Canada%20and%20the%20Cold%20War

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Canada and the Cold War
1945-1991 C. Gregoire
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Table of Content

1. What is it?
2. Yalta and Potsdam
3. From Allies to Enemies
4. The Iron Curtain
5. NATO
6. The rise of 2 superpowers
7. The Atomic Bomb
8. Capitalism and Communism
9. The Berlin Wall
10. The Arm Race
11. Canada and the Cold War

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The Cold War 1947-1989 1.What is it?

• Constant global confrontation between the Soviet
  Union and United States.
• Avoidance of direct armed conflict between the
  two Superpowers.

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from www.SchoolHistory.co.uk
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The Cold War begins 1945 -1948

• Key issue
• Why did the wartime alliance fall apart?
• What were the major points of difference?
• The importance of Yalta and Potsdam conferences
• The roles of Stalin and Truman

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2. Yalta and Potsdam
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YALTA (in the USSR) Date Feb 1945 Present
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin
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War Time Allies-The Big Three
Joseph Stalin
Franklin Roosevelt
Winston Churchill
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POTSDAM (Germany) Date July 1945 Present
Churchill, Truman and Stalin
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3. From Allies to Enemies
Following victory the allies could not agree
over the spoils of war. The U.S. wanted to
establish democracy in war torn Europe, while the
U.S.S.R. hoped for communism. They agreed to
occupy Germany with the Allied Control Council.
The Soviets had 2.5 million troops in Eastern
Europe.
Potsdam July 1945
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4. The Iron Curtain

• Winston Churchill
• Speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri
  on March 5, 1946.
• An iron curtain has descended across the
  Continent.
• Describes Soviet sphere of influence and control
  in eastern Europe.

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An Iron Curtain
The "Iron Curtain" speech defined postwar
relations with the Soviet Union for citizens of
Western democracies. Although it initially
provoked intense controversy in the United States
and Britain, criticism soon gave way to wide
public agreement to oppose Soviet imperialism.
Winston Churchill
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5. NATONorth Atlantic Treaty Organization

• Established in 1949.
• Military Alliance between U.S., Canada, and
  western Europe with a formal command structure.
• Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (Brussels,
  Belgium)
• U.S. Commander in Chief, European Command
• Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (Norfolk,
  Virginia)
• U.S. Commander in Chief, Atlantic Command
• Warsaw Pact established by the Soviet Union to
  counter NATO in 1955 - includes eastern European
  communist states.

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KEEP THIS IN MIND

• Major point The USSR lost around 20 million
  people in WW2
• Stalin was determined to make the USSR secure in
  the future
• By contrast GB lost around 370,000 and the USA
  lost 297,000 people.

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5. The rise of the superpowers

• Before WW2 there were a number of countries which
  could have claimed to be superpowers USA,
  USSR,GB, France, Japan, Germany.
• The damage caused by the war to these countries
  left only two countries with the military
  strength and resources to be called
  superpowersUSA and USSR.

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What they believed

• Dont forget USA was capitalist and USSR was
  communist
• They were complete opposites
• They had allied against Fascism .. Now the
  common enemy had been defeated the reason for
  co-operation was gone
• Differences soon emerged

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Europe at the end of WW2

• After the war, who would lead the countries and
  form new governments?
• The USSR favoured the communist groups, the USA
  favoured the non-communists
• Examples would be Greece and Yugoslavia
• This was one cause of tension between the
  superpowers

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6. The Atomic BombHiroshima August 1945
Harry Truman gives Japan an ultimatum to end
the Pacific theatre after the first atomic bomb
explodes.
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The atomic bomb dropped by the U.S.to end W.W.
II August 1945

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Continued Experimentation
The Bikini Atoll-Marshall Islands. A bomb
test , July 1946. The U.S. relocated the
residents prior to this test, but the indigenous
people of this island have not been able to
return since.
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Experimentation in the Soviet Union
August 29, 1949 The Soviets called their
first atomic test First Lightning. The
weapons laboratory in Russia is in Kazakhstan.
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H-bomb
Nov. 1, 1952, the first H-bomb Mike
tested,mushroom cloud was 8 miles across and 27
miles highthe canopy was 100 miles wide, 80
million tons of earth was vaporized. H-bomb
exploded Mar. 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll yielded 15
megatons and had a fireball 4 miles in
diameter.USSR H-bomb yields 100 megatons.
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7. Capitalism Communism In other words

• United Nations established.
• Security Council - Veto power for permanent
  members.
• General Assembly.
• MacArthur commands U.S. army of occupation in
  Japan.
• U.S., Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union
  divide Germany into zones of occupation.
• Federal Republic of (West) Germany - 1949.
• U.S. initially enjoys atomic bomb monopoly.
• Neglect of conventional military forces begins.
• Communist control of Eastern Europe.
• Puppet states dominated by the Soviet Union.

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8. THE BERLIN WALL 1961-1989
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Divided Berlin
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9. The Arm Race
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Missile Production 1945-1997
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THE U2 CRISIS and THE SPACE RACE
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U2

• In 1960, U2 was a spy plane
• Able to fly 6000km at high altitudes
• Could take photos of Soviet bomber bases and
  missile sites

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Space Race Arms Race!
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Results of the race
450 ICBMs 250 Medium range missiles 2,260
Bombers 16,000Tanks 32 Nuclear submarines 260
Conventional submarines 76 Battleships and
carriers
76 IBMs 700 Medium range bombers 1,600
bombers 38,000 Tanks 12 Nuclear submarines 495
Conventional submarines 0 Battleships and
cruisers
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Early Dates of the nuclear arms race

• 1945 USA tests and drops the first atomic (A)
  bombs
• 1949 USSR tests A bomb
• 1952 USA tests its first hydrogen (H) bomb
• 1953 USSR tests its first H bomb
• 1957 USSR
• 1. tests ICBM capable of carrying an H bomb from
  USSR to USA
• 2. puts the space satellite Sputnik into
  orbit.

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The failure of disarmament

• Both sides hoped for arms reductions to cut
  defence spending
• After Stalins death East-West relations had
  improved
• USSR proposed
• reduction of armed forces
• Eventual abolition of atomic weapons
• International inspections to supervise this

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Glossary

• ICBMs Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles
• IRBMs Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles
• MAD Mutual Assured Destruction

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11. Canada and the Cold War

• The Igor Gouzenko Affair September 1945
• Our political, economic and military alliance
  with other western nations through NATO (North
  Atlantic Treaty Organization) 1949
• The coordinated air protection of North America
  with the United States. This was called NORAD
  (North American Air Defence)

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• Canada and the Cold War
• Canadians tracked Soviet submarines in the North
  Atlantic from military facilities in Halifax.
  Beacons were placed on the ocean floor. These are
  now used to track the migration of whales.
• Canada also had the Distant Early Warning line
  (DEW) and Mid Canada Line ( radar and tracking
  stations located across the north and middle of
  the country).
• Uranium City, Saskatchewan mined weapons grade
  uranium for use in nuclear weapons. This site is
  still extremely radioactive.
• Nuclear weapons were placed here for
  approximately twenty years. The mid 1960s to the
  mid 1980s.

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• The DEW Line
• The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line began on the
  15th of February 1954 when US President
  Eisenhower signed the bill approving the
  construction. It was designed and built during
  the Cold War as the primary line of air defence
  warning of "Over the Pole" invasion of the North
  American Continent.
• The actual construction of the 58 sites took
  place between 1955 and 1957. Many tons of
  supplies and equipment were moved to the Canadian
  Arctic by air, sea and river barge. The DEW Line
  was declared fully operational on 31 Jul 1957,
  and has remained in operation for more than 30
  years.

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The DEW at Hall Beach, NWT (photo by Sergeant
Jim Smith/courtesy Canadian Forces).
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