Cold War Historical Overview Archives - Page 5 of 10

J is for Johnson Doctrine

January 3, 2017 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

The Johnson Doctrine evolved from activities occurring in the Dominican Republic on April 24, 1965. On this date, a civilian government (headed by Donald Reid Cabral) was attacked by liberal and radical followers of Juan Bosch. By April 28, the military seemed to have the upper hand, but uninformed Washington officials hastily concluded that marines would have to land to prevent a Castro-style revolution.

Faced with the Dominican Revolt, the Johnson administration adopted a view that the uprising was part of a larger challenge to American security everywhere.

On April 30, President Johnson announced that

people trained outside the Dominican Republic are seeking to gain control.

The CIA didn’t agree. Johnson was furious with the CIA’s stance and ordered the FBI to

find me some Communists in the Dominican Republic.

On May 2, 1965, Johnson announced that

The American nations cannot, must not, and will not permit the establishment of another Communist government (like Cuba) in the Western Hemisphere.

President Johnson warned that change “should come through peaceful process” and he pledged that the United States would defend “every free country of this hemisphere.” This announcement became known as the Johnson Doctrine.

Boys’ Toys

December 16, 2016 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

While girls were busy learning about fashion from Barbie, running their faux ‘real’ vacuum cleaners, and decorating their doll houses, boys were learning not to be “sissies.”

No Sissies Allowed

Spurred on by an article in a 1950 issue of Better Homes and Gardens titled “Are We Staking Our Future On A Crop of Sissies?,” toy manufacturers created toys for boys that were more topical and political than what Cold War society considered proper play for girls.

Since boys were encouraged to imagine themselves as cowboys, astronauts, and soldiers, they needed the kinds of playthings that offered instruction in the manly arts. The most important of these was the art of being a soldier, and many Cold War toys for boys had a distinctly military theme to them.

Military-Themed Toys

Military-themed toys included guns that sounded real. One gun, the Sound-O-Power military rifle, a realistic reproduction of the M-16 rifle used by American troops, was advertised as making sounds so authentic that even the police would be fooled. Here’s part of their ad from 1967:

Two cops rush to the scene. “This sounds like a gun battle — over there!” one calls to his partner.

They see the suspects: two little boys, wielding rifles.

The police officers do not shoot.

Rather, they examine the boys’ weapons and break into big smiles: “Hey, is it real?” one officer asks.

“Looks like real,” his partner marvels.

“And it sounds like real,” the first officer confirms.

“Right — every shot!” says the announcer, because this is on television.

It’s an ad, from 1967, for the Sound-O-Power M-16 military rifle, a big hit for Marx Toys at Christmas that year, $5.99, batteries not included.

A Marx Sound-O-Power will run you about $225 now, if you can find one on the collectors’ market. Marx, once a titan of the American toy industry, is long dead. (Washington Post, December 22,2014)

Cowboy Guns

Whether kids pretended to be cowboys or war heroes or space adventurers, the toy gun was a crucial accessory, and any kind of gun was good practice for future conflict. The hottest fashion in guns in the 1950s and early 1960s was for whatever the well-equipped cowboy might use. At the 47th annual Toy Fair in 1950, cowboy holsters and pistol belts were “the fastest growing branch of the toy business.” Stanley Breslow, president of Carnell Manufacturing Company said:

Last year, there were enough holster sets manufactured to supply every male child in the United States three times over.

Toy Cap Gun: Photograph by Paul Townsend (Flickr)

Good Guys And Bad Guys

What do cowboys have to do with the Cold War a skeptic might ask. Well, the idea of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ was central to Cold War ideology, and the play gear made it easy to tell between them.

In Cowboy and Indian play sets, the Cowboys and Indians wore different colors, and were dressed and armed differently. These games weren’t unlike Cold War politics: Cowboys and Indians could be read as Americans and Soviets, each holding their own in their efforts to come out on top.

Seem far fetched? Just think about it.

Cowboy and Indian games reinforced the prevailing political ideology, at least before the concept of multi-cultural tolerance made strong inroads into American society. Indians were “the other,” the designated enemy. Their culture was painted as the opposite of Anglo civilization and they were said to attack everything that Americans held dear. This bipolar view of good and evil closely mirrored contemporary opinions about the relationship between America and communism.

From Cowboys To Astronauts

So far as toys were concerned, astronauts were cowboys catapulted from the past into the future. Space, the New Frontier, took on the mantle of the modern wilderness.

SH Horikawa space moonship toy: Photograph courtesy of Naval History & Heritage Command (Flickr)

For Americans, part of the appeal of space was the prospect of winning the “space race” and establishing a base for galactic dominance before the USSR could beat us to it. Space was a frontier to be conquered as well as explored. Space toys captured both the dramatic tension of the space race and the desire to combine exploration with conquest. They also represented the effort to conquer technology.

GI Joe

If Cowboys and Indians represented reliving the legendary post and space men symbolized the hopeful future, then war toys, especially soldiers like GI Joe, dominated the present. Cold War America glorified weapons of destruction and — with GI Joe — the lines between the household and the battlefield were blurred. In a period of political stability and prosperity in American society, war was a part of everyday life.

G.I.Joe, the Barbie for boys.© VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON

In early Cold War politics the world was divided into two camps: communist enemies and anti communist allies. Many Americans believed that the ultimate sign of a “free” society was an active free market, leading to the view that avid consumption was proof of democracy. Toys reflected and bolstered this opinion, communicating the values of our consumer society to the post World War II generation.

Toy Soldiers Cover Photo by Kyle May (Flickr)

Cold War Basics: I is for Iron Curtain

November 10, 2016 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

The term Iron Curtain symbolizes the ideological conflict and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1990. The term represents efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its dependent and central European allies off from open contact with the West and non-communist regions.

Physically, the Iron Curtain took the form of border defenses between the countries of Europe in the middle of the continent. The most notable border was marked by the Berlin Wall and its Checkpoint Charlie which served as a symbol of the Iron Curtain as a whole.

Cold War Basics: H is for HUAC

October 25, 2016 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

In June 1930, the US House of Representatives created a special committee to police Communist activities in the United States.

On January 3, 1945, the opening day of the 79th Congress, John E. Rankin (D-Mississippi), the Chairman of the powerful Veterans Committee, proposed that the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) be reactivated as a standing committee of the House of Representatives. The motion passed. HUAC was funded with $50,000 and given latitude to investigate in any direction it saw fit.

The committee soon gained notoriety for its Hollywood hearings, focusing on the real and purported infiltration of Communists into the film industry. Many Hollywood personalities were blacklisted.

Another well publicized event was the July 1948 hearing involving the testimony of Elizabeth Bentley, an American whohad been working as a Soviet agent in New York. Among those whom she named as communists were Harry Dexter White and Whittaker Chambers.

HUAC subpoenaed Chambers for early August 1948. Also a former Soviet spy, Chambers was editor of the foreign desk at Time Magazine. He, too, named communists — more than a half dozen government officials including White, Alger Hiss, and Hiss’s brother Donald. The majority of these former officials refused to answer committee questions citing the Fifth Amendment.

In 1969, the House changed the committee’s name to “House Committee on Internal Security.” The House abolished the committee in 1975 and its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Important Note: The committee’s anti-Communist investigations are often confused with those of Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy, as a US Senator, had no direct involvement with the House committee. He was the Chairman of the Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the US Senate, not the HUAC.

Photo courtesy of Jacob Enos (Flickr).

Cold War Basics: G is for Grand Strategy

October 18, 2016 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

The term competitive grand strategy refers to the rivalry between the individual grand strategies of the two superpowers as they competed for power and influence in the less developed world.

American grand strategy can be defined as an integration of military and economic objectives in the war against communism.

The military component of grand strategy was concerned with repelling the Soviet threat through a policy of containment. (For more on containment, see Letter C.)

The economic component was concentrated on protecting America’s desire for open markets.

At first these two prongs could be separated. By the end of the Eisenhower administration, though, the two were intertwined.

American grand strategy evolved into liberal grand strategy as the US became more explicit in its drive to foster democracy and capitalism abroad.

Soviet grand strategy focused on combating the threat of capitalist encirclement and on acquiring the resources necessary to develop economic and industrial prowess as a preparation for the ‘hot war’ that the Russians thought was inevitable as long as capitalism existed. (For more on encirclement, see Letter E.)

To summarize, after World War ll, the United States was obsessed with the war against communism and the idea of containment which scholars say “has truly been America’s grand strategy since the late 1940s.”

The overarching US objective was to prevent Soviet penetration of emerging nations.

As previously mentioned, the USSR was determined to prevent ‘capitalist encirclement’ of its territories and was eager to prove its economic and industrial prowess.

By the mid-1950s, each superpower believed that the success of its grand strategy depended on “winning” the Third World. The competition to supply military and economic assistance, weapons, technology, and expert advice to the less developed world accelerated.

Cold War Magazine Goes Back to School

October 12, 2016 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

DON’T BE A DUNCE!

Get your copy of the latest issue of Cold War Magazine. Our Back to School Issue — is now available on iTunes for all you iPad and iPhone users. And it’s free!

Just click here for more information.

COLD WAR MAGAZINE is proud to bring you in-depth articles on Cold War history, culture, and politics. This month we’re going BACK TO SCHOOL.

Maybe you’re one of the ones who wonder “WHAT WAS THE COLD WAR?” If so, this issue is perfect for you. Our articles answer that question and more — like “How Did the Cold War Begin?” We also have a section on Cold War Definitions, Cold War FAQs, and Cold War Treaties.

Overall, the Back to School issue of Cold War Magazine provides a COLD WAR SUMMARY that is perfect for trivia lovers and serious students alike. If you want to impress people with your knowledge without putting in tons of effort, this issue is for you!

But we’re not always serious. Each issue is totally different because our readers know that the cold war was more than just a half century confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Cold War Magazine is also a good match for those of you who are nostalgic for the 1950s, those of you who are interested in political propaganda or the Red Scare, and those of you who are intrigued by mid century modern, spy novels, or James Bond movies.

I hope you’ll check us out!

Cold War Basics: F is for Free World Orientation

October 11, 2016 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

From the end of World War II in 1945 until the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, the world was polarized by a global conflict between two wartime allies, the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Cold War was global in scope and created political divisions based on free world orientation, socialist orientation, and nonalignment.

Free World Orientation is generally associated with liberalism: democratic political systems and capitalist theories of development/economic progress.

Socialist Orientation is typically associated with totalitarian or communist political systems and Marxist theories of development/economic progress.

Cold War Basics: E is for Encirclement

October 4, 2016 by Lisa Reynolds Wolfe

Both the United States and the Soviet Union were consumed with the idea of encirclement.

The Americans focused on “a global battle against communism.” They saw Russia’s goal as the control of the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. This control was part of a communist plan to encircle and capture Germany and Europe. America’s fight against encirclement was seen as a struggle between liberty and dictatorship.

The Soviets, on the other hand, feared capitalist encirclement. They viewed almost everything through the lens of their disastrous experience in World War II. That conflict had destroyed 1,700 Russian towns and 70,000 villages, leaving 25 million homeless. Over 20 million Russians died, 600,000 starving to death at Leningrad alone.

The Soviets were determined to protect their borders, and they were determined to make sure that nations surrounding their borders were ensconced in the Soviet camp.

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