China Marches on Tibet
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1951)
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The Cold War
Find old cold war articles here. We have free newspaper articles from the 1950s cold war check them out today!
Italian Communism Takes One on the Chin
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1951)
By the time 1951 rolled around, the benefits of the Marshall Plan were hitting on all cylinders throughout Italy, and manufacturing had returned to it’s pre-war levels. The sweet words of Marxism that once had such alure were now falling flat. Although Red candidates had done quite well in 1946, by 1951 they attracted few voters.
Disaster at the Bay of Pigs
(Sir! Magazine, 1962)
“The fiasco at the Bay of Pigs, began ten months earlier on a hot June [1960] morning in room 125 of the plush Commodore Hotel in midtown Manhattan. It was born in the classical fashion of the cloak and dagger intrigue. Five prominent former residents of Cuba, all anti-Castro and untainted by former dictator Batista, were instructed to arrive at the Commodore separately. There they were confronted by Roy Bender, a high-ranking agent of the CIA.”
Calling Communism Out
(Christian Herald, 1963)
“Nikita Khrushchev told the 22nd Congress of the Soviet Communist Party:”
‘We need a well-considered and orderly system of scientific-atheist education that will embrace all strata and groups of the population and will prevent the dissemination of religious concepts, especially among children and adolescents.’
“In these words, Mr. Khrushchev is highlighting a basic inherit characteristic of Communism – its war against the dignity of man as a child of God.
Military Psychiatry Up Front
(Collier’s Magazine, 1952)
Having learned a good deal from two world wars concerning the fragile nature of soldiers and Marines who suffered from battle fatigue, the U.S. Army Medical Department sent hastily trained psychiatrists to the forward positions during the Korean War in order to better serve these men – and get them back to battle. The Atomic Age name for battle fatigue is neurotic psychiatric casualty
‘The Strange War the U.S. Is Not Winning”
(United States News, 1963)
It’s a dirty, vicious war that Americans are [waging] in the swamps of South Vietnam. Men forget about the politics of Saigon when they stand gun to gun with the Communist guerrillas…
The Korean War’s Effect on Wall Street
(Quick Magazine, 1950)
The outbreak of the war in Korea sent stocks tumbling in all important world markets. In N.Y., three months of profits were wiped out. At week’s end some stocks rose, but jittery brokers kept an eye on the war news and – an ear turned toward Washington, where announcements of increased U.S. participation in the fighting touched off further waves of selling>
The Pentagon Prepared for W.W. III
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1951)
Shortly after the Soviet Union successfully tested their first atomic bomb, the brass hats who work in the Pentagon saw fit to take the first step in preparing to fight an atomic war: they gave the order to create a subterranean headquarters to house a military command and control center for the U.S. and her allies.
The finished chamber, according to local observers, will be 3,100 feet long, contain four suites for the top brass (the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others), and provide operational quarters for some 1,200 technicians in peacetime, or 5,000 if atomic bombing threatens the Washington command.
Commonly known as Site R, it is located not terribly far from the presidential retreat, Camp David, and in the subsequent years since this article first appeared, the complex has grown considerably larger than when it was first envisioned. Today, Site R maintains more than thirty-eight military communications systems and it has been said that it was one of undisclosed locations that hosted Vice President Dick Cheney (b. 1941) shortly after the September 11th terrorist attacks.
A related article can be read here…
Cold War Politics and People of Color
(Pageant Magazine, 1959)
This well-illustrated article appeared in a middle class American magazine in 1959 and it reported on the rising international sentiments that signaled to the dominate Western powers that the old diplomacy of the wealthier white nations had to change. It will help to explain why the United States re-fashioned their immigration laws in 1965.
N.AT.O. Established
(Dept. of the Army, 1956)
Attached is a printable page from an R.O.T.C. primer concerning American Military History outlined the events of 1948 that created the need for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.).
This pact, called the North Atlantic Treaty, united Great Britain, the United States, and ten western European nations in a common security system. Approved by the Senate in April 1949, the treaty provided for mutual assistance, including the use of armed force in the event of a Soviet attack upon one or more of the signatory powers.
‘How We Can Win in Asia”
(Quick Magazine, 1952)
In the attached editorial, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (1898 – 1980) weighs in on how the United States could forge stronger Cold War alliances in Asia and the Middle East:
We have thought that we could stop the spread of communism by guns and by dollars. We have spent billions upon billions and yet the Red tide of communism seems to spread… We should show Asia how her revolution can follow the pattern of 1776. What will win in Asia are not guns and dollars but but ideas of freedom and justice. To win in Asia, America must identify herself with those ideas.
To understand some of the diplomatic challenges Douglas was referring to, click here
Russia’s Fifth Column in America
(American Opinion, 1964)
Over the last thirty years the United States, as well as Central and South America, has been invaded repeatedly by ununiformed soldiers of the Soviet Government – agents of the International Communist Conspiracy. Our government has been furnished repeatedly with conclusive evidence of this invasion and yet has done nothing to exclude and deport the invaders… To make matters worse, ‘Liberal’ administrations since the time of Franklin Roosevelt have urged that what few immigration restrictions we have to prevent their entrance be removed… Roosevelt was not interested in the fact that many of those entering were Communists; after all, he told me that some of his best friends were Communists.
The Coeds of the Cold War
(Quick Magazine, 1953)
The original Generation X was that group of babies born in the late Twenties/early Thirties: they were the younger brothers and sisters of the W.W. II generation. There seemed to have been some talk in the early Fifties that this group of Americans were becoming sardonic and cynical – raised on the W.W. II home front, only to find that when they came of age they were also expected to sacrifice their numbers in a foreign war:
How can you help being pessimistic when you hear that the boy you sat next to in high school English was killed last week in Korea?
– opined one of the nine college women interviewed on the attached pages. These Cold War women were asked what was on their minds as they prepared for jobs, marriage and family.
The Damaged Prestige of the FBI
(Quick Magazine, 1952)
When this article appeared on the newsstands, J. Edgar Hoover had been FBI chief for nearly thirty years. In all that time he had enjoyed being photographed among celebrities and adored patting himself on the back by writing numerous magazine articles about the FBI. But by the time the early Fifties came along Hoover and his Federal agency were no longer the teflon icon that they used to be; the failings of the FBI were adding up and Hoover did not seemed accountable.
Journalist Daniel Schorr and Premier Khrushchev
(Coronet Magazine, 1961)
When C.B.S.’ Daniel Schorr (1916 – 2010) and U.S.S.R.’s Mr. K meet head on – sparks and fur fly; and Nikita doesn’t always come out on top.
Premier Khrushchev has been known, upon spotting the 44-year American newsman, to boom, ‘Ah, there’s old Schorr, my sputnik.’
Let The UN Keep The Peace
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)
In the fall of 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson stood before the United Nations General Assembly and reminded them that five years earlier, when the U.N. Charter was conceived, it was agreed that the U.N should have a military arm with which to enforce its edicts. He prodded their memories to a further degree when he reminded them that they’d have one today if the Soviet delegates hadn’t objected so vociferously.
Korea has shown how ill prepared the United Nations is to stop aggression. The defense of Korea is nominally a U.N. responsibility. But 98% of the effort, and an equally high percentage of the ‘United Nations’ casualties, come from the United States.
President Eisenhower’s Thoughts on Vietnam
(Why Vietnam, 1965)
Here is a segment of the letter many historians tend to agree was the one document that lead to the American involvement in the Vietnam War. Written in the Spring of 1954 when the French military was in the throes of losing the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, President Eisenhower reached out to the former British Prime Minister to express his concerns regarding the place of Vietnam within the strategic structure of the Pacific and openly wondered what a Communist Vietnam would mean in the balance of power.
If I may refer again to history; we failed to halt Hirohito, Mussolini and Hitler by not acting in unity and in time. That marked the beginning of many years of stark tragedy and desperate peril. May it not be that our nations have learned something from that lesson?…
In 1954 the French gave up on Vietnam and the U.S. accepted the challenge – click here to read about it…
Click here to read an article about American public opinion during the early Cold War years
More about Winston Churchill can be read here.
The Necessity of Overthrowing Russia
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)
This is a profile of the American Cold Warrior James Burnham (1905 – 1987), who is remembered as being one of the co-founders of the conservative monthly, National Review