Cold War

The Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union lasted for decades and resulted in anti-communist suspicions and international incidents that led the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear disaster.

Featured Overview

Learn how the Truman Doctrine marked the beginning of the Cold War, how it shaped America's attitude towards communism and how it shifted its foreign policy on interventionism with its involvement in the Mediterranean after World War II.

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Featured Overview

Learn how the Truman Doctrine marked the beginning of the Cold War, how it shaped America's attitude towards communism and how it shifted its foreign policy on interventionism with its involvement in the Mediterranean after World War II.

4:46m watch

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American and British pilots ferried some 2.3 million tons of supplies into West Berlin on a total of 277,500 flights, in what would be the largest air relief operation in history.

These are the steps that brought the United States and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war in 1962.

Reagan's words reflected a shift that was underway as Soviet reforms and protests were pressuring the East German government to open barriers to the West.

Amid an escalating arms race, civil defense drills offered comically simple strategies for surviving an atomic attack.

Army‑McCarthy Hearings

Army-McCarthy Hearings

On June 9, 1954, two-thirds of the way into the 36-day televised Army-McCarthy hearings in which Sen. Joseph McCarthy argued that the U.S. Army was harboring communists, the investigation hits a turning point. When Joseph Welch, the Army's special counsel, accuses McCarthy of having "no sense of decency," the tide of public opinion turns and McCarthy's career is eventually ruined.

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Cold War
A screenshot from the 'Daisy' 1964 campaign ad by Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign team.

Though it only aired once, the so-called “Daisy” ad played on fears of nuclear war in the race between Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater.

Glowing bright yellow dome-shaped cloud in a dark sky

The Manhattan Project’s Trinity test—the first atomic bomb detonation—led to infant deaths, cancer and decades of health problems.

Lewis Strauss

Once a traveling shoe salesman, amateur physicist Lewis Strauss spurred the hydrogen bomb’s development—and became Robert Oppenheimer's nemesis.

Julius Robert Oppenheimer

The theoretical physicist read Sanskrit, loved horseback riding in New Mexico and was targeted during the Red Scare.

Men in suits sitting around a large round table with the NATO logo in the middle of the table.

NATO invoked its Article 5 military commitment for first time after 9/11.

Berlin Zoo, June 1955.

A proxy culture war was fought between East and West Germany. The unlikely weapon? Animals.

The Hollywood 10 (and two lawyers).

Hollywood blacklisted these screenwriters, producers and directors for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

An image of the Soviet flag.

The Soviet Union, founded in 1922 on Marxist-socialist principles, became one of the biggest and most powerful nations in the world—before its fall and dissolution in 1991.

First-grade students at Public School 60 in Baltimore say the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag in June 1955.

The pledge, as recited by U.S. schoolchildren, wasn’t standardized until World War II, and didn’t contain “under God” until 1954.

huge mushroom cloud exploding over a tropical island

Between 1946 and 1958 the United States detonated 23 nuclear weapons on the tiny, remote ring of islands that make up Bikini Atoll.

Henry Kissinger’s Mixed Role in the Vietnam War

As Nixon's Secretary of State, Kissinger both escalated the war—and tried to end it.

How Germany Was Divided After World War II

A temporary solution to organize Germany into four occupation zones led to a divided nation under the Cold War.

Boris Pasternak, 1940s.

Declassified Cold War-era documents reveal how the Central Intelligence Agency used the epic novel <em>Dr. Zhivago</em> as a tool to undermine the Soviet Union.

How Stalin and the Soviet Union Helped Launch the Korean War

Communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950 with the approval of Joseph Stalin and the promise of backing from China.

Protesters and residents of Prague, Czechoslovakia ride on a military vehicle on a city street in the capital during the Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion of the country in August 1968.

A 1968 attempt in Czechoslovakia to introduce liberal reforms was met with a violent invasion of Soviet-led troops.

Why the Soviet Union Invaded Afghanistan

The 1979 invasion triggered a brutal, nine-year civil war and contributed significantly to the USSR's later collapse.

President Richard Nixon shares a meal with Premier Chou En-lai (left) and Shanghai Communist Party leader Chang Chun-chiao on February 27, 1972.

The historic visit by President Richard Nixon to the People's Republic of China warmed relations between the two nations and substantially altered the balance of power between the U.S., China and the Soviet Union.

The first Soviet atomic bomb test, 1949. (Credit: Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images)

These eight men and women (among others) shared atomic secrets that enabled the Soviet Union to successfully detonate its first nuclear weapon by 1949.

The Infamous 1956 Olympic Water Polo Match Known as ‘Blood in the Water’

Just weeks before the match, Soviet tanks and troops brutally crushed the short-lived Hungarian Revolution.

‘Miracle on Ice’: When the US Olympic Hockey Team Stunned the World

Grit and an eccentric coach both played a part when the American hockey squad beat the odds and defeated the Soviet team at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Lance Armstrong climbing the Mont Ventoux next to a banner against doping during the 14th stage of the 89th Tour de France between Lodeve and the Mont Ventoux, 21 July 2002

Athletes have always been driven to win, but the advent of performance-enhancing drugs has resulted in stripped titles, ban from sports and more.

The Big Three at the Yalta Conference, 1945

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill hammered out postwar matters like the creation of the United Nations, the fate of Eastern Europe and the 'dismemberment' of Germany.

How the US Economy Got Into Gear After World War II

After years of wartime rationing, American consumers were ready to spend money—and factories made the switch from war to peacetime production.

Defense Production Act 1950

The Cold War-era law went into effect during a time when President Truman felt the nation was unprepared.

President Eiesenhower

Though silent in public, President Dwight D. Eisenhower worked behind the scenes to discredit Senator Joseph McCarthy and his red-baiting tactics.

At Cold War Nuclear Fallout Shelters, These Foods Were Stocked for Survival

Bulgur biscuits and a granulated synthetic protein dubbed 'multi-purpose food' promised long shelf life—but not much else.

Convair B-36 'Peacemaker' strategic bomber

Was it detonated over the ocean—or did it disappear in the Canadian wilderness?

UFO, flying saucer

Amid reports of flying saucers swarming the nation's capital, the intelligence agency realized it needed a P.R. strategy.

Their designs were so radical that test flights over the Nevada desert often prompted a rash of 'UFO' sightings.

The Berlin Wall created two separate cities, two sides competing to be the best. And one of their biggest points of pride? Their zoos.

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Crossing the Berlin Wall

Desperation drove ingenuity among East Germans determined to reach West Berlin.

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev's Friendship

The two leaders recognized in each other the desire to move past tense politics and end a nuclear standoff.

History of Homework

In the first half of the 20th century, U.S. educators shunned homework. The Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik 1 changed that.

GRU

Double agent Dmitri Polyakov was one of the Cold War’s greatest spies—and likely the most damaging mole in the history of Soviet intelligence.

These are the steps that brought the United States and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war in 1962.

The Vietnam War

How eight countries got bogged down in the Vietnam War's Cold War proxy battle.

A series of poor decisions and mistakes led to one of the worst foreign policy failures in American history.

During Operation Peter Pan, over 14,000 children became exiles with the help of the United States.

Former Soviet spy Melita Norwood , 87, faced the cameras again at her Kent home, a day after it was revealed that she had passed atomic secrets to the KGB.

Melita Norwood was a great-grandmother when her espionage was finally revealed.

The project, dubbed "Project Iceworm," sounds like a setting for a James Bond spy movie—except it was real and the remains present a toxic mess

Amid an escalating arms race, civil defense drills offered comically simple strategies for surviving an atomic attack.

UFO reports in the capital's air space set headlines blaring across the nation about 'disks' and 'whatzits' and mysterious lights.

Reagan said he wanted to avoid nuclear Armageddon, critics called the Strategic Defense Initiative far-fetched and expensive.

7th September 1945: View of one of the only structures left standing, one day after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The building, also known as the Genbaku Dome, is now the centerpiece of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)

The colossal power of the atomic bomb drove the world’s two leading superpowers into a new confrontation.

From Karl Marx to Joseph Stalin to Mao Zedong, the label of communism has been attached to these figures—and their often ruthless governments—through history.

Ronald Reagan may have spearheaded the build-up that led to the demise of the Soviet Union, but George H.W. Bush quietly saw it through.

ESP Espionage

Project Star Gate operated between 1972 and 1995 and attempted to offer, in the words of one congressman, "a hell of a cheap radar system."

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the only spies executed during the Cold War and some question whether their sentence was fair.

Operation Acoustic Kitty

Are cats the purrfect spies? Turns out, not so much.

Karl F. Koecher, center, a former CIA contract employee, being escorted by FBI agents from the agency's headquarters in 1984. Koecher was arrested on charges of delivering classified national security information to the Czechoslovakian intelligence service.

Karl Koecher and his wife lived a swinging, gold-plated life in New York City—all the while funneling classified information to the Soviets.

A Polish soldier lifts a Nato flag in front of the Polish Parliament building on March 16, 1999, as an official sign that Poland became a full member of the alliance.

The article, as the cornerstone of a treaty signed in 1949, establishes solidarity among member states and has been invoked only once.

A portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev featured on his book cover, 'Perestroika.'

Mikhail Gorbachev introduced perestroika and glasnost as well-intentioned reforms to transform the Soviet Union.

'He just beat the hell out of me,' Kennedy said.

It was the first major crisis faced by the alliance, and it shook member nations deeply.

American and British pilots ferried some 2.3 million tons of supplies into West Berlin on a total of 277,500 flights, in what would be the largest air relief operation in history.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's children

Michael and Robert Rosenberg became orphans when their notorious parents were executed for espionage. Then what happened?

A train along the Texas countryside. (Credit: Tom Danneman/Getty Images)

For as long as the United States has had nuclear weapons, officials have struggled with how to transport the destructive technology.

Detail of a Soviet work poster entitled "We Smite the Lazy Workers," 1931. (Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

The experiment of a 'continuous week' was shift work, on a colossal scale. And it failed.

Gas masks have been on the front lines of protecting both soldiers and civilians against weapons that are largely invisible and indiscriminately deadly.

President Eisenhower receiving the commemorative stamp made in honor of his program, "Atoms for Peace." (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Thanks to a Cold War strategy called ‘Atoms for Peace,’ President Eisenhower laid the foundations for the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Reagan's words reflected a shift that was underway as Soviet reforms and protests were pressuring the East German government to open barriers to the West.

The symbols of the USSR and communism: the hammer and sickle. (Credit: Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images)

Some blame Mikhail Gorbachev for the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the economy and political structure were already in deep decay.

Discover the history of the Suez Canal and how Egypt's President Nasser, with the support of the Soviet Union, seized the canal from the British in 1956, causing an international crisis. See how President Eisenhower intervened to help restore order.

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An excited crowd crossing the border at the Bornholm Bridge after the fall of the Berlin Wall.  (Credit: Brigitte Hiss/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

First came the botched press conference. Then the actions of an angry, tired secret police officer who thought he had nothing to lose. Soviet reaction wasn't good.

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer

The Palmer raids, named after Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, produced the violent arrests of suspected leftist radicals and anarchists in 1919 and 1920.

Every president since Kennedy has carried the nuclear football, but none have ever used it.

Was Edward VIII a Nazi sympathizer looking to overthrow his brother?

Lee Harvey Oswald

Here are the 10 most revealing highlights from the 2,800 JFK assassination files declassified in October 2017.

John and Jacqueline Kennedy ride through Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

Do the documents released in 2017 shed new light on the 1963 killing—or launch new conspiracy theories?

nuclear fallout shelter

Leaking water drums. Missing supplies. Dubious locations. What could go wrong?

Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union resulted in the formation of key alliances that would endure throughout the Cold War.

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At the CIA, tools of the espionage trade have ranged from to clothing cameras to dragonfly drones.

Yellow orange red blue black sky with clouds. Dark dramatic  background. Fire, glow. Storm, lightning. Or war, horror concept.

Every TV and radio station in America was interrupted with an emergency message indicating nuclear war was imminent.

These are the places where top officials planned to evacuate to the event of a nuclear attack.

Historian Yohuru Williams explains how the fear of communist influences in America grew into a phenomenon known as "the Red Scare."

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Joseph McCarthy and his role in stoking fears of communism and its sympathizers during the 1950s.

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One of the most powerful empires in world history came to a surprisingly peaceful end when the Soviet Union dissolved into 15 independent states.

A troop of French parachutists verifying their position during the Suez crisis in 1956. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Egypt, France, Great Britain and Israel all duked it out in this pivotal Cold War-era crisis.

Historian Yohuru Williams discusses key facts about the Hollywood Ten, a group of film directors, screenwriters and producers blacklisted for Communist affiliations in 1947.

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Take a crash course on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a group that investigated the "loyalty" of those suspected of having Communist ties after World War II.

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During Fidel Castro's tenure as President of Cuba, he survived an estimated 638 attempts on his life - and that's just from the CIA.

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Domino Theory, which governed much of U.S. foreign policy beginning in the early 1950s, held that a communist victory in one nation would quickly lead to a chain reaction of communist takeovers in neighboring states.

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retro telephone, cold war

During the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union established a direct communications link to allow their leaders to contact one another in the event of a nuclear crisis or other emergency. This Washington-Moscow hotline has since featured in countless novels and films such as 1964’s “Dr. Strangelove,” but contrary […]

American Chaplain (Major) Edward J Saurecent (left) delivers a CARE (Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) package to Reverend Franz Esthofer (center) on behalf of children and families displaced by fire, Lessach, Austria, 1948. CARE was a humanitarian agency, its acronym later changed to Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, was formed in the wake of World War II to provide food to the European populace suffering from extreme shortages. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Now a part of the popular lexicon, the “CARE Package” is actually a registered trademark dating back 70 years to American humanitarian aid sent to war-torn Europe.

Explore some surprising facts about history’s worst nuclear accident.

A group of Cuban counter-revolutionaries, members of Assault Brigade 2506, after their capture in the Bay of Pigs, Cuba.

What led to the failure of the April 1961 U.S.-orchestrated attack on Fidel Castro's Cuba?

Female members of the American ping pong team.  (Credit: Frank Fischbeck/Getty Images)

Find out how table tennis became an unlikely tool in international relations.

From a British member of Parliament to a CIA counterintelligence officer, meet some of the Cold War personalities who betrayed their countries.

The final British Airways Concorde flight lifts off from John F. Kennedy Airport. (Credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

Forty years after the Concorde’s first commercial flight, read about the rival Soviet “Konkordski” and the Cold War race to build the world’s first supersonic jet.

During a two-week visit to address the United Nations in New York, Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro stole headlines and courted controversy.

(GERMANY OUT) Germany Berlin (West) Kreuzberg - Berlin crisis - The construction of the wall. US tanks at the Allied border crossing point Checkpoint Charlie. - October 1961 (Photo by Herbert Maschke/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Get seven facts about the Berlin border crossing that served as an iconic symbol of the Cold War.

From an Old West camel corps to nuke-carrying train cars, learn the stories behind seven armed forces programs that didn’t go according to plan.

(Original Caption) This photo, officially released in Moscow, shows the Russian people viewing the wreckage of Turkey-based US U-2 reconnaissance plane shot down over soviet territory May 1st. The pilot was identified as Francis Gary Powers, 30, of Albany, Georgia.

In 1960, one of the most notorious chapters in the Cold War began after American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down and captured during a spying mission over the Soviet Union.

Learn facts about the human-built canal that links the Eastern and Western worlds.

The Berlin Wall

More than 5,000 people managed to escape over or under the the iconic Cold War symbol—which is all the more impressive considering the Berlin Wall was actually two walls.

The Berlin Wall in Berlin, Germany, circa 1965.

Few symbols better captured the Cold War divide between western Europe and the Soviet bloc than the Berlin Wall, a concrete and barbed wire barrier that divided Germany’s largest city for nearly 30 years. As World War II wound to a close, Germany and Berlin were divided into four zones, each administered by one of […]

Operation Paperclip

This controversial top-secret U.S. intelligence program brought Nazi German scientists to America to harness their brain power for Cold War initiatives.

U2 spy plane like the one Francis Powers was piloting when shot down over Russia; at Edwards Air Force Base.

1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis was not the only time the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union almost went hot.

A red hotline telephone.

Check out some surprising facts about this Cold War-era icon.

Military funeral for Maj. Rudolf Anderson, pilot shot down over Cuba on reconnaissance mission. (Photo by Lynn Pelham/Getty Images)

On October 27, 1962, U-2 pilot Rudolf Anderson Jr. was shot down during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His death may have saved the lives of millions.

Reporters take pictures of President Kennedy behind his desk, after signing the arms embargo against Cuba. The embargo effectively quarantined Cuba.

Explore 10 surprising facts about the moment when the Cold War turned red-hot.

On June 9, 1954, two-thirds of the way into the 36-day televised Army-McCarthy hearings in which Sen. Joseph McCarthy argued that the U.S. Army was harboring communists, the investigation hits a turning point. When Joseph Welch, the Army's special counsel, accuses McCarthy of having "no sense of decency," the tide of public opinion turns and McCarthy's career is eventually ruined.

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Upon his return from commanding U.S. occupation forces in Germany, Gen. Lucius Clay holds a press conference on May 17, 1949, and fields questions about the growing tension between the United States and the Soviets over the division of Germany.

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For 30 years, the Berlin Wall was the defining symbol of the Cold War, separating families and keeping the people from jobs and opportunity in the west.

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The U.S. competition with the U.S.S.R. for technological dominance spurred the U.S. on to the first-ever landing on the moon.

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The Cold War is over, but what it left behind may surprise you.

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President Kennedy establishes his New Frontier with a challenge to venture into outer space. John Glenn became the first American astronaut to orbit the earth, one step in America's endeavor to land on the moon.

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Within the CIA, the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 was regarded as the "perfect failure."

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U.S. Navy nuclear test, Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands.

Called 'broken arrows,' these accidents came dangerously close to wreaking atomic devastation.

Berlin Airlift - A group of German children stand atop building rubble, cheering a U.S. cargo airplane as it flies over a western section of Berlin in January 1948.

The Berlin Airlift was the name of an operation that carried supplies by plane to the Allied sectors of West Berlin over a Russian blockade in the late 1940s.

RUSSIA-USSR-HISTORY-ARTA picture taken on December 26, 2021 shows a state emblem of former USSR, which was removed from Leninsky avenue after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, displayed at a modern history sculpture park in Moscow. - The 30th anniversary of Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation as president of the USSR was marked on December 25, 2021. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images)

The Soviet Union officially collapsed on December 25, 1991, and split into several independent nations.

HISTORY: Berlin Blockade

The Berlin Blockade was a 1948 attempt by Soviets to prevent U.S., British and French travel to their respective sectors of Berlin, which lay in East Germany.

A group of protesters demonstrate holding placards against Communist sympathizers outside the Fox Wilshire Theatre in occasion of the premiere of film 'Exodus', which marked the end of the 'Hollywood Blacklist' when screen player Dalton Trumbo, a Communist Party member from 1943 to 1948 and member of the Hollywood Ten, was credited as the screenwriter of the film, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, US, December 1960. (Photo by American Stock Archive/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during the Cold War era.

Senator McCarthy Attending US Army Hearings (Original Caption) Senator Joseph R. McCarthy chairman of the Senate Investigations Subcommittee, is shown as he took center stage again to comment on the latest developments in his dispute with the White House and Army Secretary Robert T. Stevens.

The Congressional Army-McCarthy Hearings, televised in 1954, revealed the combative methods of Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy to a national audience.

Signing Nato Agreement(Original Caption) 4/4/1949- Washington, DC- French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman signs the North Atlantic Treaty. At the tabe in foreground are (L-R): France's Amb to the U.S. Henry Bonnet; Schuman; John W. Foley, State Dept treaty adv. In front row on platform are (L-R): Foreign Ministers Ernest Bevin, GB; Halvard Lange, Nry; Josef Bech, Lux; Bjarni Benediktsson, Icld; Gustav Rasmussen, Dnmk; Paul-Henry Spaak, Blgm; President Truman.

In 1949 the United States and 11 other Western nations formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) amid the prospect of further Communist expansion. The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955.

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev's Friendship

Perestroika, the series of political and economic reforms meant to revive the stagnant 1980s economy of the Soviet Union, was developed by Mikhail Gorbachev.

June 1965) Astronaut Edward H. White II, pilot for the Gemini-Titan 4 (GT-4) spaceflight, floats in the zero-gravity of space during the third revolution of the GT-4 spacecraft.June 1965) Astronaut Edward H. White II, pilot for the Gemini-Titan 4 (GT-4) spaceflight, floats in the zero-gravity of space during the third revolution of the GT-4 spacecraft. (Photo by: HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The Space Race refers to the period of competition over space exploration between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War.

1960s NOVEMBER 5 1962 PHOTO REVEALS MISSILE EQUIPMENT NOW LOADED ON FREIGHTERS PREVIOUSLY ON DOCKSIDE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS.

The Cuban Missile crisis was a 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over Soviet missiles in Cuba.

Dean Acheson was an American statesman who shaped international policy after World War II with his contributions to the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.

East Germans at Brandenburg GateEast Germans wait for money being given to them by banks in West Berlin. (Photo by David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

On August 13, 1961, the Communist government of East Germany began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of the Berlin Wall was to keep Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West. The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Eisenhower Doctrine was a policy proposed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1957 for the launch of new economic and military programs in the Middle East.

Lockheed U-2 High Altitude Surveillance Aircraft A Lockheed U-2 high altitude surveillance plane sits on the tarmac at Edwards Air Force Base. May 1960. (Photo by © Museum of Flight/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

The U-2 Spy Incident was an international diplomatic crisis that erupted in May 1960 when the USSR shot down an American U-2 spy plane and imprisoned its pilot.

A troop of French parachutists verifying their position during the Suez crisis in 1956. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

The Suez Crisis of 1956 began after Egypt nationalized the vital Suez Canal. Israeli, British and French forces responded by invading and attacking Egypt.

Russian politician and Premier Nikita Krushchev (1894-1971) stands and shakes his fist during his farewell press conference, Paris, France, May 18, 1960.

Nikita Khrushchev inaugurated the space age and ramped up Cold War tensions by way of the Cuban Missle Crisis during his tenure as premier of the Soviet Union.

President John F Kennedy signs the instruments of ratification of the limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at the White House, Washington DC, October 7, 1963.

The Limited Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, signed by three nations in 1963, prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater or in the atmosphere.

Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro was a communist revolutionary who established the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere after leading an overthrow of the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. During his tenure as president of Cuba (1976-2008), Castro survived multiple assassination attempts by the CIA.

The second wave of combat helicopters of the 1st Air Cavalry Division fly over an RTO and his commander on an isolated landing zone during Operation Pershing, a search and destroy mission on the Bong Son Plain and An Lao Valley of South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. The two American soldiers are waiting for the second wave to come in.

The domino theory, a now-discredited Cold War idea, held that communism in one nation would spread communism into neighboring nations, like falling dominoes.

Senator McCarthy Attending US Army Hearings (Original Caption) Senator Joseph R. McCarthy chairman of the Senate Investigations Subcommittee, is shown as he took center stage again to comment on the latest developments in his dispute with the White House and Army Secretary Robert T. Stevens.

Joseph R. McCarthy, a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, is best known for his high-profile attempts to expose communists in the U.S. government during the 1950s.

Henry A. Kissinger appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on his nomination to be Secretary of State.

Henry Kissinger, the nation’s 56th secretary of state, played a prominent role in influencing U.S. foreign policy on a global stage. He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his attempt to negotiate peace in the conflict in Vietnam, but his tactics were not without controversy.

A group of Hollywood celebrities are shown here as they arrived at the Capitol this morning to protest the tactics of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee's Investigation into alleged Hollywood Communism

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives that investigated allegations of communist activity in the U.S. during the early years of the Cold War (1945-91). It was abolished in 1975.

Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Richard Nixon drink champagne to celebrate the signings of four agreements between their two countries in Washington, D.C. on June 19, 1973.

Détente (a French word meaning release from tension) is the name given to a period of improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that began tentatively in 1969 and took decisive form in 1972 when President Richard Nixon visited Secretary General of the Soviet Communist party Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow.

Operation Ivy Hydrogen Bomb Test in Marshall Islands A billowing white mushroom cloud, mottled with orange, pushes through a layer of clouds during Operation Ivy, the first test of a hydrogen bomb, at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

The Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union lasted for decades and resulted in anti-communist suspicions and international incidents that led the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear disaster.

CUBA - APRIL 01: General view of some of the arms which belonged to the Cuban and American mercenary soldiers who landed at the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castra.

The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed 1961 attack by the CIA during the John F. Kennedy administration to drive Cuba’s communist leader Fidel Castro from power.

Military trucks pull trailers of short-range, two-stage missiles with twin tail assembly past the Kremlin. The Soviet Union unveiled a wealth of secret rocket weapons as the highlight of a massive armed display in the Red Square, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.

An arms race occurs when countries increase their military resources to gain superiority over one another, such as the U.S. and Soviet Union in the Cold War.