Some Selected Online Resources
for the Study of the Cold War

I wish that I had more time to do a more exhaustive search online for Cold War resources and also to organize these a bit better.

Suggested websites for further study

• Please feel free to suggest a relevant website.
• The Cold War International History Project
• Wikibooks: World History (Consequences of the Second World War)
• At Boundless World History, see the section on the Cold War (well done).
• National Security Archive/Cold War/Interviews includes a series of interviews with important players in the Cold War such as Sergei Khrushchev, Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, George Kennan, Clark Clifford. See also the Cold War documents.
• Cold War Bibliography and websites
• The Cold War in Europe, 1945-1990 (animated map)
• List of Primary and Secondary Sources on the Cold War (a Wikipedia bibliography which is very brief but not necessarily very good)
• The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: The 40th Anniversary
• BBC History: Cold War
• Cold War History from history.com
• The UK National Archives site on the Cold War
• The Cold War Museum (It is now located at Vint Hill, VA and still being developed.)
• Cold War (the Wikipedia entry)
• Cold War Studies at Harvard University. See also the project's Links to Cold War Studies on the Internet.
• Cold War: US Military Operations
• Center for Cold War Studies and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara
• Cold War Civil Defense Museum
• The Cold War Era: Web Links
• National Cold War Exhibition (at the RAF Museum)
• World War, Cold War, 1939-1953 (FBI website)
• The Cold War in Berlin (from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, includes video of Kennedy speech)
• Special Program: The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall with Tom Brokaw and Robert McNeil (Newseum video conversations)
• Freedom Without Walls - Fall of the Wall, 1989 - 2009 (German embassy site dedicated to the Wall)
• The Cold War (from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)
• The Berlin Airlift (Harry S Truman Library & Museum)
• The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, has a number of very useful case studies regarding the Cold War as part of their Case Studies in Public Policy & Management program. Typically, each of these short studies contains background information, notes and teaching exercises; you can order in booklet or downloadable forms (very inexpensive). These are some of the example case studies dealing with different aspects of the Cold War.
  • The Coming of the Cold War (#144.0) with an accompanying teaching note (#144.2) and supplement (#144.4)
  • Greek Crisis and the Truman Doctrine: A Rationale for Intervention (#966.0)
  • Korean War Aims (#484.0) and teaching note (#484.2)
  • Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs (#279.0) and teaching note (#279.2)
  • Democracy and Security in the Dominican Republic: The Kennedy and Johnson Interventions (#967.0)
  • Lyndon Johnson and Czechoslovakia, 1968: Non-Intervention by Default? (#968.0)
  • Americanizing the Vietnam War (#271.0) and Americanizing the Vietnam War: Vietnam Documents (#271.4)
  • SALT I: Getting from Nyet to Yes (#814.0) with teaching notes (#815.2)
  • Persuading a President: Jimmy Carter & American Troops in Korea (#1319.0)
  • SS-9 Controversy: Intelligence as Political Football (#884.0)
  • Deciding to Use Force in Grenada (#795.0)
  • Reykjavik Summit: Watershed or Washout? (#813.0)

These are some Cold War timelines.

• Wikipedia entry, Timeline of Events in the Cold War
• Timeline: A Brief History of the Cold War
• Cold War Chronology by The US Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) to the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG)
• Cold War Chronology

These are some online document collections.

• The Avalon Project, Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy: The Cold War
• Internet Modern History Sourcebook: A Bipolar World
• Khrushchev's Secret Speech (Crimes of the Stalin Era, Special Report to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Closed session, February 24-25, 1956, By Nikita S. Khrushchev, First Secretary, Communist Party of the Soviet Union),
• Online exhibit of Soviet-American Relations
• Christopher Lee, Cold War Missiles Target of Blackout: Documents Altered To Conceal Data
• Truman Presidential Library
• CIA FOIA Documents
• The National Security Archive (George Washington University)
• Red Files includes websites on the Secret Soviet Moon Mission, Soviet propaganda, Soviet Sports Wars and Secret Victories of the KGB

Some major Cold War events

• Winston S. Churchill, "Iron Curtain Speech" (5 March 1946) and Stalin's "Reply to Churchill" (1946)
• Truman Doctrine, also here
• North Atlantic Treaty (4 April 1949)
• The Warsaw Pact, 1955
• Hungary, 1956
• The U-2 Incident, 1960
• Nikita Khrushchev: Address to the UN General Assembly, Sept. 23 1960
• USA and USSR: Exchange of Notes on the Berlin Wall, 1961
• The Brezhnev Doctrine, 1968

Web pages from the HIS 135 course relevant to the Cold War

• Henry Kissinger
• Richard Nixon
• Bangladesh
• Mao Zedong
• The Formation of NATO
• Korean War
• Dien Bien Phu
• Suez Canal Crisis
• Sputnik
• The CF-105 Arrow Story
• The Berlin Wall Goes Up
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Kennedy
• The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
• Czech Invasion
• Tet Offensive
• Nikita Khrushchev
• Afghanistan and Russia
• Josip Broz Tito
• The El Salvadoran Civil War
• Berlin Wall Comes Down
• Read my short notes on America's Understanding of Communism from the HIS 135 course.

These are from the HIS 242 course.

• What do dominoes have to do with the study of the The Cold War?
• Cold War (HIS 242 lecture)
• The Thaw (HIS 242 lecture)
• Gorbachev (HIS 242 lecture)
• The End of the Soviet Union (HIS 242 lecture)
• Ever hear of NSC-68?
• The idea of "peaceful coexistence"