622Chapter 31
hero of the Pacific theatre of World War II, General
Douglas MacArthur) to South Korea to join UN con-
tingents from several countries, in the small portion of
the Korean peninsula around Pusan still held by the
South Koreans. After a UN counteroffensive, including
an amphibious landing at Inchon, the North Korean
army was driven back across the border (the thirty-
eighth parallel) and MacArthur drove deep into North
Korea, reaching the border of Manchuria. Then, in No-
vember 1951, Mao responded with Chinese “volun-
teers” to help the North. The Korean War (1950–53),
which had begun with a near victory by North Korea
and led to great danger of another world war, resulted
in a stalemate and a ceasefire, perpetuating both the di-
vision of Korea and cold war anxieties.
The most frightening aspect of such cold war con-
frontations was the constant threat of nuclear war. The
United States remained the only state with the atomic
bomb for just four years (1945–49), until the Soviet
Union, with significant assistance from atomic spies,
detonated its first nuclear bomb. For the next quarter-
century, the United States and the USSR engaged in a
nuclear arms race that constantly increased the destruc-
tive power of both sides. The United States exploded
the world’s first hydrogen bomb, many times more de-
structive than the atomic bombs used on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, in 1952 but held this lead for only a few
months. The arms race then shifted to the technology
of delivering nuclear bombs. The United States tested
the first Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM)CHRONOLOGY 31.1
1946 Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech on the division
of Europe
1946 Civil war in Greece, Communist guerrillas against
monarchist government
1947 United States announces Truman Doctrine of aid
against Communist takeovers
1948 Communist coup seizes power in Czechoslovakia
1948 The Marshall Plan for American aid for European
recovery
1948 Soviet blockade of Berlin circumvented by Berlin
Airlift
1949 Creation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) alliance linking United States, Canada,
and Western Europe
1949 Communists seize power in Hungary
1949 Three western zones of occupation united to
form Federal Republic of Germany
1951 USSR explodes its first atomic bomb
1953 Death of Stalin and rise of Khrushchev
1953 Uprising in East Germany suppressed
1955 West Germany joins NATO
1955 Soviet Union organizes Warsaw Pact of East Eu-
ropean states
1956 Uprisings in Poland and East Germany
suppressed1957 Soviet launching of Sputnikbegins space race
1961 USSR achieves first manned space flight
1961 Berlin Crisis and construction of the Berlin Wall
to block emigration
1962 United States forces USSR to withdraw missiles
in Cuban Missile Crisis
1962 Solzhenitsyn reveals details of the Soviet gulag
1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty signed, beginning relax-
ation of cold war tensions
1966 France withdraws from NATO command
1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Signed
1968 USSR and Warsaw Pact nations suppress Czech
liberalization
1969 United States puts astronauts on moon
1970 Rioting in Poland over austerity program
1970 Heads of West Germany and East Germany hold
first official meeting
1972 President Nixon visits Moscow and signs Strate-
gic Arms Limitation Talks Treaty
1973 West Germany and East Germany both join the
UN
1975 Helsinki accords on human rights mark age of
détente