The Cold War

THE COLD WAR50 Years of “Not-Fighting”

“It was a Cold War of words -- a time when nations were rallied by stirring

speeches and trembled by ominous warnings.”

“We Didn’t Start the Fire”

Billy Joel condenses the Cold War in under five minutes

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” Joel explained that he wrote this song

due to his interest in history. He commented that he would have wanted to be a history teacher had he not become a rock and roll singer.

1949 Harry S. Truman Doris Day Red China Johnny Ray South Pacific Walter Winchell Joe Dimaggio

1950 Joe McCarthy Richard Nixon Studebaker Television North Korea South Korea Marilyn Monroe

1951 Rosenburg H-Bomb Sugar Ray Panmunjom Brando The King and I The Catcher in the

Rye

1952 Eisenhower Vaccine England’s got a new

Queen Marciano Liberace Santayana good-

bye

Chorus We didn't start the fire 

It was always burning,  Since the world's been turning. 

We didn't start the fire  Well we didn't light it,  But we tried to fight it.

1953 Joseph Stalin Malenkov Nasser Prokofiev Rockefeller Campanella Communist Bloc

1954 Roy Cohn Juan Peron Tosconini Dacron Dien Ben Phu falls Rock Around the

Clock

1955 Einstein James Dean Brooklyn’s got a

winning team Davy Crockett Peter Pan Elvis Presley Disneyland

1956 Bardot Budapest Alabama Kruschehev Princess Grace Peyton’s Place Trouble in the Suez

Chorus We didn't start the fire 

It was always burning,  Since the world's been turning. 

We didn't start the fire  Well we didn't light it,  But we tried to fight it.

1957 Little Rock Pasternok Mickey Mantle Kerouac Sputnik Chou En-Lai Bridge on the River

Kwai

1958 Lebanon Charles de Gaulle California Baseball Starkweather

Homicide Children of the

Thalidomide

1959 Buddy Holly Ben Hur Space Monkeys Mafia Hula Hoops Castro Edsel is a no go

1960 U-2 Syngman Rhee Payola Kennedy Chubby Checker Psycho Belgians in Congo

Chorus We didn't start the fire 

It was always burning,  Since the world's been turning. 

We didn't start the fire  Well we didn't light it,  But we tried to fight it.

1961 Hemingway Eichmann Stranger in a

Strange Land Dylan Berlin Bay of Pigs

Invasion

1962 Lawrence of

Arabia British

Beatlemania Ole Miss John Glenn Liston beats

Patterson

1963 Pope Paul Malcolm X British Politician

Sex JFK blown away

Chorus We didn't start the fire 

It was always burning,  Since the world's been turning. 

We didn't start the fire  Well we didn't light it,  But we tried to fight it.

1964-1989 Birth Control Ho Chi-Minh Richard Nixon back again Moonshot Woodstock Watergate Punk Rock Begin Reagan Palestine Terror on the airlines Ayatollahs in Iran

Russians in Afghanistan Wheel of Fortune Sally Ride Heavy Metal Suicide Foreign debt Homeless vets AIDS Crack Bernie Goetz Hypodermics on the shore China’s under Martial Law Rock and Roller Cola Wars

The Real History

Truman v StalinThe Cold War was an economic, political, technological, scientific, and military confrontation and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Cold War Origins

USA USSR

Capitalism: An economic system in which money is invested with the goal of making profit.

Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations - 1776Free-market CapitalismLaissez-faire – gov’t

hands-off Democracy: Government

system in which the ultimate power rests with the people.

An economic system in which all means of production are owned by the government, private property does not exist, and all goods and services are shared equally.

Eventually a complete form of Socialism would ariseNo private propertyA classless society

Yalta Conference USSR, U.S., Britain & France would each occupy a

part of Germany but would allow for German reunification once she was no longer a threat.

Soviets dominated their Eastern German zone - Germany was to pay heavy reparations to USSR in form of agricultural and industrial goods.

Division of Germany The U.S., Great Britain,

and France decided to merge their zones and allow the Germans to have their own govt.

West Berlin was also merged and became part of West Germany.

The Soviets still controlled what became known as East Germany.

By 1948, pro-Soviet governments were set in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

These countries were called satellite nations.

Choosing Sides

“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.” ~Winston Churchill

Containment and the Long Telegram

The U.S. ambassador in Moscow, George Kennan, analyzed the situation: if the U.S. could prevent the Soviets from expanding, their system would eventually fall apart.

He described this idea in what became known as the Long Telegram

“containment policy”: keep communism from spreading by diplomatic, economic, and military force.

In August of 1946, the Soviets were trying to establish communist governments in Greece and Turkey.

Truman asked congress for $400 million to help fight communist aggressions via military and economic aid.

In the long run, it pledged the U.S. to fight communism worldwide.

Remember Greasy Turkey

Marshall Plan 1947: Massive aid package

to help war-torn Europe recover from the war

Purpose: prevent communism from spreading into economically devastated regions

Result: Western and Central Europe recovered economically -- the "economic miracle"

Soviets refused to allow U.S. aid to countries in eastern Europe

In June of 1948, the Soviets closed all access to W. Berlin. For the next 11 months, Truman sent cargo planes to drop food, supplies, medicine, etc. Stalin lifted the blockade in May of 1949.

In April of 1949, the U.S. formed a military alliance with W. Europe: North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

NATO members agreed to aid any member that was attacked.

This organization originally had 12 countries. Today NATO has 26 members, with the goal of protecting democracy.

The Eastern Bloc Changes went forward at slow & uneven

pace; came to almost a halt by the mid-1960s.

Five-year plans in USSR reintroduced to tackle massive economic reconstruction.

Stalin’s new foe, the U.S., provided an excuse for re-establishing harsh dictatorship.

Stalin revived many forced labor camps, which had accounted for roughly 1/6 of all new construction in Soviet Union before the war.

Culture and art were also purged.

Warsaw Pact

Warsaw Pact: A mutual defense treaty between eight communist states of Central and Eastern Europe; created to counter NATO.

The Warsaw Treaty’s organization was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the multi-national armed forces.

Back to the BombThe Nuclear Arms Race

The Arms Race: Beginnings Nuclear arms race: A competition for supremacy in

nuclear warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

In the years immediately after World War II, the United States had a monopoly on nuclear weaponry. American leaders this would be enough to draw concessions from the Soviet Union but this proved ineffective.

The first Soviet bomb was detonated on August 29, 1949, shocking the entire world. The bomb, named "Joe One" by the West, was more or less a copy of "Fat Man".

The Arms Race: Politics Brinkmanship: Willing to go to the brink of nuclear war to

maintain peace. U.S. vows to destroy USSR with nuclear weapons if it

tries to expand. U.S. maintained a policy of "massive retaliation" between

1953-55. This resulted in a cut in military spending and an increase in America’s nuclear arsenal.

Mutually assured destruction: Both sides knew that any attack upon the other would be devastating to themselves, thus in theory restraining them from attacking the other.

The Arms Race: Technology The B-52 bomber could fly across continents and drop

nuclear bombs anywhere in the world. Submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles were

also created. ICBMs: Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles – allowed for

nuclear bombs to be delivered without threat to human life

H-Bomb – “Ivy Mike” was detonated by the United States on November 1, 1952 It created a cloud 100 miles wide and 25 miles high, killing all life

on the surrounding islands.

HOW BIG ARE TODAY’SNUCLEAR BOMBS?

HO

W B

IG A

RE TO

DAY’S

NU

CLEA

R B

OM

BS?

Little Boy: 15 kilotons

B53: 9,000 kilotons

Castle Bravo: 15,000 kilotons

Tzar Bomba: 50,000 kilotons

Fat Man: 21 kilotons

Ivy King: 500 kilotons

Living Under the Threat of the Bomb

The threat of an atomic attack against the United States forced Americans to prepare themselves for a surprise attack.

Although Americans tried to protect themselves, experts realized that for every person killed instantly by a nuclear blast, four more would later die from nuclear fallout (the radiation left over after the blast).

Some families built fallout shelters in their backyards and stocked them with canned food. Schools performed air raid drills in an effort to prepare children for an attack.

We can survive anything those dirty commies throw at us in our nifty new bomb shelter!

“How to Survive a Nuclear Attack”

1. Keep an eye on the news.

2. Consider evacuation (if possible).

3. Seek shelter immediately.

If within the vicinity of the blast (or ground zero), your chances of survival are virtually nonexistent unless you are in a shelter that provides a very (VERY) good blast protection. If you are a few miles out, you will have about 10-15 seconds until the heat wave hits you, and maybe 20-30 seconds until the shock wave does. Under no circumstances should you look directly at the fireball.If you can't find shelter, seek a depressed area nearby and lay face down, exposing as little skin as possible. Even at 5 miles away, the heat can burn the skin off your bodyFailing the above options, get indoors, if, and only if, you can be sure that the building will not suffer significant blast and heat damage. This will, at least, provide some protection against radiation. Stay well away from any windows, preferably in a room without one.

4. Beware radiation exposure.Once you have survived the blast and the initial radiation (for now at least; radiation symptoms have an incubation period), you must find protection against the burning black soot that will rain down from the skyAvoid exposure to Gamma radiation. Try not to spend more than 5 minutes exposed to avoid irreparable damage to the internal organs.

5. Plan on staying in your shelter for a minimum of 200 hours (8-9 days).Under no circumstances leave the shelter in the first forty-eight hours.6. Ration your

supplies

7. Be prepared for another attack!