Since late in 1989, when the walls of the Moscow Kremlin began to open up to democratic reform, western journalists have heralded the "end of the Cold War." With such terms as perestroika and glasnost almost as much a part of the western vocabulary as they are the Soviet, a renewed interest is blooming into the origins, legacy, and intricacies of an undeclared war of words, deeds, sanctions, and rhetoric that has lasted at least since 1945. In fact, many western journalists, for example those in Time magazine, laud Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as the man who brought the walls of the Cold War impasse down (Nelan 26-36).
With the advent of what many term to be the end of the Cold War, one is naturally concerned with its beginnings. One way to view the mounting tensions of the early period just after World War II is to examine the press coverage in the United States media during the presidency of Harry S. Truman. This paper will use two forms of media examples in order to analyze significant events in the early Cold War, The New York Times and Time magazine. Of course, with such a voluminous amount of material, the necessity of space limits us to some major issues and actions. These will include the 1945 Yalta Conference, V-E Day in Europe, the Potsdam Conference, the dropping of the atomic bomb in August, 1945, Winston Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" speech of March 5, 1946, the infamous "Mr. X" article that was to stir U.S. reaction for the next two decades, and the Berlin Blockade and airlift between April and July, 1948. During these analyses, only the primary news reports from Time and The New York Times will be used. However, prior to the in-depth analysis of press coverage, the paper will begin with a brief overview of the Truman administration, and comments from secondary sources on the role of the press in the origins of the Cold War.
The term "Cold War" is somewhat difficult to historically define. Indeed, ...