The Cold War – Page 7 – Old Magazine Articles

Mobilization
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1951)

Attached is a report on President Truman’s efforts to intensify America’s wartime posture. When this article was first read the Korean War had been raging for seven months – with the fifth month bringing the promise of an expanded and very bloody war as a result of Chinese intervention. Compiled in these columns is a list explaining how the Truman administration, the Pentagon and the officials on the American home front had met the Korean challenge thus far.

Ho Chi-Minh on the March…
(Collier’s Magazine, 1947)

A 1947 article reporting on the French desire to maintain their colonies in Indo-China, and their conflict with a Moscow-trained revolutionary Marxist (and Paris-trained pastry chef) named Ho Chi-Minh (1890 – 1969).

Click here to read about American communists and their Soviet overlords.

Ho Chi-Minh on the March…
(Collier’s Magazine, 1947)

Click here to read about American communists and their Soviet overlords.

How the Soviets Would Have Attacked
(Pageant Magazine, 1950)

There wouldn’t be any warning.

Long-range Soviet bombers attempt to knock out our key industrial targets by atomic bombing. Some fly the 4,000, miles from Murmansk across the roof of the world to our East Coast; others strike from bases in Eastern Siberia at California and the Midwest… Simultaneously, organized sabotage breaks out in aviation plants, shipyards, power stations, etc., to complement the work of the bombers.

The ICBM
(Collier’s Magazine, 1956)

The U.S. and Russia are engaged in a race whose outcome may determine the course of history. The goal: development of the most frightful weapon conceived by man – a virtually unstoppable 16,000-mph intercontinental ballistic missile that can drop a hydrogen warhead on a city 5,000 miles away. At stake is not only the security of the free world , but our position as the world’s most technological and industrial power.

Un-Americanism
(The American Magazine, 1946)

New York’s Cardinal Francis Joseph Spellman (1889 – 1967) wrote the attached editorial explaining why Marxism was the polar opposite of everything Americans holds dear:

My sole objective in writing is to help save America from the godless governings of totalitarianism…if you believe with me that freedom is the birthright of the great and the small, the strong and the weak, the poor and the afflicted, then you would be convicted as I that [Socialism] is the antithesis of American Democracy.

Click here to read another argument opposed to socialism.

Germany and the Next War
(Collier’s Magazine, 1951)

No sooner had the curtain descended on the tragedy that was World War II when the Allied nations found themselves having to put together a coalition of nations that would be willing to contain Soviet expansion throughout Europe. A COLLIER’S journalist wandered among the rubble of West Germany and found that a great number of draft-age men simply replied nein when asked if they would be willing to fight alongside the Americans, French and British. One of the wiser observers opined:

Remember that Germany is a convalescent country…These people have lost two world wars in a generation. The last one cost them nearly 3,000,000 dead and another 1,000,000 or so still missing, to say nothing of some 4,000,000 wounded. They just don’t want to take a chance of being on the losing side again.

The West Germans joined NATO in 1955.

Forced Into Communism
(Quick Magazine, 1952)

In his illustrated five page reminiscence, former Communist refugee Ivan Pluhar (b. 1927), recalls those dreadful days following the end of the Second World War when it became clear to all the citizens of Czechoslovakia that their Soviet liberators would never leave their country. The article will clue you in as to what life was like during the earliest years of the occupation and how dissenters were treated throughout that period.

A Quick Read About Soviet-Enforced Atheism
Behind the Iron Curtain…

Ground Zero: Washington, D.C.
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

When it became clear to all that the Soviets had the bomb – and Washington was the target – the egg-heads in D.C. decided it was time to disperse various government offices to the suburbs:

Given any warning at all, the National Security Resources Board now seems confident it can preserve at least a skeleton Government. But as for the run-of-the-mine Federal employee, he’ll have to take his chances amid the irradiated rubble…

The Marshall Plan: Rebuilding Europe
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

The Marshall Plan was a U.S. Government aid program that was instrumental in the reconstruction and economic resurrection of 16 Western European nations following the devastation caused by the Second World War. It is named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who co-authored the initiative with the help of the prominent business leader William Clayton, and the American diplomat George F. Kennan.

The attached article concerns the first draft of the scheme that was drawn-up by Marshall and the representatives of these 16 nations during the Summer/Fall of 1947. The amount of cash to be distributed (and paid back over a period of 30 years) was $22.44 billion.

Marshall knew that such an economic stimulant (and the liberties that would follow) would serve to guarantee that Western Europe would not fall into clutches of the Soviet Union.

To read about the Soviet reaction to the Marshall Plan, Click here

The Soviet Reaction to the Marshall Plan
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

To paraphrase Second Corinthians: Europe’s despair was Stalin’s opportunity – he delighted in the post-war unemployment, the inflation and the general lack of confidence in their governmental institutions. When the Marshall Plane came to the rescue in rebuilding Europe, the Soviets knew they were licked. This article reveals how totally bummed the Soviets were over the broad European acceptance of the Marshall plan. They hated it.

One Month Into the Berlin Blockade
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1948)

The firm of Uncle Sam and John Bull flying grocers, kept the Western Allies in the Battle for Berlin last week… If the peace continues, the U.S. British estimated, by mid-July there will be enough food in Berlin’s stockpile to feed the 2 million Germans in western sectors of the capital until September 1… Supplying fuel and coal was another problem…

The article is accompanied by one cartoon from THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE.

‘How Close are We to War with Russia?”
(See Magazine, 1948)

The article is illustrated with five black and white photos and answers thirty-four questions as to whether or not a war with the Soviet Union can be avoided.

When these columns first appeared on the newsstands Berlin was undergoing it’s third month of hardships as a result of a Soviet blockade (you can read about the Berlin Blockade here).

The Cold War began in 1945…

Korean Unification Commission Breaks Up
(America Magazine, 1947)

The Truman Doctrine for Greece and Turkey may soon have to be applied to South Korea, if the Soviets continue to sabotage the Moscow Agreement as they have done in the past.

The Soviet Army moved into northern Korea during the August of 1945, click here to read about it…

Meet Andrei Gromyko
(Collier’s Magazine, 1946)

When this magazine profile of Andrei Gromyko (1909 – 1989) appeared on the newsstands in 1946, the man was already a mainstay in the State Department Rolodex. Anyone who came of age during the Cold War (1947 – 1991) will certainly recognize his name, because as Foreign Minister for the Soviet Union (for 28 years), Gromyko was without a doubt one of the architects of the Cold War.

The attached article outlines Gromyko’s career highlights up to the Summer of 1946 when he was posted as the first Soviet Ambassador to the newly established United Nations.

Stepping-Up The Training
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

By the autumn of 1950 it became clear to the old hands at the Pentagon that the police action on the Korean peninsula was beginning to resemble a real war. With that in mind, thirteen military training camps that had been been barren for the past five years, were dusted off in order that they might once more begin training Americans for war. Two weeks later China threw her hat in the ring.

During this same period, the U.S. Navy took 62 ships that had been mothballed in order to launch the Inchon Landings…

Fears of a Stalin/Mosadegh Alliance…
(People Today, 1951)

The attached article will give you some indication as to the high level of anti-Soviet intensity that existed in the U.S. in 1951. This short piece, and others like it, fanned the fires that lead to the downfall of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh (1882 – 1967) in the well-known 1953 coup that was launched by both the CIA and MI5. The results of of this joint effort (Operation Ajax) were fruitful in the short run, but set in motion a series of events that have created the Iran we enjoy today.

Illustrated with a military-style map, abounding with footnotes and an ominous-looking red Soviet arrow, rudely pointing at the Abadan oil fields, the uncredited journalist hinted that Mosaddegh’s rise and subsequent nationalization of all foreign-owned oil wells would only create a new Iran that was firmly in the Soviet camp. This was not to be the case, for Mosadegh really never trusted the Reds.

The Tired Russians
(Collier’s Magazine, 1947)

This article goes into greater length to confirm what U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan (1904 – 2005) observed in his famous 1947 article Sources of Soviet Conduct (FOREIGN AFFAIRS, July 1947) – that the Russian people were physically and spiritually exhausted. After the terrible strain and sacrifice of the Second World War they were gleefully anticipating some much needed rest; they didn’t get it and they weren’t very happy about it.

The standard of living in Russia has never been very high, but even despite his natural stoicism, the average citizen feels he has a good reason to be disgruntled with his life… Like any other totalitarian state, the Soviet state has done its best to paint a larger than life-size picture of its citizens. It likes to describe them as steel-hard heroes with an inflexible will, living for nothing but the great ideal of a Communist future, laughing at difficulties, gaily grasping with hard ship – a continent of Douglas Fairbankses. This is just a bit too good to be true, and the last one to be taken in by it is the average Russian.