The Cold War 51portion of the city to stem the tide of East Germans trying to leave the troubled state.
U.S. president John F. Kennedy responded by visiting the city and declaring, “Ich bin
ein Berliner” (improper German for the sentiment “I am a Berliner”), committing the
United States to the security of the Federal Republic of Germany at any cost. Not
surprisingly, the dismantling of that same wall in November 1989 became the most
iconic symbol of the end of the Cold War.the cold War in asia and latin amer i ca
China, Indochina, and especially Korea became the symbols of the Cold War in Asia.
In 1946, after years of bitter and heroic fighting against the Japa nese occupation, com-
munists throughout Asia attempted to take control of their respective states following
Japan’s surrender. In China, the war time alliance between the Kuomintang (non-
communist Chinese nationalists) and Mao Zedong’s “ Peoples Liberation Army” dis-
solved into renewed civil war, in which the United States attempted to support the
Kuomintang with large shipments of arms and military equipment. By 1949, however,
the Kuomintang had been defeated, and its leaders fled to the island of Formosa (now
Taiwan). With the addition of one- fourth of the world’s population to the communist
bloc, U.S. interests in Japan and the Philippines now seemed directly threatened.
In 1946, in what was then French Indochina (an amalgamation of the con temporary
states of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam), Ho Chi Minh raised the communist flag over
Hanoi, declaring Vietnam to be an in de pen dent state. The French quickly returned to
take Indochina back, but though French forces fought bravely and with great skill, they
proved unable to defeat the communists (known as the Viet Minh). In 1954, after hav-
ing laid a trap for the Viet Minh in a fortified town called Dien Bien Phu, the French
were themselves trapped and decisively defeated. France abandoned Indochina; a peace
treaty signed in Geneva that same year divided Indochina into the po liti cal entities of
Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, with Vietnam being divided into two zones: North
Vietnam and South Vietnam.
After having spent years seeking support from the USSR to unify the Korean pen-
insula under communist rule, North Korean leader Kim Il- Sung fi nally persuaded
Joseph Stalin to lend him the tanks, heavy artillery, and combat support aircraft needed
to conquer non- communist South Korea. On June 25, 1950, communist North Korean
forces crossed the frontier into South Korea and rapidly overwhelmed the South’s
defenders. The North Korean offensive quickly captured Seoul, South Korea’s capital,
and then forced the retreat of the few surviving South Korean and American armed
forces all the way to the outskirts of the port city of Pusan. In one of the most dra-
matic military reversals in history, U.S. forces— fighting for the first time under the
auspices of the United Nations because of North Korea’s “unprovoked aggression” and
violations of international law— landed a surprise force at Inchon. Within days, the U.S.ESSIR7_CH02_020_069_11P.indd 51 6/14/16 10:02 AM