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Truman Was The Biggest Catalyst For Igniting The Cold War With The Soviet Union

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Harry S. Truman was the biggest catalyst for igniting and sustaining the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Truman began his attempts to intimidate Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union as early as the end of World War II, by dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to display his nuclear power. He continued to use nuclear weapons to intimidate his opponent by authorizing the construction of the hydrogen bomb in 1950. During the same year, Truman signed the National Security Council Paper Number 68 into policy which was a report that promoted military expansion, nuclear weapon development, and military aid to U.S. allies. These three actions were fundamental in forcing the Soviet Union to respond with equal distrust and hostility effectively bringing the Cold War into reality. Truman and other U.S. officials, after the testing of the first atomic bomb, wanted to use the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as displays for U.S. nuclear power in order to intimidate the Soviet Union. The dropping of the bombs was backed by another secret agenda, which was to keep the Soviet Union out of Japan so the U.S. could be in charge of the reconstruction and occupation period. The U.S. did not want the Soviet Union to instill its communistic ideology into the Japanese government, so they decided to end the war before the Soviet Union could get involved (Atomic Diplomacy). The Soviet Union was indeed intimidated by the thought of their adversary having nuclear capabilities and continued its

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