Credo Resource Guide American History: The Cold War

Confrontation in international relations in October 1962 when Soviet rockets were installed in Cuba and US president John F Kennedy compelled Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, by military threats and negotiation, to remove them MORE

Campaign against communists (called ‘reds’) in the USA during the 20th century, and associated atmosphere of suspicion and fear MORE

1961, an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles, supported by the U.S. government MORE

In the Vietnam War, a massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers. On Mar. 16, 1968, a unit of the U.S. army Americal division, led by Lt. William L. Calley, invaded the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai (more correctly, Son My), an alleged Viet Cong stronghold. MORE

War from 1954 to 1975 between communist North Vietnam and US-backed South Vietnam, in which North Vietnam aimed to conquer South Vietnam and unite the country as a communist state; North Vietnam was supported by communist rebels from South Vietnam, the Vietcong. MORE

The act of obtaining information clandestinely; The term applies particularly to the act of collecting military, industrial, and political data about one nation for the benefit of another. MORE

Systematic manipulation of public opinion, generally by the use of symbols such as flags, monuments, oratory, and publications MORE

General term for the political and economic theory that advocates a system of collective or government ownership and management of the means of production and distribution of goods MORE

German founder of modern communism, in England from 1849; With Engels, he wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848). He developed his theories of the class struggle and the economics of capitalism in Das Kapital (1867; 1885; 1895). He was one of the founders of the International Workingmen's Association (First International) (1864). MORE

Military defensive alliance 1955-91 between the USSR and East European communist states, originally established as a response to the admission of West Germany into NATO. Its military structures and agreements were dismantled early in 1991; a political organization remained until the alliance was officially dissolved in July 1991. MORE

Military association of major Western European and North American states set up under the North Atlantic Treaty of 4 April 1949 MORE

Fundamentally, a system of social organization in which property (especially real property and the means of production) is held in common MORE

Domestic and international reaction (1965–73) in opposition to U.S. policy during the Vietnam War; During the four years following passage of the Tonkin Gulf resolution (Aug., 1964), which authorized U.S. military action in Southeast Asia, the American air war intensified and troop levels climbed to over 500,000. MORE