The Cold War Turns Hot (Part One)

For the first four years following World War Two, the vast numerical superiority of the Red Army still occupying large parts of central and Eastern Europe was balanced by the hitherto American monopoly on atomic weapons. On 3 September 1949 an American long-range reconnaissance plane taking air samples in the stratosphere detected an unusually high level of radiation near the eastern edge of the Soviet Union. Two days later, another recon plane detected an even larger amount and followed the trail towards Kazakhstan in central Asia. A panel of nuclear specialists in Washington analyzed the collected data and arrived at a startling conclusion—sometime between 26 and 29 August the Soviets successfully detonated a nuclear weapon. A few nights after the discovery, President Truman announced to that the Soviets had detonated an atomic device (he was careful not to say the word “bomb”)—Americans were stunned; they were assured that the Soviets would not have nuclear weapons any time soon. The Army told president Truman the Soviets would not have a bomb until 1960, while the Navy estimated 1965. With the help of well-placed spies though, Russian scientists were able to make a bomb closer to the Air Force’s estimate of 1952. Once the Soviets developed the capability to deliver nuclear weapons too, the strategic situation of the United States and Western Europe became greatly complicated. After WW II, the Soviet Union was exhausted by war with Germany and in desperate need of rebuilding; the last thing Stalin wanted was another war with the capitalists. Armed with the bomb, however, and began to take Stalin a more aggressive posture towards the West and the Cold War took on an increasingly menacing character. America’s confidence born of nuclear superiority was gone, replaced by a more humble awareness that the enemy could just as easily prevail as not in the coming struggle. In the indelicate words of American strategic air commander Curtis LaMay, “the era when we might have destroyed Russia completely and not even skinned our elbows in doing it,” was over.

Soviet entry into the nuclear club was not the only shock for the West in late 1949; events in Asia began to take an ominous turn as well. After more than twenty years of civil war, Mao Tse-tung’s Chinese communists finally overcame the Chinese nationalist forces of General Chiang Kai-shek, forcing the latter to flee the Chinese mainland in October. The same month Mao declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China in its new capital, Beijing. Back in the United States, the so-called “fall of China” to the Communists had severe political and psychological repercussions. The Republican Party, out of power for what seemed like an eternity with little prospect of returning, immediately seized on the opportunity to attack the administration of Democratic president Harry Truman, accusing him of “losing” China to the Communists. An open and friendly China had long been the goal of American business leaders and foreign policy makers (often one and the same), indeed, president Roosevelt hoped China would help lead the post-war world as one of the “Four Policemen” (the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union were the other proposed constables).