• John F. Kennedy: Berlin Crisis
• Nikita Khrushchev: Excerpt From Secret Speech on Berlin Crisis
• John F. Kennedy: Excerpt from Remarks in Rudolph Wild Platz, Berlin (Ich bin ein Berliner speech)

By 1947, the Cold War (1945–91) clearly was the most threatening issue dominating international affairs. The Cold War was not fought on battlefields with large armies. Instead, it evolved into a battle of ideologies, or social and political ideas, between the communist Soviet Union and the democratic, capitalistic Western nations led by the United States. Communism is a system of government in which...