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World War II, which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Russians. After the war ended, these grievances ripened into an overwhelming sense of mutual distrust and enmity.
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Most American officials agreed that the best defense against the Soviet threat was a strategy called “containment.” In his famous “Long Telegram,” the diplomat George Kennan (1904-2005.)
America’s only choice was the “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” “It must be the policy of the United States,” he declared before Congress in 1947, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures.” -
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) brought the Cold War home in another way. HUAC forced hundreds of people who worked in the movie industry to renounce left-wing political beliefs and testify against one another. Over 500 people lost their jobs. Many of these “blacklisted” writers, directors, actors, and others could not work again for more than a decade. HUAC also accused State Department workers of engaging in subversive activities.
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In 1950, a National Security Council Report known as NSC–68 had echoed Truman’s recommendation that the country use military force to contain communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring. To that end, the report called for a four-fold increase in defense spending
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In June 1950, the first military action of the Cold War began when the Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the south
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Truman sent the American military into Korea, but the Korean War dragged to a stalemate and ended in 1953.
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The United States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made West Germany a member of NATO and permitted it to remilitarize.
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The Soviet’s launch of the first Sputnik satellite stunned and concerned the United States and the rest of the world
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After a series of mishaps and failures, the United States successfully launched its first satellite into space on January 31, 1958, and the Space Race continued as both countries researched new technology to create more powerful weapons. -
Was a tension would continue throughout the space race, exacerbated by such events as the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, history.com/topics/cold-war/cold-war-history
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The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and President John F. Kennedy hoped the Bay of Pigs Invasion would cause the overthrow of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The plan called for an initial airstrike to wipe out Castro’s small air force, followed by the amphibious landing of 1,400 Cuban expatriates at the Bay of Pigs, an inlet of the Gulf of Calzones on the southern coastline of Cuba.
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Still, the Soviets were one step ahead, launching the first man into space in April 1961.
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The Cold War arms race came to a tipping point in 1962 after the John F. Kennedy administration’s failed attempt to overthrow Cuba’s premier Fidel Castro, and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev implemented a secret agreement to place Soviet warheads in Cuba to deter future coup attempts.
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President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) made the bold public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His prediction came true on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, became the first man to set foot on the moon, effectively winning the Space Race for the Americans.
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In 1972, he and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which prohibited the manufacture of nuclear missiles by both sides and took a step toward reducing the decades-old threat of nuclear war.
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