American History in Credo: The Cold War

1961, an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles, supported by the U.S. government.

Confrontation in international relations in October 1962 when Soviet rockets were installed in Cuba and US president John F Kennedy compelled Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, by military threats and negotiation, to remove them.

In the Vietnam War, a massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers. On Mar. 16, 1968, a unit of the U.S. army Americal division, led by Lt. William L. Calley, invaded the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai (more correctly, Son My), an alleged Viet Cong stronghold.

Campaign against communists (called ‘reds’) in the USA during the 20th century, and associated atmosphere of suspicion and fear.

War from 1954 to 1975 between communist North Vietnam and US-backed South Vietnam, in which North Vietnam aimed to conquer South Vietnam and unite the country as a communist state; North Vietnam was supported by communist rebels from South Vietnam, the Vietcong. Beginning in the aftermath of World War II and lasting into the 1970s, U.S. involvement in Vietnam, indeed throughout Southeast Asia, grew progressively from an advisory effort into a major war.

Soviet Communist leader, premier of the USSR (1958-64), and first secretary of the Communist party of the Soviet Union (1953-64).

Cuban statesman: prime minister from 1959, when he led the Communist overthrow of Batista, and president from 1976 until his death. He led the revolution that overthrew the right-wing regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Communism (from the Latin communis, meaning "shared" or "common"); fundamentally, a system of social organization in which property (especially real property and the means of production) is held in common. Advocates public ownership and communal control of the major means of production, distribution, transportation, and communication. Although modern communism is associated with ideas advanced by German political philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and Russian Communist leader and theorist Vladimir I. Lenin, its intellectual roots are as old as Plato's republic in the fourth century BCE.

The act of obtaining information clandestinely. The term applies particularly to the act of collecting military, industrial, and political data about one nation for the benefit of another. Industrial espionage—the theft of patents and processes from business firms—is not properly espionage at all.

German founder of modern communism, in England from 1849. With Engels, he wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848). He developed his theories of the class struggle and the economics of capitalism in Das Kapital (1867; 1885; 1895). He was one of the founders of the International Workingmen's Association (First International) (1864).

Military association of major Western European and North American states set up under the North Atlantic Treaty of 4 April 1949; with aim of maintaining international peace. NATO's role is to ensure the freedom and security of its members by both political and military means.

Systematic manipulation of public opinion, generally by the use of symbols such as flags, monuments, oratory, and publications. Modern propaganda is distinguished from other forms of communication in that it is consciously and deliberately used to influence group attitudes; all other functions are secondary.

General term for the political and economic theory that advocates a system of collective or government ownership and management of the means of production and distribution of goods. Note: socialism is much used, and abused, term. It can be employed to refer to quite different social and political systems.

Demonstrations, marches, and acts of civil disobedience in protest to US involvement in the Vietnam War (1954–75), beginning around 1965. Anti-war sentiment arose from the question of the morality of participation in what many regarded as a civil war; the growing human and environmental costs; and doubts that the US war effort would succeed.

Military defensive alliance 1955–91 between the USSR and East European communist states, originally established as a response to the admission of West Germany into NATO. Its military structures and agreements were dismantled early in 1991; a political organization remained until the alliance was officially dissolved in July 1991.