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Unit 9
The Cold War
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Joseph McCarthy | Senator who claimed communists had infiltrated the US government. |
| Julius and Ethel Rosenberg | Americans who were executed after being convicted of spying and giving atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. |
| Arms Race | Competition between the U.S. and Soviet Union to build up their military and nuclear atomics. |
| Dwight Eisenhower | Republican President (1953 - 1961) who negotiated an armistice to end the Korean War, established the policy of Massive Retaliation, and signed the Federal Highway Act. |
| Fidel Castro | Communist leader who gained control of Cuba in 1959. |
| Bay of Pigs | 1961 invasion by US trained Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro. |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | 1962 confrontation between the US and USSR over Soviet constructed nuclear missile sites in Cuba. |
| John F. Kennedy | Democratic President (1961 - 1963) who ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. |
| The Cold War | Ideological conflict between the US (Democracy and Capitalism) vs USSR (Communism) after World War II. |
| Containment | U.S. policy to halt any further spread of Soviet influence and communism around the world. |
| NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization | Collective security alliance between the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. |
| Warsaw Pact | Collective security alliance between the Soviet Union and the communist nations of Eastern Europe. |
| Ronald Reagan | Republican President (1981 - 1989) who put economic and military pressure on the USSR to collapse communism. |
| Mikhail Gorbachev | Soviet Premier who wanted to lessen defense spending and reform the USSR and its communist system. |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | Democratic President (1963 - 1969) who was granted powers by Congress to begin US military action in South Vietnam. |
| Vietnamization | US policy to gradually withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam and hand the war back over to South Vietnam. |
| China | Entered the Korean War in support of North Korea. |
| Harry Truman | Democratic President (1945 - 1953) who carried out the Berlin Air Lift and committed U.S. troops to defend South Korea. |
| Richard Nixon | Republican President (1969 - 1974) who announced Vietnamization, visited Communist China, and signed SALT I with the USSR. |
| Vietcong | Communist forces who sought to overthrow the non-communist government of South Vietnam. |
| Glastnost | Reform by Mikhail Gorbachev that allowed for limited freedoms of speech and the press in the USSR. |
| Perestroika | Reform by Mikhail Gorbachev that allowed for limited private ownership in the USSR economy. |
| 38th Parallel | Border between North Korea and South Korea that was made a Demilitarized Zone in the 1953 armistice for the Korean War. |
| North Korea | Invaded South Korea in 1950. |
| Domino Theory | US philosophy that if South Vietnam fell to communism, other nations in Southeast Asia would follow. |
| North Vietnam | Provided the Vietcong with arms, supplies, and troops using the Ho Chi Minh Trail. |
| Reagan Doctrine | US policy that provided aid to groups who were fighting to overthrow communism around the world. |
| Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) | Proposal by President Reagan to develop a high tech defense system could intercept nuclear missiles that might hit the US. |
| Afghanistan | Nation invaded by Soviet forces in 1979. |
| Detente | Period of decreased Cold War tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1970's. |
| Tet Offensive | 1968 surprise attack by Vietcong and NVA against 100 cities in South Vietnam - Turning point of the Vietnam War. |
| INF Treaty | 1987 agreement by President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to eliminate short range and medium range nuclear arsenals. |
| West Berlin | Joseph Stalin ordered a blockade of this city as a reaction to West Germany joining NATO. |
| Douglas MacArthur | US general who commanded UN forces in Korea until he was relieved from command by President Truman. |
| Mao Zedong | Communist leader who gained control of China in 1949. |
| Berlin Wall | Structure torn down by the German people in 1989. |
| Joseph Stalin | Communist leader of the USSR at the beginning of the Cold War. |
| Tonkin Gulf Resolution | 1964 act by Congress to authorize President Lyndon B. Johnson to use military action in South Vietnam. |
| Gulf of Tonkin | U.S. ships were reportedly fired on by North Vietnamese torpedo boats off the coast of North Vietnam in 1964. |
| Quarantine | Name for the U.S. naval blockade to halt Soviet ships that were carrying supplies to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. |
| HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) | Congressional group that carried out investigations and hearings to seek out communist activities within the US. |
| Taiwan | Chinese Nationalist forces fled to this island in 1949. |
| United Nations | Voted to defend South Korea from foreign aggression in 1950. |
| Nikita Khrushchev | Communist leader of the USSR who made agreements with Castro to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. |
| 17th Parallel | Line that separated Communist North Vietnam from non communist South Vietnam. |
| Ho Chi Minh | Communist leader who led Vietnam to defeat France and win its independence in 1954. |
| Saigon | Capital of South Vietnam that fell to communist forces in 1975. |
| War Powers Act | 1973 act by Congress to limit the President's authority to use the armed forces without consent from Congress. |
| Mujahedeen | Islamic coalition that sought to overthrow communism in Afghanistan and received US aid and arms to fight Soviet forces. |
| Revolutions of 1989 | Movements across Eastern Europe that led to the overthrow of communist governments and collapse of the Iron Curtain. |
| My Lai | Village in South Vietnam where hundreds of unarmed men, women, and children were killed by US troops in a search and destroy mission in 1968. |
| Truman Doctrine | US policy that provided assistance to nations that were threatened by communist aggression. |
| Berlin Air Lift | U.S. and British pilots flew supplies to West Berlin during the Soviet blockade of the city. |
| Russian Federation | Established after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. |
| Reaganomics | Economic policies of President Reagan to grow the U.S. economy by reducing inflation, lower tax rates, and removing economic regulations. |
| Massive Retaliation | US policy established by President Eisenhower to threaten the use of massive force in response to communist aggression. |
| Kent State | University where four students were killed in a violent clash during an antiwar protest in 1970. |
| Paris Peace Accords | 1973 agreement that established a ceasefire between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. |
| Marshall Plan | US program of economic aid to help rebuild the war torn nations of Europe after World War II. |
| Federal Highway Act | 1956 act that funded the construction of an interstate highway system in the United States. |
| 1991 | The year that the Soviet Union collapsed. |
| Apollo 11 | The first successful moon landing mission by the US in 1969. |
| Sputnik | The first artificial satellite sent into space, launched by the Soviets in 1957. |
| NASA | Independent government agency for space exploration established by President Eisenhower in 1958. |
| Iron Curtain | The term for the division between the Soviet dominated East Europe and the US dominated West Europe. |
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