Chapter 26 Vocab Flashcards
Term given to the tense and hostile relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1989. The term cold was apt because the hostility stopped short of direct armed conflict.
Cold War
Metaphor coined by Winston Churchill in 1946 to demark the line dividing Soviet-controlled countries in Eastern Europe from democratic nations in Western Europe following World War II.
Iron Curtain
The post–World War II foreign policy strategy that committed the United States to resisting the influence and expansion of the Soviet Union and communism. The strategy of containment shaped American foreign policy throughout the Cold War.
Containment
President Harry S. Truman’s commitment to “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.” First applied to Greece and Turkey in 1947, it became the justification for U.S. intervention into many countries during the Cold War.
Truman Doctrine
Aid program begun in 1948 to help European economies recover from World War II. Between 1948 and 1953, the United States provided $13 billion to seventeen Western European nations in a project that helped its own economy as well.
Marshall Plan
Military alliance formed in 1949 among the United States, Canada, and Western European nations to counter any possible Soviet threat. It represented an unprecedented commitment by the United States to go to war if any of its allies were attacked.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Agency created by the National Security Act of 1947 to expand the government’s espionage capacities and ability to thwart communism through covert activities, including propaganda, sabotage, economic warfare, and support for anti-Communist forces around the world.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Law passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in 1947 that amended the Wagner Act and placed restrictions on organized labor that made it more difficult for unions to organize workers.
Taft-Hartley Act
Law authorizing the construction of 810,000 units of government housing. This landmark effort marked the first significant commitment of the federal government to meet the housing needs of the poor.
Housing Act of 1949
Congressional committee especially prominent during the early years of the Cold War that investigated Americans who might be disloyal to the government or might have associated with Communists or other radicals. It was one of the key institutions that promoted the second Red scare.
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
Conflict between North Korean forces supported by China and the Soviet Union and South Korean and U.S.-led United Nations forces over control of South Korea. Lasting from 1950 to 1953, the war represented the first time that the United States went to war to implement containment.
Korean War
Top-secret government report of April 1950 warning that national survival required a massive military buildup. The Korean War brought nearly all of the expansion called for in the report, and by 1952 defense spending claimed nearly 70 percent of the federal budget.
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