Unit 14 Vocabulary:

Cold War Vocabulary

1. Cold War – decades long rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union along with other communist countries
2. Communism – a political system in which the state owns all land, factories, and business
3. Domino Theory – view that many countries could fall to communism if one were allowed to
4. Containment (aka Truman Doctrine) – U.S. policy of trying to stop the spread of communism
5. North Atlantic Treaty Organization - a defensive military alliance formed in 1949 by ten Western European countries, the United States, and Canada.
6. McCarthyism - the attacks, often unsubstantiated, by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others on people suspected of being Communists in the early 1950s.
7. Korean War – North Korean forces cross into South Korea. UN forces, the majority being U.S. responds. War ends 3 years later in a stalemate. Korea is split—N. Korea is communist, S. Korea is democracy
8. Dwight D. Eisenhower - President of the United States during Cold War. (1950’s)
9. John F. Kennedy - President of the United States during Cold War (Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis)
10. Ho Chi Minh – Vietnamese leader who declared independence from Vietnam in order to create a communist government
11. Warsaw Pact - a military alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites.
12. Geneva Accords – Agreement reached between France and Viet Minh that split Vietnam into communist/anti-communist country
13. North Vietnam – Communist portion of Vietnam. Wanted to spread communism
14. Viet Cong - communist guerrilla movement in Vietnam that fought the South Vietnamese government forces with the help of North Vietnamese
15. Lyndon B. Johnson – Controversial President of the United States during Vietnam War
16. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution – this law gave the president the power to use military force in Vietnam after an U.S. incident with N. Vietnamese forces
17. Guerrilla Warfare – surprise attacks by small bands of fighters
18. Tet offensive – surprise attack on U.S. military bases and more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam during the Vietnamese celebration of the new year.
19. Hawks vs. Doves – Hawks = people who wanted war. Doves = people who wanted to avoid war, wanted peace
20. Richard Nixon – President of United States during Vietnam War
21. Vietnamization – policy to gradually withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam
22. 26th Amendment – Lowered the voting age from 21 to 18
23. War Powers Act – 1973 congressional act where Congress limited the president’s war-making powers
24. Ronald Reagan – U.S. President 1981-1989, who strongly opposed communism
25. Mikhail Gorbachev – Soviet leader who initiated glasnost and perestroika, leading to the opening up of the Soviet Union
26. Glasnost – name for Gorbachev’s policy of greater openness in Soviet Society