Tucker Muse

Period 2

May 18, 2004

 

CNN and the Cold War

 

During this time the cold war seemed almost everywhere in the culture. People watched movies and read books about the cold war. People would try to escape it by watching television however coverage on the cold war was on TV as well. The only thing that had not been affected by the cold war for a little bit was the music. In the early 60’s songs like “99 luftballoons” and other songs were what was playing in people’s cars. This subject stayed untouched until about 1963 when songs like “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “The Thresher” began to come out talking about the Cold War. This diffidently shows that the Cold War was everywhere and affecting the culture.

 

The technology during this era was booming, somewhat because of the Cold War but also just because everything seemed to become more technologically advanced. However of all the races in the Cold War that took place one of the most interesting ones was the space race. The Russians were the first to get a satellite into space with a rocket known as “Sputnik” with the US following less than two months after. However the Americans failed where the Russians had succeeded with Sputnik launching successfully. With this happening for the first time the Americans felt really behind the Russian powerhouse. With time though the U.S. caught and passed the Russians by landing the first man on the moon.

 

There was lots of espionage at this time with there almost being an invisible front of spies vs. spies. They were trying to pick up all if any information they could of the countries direction, technology, or accomplishments they had accomplished. There were many ways and techniques used to gather information. The U.S. would get pictures of what was going on by using a U-2 spy plane. Also they would “bug” individuals to record there conversations. Sometimes when a spy got caught in a tight spot or had to assonate someone they had a numerous amount of weapons to complete the job. The spies would use knives disguise as penny’s and had special assassination guns that could be located in a rolled up newspaper or magazine. They tricks of the trade is what allowed these spies to gather there information.

 

The most intense part of the Cold War was the arsenal. Basically who had the better offensive capabilities? First it was make weapons of mass destruction. Then it was being able to have these weapons hit a target. Lastly it was to put these weapons into space and have lunch capabilities from there. Luckily there was never a nuclear war between these two superpowers but if there was there might not be anyone around to talk about it. War came very close from time to time for example The Cuban Missile Crisis. Luckily nothing ever happened and lives weren’t lost.