| A | B |
|---|
| Warsaw Pact | Agreement between USSR and Eastern European nations to protect each other in the case of an attack |
| Space Race | Competition between USSR and US regarding advancement of space program |
| Korean War | North Korea (communist) vs. South Korea (non communist); ended in armistice and original borders |
| Democracy | Citizens have legislative, judicial and executive powers based on majority rule |
| Capitalism | Economic system based on private ownership. . . promotes free market regulated by supply and demand |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | Castro allowed USSR to use nuclear missile bases in Cuba; US said to remove missiles; they were removed |
| Detente | Policy aimed at relaxing tension between USSR and US |
| Perestroika | Opening up of Russia for more free enterprise |
| Glasnost | USSR is more open/honest with western nations with less restraints on Russian people |
| Berlin Airlift | The dropping of supplies (by air) into Berlin when the Soviets tried to block-off the city |
| Berlin Wall | Built in 1961 to divide soviet controlled E. Berlin from democratic W. Berlin |
| Iron Curtain | Churchill descriptive phrase referring to the USSR's post-WW II isolation of Eastern Europe from the rest of the world |
| Mikhail Gorbachev | USSR leader from 1985-91; contributed to the downfall of communism |
| Sputnik | Soviet satellite put into orbit in 1957 (1st man-made satellite) |
| Communism | An economic and social system envisioned by Karl Marx. under communism, the means of production are owned in common, rather than by individuals. One party controls both the political and economic systems. |
| Command Economy | An economic system controlled by strong, centralized government. |
| Satellite Nations | Nations dominated by Soviet Union to serve as a buffer separating communist nations from Western Europe |
| Joseph Stalin | Soviet leader who ruled from 1922-1953. His policies greatly strengthened the USSR, often at the expense of the Soviet people. |
| United Nations | Chartered in 1945 this global organization for peace and prosperity featured a Security Council and General Assembly that often played key roles during the Cold War. |
| Harry Truman | US President who arranged for about $600 million in aid to be sent to Turkey and Greece, nations whose citizens were actively resisting communist takeovers, as part of the Truman Doctrine. |
| NATO | US-led defensive military alliance whose goal was to stop the spread of communism |
| Marshall Plan | US aid package to Europe directed "not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos" |
| Cold War | The indirect but hostile conflict between the US and the USSR that began at the end of WWII |
| Fidel Castro | communist leader who aligned Cuba with the USSR |
| Cuba | USA's closest communist neighbor |
| Nikita Khrushchev | Soviet Premier who took power 2 years after Stalin's death. He squared off against Kennedy during the Berlin crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis. |
| John F. Kennedy | US President who adopted a "flexible response" during the Cold War as a way to prevent nuclear warfare. |
| Flexible Response | JFK's defense strategy that followed Eisenhower's policy of Massive Retaliation. Flexible response gave the USA the ability to respond to aggression without resort to nuclear weapons. |
| Geneva Accords | Post-WW II agreement that divided Vietnam along the 17th parallel |
| Tonkin Gulf Resolution | Congressional vote to give President Johnson broad military powers in Vietnam |
| Operation Rolling Thunder | The first extensive bombing of North Vietnam |
| Dien Bien Phu | France's final defeat before leaving French Indochina |
| Domino Theory | The idea that countries on the brink of communism were waiting to fall one after the other |
| Ho Chi Minh Trail | Communists in North Vietnam used these routes to supply military arms to the government opposition group in South Vietnam |
| Vietminh | South Vietnamese opposition group that fought and fought for Vietnamese independence |
| Ho Chi Minh | Leader of the Indochinese Communist Party who fought French, Japanese, and US forces for the independence of Vietnam |
| Ngo Dinh Diem | Vietnamese anti-Communist and Catholic who declared himself the ruler of South Vietnam and canceled 1956 elections that were supposed to unify Vietnam |
| Strategic Hamlets | South Vietnamese villages fortified to oppose communist takeovers; this approach backfired as villagers resented the intrusions. |
| Vietcong | Group formed by Vietnamese Communists and other nationalist groups in 1941; declared its single goal to be independence from foreign rule. |
| USSR | One of two post-WW II superpowers, this Russian-dominated group of nations opposed the USA and its allies during the Cold War and sought to spread communism globally. |
| Soviet Union | this nation was the one most directly affected by the domestic policies known as glasnost and perestroika |
| Henry Kissinger | US Secretary of State under Nixon who served as the top US negotiator in Vietnam |
| My Lai Massacre | Murder of 100 innocent Vietnamese villagers by US troops shocked Americans when it was finally revealed to the public |
| War Powers Resolution of 1973 | Requires a president to inform Congress within 48 hours if US forces are sent into a hostile area for an extended period without a declaration of war |
| Pentagon Papers | Classified Defense Dept. files whose publication revealed that the Johnson administration had lied to the American public about its intentions in Vietnam |
| Vietnamization | Policy designed to bring an end to America's involvement in Vietnam and to bring about "peace with honor" in Vietnam by having the South Vietnamese military take responsibility for the nation's security. |
| Agent Orange | US military used planes to spray this leaf-killing toxic chemical that devastated the landscape of Vietnam |
| Robert McNamara | Secretary of Defense in the Johnson administration, he helped to craft and guide the US policy in Vietnam |
| Napalm | To expose Vietcong tunnels and hideouts, US planes dropped this gasoline-based bomb that set fire to the jungles of Vietnam |
| Search-And-Destroy Mission | Conducted by US soldiers, these resulted in the uprooting of Vietnamese villagers with suspected ties to the Vietcong, the killing of their livestock and the burning of their villages |
| William Westmoreland | US commander in South Vietnam, this general introduced the concept of the body count in the belief that as the number of Vietcong casualties rose, the Vietcong would eventually surrender in a war of attrition. |
| China | Country that became independent under the leadership of Mao |
| Chiang Kia-Shek | U.S. backed dictator in China prior to communism, led the Nationalists during World War II and lost civil war to Mao (fled to Taiwan) |
| Great Leap Forward | Unsuccessful economic plan of Mao to form collective farms in China, led to massive famine |
| Cultural Revolution | Mao's attempt to purge Chinese society of people who were not following his communist doctrine |
| DMZ | "Demilitarized Zone"--the border between North and South Korea. the Korean War ended in a ceasefire at this boundary |
| Truman Doctrine | U.S. policy to contain communism; the goal was to stop the spread of communism to new places, not fight were it already existed |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | The closest the U.S. ever came to a direct military conflict with the Soviet Union; crisis over nuclear missiles close to U.S. |
| Tet Offensive | Uprising in South Vietnam in 1968 |
| Proxy war | During the Cold War, the U.S. often used local allies to fight on our behalf in a struggle against communism |
| Mujahideen | "Soldiers of God" - fundamentalist Islamic soldiers who fought against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan |
| Soviet Vietnam | Unsuccessful Soviet invasion of Afghanistan |
