Tag: Cold War

American Spies

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In the 40s and 50s, the United States was embroiled in the tension of the Cold War. Anti-communist sentiment was high, and Senator Joseph McCarthy and his lackeys were on the hunt for communist sympathizers. The U.S. government felt pressured to make a strong stand against communism, and it was, perhaps, this need that led to the dramatic execution of two American-born spies in 1953.

Julius Rosenberg met Ethel Greenglass in the late 1930s. They were married in 1939 and became members of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA). After Julius graduated with his engineering degree, he got a job with the U.S. Army Signal Corps. It is believed that it was at this time that the two began sending military secrets to the Soviet Union. In following years, Julius would head a ring of spies, including Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass. Greenglass was a machinist on the Manhattan Project, and thus in a great position to trade in information about U.S. nuclear weapons and research. This worked well for them for several years, until 1945, when Julius was discharged from the U.S. Army because of his membership in the Communist party.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

In the summer of 1950, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and David Greenglass were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. The Rosenbergs’ trials were widely publicized and hugely controversial. Part of the controversy lay in the fact that the U.S. case against the Rosenbergs was based solely on first-hand evidence presented by one witness: Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass. He agreed to turn against his sister and brother-in-law in exchange for leniency for himself and his wife. Critics argued that Greenglass’s motivation to trump up the charges against the Rosenbergs to save himself and the mother of his children was too personal for him to be a reliable witness. Others suggested that the judge was pressured to make a drastic decision on the case because of the U.S. need to appear tough on communism, especially in the case of Ethel Rosenberg, whose connection to the spy ring was tenuous at best. In any case, the Rosenbergs were sentenced to execution by electric shock. The two died together at Sing Sing Prison on June 19, 1953. Greenglass was given 15 years in prison, and his wife was not charged.

Years later, in an interview with a Times reporter, David Greenglass admitted that some of the allegations he hurled at his sister during her trial may not have been correct. He said, “My wife is more important to me than my sister. . . O.K.? And she was the mother of my children.”

Learn more here:

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/us/david-greenglass-spy-who-helped-seal-the-rosenbergs-doom-dies-at-92.html
  2. https://www.history.com/news/rosenbergs-executed-spies-cold-war
  3. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Rosenberg-and-Ethel-Rosenberg

The Truman Doctrine

Categories Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment on The Truman Doctrine

On May 22, 1947, the United States Congress approved a bill appropriating $400 million to the countries of Greece and Turkey. This massive show of financial support, called the Truman Doctrine, was a milestone in U.S. foreign relations. It set the precedent for the U.S. providing financial and military aid to democratic countries believed to be at risk of authoritarian takeover.

Truman speaks to Congress on March 12, 1947

The Truman Doctrine stemmed from an announcement made by the British government in February 1947. Since the end of WWII, the British had been providing economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey in their fight against communist factions. The Greek government was fighting a civil war against the Greek Communist Party, and the Soviet Union was actively trying to gain control of land and waterways in Turkey. Due to their own financial difficulties, the British government no longer felt able to provide support to these two countries.

In March 1947, President Harry Truman appeared before Congress to deliver an impassioned address beseeching them to approve aid for Greece and Turkey. He said:

“To ensure the peaceful development of nations, free from coercion, the United States has taken a leading part in establishing the United Nations. The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.”

He went on to declare, “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” He asked Congress to approve $400 million for economic aid to the two countries as well as a contingent of military personnel to supervise the appropriation of those funds. Two months later, the Truman Doctrine was passed by Congress and aid provided to Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine has since been used as precedent for economic and military involvement in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, among others.

Learn more here:

  1. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/truman-doctrine
  2. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/truman-doctrine
  3. https://www.britannica.com/event/Truman-Doctrine
  4. https://www.britannica.com/topic/diplomatic-recognition

April 1986: Remembering the Chernobyl Disaster

Categories UncategorizedLeave a Comment on April 1986: Remembering the Chernobyl Disaster

The Chernobyl Disaster, which occurred on April 26, 1986 in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat (then a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or “Soviet Union”), was an unprecedented nuclear disaster that rocked the world.  This event happened in the last stretch of the Cold War, which lasted from the late 1940s through the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Chernobyl Factory, Source: Tiia Monto, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

I was about 13 years old when this accident occurred and had spent my early childhood being taught to fear the Soviet regime.  Our elementary schools held drills where we hid under our desks to prepare for potential fallout from nuclear missiles that might be lobbed at the United States from the Soviet Union.

Of course, I was raised in rural Texas, so the likelihood of those missiles reaching us were very slim, but then again, it is never too early to scare children.

So when the Chernobyl accident happened, I gathered all of the wrong facts based on my previous experiences and assumed it was a nuclear weapons facility rather than the nuclear power plant that it actually was.  

In reality, the explosion was the result of a failed safety test in nuclear reactor number four which also had flaws in its design.  Additionally, it is believed that operators were not properly trained to handle the safety test or design issues.

According to Wikipedia, Chernobyl “is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history both in terms of cost and casualties.”  The same article noted that the accident consisted of two explosions which ruptured the reactor core and a subsequent reactor core fire that burned for nine days afterwards dropping radioactive material throughout the USSR and Western Europe.  

The death toll within the first few months after the accident was 31 of which about 28 died from radiation sickness.  Since then another 15 people have died of Thyroid cancer, which is believed to be directly related to the incident.

The United Nations issued a report on the accident in September of 2005 stating that, “a total of up to 4,000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident.”

Dr. Burton Bennett, Chairman of the Chernobyl Forum and an authority on radiation effects said, “This was a very serious accident with major health consequences, especially for thousands of workers exposed in the early days who received very high radiation doses, and for the thousands more stricken with thyroid cancer.  By and large, however, we have not found profound negative health impacts to the rest of the population in surrounding areas, nor have we found widespread contamination that would continue to pose a substantial threat to human health, with a few exceptional, restricted areas.”

The city sign for Chernobyl, Source: Omar David Sandoval Sida, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The accident happened a little over a year after Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in the Soviet Union and promised a thawing of the previous Cold War isolationist approach.  The Chernobyl accident, however, turned out to not only be a global catastrophe with far reaching implications, but also was a public relations nightmare for Gorbachev as the Soviet Union was slow to release information regarding the accident.

A Washington Post article written on May 1,1986 by Michael Dobbs explains, “Western officials and foreign policy analysts agree that the Kremlin’s failure to provide detailed information about what has happened at Chernobyl could turn out to be almost as damaging for Moscow as the accident itself. The initial news blackout provoked protests from practically every government in Western Europe and raised concern among ordinary citizens on both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain.’”

Further in the article, British Foreign Office minister, Tim Eggar, was quoted as saying “the ‘lesson’ of the Chernobyl incident was that ‘the openness which Gorbachev has said is necessary in Soviet society must become a reality.’”

As we all know, Gorbachev would go on to weather this storm and Eastern Europe including the Ukraine would break away by 1989 and by 1991, the Soviet Union would dissolve, but the tragedy and human impact of the Chernobyl accident will live on.

To learn more about Chernobyl, please visit these resources: