Espionage During The Cold War

Improved Essays
Amir Hakim
CHA 3U1. Mrs. Cowling. Independent Study Unit Assignment.
June 13 2016
The Cold War was a period of hostility, rivalry and tension between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The Cold War lasted from 1945 to 1989 and was a conflict rooted from the radical differences in two ideologies: communism versus capitalism. It is known as the Cold War because there was no direct war between the two nations. The Cold War was a result of a series of chain reactions through the use of propaganda, espionage and proxy combat. Through the use spy agencies such as CIA, KGB, wars in third world countries and wide spread propaganda, the USSR and USA strengthened tensions and unrest between each other and led to the Cuban
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During the tenure of the Cold War, both the USA as well as the USSR waged an undercover war of intelligence and counterintelligence. Information during this time was a major commodity for survival and security. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Council was formed under the National Security Act of 1947. This act put the CIA in control of discovering intelligence, validating intelligence, and deciding national security levels. The three main aspects of espionage during the Cold War were: counter-intelligence, covert operations and the collection of intelligence. Both the USSR and USA strived to gain the upper hand in intelligence in an attempt to thwart enemy operations. As a result of rising nuclear weaponry, “atomic spies” were sent to enemy nations. Klaus Fuschs, a British doctor working in Los Alamos to aid in the development of the United States’ nuclear bomb in 1943 passed on details of the bomb’s construction to soviet officials. He returned to the UK in 1946, where he was arrested by MI5 agents. Fuschs confessed Harry Gold as the man he passed information to, whom in turn identified a General Consul to the Soviet Union in New York by the name of Anatoly Yatskov. Another instance where espionage played a key role was the case of the Cambridge Four. The Cambridge Four refers to a spy ring of USSR spies in the UK during the 1950’s. The four men who are referred to as the Cambridge Four are: Kim …show more content…
These words also fueled many to oppose the military draft, which was a felony at the time. He was then sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years in 1967. Due to the massive unpopularity and movements against the war, President Nixon vowed to end the war in Vietnam “honorably”. His plan to end the war succeeded and in 1973 the Paris Peace Accord were signed which enabled the US to pull out from the war in South Vietnam. However, this lead to the fall of South Vietnam when it fell into the hand of Soviet influenced North Vietnam in 1975. The US involvement in Vietnam went from a non-combat role to front line engagement then back to a supportive role. Another instance of a proxy war during the era of the Cold War was the Soviet-Afghan war. The war took over a period of 9 years, in which Soviet and Mujahedeen forces fought. The Soviet Union supported Afghanistan’s Marxist Peoples Democratic Party (PDPA) and the rebels attempting to overthrow the PDPA were partially supported by the United States, as well as Pakistan. The Soviet deployment of troops to Afghanistan began on December, 25, 1979. The war is the main direct cause of the fall of the Soviet Union as there was heavy loss of life for the Soviet troops combined with a crippling cost to fund the war. The war is seen as a desperate expansionism in

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