Transcript Origins of the Cold War

Cold War History
Origins of the Cold War
Atlantic Charter
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1) self-government for all peoples
2) no territorial gains were to be
sought by the United States or the
United Kingdom
3) territorial adjustments must be in
accord with the wishes of the
peoples concerned
4) the participants would work
for freedom of the seas
5) trade barriers were to be lowered
Teheran Conference
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meeting between U.S. President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in
Tehran, Iran, between November 28 and
December 1, 1943.
discussion centred on the opening of a “second
front” in western Europe
German Question
Yalta Conference
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shape of the post-war world
Germany devided into four occupation zones
Soviet Union kept the Polish territory it had occupied
between 1939 and 1941 and suggested compensating
Poland for its losses with German lands in the west
Stalin confirmed at Yalta that the Soviet Union would
declare war on Japan two or three months after
Germany’s surrender
the Declaration on Liberated Europe pledged the
three governments to aid all peoples liberated from Nazi
German control; free elections
Potsdam Conference
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The conferees discussed the substance and procedures of
the peace settlements in Europe but did not attempt to
write peace treaties
Each Allied power was to seize reparations from its own
occupation zones
Poland’s boundary became the Oder and Neisse rivers in
the west, and the country received part of former East
Prussia. This necessitated moving millions of Germans in
those areas to Germany
Atomic bomb
World after WWII
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All the major west European powers were
exhausted either from defeat, occupation or the
strain of six year of war
The pre-war power balance had been destroyed.
Resulting vacuum was filled by two new
superpowers: The United States
The Soviet Union
Started ideological and economic struggle between
the opposing blocs
Origins of the Cold War
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Throughout 1946 differences between the
representatives of the Soviet Union and the West
deepened
The State Department cabled the US Embassy in
Moscow for a background study of Soviet
Union’s foreign policy
George Kennan composed an eight-thousand
word response (“The Long Telegram”)
It predicted struggle between democracy of
Western powers and expansionism of Soviet
Union
Long Telegram
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Kennan wrote in February 1946
from Moscow: “…it is desirable
and necessary that the internal
harmony of our society be disrupted,
our traditional way of life be
destroyed, the international authority
of our state be broken, if Soviet power
is to be secure.”
The Long Telegram was basic of
new US foreign policy – “policy of
containment”
George F. Kennan
Harry. S Truman (1945–1953)
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Truman became President with the death
of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945
Truman's policies abroad, and especially
toward the Soviet Union in the emerging
Cold War, would become staples of
American foreign policy for generations
In response to what it viewed as Soviet
threats, the Truman administration
constructed foreign policies to contain the
Soviet Union's political power and counter
its military strength
Elected in 1948
Truman's popularity sank during his
second term (soft on communism)