State Historical Society of Iowa
In World War II, the United States and Great Britain teamed up with the Soviet Union to defeat Adolf Hitler's Germany. In the years that followed, however, the partnership broke down into a struggle between the west, led by the United States, and the communist bloc backed by the Soviets. Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared that Russia had erected an "iron curtain" in Eastern Europe to force communism upon the countries it had occupied at the end of the war.
The U.S. began rebuilding western Europe with economic aid through the Marshall Plan while eastern Europe struggled. Control of Berlin, the capital city of a defeated Germany, was shared by Russian, British and U.S. forces at the end of the war. When Russia shut off land routes to the city from the west, President Harry Truman ordered a massive air lift of supplies to send the message that the west would not abandon its European allies. In 1949, the U.S. and the nations of western Europe created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The member nations declared that an attack on any one would be considered an attack on all. Russia responded with a similar military alliance in eastern Europe.
In the 1948 election, Iowa's Henry A. Wallace ran for president on a platform that sought to reduce tensions and find ways to cooperate with the Soviet Union. He was soundly defeated and tagged as sympathetic to communism. This effectively ended his national political career of nearly two decades from his appointment as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Secretary of Agriculture in 1933, his election as vice president in 1940 and next in line to the presidency through World War II, and a term as Secretary of Commerce under President Truman.
Cold War tensions became even stronger when the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb in 1949. Until then, the United States had been the only atomic power, and the only nation that had ever used the atomic bomb in the attack on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which rapidly led to a Japanese surrender. In another shock to Americans, communist China military forces won a bloody civil war while forces loyal to the west fled to the island of Taiwan.
For the next 40 years, the Cold War was the focus of American foreign policy. There was always the danger that a conflict anywhere could touch off a conflict that might escalate into the use of nuclear weapons. A very real threat came in October 1962, when the U.S. discovered that the Soviets were sending missiles to Cuba capable of attacking American cities. The U.S. demanded that Soviet ships turn back. For 13 days, the world anxiously awaited the outcome. Finally, Russian ships turned around and the immediate crisis was over.
Some politicians, most often Republicans, favored a more aggressive stance toward the Soviet Union and a build-up of American military forces. George Kennan, an American diplomat, developed the "containment" theory that advocated for policies that prevented Soviets from expanding but did not initiate military moves to roll back communist control. He predicted that Soviet communism would eventually collapse from internal factors.
For one moment in the Cold War, the eyes of the world focused on Iowa when Iowa corn seed salesman Roswell Garst hosted the premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, on a visit his farm near Coon Rapids. Amid very tight security, the head of the communist world leaned on the fences of a hog lot and discussed farming practices with Garst, who had been a business partner with Henry Wallace. Garst proposed boosting agricultural trade with Russia which was at the time struggling with farm output.
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan boosted military spending which put a huge strain on the Soviet economy to keep up. It could not, and in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed into several pieces and lost control of eastern European. The Cold War as it had existed from the end of World War II was over.
| Cold War Source Set Teaching Guide |
| Printable Image and Document Guide |
This black and white photo shows a crowd gathered on a street in Des Moines, Iowa, to see Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev was in town to meet with the owner and see the operation of Garst Farms. One man on the street holds a sign that reads, ...
In his speech before the Space Law Colloquium of the 11th International Astronautical Congress, Iowa Senator Thomas E. Martin stresses the importance of cooperation in outer space while also reporting on the broad areas of space exploration that could pot...
The image captures Soviet leader Khrushchev greeted by President Eisenhower prior to Khrushchev's departure from Blair House after Khrushchev's historic visit. The historic meeting was the first time a Soviet leader had been invited for an off...
The undated cartoon by Frank Miller followed the launch of earth's first artificial satellite Sputnik on October 4, 1957 by the Soviet Union. A few years prior to this launch the United States was leading the Soviet Union in technological advancements...
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were a series of bilateral conferences and international treaties signed between the United States and the Soviet Union. These treaties had the goal of reducing the number of long-range ballistic missiles (strate...
The meeting detailed in the memo took place during President Kennedy's trip to Canada to address the Canadian Parliament. In his remarks Kennedy stressed the importance of working together for safety and security in the region. Exactly a month prior...
On June 18, 1973, Leonid Brezhnev visited President Richard Nixon in the White House as part of a summit meeting between the United States and Soviet Union. Interpreter Viktor Sukhodrev provided translation between English and Russian. The meeting was c...
The black and white image is of individuals protesting the use of tax money to develop nuclear weapons in the United States. Two individuals are marching holding signs, one states, "Let's do it Gandhi's way not Truman's," the other r...
This photograph is of three soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division in the U.S. Army. The three men are crouching behind rocks to shield themselves from exploding mortar shells near the Hantan River in central Korea...
In recognition of his status as one of the nation's greatest living military leaders, the U.S. Congress asked General Douglas MacArthur to address a joint session on April 19, 1951. His speech is best known for its final lines in which he quoted an ol...
This speech, "Defense - Space - Atomic," was given by Iowa Senator Thomas E. Martin in 1959. Martin emphasized the importance of deterrence and military superiority in the ongoing struggle against communism.
On December 8, 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty in Washington, D.C. The final treaty eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons, restricting the deployment of both intermediate and short-range land-based missiles worldwide. The treaty f...
Nydia M. Velazquez introduced this legislation related to the U.S. relations in Latin America. Representative Velazquez from New York has served 14 terms in the House and was the first Puerto Rican woman to be elected to the House of Representatives. Th...
Jacobo Arbenz was elected leader of Guatemala in March of 1951. After his election Arbenz made land reform a key element of his presidency, this reform would have led to a decrease in holding of the American owned United Fruit Company. These actions cre...
In August, 1961, at Punta del Este, Uruguay, Robert A. Conrads, Assistant Secretary General of the Conference delivered a message from President Kennedy to the assembled delegates at the Inter-American Economic and Social Council. In the message Kennedy ...
This source is a draft of a speech dated a few months before President Ford would accept the Republican presidential nomination. The speech came at a time following Nixon's resignation and failure to gain traction in the passage of the SALT II treaty...
U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy appointed a special subcommittee on October 6, 1953, to investigate the war crimes committed by communist forces in Korea with the purpose of bringing them to the world's attention. The "Korean War Atrocities" r...
This film shows the news footage of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's visit to Iowa in 1959. The video focuses on Khrushchev at the Swine Research Center of Iowa State University. It shows him seeing how hogs were raised from birth to market. He also...
A part of President Reagan's foreign policy initiative was meaningful arms reduction, which the I.N.F. treaty with the Soviet Union accomplished in 1987. On November 18. 1981 Reagan first proposed the idea which would become known as the "zero o...
The source is an audio recording of President John F. Kennedy's radio and television address to the nation regarding the former Soviet Union's military presence in Cuba. In his speech President Kennedy reported on the establishment of offensive mi...
President Ronald Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech marked his visit to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on June 12, 1987, following the G7 summit meeting in Venice. As Reagan spoke, his words were amplified to both sides of the Berlin Wall...
On January 17, 1961, in this farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a "military-industrial complex." In a speech of less than 10 minutes, on January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his p...
This telegram from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile congratulated the United States on its "marvelous feat." It is one of many telegrams and letters from foreign dignitaries sent to the Department of State. The State Department and the U...
This excerpt of President John F. Kennedy delivering a Special Message to Congress on Urgent National Needs in the House of Representatives chamber, United States Capitol, Washington, D.C. This is not Kennedy's full address. In this excerpt the Presid...
This online exhibit through the Library of Congress has a variety of cartoons, letters, images and more showing the impact of the Marshall Plan in Europe.
The link takes you to a four-page secondary source outlining Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States.
This is a link to a digital version of the Library of Congress' Herbert L. Block political cartoon exhibit. The exhibit includes selections from 1961-1966, as well as 1951, cartoons focused solely on communism.
A recap of Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the United States in 1959.
A variety of sources that have been translated from Russian to English. Sources include Nikita Khrushchev's letter to John F. Kennedy and a document outlining the United States' imperialist policies.
| No. | Standard Description |
| SS-Gov.9-12.14. | Analyze the role of citizens in the U.S. political system, with attention to the definition of who is a citizen, expansion of that definition over time, and changes in participation over time. (21st century skills) |
| SS-Gov.9-12.20. | Explain the significance of civic values to a well-functioning democracy including concepts such as conviction vs. compromise, majority rule vs. minority rights, state interests vs. individual interests, rights vs. responsibilities, and other related topics. (21st century skills) |
| SS-Gov.9-12.22. | Identify and evaluate the contributions of Iowans who have played a role in promoting civic and democratic principles. (21st century skills) |
| SS-Gov.9-12.25. | Evaluate the intended and unintended consequences of the implementation of public policy, specifically looking at the bureaucracy, citizen feedback, public opinion polls, interest groups, media coverage, and other related topics. (21st century skills) |
| SS-Geo.9-12.17. | Analyze how environmental and cultural characteristics of various places and regions influence political and economic decisions. |
| SS-US.9-12.13. | Analyze how diverse ideologies impacted political and social institutions during eras such as Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, and the Civil Rights movement. |
| SS-US.9-12.20. | Analyze the growth of and challenges to U.S. involvement in the world in the post-World War II era. |
| SS-US.9-12.23. | Analyze the relationship between historical sources and the secondary interpretations made from them. |
| SS-US.9-12.24. | Critique primary and secondary sources of information with attention to the source of the document, its context, accuracy, and usefulness such as the Reconstruction amendments, Emancipation Proclamation, Treaty of Fort Laramie, Chinese Exclusion Act, Roosevelt's Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Wilson's Fourteen Points, New Deal Program Acts, Roosevelt's Declaration of War, Executive Order 9066, Truman Doctrine, Eisenhower's Farewell Speech, Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Test Ban Treaty of 1963, Brown vs. Board of Education decision, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and the Voting Act of 1965. |
| SS-US.9-12.26. | Determine multiple and complex causes and effects of historical events in American history including, but not limited to, the Civil War, World War I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. |
| SS-US.9-12.27. | Evaluate Iowans or groups of Iowans who have influenced U.S. History. |
| SS-WH.9-12.18. | Assess impact of conflict and diplomacy on international relations. |
| SS-WH.9-12.20. | Evaluate methods used to change or expand systems of power and/or authority. |
| SS-WH.9-12.23. | Critique primary and secondary sources of information with attention to the source of the document, its context, accuracy, and usefulness of sources throughout world history. |
| SS-WH.9-12.24. | Examine and explain how the perspectives of individuals and societies impact world history. |
| SS-WH.9-12.25. | Determine multiple and complex causes and effects of historical events within world history. |
