Green 1

Hannah Green

Prophesier Ratica

Computer Application

11 October 2017

Cold War: History of the Cold War

The Cold War was one of the greatest wars that the United States has been

involved. It was a time were the Soviet Union (Russia) and America fought between who

was more powerful around the world. After World War II, the Russian Empire was very

large. We also have the United States, which is a large mass of land, so that they can use

their natural resources to aid on the power that is rising. What was the impermanent of

the United States presidents that lived or had been elected during the Cold War? What

did they do that was important or that stood out for the presidents behind them? Is it

historic for the Domino theory to be relevant as well? In addition to these questions, it

is important to discuss some of the historical memories like the atomic bomb, Red

Scare, The Space Race, and the remarkable presidents that sat in office during the time.

When the United States was in World War II there was tension going between

them and the Soviet Union. Even though they fought together as allies against the Axis

powers, the Americans grew wary of the Soviet communism. They were also concerned

about the Russian leader Joseph Stalin; a tyrannical blood thirsty ruler of his own

country. On the Russian part, they resented America’s decades-long refusal to help treat

the USSR as a part of the international community as well as their delayed entry into the

Second World War, which resulted in ten million deaths of Russians. After World War

II, the grievances ripped open into an overwhelming sense of mutual distrust. The

Soviet’s expansionism in Eastern Europe fueled too many American’s fears of a Russian
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plan to take over the world. As the USSR came to resent what they perceived as

American officials’ bellicose rhetoric, the Americans resented the arms buildup and

interventionist approach to the international relations. This was such a hostile

atmosphere and it was impossible to stop.

The dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was no other than Joseph

Stalin. By 1912, Lenin was exile in Switzerland and he appointed Joseph Stalin to serve

on the first Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. Three years later, the Bolsheviks

seized power in Russia. The Soviet Union was found in 1922, with Lenin as its first

leader. As the years went by Stalin continued to move up the party ladder. In 1922, he

became secretary general of Central Committee of the Communist Party. In 1924, Lenin

died and Stalin eventually outmaneuvered his rivals and won the power struggle for the

control of the Communist Party. In the late 1920’s, Stalin had become dictator of the

Soviet Union. (Staff, www.history.com)

Figure 1 Joseph Stalin

He developed a plan that centered on a

government that controlled the economy, which

included the forced collectivization of Soviet

agriculture. As a result, the government took control of

the farms. Many farmers refused to cooperate with

Stalin’s orders. He then had the farmers shot or exiled as their punishment. This

collectivization led to widespread famine across the Soviet Union that killed millions.

(Staff, www.history.com)
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Stalin had a totalitarian grip on the government in order to eliminate anyone who

might oppose as a threat to him. He had people killed or sent to the Gulag system.

People were also forced into labor camps. His powers expanded to the secret police, and

even caused citizens to spy on one another.

Under Stalin, cities were renamed in his honor and Soviet history books were

rewritten to give him a more prominent role in the revolution and mythologize other

aspects of his life. The subject of flattering artwork, literature and music were

surrounding him. He also became a part of the Soviet national anthem. Stalin’s

government took control of the Soviet media. (Staff, www.history.com)

Joseph Stalin did not mellow with age. His reign of terror, purges, executions,

exiles to labor camps and persecution continued in postwar USSR, suppressing all

dissent and anything that resembled foreign (especially Western) influence. He grew

increasingly paranoid in his later years. On March 5th, 1953 he died at the age of 74,

after suffering a stroke. His body was preserved in Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow’s Red

Square until 1961, were it was removed and buried. After Stalin passed way, Nikita

Khruchev initiated part of the de-Stalinization process.

The Americans’ best defense against the Soviet’s threat was a strategy of

containment. In 1946, George Kennan in his famous “Long Telegram” explains this

policy. He wrote, “A political force committed fanatically to the belief that with the U.S.

there can be no permanent modus vivendi [agreement between parties that disagree].”

Thus, America’s only choice was “long-term, patient but form and vigilant containment

of Russian expansive tendencies.” President Harry Truman agreed. He said; “It must be

the policy of the United States,” he declared this in front of congress in 1947, “to support
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free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation… by outside prodders.” In this way

it would shape American foreign policy for the next four decades.

By having, American officials encouraged the development of the atomic weapons

like the ones that ended World War II. In thus began the deadliest “Arms Race.” By

1949, the Soviets had tested an atomic bomb of their own. In response president

Truman announced that they will build an even more destructive atomic weapon:

hydrogen bomb, or the “Superbomb” Stalin will follow suit do build such a destructive

bomb.

Figure 2 Atomic Bomb (WMBF News)

The stakes of the cold war were

perilously set high. When the first H-

bomb test, in the Eniwetok atoll in the

Marshall Islands, it showed just how

fearsome the nuclear age could

become. From the blast created a 25- square-mile fireball that vaporized an island, blew

a huge hole in the ocean floor and had the power to destroy half of Manhattan. Even

though as the Americans and the Soviets tests spewed poisonous radioactive waste into

the atmosphere. (Bergin)

As the nuclear annihilation, effected on the American’s domestic life as well.

People built bomb shelters in their own backyards. At school, they practiced attack drills

and other public places. In the 50’s and 60’s they saw an epidemic of popular films that

had horrified moviegoers with depictions on nuclear devastations and mutant creatures.

In other terms, the Cold war was a constancy presence in Americans’ everyday lives.
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As another dramatic arena for the Cold War was Space Exploration. Ever thing

change on October 4th, 1957 as the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The

world first artificial satellite that was about the size of a beach ball, it only weighed 83.6

kg or 183.9 pounds for the United States customary unit. As this was the first time

launching a satellite in outer space, the United States order or ushered in new political,

military, technological, and scientific developments. This marked the start of the space

age, U.S. against U.S.S.R. the race to have a man in space.

Figure 3 The modified R-7

rocket, named Sputnik 8K71PS, was

designated to conduct the historic

launch of the Sputnik-1 satellite.

(Bergin)

This age began in 1952, when the International Council of Scientific Unions that

was establish on July 1st, 1957, to December 31st, 1958. As the International Geophysical

Year (IGY), the scientists knew that the cycles of the solar activity were at its high point.

In October 1954, the council adopted a resolution to call it artificial satellites to be

launched during the IGY to map the Earth’s surface. Around July 1955, the White

House announced plans to launch an Earth-orbiting satellite for IGY and solicited

proposals from various Government research agencies to undertake development.

By September 1955, the Naval Research Laboratory’s Vanguard proposal was

chosen to represent the U.S. during the IGY. (Garber) Sputnik’s launch change
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everything. Even as a technical achievement, it caught the American public off guard.

This made the public fear of the Soviets’ ability to have such technology. With this

technology the Soviets’ satellites can transmit codes to launch ballistic missiles that

could carry nuclear weapons from Europe to the U.S.

The Soviet’s struck again with Sputnik II, on November 3rd, carrying a much

heavier payload, including a dog named Laika. Right after Sputnik I was launch, in

October, the U.S. Defense Department responded to the political furor by approving

funding for another U.S. satellite project. With alternative simulations to Vanguard,

Wernher von Braun and his Army Redstone Arsenal team began to work on the Explorer

project. (Garber)

January 31st, 1958 tides have change, the United Stated successfully launch

Explorer I. Small scientific payload eventually discovered the magnetic radiation belts

around the Earth. (Garber) They named it after the principal investigator James van

Allen. Within the same year President Eisenhower signed a public order, thus creating

the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or more known as NASA. This will

lead to a federal agency that dedicated to the space exploration, with several programs

seeking to exploit the military potentials of space. Still the Soviets were one-step ahead

on launching the first man into space in April 1961. A month after Alan Shepard became

the first American man was launch into space, President F. Kennedy made a bold public

claim the U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the Decade.
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Figure 4 we walk on Moon: 'A Leap For

mankind' (Oliver, Amy)

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the

moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant

rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of

new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of

standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been

experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch,

carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control,

communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown

celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the

atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about

half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--

and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--

then we must be bold. (Kennedy)

President F. Kennedy spoke at the Rice Stadium on September 12th, 1962 to give

out his Moon Speech. This was a snip of his 33-minute-long speech he gave out, to clam

that U.S. can can send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. His prediction came

true in 1969, when Neil Armstrong of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission. Armstrong was the first
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man to steep on the moon, which effectively winning the space race for the Americans.

Astronauts from the U.S. were coming to be seen as the ultimate American Heroes,

Earth-bond men and women seemed to enjoy living vicariously through them. This

turned the Soviets as pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless

efforts to surpass America and prove the power of the communist system. (Garber)

With the Space Race going on there was one event throughout history known as

the Red Scare that in the United States where having a problem. It began in 1947, the

house of un-American activities committee (HUAC) brought the cold war home in

another way. HUAC began a series of hearings designed to show communist subversion

within the United States was alive and well.

Fewer than 50,000 Americans out of the total U.S. population of 150 million were

members of the Communist Party. From the late 1940’s to the early 1950’s, Americans

feared of international communism that reached a nearly hysterical pitch. Government

loyalty board investigated millions of federal employees, asking crazy questions, like;

what books and magazines they read, what unions and civic organizations they belong

to, and whether they went to church. Thousands of screenwriters, actors, and directors

were blacklisted because of their alleged political beliefs. While teachers, steelworkers,

sailors, lawyers, and social workers lost their jobs for similar reasons. Teachers and

other public employees from thirty different states required them to take some loyalty

oaths. Libraries pulled books that were considered too leftists from their shelves. These

banned volumes that included the classics as Robin Hood, Henry David Thoreau’s Civil

Disobedience, and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

The postwar Red Scare was often called “McCarthyism,” that was name derives

from one of the era’s most notorious anti-Communist, Senator Joseph McCarthy. As the
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anti-communist, crusade from the late 1940’s and the 1950’s extended both in time and

scope well beyond the activities of the junior senator from Wisconsin. Communism can

be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century, as far back as 1848, where Karl Marx

published the Communist Manifesto, many Americans viewed communism as an alien

ideology.

Figure 5 Joseph McCarthy

Joseph McCarthy was a short, dumpy,

balding Irish-American pressed tightly into

double-breasted suits and he was smitten to a

fatal passion for alcohol. At first, McCarthy

was quiet and undistinguished senator. He

rose to prominence in February 1950, when he had given a speech at the Ohio County

Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia. This speech propelled him into

the national spotlight. By just waving a piece of paper in the air, declaring that he had a

list of 205 known members of the Communist Party who were working and shaping

policy in the State Department. (Staff, www.history.com)

Through the next month, a Senate subcommittee launch an investigation and

found no proof of any subversive activity. Many of McCarthy’s Democratic and

republican colleagues, including President Dwight Eisenhower. Disapproving of his

tactics “I will not get into the gutter with this guy,” the president told his asides. A book

that tells on what McCarthy did during the Red Scare.

McCarthy possessed the charm and temperament of a storm

trooper, and his thought processes were similar. His bonhomie had
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Hermann Goring-like quality could take, was good because Joe McCarthy

wanted it. His effrontery was both breathtaking. (Rose, The Cold War

Comes to Main Street)

McCarthy was put in charge of the Committee on Government Operations, by his

second term as senator in 1953. This allowed him to launch even more expansive

investigations of the alleged communist infiltration of the federal government. The fall

of McCarthy was when he tried to accused the U.S. Army of being communist. The

senate voted to condemn him for his “inexcusable,” “reprehensible,” “vulgar and

insulting” conduct “unbecoming a senator.” He kept his job but lost his power. At the

age 48 dies to a illness exacerbated by alcoholism. This is some of the parts of history

that pertained to the Cold War. (Staff, www.history.com)

We learn on how things where, even if it was in our own backyard. The history on

the events that happened during this time are unforgettable. Just like having a man land

on the moon or the atomic bomb era that had people worrying about is it going to land

in our backyard? Our grandparents might remember on the time of the cold wat and

maybe our great-grandparents lived through a time period that is unforgettable to our

country’s history.
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Works Cited

Barrass, Gordon S. The Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors. Stanford,

California: Staford University Press, 2009. Book.

Bergin, Chris. Remembering Sputink- The satellite that began the Space Race. 5 October 2015.

12 October 2017.

Garber, Steve, NASA History Web Curator. https://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/. 10th October

2007. 18 October 2017.

Kennedy, John F. "https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm." 12 September 1962. John F.

Kennedy Moon Speech - Rice Stadium. 19 October 2017.

Lafeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1966. New York: John Wiley and

Sons, 1968.

Oliver, Amy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2195661/Nasa-illustrations-plotting-Neil-

Armstrongs-steps-moon-set-hammer.html. 30 August 2012. 19 October 2017.

Rose, Lisle A. The Cold War Comes to Main Street. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of

Kansas, 1999.

Rose, Lisle A. "The Cold War Comes to Main Street." Rose, Lisle A. The Cold War Comes to

Main Street. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1999. 121.

Staff, www.history.com. http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/joseph-mccarthy. 2009. 18

October 2017.

—. http://www.history.com/topics/joseph-stalin. 2009. 18 October 2017.

—. www.history.com/this-day-in-history/joseph-mccarthy-dies. 2 May 1957. 19 October 2017.

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Wall, Wendy. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/fifties/essays/anti-communism-

1950s. 2007. 18 October 2017.

WMBF News. Florence family recalls atomic bomb in backyard. 25th June 2012. 12 October

2017.