970s however, people everywhere under communist rule were becoming increasingly more dissatisfied with the lack of true freedom in a monotonously drab daily life.

Internationally, both East and West had settled into a relatively peaceful coexistence. Under President Nixon and his brilliantly Machiavellian advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger (b.1923), the Americans pursued a realistic policy of detente, or acceptance of and dialogue with the communist side. The American withdrawal from Vietnam noticeably relieved tension, and in 1972, Nixon and Brezhnev signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), which imposed limits on nuclear arms for both sides. Nixon also became the first American president to visit Beijing14 and Moscow. In 1975, both the USA and USSR signed the Helsinki Accords, an agreement to respect human rights, negotiate boundaries, and renounce war.

Cracks in the Curtain The great monolith of communism proved to be a myth. Cracks appeared in

East Europe from the beginning, but the world was shocked by the rift that broke open between China and the USSR in 1956 when Mao expelled Soviet advisers. The Soviets provocatively cut all aid to Beijing in 1960, and in retaliation, the Chinese sent advisers to the independent minded communist regimes in Albania and Yugoslavia. Both sides condemned the other's version of Marxism as illegitimate. The Chinese, ancient rivals with Russia, were sensitive about Moscow’s interference and claims to leadership rights in East Asia particularly. For centuries, East Asia had been the domain, more or less, of the Chinese. Soviet intervention and attempts at control in old Chinese spheres in Mongolia, Vietnam, and (North) Korea angered Mao, as did the Kremlin's support for India in a brief border flare up in 1963. Chinese and Soviet forces actually exchanged shots over the Amur River which separated Chinese Manchuria from Siberia.

Nixon and Kissinger exploited this chasm when the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam. Nixon opened relations with China and visited that nation in 1972. By 1978, the United States reversed its previous stance and recognized the legitimacy of the People’s Republic of China, and Beijing replaced Taiwan on the U.N. Security Council in the China seat. The Chinese, who had tested their own atomic 14 The modern spelling for Peking.

22

bomb in 1964, were lured by quiet promises of American support against the Soviets.

Within the Soviet bloc, dissidents such as Solzhenitsyn and Nobel prize-winning physicist Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) were exiled to Siberia or expelled from the USSR altogether. It was an embarrassment to the regime to have such renowned men of letters point out the failures of the Soviet system, but because the days of Stalin were over, the two could not simply be killed. Indeed, a cultural relaxation under Brezhnev in 1968 tempted Czech leader Alexander Dubcék to attempt to break his satellite country out of the Soviet orbit, but the "Prague Spring" was suppressed by Soviet tanks. Brezhnev's slogan was "no innovations."

In fact, Brezhnev's rule was more Orwellian in its subtle yet dark efficiency. Instead of large scale purges and massive executions, people were declared insane and shut away in mental institutions where they were basically lost and forgotten; or they were exiled to some remote Siberian town far from any contact with others or access to communication; or – as in the days of the czars – they simply disappeared; and still, the chain of Siberian forced labor camps called the gulag continued to operate a brisk business.

Nixon and Kissinger also sought closer ties with Moscow. Nixon visited Moscow in 1972, and in exchange for Russia's willingness to negotiate arms limits at the SALT talks, the U.S. sold grain to the Soviets, whose agricultural inefficiencies forced them to seek food abroad just to feed their own masses. Americans were allowed to visit the USSR as tourists, and Moscow was named the site of a future (1980) Olympiad. After Nixon resigned in disgrace, new President Gerald Ford (Pres. Rep. 1974-77) continued the policy of détente (which means acting with judicious restraint in international confrontations while continuously pursuing further negotiations).

Central America and Afghanistan The Vietnam War and the U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia, along with

the politically embarrassing Watergate scandal15 shook the confidence of not only the United States itself, but also of her allies. The military and intelligence communities likewise were demoralized by the Vietnam debacle. The European nations, uniting under an economic treaty, were becoming more independent, and the American economy was beginning to sag under pressure from rising Middle-Eastern oil prices and heavy competition from Japan and Europe.

President Jimmy Carter (Pres. Dem. 1977-81) forthrightly determined to set a new, humanitarian course. He vowed to base his foreign policy on human rights. The United States was learning too late about the perils of supporting anti-communist dictators who were, in actuality, brutal fascists, or at the very least, uninterested and unconcerned about the needs of their people. Carter cut aid to several pro-American regimes that maintained power through brute force. Further, he tried to make amends for the past when he

signed a treaty with Panama to give the Canal Zone back by the year 2000.

15 Nixon was forced to resign after it was revealed he had abused the power of the Presidency to intimidate opponents during the election in 1972; among other things, his aides had bungled a burglary of Democratic offices in the Watergate Hotel in Washington.

23

In 1978, a Marxist movement in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, overthrew the Somoza regime which had ruled that nation with American aid since the 1930s. The Sandinista leader, Daniel Ortega16 (r.1978-90), had promised to instill democracy, but his regime acted ruthlessly and limited dissent. Still, the United States initially acted with restraint. In fact, Carter remained hopeful that goodwill and peaceable negotiation would prove more effective than espionage or force had in dealing with communist states and other international issues.

The usually mild-mannered President was infuriated however by the sudden Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979, the start of a decade long Soviet-Afghan War. A pro-Soviet republic had existed in Afghanistan, but its ruler had been at best a shaky ally for Moscow. In addition, a pro-American ruler in Iran had been deposed by an Islamic revolution in 1978 and some thought that the Soviets, sensing American weakness, planned to use Afghanistan as a base for an invasion of the Persian Gulf region. An angry Carter called for a massive military buildup and the CIA moved to aid the mujahedeen (holy warriors), Afghan soldiers resisting the Russian invasion. The CIA also began to aid Contras, anti-Sandinista fighters in Nicaragua. American athletes boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and the Soviets boycotted the 1984 Olympiad in Los Angeles. To many the United States seemed impotent and the Soviets seemed as aggressive as ever as the world plunged into yet another freeze. Worried Americans responded in the election of 1980 by electing a strongly anti-communist president, Ronald Reagan (Pres. Rep. 1981-89).

Star WarsReagan’s rhetoric toward the Soviet Union proved as tough

as Truman’s had been. He denounced what he called the "evil empire" and continued to escalate both the military buildup and CIA involvement in the struggle against the Soviets. He encouraged research for a futuristic satellite-based anti-missile shield, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), nicknamed "Star Wars." Along with stalwart ally Britain, under Prime Minister Thatcher, Reagan vowed to stand firm against Soviet expansionism.

In 1982, Reagan ordered the invasion of the tiny Caribbean isle of Grenada. Ostensibly, he intervened to protect American students there, but the ruse was a transparent excuse to oust the Marxist government that had assumed power with the aid of Cuba. The U.S. supported anti-communist rebels in Angola and increased aid to Nicaragua's Contras, mining Nicaraguan harbors to stop Soviet ships from reaching the Central American country.

Meanwhile, the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan had turned into a disaster. Afghan cities were overrun, but the deserts and mountains swarmed with guerrillas, and Soviet soldiers found themselves mired in their own Vietnam-like confrontation. The Soviets killed thousands – even disguising land mines as toys to kill children – but the Afghans refused to quit. The CIA supplied hand held missiles to the mujahadeen so they could shoot down Soviet helicopters, and hundreds of Islamic volunteers went to help the Afghans.

Meanwhile, the Soviet economy continued to totter along. "Star Wars" terrified the Soviets; even if they could match the technology, they could never afford the price, and the possibility of a missile-proof America meant the Soviets would be basically helpless in a nuclear war. 16 Ortega was elected as president of Nicaragua in 2006.

24

Meanwhile, because the Chinese began to allow American investors behind the "Bamboo Curtain,” the Soviets felt even more paranoid.

In 1980, an anti-communist labor strike broke out in the Gdansk shipyards in Poland. Shipyard worker Lech Walesa (b. 1944) formed a labor movement called Solidarity that stood up against the Soviet regime. The irony of an anti-Marxist labor movement stung the communist party, but the Polish communist regime gave in and granted reforms, including greater tolerance of Catholicism. Poles were further inspired by their ardent devotion to the Catholic religion and the election of a Polish cardinal to the Papacy. Pope John Paul II (r. 1978-2005) proved an inspiring, intelligent opponent to communism. But in December 1981, the Polish army and the Soviets declared martial law in Poland under General Wojciech Jaruzelski. The Polish government, no doubt under directives from Moscow, blundered by murdering several priests, jailing Walesa, and outlawing Solidarity, which only angered the Poles against Marxism even more. The Soviets even attempted to assassinate the Pope, but he survived the wound, and after being captured and interrogated, the assassin implicated the Soviet state.17

In 1982, Brezhnev died. Power passed first into the hands of an elderly Stalinist, the chief of secret police, Yuri Andropov (r.1982-84), but he died within a couple years. His successor was another elderly Stalinist, Konstantin Chernenko (r. 1984-1985), but he died within a year. The Politburo then turned to a younger generation, choosing a man who had been raised in the post-Stalinist era, an energetic economist named Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Cold War world was about to turn upside down.

ConclusionsThe Cold War can be viewed as an ideological struggle: two political beliefs,

Democracy and Marxist authoritarianism, were locked in a mortal struggle. Two economic beliefs, capitalism and communism, were locked in a battle of productivity and basic survival. Neither side could fight a direct war because of nuclear weapons and their ultimate destructiveness, so the combatants instead waged war through propaganda, espionage, and proxy states. Viewed in this way, the Marxist version lost decisively. Indeed, dollars proved far more effective than bullets for the United States. By the 1980s, Soviet citizens were disgusted with their own poverty and lack of freedom. They were truly living an Orwellian nightmare, and the propaganda veneer posted by Moscow could not hide the misery of the USSR from the world or from the Soviet people themselves.

The Cold War can also be seen as a classic struggle about balance of power, a geopolitical or nationalist struggle between the two competitive superpowers. Here, victory is less clear. At times, American leaders proved to be just as Machiavellian – that is, willing to abandon their own values – as the comrades in the Kremlin.18 Often, the Americans blundered badly, alienating the very people whose hearts and minds they were trying to win. Of course, the Soviets also blundered and their methods were often cruel and harmful to their supposed allies.

17 The assassin was an agent of the Bulgarian secret police, but everyone knew the puppet strings ran from Bucharest to the KGB headquarters in Moscow.18 The Kremlin is the old czarist fortress in Moscow that became the headquarters of the Soviet – and now the sRussian – government.

25

Berlin Airlift

Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security | 2004 | LERNER, ADRIENNE WILMOTH COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc.

Following World War II, Germany was partitioned into various zones under the control of Allied nations. Berlin, the nation's key city, was also divided into different occupation areas, despite its location deep into the Soviet sector. Tensions escalated between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, prompting the Soviets to attempt to take over control of all of Berlin. When France, Britain, and the United States agreed to introduce a new currency into their sectors in West Germany and Berlin, the Soviets declared the new currency void in the eastern partition under their control. Days later, the Soviet government closed supply lines to West Berlin. The United States Air Force and the British Royal Air Force organized a massive effort to deliver needed food, coal, and medical supplies into Berlin to thwart the Soviet blockade. The round-the-clock operation, which became known as the Berlin Airlift, sustained the residents of West Berlin for over a year, and secured the freedom of West Berlin from Soviet control.

The Soviet blockade. Berlin lay more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) inside of the Soviet-controlled eastern sector. The western sectors of the divided city relied on railroads and the Autobahn, the nation's main roadway, for the free transport of goods and supplies into the city. Berlin's eastern sector was controlled by a Soviet installed communist dictatorship, and was already experiencing shortages of essential goods and a fragile economy. West Berlin flourished under the control of the Western Allies,

who intended to establish a democratic government and market economy, aid Germany in overcoming the legacy of the Nazis, and relinquish control of their sectors. In order to gain full control of Berlin, Soviet and East German forces acted on government decrees to occupy and shutdown essential transport services, effectively laying West Berlin under siege.

On June 15, 1948, the Soviets declared the Autobahn closed, and established roadblocks to prevent Berliners from fleeing the city. Within a week, all traffic between the various sectors of the city was halted. On Jun 21, river barge traffic was outlawed. Two days later, all railroads into and out of West Berlin were closed. Berliners were then at the mercy of the Soviet government to provide food and supplies. On June 24, 1948, the Soviets announced that they would not supply food to residents outside of the Soviet controlled sector. With all other means of transport cut-off, Britain and the United States, with the help of France, organized a massive airlift to feed and supply the sectors of West Berlin under their control.

Military airlift operations. Airlift operations began immediately. On June 26, two days after the Soviet announcement of the blockade, the United States Air Force airlifted the first cargo into Berlin. The American nicknamed the effort, "Operation Vittles," while British pilots dubbed the operation "Plain Fare." In July 1948, the operation was renamed the Combined Airlift Taskforce.

In the first months of the operation, the airlift gained international fame for delivering food and coal to blockaded Berliners. C-54 pilot, Lt. Gail Halverson added bundles of gum and candy to his payload for the crowds of children he noticed near the airfield. Halverson's "candy bombs" gained renown, and soon donations of candy and gum flooded his mailbox. In anticipation of

26

winter, clothing donations were also collected from U.S. citizens and businesses for transport to Berlin. Red Cross medical supplies were shipped in the airlift, and passengers were permitted to travel between West Germany and Berlin on a limited basis.

Airlift operations were conducted daily, often in inclement weather. Squadrons of American C-54s and British Dakotas, Yorks, Sunderland "Flying Boats," and Hastings aircraft delivered tons of goods per day to West Berlin. The sorties flew in tight patterns, landing sometimes as frequently as four planes a minute into one of three Berlin airfields. At the height of the airlift, as preparatory efforts for the winter of 1949 were underway, British forces drafted commercial airliners into service. The maximum effort launched by the Combined Airlift Task Force occurred on April 16, 1949. Known as the "Easter Parade," the airlift delivered 12,940 short tons of cargo, in 1,398 individual sorties, in one day.

Sustained airlift operations required a large-scale military effort not only in the air, but on the ground as well. Since Britain and France were still coping with post-war shortages at home, most supplies were shipped from the United States across the Atlantic in C-82 "Flying Boxcars." Cargo was shipped to American, British, and French bases in West Germany for final transport to Berlin. Once in Berlin, cargo from American C-54s required hand loading and unloading because the modified aircraft could not support palate loads. Sacks of flour, coal, and other goods then were transported to locations established for distribution.

Major General William H. Tunner commanded the operation with the assistance of a deputy officer, RAF Air Commodore, J. F. Merer. Under their direction, the airlift employed increasingly complicated flying maneuvers and sophisticated technology to maximize the amount of cargo delivered to Berlin. The command team was primarily concerned with operational safety, since planes were required to fly at full tonnage, for long flights, in tight flying and landing patterns. Constant revision of safety standards and operational procedures, the instillation of sophisticated ground radar, as well as increased pilot training, aided the success of the Berlin Airlift while minimizing casualties and accidents.

The Soviets made no effort to stop the airlift. Soviet intelligence reported regularly on airlift operations and the condition and moral of West Berlin residents, but Soviet officials believed that the international coalition would fail or eventually abandon their efforts. Also, they were afraid that military intervention to prevent the airlift might result in another war.

On May 12, 1949, the Soviets finally lifted the blockade on Berlin. Train and auto transport was resumed into the city, but were limited at first. West Berliners regained their freedom to travel to West Germany several months later. Airlift operations continued through September of 1949 until supplies regularly reached Berlin via train and truck. In all, the Berlin Airlift delivered 2.4 million tons of food and supplies in nearly 300,000 missions. Seventy-nine people lost their lives in the international effort to end the Soviet blockade.

Legacy of the Berlin airlift. The Berlin Airlift was the first large-scale, modern humanitarian effort that utilized airplanes as a primary means of delivery. The political effort was the first international humanitarian coalition that used military vehicles, instillations, resources, personnel, and aircraft, instead of relying on civilian aid organizations. Setting the precedent for future aid operations, the success of the Berlin Airlift added a new role to peace and wartime

27

military forces. Modern wartime humanitarian relief operations, as well as nation building policies were forged after World War II.

After the success of airlift operations and the formal end of the Soviet blockade, there was no easing of political tensions between the Soviet Union and the other Allies. The Western Allies united their occupation zones and created a self-sufficient, democratic government in West Germany. The Soviet Union established a communist satellite state. East Germany became the most tightly controlled Soviet satellite nation, aiding Soviet espionage and intelligence operations throughout the Cold War. Berlin remained partitioned between East and West. Soviet and East German troops used increasing force to control the border between East and West Berlin, cutting off the East from Western visitors and influences.

The Berlin Wall was constructed in the early 1960s to permanently partition the city. The wall became a Cold War symbol of the division between East and West, democratic and communist. In 1989, the failing East German government passed a law limitedly opening the border between East and West Berlin. When East German citizens heard of the law, they stormed the Berlin Wall and its guarded gates, demanding their immediate, and full, opening. East Germany, and the Berlin Wall, fell within months. The subsequent reunification of Germany brought the full end to the crisis which began with the Berlin Airlift forty years prior.

28

WAR IN THE ‘LAND THAT GOD FORGOT’:KOREA, 1950-1953

By Richard K. KolbVFW Magazine, December 1991

Reprinted from VFW Magazine onto the Korean War Educator websitewith permission from the editors.

 Only recently has the Korean War begun to receive just attention. But much remains to be told about the 1.5 million Americans who waged this critical conflict—the turning point in the war against communism.

"Although not yet fully appreciated, the Korean War was one of the most significant wars of the 20th century," wrote distinguished author and decorated Korean War veteran Harry G. Summers. "It marked the acknowledgement by the Kremlin [Soviet government] that communism could no longer be spread by direct force of arms."

Until 1958, however, the war in Korea was not even officially dignified by that term. Today, after 40 years, the euphemisms "conflict" and "police action" still hold sway among the general public, in government circles and in media accounts.

Nevertheless, it was war in every respect and was a vital event in world history, despite years of historical neglect. The reasons for U.S. intervention may have initially been unclear, but some participants grasped its importance from the very start.

As one Marine put it, "I’m no hero, but if these people aren’t stopped here on their own ground, we will have to share the thing which so many have died to prevent their loved ones from sharing—the sight of death in our own backyards, of women and children being victims of these people [communists].

Unknown Entity

Few Americans could place Korea on a map when on June 25, 1950, 135,000 North Korean troops crashed across the 38th parallel, crushing South Korean defenses. Two authors have aptly described the physical features of the "land of the Morning Calm."

Clay Blair, in The Forgotten War, wrote: "Although the country was situated in a temperate zone, the climate was peculiarly inhospitable: jungle hot and steamy in the rainy season (June to September) and arctic cold in winter. The rice paddies, situated in the narrow valleys and draws among the endless hills and ridges were fertilized by stinking human feces."

That one particular feature—the smell that permeated the air because of the use of human wastes to grow crops—stands out in the memories of most veterans. T.R. Fehrenbach, in his monumental work, This Kind of War, provides a graphic description of the battleground:

29

"The hillsides of South Korea are steep; often slopes of 60 degrees are found on low ridges. Under the sullen sun the ridges shimmered like furnaces and there was almost no shade in the scrubby brush that covered them.

"And there is little drinking water, outside the brownish stuff in the fecal paddies…each paddy is a humid, stinking oven, and the bare hills are like broiler plates. Those who drank from the ditches and paddies developed searing dysentery. They sweated until their shirts and belts rotted, and their bellies turned shark-white."

At the other extreme was the brutal cold. The winter of 1950-51 turned out to be the coldest of the decade. Bitter winds from Siberia dropped the temperature so low that steaming turkey slices froze instantly. Frostbite took a severe toll among troops committed to North Korea early in the war.

GIs simply called Korea the "land that God forgot."

Greatest Trial of All

Though little heralded, the GIs who fought the nation’s first major war of containment displayed tenacity after the war’s first few months. A European observer remarked of the "intelligence, physique, doggedness and an amazing ability to endure adversity with grace" of the Americans.

Army historian S.L.A. Marshall said, "The men of the Eighth Army are the hardest-hitting, most work-man-like soldiers I have yet seen in our uniforms in the course of three wars."

Famed correspondent Eric Sevareid, writing in 1953, concluded the GI performance in Korea "outmatches the behavior of those who fought our wars of certainty and victory. This is something new in American society. This is something to be recorded with respect and humility."

In his landmark history, The American Fighting Man, author Victor Hicken called Korea "the greatest of all trials for the American fighting man." He added, "In some ways the performance of the American fighting man in Korea was nothing short of miraculous. Most of the men fought solely out of a sense of duty, and possibly pride.

"They fought while politicians back home told them that the war was useless, they sacrificed while friends back home enjoyed a general prosperity brought on by the war, they fought under military and political restraint, and they gave battle under some of the most miserable climatic conditions ever faced by American warriors."

Regulars, Reservists and "Retreads"

To assemble an armed force with such sterling qualities, the military had to tap every manpower source then at its disposal. At the outset, the regular military establishment was combed worldwide to fill the ranks of skeletonized units. Hundreds of National Guard and Organized

30

Reserve units were mobilized, and hundreds of thousands of individual reservists called up.

Some 20% of Korean War era servicemen had served in WWII. These "retreads," as they were known, proved invaluable among the inexperienced ranks, especially in the critical first months of fighting.

The Army’s composition changed as the war progressed. In December 1950, over 80% of soldiers were still regulars. Recalled reservists soon replaced many regulars on the line. And by the end of 1952, almost two-thirds of Army personnel in Korea were draftees.

Korea was different in another way, too. Formerly all-black units were eventually integrated and by war’s end, 13% of the entire Far East Command was black. Also, the all-Spanish-speaking 65th Infantry Regiment from Puerto Rico served there. Women played an indispensable role in the medical field: 500-600 nurses served in Korea.

All personnel were grouped under the Far East Command, comprising the various branches of the service. The Army component was divided into the Army Forces, Far East; Eighth Army—I, IX, X and XVI (Japan) Corps; and the 2nd and 3rd Logistical Commands.

The four corps encompassed eight divisions—1st Cavalry and the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 24th, 25th, 40th (California N.G.) and the 45th (Oklahoma N.G.) divisions.

Three regimental combat teams—5th, 29th and 187th Airborne—were also deployed from Hawaii, Okinawa and Japan, respectively.

The Marine Corps contributed its 1st Division (preceded by the 1st Provisional Brigade) made up of the 1st, 5th and 7th Regiments as well as the 11th Artillery Regiment. Also, the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (Marine Air Groups 12 and 33) was stationed in Korea.

Naval Forces, Far East, was the umbrella for the U.S. Navy. United Nations sea power included 90 destroyers, 16 aircraft carriers, 8 cruisers and 4 battleships. The Seventh Fleet put three major task forces—77, 90 and 95 to sea. TF 77, the Striking Force, consisted of the Carrier, Screening and Support Groups. The fast carriers had 24 Carrier Air Groups aboard.

TF90 was the Amphibious Force and TF 95 was the Blockading & Escort Force which included a Special Bombardment Group. Additionally, TF 96 was designated Naval Forces, Japan.

A particularly noteworthy Navy accomplishment was its unprecedented, 861-day naval siege of Wonsan, North Korea’s principal seaport. Incidentally, the only pure U.S. sea action of the war occurred July 2, 1950, when three North Korean torpedo boats were destroyed off Chumunjin.

Some 22 Coast Guard cutters along with 10 shore units (one at Pusan) were based in the Far East during the war. It also conducted weather patrols, and positioned air detachments throughout the Pacific for search and rescue. Fifty men were ashore in Korea.

31

Korea was the first time the U.S. Air Force fought as a separate service. USAF units were widely dispersed. Far East Air Forces (FEAF) incorporated the 5th (Japan/Korea), 20th (Okinawa) and 13th (Philippines). Subordinate units were the FEAF Bomber Command, FEAF Logistical Forces and the 314th (Japan Air Defense Force) and 315th (Combat Cargo Command) Air Divisions.

Air operations fell into three main categories: aerial combat conducted by the 5th A.F.; aeromedical evacuation and tactical airlift; and air transport. By the end of the war, FEAF included 69 squadrons with 1,536 aircraft and 112,188 men.

Korea also witnessed the first jet-to-jet aerial combat. "MiG Alley," the area between the Yalu River and Pyongyang, became famous for such battles. The Air Force chalked up 839 MiG-15 kills during the war. A total of 341,269 sorties were flown by the "boys in blue" before the armistice took effect.

Communist Foes

Facing United Nations forces in Korea were two determined and distinct armies. The North Korean People’s Army (NKPA), or In Min Gun, began the war as a tough, mobile, fully equipped force of 10 divisions. Nearly a third of its personnel were veterans of the Chinese communist armies that had fought Japan.

Virtually destroyed after Inchon, the NKPA was eventually reconstituted, reaching a strength of 260,000 by July 15, 1953. It earned an infamous reputation for committing atrocities. GIs were found bound and shot, burned, clubbed and castrated.

NKPA’s ally, the Chinese Communist Forces (CCF), fielded a formidable army. Once advance elements of the Eighth Army neared the Yalu, Peking unleashed 300,000 men in November 1950. Though only 60,000 closed in combat with Marines and dogfaces in the initial fighting, the impact was devastating.

Ordered to "kill these Marines as you would snakes in your homes," the Chinese in Korea ultimately peaked at 780,000. Their tactics were particularly nerve-wracking, to say the least. Human wave assaults accompanied by blaring bugles, rolling drums, clashing cymbals and ear-piercing whistles were the CCF’s trademark. Such strategy was costly: CCF units suffered 64% of total communist casualties during the war.

The typical communist soldier lived an austere life, with a private earning the equivalent of 30 cents per month. His diet was meager, consisting only of a small allotment of rice, maize or kaoliang (a grain similar to Indian corn). Yet he proved to be a stoical fighter.

Waging War Korean Style

Whatever the material weaknesses of the NKPA and CCF, their men took everything that was thrown at them. Fighting in Korea was divided into two distinct phases, each with its deadly

32

attributes.

 First was the Blitzkrieg, or war of maneuver, which lasted from June 1950 until June 30, 1951, when truce talks were agreed to. It consisted of the communist invasion, expulsion, UN invasion of the North, Chinese intervention and the expulsion of the latter.

The final phase was the Sitzkrieg, a static, positional warfare at or near the 38th parallel characterized by massive artillery duels and infantry struggles. Static trench warfare—known as the "frozen war"—reminiscent of WWI was the norm once a main line of resistance (MLR) was established.

(A demarcation line established Nov. 27, 1951, ended all offensive action.)

Wrote author Fehrenbach, a tank battalion captain in Korea, "A new pattern of Korean warfare was being set—one that resembled more than anything the hideous stalemated slaughter on the Western Front in World War I."

Forward deployments called "patrol bases" or "outpost lines of resistance (OPLRs)—self-contained bastions from which small infantry or infantry-armor patrols probed enemy territory—became the mainstay of the fighting.

Korea, at this point, became mostly a patrol war, especially at night. This was euphemistically referred to as "active defense." Fights for tactical hills typified the fighting in the war’s last two years, a period largely ignored in most historical accounts.

James Brady, author of The Coldest War and a Marine rifle platoon leader in Korea, has described the situation best: "The fighting was as primitive as Flanders Field in 1917 or Grant’s siege lines before Petersburg, VA., in the Civil War.

"The artillery on both sides was too good, too deadly by day, and so we fought by night—creeping out through the barbed wire and the mine fields with grenades and automatic weapons, with shotguns and knives, to lie shivering in the snow, waiting in ambush.

"We lived in crude bunkers of sandbags and logs, and when we coughed, it came up black as soot. During shellings or thaws, bunkers collapsed and buried men alive. And once, in winter, we went 46 days without washing. When we came off the line that time, they burned our clothes.

"That was the kind of war it had become—tough, murderous little brawls with men dying on barren ground. There were no historic battles, only ambushes and raids and bloody dawns on hills like Yoke."

To be sure, a few battles—like the Pusan Perimeter, Inchon and the Chosin Reservoir—of the Korean War gained lasting notoriety, but countless others are virtually lost to history.

For instance, the eight days of combat between April 22 and 30, 1951, known as the CCF Spring

33

Offensive, proved to be the single biggest battle of the war. A magnificent victory for the U.S. Eighth army, it repulsed the greatest Chinese offensive of the war, inflicting 70,000 casualties.

At Chipyong-ni in February 1951, four infantry battalions of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 23rd Regiment (including a French unit) made a valiant and inspiring stand against 18,000 Chinese, shattering elements of four CCF divisions.

On the night of Feb. 7, 1951, Lewis W. Millett, commander of Company E, 27th Infantry, a part of Task Force Fowler, led his entire company in what was described as the "greatest bayonet attack by U.S. soldiers since Cold Harbor in the Civil War." Some 47 of the 200 opposing Chinese were killed. Millett, who earned the Medal of Honor, personally killed many of the enemy.

Then there was Pork Chop Hill in 1953. Wrote S.L.A. Marshall: "All of the heroism and all of the sacrifice, went unreported. So the very fine victory at Pork Chop Hill deserves the description of the Won-Lost Battle. It was won by the troops and lost to sight by the people who had sent them forth."

There were more than enough forgotten tragedies, too. On July 30, 1950, 757 untrained recruits of the 29th Infantry Regiment were ambushed at Hadong. After the NKPAs 6th Division was finished, 313 Americans were dead and 100 taken captive.

Up North, the 3rd Bn., 8th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division was decimated, losing 600 men near Unsan on Nov. 4-5, 1950, in a battle with a CCF which was allegedly not even present. And though little known, of the 3,200 men of the Army’s Task Force MacLean/Faith who fought during the Chosin operation, only 385 survived.  

And in the most concentrated loss of the war, 530 men of the 15th Field Artillery Battalion and 38th Infantry were killed at Hoengsong in February 1951.

When the historian for the 2nd Infantry Division described the situation at Bloody Ridge and Heartbreak Ridge—two battles waged in 1951—he summed up the infantry experience for most Korean War vets who fought in that capacity:

"Sweating, heart-pounding, heavy footed soldiers dragged their throbbing legs up these torturous, vertical hills.  Those who succeeded in grasping their way close to the bunkers were greeted by the crump and shower of black smoke, dirt and sharp steel as grenades were tossed on them.

"Dirty, unshaven, miserable, they backed down, tried again, circled, climbed, slid, suffered, ran, rolled, crouched and grabbed upward only to meet again the murderous fire, the blast of mortar and whine of bullets and jagged fragments. Minutes seemed like hours, hours like days, and days like one long, terrible, dusty, blood-swirled nightmare."

One other especially cruel element of the fighting was artillery. At one point, 24,000 artillery

34

shells a day fell on U.S. lines. A peak was reached in June 1953 when 2.7 million rounds were expended by U.S. forces. Overall, more artillery was fired in Korea than in all of World War II.

Wise Beyond Their Years

Besides battle, environmental conditions made life a living hell for ground fighters. Movement for one, was stymied by climatic factors. Monsoon-like torrents made roads "bottomless rivers of mud." Foxholes and slit trenches filled to the brim. Swollen rivers and streams washed out pontoon and treadway bridges.

The cold, miserable weather produced trenchfoot, dysentery, "the crud" (fungus) and frostbite. Pancakes froze before the men could eat them; coffee cooled before it could be drunk.

Men became, as Marshall wrote, "wise beyond their years" and developed a "toughened outlook toward the job far beyond anything dreamed of in recent times."

To help alleviate the emotional numbness of that job, two measures were instituted: R&R and rotation.

Five-day R&Rs (Rest & Recuperation) to Japan were begun in 1951. Otherwise known as I&I (intercourse and intoxication), the trips were highly popular: between January 1951 and June 1953 some 800,000 GIs made it to Tokyo courtesy of the 315th Air Division.

In may 1951, the "Big R"—rotation to the States—was inaugurated. A tour of duty in Korea depended upon proximity to the fighting. Rear-echelon forces served 18 months; combat troops usually fought for nine to 12 months.

Under the point system, a soldier had to earn 36 points to go home. Infantrymen rated four points per month, artillerymen and combat engineers three; those in support roles garnered two points a month or rotated after 18 months.

Of course, there were variations. An infantryman generally spent a year in Korea while tankers did 10 months in-country. Draftees didn’t always reach 36 points before leaving, and men sometimes were held past their rotation dates until a replacement actually arrived in the unit.

Meanwhile, at home, the nation as a whole seemed unmoved by what its sons were going through in Asia. "Despite the negative effects of home front disenchantment on morale," observed British military historian Edgar O’Ballance, "the spirit and cheerfulness of American soldiers remained amazingly high."

Indeed, Gallup Polls showed only about 30% to 35% of Americans consistently favored the war. The men themselves sensed this, and so did the publications that represented them. A common theme emerged early on that has carried over to this very day.

In 1952, a GI wrote: "The men in Korea were the forgotten men; the U.S. was aware of the

35

conflict in Korea only in the sense that taxes were higher. The soldiers in Korea envied those at home living in a nation mentally at peace while physically at war."

As early as January 1953, the Army Times editorialized: "Certainly—in many respects—it (Korea) is the most ‘forgotten war,’ and the men who fight it are lonesome symbols of a nation too busy or too economically-minded to say thanks in a proper manner."

Counting Casualties

America paid a heavy price for its noble crusade in Korea: more than 90% of non-Korean UN combat dead were Americans, many of whom died during the "talking war." U.S. forces suffered 62,200 casualties—including 12,300 KIA—in the war’s last two years in fixing the DMZ at Line Kansas.

Some 103,284 American servicemen were seriously wounded, requiring hospitalization. Twenty-two percent of all wounded in action died. Chances of surviving wounds were greatly improved in Korea, however, once they reached the hospital. There only 2.5% died.

Perhaps the greatest lifesaver was evacuation by aircraft. Beginning in January 1951, helicopters—"flying ambulances"—were introduced for this purpose. Equally important was the first-time use of special medical units. As Maj. Gen. George E. Armstrong, then U.S. Army surgeon general, said, "In Korea, Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) have been the big factor in lowering the mortality rate of the wounded."

Another category of U.S. casualties did not fare so well—7,140 American POWs. A tragic number—2,701, or 38%--died while in captivity because of inhumane conditions in North Korean prison camps. In addition, 8,194 GIs are still listed as missing in action or unidentified from Korea.

Return to the ZI

Not much was done to welcome home veterans of Korea to the Zone of the Interior (ZI), as the continental U.S. was officially designated in military jargon. On July 16, 1952, Public Law 550—Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act—created a new GI Bill of Rights, but there were few public shows of appreciation.

When the war inconclusively ended, in a truce still in effect today, "There were no celebrations. News of the armistice signing flickered across the news lights of Times Square; people stopped to read the announcement, shrugged, and walked on; no cheering throngs assembled," wrote Joseph Goulden in Korea: The Untold Story.

Fehrenbach wrote: "There was now very little of the heroes’ welcome for returnees of the Korean War. The American people did not quite know how to regard a war they had not won."

Little wonder, considering the pronouncements of some politicians. Sen. Lyndon Johnson (D-

36

Tex.) declared that an armistice "that merely releases aggressive armies to attack elsewhere…is a fraud."

Others, however, have since recognized Korea for what it was—the turning point in the world struggle against communism and a testimony to the human spirit.

N.Y. Times military correspondent Hanson Baldwin wrote: "But the deeds of those who fought, the men who died and those who lived, beget their own posterity—the human drama of life and death in the stinking valleys and denuded hills of a peninsula where wars have raged since man first raised fist to man."

At the war’s end, a GI, in a letter to his parents, wrote: "It is demanding on your body and morale, but when successfully completed will always remain a point of pride. I don’t want to be a ‘flag waver,’ but now that it is over…I’m not sorry I’ve been in Korea."

Thirty-seven years later, Edward Reeves, a vet of the 7th Infantry Division at the Chosin Reservoir and a quadruple amputee, offered eloquent testimony: "When I was over there for the Olympics (1988) and saw how far they had come, and had the people come out onto the street to thank an American vet in a wheelchair, it was worth it. If I had to do it all over again, yes, I would."

A Lasting Memorial

On June 25, 1991---the 41st anniversary of the war’s start—9,000 Korean War vets marched down Manhattan’s "Canyon of Heroes" on lower Broadway as 250,000 spectators looked on. The parade ended in Battery Park where a 20-foot, black granite monument was dedicated.

It was remarked that MacArthur’s parade on April 20, 1951, lasted four hours and drew 7.5 million spectators. But as Irwin R. Schwartz, executive director of the N.Y. Korean Veterans Memorial Commission, put it, "That had nothing to do with the troops."

Until vets of Korea have their own memorial in the nation’s capital, they will remain, as the biblical scripture in Ecclesiastics says, suspended in history: "And some there by which have no memorial: Who are perished, as though they had never been."

But as Harry Summers said, "Korean veterans, take heart. Your real memorial was the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of world communism, events that you set in motion by your defense of freedom so many years ago."

37

Primary Documents

38

Excerpts from: The Truman Doctrine (March 12, 1947)

Issued March 12, 1947, by President Harry S. Truman, the Truman Doctrine aimed to offer $400,000,000 in aid to anti-communist forces in Greece and Turkey. Its more significant impact however, was to lay out the US policy of “containment,” which would define the country’s foreign policy throughout the Cold War.

As you read, consider the Truman Doctrine as an example of how the opposing ideologies of capitalism and communism were manifested in political and economic action.

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Congress of the United States:The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress. The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved.

One aspect of the present situation, which I present to you at this time for your consideration and decision, concerns Greece and Turkey.

The United States has received from the Greek Government an urgent appeal for financial andeconomic assistance. Preliminary reports from the American Economic Mission now in Greeceand reports from the American Ambassador in Greece corroborate the statement of the GreekGovernment that assistance is imperative if Greece is to survive as a free nation.

I do not believe that the American people and the Congress wish to turn a deaf ear to the appealof the Greek Government. …

The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the terrorist activities of severalthousand armed men, led by Communists, who defy the government’s authority at a number ofpoints, particularly along the northern boundaries. A Commission appointed by the UnitedNations Security Council is at present investigating disturbed conditions in northern Greece andalleged border violations along the frontier between Greece on the one hand and Albania,Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia on the other. …

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternativeways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.

One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions,representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speechand religion, and freedom from political oppression.

The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority.It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and thesuppression of personal freedoms.

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resistingattempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

39

I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid, which is essentialto economic stability and orderly political processes.

The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred. But we cannot allow changes in thestatus quo in violation of the Charter of the United Nations by such methods as coercion, or bysuch subterfuges as political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations to maintaintheir freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the principles of the Charter of theUnited Nations.

It is necessary only to glance at a map to realize that the survival and integrity of the Greeknation are of grave importance in a much wider situation. If Greece should fall under the controlof an armed minority, the effect upon its neighbor, Turkey, would be immediate and serious.Confusion and disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East.

Moreover, the disappearance of Greece as an independent state would have a profound effectupon those countries in Europe whose peoples are struggling against great difficulties tomaintain their freedoms and their independence while they repair the damages of war.

It would be an unspeakable tragedy if these countries, which have struggled so long againstoverwhelming odds, should lose that victory for which they sacrificed so much. Collapse of freeinstitutions and loss of independence would be disastrous not only for them but for the world.Discouragement and possibly failure would quickly be the lot of neighboring peoples striving tomaintain their freedom and independence.

Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far reaching to theWest as well as to the East. We must take immediate and resolute action. I therefore ask theCongress to provide authority for assistance to Greece and Turkey in the amount of$400,000,000 for the period ending June 30, 1948. …

In addition to funds, I ask the Congress to authorize the detail of American civilian and militarypersonnel to Greece and Turkey, at the request of those countries, to assist in the tasks ofreconstruction, and for the purpose of supervising the use of such financial and materialassistance as may be furnished. I recommend that authority also be provided for the instructionand training of selected Greek and Turkish personnel.

Finally, I ask that the Congress provide authority which will permit the speediest and mosteffective use, in terms of needed commodities, supplies, and equipment, of such funds as may beauthorized. …

The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in theevil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a betterlife has died. We must keep that hope alive. The free peoples of the world look to us for supportin maintaining their freedoms.

40

If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world—and we shall surelyendanger the welfare of this nation.

Great responsibilities have been placed upon us by the swift movement of events. I am confidentthat the Congress will face these responsibilities squarely.

Source: Modern History Sourcebook, Internet History Sourcebook Project, ed. Paul Halsall,http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1947TRUMAN.html

41

Reading Like A Historian: Who Started the Cold War

Timeline of the Early Cold War

1945: February 4-11 -Yalta Conference1945: August 6 -United States first used atomic bomb in war1945: August 8 -Russia enters war against Japan1945: August 14 -Japanese surrenders, endingWorld War II1946: March -Winston Churchill delivers "Iron Curtain" speech1947: March -Truman announces Truman Doctrine1947: June -Marshall Plan is announced1948: February -Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia1948: June 24 -Berlin blockade begins1949: July -NATO treaty ratified1949: May 12 -Berlin Blockade ends1949: September -Mao Zedong, a communist, takes control of China1949: September -Soviets explode first atomic bomb1955: May –Warsaw Pact

42

Document A: The Iron Curtain Speech (Modified)

It is my duty, however, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.

In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center.

I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains, is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries.

Source:Excerpt from the “Iron Curtain Speech” delivered by Winston Churchill, March 1946 in Fulton, Missouri.

43

Document B: The Truman Doctrine (Modified)

The United States has received from the Greek Government an urgent appeal for financial and economic assistance...Greece is in desperate need of financial and economic assistance to enable it to resume purchases of food, clothing, fuel, and seeds. The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by Communists, who defy the government's authority. . . .

Greece must have assistance if it is to become a self-supporting and self-respecting democracy. The United States must supply this assistance. . .

No other nation is willing and able to provide the necessary support for a democratic Greek government. One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion.

It is necessary only to glance at a map to realize that the survival and integrity of the Greek nation are of grave importance in a much wider situation. If Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority, the effect upon its neighbor, Turkey, would be immediate and serious.

Confusion and disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East. . . . Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far reaching to the West as well as to the East.

The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world. And we shall surely endanger the welfare of this nation. Great responsibilities have been placed upon us by the swift movement of events.

Source:Excerpt from the “Truman Doctrine Speech,” delivered by President Truman to Congress on March 12, 1947.

44

Document C: Soviet Ambassador Telegram (Modified)

The foreign policy of the United States, which reflects the imperialist tendencies of American monopolistic capital, is characterized in the postwar period by a striving for world supremacy. This is the real meaning of the many statements by President Truman and other representatives of American ruling circles; that the United States has the right to lead the world. All the forces of American diplomacy --the army, the air force, the navy, industry, and science --are enlisted in the service of this foreign policy. For this purpose broad plans for expansion have been developed and are being implemented through diplomacy and the establishment of a system of naval and air bases stretching far beyond the boundaries of the United States, through the arms race, and through the creation of ever newer types of weapons.. . .

During the Second World War . . . [American leaders] calculated that the United States of America, if it could avoid direct participation in the war, would enter it only at the last minute, when it could easily affect the outcome of the war, completely ensuring its interests.

In this regard, it was thought that the main competitors of the United States would be crushed or greatly weakened in the war, and the United States by virtue of this circumstance would assume the role of the most powerful factor in resolving the fundamental questions of the postwar world.

Source:Excerpt from a telegram sent by Soviet Ambassador Nikolai Novikov to Soviet Leadership in September 1946.

Document D: Henry Wallace (Modified)

I have been increasingly disturbed about the trend of international affairs since the end of the war. How do American actions appear to other nations? I mean actions [like] the Bikini tests of the atomic bomb and continued production of bombs, the plan to arm Latin America with our weapons, and the effort to secure air bases spread over half the globe from which the other half of the globe can be bombed. I cannot but feel that these actions must make it look to the rest of the world as if we were only paying lip service to peace at the conference table.

These facts rather make it appear either (1) that we are preparing ourselves to win the war which we regard as inevitable or (2) that we are trying to build up a predominance [largest amount] of force to intimidate the rest of mankind.

Our interest in establishing democracy in Eastern Europe, where democracy by and large has never existed, seems to [the Soviets] an attempt to reestablish the encirclement of unfriendly neighbors which might serve as a springboard of still another effort to destroy [them].

Source:Secretary of Commerce and former Vice President Henry A. Wallace letter to President Harry S. Truman, July 23, 1946. Truman asked Wallace to resign shortly after this letter.

45

Peace Without Conquest (1965), Lyndon B. Johnson

. . . Over this war, and all Asia, is the deepening shadow of Communist China. The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking. This is a regime which has destroyed freedom in Tibet, attacked India, and been condemned by the United Nations for aggression in Korea. It is a nation which is helping the forces of violence in almost every continent. The contest in Vietnam is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purpose.

Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Vietnam? We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President has offered support to the people of South Vietnam. We have helped to build, and we have helped to defend. Thus, over many years, we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence. And I intend to keep our promise.

To dishonor that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to its enemy, and to the terror that must follow, would be an unforgivable wrong.

We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe, from Berlin to Thailand, are people whose well-being rests, in part, on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of American commitment, the value of America's word. The result would be increased unrest and instability, and even wider war.

We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a moment that retreat from Vietnam would bring an end to conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. We must say in Southeast Asia, as we did in Europe, in the words of the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."

There are those who say that all our effort there will be futile, that China's power is such it is bound to dominate all Southeast Asia. But there is no end to that argument until all the nations of Asia are swallowed up.

There are those who wonder why we have a responsibility there. We have it for the same reason we have a responsibility for the defense of freedom in Europe. World War II was fought in both Europe and Asia, and when it ended we found ourselves with continued responsibility for the defense of freedom.

Our objective is the independence of South Vietnam, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves, only that the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.

We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what is absolutely necessary.

46

In recent months, attacks on South Vietnam were stepped up. Thus it became necessary to increase our response and to make attacks by air. This is not a change of purpose. It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires.

We do this in order to slow down aggression.

We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years and with so many casualties.

And we do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam, and all who seek to share their conquest, of a very simple fact:

We will not be defeated.

We will not grow tired.

We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement. . . .

Once this is clear, then it should also be clear that the only path for reasonable men is the path of peaceful settlement.

Such peace demands an independent South Vietnam securely guaranteed and able to shape its own relationships to all others, free from outside interference, tied to no alliance, a military base for no other country.

These are the essentials of any final settlement.

We will never be second in the search for such a peaceful settlement in Vietnam.

There may be many ways to this kind of peace: in discussion or negotiation with the governments concerned; in large groups or in small ones; in the reaffirmation of old agreements or their strengthening with new ones.

We have stated this position over and over again fifty times and more, to friend and foe alike. And we remain ready, with this purpose, for unconditional discussions.

And until that bright and necessary day of peace we will try to keep conflict from spreading. We have no desire to see thousands die in battle, Asians or Americans. We have no desire to devastate that which the people of North Vietnam have built with toil and sacrifice. We will use our power with restraint and with all the wisdom we can command. But we will use it. . . .

We will always oppose the effort of one nation to conquer another nation.

We will do this because our own security is at stake.

47

But there is more to it than that. For our generation has a dream. It is a very old dream. But we have the power and now we have the opportunity to make it come true.

For centuries, nations have struggled among each other. But we dream of a world where disputes are settled by law

and reason. And we will try to make it so.

For most of history men have hated and killed one another in battle. But we dream of an end to war. And we will try to make it so.

For all existence most men have lived in poverty, threatened by hunger. But we dream of a world where all are fed and charged with hope. And we will help to make it so.

The ordinary men and women of North Vietnam and South Vietnam—of China and India—of Russia and America—are brave people. They are filled with the same proportions of hate and fear, of love and hope. Most of them want the same things for themselves and their families. Most of them do not want their sons ever to die in battle, or see the homes of others destroyed. . . .

Every night before I turn out the lights to sleep, I ask myself this question: Have I done everything that I can do to unite this country? Have I done everything I can to help unite the world, to try to bring peace and hope to all the peoples of the world? Have I done enough?

Ask yourselves that question in your homes and in this hall tonight. Have we done all we could? Have we done enough? . . .

48

From Department of State Bulletin, April 26, 1965 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940–).

10 Amazing Cold War Propaganda Posters

Published on August 4, 2009 in Poster design, Vintage designsThe Cold War lasted from the end of World War II right up to the early 1990s, although the Soviet Union and the USA never actually engaged in direct battle. Instead, the Cold War was expressed through weapons development (the nuclear arms race), technological development (the space race), espionage and propaganda.

Western democratic states churned out huge amounts of propaganda material throughout the First and Second World Wars, but practically decommissioned their propaganda machines post 1945. This is why most of the posters that we explore below have emerged from the Soviet Union or independent political activist groups, and not the West.

The posters in this article have not only been selected on the basis of their highly creative and original content, each one also conceals a message. In some cases the message is blindingly obvious. In other examples of poster printing, the message can only be deciphered once the poster has been placed in its historical context.

49

1. Superman [Roman Cieslewicz, 1968]

This poster, which appears on the front cover of David Crowley’s “Posters of the Cold War” book, depicts the USA and USSR, side-by-side, as identical Superman characters. It implies that each nation is simply a mirror image of the other and that both are equally harmful and destructive. Cieslewicz uses the Superman character as a symbol of masculinity, machismo and the ridiculousness of the Cold War in general.

50

2. Jo-Jo The Dove [Unknown, 1951]

French anti-communist group, Paix et Liberté, created this poster, which openly mocks Stalin’s advocacy of peaceful values. Stalin is depicted as a peace protestor with sinister motives, holding a “Peace” sign in one hand and a bommy-knocker in the other.

51

3. Don’t Brag About Your Job [Reginald Mount & Eileen Evans, 1960]

This British poster was displayed in government and military offices throughout the country. Although it carries no explicit anti-communist message, we can safely assume, given that it was published in 1960, that it warns against the presence of Soviet spies.

52

4. Lenin [V. Briskin, 1970]

The Soviet Union was keen to promote a positive image of itself throughout the early 1970s against a backdrop of the Vietnam War and a highly volatile relationship with the USA. Posters such as this helped to keep Lenin’s political ideologies alive. With no slogans or foreign words whatsoever, this poster was

53

clearly designed for a European and American audience.5. To Fly Higher Than All, Farther Than All, Faster Than All [D. Pjatkin, 1954]

Published one year after Stalin’s death, this poster reinforces the message that Soviet research and development of weapons and machinery is ongoing.

54

Substantially funded by war reparations from Germany, the Soviets were able to build the MiG-9 Fargo turbo fighter in 1946 and the Yak-15 Feather attack aircraft in 1947. The red stars in the image above symbolise the pilot’s kill score.6. If You Want To Be Like Me- Just Train! [V. Koretskiy, 1951]

The Soviet Union wanted strong citizens who could work for the benefit of the Motherland. The BGTO

55

training programme was introduced in 1931 and included gymnastics, sprint and long distance running, long and high jumps, discus, javelin, swimming, cross-country skiing and sharp shooting. The boy in the poster above is carrying a book of BGTO standards.7. A Mighty Sports Power [B. Reshetnikov, 1962]

By 1962, sporting events such as the Olympic Games had become hotly contested between the Soviet

56

Union and the USA. Each was desperate to win in order to demonstrate their power and dominance over the other. In the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games, the Soviet Union was victorious. The character in this poster has been painted to resemble an Olympic torch, with gold medals in the background.8. Same Year Different Weather [Unknown, Year Unknown]

As dark clouds loom over the USA, the USSR bathes in glorious sunshine. The black thermometer shows the “American Industry Rate” pitched well below the “Soviet Industry Rate”, which is displayed on the red thermometer. The information box at the bottom tells of an American economic crisis.

57

9. Stop Communism! [Unknown, Year Unknown]

Rightly or wrongly, the West perceived nationalist movements in many countries and regions around the world to be allied with communist groups and supported by the Soviet Union. The most notable of such movements appeared in Guatemala, Iran, the Philippines and Indochina. This poster shows a Soviet-backed, machete-armed aggressor trying to exert influence in the Philippines.

58

10. People and the Party Are Undivided [M. V. Luk’janov and V.S. Karakashev, 1978]

In this poster, banners carried by marching Soviet citizens create a somewhat subtle image of Lenin’s

59

face. The caption reads “People and the party are undivided.” This famous Soviet slogan first appeared in Pravda, the leading newspaper of the Soviet Union, on 8 March 1953, just three days after Stalin’s death.

60

Notes and

Activities

61

The Cold War Fill-in Notes

Roots of the Cold War During WWI and WWII, the

Roosevelt and Stalin work together However, US and other Western nations aided Czar

Don’t want 1944 Roosevelt developed slogan :

A little about Joseph Stalin Leader of Communist to the core and saw WWII as

Gulag work camps to eliminate opponents Stalled fighting Hitler in Poland so it would be easier for him to

Soviet forces eliminated Nazis but also Purged Jews in order to Paranoid and

Yalta Conference – Feb. 1945 Big 3: Repair Stalin demands/gets control of

Potsdam Conference – July 1945 Meet again after This time Outcomes at Potsdam

Germany Germany pays Military

Divided into Iron Curtain Descends

Phrase from a Refers to the division

Is Stalin an Enemy? Communism Domino Theory:

Truman Doctrine U.S. would:

Not attack Provide aid to

62

Policy of Called for Led to the formation of the

The Marshall Plan helps too. EUR countries that promised U.S. spends Soviet bloc nations

Berlin Blockade Capitalist W. Berlin 1948: Stalin cuts off U.S. did not want

Berlin Airlift Allies complete thousands of

Stalin did not want to start war, 1949 –

World realizes there is a big Alliances Form on Paper

1949: US joins

Soviets formNuclear Weapons take it to a New Level

1945: U.S. Some say as a

1948: 1951:

1952: U.S. tests Both recruit

Paranoia Sets In Red Scare in the United States

Fear of _________________________________________ for passing military secrets

US focuses on the spread of communism in Asia as well

Things Calm for a Bit, but not for Long 1952: 1953: Arms Race:

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World By 1960’s both have

63

Could

Neither was likely to use weapons because the other would use theirs also MAD:

The Korean War The Proxy War

A war

Background Korean Peninsula was ruled by US and USSR

USSR occupies US occupies

The Conflict Begins• Separate governments are set up in each region.

• Kim Il Sung • U.S.

• June, 1950 N. Korea (with troops from USSR and China) • U.S. sends

The Course of the War Fighting lasts US forces push China

Am. Gen. McArthur asks for

The War Ends 1961: New nations formed

North Korea: South Korea:

Aftermath Both nations North Korea

64

Back to the Soviet UnionTensions Rise Again: USSR after Stalin: Are we good?

1954: Stalin’s

Denounces Taking down the Loosens

1959: Visits the 1961:

“Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart” Poured all their resources into

Neglected Imported

Space Race 1957:

World’s first US establishes

1958: 1961: Soviet cosmonaut 1969: Am.

Vietnam and CambodiaYep, another Proxy War. Yikes!

Background Vietnam was 1930s: Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh calls for independence and

1945-54: 1st Indochina War US backs

Two Nations Emerge After Indochina War:

North Vietnam South by

North supports southern 1967: US sends troops

The Vietnam War was brutal and long

After 6 years

65

Vietnam Next door…

Communist leaders arise on the The Khmer Rouge regime and

Millions Anyone who spoke

66

Event Cards for Cold War Map and Timeline

Iron Curtains Speech:Winston Churchill, prime minister of England during World War II, visited the United States in the spring of 1946 and delivered his famous Iron Curtain Speech. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic and iron curtain has descended across the continent.” This “iron curtain” of Soviet-controlled countries in Eastern Europe ran along the western border of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Albania and along the southern border of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

Truman Doctrine:In 1947 President Truman asked for and received from the U.S. Congress $400 million to provide assistance “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities [communists] or by outside pressures.” Providing military and economic assistance to nations resisting communist takeovers became known as the Truman Doctrine. The first nations to receive aid under the Truman Doctrine were Greece and Turkey, both which successfully defeated attempted communist takeovers.

Marshall Plan:In 1947 U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall created a plan to rebuild a Europe devastated by World War II. All European nations, including the Soviet Union, could receive U.S. dollars to rebuild their devastated economies as long as the money was spent on products made in the United States. In 1948 the U.S. Congress approved $17 billion in aid. Nations receiving Marshall Plan aid were Great Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, West Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Greece, and Turkey.

NATO:Fearful that western European nations could not resist a Soviet attack from Eastern Europe, President Truman signed a treaty that created a military alliance known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO linked the United State and Western Europe in such a wat that, as Truman said, “an armed attack against on or more of the [nations] in Europe or North America shall be considered and attack against them all.” Members of NATO in 1949 were Canada, the U.S., Great Britain, France, Iceland, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, and Italy. Greece and Turkey joined in 1953, and West Germany was admitted in 1954.

Warsaw Pact:The leaders of the Easter European nations met in 1955 in Warsaw, Poland and signed the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance with the Soviet Union as the leading military power. Warsaw Pact member nations pledged to defend one another in the event of an attack on any of the member states. The members of the Warsaw Pact of 1955 were the Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, and Bulgaria.

67

Berlin Wall:Because of strict laws preventing citizens of communist nations from leaving their countries for the West, West Berlin was seen as an escape routes out of otherwise tightly sealed borders between communist and non-communist nations. After years of using propaganda to discourage people in East Berlin from defecting to West Berlin, a wall was constructed in 1961 that sealed shut the entire border between East and West Berlin. The Berlin Wall, 15 feet high and built out of solid concrete masonry, stretched across the city, blocking streets, traversing the river, and separating buildings. It was manned by armed East German soldiers in watchtowers with shoot-to-kill orders for anyone attempting to scale the wall and enter West Berlin.

68

The Butter Battle Book and the Cold War

The Cold War was “cold” primarily because of the threat of nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union launched its first nuclear weapon in 1949, an event that started an “arms race” between the United States and the Soviet Union. At the height of the Cold War, the combined weapons of both countries were enough to destroy the world six times over. The two “superpowers” used their weapons as a deterrent against nuclear war.

Story parallels

The Butter Battle Book The Cold War

What do you think Dr. Seuss is saying about the Cold War?

69

Inside North KoreaVideo Question Sheet

1. What is Kim Jong Il known as?

2. What does the 38th parallel divide?

3. How large is the North Korean army?

4. Why is North Korea known as an intelligence black hole?

5. What state is North Korea roughly the same size as?

6. What is everyone in North Korea trained to do since birth?

7. What types of media are controlled by the state in North Korea?

8. Why is North Korea known as the hermit kingdom?

9. Why do thousands of people go blind in North Korea?

10. How many surgeries does Dr. Ruit plan to perform in less than ten days?

11. Who is not normally welcome in North Korea?

12. What is the capital of North Korea?

13. Who is the author of all of the books located at the hotel where the journalists are staying?

14. What is the theme of the nursery rhyme sung by the mother and daughter in the Dutch documentary about North Korea?

15. What is wrong with the North Korean village of Ki jong-dong?

70

16. Why is the park bench in a glass box?

17. Why is the cameraman threatened with being removed from North Korea?

18. How many people died during the Korean War?

19. What divides North and South Korea?

20. What is nearly impossible to do along the DMZ?

21. How many miles long is the DMZ?

22. What does the DMZ allow North Korea to do?

23. What condition did the German doctor treat while he was in North Korea?

24. What two things contributed to the famine in North Korea during the 1990’s?

25. How many people in North Korea died as a result of the famine?

26. Why do the South Korean guards hold hands in the military conference room on the DMZ?

27. What do the North Korean minders finally allow the camera crew to do?

28. How many government officials accompany the camera crew to the blind patient’s house?

29. What was prominently displayed on the family’s wall? What was not displayed on the family’s wall? 30. What was the reaction when the family and government officials were asked if the “dear leader” could do anything wrong?

71

31. What was the name of the philosophy that was created by Kim Il Sung?

32. Describe the crowds at Kim Il Sung’s funeral procession.

33. How many movies are said to be in Kim Jong Il’s private movie collection?

34. What does Kim Jong Il use to strike fear in the hearts of his people?

35. How many people are being held at # 22?

36. Who is detained at # 22?

37. Why did the former North Korean guard in charge of broadcasting flee to South Korea?

38. How did the former guard respond when asked what he thought had happened to his family?

39. What do the patients do as soon as the bandages are removed from their eyes?

40. According to Lisa Ling, due to the many years of indoctrination, there may not be a difference between what two things?

72

73

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

74

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

75

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

76

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

77

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

78

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

79

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

80

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

81

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

82

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

83

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

84

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

85

TOPIC/OBJECTIVE:

CONTENT/CLASS:

NAME:

CLASS PERIOD:

DATE:

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

QUESTIONS: NOTES:

SUMMARY:

86

Maps and Charts

87

Cold War Europe

88

Cold War Berlin

89

Cold War Germany and Belin

90

Cold War Hot Spots

91

Cold War Nuclear Weapons

92

93

Index of Cold War Terms

Afghanistan 22, 23Berlin 25, 26, 27, 36, 41, 42, 45, 62, 67, 74Berlin Airlift 25, 26, 27, 36, 62Berlin Blockade 25, 26, 27, 41, 62China 13, 18, 20, 21, 22, 41, 45, 47, 57, 36, 34Cold War 6, 7, 8, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 27, 38, 41, 48, 49, 60,

61, 68, 74, 75, 76, 77Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Notes and LecturesDMZ 34, 70Domino Theory 61East Germany 10, 27, 66Eastern Bloc Notes and LecturesGlasnost Notes and LecturesGuerilla Warfare 10, 18, 19, 20, 23Ideological Conflict 8, 24Iron Curtain 8, 9, 10, 41, 42, 61, 66Kim Il Sung 13, 63, 39, 71Korean War 12, 13, 28, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 63,Marshall Plan 9, 41, 62, 66Mujahedeen 23NATO 10, 41, 66North Korea 13, 28, 29, 30, 31, 63, 64, 69Perestroika Notes and LecturesProxy War 63, 64South Korea 13, 28, 63, 70Taliban Notes and LecturesTruman Doctrine 9, 38, 41, 43, 61, 66U.N. Security Council 22USSR 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 29, 56, 63, 64Vietnam 6, 7, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 45, 46, 47, 52, 64, 65Vietnam War 19, 22, 52, 65Warsaw Pact 10, 12, 661st World/2nd World Notes and Lectures38th Parallel 28, 31, 69

94