Understanding the Cold War

American History Class 

Professor C. Landrum

Spring Term 2013

PSU

          Hiroshima, Japan, May 8th, 1945

        The beginning: 1945 to 1950; the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima are gone. 

    There is no real date to which history can attach a beginning to what has been called the Cold war. In reality it began with the official end of the shooting war on May 8, 1945. On that day the tragedy of the age that killed 38 million people and destroyed Europe formally ended. The question has been asked, could the Cold War have been averted? I think not. With both Stalin and FDR no longer alive, President Truman rightfully distrusted the Soviet Union. WWII ended with two super powers, the USA and Russia, left to divide the spoils. There was too much to gain and too much to lose for each power if the other was left alone to exert its influence over the bones of the recently vanquished. (Brown, 2009). 

    The atomic might of the US had been brilliantly demonstrated by the vaporization of much of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with 70,000 people killed in Nagasaki and 80,000 killed in Hiroshima. So the Soviets were aware of the nuclear might of America. They knew they had to proceed with all caution and this tended to begin the one-up-man-ship that became the Cold War.

    Winston Churchill chose the American city of Fulton Missouri to give his “Sinews of Peace,” speech where he said “from Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended.” His speech given at Westminster College in Fulton Missouri on March 5 1946 installed forever the term “Iron Curtain” in our speech, and gave the term “Cold War” sinister meaning. (Gaddis, 2008). 

    A mere three years after the shooting war ended, Stalin tested allied resolve by drawing a “line in the sand,” on June 24, 1948 by stopping all rail and road traffic in East Berlin, keeping the French, British and Americans out of their sectors.

    This action by Stalin created the first International crisis of the Cold War. British, French and America retaliated with an unprecedented airlift by ferrying all necessary supplies to the city by air, landing at Tempelhof air base an average of every three seconds. With Stalin's action, the whole world knew that Russia's intention was to force the Allies out of Berlin. The Allied response to Stalin's action was so overwhelmingly successful that Stalin gave up and lifted the blockade on May 12, 1949. (Taylor, 2008).

    Meanwhile the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ratified its treaty April 4, 1949 giving the Soviets further notice of allied intent not to be intimidated. In essence the treaty said that an attack on one country was an attack on all. In May of 1955 the Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact, their equivalent of NATO with the same message, an attack on one is an attack on all. (Taylor, 2008).

    On August 29, 1949 Russia exploded an Atomic bomb in Kazakhstan. The explosion was confirmed by an American surveillance plane on September 3, 1949 when it picked up traces of radiation. Now both super powers had an Atomic bomb. The arms race was obviously on.

        1950 to 1960 

    With the knowledge that Russia had the Atomic bomb, President Truman responded by ordering American scientists to begin developing a super bomb, which they called the Hydrogen bomb. The communists once again exerted their power by supporting North Korea when the Korean war started on June 24 1950. North Korea invaded South Korea with Soviet made weapons. (Brown, 2009.)

    America was in a proxy war with the Soviets, a war fought on the soil of another country. General Douglas MacArthur in charge of the Korean war wanted to prosecute the war further by entering China and stopping hostilities before they came over the border into Korea, an uncertain military tactic. Ultimately President Truman fired MacArthur and relieved him of his command. (Gaddis, 2008).

    The war eventually stalemated in July 1953 and the line between North and south Korea was drawn at the 38'th parallel. Over 33,000 combat troops died in this war, and US Army troops have been stationed in Korea ever since, some 60 years now.

    With the knowledge that the Soviets were capable of striking American soil with Atomic weapons, Americans started thinking about homeland defense, and on January 12, 1951 the Civil Defense Administration was established.

    Americans started building home bomb shelters and the basements of public buildings were designated as shelters. School children were taught to “duck and cover,” in case of an air raid. In 1952 our ally Great Britain, developed the Atomic bomb and British citizens felt more secure. They were after all much closer to the nuclear threat of Russia than America. (Leffler, 2007).

   The Hydrogen Bomb that destroyed Elugelab Island, November 1st, 1952

        The island is gone!  

    On November 1, 1952 America tested the first Hydrogen bomb, dubbed “Mike,” exploding it on the Pacific island atoll of Elugelab. The device was detonated from a ship thirty miles away. “Operation Ivy's” explosion broke the stillness of a Pacific morning on November 1, 1952 at 7:15am. Observers on ships and planes 50 miles away watched an enormous deep-orange fireball blaze up in the distance. Then it rose to the stratosphere, trailed by a churning grey-brown pillar of water and the pulverized remains of the little sand spit of Elugelab. (Leffler, 2008).

    “As the cloud cooled, it began to billow outward, its colors lost their infernal intensity, paled to harmless-looking but deadly pastels. Then, slowly the 100 mile wide cauliflower drifted away and disappeared.” (TIME Magazine, April 26, 1954.) This explosion was as powerful as all the bombs dropped on Europe and Japan during WW II. Speculation was that if this bomb had been dropped over Manhattan, you could have watched NY burn from Virginia.

    Little known and never talked about was the on-going effort by US military to snoop, spy and over-fly Communist block nations. Intercept stations tasked with listening to and recording both radio and radar emissions were strategically located around the globe. In 1957, 58 and 59, I was stationed at Todendorf Germany, an intercept station on the Baltic Sea. There, our US Navy intercepted military communications from Communist block countries including East Germany, and Czechoslovakia as well as their land based radar sites. Russian ships exiting to the Atlantic passed by our location and we intercepted their communications and photographed their ship-borne radars. (DuPay, 2013.)

    When Sputnik was launched on November 4 1957 our intercept unit was tasked with recording the signals transmitted by the satellite as it passed over our location. (DuPay, 2013).

    Other intercept locations were strategically located on Cypress, the Azores, Adak Alaska, Guantanamo Cuba and Kamiseya Japan to name just a few. (DuPay, 2013.)

    Shipborne intercept platforms, such as the later captured USS Pueblo, and large planes were also outfitted for intercept of radio and radar signals. Snooping and spying by both sides was in full force. Although President Eisenhower denied it publically, we in the intelligence field were aware that the U-2 spy planes were over-flying Communist countries, a lie maintained until Gary Powers was shot down over Russia in his U-2 plane in May of 1960. To the chagrin of American military much of the spy plane was recovered in tact and the pilot who parachuted to safety was imprisoned and tried as a spy. (Gaddis, 2005).

    In 1959, Rebel leader Fidel Castro took over the government of Cuba. Barely a year later in 1960 Castro's Cuba openly aligned itself with the Soviets and their policies.

    Now there existed a Communist state a mere 90 miles from the beach in Miami and the Cold War moved closer to American soil. In 1960 France finally acquired the Atomic bomb and as did the British felt safer as they were closer to the Russian Bear. (Rodriguez, 1999).

        1960 to 1970

    In November 1960 John F Kennedy is elected President of the United States and inherits the on-going intensity of the Cold War. With Cuba having aligned itself with the Communists, President Kennedy and his aids formulate a plan to invade Cuba attacking an area known as the Bay of Pigs. The plan was formulated and financed by the CIA and the attackers were to be a brigade of Cuban exiles. The attack is a disaster of defeat and America is duly embarrassed. President Kennedy publically took responsibility for the failed invasion, but remained determined to get rid of Castro. While President Kennedy plots to overthrow Castro with a plan called operation Mongoose, designed to stimulate an anti-Castro rebellion, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev tries to sneak medium range missiles into Cuba by ship. (Rodriguez, 1999).

    With America's ongoing aerial surveillance of Cuba, our U-2 planes spot and photograph the missile bearing ships on September 4, 1962. President Kennedy decides the best course of action is a Naval blockade of the Havana harbor. The tactic worked because on October 24, Russian vessels approached the blockade, but were ordered to turn back. The most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War between the US and Russia had been averted. (Gaddis, 2005.)

    Further negotiations between Khrushchev and Kennedy lead to a give-and-take wherein response to the Russians removing the missiles from Cuban waters, the US would remove its missiles from Turkey. By now, the East West border in Berlin had been closed and the Soviets began building the Berlin wall. The two super powers were still ratcheting up the Cold War and fighting had begun in Vietnam. America was now involved in another proxy war, again in another country. 

             The USS Maddox Destroyer

    As this war in Vietnam continues, President Kennedy is murdered in Dallas Texas in 1963 and Lyndon Johnson becomes president. The US Navy ship USS Maddox is allegedly fired on by North Vietnamese torpedo boats while steaming in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 and as a result congress authorizes President Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” (Leffler, 2007.) 

    By 1965 over 200,000 troops are sent to Vietnam and full scale war is on. At the same time US Marines are sent to the Dominican Republic to fight Communists there and America is fighting communism on two fronts in yet another proxy war on the soil of another country.

                   The USS Pueblo

    In January 1968 North Vietnam scores a coup by capturing and boarding the USS Pueblo AGER-2 which North Vietnam said strayed into their territorial waters. Two crew members were killed. The Pueblo was an electronic intelligence and communications intelligence gathering ship. The remaining crew was held prisoner for 11 months and the ship was never returned. It is the only US Navy ship still held captive. (Leffler, 2007.)

        Americans on the moon

                    Neil Armstrong, on the moon

The same year, President Johnson decides not to run for President and Richard Nixon is elected and decides he will continue to prosecute the Vietnam war, extending it into Cambodia. Meanwhile, the Apollo space program began by President Kennedy captures the worlds attention by landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in the Apollo 11 spacecraft 1968. (Leffler, 2007.)

        1970 to 1980

    During the 1970's the Vietnam war grinds on until a cease-fire is negotiated between the US and North Vietnam. Efforts at limiting the arms race on both sides succeed with the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT I) in July of 1972. This was an interim agreement later signed into a long term treaty then referred to as SALT II in July 1979. (Gaddis, 2005). 

                       This iconic photo shows Nguyen Van Lem (referred to as Captain Bay Lop) (being executed 1 February 1968 in Saigon by a General. 

                            Lem was a suspected member of the Viet Cong who was executed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive.

                                 The execution was captured on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams, who later won a Pulitzer Prize.  -+

    In 1974 President Nixon resigns in the aftermath of the Watergate break ins and subsequent scandal. Gerald Ford then became the 38'th US president. President Ford is known primarily for pardoning former President Nixon, and being the butt of jokes for his clumsiness and falling down.

    On April 1975 the Vietnam war is effectively over when the communist North forces invade and over run Saigon. In July 1979 SALT II is signed between America and Russia. In December 1979 the Soviets began their ill fated invasion of Afghanistan.

        1980 to 1991, New words enter the lexicon, “glasnost,” “perestroika,” and “détente”

    In 1983 President Ronald Reagan begins the Strategic initiative, a triad strategy of long range bombers, ICBM's, (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) and submarines each capable of delivering nuclear destruction on an enemy independent of each other. (Leffler, 2005).

    In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the Russian leader and initiates a campaign of openness between the two super powers by first agreeing to remove all intermediate range missiles in 1986 and then all short range missiles the following year in 1987. Long range ICBM's, the missiles they could use to strike each others continents remained, but the cold war was finally beginning to thaw.(Leffler, 2005).

    1989 is the definitive year of the cold war. Russia gives up and withdraws all combat troops from Afghanistan. Poland and Hungary become independent and the Berlin wall is finally demolished restoring unrestricted traffic between the two sides of the city, and Ronald Reagan's famous statement echoes over the globe, “Tear down this wall!” Communist governments fall in Bulgaria, Romania and Czechoslovakia. (Taylor, 2008). 

West Berlin district of Kreuzberg in March 1972. The white graffiti lettering says "Unity and Freedom for Berlin."

    In March of 1990 Lithuania becomes independent effectively putting a period to the end of the Soviet empire. May 29 1990 Boris Yeltsin is elected president of Russia, Germany is reunited into one country and the cold war is over. (Taylor, 2008).

                                                Works Cited 

Brown, Archie. (2009). The Rise and Fall of Communism. Harper Collins NY.

DuPay, Don. (2013). “Where's My Hat? Remembering the Cold War.” 

(https://www.sites.google.com/a/pdx.edu/don-l-dupay/hey-where-s-my-hat). 

Gaddis, John. L. (2005) The Cold War; A New History. Penguin Books, USA. 

Leffler, M. (2007) For the Soul of Mankind; the United States, the Soviet Union and the Cold War. 

Hill and Wang, NY. 

Taylor, Fredrick. (2008) The Berlin Wall. Harper Collins, USA. 

Rodriguez, Juan. (1999). The Bay of Pigs and the CIA: Cuban Secret Files on the 1961 Invasion. 

Ocean Press. USA.

ABSOLUTELY NO PORTION OF THIS PAPER MAY BE REPRODUCED OR DISSEMINATED WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR, DONALD LEE DUPAY, UNDER PENALTY OF COPYRIGHT LAWS!!