government strengthened political ties with many like-minded anti-Communist governments around the globe. American taxpayers provided billions of dollars to restore the war-ravaged economies of Western Europe, under the Marshall Plan, and the similarly devastated Japanese economy. Truman, had already taken economic, political, and military steps to deal with the new threat posed by the Soviet Union and its allies. The United States, under the leadership of President Harry S. In 1949, Mao Tse-tung and his Chinese Communist armies pushed the forces of the Chiang Kai-shek government off the mainland of Asia and established the People's Republic of China. Kim Il Sung and his Korean Communist supporters engaged in a vicious struggle for political control of the Korean people with Syngman Rhee and his anti-Communist adherents. Ho Chi Minh led Vietnamese Communists and other nationalists against the French colonial government in Indochina. In the Far East, regional Communist movements took the lead, but received military assistance from Moscow in efforts to eliminate opposing movements and governments. In 1948, the Soviets sparked a confrontation with the United States and its European allies over control of Berlin, the occupied and divided capital of the defeated German nation. He put diplomatic and military pressure on Turkey and Iran in the Middle East and supplied war material to Communists fighting to overthrow the government of Greece. Working with local Communist leaders and movements in the years after the war, Stalin eliminated the political and economic independence of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other nations in Eastern Europe. The USSR, under a murderous dictator, Joseph Stalin, acted to solidify the wartime conquests of the Soviet Red Army and advance the cause worldwide of Marxism Leninism, an ideology that subverted the very ideals most Americans then held sacred. Soon after helping defeat Fascist tyranny in World War II, American sailors faced a new global threat to the United States and the values for which their nation had long been a standard bearer democracy, basic human rights, and freedom. Posted with permission of the Naval Historical Foundation. The Navy. Washington: Naval Historical Foundation, 2000. (Based on the chapter, 'Cold War to Violent Peace,' in W.J.

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