Post-war America. The Cold WarFrom

Post-war America. The Cold War

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent… Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high, and in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow (from a speech made by Winston Churchill at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946).

Nobody took Churchill's words more seriously than the Americans. The fear that Greece and Turkey might fall behind this iron curtain led Truman to ask Congress for funds to help "all free peoples" to resist Communist aggression - the Truman Doctrine. The widespread fear of Communism was one of the reasons behind the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April 1949.

The desire to keep Europe free of Communism was also behind the Marshall Plan, devised by US Secretary of State George Marshall in 1947, in which the USA gave or loaned billions of dollars to various European countries, particularly Germany, to assist in post-war reconstruction of their industries.

The persistent hostility between the Western and Communist nations came to be called the Cold War, which became a real war in 1950 when Soviet-trained North Korean troops invaded the Republic of Korea. Numerous incidents throughout the world increased international tension and the possibility of another global conflict. This nearly occurred in 1962 when the United States learned that there were Soviet-manned missile bases in Cuba. The Russians only removed the missiles after a naval blockade had been established around the island.

There was a widespread fear of Communism in America during the 1950s. The most famous anti-Communist was Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Anyone who dared to oppose him was branded as a Communist or "Communist sympathizer". He used his method of discrediting people without proof so often that it became known as McCarthyism. Those accused of being pro-Communists usually lost their jobs and found it very difficult to get new ones.