Outline of the Cold War
End of the Cold War – While many observers state the 1989 Malta Summit was the end of the Cold War, it was December 1991 before the Presidents of the United States and the Soviet Union formally recognised the conflict's end, with the Soviet Union also being dissolved at that time. Some key events leading up to the end include:
Henry A. Wallace
World War II came to an end in September 1945 with the Surrender of Japan, and relations with the Soviet Union became a central matter of foreign policy. Various issues, including the fate of post-war governments in Europe and Asia and the administration of the United Nations, had already begun to strain the wartime alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States. Critics of the Soviet Union objected to the oppressive satellite states that the Soviet Union established in Eastern Europe and Soviet involvement in the Greek Civil War and the Chinese Civil War. In February 1946, George F. Kennan laid out the doctrine of containment, which called for the United States to resist the spread of Communism. Wallace feared that confrontational policies towards the Soviet Union would eventually lead to war, and he urged Truman to "allay any reasonable Russian grounds for fear, suspicion, and distrust." Historian Tony Judt, notes that Wallace's "distaste for American involvement with Britain and Europe was widely shared across the political spectrum."