- Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 - June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981-1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967-1975). Reagan was born in Illinois, but moved to Hollywood in the 1930s, where he starred in numerous "B" movies and became President of the Screen Actors Guild. He was a prominent Democrat who supported the New Deal Coalition in the 1940s, and was a leading opponent of Communism in Hollywood.
- Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president, older only than Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. He became president at the end of the Cold War, and as he was born in the period after World War II, is known as the first Baby Boomer president.
- Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, surname more accurately romanized as Gorbachyov; born 2nd March 1931) is a Russian politician. He was the last leader of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until its collapse in 1991. His attempts at reform helped end the Cold War, and also ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and dissolved the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
- Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the thirty-seventh President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974, and the thirty-sixth Vice President of the United States in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961). During the Second World War, he served as a Navy lieutenant commander in the Pacific, before being elected to the Congress, and later serving as Vice President. After an unsuccessful presidential run in 1960, Nixon was elected in 1968.
- Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. was the 38th President (1974–1977), and 40th Vice President (1973–1974) of the United States. Ford was the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment. Upon succession to the presidency, Ford became the only person to hold that office without having been elected either President or Vice President.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, born David Dwight Eisenhower was an American General and politician, who served as the thirty-fourth President of the United States (1953–1961). During the Second World War, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944-45. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.
- Tom Clancy
Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (born April 12 1947), better known as Tom Clancy, is a US author of bestselling political thrillers, best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War. Clancy is known by many during recent years as the endorser of his own brand of video games, Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, and Ghost Recon.
- Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 - December 26, 1972) was the thirty-third President of the United States (1945-1953); as Vice President, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In domestic affairs, Truman faced challenge after challenge: a tumultuous reconversion of the economy marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act over his veto. After confounding all predictions to win re-election in 1948, …
- Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy was a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period of extreme anti-communist suspicion inspired by the tensions of the Cold War. He was noted for making unsubstantiated claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the federal government.
- John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (February 25, 1888 - May 24, 1959) served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, advocating an aggressive stance against communism around the world. He advocated support of the French in their war against the Viet Minh in Indochina and famously refused to shake the hand of Zhou Enlai at the Geneva Conference in 1954.
- Dean Acheson
Dean Gooderham Acheson (April 11, 1893 - October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer; as United States Secretary of State in the Truman Administration during 1949-1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy for the Cold War. He likewise played a central role in the creation of many important institutions including Lend Lease, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, …
- Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (November 22, 1890 – November 9, 1970), in France commonly referred to as "Général de Gaulle", was a French military leader and statesman. Prior to World War II, he was primarily known as an armoured warfare tactician and an advocate of the concentrated use of armoured and aviation forces.
- John Lewis Gaddis
John Lewis Gaddis is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University. He is a noted historian of the Cold War and grand strategy. He has been hailed as the 'Dean of Cold War Historians' by the The New York Times. He is also the official biographer of the seminal 20th century statesman George F. Kennan. He is best known for his critical analysis of the strategies of containment employed by the United States of America during the Cold War, …
- John Major
Sir John Major, KG, CH (born 29 March 1943) is a former British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the British Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. During his time as Prime Minister, the world went through a period of transition after the end of the Cold War. This included the growing importance of the European Union and the debate surrounding Britain's ratification of the Maastricht Treaty.
- Peter Beinart
Peter Beinart (born 1971) is a journalist and editor-at-large for "The New Republic", having served as editor of TNR from November 1999 until March 2006. He is a graduate of the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School and a member of the class of 1993 at Yale University, where he was a member of the Yale Political Union.
- Robert D. Kaplan
Robert D. Kaplan (born 1952) is an American journalist, currently an editor for the "Atlantic Monthly". His writings have also been featured in "The Washington Post", "The New York Times", "The New Republic", "The National Interest", and "The Wall Street Journal", among other newspapers and publications, and his more controversial essays about the nature of U.S. power have spurred debate in academia, the media, …
- John Birch
John Morrison Birch (May 8, 1918 - August 25, 1945) was an American Military Intelligence Officer and a Baptist Missionary in World War II who was shot by armed supporters of the Communist Party of China. A portion of the American right consider him a martyr, the first victim of the Cold War. The conservative John Birch Society, formed 13 years after his death, is named in honor of him. His parents joined the society as life members.
- George F. Kennan
George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 - March 17, 2005) was an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. He later wrote standard histories of the relations between Russia and the Western powers. In the late 1940s, his writings inspired the Truman Doctrine and the U.S. foreign policy of "containing" the Soviet Union, …
- Curtis Lemay
Curtis Emerson LeMay was a general in the United States Air Force and the vice presidential running mate of independent candidate George C. Wallace in 1968. He is credited with designing and implementing an effective systematic strategic bombing campaign in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. After the war, he headed the Berlin airlift, then reorganized the Strategic Air Command into an effective means of conducting nuclear war.
- Benjamin Barber
Benjamin R. Barber (b. August 2, 1939) is the Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Policy, as well as president and director of the international NGO CivWorld, and its annual Interdependence Day event, and distinguished senior fellow at Demos. Barber is perhaps best known for his 1996 bestseller, "Jihad vs. McWorld".
- Paul Nitze
Paul Henry Nitze (January 16 1907 - October 19 2004) was a high-ranking United States government official who helped shape Cold War defense policy over the course of numerous presidential administrations.
- Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was a rebel leader in Angola who founded the UNITA movement in 1966, and ultimately proved a central figure in 20th century Cold War politics. With support from the governments of the United States, China, South Africa, Israel, several African leaders (Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d'Ivoire, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, King Hassan II of Morocco and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia), and foreign mercenaries from Portugal, Israel, South Africa, …
- Vannevar Bush
Vannevar Bush (March 11, 1890 - June 30, 1974) was an American engineer and science administrator, known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb, and the idea of the memex-seen as a pioneering concept for the World Wide Web. A leading figure in the development of the military-industrial complex and the military funding of science in the United States, …
- Syngman Rhee
Syngman Rhee or Lee Seungman or Yee Sung-man was the first president of South Korea. His presidency, from August 1948 to April 1960, remains controversial, affected by Cold War tensions on the Korean peninsula and elsewhere. Rhee was a strong anti-Communist, and led South Korea through the Korean War. His presidency ended in resignation following popular protests against a disputed election. He died in exile in Hawaii.
- Chuck Yeager
Retired Air Force Brigadier General Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager gained fame as the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound. This historic flight in the rocket powered Bell X-1 aircraft took place on October 14th 1947, at Muroc (now Edwards Air Force Base), California. Muroc field was named after the town of Muroc formed by the Corum (Muroc spelled backwords) brothers in the early 20th century. General Yeager was born Feb. 13, 1923, in Myra, West Virginia.
- Erich Honecker
Erich Honecker was an East German Communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1971 until 1989. After German re-unification, he first fled to the Soviet Union but was extradited by the new Russian government to Germany, where he was imprisoned and tried for high treason and crimes allegedly committed during the Cold War. However, as he was dying of cancer, he was released from prison. He died in exile in Chile about a year and a half later.
- Daniel Yergin
Daniel H. Yergin (born February 6, 1947) is an American author, speaker, and economic researcher. Born in Los Angeles, California to a "Chicago Tribune" reporter father and a mother who was a sculptor and painter, Yergin received his B.A. from Yale University in 1968, where he served on the board of the "Yale Daily News", and was a founder of "The New Journal".
- Walter Laqueur
Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany (modern Wrocław, Poland), to a Jewish family. In 1938 Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, died in the Holocaust. He lived in Palestine/Israel 1938-53 and since then in the UK and USA. He wrote the foreword to Wilhelm Wulff's book "Zodiac and Swastika".
- Guy Burgess
Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess (16 April, 1911 - 30 August, 1963) was a British-born intelligence officer and double agent who worked for the Soviet Union. He was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring that betrayed allied secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War. Burgess and Anthony Blunt contributed to the Soviet cause with the transmission of secret Foreign Office and MI5 documents that described Allied military strategy.
- Ronald Radosh
Ronald Radosh is an American historian specializing in the Cold War. He is best known for his work on the espionage case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. In the 1983 book, "The Rosenberg File", he and co-author Joyce Milton conclude that Julius Rosenberg was guilty of espionage and that Ethel was aware of his activities. A second edition in 1997 incorporates newly-obtained evidence from the former Soviet Union. Radosh also condemns prosecutorial misconduct in the case.
- Reinhard Gehlen
Reinhard Gehlen (April 3 1902 - June 8 1979) was a Major General in the German Wehrmacht during World War II, with the position of chief of intelligence-gathering on the Eastern Front. He was subsequently recruited by the U.S. military to set up a spy ring directed against the Soviet Union. He ran the West German intelligence apparatus until 1968, and is considered one of the most legendary Cold War spymasters.
- Aldo Moro
Aldo Moro (September 23, 1916 - May 9, 1978) was an Italian politician and five time Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968, and then from 1974 to 1976. He was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers, holding power for a combined total of more than six years. One of the most important leaders of "Democrazia Cristiana" (Christian Democracy, DC), Moro was considered an intellectual and an incredibly patient mediator, …
- Peter Schweizer
Peter Schweizer (b. 1964) is a conservative author and a research fellow at the Hoover Institute. His book "Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy" received praise from conservative political pundits including Bill O'Reilly. Schweizer's book "Reagan's War" was the basis of the documentary film "In the Face of Evil". The book recounts Ronald Reagan's multi-decade struggle against Communism and credits him with winning the Cold War.
- Peter Rodman
Peter W. Rodman (born November 24, 1943 in Boston). Educated in at Harvard College (A.B. summa cum laude), Oxford University (B.A., M.A.), and Harvard Law School (J.D.). In March 2007 he left his position as United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs to become a Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution. He is the author of "More Precious Than Peace", …
- John McCone
John Alexander McCone (January 4, 1902 - February 14, 1991) was an American businessman and politician who served as Director of Central Intelligence during the height of the Cold War. McCone was born in San Francisco, California, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1922 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. A prominent industrialist, McCone also served for more than twenty years as a governmental advisor and official.
- Vasili Mitrokhin
Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (March 3 1922-January 23, 2004) was a Major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, and co-author with Christopher Andrew of "The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West", a massive account of Soviet intelligence operations based on copies of material from the archive. Work on the second volume, "The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB in the World", …
- William Appleman Williams
William Appleman Williams (1921-1990) was one of the 20th century's most prominent historians of American diplomacy. His major body of writings were published while he was on the faculty of the History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Williams tacked a course as a historian which departed from traditional history. Whereas many U.S. historians wrote the story of the U.S. in terms of the spread of freedom, …
- Suharto
Suharto GCB (born June 8, 1921) is a former Indonesian military and political leader. He served as a military officer in the Indonesian National Revolution, but is better known as the long-reigning second President of Indonesia, holding the office from 1967 to 1998. Like many Javanese, Suharto has only one name. In contexts where his religion is being discussed he is sometimes called Haji or el-Haj Mohammed Suharto, …
- Odd Arne Westad
Professor Odd Arne Westad, born 5 January 1960, is a Norwegian academic and historian specialising in the Cold War and contemporary East Asian history. After studying as an undergraduate at the University of Oslo, Westad attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to work on his Ph.D. He was appointed as Director of Research at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Oslo in 1991.
- Henry M. Jackson
Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson (May 31, 1912 - September 1, 1983) was a U.S. Congressman and Senator for Washington State from 1941 until his death. Jackson was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 and 1976. As a Cold War anti-Communist Democrat, Jackson's political philosophies and positions have been cited as an influence on a number of key figures associated with neoconservatism, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle