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Venona Papers
A counter-intelligence program initiated by the United States Army Signal Intelligence Service that lasted from 1943 to 1980.The program attempted to decrypt messages sent by Soviet Union intelligence agencies, including its foreign intelligence service and military intelligence services. During the program's four decades, approximately 3,000 messages were at least partially decrypted and translated. -
Iron curtain
The political, military, and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union after World War II to seal off itself and its dependent eastern and central European allies from open contact with the West and other noncommunist areas. he term Iron Curtain had been in occasional and varied use as a metaphor since the 19th century, but it came to prominence only after it was used by the former British prime minister Winston Churchill in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, U.S., on March 5, 1946. -
Truman doctrine
President Truman anounced immediate economic and military aid to the governments of Greece, threatened by Communist insurrection, and Turkey, under pressure from Soviet expansion in the Mediterranean area. As the United States and the Soviet Union struggled to reach a balance of power during the Cold War, Great Britain announced that it could no longer afford to aid those countries, which the West feared were in danger of falling under Soviet influence. -
Berlin Blockade & Aircraft (1948-1949)
A crisis that arose from an attempt by the Soviet Union to force the Allied powers to abandon their post in West Berlin.In March 1948 the Allies decided to unite their different occupation zones of Germany into a unit. In protest, the Soviets withdrew from the Council. On June 24 the Soviets announced that the four-power administration of Berlin had ceased and that the Allies no longer had any rights there. On June 26 the United States and Britain began to supply the city with vital supplies. -
Korean war
Conflict between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in which at least 2.5 million people lost their lives. The war reached international proportions in June 1950 when North Korea, supplied and advised by the Soviet Union, invaded the South.The United Nations, with the United States as the principal participant, joined the war on the side of the South Koreans. -
Rosenberg Trial
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, the first American civilians to be executed for espionage and the first to suffer that penalty during peacetime. When Ethel married Julius Rosenberg in 1939, the two were already active members of the Communist Party. In the following year Julius obtained a job with the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and he and Ethel began working together to disclose U.S. military secrets to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs were charged with espionage and brought to trial. -
Sputnik
A series of 10 artificial Earth satellites launched by the Soviet Union beginning on Oct. 4, 1957. Sputnik 1, the first satellite launched by man, was a 184-pound capsule. It achieved an Earth orbit with an apogee of 584 miles and a perigee of 143 miles, circling Earth every 96 minutes and remaining in orbit until early 1958, when it fell back and burned in the Earth’s atmosphere. -
U2 Spyplane Incident
An international crisis in May 1960 when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Confronted with the evidence of his nation’s espionage, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was forced to admit to the Soviets that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been flying spy missions over the USSR for several years. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Invasion of Cuba at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), on the southwestern coast by some 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro. The invasion was financed and directed by the U.S. government. Within six months of Castro’s overthrow, Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship in Cuba, relations between Castro’s government and the United States began to deteriorate. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Invasion of Cuba at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the southwestern coast by some 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro.The invasion was financed and directed by the U.S. government.Within six months of Castro’s overthrow of Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship in Cuba.relations between Castro’s government and the United States began to deteriorate. -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall, first erected on August 12, 1961, as the result of a decree passed on August 12. The original wall, built of barbed wire and cinder blocks, was replaced by a series of concrete walls that were topped with barbed wire and guarded with watchtowers, gun emplacements, and mines. By 1980s that system of walls, electrified fences, and fortifications extended 28 miles through Berlin, dividing the two parts of the city. On November 9, East Germany gov. opened the borders to West Germany
