Unit 6 Cold War
Richard Nixon
American politician who served as the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office.
Kim Il Sung
Communist leader of North Korea; his attack on South Korea in 1950 started the Korean War. He remained in power until 1994.
Mikhail Gorbachev
He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, when the party was dissolved
destalinization
Khrushchev's policy of eliminating all memory of Joseph Stalin and his programs in the Soviet Union
Ngo Dinh Diem
Leader of South Vietnam until President Kennedy got rid of him.
Mao Zedong
Leader of the Communist Revolution in China.
M.A.D
Mutually Assured Destruction- doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization- a defensive military alliance formed by 10 Western European nations, the United States, and Canada
Vietnamization
President Nixon's strategy for ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, involving a gradual withdrawal of American Troops and replacement of them with South Vietnamese troops
John F. Kennedy
President during the Cuban Missile Crisis and was the first to escalate the war in Vietnam.
SALT
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks- a series of meetings in the 1970's, in which leaders of the US and the Soviet Union agreed to limit their nations' stocks of nuclear weapons
Berlin Blockade
The blockade was a Soviet attempt to starve out the allies in Berlin in order to gain supremacy. The blockade was a high point in the Cold War, and it led to the Berlin Airlift.
Containment
U.S. foreign policy adopted by Truman in the late 1940's in which the United States tried to stop the spread of communism by creating alliances and helping weak countries to resist Soviet advances
Cultural Revolution
a 1966-1976 uprising in China, led by the Red Guards, with the goal of establishing a society of peasants and workers in which all were equal.
Fidel Castro
a Cuban revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008.
Solidarity
a Polish labor union that during the 1980s became the main force of opposition to Communist rule in Poland
Glasnost
a Soviet Policy of openness to the free flow of ideas and information, introduced in 1985 by Mikhail Gorbachev
Truman Doctrine
a U.S. policy giving economic and military aid to free nations threatened by internal or external opponents, announced by President Truman in 1947.
Marshall Plan
a U.S. program of economic aid to European countries to help them rebuild after World War II
Viet Cong
a group of communist guerillas who, with the help of North Vietnam, fought against the South Vietnamese government in the Vietnam War
Tiananmen Square
a huge public space in Beijing, China where a student uprising in support of democratic reforms took place in 1989
Commonwealth of Independent States
a loose association of former Soviet Republics that was formed after the fall of the Soviet Union
Warsaw Pact
a military alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European countries.
detente
a policy of reducing Cold War tensions that was adopted by the United States during the Presidency of Richard Nixon
Star Wars
a program to protect the United States against an attack by enemy missiles, proposed in 1983 by Ronald Reagan but never implemented- AKA Strategic Defense Initiative
Perestroika
a restructuring of the Soviet economy to permit more local decision making, begun by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985
Vietnam War
a war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia
Ronald Reagan
an American politician and actor who was the 40th President of the United States, from 1981 to 1989. Believed in "Peace through Strength"
Korean War
began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, came to the aid of South Korea. China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union gave some assistance.
Iron Curtain
during the Cold War, the boundary separating the Communist nations of Eastern Europe from the mostly democratic nations of Western Europe
Third World
during the Cold War, the developing nations not allied with either the United States or the Soviet Union.
Mujahedeen
guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan that resisted the Soviets in the late 70's and early 80's
Commune
in Communist China, a collective farm on which a great number of people work and live together.
Soviet-Afghan War
lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups known as the mujahideen fought against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
Syngman Rhee
noncommunist dictatorial leader of South Korea who was backed by the United States
Domino Theory
the idea that if a nation falls under communist control, nearby nations will also fall under communist control
Cold War
the state of diplomatic hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union in the decades following World War II
Ho Chi Minh
was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
Nikita Khrushchev
was a politician who led the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis and led the policy of destalinization throughout the Soviet Union.
