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Chapter 13 US Hist.
The Cold War
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Charter | The Constitution of the United Nations which created a security council responsible for international peace and security |
| Satellite Nations | Pro-Communist nations established in Eastern Europe after WWII, such as Poland Romania, Hungary & Czechoslovakia, which were economically & politically controlled by the Soviet Union |
| Iron Curtain | the term coined by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to describe the political and military barrier that isolated Soviet-controlled countries of Eastern Europe after WWII |
| liberated | the freed nations, such as Poland from German control following the allied victory in May 1945 |
| Containment | the US foreign policy devised by diplomat George Kennan and put in place under President Truman to try and prevent the expansion of Soviet power, with the goal of patiently waiting for political & economic weaknesses of communism causing it to fall apart |
| Limited War | a war fought to achieve a specific objective such as stopping the spread of communism during the cold war |
| Truman Doctrine | the foreign policy of aiding people groups who resisted the control of the Soviet Union, such as Greece in 1947; this policy set the precedent of the US fighting the spread of communism worldwide |
| Berlin Airlift | the US response to the Soviet Union stopping travel in and out of Berlin, Germany. The US planes dropped 2 million tons of supplies for the Berlin citizens until the blockade was lifted. |
| Marshall Plan | plan created by Secretary of State George Marshall to aid Europe in recovering from the damage of WWII to rebuild their economies. This was part of the Containment Policy and helped strengthen nations that were in danger of turning to communism. |
| Mao Zedong | communist leader of Chinese rebels who fought the Japanese invasion and then won the civil war against the Nationalist Party for control of China following WWII |
| Chiang Kai-Shek | Chinese leader of the Nationalist Party that lost China to the communists and fled to Taiwan to set up a democratic government on the island that has remained supported by the US |
| General George MacArthur | hero of WWII in defeating Japan, who was in charge of US forces during the Korean War, but was fired by President Truman for insabordination & criticizing his decision to fight a "limited war" by not using nuclear weapons against Chinese forces |
| NATO | the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that included the US and most west European nations in a treaty of mutual defense against an attack by the Soviet Union |
| subversion | a systematic attempt to overthrow a government by using persons working secretly from within; the fear of spies infiltrating the US government led to the Red Scares of the 1950s |
| loyalty review program | a policy established by President Truman that authorized the screening of all federal employees to determine their loyalty to the US |
| manipulate | the act of operating or arranging industries such as the film industry to achieve the effect of influencing support for communism during the Cold War |
| perjury | lying under oath after swearing to tell the truth to a grand jury or Congressional hearing |
| censure | a formal disapproval voted by the Senate against Senator Joseph McCarthy for conducting witch hunts against people suspected of being communist sympathizers |
| witch hunt | a search for signs of disloyalty based on weak evidence and irrational fears, such as the Red Scares of the 1920s and 1950s |
| fallout | radioactive particles dispersed after nuclear explosions that would have killed 4 times those who would die in the initial explosion |
| massive retaliation | the policy of President Eisenhower who realized after the Korean War that Containment Policy's limited wars would not stop the spread of communism; the new policy threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear attack if it tried to take a peaceful state |
| brinksmanship | the US policy of threatening nuclear war to make the Soviet Union back down |
| covert | the secret hidden operations conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) against communist groups planning to stage revolutions in other countries |
| developing nations | nations whose economies have limited industry and are primarily agricultural; also called Third-World Nations |
| Military-Industrial Complex | the dangerous relationship that exists between the military and the weapons defense industry that promotes greater military action and government spending; President Eisenhower warned the American people of the danger of this growing threat to democracy |
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