Development of the Cold War Practice Questions

Study Source A below, then answer the question.

Source A: From an editorial in an American weekly magazine, published in early July 1950, soon after the outbreak of the Korean War.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

When the communist armies of the North crossed the 38th parallel on 25 June, the Security Council acted within two days and called on member states to help South Korea. American troops are already crossing from Japan, and other nations are promising forces. This is what the United Nations was built for. Had the Council sat on its hands, every small country on the edge of the communist world would have learned that aggression pays and that no promise of protection is worth anything. Containment cannot stop at the borders of Europe.

Study Source A below, then answer the question.

Source A: From an editorial in a British newspaper, published in May 1955, a few days after the signing of the Warsaw Pact.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

Moscow tells us that the treaty signed in Warsaw this week is nothing more than a reply to West Germany's admission to NATO, and that it is purely defensive. The eight signatures tell a different story. Soviet forces are already stationed in most of the countries that have signed, and the joint command of the new alliance is to be held by a Soviet marshal. For Poland, Hungary and the rest, the treaty changes little except to put a legal stamp upon an occupation ten years old. It binds them tighter to Moscow and completes the division of Europe into two armed camps.

Study Sources B and C below, then answer the question.

Source B: From an editorial in a British newspaper, July 1955, published while the leaders of the USA, the USSR, Britain and France were meeting at the Geneva Summit.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

For the first time in ten years the leaders of East and West are sitting at the same table. Since Stalin's death the men in the Kremlin have spoken of peaceful coexistence, they have agreed at last to withdraw their troops from Austria, and now they have come to Geneva. No treaty has been signed and none is expected. Yet the mere fact of these meetings is worth more than a shelf of agreements. The frost of the last decade is melting, and a generation that has grown up expecting another war may dare to hope.

Source C: From a report sent by an American diplomat working at the embassy in Moscow to officials in Washington, written in late May 1960, shortly after the collapse of the Paris Summit.

Written for practice: not a real historical source.

The talk in Moscow is of nothing but the aircraft and its pilot. Our refusal to apologise has been seized upon here as proof that the Americans never meant their friendly words at all, and the Soviet leader's walk-out from Paris is presented as the act of an insulted but patient man. Those Soviet officials who had argued for better relations are now silent. We should not pretend that five years of visits and summits have survived this. Whatever remained of the goodwill talked about after Geneva has gone, and the hard men in the Kremlin are again being listened to.