Spanning six decades from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s, the Cold War was the ultimate struggle for world dominance between communism and capitalism. While the 46-year period of geopolitical tensions and conflicts embroiled multiple countries, the central rivalry was between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Despite being allies during the Second World War, the two superpowers became locked in a standoff over their diametrically opposing ideologies. Their feud even brought the planet to the brink of nuclear armageddon.
Click through the gallery for a potted history of the Cold War, as told through powerful images of America and beyond…
With an Allied victory in the Second World War looking likely, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin D Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin (all pictured sitting) met at the Yalta Conference on the Black Sea coast in February 1945 to discuss the post-war reorganisation of Europe. It was agreed that, upon Hitler’s defeat, Germany and its capital Berlin would be divided into four occupation zones controlled by the UK, France, the USA and the Soviet Union. It was also decided that democratic elections would be scheduled in formerly Nazi-controlled Eastern European nations; the Soviets were granted a ‘sphere of influence’ over these countries in exchange for backing the USA’s war with Japan.
In July 1945, the 'Big Three' leaders reconvened for the Potsdam Conference, which officially confirmed the four-way division of Germany. By this time, Roosevelt had passed away and Churchill lost an election during the conference. As a result, their successors, Harry S Truman and Clement Attlee, joined Stalin (pictured centre) to complete the summit. Unlike Roosevelt, Truman was less patient with the Soviet leader and viewed him with suspicion, leading to tense relations between the two. Although Europe had finally achieved peace, Potsdam set the stage for over 40 years of Cold War tensions between the US and the USSR.
Another outcome of the Potsdam Conference was the Potsdam Declaration, which threatened the “prompt and utter destruction” of Japan unless it surrendered. While President Truman was away in Germany, America had successfully tested an atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert. In August 1945, the US used its newfound nuclear capabilities to force Japan’s unconditional surrender by bombing the cities of Hiroshima (pictured) and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 combined in the impact and aftermath. This marked the first time atomic weapons had (and have) ever been deployed during wartime and accelerated America’s nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.
Contrary to what he had promised at the Yalta Conference, Stalin – bent on creating a buffer zone to protect Russia against future invasion – did not encourage political freedom across the eastern bloc. Instead, he ensured that communist regimes came to power in several countries, including those liberated by the Red Army. Elections (when they happened at all) were often rigged, while non-communist politicians were ousted from government and either arrested, exiled or executed. By 1949, East Germany (renamed the German Democratic Republic/GDR that year), Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania had all become Soviet satellite states.
Meanwhile in the West, the spread of communism was raising alarm. In this image from 5 March 1946, former prime minister Winston Churchill famously warns America that “an iron curtain has descended” across Europe. Fearing the Soviets were emboldened by post-war poverty and would attempt to turn the likes of France and Italy to their cause, the US pursued a strategy of ‘containment’. Proposed by diplomat George Kennan in his 8,000-word ‘Long Telegram’ of 1946, containment suggested providing aid to ailing countries at risk of falling to communism, helping to counter the potential spread of Soviet control across Europe.
America’s containment policy was outlined on 12 March 1947 (pictured), in a speech known as the Truman Doctrine. The president promised help to any country in danger of communist takeover, announcing that financial and military aid would be imminently sent to Greece and Turkey to prevent them from folding to the regime. This was followed up with the establishment of the Marshall Plan in 1948, a wide-reaching recovery programme benefitting 16 European countries and West Germany. By providing grants and loans to these poorer nations, America hoped resistance against communism would prevail. Stalin, however, forbade the eastern bloc countries from accepting any offers of aid.
As the Soviet Union expanded, so did America’s military capabilities. With paranoia swarming around Russia’s perceived plan to control the world, the containment policy also presented the perfect justification for the US to strengthen its arms. In 1950, a report by the National Security Council reinforced Truman’s belief that military force was necessary in the crusade against communism, calling for a four-fold increase in defence spending. This sanctioned the development of further atomic weapons, with efforts gaining momentum after the Soviets successfully tested their own nuclear warhead in 1949. Brochures like these were circulated as early as 1947.
Already rattled by the Marshall Plan, Stalin grew even more incensed when America, the UK and France introduced a new single currency – the Deutsche mark – to be used throughout West Germany. On 24 June 1948, Stalin retaliated by blocking all land access to West Berlin, leaving around 2.5 million civilians without vital supplies like food, medicine and fuel. In response, the Western Allies organised the Berlin Airlift, using air corridors to deliver supplies. The blockade continued for nearly 11 months, finally ending on 12 May 1949 when it became clear that the airlift was successful. The operation marked a significant propaganda victory for the West, demonstrating their resolve in the face of Soviet aggression.
In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was established, with the 12 founding members including the USA, UK, Canada and France. The basis of NATO was collective security: an attack on one member would be considered an attack on them all. When NATO admitted West Germany (German Federal Republic) in May 1955, the USSR hit back by forming the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance with Eastern bloc countries, including East Germany (GDR). Like NATO, the Warsaw Pact was based on mutual defence, but it also allowed the Soviet Union to tighten its control over Eastern Europe.
The Cold War got its name because it never escalated into direct warfare between the US and USSR. Instead, the two nations used other countries as their puppets, backing opposing sides in conflicts around the world. The first major ‘proxy war’ kicked off in June 1950, when the Soviet-funded North Korean People’s Army invaded pro-Western South Korea. Fearing this was a decisive move to spread communism beyond the realms of Europe, President Truman sent US troops to fight for South Korea. In this photo, American marines enter Inchon, using ladders to scale the coastal cliffs. The Korean War ended with a stalemate in 1953.
As anti-communist hysteria spread across America during the Red Scare, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) targeted alleged communists in sectors such as the Hollywood film industry, while Senator Joseph McCarthy led notorious investigations into supposed communist infiltration of the military, federal agencies and other organisations. Espionage trials reached a peak in March 1951, when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (pictured) were found guilty of selling atomic secrets to the USSR. Two years later, they were sent to the electric chair. It’s now thought Ethel was innocent.
After Russia detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, ending America’s monopoly on such weapons, the nuclear arms race was on and threatened mutually assured destruction. In 1952 the US tested a hydrogen bomb, the world’s first thermonuclear weapon. Up to 2,500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb, it was dropped above the Pacific atoll of Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands on 1 November (pictured). The 25-square-mile (65sq km) fireball it created vapourised an island, blew a gaping hole in the ocean floor and had the power to decimate half of Manhattan. The atoll remains radioactive today.
In the same year that Russia successfully produced a hydrogen bomb of its own, its leader Joseph Stalin died after suffering a stroke. As communist countries mourned his passing on 5 March 1953, the Western world rejoiced at the fall of the dictator. In the image on the left, a waitress in Washington DC puts up a sign inviting customers for celebratory free borscht, while the scene on the right shows a French newspaper the day before Stalin’s death announcing his mortal stroke. The premier’s embalmed body was publicly displayed in Lenin’s Moscow mausoleum until 1961.
Any belief that the death of Stalin would bring an end to Cold War tensions was sadly short-lived. In October 1956, after Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal with Soviet support, Britain, France and Israel invaded to regain control. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev threatened nuclear strikes against Western Europe if they didn’t withdraw. US President Dwight D Eisenhower, fearing a wider conflict, warned the USSR to stay out and threatened economic sanctions, especially against Britain. The invasion forces eventually withdrew, and Egypt regained control of the canal by March 1957.
The latter half of the 1950s didn’t just see the Cold War extend to Africa – it also took the fight into the stratosphere. In 1957, the USSR sent the world’s first man-made object (a satellite) into space, as well as the first living being, a street dog named Laika (pictured). The US launched its own satellite in 1958 and also created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In a seemingly endless dance of posturing and performance, Russia sent the first man into space in 1961, but America achieved the first moon landing in 1969. The Space Race became a microcosm of the US and USSR’s struggle for supremacy.
One of the most iconic – and surreal – episodes of the Cold War occurred on 24 July 1959, when American vice president Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev entered a heated debate about capitalism versus communism in the middle of a model kitchen (pictured). The setting was part of an installation at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, designed to foster greater cultural exchange between the US and the USSR. But as Khrushchev led Nixon on a preview of the exhibition, the men began to argue. Tempers flared, fingers pointed and the media’s camera bulbs flashed, with the spat becoming known as the Kitchen Debate.
Yet another international diplomatic crisis unfolded in May 1960 when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace. The Soviets captured the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, forcing President Eisenhower to admit that the US had been conducting espionage flights over the USSR for years. Powers was initially convicted for espionage and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was freed in less than two years after being exchanged for a Russian agent held by America. Pictured here is the salvaged spy equipment used by Powers on display at his trial.
Elected in 1960, John F Kennedy’s presidency got off to a disastrous start with a botched attack on Cuba in 1961. The first communist state in the Western Hemisphere, the nation was taken over by Fidel Castro’s leftist forces in 1959. In retaliation for Castro nationalising US-dominated industries like sugar and mining, seizing American assets on the island and making trade agreements with the Soviets, the Kennedy administration agreed to a CIA plan for an invasion of the Bay of Pigs, using exiled Cubans as troops. But the whole operation was a shambles, resulting in the deaths of 114 guerrillas and the capture of more than 1,100.
Berlin became a point of contention again in 1961, with some 49,000 fleeing the GDR for the German Federal Republic throughout June and July 1961. The final straw came on 12 August, when 2,400 East Berliners crossed over into West Berlin – the largest number of defectors ever to leave in a single day. That night, Khrushchev gave permission to close the border. In the early hours of 13 August 1961, the East German National People’s Army, along with police forces, sealed all border crossings between East and West Berlin with barbed wire and temporary barriers. Within days, a concrete wall replaced the initial wire barriers, creating the Berlin Wall – a physical division that cleaved the city in two, and would stand for the next 28 years.
Addressing the issue of civil defence on 6 October 1961, JFK urged US citizens to build backyard bomb shelters to protect their families from nuclear fallout in the event of a Soviet strike. A month prior, the president had published a letter in Life magazine detailing the government’s plans to install community shelters throughout the country. But on the quiet, Kennedy was sceptical about the efficacy of these steel shelters – and rightly so. While the idea of them somewhat calmed the fears of the American public, they would have done very little to actually save them from an atomic blast.
In 1962, the world teetered on the brink of full-scale nuclear armageddon when the US discovered that the Soviet Union was secretly installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, putting American cities within striking range. This photo shows a Russian cargo vessel leaving Cuban waters with six missile transporters hidden under canvas. On 22 October, President Kennedy addressed the nation in a televised speech, announcing a naval 'quarantine' to prevent Soviet ships from delivering more military supplies to the island. The US and Soviet Union were locked in a tense standoff that endangered world peace for 13 days, before finally brokering a deal. The Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty was signed in 1963, banning above-ground nuclear tests.
In addition to building bomb shelters, Americans had been practising ‘duck and cover’ drills since the early 1950s, following Russia’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. With the threat of atomic bombardment then firmly a part of everyday life, schoolchildren were taught to dive under their desks and cover their heads if ever a surprise attack occurred. This image shows a class in St Petersburg, Florida demonstrating the seemingly rudimentary method. While experts agree that ducking and covering would have been useless during an overhead strike, it might have offered some protection if a bomb went off in the distance.
America was shocked on 22 November 1963 when John F Kennedy was fatally shot in his open-top limousine on a campaign visit to Dallas. In this haunting photo, Kennedy’s car speeds towards the hospital moments after the shooting at Dealey Plaza, as Secret Service agent Clint Hill dives into the back seat to check on the president. The prime suspect in the assassination was Lee Harvey Oswald, a self-proclaimed Marxist who had previously defected to the Soviet Union. As Oswald himself was murdered two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, there has always been speculation that there is more to this story than meets the eye.
Although it began in the 1950s, the Vietnam War became a true Cold War proxy battle in 1965. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which US Navy ships were allegedly fired upon by North Vietnamese forces, American troops were deployed to support the South Vietnamese government in its fight against communist North Vietnam. While this image of soldiers being met with peace leis on arrival into Vung Tau, South Vietnam paints one picture, the reality was different for a lot of Americans, who were unhappy about being drafted into a war they wanted no part in. The 10-year conflict ultimately claimed the lives of more than 58,000 US nationals.
The late 1960s and 70s saw a period of detente, or relaxation, between the superpowers. The first definitive act of detente was the signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty by the US, UK and USSR on 1 July 1968, where the three nations agreed not to assist non-signatory countries in gaining nuclear arms. The decade wasn’t without its flashpoints – the Soviet crushing of the liberal Prague Spring reforms for one – but it was mostly a time of peace-keeping and cooperation. The landmark Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) treaties were also signed, with President Richard Nixon and Premier Leonid Brezhnev (pictured) vowing to moderate their countries’ atomic arsenals.
But with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 came the end of detente, and proxy wars were soon not only sweeping Central Asia, but southwest Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean too. As America and the Soviet Union continued their arms build-up and competed for control around the world, over one million demonstrators gathered in New York City’s Central Park on 12 June 1982 (pictured) to demand nuclear disarmament. Later in 1982, the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) between the US and USSR were held, with the formerly staunch anti-disarmament President Ronald Reagan proposing radical reductions in nuclear missiles and warheads.
In 1985, for the first time in eight years, the leaders of the United States and Soviet Union met for a summit. Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev convened in Geneva (pictured), where they appeared to establish some common ground and camaraderie. Gorbachev was an entirely different leader to his predecessors, dedicated to reforming an economically unstable Russia through policies of ‘glasnost’ (meaning political openness and freedom) and ‘perestroika’ (meaning restructuring of government and economy). Unable to match America’s defence spending, he initiated further discussions with Reagan about nuclear arms reduction, prioritising democratising his country instead.
The world received a devastating reminder of the capabilities of nuclear power on 25 April 1986, when a reactor at the Chernobyl power station in modern-day Ukraine exploded. The blast killed two people initially, but claimed at least 28 lives in the following days from acute radiation poisoning, as well as thousands more from cancer and other health issues in the years since. The level of radiation released at Chernobyl was 400 times more than what the atomic bomb at Hiroshima had unleashed, making this the worst nuclear disaster in history. A watershed moment of the Cold War, it marked the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union.
By 1989, communism was losing its foothold in the Eastern world. Europe’s eastern bloc countries were replacing or overthrowing their left-wing governments and declaring independence; anti-communists were protesting in China’s Tiananmen Square; and the Soviet Union was leaving Afghanistan. On 9 November that year, the Berlin Wall was finally torn down (pictured) after mass demonstrations across the region, with East and West Germany formally reunited as one country 11 months later. The provisions made at the Yalta Conference were largely reversed at the Malta Summit, effectively ending the Cold War.
Fifteen new republics were born from the unravelling of the USSR, and July 1991 signalled the end of the Warsaw Pact, as well as the ratification of the START treaty which reduced nuclear weapons definitively in America and Russia. On Christmas Day that year, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the Russian leader, with his successor Boris Yeltsin becoming the country’s first democratically elected president. Russia, officially recognising the USSR’s collapse on 26 December 1991, brings the Cold War to its close. In this photo, a toppled statue of Stalin symbolises the fall of the Soviet Union.
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