| A | B |
|---|
| Bay of Pigs | An unsuccessful invasion of Cuba in 1961, which was sponsored by the United States. Its purpose was to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. |
| Berlin Airlift | A re-supply operation to the city of Berlin that lasted 11 months during 1948-49 when the Soviet Union attempted to close off the city. |
| Berlin Wall | A wall built in 1961 dividing Soviet controlled East Berlin from the democratic West Berlin. It was destroyed when communism ended in 1990. |
| containment | A cold war policy that called for containing communism to areas already under its influence. This policy was proposed by U.S. President Harry Truman. |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | In Oct. of 1962, U.S. intelligence confirmed reports that the U.S.S.R. was constructing missile launching sites in Cuba. President Kennedy rejected a full-scale attack and, instead, delivered a public ultimatum to the U.S.S.R. The U.S.S.R. backed down and the U.S. promised not to overthrow the Cuban government. |
| détente | A policy during the Cold War which was aimed at relaxing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. The policy calls for increase diplomatic and commercial activity. |
| domino theory | The idea that countries bordering communist countries were in more danger of falling to communism unless the United States and other western nations worked to prevent it. |
| Gorbachev | leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991. His policies of Perestroika and Glasnost, which aimed at revitalizing the Soviet Union contributed to the downfall of communism. |
| Iron Curtain | A term popularized by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to describe the Soviet Union’s policy of isolation during the Cold War. The Iron Curtain isolated Eastern Europe from the rest of the world. Its most poignant symbol was the Berlin Wall. |
| Khrushchev | Leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964. Khrushchev was critical of Stalin’s policies and attempted to reverse some of them. He is responsible for placing nuclear missiles in Cuba which resulted in the Cuban Missile Crisis. |
| Korean War | A war between North Korean, which was supported by both the Soviet Union and communist China, and South Korea, which was supported by the United States and the United Nations. The war occurred between 1950 and 1953 and ended in an armistice and original borders. |
| Perestroika | A policy of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to revitalize the Soviet economy by opening it up to more free enterprise. |
| Truman Doctrine | A doctrine articulated by President Harry S Truman that pledged American support for all “free peoples” fighting Communist aggression from foreign or domestic sources. Truman announced the doctrine in 1947, then convinced Congress to grant Greece and Turkey $400 million to help fight pro-Soviet insurgents. Besides committing the United States to the policy of containment, the language of the Truman Doctrine itself help characterize the Cold War as a conflict between good and evil. |
| Marshall Plan | A program of substantial loans given by the U.S. to Western Europe in 1947, it was designed to aid in rebuilding efforts after the war’s devastation. It was also an attempt by the U.S. to stop Communism (if countries were economically propped up they would be less likely to turn to Communism) and it helped secure American economic dominance. |
| Berlin Blockade | Stalin shuts off trains, planes, roads into East Berlin - attempt to cut off western influence - Berlin Airlift foils plans. |
| (the second) Red Scare | period of anti-communist hysteria in the late 1940s and 1950s |
| Brinkmanship | introduced during the Cold War, policy or practice, especially in international politics and foreign policy, of pushing a dangerous situation to the brink of disaster in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome by forcing the opposition to make concessions. |
| S.A.L.T. | (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) – looked to curtail the production and number of nuclear arms |
| McCarthy, Joseph | American senator from Wisconsin who capitalized on Cold War fears of Communism in the early 1950s by accusing hundreds of government employees of being Communists and Soviet agents. Although McCarthy failed to offer any concrete evidence to prove these claims, many Americans fully supported him. |
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) | An organization formed in 1949 that bound the United States, Canada, most of Western Europe, and later Greece and Turkey together in a mutual pact of defense against the USSR and Eastern bloc countries. The treaty had the additional effect of permanently tying American interests to political and economic stability in Europe. |
| Warsaw Pact | A pact signed by the USSR and Eastern European countries under Soviet influence in 1955. By signing the pact, they pledged mutual defense in response to the formation of NATO. |
| arms race | Massive military build-up, especially of nuclear weapons, by both the Soviet Union and the United States in an effort to gain military superiority. |
| deterrence | A theory that proposed a massive build-up of military and weaponry in order to threaten a destructive counter-attack to any potential attack. The threat was intended to prevent, or deter, anyone from attacking. |
| glasnost | A policy promoted during the latter half of the 1980s in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev in which government secrecy (which had characterized the past several decades of Soviet policy) was discouraged and open discussion and distribution of information was encouraged. The term translates to "openness" in Russian. |
| mutually assured destruction | MAD was the guarantee that if one superpower launched a massive nuclear attack, the other would reciprocate by also launching a massive nuclear attack, and both countries would be destroyed. This ultimately became the prime deterrent against a nuclear war between the two superpowers. |
| Yalta Conference | A meeting between the Allied leaders Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin inFebruary 1945 at Yalta, a Crimean port on the Black Sea. The leaders planned the final stages of World War II and agreed on territorial division of Europe; The British representative did notwant any war reparations. |
| Hungarian Revolt | When the Hungarians tried to win their freedom from the Communist regime in 1956, they were crushed down by Soviet tanks. There was killing and slaughtering of the rebels going on by military forces. |
| McCarthyisim | McCarthyism was the communist witch hunts of the 1950's. This fear of Communism ruined many lives and families. The Senate hearings on communism were run by Senator Joseph McCarthy. |
