American containment was backed up by earlier efforts to consolidate
the Western democratic powers against the spread of Red. The United
Nations was the first materialization of this in 1945. The second, and
perhaps most dramatic, was the call to arms by Britain's moral saint,
Winston Churchill. He gave a speech in 1946 encouraging active endeavors
to curb communism, and avoid a third world war. He spoke of an "Iron
Curtain," the dangerous separation of East and West Europe where no one
could see in or out. This mentality contributed greatly to the paranoia
of the Cold War. The United States also promoted and joined NATO; a big
step toward deterring communist expansion came in 1949. The North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, as it stood for, was comprised of the
major W. European powers and the United States. The treaty provided for
collective defense of the member nations, and considered an attack
against one an attack against all. This also provided a presidential
loophole for military intervention by America in any foreign struggle
without Congress declaring war (i.e. Korea, Vietnam, Bay of Pigs).
Unfortunately, this backfired, and instead of deterring communist
expansion, forced a paranoid Soviet Union to flex its' muscles. In 1955,
to counter the NATO buildup, the USSR formed an equally conglomerate
alliance with Eastern European nations. The Warsaw Pact, as it was
known, shrouded virtually all of Eastern Europe in the Iron Curtain.
Poland, Bulgaria, E. Germany, Romania, and many others were now no more
than puppet nations held by the Grand Puppeteer, Russia. In one fell
swoop the Soviet Union gained almost as much land as Napoleon or Hitler;
but without a war. America's idea of a united effort at the containment
of Communism had boomeranged into a united expansion of communism.
