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Curated playlist

Soviet Union–United States relations

  • Cold WarWhy was the Cold War called a war when the two superpowers never fought each other directly?
  • Baruch PlanIn June 1946, the United States offered to give up its atomic bomb. Bernard Baruch's plan went to the United Nations.
  • Four PolicemenUnder the Four Policemen plan, only four nations would have been allowed to own any weapon more powerful than a rifle. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the idea during World War II as a guarantor of world peace. He wanted a council…
  • Communist Party USAIn September 1939, the Communist Party USA reversed its war stance overnight. A Berlin-Moscow pact forced it.
  • Kennan InstituteThe Kennan Institute is named for two men, an explorer of Siberia and a Cold War diplomat, who were cousins.
  • Reagan DoctrineThe Reagan Doctrine began as a blunt idea that Ronald Reagan put to Richard V. Allen in January 1977. Allen would later serve as his National Security Advisor, but at that point Reagan was not yet president. Reagan called his view of…
  • Outer Space TreatyNo country can claim the Moon, Mars or any asteroid under the Outer Space Treaty. Rivals signed it in 1967.
  • Truman DoctrineAn eighteen-minute speech to Congress in March 1947 launched the Truman Doctrine.
  • Evil Empire speechStaffers kept crossing out "evil empire" in a Reagan speech, and his speechwriter kept putting it back.
  • 1980 Summer Olympics boycottMuhammad Ali toured Africa for President Carter to push a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
  • Able Archer 83During NATO's Able Archer 83 exercise, Soviet forces loaded nuclear warheads onto combat planes.
  • Korean Air Lines Flight 007A Soviet fighter pilot fired two missiles at Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983. All 269 people aboard died.
  • Stalin NoteIn March 1952, Stalin offered to reunify Germany if it stayed neutral. Konrad Adenauer refused to test the offer.
  • Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to GermanyThe Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany was signed in Moscow on the 12th of September 1990. Most people know it by a shorter name, the Two Plus Four Agreement. The two were West Germany and East Germany. The four were…
  • Miracle on IceIn 1980, a young US college hockey team beat the Soviet Union at Lake Placid. Mike Eruzione's goal made it 4-3.
  • Space RaceThe Space Race began underground, in the firing pits of missile test ranges.
  • Nuclear arms raceThe nuclear arms race began with 187 liters of heavy water smuggled out of Norway.
  • NSC 68NSC 68 left out the views of the government's top Kremlin experts. It cited only the harshest Soviet claims.
  • Tear down this wall!Aides called Reagan's Berlin Wall line "unpresidential", but he kept it. He told them, "I think we'll leave it in."
  • 1960 U-2 incidentNikita Khrushchev hid that the captured U-2 pilot was alive, and the Americans walked into it.
  • Berlin Crisis of 1961American and Soviet tanks once sat loaded with live ammunition at Checkpoint Charlie. It happened in Berlin in 1961.
  • Jackson–Vanik amendmentThe Jackson-Vanik amendment tied U.S. trade privileges to whether a country let its citizens leave.
  • X ArticleA 1947 magazine essay signed only X gave America the word containment. Its author was diplomat George Kennan.
  • Elbe DayElbe Day began when four American soldiers paddled a small boat across a river in Germany.
  • Radio Free Europe/Radio LibertyIn 1958, Soviet leaders admitted jamming Radio Free Europe cost more than all their own broadcasting.
  • Sputnik crisisThe rocket that launched Sputnik 1 produced almost 1,000,000 pounds of thrust. U.S. officials guessed about 200,000.
  • We will bury youKhrushchev's "We will bury you" may have been a prediction, not a threat.
  • Strategic Defense InitiativeRonald Reagan's 1983 speech asked scientists to make nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete."
  • Turkish Straits crisisIn August 1946, the Soviet Union demanded that Turkey scrap the rules for its two key straits.
  • Lend-LeaseRoosevelt likened Lend-Lease to lending a neighbor a garden hose. Senator Robert Taft compared it to chewing gum.
  • Samantha SmithA ten-year-old from Maine wrote to the Soviet leader and got an answer. She then visited Moscow as his guest.
  • Apollo–SoyuzIn July 1975, an American and a Soviet commander shook hands in orbit. Apollo-Soyuz joined the two rival space programs.
  • Partial Nuclear Test Ban TreatyIn 1957, underground nuclear tests could not be told apart from earthquakes. That complicated a full test ban.

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