Chapter 25 - Cold War America, 1945-1963

Question 1

Yalta Conference

Answer 1

meeting in Yalta of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin in February 1945 to discuss the treatment of Germany, the status of Poland, the creation of the United Nations, and Russian entry into the war against Japan

Question 2

United Nations

Answer 2

international body agreed upon at the Yalta Conference, consisting of a General Assembly of all nations and a Security Council of the five major allied powers (U.S., Britain, France, China, Soviet Union) plus seven other rotating nations

Question 3

Potsdam Conference

Answer 3

July 1945 conference in which American officials convinced Joseph Stalin to accept German reparations only from the Soviet zone - paved the way for division of Germany into East and West

Question 4

containment

Answer 4

U.S. Cold War policy to contain communism within its existing geographic boundaries

Question 5

Truman Doctrine

Answer 5

Truman’s commitment to “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures”

Question 6

Marshall Plan

Answer 6

aid program begun in 1948 to help European economies recover from WWII

Question 7

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Answer 7

military alliance formed in 1949 among the United States, Canada, and Western European nations to counter any possible Soviet threat

Question 8

Warsaw Pact

Answer 8

military alliance of communist entities to counter NATO alliance

Question 9

NSC-68

Answer 9

top-secret government report of April 1950 warning that national survival in the face of Soviet communism required a massive military buildup

Question 10

Cold War liberalism

Answer 10

combination of moderate liberal policies that preserved the programs of the New Deal welfare state and forthright anticommunism

Question 11

Taft-Hartley Act (1947)

Answer 11

law passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in 1947 that overhauled the 1935 National Labor Relations Act - placed restrictions on organized labor that made it more difficult to form unions

Question 12

Fair Deal

Answer 12

Truman’s domestic policy agenda - civil rights, healthcare, education reform

Question 13

Loyalty-Security Program

Answer 13

program created in 1947 by Truman that permitted officials to investigate any employee of the federal government for “subversive” activities

Question 14

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

Answer 14

committee especially prominent in the early years of the Cold War that investigated Americans who might be disloyal or associated with communism/radicalism

Question 15

“New Look”

Answer 15

defense policy of the Eisenhower administration that stepped up production of the hydrogen bomb and developed long-range bombing capabilities

Question 16

domino theory

Answer 16

Eisenhower’s theory of containment - the fall of a non-Communist government to communism in Southeast Asia would trigger the spread of communism to neighboring countries

Question 17

Eisenhower Doctrine

Answer 17

Eisenhower’s 1957 declaration that the U.S. would actively combat communism in the Middle East

Question 18

Bay of Pigs

Answer 18

failed U.S.-spnsored invasion of Cuba in 1961 by anti-Castro forces who planned to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government

Question 19

Cuban missile crisis

Answer 19

1962 nuclear standoff between the Soviet Union and the U.S. when the Soviets attempted to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba

Question 20

Peace Corps

Answer 20

program launched by Kennedy in 1961 through which young American volunteers helped with education, health, and other projects in developing countries around the world

Question 21

Joseph Stalin

Answer 21

leader of the Soviet Union during WWII and the Cold War

Question 22

George F. Kennan

Answer 22

American diplomat who advocated for the containment policy

Question 23

Joseph McCarthy

Answer 23

Wisconsin senator who sought attention by accusing people of communism

Question 24

Nikita Krushchev

Answer 24

leader of the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin

Question 25

John F. Kennedy

Answer 25

Democratic 35th president

Question 26

Fidel Castro

Answer 26

Marxist Cuban political leader

Question 27

Ho Chi Minh

Answer 27

Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader