The ENTIRE History of the Cold War

Explained | Best Cold War Documentary

Intro
Marx
• The 19th century saw a great industrial revolution that introduced machine tools,
steam power, and new manufacturing processes, transforming Western nations
into the most powerful on earth .

• Those who controlled these technological breakthroughs stood to gain wealth and
prosperity, but often at the expense of the workers who faced poor health, terrible
working conditions, and poverty .

• German-born philosopher Karl Marx took note of the growing divide between the
rich and the poor, believing that this economic inequality could only lead to
revolution .

• Marx believed that the workers, long exploited by the rich, would rise up to
replace capitalism with communism, a system where the means of production
would be commonly owned .

• In a communist system, the extremes of wealth and poverty would disappear, as

the means of production would be owned in common .

• Marx's theories would become known as Marxism, which emphasized the need
for a revolution to address economic inequality and establish a more equal society
.

The Rise of Communism

The Second World War
• The Soviet Union formed an alliance with the British and Americans during
World War II to fight against the Axis powers, despite their differences .

• The USSR experienced a largely defensive war, with a brutal Nazi invasion
resulting in the destruction of entire villages, infrastructure, industry, and
agricultural land, and nearly 27 million Soviet casualties .

• Stalin pressed his British and American allies to open a second front in Europe,
but they continually delayed, leaving the Red Army to hold down up to 80% of
Germany's divisions until the invasion of Normandy in 1944 .
 • The delay was seen by Stalin as evidence that the West cared little for Soviet lives
.

• In contrast, the United States experienced a relatively low number of casualties,

with only 400,000 Americans dying, less than 2% of Soviet losses .

• The US economy thrived during the war, with unemployment dropping to 2% and
GDP nearly doubling .

• The Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor caused a significant shift in the American
psyche, leading to a greater recognition of the need for an international presence
to protect America and its interests .

• The attack on Pearl Harbor showed that the traditionally isolationist United States
was no longer safe from hostile states armed with modern technology .

A New World
• As World War II drew to a close, both the United States and the Soviet Union
sought to increase their security against future attacks, with the US establishing
the United Nations to deter future aggressors .

• The revival of the global economy was also key to creating a more stable future,
with the establishment of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund .

• President Franklin D. Roosevelt invited Stalin to join the United Nations, the
World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, but Stalin only accepted
membership to the United Nations, seeing the other two as attempts to preserve
and promote capitalism .

• The Soviet Union's post-war security could only be gained by installing pro-
Soviet governments across Eastern Europe, creating a buffer zone against the
West, stripping Germany of its military and autonomy, and forcing it to pay
massive reparations .

• When Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, he was succeeded by Vice President
Harry S. Truman, who was far less willing to give in to Soviet demands .

• Stalin's actions in Europe, particularly his occupation of Poland, had shown him to
be a tyrant, and Truman was unwilling to compromise with him .

• At the Potsdam Conference of July 1945, Germany was divided into four zones of
occupation, with the capital Berlin being divided in the same way, and each
occupier was entitled to reparations from their own zone .

• The division of Germany and Berlin ensured the future division of Europe itself,
as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stated, "an iron curtain has descended
across the continent" .
The Atomic Bomb
• During the Potsdam Conference, Truman received news that American scientists
working on the Manhattan Project had successfully tested a nuclear bomb, which
he revealed to Stalin in an attempt to intimidate him into making concessions .

• However, Stalin was undeterred as he had been aware of the Manhattan Project
since the early 1940s through an extensive spy network within the United States .

• The successful test of the nuclear bomb presented Truman with an opportunity to
quickly end the war with Japan, denying Stalin the chance to expand his influence
in the East .

• The decision was made to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
resulting in Japan's surrender shortly afterwards .

• Although Stalin made some gains in East Asia, he was denied any role in the
occupation of Japan, allowing the United States to exclusively shape Japan's
future .

• The events appeared to have stopped the growth of communism in Asia for the
time being .

The Truman Doctrine

• Following World War II, attempts at cooperation between nations were short-
lived, as Stalin sought to secure his southern border by delaying the removal of
Soviet troops from Iran and pressuring Turkey into giving him control over the
Turkish Straits .

• The United Nations intervened in the crisis, and Truman sent the American Sixth
Fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean as a warning, prompting Stalin to back down .

• Truman became keen to take pre-emptive action against future Soviet

expansionism and announced the Truman Doctrine, which involved sending
military aid to Greece and Turkey .

• The Truman Doctrine was based on the policy of containment, which aimed to
prevent Soviet expansionism and allow the inherent flaws of the Soviet system to
cause it to collapse over time .

• The implementation of the Truman Doctrine marked the beginning of the Cold
War .

McCarthyism
 • Following World War II, communist ideology gained millions of supporters in the
Western world, with notable successes in Britain, Italy, and the United States,
where the American Communist Party boasted 32,000 members in 1950 .

• The rise of communism led to widespread paranoia in the United States,

particularly after the discovery of high-profile Soviet spies in the West .

• Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy launched an anti-communist crusade in the

1950s, claiming that spies and traitors were present within the US government
itself .

• Hundreds of people were investigated and interrogated on weak evidence during

the trials that followed, often resulting in the loss of jobs and blacklisting from
future employment .

• Many individuals, including future President Richard Nixon, used anti-communist

crusades to launch their political careers .

• McCarthyism became a nationwide phenomenon, with American institutions such

as Hollywood blacklisting suspected communists .

• Future President Ronald Reagan played a leading role in the blacklisting of

suspected communists, providing names of potential communists as an FBI
informant .

The CIA
• The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established in September 1947 to help
stop the spread of communism .

• The CIA operated on the basis of plausible deniability, allowing top officials to
deny all involvement in operations that would be deemed unacceptable at home .

• This approach enabled the US to carry out actions abroad that would not be
acceptable domestically, while maintaining a level of secrecy .

• One of the CIA's first missions was to prevent the election of the highly popular
Italian Communist Party in 1948 .

• To achieve this, the CIA secretly funded the Christian Democrats and other non-
communist parties .

• The agency also organized a massive anti-communist propaganda campaign,

involving 10 million letters, books, and radio broadcasts .

• The Italian Communist Party was ultimately defeated at the polls, and the CIA
continued to influence Italian politics for the next 24 years .

The Marshall Plan

 • The Marshall Plan was introduced in 1948 to address the growth of communism
in Europe by sending financial aid to help post-war reconstruction, with the goal
of improving the economic situation and making people less likely to adopt
communism .

• The plan provided almost $13 billion in financial aid, equivalent to $130 billion
today, to encourage economic integration and the promotion of free markets .

• Stalin forbade his satellite states from taking part in the Marshall Plan, fearing that
the aid would loosen his control over Eastern Europe .

• American policymakers realized that the revival of Germany was key to

sustaining economic growth in Europe, but this directly contrasted with Soviet
goals of keeping Germany weak and divided .

• The Soviets had made it clear that Germany was to be kept weak and divided so
that it could never pose another threat, leading the US, UK, and France to begin
making plans for an independent West German state in early 1948 .

The Berlin Blockade

• As the West rallied against communism, Stalin attempted to secure control in
Eastern Europe, an area soon to be known as the Eastern Bloc .

• In September 1947, Stalin set up the Communist Information Bureau, giving him
greater control over the satellite states and the ability to enforce compliance and
uniformity within the international communist movement .

• In February 1948, Stalin sponsored a communist coup in Czechoslovakia,

eliminating the last non-communist government in Eastern Europe .

• This event marked the first of many times the Soviet Union would resort to force
to maintain control over the Eastern Bloc .

• In response to Western plans to create an independent West German state, Stalin

began the Berlin Blockade on June 24, 1948, stopping all ground access to the city
.

• The blockade aimed to drive out the Americans, British, and French, but Truman
responded by beginning the Berlin Airlift, delivering supplies to the city for 15
months and forcing Stalin to end the blockade .

• With tensions high, the US and its allies established an independent West German
state, the Federal Republic of Germany, prompting the Soviets to create the
German Democratic Republic in the East .

• To counter Soviet expansionism, NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,

was created in 1949, bringing together the US, Canada, and most of Western
Europe in a defensive pact against the Soviet Union .
The Cold War Comes to Asia
• The Second World War significantly altered the power dynamics in Asia, with
European colonial powers economically exhausted and militarily weakened by
Japan, leading to a surge of nationalist movements in the region .

• Japan underwent drastic changes during its seven years of American occupation
under General Douglas MacArthur, resulting in a new constitution that formally
renounced war, forbade the maintenance of armed forces, and laid the foundations
of parliamentary democracy .

• The Japanese economy was put under a program of rapid recovery to reduce the
appeal of communism, with improvements in education, equal rights for women,
and labor laws stimulating economic growth in the region .

• The situation changed drastically when Chinese Communist revolutionary Mao

Zedong took power in 1949, establishing the People's Republic of China and
signing a defensive pact with Stalin, known as the Sino-Soviet Treaty .

• The Communist victory came as a complete surprise to both superpowers and

would quickly bring the Cold War to Southeast Asia, with various post-colonial
independence movements soon to feel the consequences .

• Initially, Truman worked to support these movements in line with American ideals
of self-determination, granting independence to the Philippines in 1946 and
encouraging European allies to do the same .

• Britain granted independence to India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon (modern-day

Sri Lanka) in the late 1940s, while the Dutch granted independence to Indonesia
in 1949, following American pressure .

• However, the French colony of Indochina was a problem for the United States, as
the French refused to surrender the colony, and the leader of the Vietnamese
independence movement, Ho Chi Minh, was a communist veteran .

• Truman pledged military aid to the French puppet regime in Vietnam, hoping that
this would allow France to spend more on their domestic post-war recovery .

• Ho Chi Minh received recognition from both communist powers, with Mao
providing weapons and advice to help him take a leading role in the anti-colonial
struggle .

The Korean War

• Following World War II, Korea was divided along the 38th parallel, with the
Soviet Union occupying the north and the United States occupying the south, and
both sides had pledged to work towards an independent, unified Korea .
 • However, once the Cold War escalated, cooperation between the two sides ceased,
and both North Korea, led by Kim Il-sung, and South Korea, led by Syngman
Rhee, had oppressive dictators in power who were desperate for Korean
reunification .

• The US withdrew its forces from Korea in the late 1940s to reinforce its position
in Japan and the Philippines, leaving Korea strategically unimportant for either
side to devote significant attention or resources .

• In January 1950, Stalin, encouraged by the victory of the Chinese Communists,

gave his approval for Kim Il-sung to invade South Korea, which was seen as a
major challenge to US authority and a disregard for the 38th parallel boundary
established by the United Nations .

• The attack was suspected to be backed by the Soviets, and American politicians
were worried that Asia would experience a string of communist revolutions if they
failed to halt the spread of communism in Korea .

• A United Nations task force led by American General Douglas MacArthur

managed to push the North Koreans back to the Chinese border, but this led to a
response from Mao, who sent 300,000 Chinese troops to assist the North, resulting
in a stalemate that lasted for the rest of the war .

• The conflict dragged on for three years, with the Armistice of July 1953 leaving
no clear victory for either side, and the border between the two Koreas hardly
shifted, with over two million lives lost .

• The Korean War proved that communism could be contained, setting the thinking
behind future conflicts, especially Vietnam, and established an important
precedent that the use of nuclear weapons would never be justified, despite
pressure from the army .

• President Truman refused to consider the use of nuclear weapons and fired
General MacArthur when it became apparent that he had different ideas, setting a
precedent that would become especially important as the size and number of
nuclear weapons grew .

The Nuclear Arms Race

• The Cold War was a unique conflict, as both sides possessed the power to wipe
out humanity with nuclear weapons, with the United States initially holding a
nuclear monopoly .

• Harry Truman, the only person to have ordered a nuclear attack, proposed
regulating nuclear weapons and suggested turning them over to the United
Nations in 1946, but the plan fell through .
 • The Soviet Union tested its own atomic bomb on August 29, 1949, using stolen
research from the West, prompting Truman to accelerate atomic weapon
production .

• Truman announced the development of a "super bomb," later known as a

thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb, on January 31, 1950, which would be a
thousand times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

• The testing of the American nuclear device "Castle Bravo" on March 1, 1954,
revealed the devastating ecological impact of a nuclear war, with a 15-megaton
yield and radioactive fallout spreading hundreds of miles .

• The new American President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was keen to utilize the
American nuclear arsenal and had considered using nuclear weapons during the
final months of the Korean War .

• Eisenhower used nuclear threats to end the conflict over the islands of Kamoy and
Matsu in 1954 and stated that nuclear weapons could be used on strictly military
targets for military purposes .

• Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower insisted on preparing only for all-out

nuclear war, believing it was the best way to ensure that a nuclear war would
never occur .

• However, this view was disturbing to many, including his successor John F.
Kennedy, who discovered that Eisenhower's only war plan consisted of the
simultaneous use of over 3,000 nuclear weapons against all communist countries .

Khrushchev
• Nikita Khrushchev gained power after Stalin's death in 1953 and created the
Warsaw Pact to counter the growing power of NATO, an alliance between the
USSR and its Eastern European satellites .

• Khrushchev brought the secret police under the control of a new and professional
intelligence agency, the KGB, whose role was to manage internal security and
conduct espionage abroad .

• In February 1956, Khrushchev made a revolutionary speech at the 20th Party

Congress, revealing and denouncing Stalin's crimes, and implementing a policy of
destalinization, vowing to decentralize power and reduce the use of terror .

• Statues of Stalin were torn down across the empire, giving hope to reformers in
Eastern Europe who believed their voices would finally be heard, and nationalist
riots broke out in Poland and Hungary .

• Khrushchev allowed the Polish government greater autonomy but sent the Red
Army to crush the rebels in Hungary, resulting in 20,000 Hungarians being
wounded or killed .
 • Khrushchev proved to be a provocative and unpredictable leader, claiming the
USSR was turning out missiles like sausages, and was known for his emotional
outbursts, allegedly banging his shoe on a table during the 1960 United Nations
General Assembly .

• The USSR launched the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on
August 21, 1957, and later used a modified ICBM to launch Sputnik, the world's
first artificial satellite, on October 4th of the same year .

• Sputnik was a massive psychological victory, causing a panic in the United States
and leading to the creation of NASA the following year, and kick-starting a
decade-long space race to land a man on the moon .

• Khrushchev attempted to resolve the problem of Berlin, having a capitalist city

deep within Soviet territory, by issuing an ultimatum to the Western powers,
demanding they withdraw their forces from West Berlin .

• Khrushchev was certain the US would not risk nuclear war over the city, but
Eisenhower was prepared to fight for it, and Khrushchev saw no option but to let
his deadlines pass .

• Khrushchev managed to win a personal victory in the negotiations that followed,

an invitation to visit the United States in September 1959, which was a bizarre
spectacle, but no substantial agreements came out of the visit .

• The visit did give hope of a future of cooperation, but the feelings of optimism
were not to last, as on May 1st, 1960, Russian air defenses shot down an
American U2 spy plane flying over Soviet territory .

• The US tried to cover up the incident, but the lie was embarrassingly exposed
when Khrushchev revealed that he had captured the pilot alive, along with
surveillance equipment and photographs of Soviet military bases .

• Eisenhower was forced to admit his involvement, leading Khrushchev to

dramatically withdraw from a Paris summit later that year, where the two leaders
had been scheduled to discuss Berlin .

• When Eisenhower left office the following year, Soviet-American relations had
reached an all-time low .

The Third World

• The world was categorized into three groups by Western observers in the 1950s:
the First World, comprising the United States and its allies; the Second World,
consisting of the Soviet Union, China, and their allies; and the Third World,
referring to non-aligned countries, which became a catch-all term for poor,
undeveloped, or former colonial countries .
 • As the Cold War reached a stalemate in Europe, both the United States and the
Soviet Union looked to the Third World to expand their influence and power,
often with disastrous results for those caught in the crossfire .

• The United States sought to keep developing nations friendly for their resources,
especially in the Middle East, where oil was needed to fuel economic and military
needs .

• The Soviet Union, led by Khrushchev, began campaigns of diplomacy and trade to
gain support in the developing world, taking advantage of deep-seated hatred of
the West in many countries that had been subject to centuries of Western
colonialism .

• The CIA played a significant role in aligning Third World countries with
American interests, having grown rapidly since its establishment in 1949, with a
tenfold increase in personnel and a significant expansion of overseas bases and
budget .

• The CIA was often used to depose or kill left-leaning leaders who threatened
American interests or looked like they could fall under Soviet influence, such as
the 1953 coup against the Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, who
had nationalized the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company .

• The CIA's actions in Iran would come back to haunt the United States, as their
continued support for the Shah enforced anti-Western sentiment in the region,
ultimately leading to the Shah's overthrow in 1979 and the establishment of a
radical Islamic anti-Western government .

• A similar story played out in Guatemala, where the CIA initiated a coup in 1954
against President Jacobo Árbenz, who had attempted to nationalize the US-owned
United Fruit Company, installing a highly unpopular military dictatorship in his
place .

• The CIA sometimes targeted leaders who posed no threat to American interests,
such as Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of Congo, who was
targeted for assassination in 1960 after accepting Soviet assistance in suppressing
a mutiny .

• Despite the obvious contradiction with American ideals of democracy and self-
determination, the CIA continued to support pro-Western dictators around the
world, with US officials prioritizing the containment of communism over these
ideals .

• The CIA operated with an almost complete lack of congressional oversight until
the 1970s .

The Suez Crisis

 • Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was able to profit by playing the United
States and the Soviet Union against each other in the mid-1950s, convincing the
Americans to fund the construction of the Aswan High Dam project while also
buying weapons from pro-Soviet Czechoslovakia .

• The Czechoslovakian arms deal triggered American anxieties, as did Nasser's

recognition of the People's Republic of China, leading the U.S. to cease funding
the dam entirely .

• Nasser was quickly able to secure funding from the Soviet Union and retaliated
against the West by nationalizing the Suez Canal, an internationally owned
waterway that allowed travel from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean .

• Britain and France joined with Israel to launch a military invasion of Egypt,
fearing they would lose access to the Middle East, but were condemned by
Eisenhower, who threatened economic sanctions and had not been consulted .

• Khrushchev also condemned the invasion, threatening the invaders with rocket
weapons, and under pressure from both sides, Britain and France were forced into
an embarrassing retreat .

• The Suez Crisis brought an end to Britain and France's roles as major world
powers, with the only winner being Nasser, who managed to keep the canal,
protect his country from colonial powers, and secure his place as leader of Arab
nationalism .

• The Suez Crisis spurred America to take a greater role in the Middle East, with the
Eisenhower Doctrine being established the following year, promising military and
economic aid to anti-communist regimes in the Middle East .

• The Eisenhower Doctrine legitimized the dispatch of U.S. troops to Lebanon in

1958, with both powers continuing to interfere around the world .

The Berlin Wall

• In 1961, a new US President, John F. Kennedy, came to power, and Soviet leader
Khrushchev attempted to take advantage of his inexperience by reissuing his 1958
ultimatum, giving Kennedy six months to vacate Berlin .

• Kennedy refused Khrushchev's demands, asking Congress to increase the defense

budget by $3.2 billion and for a further $207 million to create fallout shelters in
preparation for a nuclear attack .

• The meeting between Kennedy and Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961 was tough for
the new president, who later recalled it as the worst thing in his life .

• Khrushchev's actions were masking his own insecurities, as there had been a
staggering number of defections from East Germany since 1949, with around 2.7
million people escaping through West Berlin .
 • Securing the city was vital to the survival of the German Democratic Republic, as
defections of highly trained and educated individuals were growing by the day .

• With the Americans unwilling to budge, Khrushchev saw no option but to

authorize the construction of the Berlin Wall on August 12, 1961, creating a
physical barrier between East and West Berlin .

• The Berlin Wall started as a barbed wire fence but soon turned into a massive
concrete block wall, 12 feet high and nearly 100 miles long, complete with armed
guards and minefields .

• The wall was an embarrassment for communists everywhere, with Kennedy

stating in 1963 that freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect,
but the US has never had to put a wall up to keep its people in .

The Cuban Missile Crisis

• In 1959, Cuba was taken over by communist revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro,
who began to free Cuba of its economic and political reliance on the US by
nationalizing American-owned banks, oil refineries, and coffee and sugar
plantations .

• The revolutionaries eventually turned to the Soviet Union for help, with
Khrushchev offering his assistance, much to the distress of then-President
Eisenhower, who placed a trade embargo on Cuba and set up CIA plots to kill
Castro .

• The CIA-trained exiles were used by Kennedy in the Bay of Pigs invasion, which
aimed at toppling Castro from power but turned out to be a disaster, with the
invaders surrendering after just three days .

• The failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion convinced Khrushchev that he needed to
protect Castro by sending nuclear missiles to the island in 1962 .

• Khrushchev thought the Americans would have little ground to oppose him, as
they had sent Jupiter missiles to Italy and Turkey in the late 1950s, all of which
were aimed at the Soviet Union .

• However, to Kennedy, the move was a dangerous and unacceptable provocation,

at least doubling the number of Soviet missiles able to hit the United States and
estimated to be able to cause 80 million US casualties .

• When American reconnaissance aircraft spotted the missiles in October 1962,

Kennedy was quick to respond, setting up a special security council, X-Com, to
deal with the crisis .

• There were calls for an immediate invasion of Cuba, but Kennedy was reluctant to
do so, as it was later discovered that Khrushchev had covertly stationed 42,000
Soviet troops on the island, equipped with short-range nuclear weapons .
• If Kennedy had invaded, a full-scale nuclear war would have almost certainly
followed, so the president instead authorized a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent
any further Soviet shipments from arriving .

• Two days later, on October 24th, Soviet ships approaching the blockade turned
back, the first sign that Kennedy's plan had paid off .

• The crisis continued as the missile sites neared completion, with 140,000 US
invasion troops stationed in Florida, and for the first time in history, the US alert
system was raised to Defcon 2, preparation for nuclear war .

• US bombers were put on continuous high alert, and almost 150 intercontinental
ballistic missiles were prepped to fire, with 23 nuclear-armed B-52 bombers
deployed from where they could strike the Soviet Union directly .

• With the threat of utter destruction hanging over the USSR, Kennedy began to
gain the upper hand in negotiations, coming up with an offer for Khrushchev: if
the Soviet missiles were removed, the US would pledge not to invade Cuba, with
the Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey being voluntarily removed afterwards .

• However, a confrontation in the Atlantic almost kick-started nuclear war when a

Soviet submarine's captain ordered nuclear torpedoes to be launched, but one of
the onboard officers, Vasily Arkhipov, refused to go through with the launch,
single-handedly preventing the outbreak of nuclear war .

• The Cuban Missile Crisis came to an end on October 28th when Khrushchev
accepted Kennedy's terms, bringing the world back from the brink of nuclear war,
which significantly impacted the outlook of both the United States and the Soviet
Union .

• As a result of the crisis, a hotline was installed between the White House and the
Kremlin to provide better communication in case of another crisis .

• Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that planning only for total
war was the safest way to ensure that no war broke out at all, a conclusion also
reached by Eisenhower .

• McNamara developed the policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD), where

each side would ignore the targeting of military facilities and instead plan to cause
the maximum number of casualties possible by targeting enemy cities directly .

• The policy of MAD required both sides to ban missile defenses, making each side
equally vulnerable, and the Soviet Union eventually agreed to this .

• In 1972, both powers signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, banning defenses
against long-range missiles .

• Despite the United States' pledge not to invade Cuba, the CIA continued to try and
topple Fidel Castro, launching over 600 assassination attempts, with the last
taking place in the year 2000 .
 • The plots to assassinate Castro became increasingly ridiculous over time,
including attempts using exploding cigars, a tuberculosis-infected scuba diving
suit, and numerous attempts at poisoning .

• Castro survived numerous assassination attempts, and he once joked that if

surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, he would win the gold
medal .

The Vietnam War

• The US had been supporting South Vietnam in its struggle against the communist
North for almost a decade, with the country divided along the 17th parallel after
the French surrendered in 1954 .

• The US sent increasing amounts of aid to the southern regime of President Ngo
Dinh Diem, but he quickly became an embarrassment for the United States due to
his incompetence and oppressive dictatorship .

• The CIA arranged for Diem's removal in 1963, which ended with his
assassination, and President John F. Kennedy was assassinated three weeks later .

• Kennedy's vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, dealt with the rapidly declining
situation in Vietnam, and the Domino Theory became an accepted fact for
American politicians, leading Johnson to increase US military involvement .

• Despite this, the Americans failed to crush the insurgency, and the war began to
drag on, with critics growing in number both in the US and abroad .

• The Tet Offensive of 1968 was a particularly low point, with over a hundred
South Vietnamese towns and cities attacked, as well as the US embassy in Saigon,
showing that the North Vietnamese were much stronger than the American public
had been led to believe .

• The Vietnam War was the first television war, with on-site coverage from the
front lines brought into the American living room, and the public's trust in the
government was broken due to the difference between what was actually
happening and what the government told the public .

• Protests broke out across the Western world in 1968, with the largest seen in
America, where a politicized youth demonstrated against a war they thought
unjust and unwinnable .

• The scale of discontent proved too much for Johnson, who decided not to seek re-
election, and the political situation continued to decline, with Martin Luther King
Jr. assassinated within a week .

• Robert Kennedy, who ran for president and campaigned to bring the war to an
end, was also assassinated, and the nation was torn apart .
 • Richard Nixon came into power facing an unwinnable war and his government's
authority being challenged at every turn, and he announced the invasion of
neighboring Cambodia on April 30th, 1970 .

• This sparked a new wave of protests, and on May 4th, Ohio National Guardsmen
shot and killed four students at Kent State University .

• Nixon eventually decided to withdraw US forces, with the last leaving the country
in 1973, but the conflict soon resumed, and within just two years, the communist
North had taken over the South .

• By the end of the war, more than 58,000 Americans had died, as well as 250,000
South Vietnamese soldiers, over one million North Vietnamese soldiers and
Vietcong guerrillas, and over 2 million civilians from both the North and the
South .

• Containment had proven ineffective in Vietnam, and neighboring Laos and

Cambodia were also taken over by communists, with thousands dying in the
conflict .

• Pol Pot, the communist leader of Cambodia, carried out numerous atrocities over
the next four years, known as the Cambodian Genocide, and up to two million
people are thought to have died, almost a quarter of Cambodia's population .

Mao’s China
• Mao was appalled by Khrushchev's policy of destalinization, branding it as
"dangerous revisionism," and continued to model his rule after Stalin's, carrying
out industrialization and collectivization drives, purging political opponents, and
creating a cult of personality centered around himself .

• In 1957, Mao launched the Hundred Flowers Campaign to purge intellectuals, but
in reality, anyone who dared to speak their mind was arrested .

• Mao's attempts to rush the process of industrialization and collectivization

produced disastrous results, including the Four Pests Campaign in 1958, which
encouraged people to kill sparrows and other wild birds, leading to the rapid
growth of pests that ate through much of the crop .

• The Backyard Furnace Campaign, which encouraged citizens to melt down their
possessions to create as much steel as possible, was extremely popular but
produced steel of unusable quality and put unsustainable strain on food production
.

• These policies, combined with a period of drought and flooding, produced the
greatest famine in recorded history, with deaths estimated between 30 and 50
million people, lasting between 1958 and 1962 .
 • Mao made the situation worse by continuing to requisition grain from the starving
peasants and deliberately making the situation worse in Tibet, leading to the death
of a quarter of the Tibetan population .

• The famine was kept hidden from the outside world until 1980, and relations with
the Soviet Union continued to deteriorate, reaching a low point in March 1969
when a massive border conflict broke out .

• The conflict lasted seven months, and it looked possible that the two communist
superpowers might actually go to war with each other .

• Nixon visited China in February 1972, meeting with Mao and promising future
cooperation, which led to the United States and China slowly stabilizing relations,
while the Soviet Union became deeply unsettled .

Détente
• By 1964, the Soviet Union was experiencing internal difficulties, including the
deposition of Khrushchev and his replacement by Leonard Brezhnev, who
reversed the radical aspects of destalinization and recentralized power .

• Brezhnev's 18-year rule became known as the era of stagnation, with the economy
suffering from a lack of innovation, and living standards deteriorating in Eastern
Europe .

• The Soviet command economies were failing to fulfill the basic needs of citizens,
leading to a loss of faith in the communist system, and the KGB increased its
surveillance and arrests .

• Attempts at reform, such as the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia in 1968, were

quickly crushed by the Soviet military, and Brezhnev announced the Brezhnev
Doctrine, vowing to intervene in any socialist country believed to be falling to
capitalism .

• The invasion of Czechoslovakia received international condemnation, including

from communist countries, and led to a demonstration in front of Lenin's tomb .

• In contrast, Western society experienced an unprecedented time of peace and

prosperity, thanks to the Marshall Plan, the revitalization of West Germany, and
continued economic integration .

• The European Coal and Steel Community was formed in 1951, bringing together
six countries in an economic alliance that would lead Europe's economic boom .

• The difference in living standards between the East and West became increasingly
obvious, and support for Western Europe's communist parties was almost non-
existent .
 • President Nixon sought a more stable Soviet-American relationship, and in 1969,
he began talks with Brezhnev about a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) .

• The SALT 1 treaty was signed in May 1972, freezing the existing number of
intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles on both sides, and
outlining superpower relations going forward .

• The treaty marked the beginning of a period of détente, a French term referring to
the easing of tensions between nations, with both sides promising to show
restraint and avoid military confrontations .

The Space Race

• The intense competition of the Cold War led to significant technological
breakthroughs, including the Space Race, which began on October 4th, 1957, after
the Soviets launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, using a modified
ballistic missile, the R7 .

• Sputnik, a 23-inch metal ball, caused panic in the United States due to the
technology behind it, which could be used to launch nuclear missiles at targets in
the US, and the fear of a technology gap opening between the two superpowers .

• The Soviets launched Sputnik 2, carrying a dog named Laika, the first animal to
be sent into orbit, just one month after Sputnik's launch .

• Four months after Sputnik's launch, the US responded by sending Explorer 1 into
orbit, and President Eisenhower passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act,
creating NASA .

• The Soviets achieved another victory by sending Yuri Gagarin into space on April
12, 1961, making him the first human to orbit the Earth .

• The US sent Alan Shepard into space the following month, but it took a further
nine months to achieve orbit with the launch of John Glenn .

• Realizing the significance of the Space Race, President Kennedy pledged to land a
man on the moon by the end of the decade .

• The Soviets continued to stay ahead, with Valentina Tereshkova becoming the
first woman in space on June 16, 1963, and Alexei Leonov completing the first-
ever space walk two years later .

• The tide turned in favor of the US with NASA investing heavily in the Apollo
program, and in 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to make a
lunar orbit .

• On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to step foot on the
moon, with the American flag planted on the moon .
 • The Space Race quickly died down, with the Soviets canceling their plans for a
lunar landing and instead focusing on creating the first-ever space station, Salyut .

• With Soviet-American relations at an all-time high, the two sides decided to

cooperate on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, which saw an American and Soviet
spacecraft docked together, marking the end of the Space Race .

Nixon
• Nixon continued to prioritize containing communism despite the public's changing
views, authorizing the bombing of neutral Cambodia in 1969 to destroy North
Vietnamese bases and supply lines, and hiding the truth from the public by
fabricating air force records .

• In Chile, Nixon publicly stated he would not interfere in the 1970 free election,
but secretly used the CIA to support opponents of the democratically elected
Marxist government of Salvador Allende, who was eventually overthrown and
killed in a successful military coup in 1973 .

• Nixon welcomed the new Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, who
carried out thousands of killings and numerous human rights abuses .

• In response to the leaked Pentagon Papers in 1971, Nixon created a group known
as the "plumbers" to prevent further classified information from being released,
which led to a series of illegal burglaries, wiretaps, and surveillance operations .

• The plumbers were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee
headquarters in the Watergate building in 1972, leading to a cover-up attempt by
Nixon, whose credibility was eventually destroyed, and he resigned on August 9,
1974 .

• The consequences of Nixon's actions led to Congress reclaiming its powers over
national security, passing the War Powers Act in 1973, which imposed a 60-day
limit on military deployments without congressional consent .

• Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, was unable to act when North Vietnam invaded
and conquered South Vietnam in 1975 due to the new limitations .

• The CIA faced intense scrutiny, with three commissions set up to investigate their
abuses, exposing many of their secrets, including repeated attempts to remove
Chile's democratically elected government .

• The repercussions of these events were significant in Angola, a former Portuguese

colony, where the US was unable to intervene in a three-way power struggle due
to the recent failure in Vietnam and the shift in American cold war policy .

• The CIA's plan to secretly fund anti-communist parties in Angola was met with
resistance, and Congress eventually voted to ban the secret use of funds, marking
a significant shift in American cold war policy .
The End of Détente
• In 1973, a war broke out in the Middle East after Egypt and Syria launched a
surprise attack on Israel, leading to the involvement of the US and the Soviet
Union, with the US supporting Israel and the Soviets supporting the Arab states .

• The conflict led to a deterioration in the relationship between the US and the
Soviet Union, with Nixon placing US nuclear forces on worldwide alert in
response to Brezhnev's threat of independent Soviet action .

• Despite the resolution of the conflict within a month, both sides began questioning
the future of détente, and the Soviet Union continued to suffer from internal
discontent .

• In 1975, Brezhnev signed the Helsinki Accords with the US and 33 other nations,
gaining Western acknowledgement of his existing European boundaries but
agreeing to respect human rights .

• However, the accords turned out to be a political disaster for Brezhnev, as

reformers within the Soviet camp used the agreement to oppose the communist
regime, and President Ford was criticized for signing the accords .

• The term "détente" became unpopular, and Ford banned its use during his 1976
presidential campaign, but it was too late, and Jimmy Carter assumed the
presidency in 1977 .

• Carter initially attempted to revive détente but confused and alienated the Soviet
leadership with contradictory actions, such as calling for cooperation while
meeting with Soviet dissidents .

• The Soviet military gained power, and in 1977, they began deploying SS-20
missiles against targets in Western Europe, leading to a response from NATO,
which began counter-deploying Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in 1979 .

• Despite these setbacks, a second Soviet-American arms treaty, SALT 2, was

signed in 1979, but the treaty's critics were widespread, especially in America .

• A series of events in the Middle East, including the Islamic revolution in Iran and
the taking of American hostages, finally brought an end to détente in 1979 .

• The situation in Iran escalated, and a military rescue mission failed, leading to a
444-day crisis that hurt America's international prestige and destroyed any
chances of Jimmy Carter's re-election .

• Meanwhile, in neighboring Afghanistan, a Marxist coup took place, and the USSR
sent aid, but a violent rebellion broke out, leading to the deaths of thousands,
including 50 Soviet advisers and their families .
 • Fearing that Washington would take advantage, the Soviets decided to launch a
full-scale invasion of Afghanistan, which was the nail in the coffin for détente .

• Carter responded by withdrawing the SALT 2 treaty from consideration,

embargoing grain and technology shipments to the USSR, announcing a boycott
of the Moscow Olympics, and asking for a drastic increase in defense spending .

• Carter also announced the Carter Doctrine, which would use force if necessary to
prevent any outside power from gaining control over the oil-rich Persian Gulf .

Reagan
• In November 1980, Ronald Reagan won the presidential election in a landslide
victory over Jimmy Carter, and as a fierce opponent of the Soviet Union, he
sought to reassert American strategic dominance to break the Cold War stalemate
.

• Reagan began a campaign of public speeches to discredit the Soviet Union's status
as a superpower, calling them the "focus of evil in the modern world" and
emphasizing the need for the US to be aware of the Soviet Union's intentions .

• Despite his provocative speeches, Reagan's view on nuclear weapons was clear:
he wanted to see a world where they did not exist and where nations were free
from the threat of total annihilation .

• Reagan's policy, called "peace through strength," aimed to force the Soviets into a
new arms race they would lose, pressuring them to accept an arms reduction
agreement .

• To achieve this, Reagan increased defense spending, with the Pentagon's budget
almost doubling between 1980 and 1985, and deployed new military equipment,
including intercontinental range missiles, aircraft carriers, and Trident nuclear
submarines .

• Reagan also convinced Saudi Arabia to triple their oil production, causing the
price to plummet on the international market and destabilizing the Soviet
economy, which relied heavily on oil exports .

• The cornerstone of Reagan's strategy was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI),
nicknamed "Star Wars," which aimed to create a radical new missile defense
system using lasers and space-based missile systems .

• Although the US was possibly decades away from developing such technology,
Reagan knew that the Soviets were lagging behind in computer technology, and a
convincing bluff could force them to the negotiating table .

• The bluff worked, but it produced unexpected results, as the Soviet leadership
went into a panic, fearing a US first strike, and began a two-year intelligence alert
.
 • The situation escalated when a South Korean civilian airliner accidentally flew
into Soviet airspace and was shot down, killing all 269 passengers, including 62
Americans .

• The incident led to a temporary halt in negotiations, with Reagan denouncing the
event as an act of barbarism .

• Another crisis began in November 1983, when NATO carried out a military
exercise, codenamed "Able Archer 83," which led the Soviets to believe that the
US was using the exercise as a front for a nuclear attack .

• The situation was one of the most dangerous since the Cuban Missile Crisis, but
the Soviets soon realized their mistake and backed down .

• Reagan's aggressive anti-Soviet policies also brought him into conflict with his
NATO allies, who were concerned about the heightened tensions and the
deployment of missiles by both sides .

• Large peace movements were organized in Europe and the US, calling for a freeze
to the nuclear arsenals of both superpowers, and a million supporters gathered in
Central Park in 1982 .

• In 1984, Reagan called for a year of opportunities for peace and stated that he
would be willing to resume negotiations with Moscow after his re-election .

• The Soviet leadership agreed to negotiate in 1985, but an incredibly significant

change of Soviet leadership took place as the talks began .

Gorbachev
• After Andropov's death in February 1984, Constantin Chernenko took over but
died 13 months later, leading the Soviet politburo to elect Mikhail Gorbachev as
General Secretary in 1985, who at 54, was a fresh face among the aging Soviet
leadership .

• Gorbachev was willing to acknowledge the failures of the Soviet system, embrace
reform, and openly negotiate with the West, and he had a high amount of personal
charisma, with Reagan taking an immediate liking to him .

• However, Gorbachev faced a nearly impossible task due to years of

mismanagement, discontent, and economic stagnation, and was also under
pressure from China's adoption of capitalist elements after Mao's death in 1976 .

• Deng Xiaoping, who had emerged as China's leader, had been purged from the
party twice for his capitalist sympathies and had even been tortured by Mao, but
he would introduce capitalist elements that worked wonders for China's economy .
 • China's per capita income tripled between 1978 and 1994, GDP quadrupled, and
by the time Deng died in 1997, the Chinese economy was one of the largest in the
world, putting further pressure on the failing Soviet economy .

• To revive the Soviet economy, Gorbachev introduced perestroika, or restructuring,

which allowed for the introduction of limited market mechanisms, and he also
realized that the ongoing arms race was crippling the Soviet economy .

• Gorbachev met with Reagan five separate times between 1985 and 1988, building
a level of trust and respect between the two, and was more open and conciliatory
than his predecessors, willing to participate in arms agreements and offer
unilateral concessions .

• The two leaders signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty on December 8,
1987, banning all short and intermediate-range missiles, which led to the
destruction of over 2,500 nuclear weapons within three years .

Failed Reforms
• Perestroika, an economic reform policy, was not working as intended, with the
economy continuing to stagnate under Gorbachev's leadership .

• Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, or openness, was implemented to address

corruption and re-establish a connection between the party and the people by
encouraging open debate and honesty about the party's mistakes .

• The policy of glasnost was largely inspired by the Chernobyl disaster of 1986,
which highlighted the Soviet government's attempts to cover up the incident and
the resulting consequences, including increased cases of leukemia and birth
deformities .

• The Chernobyl disaster led Gorbachev to realize the need for change, stating that
it revealed the "sickness of our system" and the problems of concealing accidents,
irresponsibility, and carelessness .

• However, the implementation of glasnost did not work as intended, as open debate
soon turned into widespread criticism of the party and Gorbachev himself, leading
to uprisings across Eastern Europe .

The Fall of the USSR

• Gorbachev began the move towards democratization, allowing multi-candidate
elections and announcing a reduction of the Soviet military presence in Eastern
Europe by half a million men, signaling the end of the Brezhnev doctrine .

• The reduction in Soviet military presence led to the emergence of reformers across
Eastern Europe, resulting in a string of democratic revolutions in 1989 that saw
nearly every communist government ousted from power .
• While most revolutions were peaceful, some were met with violence, such as in
Romania, where the army fired on demonstrators, killing hundreds, and eventually
leading to the execution of leader Nikolai Ceaușescu .

• The Berlin Wall, a symbolic monument of the Cold War, came down on
November 9th, and Germany was reunited the following year .

• Gorbachev received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his efforts, but faced a cold
reception at home due to the stagnant Soviet economy and the dissolution of
Soviet power abroad .

• In March 1990, Gorbachev abolished Article 6, ending the Communist Party's

monopoly on power and allowing opposition to become formalized .

• The individual states that formed the USSR began to make their own bid for
independence, including Russia, where Boris Yeltsin was elected president and
began a mission to dissolve the Soviet Union .

• Gorbachev faced opposition from within the Communist Party, which believed his
reforms were tearing the union apart, and high-ranking officials staged a coup in
August 1991 .

• The coup was widely denounced, and Boris Yeltsin's opposition helped bring it to
an end in just three days .

• Gorbachev returned to power, but it was clear that the USSR could not be saved,
and on December 25th, 1991, he resigned and officially terminated the existence
of the Soviet Union .

• The Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time, and the USSR
resolved into 15 independent states, bringing a definitive end to the Cold War .