Term | Definition |
Containment | American policy to stop the spread of communism with economic aid |
Marshall Plan | U.S.'s plan to rebuild Europe after WWII |
Berlin Blockade | Stalin closed all highways and rail routes into West Berlin. He had West Berlin completely blocked off. |
Berlin Airlift | 327 day operation in which U.S. and British planes flew food and supplies into West Berlin after the Soviets blockaded the city in 1948 |
2nd Red Scare | Fear of communism in the U.S. for the second time; it came about after the Soviets tested an atomic bomb and spread communist control to China. |
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) | A defensive military alliance formed in 1949 by 10 Western European countries, the U.S., and Canada |
Iron Curtain | describes an imaginary line that separated Communist countries in the Soviet bloc of Eastern Europe from countries in Western Europe. |
Truman Doctrine | U.S. policy of providing economic and military aid to free nations threatened by internal or external opponents |
Mao Zedong | Ruler in northern China, relied on financial aid from Soviets |
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) | congressional committee that investigated communist influence inside and outside the U.S. government in the years after WWII |
Hollywood Ten | 10 witnesses from the film industry who refused to cooperate with the HUAC's investigation of Communist influence in Hollywood. |
Joseph McCarthy | republican, most famous anti-communist activist |
McCarthysim | The attacks, by Joseph McCarthy and others on people suspected of being communists in the early 1950s |
38th Parallel | Before the Korean War, it was the border between North and South Korea |
Inchon | After the North Koreans pushed the South into Pusan, the UN and U.S. helped the South Koreans sail to Inchon to attack the North from behind |
Communism | An economic and political system based on one party government and state ownership of property |
Brinkmanship | The practice of threatening an enemy with massive military retaliation for any aggression |
Massive Retaliation | U.S.'s pledge to use overwhelming force in the case of war with Soviets |
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) | A U.S. agency created to gather secret information about foreign governments |
Nikita Krushchev | Leader of Soviet Union after Stalin |
Warsaw Pact | A military alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and its Eastern Europe satellites |
Eisenhower Doctrine | A U.S. commitment to defend the middle East against attack by any communist country, announced by President Eisenhower |
ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) | missiles that can be launched from continent to continent; delivered nuclear weapons |
Sputnik | world's first artificial satellites launched by Soviets in 1957 |
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) | Space Exploration program in the U.S. |
Nuclear Fallout | radioactive dust in the atmosphere after an atomic bomb is dropped |
Levittown | Levitt's 1st postwar development - rows of standardized homes built on treeless lots |
Sunbelt | territory receiving a lot of sunshine; southern US from California to Florida |
Interstate Highway System | roads connecting major cities |
Arms Race | competition between US and Soviets for superiority in the development of weapons |
U-2 Incident | The downing of a U.S. spy plane and capture of its pilot by the Soviet Union in 1960 |