Both countries hated the others' way of looking at the world. The USA thought that communism was trying to take over the world and in the 194os and 50s thousands of people were accused of being communist supporters. They lost their jobs had their lives and careers ruined and in some cases were even imprisoned. In the same way the USSR felt threatened by the USA and other capitalist countries who they thought were greedy and controlling and who would stop at nothing to overthrow the communist government.

Why did the USA get involved in the political problems of Europe ?

As the second world war ended, the USSR attacked Germany from the east while The USA, UK and France attacked from the west. The USSR occupied all the countries east of Germany and in each of these countries there was a COMMUNIST TAKE-OVER. The Soviet Union did this to protect itself from any more attacks from the west, but it also provided a buffer between them and the capitalist countries of western Europe. This group of communist countries in eastern Europe became known as the COMMUNIST or EASTERN BLOC. The division of Europe was called the IRON CURTAIN. After the war, control of Germany itself was divided between the USA, the UK, France to form West Germany, and the Soviet Union in East Germany. The capital city Berlin was also divided four ways but Berlin was isolated inside the Soviet sector of East Germany. To get around this problem there were air transport corridors and limited road and rail access from the west through East Germany to West Berlin. Thus, as a result of WW2, Europe, Germany and Berlin, were split between the capitalist west and the communist east.

Believing that communism only spread to poor countries the American government gave lots of money, called MARSHALL AID, to the countries of western Europe to help them rebuild after the damage of the Second World War. It was hoped that this money would help to keep these countries loyal to America and the idea of capitalism. When American money was given to West Germany and West Berlin the communists were afraid that it would disturb their control over their parts of Germany so they closed off West Berlin from Western Europe. This was known as the BERLIN BLOCKADE. The West Berliners did not give in and they were helped by regular airlifts of essential supplies from West Germany.

The end result of these conflicts and tensions was the creation of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) in 1949. This was an alliance of the capitalist countries in the West who promised to help defend each other. Not surprisingly the USSR was very angry at this new development and formed an alliance of communist countries in 1955, called the WARSAW PACT. Now, instead of individual countries being hostile towards each other, large groups of countries were involved.

After the use of two atomic bombs in the war against Japan the Russians were scared by the Americans’ superior weapons so they developed their own. In other types of weapons, chemical, biological or conventional (guns, bombs, tanks, aeroplanes) each side tried to build more. This competition over weapons was called the ARMS RACE. The aim of the competition was achieve an advantage over the other side - STRATEGIC SUPERIORITY. So many nuclear weapons were created that if used they could destroy the planet several times over. The idea of having so many weapons was that it would prevent the other side from using theirs. This is called a DETERRENT. Should either side launch an attack then the other side would counter attack until everything had been destroyed. This was called MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION.

There was another competition between USA and USSR over who would control space beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. This competition is usually referred to as the SPACE RACE. It began in 1957 when the USSR launched the first satellite into orbit, called Sputnik. The USSR had another first, the first man in orbit, called YURI GAGARIN in 1961. Control of space was important as it would allow countries to keep weapons directly over their enemies, as well as allowing them to spy at what was going on.

Photographs taken by American U2 SPY PLANES showed that Cuba was preparing missile sites. KENNEDY, the American President, was outraged realising that missile bases on Cuba would directly threaten major coities in the USA. He wrote a very strongly worded letter to Khrushchev to tell him that America would not allow these missiles to be stationed. Khrushchev sent them anyway and the Cuban missile crisis was underway.

Kennedy, one of the youngest US presidents, emerged from the crisis with his popularity increased. He had shown that he was a strong leader but one who remained calm in a crisis although some of the senior military figures were not happy with the outcome and felt that the USA should have invaded Cuba. Kruschev did not come out of the crisis well. The agreement he reached to have American missiles withdrawn from Turkey was not made public and so many people thought that he had just backed down, he was removed from power two years later. Krushev was certainly guilty of playing BRINKMANSHIP - threatening a large scale war for the sake of achieving political aims at the expense of the opposition. If Khrushchev had carried through his threats against Kennedy there could have been a nuclear war and millions would have died.

Although the Americans managed to stop the nuclear missiles, the island of Cuba is still communist today and the American government refuses to allow American citizens to travel to Cuba. One result of this crisis was that an emergency telephone system called the HOT LINE was set up so that the Russian and American presidents could speak to each other directly and hopefully avoid misunderstanding and future problems.

The war between France and the communist VIETCONG lasted from 1946 until 1954 with the Communists strongest in the north and the French maintaining control in the south from the capital city Saigon. In June 1954 a peace agreement was signed resulting in the division of Vietnam along the 17th Parallel (the 17N line of latitude): Ho Chi Minh and the communists controlling North Vietnam from Hanoi, and a Catholic politician, NGO DINH DIEM, an anti-communist as leader of South Vietnam.

President Diem, was a corrupt dictator and many South Vietnamese people protested against his government. However because of the "TRUMAN DOCTRINE”, the American policy of CONTAINMENT and worries about the DOMINO THEORY, the USA supported Diem in his fight against the communists in the north giving him weapons and sending military advisers. In 1964, American ships were attacked by the Vietcong off the coast of North Vietnam in the GULF OF TONKIN. The USA regarded this as an act of war and President Lyndon B Johnson appealed to Congress (part of the American goverment) for action. Congress passed “The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” that gave President Johnson the power to make US involvement much more direct. In February 1965, the US launched a massive air strike against North Vietnam, codenamed “Operation Rolling Thunder” and began sending American soldiers to help keep the Vietcong out of South Vietnam.

By the end of 1968 President Johnson had resigned because of the war, and his successor President RICHARD NIXON began to withdraw troops from Vietnam. Nixon followed a policy of VIETNAMISATION - making the soldiers of South Vietnam fight instead of Americans. However he also increased American CARPET BOMBING of civilian targets in the North and in the neighbouring countries of Cambodia and Laos to force the Vietcong into a CEASEFIRE. Throughout the 1969, there had been huge protests and in November the story of how American troops had massacred innocent women and children at a village called MY LAI emerged and caused outrage among the American people. In 1970, four anti-war protesters were shot dead by National Guardsmen during a demonstration at Kent State University in Ohio. In response to the increasing ant-war feelings back home President Nixon began to speed up the withdrawl of troops. In 1968 there had been 540,000 US troops in Vietnam but by the end of 1971 US troop numbers had been decreased to 140,000.