Reg Grant - The Cold War

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Grant, Reg, 1954

The Cold War / by Reg Grant.

p. cm. -- (Timelines)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61535-611-9 (e-book)

1. Cold War--Juvenile literature.

2. Cold War--Chronology--Juvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series.

D1058.G626 2007

909.825--dc22

2007007548

9 8 7 6 5 4 3

Series concept: Alex Woolf

Project manager and editor: Helen Maxey

Designer: Simon Borrough

Picture researcher: Helen Maxey

Consultant: James Vaughan

Picture credits:

Corbis: cover, 4 (Bettman/Corbis), 5 (Yevgeny Khaldei/Corbis), 6

(Bettman/Corbis), 7 (ANSA/Corbis), 8 (Bettmann/Corbis), 9 (Corbis), 10, 11

(Bettmann/Corbis), 12 (Corbis), 13 (Bettman/Corbis), 14, 15 (Corbis), 16

(Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis), 17 (Bettman/Corbis), 18 (Hulton-Deutsch

Collection/Corbis), 19, 20 (Bettman/Corbis), 21 (Corbis), 22, 23, 24

(Bettman/Corbis), 25 (dpa/Corbis), 26, 27, 28 (Bettman/Corbis), 29 (Wally

McNamee/Corbis), 30 (epa/Corbis), 31, 32, 33 (Bettman/Corbis), 34 (Horacio

Villalobos/Corbis), 35, 36 (Bettman/Corbis), 37 (Wally McNamee/Corbis), 38

(Bettman/Corbis), 39 (Reza; Webistan/Corbis), 40 (Marek

Zarzecki/Kfp/Reuters/Corbis), 41 (Simonpietri/Sygma/Corbis), 42

(Bettman/Corbis), 43 (David Cumming; Eye Ubiquitous/Corbis), 44 (Robert

Maass/CORBIS), 45 (David Turnley/Corbis).

4 F EBRUARY 1945

In February 1945, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union, met at Yalta, in the Crimea. Known as the Big Three, these men were allies in a war against Nazi Germany, which they were close to winning.

The Big Three had built up a good working relationship during the war but there were deep divisions buried under the surface. Created by the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union was the worlds first Communist state and was committed, in theory, to the overthrow of global capitalism. Stalin was a dictator, ruling his country through a secret police. Millions of Soviet citizens had been sent to prison camps for allegedly opposing Stalins regime. Roosevelt and Churchill, by contrast, were committed to the principles of individual freedom, democracy, and a capitalist free-market economy.

O CCUPATION OF G ERMANY

Although the Western Allies and the Soviets did not fully trust one another, the Yalta meeting was on the whole harmonious and good-humored. The leaders agreed that when they had defeated Germany they would divide it into zones of military occupation, with the Soviet Union taking the eastern zone. Stalin also agreed that after Germanys defeat he would join in the war the U.S. and Britain were fighting against Japan. To please the Western Allies, he promised to hold democratic elections in Poland, liberated from German control by the victorious Soviet army. This was a promise he did not intend to keep.

Divided Europe

At the end of the fighting with Germany in 1945, the Soviet army controlled what became known as Eastern EuropePoland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia, plus the eastern parts of Germany and Austria. Except for eastern Austria, all the territories occupied by Soviet forces at the wars end finished up with Communist governments, although Yugoslavia became fully independent of the Soviet Union.

The Big Three meet at Yalta: left to right, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin. Roosevelt died two months later.

A Red Army soldier raises the flag of the Soviet Union in Berlin as Stalins forces occupy the German capital in spring 1945.

By the following July, when the leaders of Britain, the U.S., and the Soviet Union met at Potsdam in Germany, Germany had been defeated and Roosevelt had died, replaced as president by Harry S. Truman. During the Potsdam conference, Churchill was also replaced as prime minister by Clement Attlee, after losing a general election.

C ROSS - REFERENCE

T HE I RON C URTAIN : PAGES 7

O CCUPIED G ERMANY: PAGES 9

P OSTWAR COOPERATION

Truman had a more confrontational attitude to Stalin than Roosevelt but, nonetheless, arrangements for the occupation of Germany were implemented as agreed. There was still a general belief that the Allies, despite their differences, would continue to cooperate in the postwar world.

12 M ARCH 1947

President Harry S. Truman, left, meets with foreign policy advisers in the White House in 1946.

On March 12, 1947, U.S. President Harry S. Truman made an urgent foreign policy statement to a joint session of Congress. Announcing that the U.S. was giving aid to the governments of Greece and Turkey, the president more broadly committed his country to containing Communism worldwidethat is, preventing new Communist governments coming to power outside the area controlled by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. This became known as the Truman Doctrine.