"The CIA"

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is the successor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed, during World War II, to coordinate espionage activities between the branches of the US military services.

The National Security Act of 1947 established the CIA, affording it "no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad."

"Map of the cold war"

Countries that participated in the Cold War: United States, Soviet Union, China, North and South Korea, Cuba, Italy, Vietnam, Germany, Egipt, Lybia, Iran.

Carlos Castillo Armas

Carlos Castillo Armas was an army officer who became President of Guatemala after a military coup in 1954 overthrew President Jacobo Arbenz. The Castillo family came from modest means and when Carlos joined the Army it offered one of the only ways to achieve social mobility in Guatemala.

Castillo gained the reputation of being a tough, brave, and persistent man. His differences with Arbenz came from the president's social reforms that included an agrarian reform and a pro-labor union stance. Castillo established his rebel army in neighbouring Honduras and received financial and material support from the American CIA. His rebel army invaded Guatemala in June, 1954 successfuly overthrowing Arbenz.

Ronald Reagan

On February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born to Nelle and John Reagan in Tampico, Illinois. He attended high school in nearby Dixon and then worked his way through Eureka College. There, he studied economics and sociology, played on the football team, and acted in school plays. Upon graduation, he became a radio sports announcer. A screen test in 1937 won him a contract in Hollywood. During the next two decades he appeared in 53 films.

In 1986 Reagan obtained an overhaul of the income tax code, which eliminated many deductions and exempted millions of people with low incomes. At the end of his administration, the Nation was enjoying its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression.

Ronald Reagan viewed with satisfaction the achievements of his innovative program known as the Reagan Revolution, which aimed to reinvigorate the American people and reduce their reliance upon Government. He felt he had fulfilled his campaign pledge of 1980 to restore "the great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism."

Richard Nixon

Born in California in 1913, Nixon had a brilliant record at Whittier College and Duke University Law School before beginning the practice of law. In 1940, he married Patricia Ryan; they had two daughters, Patricia (Tricia) and Julie. During World War II, Nixon served as a Navy lieutenant commander in the Pacific.

Reconciliation was the first goal set by President Richard M. Nixon. The Nation was painfully divided, with turbulence in the cities and war overseas. During his Presidency, Nixon succeeded in ending American fighting in Viet Nam and improving relations with the U.S.S.R. and China. But the Watergate scandal brought fresh divisions to the country and ultimately led to his resignation.

For more information sonsult this website:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/RichardNixon/

Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende was born in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1903. As a medical student he became involved in radical politics and he was arrested several times while at university.
In 1933 Allende helped to found the Chilean Socialist Party, a Marxist organization that was opposed to the Soviet Union influenced Communist Party.

Allende was an unsuccessful candidate for president in 1952, 1958 and 1964. When he was elected as president in 1970 he became the first Marxist to gain power in a free democratic election. The new government faced serious economic problems. Inflation was running at 30 per cent and over 20 per cent of the male adult population were unemployed. It was estimated that half of the children under 15 suffered from malnutrition.

The CIA arranged for Michael V. Townley to be sent to Chile under the alias of Kenneth W. Enyart. He was accompanied by Aldo Vera Serafin of the Secret Army Organization (SAO). Townley now came under the control of David Atlee Phillips who had been asked to lead a special task force assigned to remove Allende.

AUGUSTO PINOCHET

He was a Chilean army general and head of state. He was the Commander in Chief of the Chilean army from 1973 to 1998, President of the Government Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981 and President of Chile from 1974 until the return of democratic rule in 1990.
He studied to became an officer and was a professor of the War Academy in Chile. At the beginning of 1972, he was appointed General Chief of Staff of the Army. In 1973, he was appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army by socialist president Salvador Allende.

The government also implemented economic reforms, including the privatization of several state controlled industries and the rollback of many state welfare institutions.

These policies were initially very successful in recovering economic growth, and are often called "the economic miracle" of the military regime in Chile, but they dramatically increased inequality and some attribute the devastating effect of the 1982 monetary crisis in the Chilean economy to these policies.

Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh was born in Vietnam in 1890. His father, Nguyen Sinh Huy was a teacher employed by the French. He had a reputation for being extremely intelligent but his unwillingness to learn the French language resulted in the loss of his job. To survive, Nguyen Sinh Huy was forced to travel throughout Vietnam, offering his services to the peasants. This usually involved writing letters and providing medical care.

Ho, like the rest of the French Communist Party, had been inspired by the Russian Revolution. In 1924, he visited the Soviet Union. While in Moscow, Ho wrote to a friend that it was the duty of all communists to return to their own country to: "make contact with the masses to awaken, organise, unite and train them, and lead them to fight for freedom and independence."

For more information:http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNhochiminh.htm

Osama bin Laden

He is the founder of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and is also the most wanted person in the world. Al-Qaeda has also been associated with numerous other mass casualties attacks against civilian targets.
Since 2001, Osama bin Laden and his organization have been major targets of the United States' "War on Terrorism." Bin Laden and fellow Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan´s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

FIDEL CASTRO (Cuba and U.S problems)

Fidel Castro was born on August 13, 1926. He attended Catholic schools before graduating from the University of Havana with a degree in law.On the 26th of July in 1953, Fidel Castro launched an attack on the Moncada army barracks. It failed, and most involved were killed or captured.

Problems strated and the United States Government tried various schemes to assassinate Fidel Castro and continues to economically isolate Cuba.

The CIA even tried to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs to remove Fidel Castro from power, but the Cubans successfully fought it off.
As a result, Castro became closely aligned with the Soviet Union. The Soviets bought large amounts of sugar and supplied Cuba with economic and military assistance. This money fueled many of Castro's social programs, such as his war on illiteracy and free universal health care. Unfortunately, aligning Cuba with the USSR only led to more friction between Cuba and the United States.

For more information:http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/fidel_castro.html

NIKKITA KRUSHCHEV

Was one of the most important leaders of the Soviet Union, he was serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, following the death of Joseph Stalin, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964.

Khrushchev was responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the world's early space program, as well as for several relatively liberal reforms ranging from agriculture to foreign policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev.

He had something that make him special, because Khrushchev was different. During his administration he became world famous for his outlandish behavior and attention-grabbing antics that both alarmed and amused his audiences, friend and foe alike.
Khrushchev was regarded by his political enemies in and out of the Soviet Union as boorish. He had a reputation for interrupting speakers to insult them.

JACOBO ARBENZ

Guatemala´s President

Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (1913-1971) was president of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954, during which time Communists were alleged to have acquired decisive influence. His overthrow by an invasion sponsored by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency represents a watershed in that country's violent history.

Arbenz soon learned that Guatemala's military structure discriminated against officers from lowly backgrounds. His 1939 marriage to the beautiful María Cristina Vilanova Castro provided his frustration with political content. Born to one of El Salvador's wealthiest coffee-growing families, her sense of noblesse oblige and horror over her father's association with the 1932 "matanza" combined to produce within her an intense concern for social justice. Her influence on Arbenz's political consciousness was great.

For more information:http://www.bookrags.com/biography/jacobo-arbenz-guzman/

"THE KOREAN WAR"

The Korean War was a period of military conflict between North Korea (officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea) regimes, with major hostilities lasting from June 25, 1950 until the armistice signed on July 27, 1953.

The conflict arose from the attempts of the two Korean powers to re-unify Korea under their respective governments.

The period immediately before the war was marked by escalating border conflicts at the 38th Parallel and attempts to negotiate elections for the entirety of Korea.

While some have referred to the conflict as a civil war, many other factors were at play.

Each side was supported by external powers and the conflict expanded, becoming a proxy war in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The term has also been used to describe both the events preceding and following the main hostilities.

JFK

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.
After Kennedy's military service as commander of the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 during World War II in the South Pacific, his aspirations turned political. With the encouragement and grooming of his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat, and in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated then Vice President and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. presidential election, one of the closest in American history. To date, he is the only Catholic to be president.

Kim Il Sung

was a Korean communist politician who led North Korea from its founding in 1948 until his death. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death. He was also the General Secretary of the Workers Party of Korea, exercising autocratic power. During his tenure as leader of North Korea, he favored his self-developed Juche idea and established a pervasive and entrenched cult of personality.

Following his death in 1994, he was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-il. North Korea officially refers to Kim Il-sung as the "Great Leader" and he is designated in the constitution as the country's "Eternal President".

Mao Tse-tung

One of the founders of the Chinese Communist party in 1921, and he is regarded, along with Karl Marx and V. I. Lenin, as one of the three great theorists of Marxian communism.
Mao Tse-tung was born on Dec. 26, 1893, into a well-to-do peasant family in Shao-shan, Hunan province. As a child he worked in the fields and attended a local primary school, where he studied the traditional Confucian classics. He was frequently in conflict with his strict father, whom Mao learned successfully to confront--with the support of his gentle and devoutly Buddhist mother. Beginning in 1911, the year that the republican forces of Sun Yat-Sen launched the overthrow of the Ch'ing (or Manchu) dynasty, Mao spent most of 10 years in Chang-sha, the provincial capital. He was exposed to the tides of rapid political change and the new culture movement then sweeping the country. He served briefly in the republican army and then spent half a year studying alone in the provincial library--an experience that confirmed him in the habit ofindependent study.

"Cold War"

Joseph Stalin

He was born in Gori, which is now in the Republic of Georgia, in December 21, 1879. He attended school from 1888-94. Stalin began his career in the Social-Democratic party in 1899.Between 1902 and 1913 Stalin was arrested eight times; he was exiled seven times and escaped six times. When Lenin died, Stalin joined with Grigory Zinovyev and Kamenev, ruled the country but the power was going to be of Trotsky. Stalin went against Trotsky and this problem was eliminated. In 1929 he became the full leader of the Soviet Union. In the mid-1930s Stalin launched a major campaign of political terror. Then in World War II the Soviet Union suffered a lot. Stalin was in front of the war against the Nazis. Where he fought more was in Battle of Stalingrad. Stalin participated in the Allies' meetings at Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945), where he obtained recognition of a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, and after the war he extended Communist domination over most of the countries liberated by the Soviet armies.
In January 1953 he ordered the arrest of many Moscow doctors, mostly Jews, charging them with medical assassinations. Stalin died on March 5, 1953.