In his illustrated five page reminiscence, former Communist refugee Ivan Pluhar (b. 1927), recalls those dreadful days following the end of the Second World War when it became clear to all the citizens of Czechoslovakia that their Soviet "liberators" would never leave their country. The article will clue you in as to what life was like during the earliest years of the occupation and how dissenters were treated throughout that period.
A Quick Read About Soviet-Enforced Atheism
Behind the Iron Curtain...
This is a consumer report concerning various bomb shelter plans that were commercially available to the American public in 1955:
"The most elaborate of five government-approved home bomb shelters is a combination tunnel and emergency exit in reinforced concrete, extending outward under ground from cellar walls It holds six persons and offers maximum protection from all effects of an atomic explosion... But the FCDA (Federal Civil Defense Administration) also recommends a practical type type that can be put together by any do-it-yourselfer for around $20.00." Not too long after the end of World War II, the French, British and Americans found that they had to assemble a coalition of nations (NATO) that would be willing to fight the Soviets for what was believed to be an even bigger rumble in the future - but after losing two enormous wars, West Germany refused to join.
This article was written by Gallup Poll Editor William Lydgate who compared various opinion surveys that were taken shortly after the close of W.W. II with the ones that were created just one year later.
The 1945 poll revealed that the American public generally looked forward to friendly relations with the Soviet Union, shared remarkably high hopes for world peace and believed deeply that the United Nations would be responsible for the creation of a better world. However, the 1946 poll measured an enormous drop in this sunny disposition.
George F. Kennan was an American diplomat who is remembered as being one of the most insightful analysts of Soviet foreign policy during the cold war.
Click here to read about the Cold War prophet who believed that Kennan's containment policy was not tough enough on the Soviets...
Henry Wallace (1888 – 1965) was FDR's second Vice President (1941 - 1945) and as a seasoned Washington politician he must have known that his political career was coming to an end when the attached editorial hit the newsstands in early October of 1948. Written by William L. Chenery, publisher of Collier's Magazine, one of the most staid, middle class news and fiction organs around - it was not the sort of organization that looked upon libel lightly; Chenery meant what he wrote when he slandered the former vice president as "the spokesman of Russia".
Wallace, who at the time was taking a licking as the Progressive Party nominee for president in the 1948 race, left politics shortly afterward. In 1952 he wrote a book in which he admitted how wrong he was to have ever trusted Joseph Stalin. | 
