Berlin Blockade

June 24, 1948 - May 11, 1949

PBS Timeline: Berlin Blockade

Operation Vittles; (4:53 Min.)

Politics and geography made Berlin the gravest and most persistent source of tension in the nuclear age. On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union sealed off Berlin by a total blockade in an effort to gain control of the partitioned city. Washington rejected proposals to send an armed convoy or armed train into Berlin that might precipitate war. Instead, Operation Vittles-a massive round-the-clock airlift to supply indefinitely Berlin's 2.2 million people with food and fuel-began. This segment-a section of a contemporary newsreel-shows various facets of the shuttle operation, which lasted for more than a year. Several months before the operation ended, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin lifted the blockade, and trucks and trains resumed transit to Berlin.

NATO: April 4, 1949

The Parties of NATO agreed that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. Consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense will assist the Party or Parties being attacked, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

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Soviet A-Bomb

Soviet A Bomb: Aug 29, 1949

Red China

Red China