Transcript The Cold War - Davis School District

The Cold War
A battle of ideas
A history lesson

During the Communist revolution the United
States and other Western powers openly
denounced Communism, and fought against it
with money and blazing speeches
 The United States and Russia both had plans for
China and Manchuria. Their plans could not
have been much more different
 The central idea to Russian communism was to
make people who love freedom look foolish or
evil, we did the same thing.
The history lesson continues

The Western powers and Russia are forced to be allies
by Germany twice.
 During WW1 the Russians negotiated their own end of
the war, that left the other allies out in the cold so to
speak
 Both sides in WW2 were sure that the other was going
to negotiate a deal with the Nazis that would hurt the
other.
 Joseph Stalin takes the end of WW2 to try and
advance and expand Russia. He is every bit as brutal
as Adolf Hitler, he was just better at hiding it and had
better places to hide or get rid of his “undesirables.”
Germany Divided

Northwest Germany is
given to the English
 Southwest Germany goes
to France
 Southern Germany goes
to the United States
 Eastern Germany goes to
the Russians
 Capital city of Berlin is
also independently
divided into four
occupation zones
Occupation Zone

The idea of an occupation
zone is to prevent fighting
from opening up again. The
conquering power does not
keep the occupied zone, but
just attempts to keep the lid
on, restore peace, and help
the conquered nation
recover. Much like the
United States in Iraq.
 The Russians considered
their newly conquered parts
of Germany to be new parts
of Russia.
Very Different Ideas
West
East
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$13 billion dollars
allocated to rebuild
Europe (Marshall Plan)
All occupied zones of
Germany are turned back
over to the Germans by
1949
Germany is assisted for
many more years in her
rebuilding efforts

Thousands of Russian civilians
pour into East Germany. The
Russians never intend to give
East Germany back. They allow
a new nation of East Germany to
be founded, but it is a strictly
Russian controlled communist
nation.
 The Iron Curtain is drawn as
Russia creates a buffer zone to
prevent and weaken later
attacks that never come.
The Berlin Airlift


In an attempt to take over
all of Berlin the Russians
close East Germany’s
borders to West
Germany.
Since Occupied Berlin is
nearly 100 miles inside
East Germany it is an
island cut off from all
ground assistance
Berlin Airlift

American and English air
forces begin flying over
East Germany to get to
Berlin
 Russia is being dared to
shoot planes down
 Many times the Russians
demand the flights cease,
but they never do.
 The airlift continues for a
year at a rate of 1 plane
every 90 seconds.
Berlin Airlift Dillema
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The ideals of Communism is strict control over the
people. There is to be no rich or poor, but equality
for all. Everyone has a job, everyone is cared for
socially, but people have few choices, and even
fewer freedoms. If you want to travel you can’t. If
you want to quit your job and have a new career too
bad. If the government decides you are going to be
a trashman then get used to it, because that is what
you will be for good.
In Berlin you had capitalist pigs caring for the poor
and isolated. To shoot down the planes would not
only have been an act of war, but also would have
been against communist ideals.
The Candy Bomber
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A pilot from Salt Lake
City, named Gail
Halverson loved to walk
over to the perimeter
fence of the airport and
give candy to the children
who watched the
airplanes.
After running out of candy
one day he promised to
drop more from his
airplane the next day.
How will we know it is you.

With Airplanes landing every
1 ½ minutes the kids were
worried that they would not
recognize Halverson’s
plane.
 Halverson told the children
that he would dip each wing
as he came in to let them
know it was him.
 This got him the nickname
Onkel Wackelfluegel. (Uncle
Wiggly Wings).
Lots of work

Fearing the candy
would break and be
destroyed Halverson
and some of his
friends would get
scraps of cloth and
spend hours and
hours of their free
time tying parachutes
on to the candy bars.
Final Approach
As Halverson’s plane
made its final approach
he would drop his candy
out to the waiting
children.
 The children began to
recognize his airplane,
and memorize the
schedule knowing when
he would be coming in,
so they would wait for
him.

The Higher Ups take notice

Soon some of
Halverson’s
commanders noticed
what he was doing,
and they loved the
idea.
 Other flight crews
began to drop what
candy they could find
as well.
Halverson’s Legacy

Americans back home found out about
Halverson.
 Candy Companies donated candy, kids in school
made cloth parachutes.
 Soon the airplanes were randomly sweeping
over Berlin and dropping the candy.
 Halverson later became commander of the base
where he had been landing, and the Germans
would have him as a guest on TV.
Halverson’s Legacy

Halverson was awarded the Grosses Bundesverdienstkreuz
(The Great Service Cross) of Germany.
 He has had airplanes, hangars, bases, buildings, and awards
named after him.
 His actions have been copied in many wars since WW2. In
2004 he was invited to help soldiers in Iraq drop candy, toys,
soccer balls, and teddy bears to Iraqi children.
 His actions made the time bearable for the children in
Germany, and improved German – American relations after a
bitter war, and helped to make us the great friends we are
today.
Policy of Containment



We do not want to
communism to spread
anymore
China, the most
populated nation in the
world has now become
communist
The first big containment
show-down will be in…
The Korean War

Communism is being
pushed from North
Korea onto South
Korea
 The United States
gets involved trying to
keep communism
from taking over all of
Korea
The Korean war 1950-1953

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The Korean war pushes
back and forth across the
Korean Peninsula
Eventually the war
becomes a stalemate with
neither side able to move
back and forth
Finally both sides agreed
to a ceasefire, but no
declarations were
rescinded or treaties
signed, they are officially
still at war.
At the border today
The Witch-hunt

A witch hunt is a situation when people are
hunted and persecuted for little or no reason.
The United States was full of fear, fear of
communism, fear of spies, fear of the future.
People were often accused of being
Communists. For starters this is all but
impossible to prove, secondly it is not against the
law to be a communist. But if you were labeled a
communist then your life was over. It is much like
being labeled a racist today
Joseph McCarthy and
McCarthyism

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
Joseph McCarthy served
in the United States
senate
He used this fear for his
own gain.
If he did not like someone
he would label them a
Communist, and sadly
people listened to him
If you tried to speak out
against him he would call
you a Communist.
“communist, em’s fightin’ words”

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McCarthy got to where he
could simply call anyone
he wanted a Communist,
and that person was
ruined.
He did it so much that
huge numbers of people
were going down.
It was getting out of
hand
The fall of Joseph McCarthy

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Finally it got so out of hand that
people began to notice, and he
was discredited. An
investigation followed to see if
he was guilty of slander. When
he tried to accuse those
investigating him of being (you
guessed it) Communists. He
was censured which basically
is a governmental command to
shut-up and go away.
Is there McCarthyism going on
today? Is that a good thing?
The Arms Race

The Russians tested their
first successful nuclear
weapon on August 23
1953.
 Over the next few
decades both sides raced
to build as many bombs
as possible
 Not only did both sides
want the most weapons,
but they wanted the
biggest weapons, and
most accurate means of
delivering them.
The Missile Gap

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A nuclear bomb is useless if
you can’t get it to your
enemy.
Regular bombers can be
stopped by other forces.
The Russians began
working on rockets
The Russians quickly got
way ahead of the
Americans?
Convinced of a “missile gap”
the U.S. began a feverish
campaign of rocket building
MAD

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MAD stands for Mutually
Assured Destruction.
The idea is that the threat
of massively damaging
retaliation kept the United
States and Russia from
nuking each other
What does that mean for
the rest of the world?
Sputnik

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First man-made object in
space
Launched 10/4/57
Circled the globe every 96
minutes
Spy concerns
Weapon concerns
Panic
Gives rise to the SpaceRace and the Space age
Escalation

The U.S. gets a new
president, Dwight D.
Eisenhower
 The USSR gets a new
leader Nikita
Kruschev
 Both begin some
serious Cold War
sabre rattling
The U-2 incident

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Russia had better rockets,
the U.S. had better planes
U-2 spy-planes are flying
high and fast over Russia.
The Russians know they
are there, but can’t prove
it.
U.S. diplomats deny that
any missions are being
flown, and seek to sweettalk the Russians
U-2
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In 1960 the Russians
finally bring down a plane.
The US tries to deny it to
the world, but the
Russians produce a living
pilot, and damaged
airplane.
Relations between the US
and the USSR deteriorate
Kruschev claims to be
personally insulted
Cuban Missile CrisisOctober 1962

Cuba is a communist nation right in our own
back-yard
 The United States has placed nuclear weapons
in Turkey (Russia’s back-yard)
 The US attempts a government overthrow in
Cuba that fails miserably which comes to be
known as “The Bay of Pigs”
 Cuban leader Fidel Castro becomes good
buddies with the Russians who begin to help him
update his military forces
Cuban Missile Crisis

Part of the upgrade is
an installation of
multiple nuclear
missiles.
 The government and
citizens of the United
States freak out and
demand the missiles
be removed.
Cuban Missile Crisis

The Russians refuse
to remove the
missiles, and begin to
send naval forces at
high speed into the
Atlantic Ocean
 The United States is
left with three options.
Options

1. All out invasion of Cuba (will most likely start a
nuclear war)
 2. Surgical Air Strike (will most likely start a war,
or at least cause other conflicts especially in
Berlin)
 3. Naval blockade (will most likely start a war, the
idea is to prohibit all air and sea traffic into Cuba
and push the Russians to remove the weapons)
Blockade is chosen
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The United States
decides to quarantine
Cuba with a blockade.
The Russians claim that
the blockade is illegal,
and say in essence “we
will sail right around your
ships when we get there.”
The United States
answers back, then we
will sink your navy
It seems that nuclear war
is hours away.
The stand-off
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Most of the Russian navy
holds back and only a few
ships continue on.
After only a few more
hours the ships are
“eyeball to eyeball.”
Some ships are boarded
by Americans, checked,
then allowed to continue
Easing the Crisis

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Secret Negotiations begin
There is still much arguing and yelling but
finally a compromise is met with
U.S. promises to remove their missiles
from Turkey and not invade Cuba
Russia agrees to stop tempting the
blockade and remove their missiles
How close we came

In 1992 many documents and
statements of what actually
happened were released.
 This new information proved
to the general public that the
crisis had been much worse
than they thought.
 It is estimated that the world
was less than 5 minutes from
launch and ensuing
destruction.
Lessons learned from the crisis

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The nuclear superpowers may threaten a lot, but they
don’t really intend to launch if they can avoid it
Communication is key. The leaders of the two countries
have to be able to talk. A so called “red-line” is set up.
This is a special telephone connecting Washington D.C.
with Moscow so that Presidents of the two countries can
talk person to person during a crisis without interruption.
The two nations begin to start seeing a little more eye to
eye and the Cold War tensions are eased somewhat.
A new evil empire?

China has a huge
army
 They are responsible
for a lot of Communist
expansion during the
second half of the
cold war
 This will give rise to
the war in Vietnam