“Hot” Spots in the Cold War Essay

The period of the Cold War has turned into the dramatic stage of fight between the two world’s largest powers – the United States and the U. S. S. R. The Cold War remains a remarkable moment for the U. S. , when the majority of the American people could check their strength and endurance. It did not matter whether the U. S. was promoting the politics of Soviet Containment, or was involved into Cuban Missile Crisis, whether the U. S. was flooded with McCarthyism ideas, or was building Levittown to restore the American dream – all those actions were later included into the set of events under the general title The Cold War. â€Å"Containment of the Soviet Union became American policy in the postwar years† (Stanley 11). It is interesting to note, that while the U. S. was fighting against fascism and took the Soviet Union as its ally, all anti-communism ambitions were neutralized or simply muted. The Cold War has started immediately after the end of the WWII and raised numerous issues in the political relations between the two super-states. The idea of political containment belonged to George Kennan: in his article published in 1946, he discussed and evaluated the sense of insecurity the U. S. S. R. traditionally experienced (Stanley 8). As a result, the discussed insecurity sense made it possible for Kennan to suggest that â€Å"Moscow’s pressure to expand its power had to be stopped through â€Å"firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies† (Stanley 18). On the one hand, the policy of Soviet Containment supported by Truman was the means to protect the U. S. territory from external military threats. On the other hand, Truman has evidently overstated the threat coming from the Soviet Union. As a result, the policy of containment has generated mass anti-communism which sometimes bordered with hysteria. Consequentially, the United States containment policies gave rise to the well-known McCarthyism and were also displayed in the U. S. involvement into the Cuban Missile Crisis. â€Å"McCarthyism is a term describing the intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States in the period that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s† (Stanley 24). This term has for long been connected with the name of Senator Joseph McCarthy, but it has currently expanded its meaning to more general definition of anti-communist policies in the U. S. Joseph McCarthy has actually been the initiator of the discussed policy which later turned into the whole cultural phenomenon. In his speech on February 9, 1950, he announced that he had â€Å"a list of 205 – a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party† (Stanley 25). McCarthy’s speech and ideas were later reflected in the invention of loyalty-security reviews, blacklists, and even arrests. As a result of mass anti-communist campaigns, twelve thousand people lost their jobs without any hope to find new employment: negative loyalty reviews made it impossible for a person to become employed (Zinn 411). In reality, such policies could eventually turn into a â€Å"hot war† and have involved the United States into the actions which made the threat of the nuclear war as close as never before. The realization came with the events which were later called The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the critical hotspots in the history of the Cold War. Its origins were rooted in both Containment and McCarthyism policies, and supported the line of opposition towards the Soviet power. In 1962 the Soviet Union was searching the means of strengthening its position on the international political arena. The Soviets could achieve that aim only by strengthening their military potential (Stanley 32). As Khrushev wanted to place the Soviet missiles in Cuba, Fidel Castro was looking for the ways of protecting his country from the U. S. intervention. However, Kennedy was aware of the Soviet and Cuban plans: â€Å"On October 22, Kennedy announced the discovery of the missile installations to the public and his decision to quarantine the island. He also proclaimed that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba would be regarded as an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union† (Stanley 33). In order to eliminate the threat of military conflicts between the U. S. and Cuba, the Soviet Union had to refuse from the idea to locate their missiles on the Cuban territory. As the country found itself in the whirl of political and military conflicts, the common people had to restore the country after the WWII, and had to prove to themselves that they were able to survive the difficulties of the Cold War. Levittown has become the brightest display of how people were trying to improve their living even under the pressure of McCarthyism and Containment. In 1950s, William Levitt actually created the prototype of a middle-class American suburb: small, convenient and cozy houses for medium families have attracted attention of numerous architects and economists. By the time the town was completed, it included buildings, swimming-pools, schools, churches, 17,000 single-family houses, and occupied 5500 acres of Bucks County in Pennsylvania (Zinn 407). However, the historical meaning of Levittown was not in the way it was constructed, but in the time period during which it was created. Levittown has given the rise to creating affordable housing and has served the pattern of non-compliance with the principles of the Cold War. In his town, Levitt was able to â€Å"present a new form of ideal American life, one that combined the idealized middle-class life of the prewar suburban communities, with the democratized life of younger GIs and their families† (Zinn 409). Works Cited Stanley, George Edward. America and the Cold War (1949-1969). A Primary Source of History of the United States. World Almanac Books, 2005. Zinn, H. People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present. Harper Perennial modern Classics, 2005.