Cold War (1947 – 1991); nuclear arms race; Space Race

20th Century · 1914 – 2000

The Cold War was a long rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the blocs of states around each, that ran from about 1947 to the Soviet collapse in 1991. The two powers never fought each other directly in open war. Instead they competed through alliances, propaganda, spying, economic aid and proxy wars in places such as Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. Europe was divided by what Winston Churchill called an iron curtain, with NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east.

The rivalry produced a nuclear arms race, in which both sides built thousands of nuclear warheads and the missiles and bombers to deliver them. It also produced the Space Race, which began with the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957 and reached its peak with the American Moon landing in 1969. The Cold War shaped politics, science and daily life across the world, and it ended when the Soviet bloc broke apart between 1989 and 1991.

Things happened, and the rest is history

The Long Telegram and the Iron Curtain speech
Event
What happened
On 22 February 1946 the American diplomat George Kennan sends the State Department a long telegram from Moscow, arguing that the Soviet leadership sees the West as a permanent enemy and must be resisted firmly. On 5 March 1946 Winston Churchill, speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, says that an iron curtain has descended across the continent from the Baltic to the Adriatic.
The rest is history
Kennan's ideas, later published as the 'X' article in Foreign Affairs in 1947, shaped the American policy of containment. Churchill's phrase became the standard image of a divided Europe. Together they helped turn a quiet falling-out between the wartime allies into a stated Western strategy of opposing Soviet expansion.
Sources
1. PrimaryKennan, George F. 'Long Telegram' from the American Embassy in Moscow to the Secretary of State, 22 February 1946. US Department of State archives.
2. BookGaddis, John Lewis. George F. Kennan: An American Life. New York: Penguin Press, 2011.
The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan
Event
What happened
On 12 March 1947 President Harry Truman asks the US Congress for aid to Greece and Turkey and says the United States must support free peoples resisting outside pressure. In June 1947 Secretary of State George Marshall proposes a programme of American economic aid to rebuild Europe. Sixteen Western European countries take part, while the Soviet Union refuses and pressures its eastern neighbours to do the same.
The rest is history
The Marshall Plan, formally the European Recovery Program, ran from 1948 to 1952 and provided over 12 billion dollars in aid. It helped restore Western European economies and tied them to the United States. The Soviet Union answered with its own bloc institutions, and Europe's division became firmer.
Sources
1. PrimaryTruman, Harry S. Address before a Joint Session of Congress, 12 March 1947. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States.
2. BookHogan, Michael J. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
The Berlin Blockade and Airlift
Event
What happened
In June 1948, after the western powers introduce a new currency in their zones of Germany, Soviet forces cut road, rail and canal access to West Berlin, which lies deep inside the Soviet zone. The United States and Britain supply the city by air, flying in food and fuel for about 11 months. The Soviets lift the blockade in May 1949.
The rest is history
The crisis led to the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany in May 1949 and of the East German state in October 1949. It also pushed the Western powers to sign the North Atlantic Treaty in April 1949, creating NATO. Germany and Berlin stayed divided until 1990.
Sources
1. BookMiller, Roger G. To Save a City: The Berlin Airlift, 1948-1949. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998.
2. BookGaddis, John Lewis. We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
The first Soviet atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb
Event
What happened
On 29 August 1949 the Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, years earlier than many Western analysts expected. Soviet espionage inside the Manhattan Project had helped, alongside a large domestic effort. The United States tests the first thermonuclear device in November 1952. In August 1953 the Soviet Union tests a boosted fission device with thermonuclear fuel, and in November 1955 it tests its first true two-stage hydrogen bomb.
The rest is history
The end of the American nuclear monopoly began the nuclear arms race. Over the following decades both sides built arsenals peaking at tens of thousands of warheads, with the American stockpile reaching its height in the mid-1960s and the Soviet one in the 1980s. The doctrine of mutual assured destruction held that neither side could attack without being destroyed in return.
Sources
1. BookHolloway, David. Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
2. BookRhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
The Korean War
Event
What happened
On 25 June 1950 North Korean forces invade South Korea. The United Nations Security Council, which the Soviet Union is boycotting, authorises military help, and a US-led coalition intervenes. China enters the war in October 1950. After heavy fighting the sides sign an armistice on 27 July 1953 near the original dividing line.
The rest is history
It was the first major armed conflict of the Cold War and made it a military contest as well as a political one. The United States sharply increased defence spending and expanded its alliances in Asia and Europe. No peace treaty was ever signed, and Korea remains divided.
Sources
1. BookStueck, William. The Korean War: An International History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
2. BookWestad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Sputnik and the start of the Space Race
Event
What happened
On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit. A month later it launches Sputnik 2 carrying the dog Laika. The United States launches its first satellite, Explorer 1, on 31 January 1958. On 12 April 1961 the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space.
The rest is history
Sputnik shocked American public opinion and led to the creation of NASA in 1958 and to large new spending on science education. In May 1961 President Kennedy committed the United States to landing a man on the Moon before the decade ended. Apollo 11 achieved this on 20 July 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed.
Sources
1. BookMcDougall, Walter A. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. New York: Basic Books, 1985.
2. PrimaryKennedy, John F. Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs, 25 May 1961. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States.
The Cuban Missile Crisis
Event
What happened
In October 1962 American reconnaissance flights photograph Soviet nuclear missile sites under construction in Cuba. President Kennedy announces a naval quarantine of the island on 22 October. After thirteen days of tension, Soviet leader Khrushchev agrees to withdraw the missiles. The United States publicly promises not to invade Cuba and privately agrees to remove its missiles from Turkey.
The rest is history
It is widely regarded as the moment the world came closest to nuclear war. It led to a telephone hotline between Washington and Moscow in 1963 and to the Partial Test Ban Treaty the same year. Later arms control agreements, such as SALT I in 1972, followed.
Sources
1. BookFursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali. One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.
2. BookDobbs, Michael. One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
The Berlin Wall falls and the Soviet Union dissolves
Event
What happened
On 9 November 1989, after weeks of protest in East Germany, the border crossings in Berlin are opened and crowds cross the Berlin Wall, which had stood since August 1961. Communist governments fall across Eastern Europe during that year. Germany reunifies on 3 October 1990. After a failed coup in August 1991, the Soviet Union is formally dissolved on 26 December 1991.
The rest is history
These events ended the Cold War. Historians still debate the relative weight of Soviet economic troubles, Gorbachev's reforms, popular protest and Western pressure. The Warsaw Pact had been disbanded in July 1991, and fifteen independent states emerged from the Soviet Union.
Sources
1. BookSarotte, Mary Elise. 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.
2. BookPlokhy, Serhii. The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union. New York: Basic Books, 2014.
The Moon landing was faked
Popular belief
The legend
Some people claim that the Apollo Moon landings were staged by NASA in a studio to win the Space Race. They point to the flag that seems to wave, the lack of stars in the photographs, and the shadows in the pictures as signs of a hoax.
The rest is history
The claim spread widely after Bill Kaysing's 1976 self-published book We Never Went to the Moon. The flag had a horizontal rod to hold it out and moved only when touched, since there is no air to make it wave. Stars are absent because the cameras were set for the bright lunar surface. Apollo astronauts left retroreflectors that scientists still bounce lasers off, and the Soviet Union, which tracked the missions, never disputed the landings. Lunar samples from Apollo have been studied by researchers worldwide.
Sources
1. BookPlait, Philip. Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing 'Hoax'. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.
2. BookChaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts. New York: Viking, 1994.
Reagan's Star Wars bankrupted the Soviet Union
Popular belief
The legend
A widely repeated account says that Ronald Reagan won the Cold War by announcing the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars, in 1983. The Soviet Union, it says, could not afford to match it and collapsed under the cost of the arms race.
The rest is history
Reagan did announce the programme on 23 March 1983, and the Soviet leadership did worry about it. But historians generally see the collapse as having several causes, including a stagnant Soviet economy, falling oil prices, the war in Afghanistan, Gorbachev's reforms and nationalist movements. Reagan and Gorbachev also negotiated, signing the INF Treaty in December 1987, which eliminated a whole class of missiles. How much the American buildup mattered remains debated.
Sources
1. BookKotkin, Stephen. Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
2. BookFitzGerald, Frances. Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
NASA spent millions on a space pen while the Soviets used a pencil
Popular belief
The legend
A familiar anecdote says NASA spent millions developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, while the Soviets simply used a pencil.
The rest is history
The story is false in its usual form. Early American astronauts did use pencils, which cost little, but broken graphite and flammable wood dust were hazards in a spacecraft. The Fisher Space Pen was developed with the company's own money by Paul Fisher, and NASA bought it in bulk at a modest price after testing. Soviet cosmonauts bought and used the same pens from about 1969, and also used grease pencils.
Sources
1. BookMcDougall, Walter A. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. New York: Basic Books, 1985.

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Things happened, and the rest is history

The Long Telegram and the Iron Curtain speech

The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan

The Berlin Blockade and Airlift

The first Soviet atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb

The Korean War

Sputnik and the start of the Space Race

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Berlin Wall falls and the Soviet Union dissolves

The Moon landing was faked

Reagan's Star Wars bankrupted the Soviet Union

NASA spent millions on a space pen while the Soviets used a pencil