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Yalta conference: a meeting between the Allied leaders Churchill, Roosevelt, and
Stalin in February 1945 at Yalta, a Crimean port on the Black Sea. The leaders
planned the final stages of World War II and agreed on the subsequent territorial
division of Europe.
“Iron Curtain”: notional barrier that prevents the passage of information or ideas
between political entities, in particular.
Berlin Airlift: (June 27, 1948 to May 12, 1949) The Soviet Union blocked the
Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied control.
Their aim was to force the western powers to allow the Soviet zone to start
supplying Berlin with food and fuel, thereby giving the Soviets practical control over
the entire city. In response, the Western Allies organized the Berlin Airlift to carry
supplies to the people in West Berlin by air. The success of the Berlin Airlift brought
humiliation to the Soviets. The blockade was lifted and resulted in the creation of
two separate German states.
Arms Race: a competition between nations for superiority in the development and
accumulation of weapons, esp. between the U.S. and the former USSR during the
Cold War.
Nuclear Deterrence: During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union
each built a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Soviet policy rested on the conviction that
a nuclear war could be fought and won. The United States adopted nuclear
deterrence, the credible threat of retaliation to forestall enemy attack. To make its
threat convincing, the United States during the 1950s developed and deployed
several types of delivery systems for attacking the Soviet Union with nuclear
weapons.
Sputnik: each of a series of Soviet artificial satellites, the first of which (launched on
October 4, 1957) was the first satellite to be placed in orbit.
Allon Posen
SALT I Treaty: (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks )An agreement signed in 1972 by
U.S. President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev after the first
round of Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT I), held from 1969-72. It consisted
of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treatyand an Interim Agreement on the Limitation of
Strategic Offensive Arms.
Korean War: the war of 1950–53 between North and South Korea
38th Parallel: Is a circle of latitude that is 38 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial
plane. In 1948, the dividing line became the boundary between the newly
independent countries of North and South Korea. On 25 June 1950, North Korean
forces crossed the parallel and invaded South Korea, sparking the Korean War.
Fidel Castro: Cuban statesman; prime minister 1959–76 and president from 1976.
After overthrowing President Batista he set up a communist regime that survived
the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the collapse of the
Soviet bloc.
Kuomintang: a nationalist party founded in China under Sun Yat-sen in 1912, and
led by Chiang Kai-shek from 1925. It held power from 1928 until the Communist
Party took power in October 1949, and it subsequently formed the central
administration of Taiwan.
Cominform: (Communist Information Bureau) was the first official forum of the
international communist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern.
A Soviet-dominated organization of Communist parties founded in
September 1947 at a conference of Communist party leaders in Poland. Joseph
Stalin called the conference in response to divergences among eastern European
governments on whether or not to attend the Paris Conference on Marshall Aid in
July 1947.
Star Wars: Created by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1983 to use ground and
space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by
strategic nuclear ballistic missiles.
Strategic defense initiative: See Star Wars, simply another name for the same
program.
Nagasaki: a city and port in southwestern Japan, on the western coast of Kyushu
island; pop. 445,000. On August 9, 1945, it became the target of the second atom
bomb dropped by the U.S
Truman doctrine: the principle that the U.S. should give support to countries or
peoples threatened by Soviet forces or communist insurrection. First expressed in
1947 by U.S. President Truman in a speech to Congress seeking aid for Greece and
Turkey, the doctrine was seen by the communists as an open declaration of the Cold
War
Chinese ‘volunteer army’: Was the armed forces deployed by the People's Republic
of China during the Korean War. Although all units in the Chinese People’s Volunteer
Army belonged to the People's Liberation Army (the official name of the Chinese
armed forces), the People's Volunteer Army was separately constituted in order to
prevent an official war with the United States. The People’s Volunteer Army
entered Korea on October 19, 1950
General MacArthur: U.S. general. Commander of U.S. (later Allied) forces in the
southwestern Pacific during World War II, he accepted Japan's surrender in 1945
and administered the ensuing Allied occupation. He was in charge of UN forces in
Korea 1950–51, before being forced to relinquish command by President Truman
‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion: The Bay of Pigs is the location of a failed attempt in 1961 by
U.S.-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow the government of Fidel
Castro, resulting in considerable embarrassment for the administration of President
John F. Kennedy.
Viet Minh: Founder of the Indochina Communist Party (1930) and president from
1945 to 1969 of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). The
organization led the struggle for Vietnamese independence from French rule and
fought the USA during the Vietnam War.
‘Domino theory’: the theory that a political event in one country will cause similar
events in neighboring countries, like a falling domino causing an entire row of
upended dominoes to fall
Richard Nixon: 37th president of the U.S. 1969–74. The Vietnam War
overshadowed his period of office. A Republican, he restored Sino-American
diplomatic relations by his visit to China in 1972 and successfully ended the
Vietnam War when peace negotiations were concluded by his secretary of state,
Henry Kissinger, in 1973. Although he was reelected in 1972, he became the first
president to resign from office, owing to his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
Chiang Kai-shek: Chinese statesman and general; president of China 1928–31 and
1943–49 and of Taiwan 1950–75. He tried to unite China by military means in the
1930s but was defeated by the Communists. Forced to abandon Mainland China in
1949, he set up a separate Nationalist Chinese State in Taiwan
Four modernizations: Were goals set forth by Zhou Enlai in 1963. The
Four Modernizations were in the fields of: agriculture, industry, national defense,
science and technology. The Four Modernizations were designed to make China a
great economic power by the early 21st century. These reforms essentially stressed
economic self-reliance.
CIA: Central Intelligence Agency: a U.S. federal agency responsible for coordinating
government intelligence activities
Brezhnev: Soviet statesman; general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union 1966–82; president 1977–82. His administration was marked by intensified
persecution of dissidents at home and by attempted détente followed by renewed
Cold War in 1968; he was largely responsible for the invasion of Czechoslovakia 196
Perestroika: (in the former Soviet Union) the policy or practice of restructuring or
reforming the economic and political system. First proposed by Leonid Brezhnev in
1979 and actively promoted by Mikhail Gorbachev, perestroika originally referred
to increased automation and labor efficiency, but came to entail greater awareness
of economic markets and the ending of central planning
San Francisco Conference: This treaty served to officially end World War II, to
formally end Japan's position as an imperial power, and to allocate compensation to
Allied civilians and former POWs who had suffered Japanese war crimes. This treaty
made extensive use of the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights to enunciate the Allies' goals.
Atomic Bomb: a bomb that derives its destructive power from the rapid release of
nuclear energy by fission of heavy atomic nuclei, causing damage through heat,
blast, and radioactivity
Manhattan Project: the code name for the American project set up in 1942 to
develop an atom bomb. The project culminated in 1945 with the detonation of the
first nuclear weapon, at White Sands in New Mexico
Marshall plan: a program of financial aid and other initiatives, sponsored by the
U.S., designed to boost the economies of western European countries after World
War II. It was originally advocated by Secretary of State George C. Marshall and
passed by Congress in 1948
Berlin wall: a fortified and heavily guarded wall built on the boundary between
East and West Berlin in 1961 by the communist authorities, chiefly to curb the flow
of East Germans to the West. It was opened in November 1989 after the collapse of
the communist regime in East Germany and subsequently was dismantled
Warsaw Pact: a treaty of mutual defense and military aid signed at Warsaw on May
14, 1955, by communist states of Europe under Soviet influence, in response to the
admission of West Germany to NATO. The pact was dissolved in 1991.
Missile Gap: term used in the United States for the perceived disparity between the
number and power of the weapons in the USSR and US ballistic
missile arsenals during the Cold War.
Peace Dividend: a sum of public money that becomes available for other purposes
when spending on defense is reduced
Kim Il-Sung: Korean communist statesman; first premier of North Korea 1948–72
and president 1972–94; born Kim Song Ju. He precipitated the Korean War 1950–53.
He maintained a one-party state and created a personality cult around himself and
his family.
Panmunjom: a village in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. It
was here that the armistice ending the Korean War was signed on July 27, 1953
Cuban Missile Crisis: an international crisis in October 1962, the closest approach
to nuclear war at any time between the U.S. and the USSR. When the U.S. discovered
Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba, President John F. Kennedy demanded their removal
and announced a naval blockade of the island; the Soviet leader Khrushchev acceded
to the U.S. demands a week later
Vietnam War: a war between communist North Vietnam and U.S.-backed South
Vietnam.
After the partition of Vietnam in 1954, the communist North attempted to unite the
country as a communist state, fueling U.S. concern over the possible spread of
communism in Southeast Asia. After two U.S. destroyers were reportedly fired on in
the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, U.S. Army forces were sent to Vietnam, supported by
contingents from South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand, while U.S.
aircraft bombed North Vietnamese forces and areas of Cambodia. The Tet Offensive
of 1968 damaged U.S. confidence and U.S. forces began to be withdrawn, finally
leaving in 1973. The North Vietnamese captured the southern capital Saigon to end
the war in 1975.
Dien Bien Phu: a village in northwestern Vietnam. It was the site of a French
military post that was captured by the Vietminh after a 55-day siege in 1954.
Ngo Dinh Diem: as the first President of South Vietnam (1955–1963). In the wake
of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords,
Diem led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Supported by the U.S. due to
his Anti-Communist beliefs.
Mao Zedong: Chinese statesman; chairman of the Communist Party of the Chinese
People's Republic 1949–76; head of state 1949–59. A cofounder of the Chinese
Allon Posen
Communist Party in 1921 and its effective leader from the time of the Long March
(1934–35), he eventually defeated both the occupying Japanese and rival
Kuomintang nationalist forces to create the People's Republic of China in 1949
Great Leap Forward: an unsuccessful attempt made under Mao Zedong in China
1958–60 to hasten the process of industrialization and improve agricultural
production by reorganizing the population into large rural collectives and adopting
labor-intensive industrial methods.
Tiananmen Square: a square in the center of Beijing adjacent to the Forbidden City,
the largest public open space in the world. In spring 1989, government troops
opened fire there on unarmed pro-democracy protesters, killing over 2,000
KGB: the state security police (1954–91) of the former USSR with responsibility for
external espionage, internal counterintelligence, and internal “crimes against the
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