Cold War Stalemate

For 45 years, from the end of World War II until the fall of communism in 1990, the world barely survived a precarious and critical period of history as the two superpowers played a precise game of strategy set upon the world stage. It was an ongoing game played by intelligence agents in the streets of London, New York and Moscow. It was a game involving a series of major, but fortunately non-nuclear conflicts such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars, as well as smaller but costly guerrilla wars in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The game became known as the Cold War, and it brings to mind many iconic views of the latter half of the past century: The Berlin Airlift, The Berlin Wall, The Cuban Missile Crisis and Russian tanks in Budapest. It featured larger than life players such as Stalin, Mao, Churchill, Castro, Truman, Kennedy, Ho Chi Minh, Brezhnev, Kruschev, Gorbachev, Thatcher and Reagan. On the 25th Anniversary of the Cold War's end, this six-part series, examines the origins of this conflict and takes a closer look at what motivated each side.