The Iron Curtain

4. War: The state of political hostility, proxy wars, and competition between the U.S. and USSR (roughly 1947–1991).
5. to Trieste: The geographical line described by Churchill, stretching from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea, where the curtain descended
7. Gorbachev:Soviet leader whose policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in the late 1980s led to the dismantling of the Iron Curtain
8. Churchill^British Prime Minister who popularized the term "Iron Curtain" in his 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri, warning of Soviet expansion.
10. Nations: Countries in Eastern Europe that were technically independent but actually controlled by the Soviet Union.
12. S. Truman^U.S. President who implemented the policy of containment to stop the spread of communism beyond the Iron Curtain.
13. (North Atlantic Treaty Organization): A military alliance formed in 1949 by Western democracies for collective security against Soviet expansion.
14. Doctrine: A U.S. pledge to provide economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism.
15. Curtain: A political, ideological, and physical barrier created by the Soviet Union to isolate Eastern Europe from the democratic West.

1. Plan: U.S. program providing economic aid to rebuild Western Europe, intended to prevent the spread of communism.
2. The U.S. foreign policy designed to prevent the expansion of communism.
3. Wall: A concrete barrier built in 1961 that physically separated East and West Berlin, serving as a key symbol of the Iron Curtain.
6. Stalin^Leader of the Soviet Union who established communist "puppet governments" in Eastern Europe, reinforcing the division.
9. Pact: A military alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellite nations in response to NATO
11. Bloc: The group of communist states in Eastern Europe, including Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, under Soviet influence.