3 Decade War

By the 1960s, our war tired world

was once again put into shock

Attacked by the Red Scare

We were put into fear

by this Communist, Soviet block

They had strong hopes to control the world

They secluded themselves and blocked off Berlin

Nobody knew how to react

life was insane

only praying they would see the east side again

But we did not attack them

President Kennedy acted with dignity and pride

He let the Cold War play out

kept the U.S. to himself

He was never persuaded by the Soviet Side

By 1989, the Communist flame had finally burnt out

The Wall was down and Russia was Russia again

Berlin was Berlin again

Three decades that did not help a thing

Is what the Cold War was all about

Cuban Missile Crisis

In the summer of 1962, the Soviet Union started shipping missiles to Cuba in order to progress on their goal of world domination. Sounds kind of rediculous, but the U.S.S.R. had already taken control of Eastern Europe and were moving on to the other side of the Atlantic. I believe the Cuban Missile Crisis was put in place by the Soviets to put the world into chaos.

President John F. Kennedy was in power and he had very difficult choices to make. Either let the Soviet Union do what they wanted to do, or get the missiles removed by any means. He couldn't act to hastily however for it could of led to a world holocaust. (Longman 1999) That fall, Kennedy announced to the world that the U.S.S.R. had put bases in Cuba to initiate nuclear strike capability against the western hemisphere of the world. The Soviets were outraged with Kennedy's remarks and vowed that they weren't true. Several days later, photos were released of missile silos in Cuba and the Soviets were caught "red handed." As days went by, agreements between the two countries were hard to come by and threats kept coming up. By October 30, Kennedy believed that if a resolution was not found, then the Soviets would strike from Cuba. He was most likely right in this observation even though it can't be proven because why else would Soviet Russia place nuclear missiles on Cuba.

Kennedy was already planning an armed invasion of Cuba after October 30 hoping the Soviets would back down before anything actually took place. Finally, after the Soviets learned of America's impending strike, they backed down and ordered the destruction of Cuban missile sites. (Blight 2002) After this Soviet failure, the U.S.S.R. lost not only prestige, but millions of dollars in a crisis that did not get them anywhere. Nikita Khrushchev was the premier of the Soviet Union at the time and he made all the calls for the communist country. I believe his goal from the beginning was to cause panic in the world so he could gain more control and power because other countries were afraid since he had missile outposts as far away as Cuba. I also think Kennedy retaliated in the right manner and didn't do anything too seriously and didn't make any rash moves. Kennedy also saw Khrushchev's blatant bluff when he ensured the U.S. that he did not place missiles on Cuba.

In 1997 however, tapes were released of Kennedy speaking with his cabinet members releasing information that there were U.S. nuclear missile bases in Turkey, only 100 miles away from the Soviet border at the time. This gives us the new facts that the U.S.S.R. actually had more of a reason to place their missile bases in Cuba. This just reassures my opinion that the Cold War was all about threats and who had the bigger weapons. When one country would do something such as make a treaty like N.A.T.O., the other side would come back with their own such as the Warsaw pact. The Cuban Missile Crisis was just another example for the red scare and how much fear the world lived in.

Allison, Graham, and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2d ed. (Longman 1999).

Blight, James G., et al., Cuba on the Brink: Castro, the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse, rev. ed. (2002).

Dobbs, Michael, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War (2008).

Annotated Bibliographies

Hopkinson, Christina. The Usborne History of ‘The Twentieth Century’, ed. Jane Chisholm. Tusla: EDC Publishing, 1993. Selected readings.

This book was well written and described a lot of valuable information about the U.S. and it's connection to Europe and wars fought around the world. It covered several topics such as the Vietnam War, World War II, and several more. Obviously, the part I was looking into was the information on Stalin and the Cold War. This was an informational book and it gave tons of information focusing on communism and relting it to democracy and how they differ.

This is very reliable information that would help any highschool or even college student in need of information on Europe and the Cold War. It was one of the best sources I had because it gave me so much valuable information that taught me a lot about communism and the Cold War. This source is not biased just open and displaying information instead of giving their opinion on it.

This information taught me a lot about communism and the Berlin Wall is all about communism so I could fit it right in. It was very helpful, but the information on the other sites I found was a little bit more in depth yet simplified at the same time. This book seemed like it was a little harder for someone like me to read, but the information was still useful.

"Berlin Wall." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. 2008. Grolier Online. 4 Nov. 2008 http://gme.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=00315.


This article displayed information only on the Berlin Wall about when it was put up, and each event until it was taken down. It gives useful information about the amount of people that lost their lives, all the key factors in putting it up, and people that had to do with the construction of the Berlin Wall. The information is very well written and easily understood so anybody could understand what the Berlin Wall was and how it affected the rest of the world.


This is a great source for if you are only researching information about the Berlin Wall. It only focuses on the Berlin Wall so if one is looking for information about communism and other things, then this wouldn't be the right sight for you. I liked this sight however because the Berlin Wall is my main topic and it helped me a lot while trying to understand what Berlin was about.

This information gave me a lot of information because it made me realize that East Berlin was cut off from the rest of the world for more that forty years. That is half a persons life so it really makes me understand how big of a deal the Berlin Wall was during the 20th century. This was a great site because it only focused on one thing instead of a wide variety.


Croan, Melvin. "communism." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. 2008. Grolier Online. 6 Nov. 2008 http://gme.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0068842.

This article gives the reader great insight into what communism is and how it affects the whole world and gives very detailed definitions on everything. The article is fairly advanced and difficult to read yet gives a ton of information about communism and all the countries that follow the political views of communism.

I thought this article was very useful for understanding communism and how it is different from American Democracy. It was a very long article and some parts were hard to comprehend making it a little bit tougher to integrate it into my topic. Yet I still found it very helpful teaching me the basics about communism and how it affects everything and everyone under it's rule. This article was not biased either, just objective to explain communism and it was a little harder than my other sources.

I could easily connect this information with my subject because communism was the essence of the Soviet Union and what they were trying to do by building the Berlin Wall. The information helped me a lot with understanding about what the government was and how different it is than America's.

"Warsaw Treaty Organization." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. 2008. Grolier Online. 16 Nov. 2008 http://gme.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0307099.

This article summarizes what the Warsaw treaty was. It explains how it was created in order to counter the N.A.T.O. treaty back in the 60's. It goes step by step explaining how the W.T.O. worked and what it meant. This article is fairly intricate because there is so much to go over because so many different countries signed this treaty which went against the rest of the world at the time.

This article was fairly helpful, it would have been helpful if I was studying the treaties that were signed during the Cold War, but since my topic was the Berlin Wall, the information wasn't crucial for my subject. The information was reliable since all of Grolier's information is straight out of books and read over. The article is not biased either and is just meant to tell about the Warsaw treaty.

This information does not apply directly to my subject, but it does suffice for gaining a little extra knowledge about the world in the 20th century. This article doesn't really make me feel that differently because it just shows even more how flawed peoples minds were when communism was trying to take over the world.

Hilderbrand, Robert C. "North Atlantic Treaty Organization." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. 2008. Grolier Online. 15 Nov. 2008 http://gme.grolier.com/cgi-bin/article?assetid=0210872.

This article was just like the one about the Warsaw Pact except this showed the other side, or the British side. This article just explains how Britain created a treaty so they could get the non-communist side of Europe to go against the Soviets. This article gives a good overview of the N.A.T.O. treaty and gives a detailed description of it. This is another article that is written fairly advanced but filled with great information and details on the treaty.

I thought this source was just as good as the one about the Warsaw treaty, it just explained the other side of it. It is fairly useful and just like the other one, but since it isn't directly related to my subject so it's not as useful as I would have liked it to be. It's also a pretty difficult article to read with intricate words and just informational and non-biased so it's not exactly entertaining to read. This source is just meant to inform the reader of what the N.A.T.O. treaty was and what it was meant to do.

This fits into my research just like the source on the Warsaw Treaty did; it just gives me more insight on how people acted in the past century and how people did things based on fear instead of what was right.

Lih, Lars T. "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. 2008. Grolier Online. 4 Dec. 2008 .

This is a great article in understanding the U.S.S.R. and the writer writes it simply so anybody can understand what they're saying. It is a very long article yet everything is put simply even though the concept of the Soviet Union is a hard subject to understand and all of their tactics such as the Berlin Wall. It also includes all of the important leaders and important events within the 70 year rule of the Soviets.

I thought this was a great article and the most easy to read out of the six. It also a very useful article because the information relates directly to my topic because the whole reason the Cold War started was because of the U.S.S.R. The information is also very exact and reliable and there's tons of it. This is not a biased article because it just gives information describing everything you would want to know about the Soviet Union.

This source was very helpful to my ideas and subject because it really made me understand everything I wanted to know about the U.S.S.R. and their tactics in order to take land and convert it into communism. I could tie this whole article right into my topic because the U.S.S.R. is what built the Berlin Wall in the first place in order to seclude Berlin from the rest of the world. Altogether, I thought this was the best article because it was put simply and gave me so much information on my topic.