|
- Inaugural speech
- In 1960, seeking a President who would be tougher on the
Soviets, the Americans elected John F Kennedy. Kennedy's
inaugural speech (when he took the oath to become President) was a
famous call for Americans to go to war: 'Let
every nation know that we shall pay any price, bear and burden, meet any
hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, for the survival and
success of freedom... Ask not what your country can do for
you: ask what you can do for your country.'
- "A beacon of hope"
- How Kennedy described West Berlin in 1960
- "The testicle of the West"
- How Khrushchev allegedly described West Berlin in 1963: "Berlin is the testicle of the West. When I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin"
- “A cancerous tumour”
- Khrushchev described West Berlin in 1961 as “a cancerous tumour in the heart of the GDR”
- "A centre of provocation"
-
The Soviet Union claimed, correctly, that the Americans
were using West Berlin as the palece where "90 espionage organizations, the RIAS American broadcasting station in West Berlin (Radio in American Sector) and revanchist associations organize acts of sabotage".
- schmutzige Kopfjagd
- Meaning: “filthy head-hunting” (also “filthy slave-trading”) – how Ulbricht blamed the West for the mass-migration from East Germany
- "Bourgeois pacifist concept"
- How Mao Zedong described Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful coexistence
- Checkpoint
Charlie
- On 13 August 1961, Khrushchev closed the
border between east and west Berlin – and built the Berlin Wall.
There were only three crossing points into West Berlin - called (after
the phonetic alphabet, Alpha, Bravo and Charlie). Checkpoint
Charlie was the only crossing point in Berlin itself.
- Berliner
- The Berlin Wall
became the symbol of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain.
Kennedy used it as a propaganda opportunity. In 1963 he visited Berlin, giving a speech which was
could be heard by a crowd which had gathered out of sight on the east
side of the Wall, claiming that the Wall proved that Communism and
Capitalism could never co-exist, and stating proudly that 'Ich bin
ein Berliner' (although 'ein berliner' actually means 'a
hamburger').
- ’Tail wags the dog’ theory
- Historian Hope Harrison’s claim that East Germany’s Walter Ulbricht pressured Khrushchev into building the Berlin Wall
- Depolarisation
- A version of the historiography (advanced by James Herschberg) of the Berlin Wall crisis which sees it not solely as a confrontation between the US (Kennedy) and the USSR (Khrushchev), but as involving other ‘player’s (West and East Germany, France, Britain etc.). Also ‘pericentric study’ (‘around the centre)
- Constructiivism
- A version of the historiography of the Berlin Wall crisis which emphasises the ‘bottom-up’ impact of wider socio-cultural trends
- Participatory dictatorship
- How historian Mary Fulbrook described Ulbricht’s GDR. Ie not as the tyranny it is often portrayed as in the West
- Nationalisation
- The ownership of industry by the state.
Castro's nationalisation of Cuban industry in 1960 provoked the
breakdown of relations with America.
- CIA
- The America Central Intelligence Agency which arranged
the Bay of Pigs invasion if Cuba by ant-Castro exiles.
- Bay of Pigs
- In April 1961 the CIA encouraged, funded
and transported an attempt by anti-Castro Cuban exiles to invade Cuba.
It failed miserably, greatly embarrassing Kennedy. In September 1961,
therefore, Castro asked for – and Russia publicly promised – weapons to
defend Cuba against America.
- ICBMs
- Inter-continental ballistic missiles - nuclear warheads
on rockets which could deliver a nuclear bomb to a target thousands of
miles away. When the USA discovered Khrushchev was building
missile sites on Cuba, it put all of the USA within range of a Russian
strike - that was why Kennedy HAD to stop the missile sites.
- Hotline
- Good did come out of the Cuban
Missiles Crisis. Both sides had had a fright. They were
more careful in future. Khrushchev and Kennedy set up a telephone
‘hotline’ to talk directly in a crisis.
- In
1963, they agreed a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In this way, Cuba was the
start of the end of the Cold War.
- A fitting reply to the aggressor
- When Kennedy announced that he was going to mount a
blockade to stop Russian weapons being delivered to the missile sites,
Khrushchev threatened that - if the USA carried
out what he called 'piracy' - he would make 'a
fitting reply to the aggressor', which Kennedy took as a threat of
nuclear war.
- Pax Americana
- Meaning ‘American peace’: the idea, popular in America in the 1950s, the America would not only be a beacon for democracy, but would roll out democracy, freedom and peace to the whole world (based on the idea of a ‘Pax Romana’ under the Roman Empire)
- Camelot
- The way the White House was described under Kennedy – the idea of the Kennedy government as a ‘Court of King Arthur’: a noble ruler whose knights go out to fight for good and always win.
- Hawks
- Members of the US government who wanted a war with the USSR and believed it could be won
- Heroic
- The historiography which saw the Cuban Missiles Crisis as an heroic victory by Kennedy over Khrushchev
- Kennedy Tapes
- The word-by-word discussions of the National Security Council – they showed that Kennedy was much more uncertain, and more determined not to start a nuclear war, than the traditional histories had suggested.
- Northwoods Conspiracy
- Funding by the CIA of sabotage attacks and assassination attempts on Castrol by exiles
- Operation Mongoose
- A full-blown plan by the CIA to overthrow Castro
- A weak hegemon
- How Scottish historian described the USSR in 1968: “its leadership was divided, pressured by its Polish and East German counterparts, seriously troubled by Romanian dissent and worried about domestic developments” (hegemon=’supreme leader’).
- Intelligentsia
- Scholars and intellectuals. Communism traditional regarded them as suspect, and sociologist Jerome Karabel (1990) saw the Prague Spring in traditional Marxist terms as a conflict between the ‘reformist’ intellectuals and the ‘conservative’ apparatchiki (Communist officials) over the best future for socialism.
- Literarni Noviny, Kulturnv Zivot, and
Kulturni Tvorba
- The three Czechoslovak newspapers which led the Prague Spring
- Congress of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers
- The Union which first demanded freedom of expression and democracy, and openly criticised the Communist government in Juy 1967
- Státní bezpečnost
- Meaning: ‘state security’ – the Czech Secret Police
- Akční program
- Dubceks’ ‘Action Programme’, adopted in April 1968
- socialismus s lidskou tváří
- ‘Socialism with a human face’ – how Dubcek described his reforms
- Two Thousand Words
- Ludvík Vaculík's pamphlet criticising the Czech Communist Party and calling for democracy and reform, which convinced the Warsaw Pact that the Prague Spring needed suppressing
- Self-immolation
- Burning oneself to death – as done by Jan Palach and other students after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968
- Détente
- A French word meaning ‘relaxation’, used to describe the softening of East-West international relations in the early 1970s
- razryadka
- Meaning: reduction – the word the Soviet Unions used instead of détente
- Spirit of Glassboro
- The amicable relations between Johnson and Kosygin at their meeting in America in July 1967
- Non-proliferation
- 1968 the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty agreed to restrict nuclear weapons technology to the US, the USSR, China, France and Great Britain.
- “that bitch of a war”
- How Johnson described the Vietnam War
- Shuttle diplomacy
- Flying all over the world seeking understanding between different nations, as dine by Kissinger
- Ping-pong diplomacy
- The first softening of Chinese-American relations came in April 1971 when a US table-tennis team visited China
- Shanghai Communique
- The 1972 agreement where Nixon acknowledged that “there is but one China” (ie ditched Taiwan)
- Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
- SALT1 ended construction of new ICBMs
- Helsinki Accords
- The 1975 agreement where the USSR signed Clauses regarding respect for human rights
|
Your
Smartass List of