The Cold War was a scary time for the world. There was always a threat of nuclear war. The Cold War took place from 1945 to 1991. It started immediately after World War II ended. The Cold War was all about the U.S. competing with the Soviet Union over which form of government was better; the U.S.'s Democracy or the U.S.S.R.'s totalitarian government. It was finally put to an end in 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up into several smaller countries.
             In 1945 the Yalta Conference took place. There were 3 leaders on the altar at this conference: Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. In this conference, Stalin promised free elections at the end of World War II in Eastern Europe. Stalin then broke this promise, and proceeded to force communism on them. The U.S. felt threatened by the spread of communism.
             George Caitlin Marshall, secretary of state for Harry Truman, made up a containment policy to help stop Communism from spreading. It was named the "Marshall Plan." The Marshall Plan would give poor countries in Western Europe financial help so they would not resort to communism as a solution to their problems. The U.S. gave about $13 billion dollars for Europeans to rebuild after World War II (Mazour, p. 759). The Marshall Plan was also known as the European Recovery Program.
             Early in 1947 the United States emerged as the Western leader against Soviet Expansion (Mazour, p. 758). Several nations, including the United States created NATO (North American Trade Organization) to try to stop the spread of communism. 12 nations originally signed NATO: U.S.A., Great Britain, France, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg (Mazour, p. 761). This was a military alliance made up of anti-Russian and anti-communist countries. The Russians were more worried about NATO attacking them, than them attacking the U.S. Russia then crea
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