http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/269619.stm
Reagan and the 'Iran-Contra' affair
For many years, Central America was dismissed as a small, backward and inconsequential part of the world. In 1954, Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala on the back of a programme of wide-ranging social reform. Central America sank back into its old role of archetypal banana republic, located firmly in the US backyard.
The Sandinistas never defined themselves as communist. But they took several measures that alarmed Washington. Reagan became implacably opposed to the Sandinista government.
In El Salvador, guerrilla fighters from the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front became involved in a conflict with the Salvadoran army.
Reagan increased military aid to the beleaguered governments. El Salvador alone received $3bn, a vast amount for a small nation.
At the same time, Reagan began to do all he could to engineer the overthrow of the Sandinistas.
In 1986, the Reagan government, secretly and illegally, transferred to the contras the proceeds of clandestine sales of military equipment supplied to Iran.
Reagan achieved his underlying aim, which was to stop socialism spreading to the rest of Central America.
Sandinistas were unexpectedly voted out of office in elections in February 1990.
And in El Salvador and in Guatemala the guerrillas failed to achieve a military victory. Both forces eventually negotiated peace agreements and laid down their arms.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A716591
The Day Democracy Died in Chile
Salvador Allende was the world's first democratically-elected Marxist leader of any nation. Allende was elected to power with 36.2% of the vote in 1970 - his term was to be cut short less than three years later by General Augusto Pinochet. Each believed his cause was the right one. This entry chronicles the events of the day that democracy died in Chile.
From August 1973 the economy was suffering due to the withdrawal of foreign investment in the democratically-elected state. Military units stationed throughout Chile reported for action to the leaders of the coup, led by Augusto Pinochet. The whole operation took less than 85 minutes to execute.
Valparaíso, Chile's major port, was taken in stages. The navy had seized the port but they were unsure the Chilean army was on their side or not. However, it became clear that all the armed forces were in cahoots and the city and port fell in a matter of hours.

http://www.pwc.k12.nf.ca/coldwar/plain/vietnam.html
Vietnam War
In 1900, Vietnam became a colony of France. This caused the Vietnamese to begin organizing resistance under Ho Chi Minh. After World War 2, Vietnam was returned to the French with help from British and Indian troops. In 1946, another revolution began, again under Ho Chi Minh and this time they won.
In 1963 the new government asked the US for help. They send supplies and troops immediately. This was justified the American people with the explanation of the "domino theory." The domino theory said that if one country or state fell to the communists it would produce a domino effect, leading to the communist takeover of all southeast Asia.There was much suspicion as to whether the domino theory was a valid reason for Americans to become involved or not. In 1967, Americans began bombing North Vietnam to try to end the war. In 1973, the US and north Vietnam signed the Paris peace accords which called for the withdrawal of all American troops, the exchange of all prisoners of war, and consultations between north and south Vietnam regarding general elections.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/stalin_joseph.shtml
Josef Stalin
Stalin was born in Georgia. He felt a sense of inferiority before educated intellectuals.
In 1922, Stalin was appointed to a post, as General Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee. He controlled all appointments, setting agendas, and moving around Party staff in such a way that everyone who counted for anything owed their position to him. By the time the Party's intellectual core realized what had happened, it was too late.
After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin went to destroy all the old leaders of the Party. Stalin made a pact with Hitler, in which they agreed to divide up Poland and then leave each other alone, but they failed.
During the Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam Conferences, Stalin proved a worthy negotiator with the likes of Roosevelt and Churchill, and managed to arrange for the countries of Eastern Europe as well as securing three seats for his country in the newly formed UN. The Soviet Union was now a recognized world superpower and the respect that Stalin had craved all his life. Stalin died of a stroke on 5 March 1953.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/kbank/profiles/kim/
Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung was born Kim Sung-ju on April 15, 1912, the son of a middle-class schoolmaster named Kim Hyung-jik. He spent 14 years in Manchuria, attending middle school in Kirin, joining the Chinese Communist party in 1931.
Kim fought Japanese-Manchurian forces from 1932 to 1945.
In 1939, Kim received his military and political training at the Soviet party school in Khabarovsk in the Soviet Far East.
When the Korean peninsula was split into North and South Koreas in 1948, Kim grabbed power in North Korea and held it for the next 46 years.
His most famous years were from 1950 to 1953, when he led his country (backed by the Soviet Union and China) in the Korean War against South Korea (backed by the US and United Nations forces). He died in1994, and arranged for power to pass to his son, Kim Jong-il. In 1998 his son gave his father the posthumous title of "eternal president.”

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4
The Guatemala 1954 Documents
These documents were among several hundred records released by the Agency on May 23, 1997 on its involvement in the infamous 1954 coup in Guatemala. Arbenz was elected President of Guatemala in 1950 to continue a process of socio- economic reforms. The first CIA plan to overthrow the Guatemalan president was authorized by President Truman in 1952.
PBSUCCESS, authorized by President Eisenhower in August 1953, carried a $2.7 million budget for "pychological warfare and political action,” among the other components of a small paramilitary war. The power of the CIA's psychological-war, against Arbenz, is the last stage of PBSUCCESS. Although Arbenz and his top aides were able to flee the country, after the CIA installed Castillo Armas in power, hundreds of Guatemalans were rounded up and killed.
In 1995, the CIA's historical staff found these records during a search of Guatemala materials to be declassified as part of the agency's "Openness" program. A staff historian, Gerald Haines, was assigned to write abrief history of these operations. According to the story the CIA did not implement its assassination strategy.
After Arbenz resigned, Eisenhower called the Director of Central Intelligence into a formal briefing of the operation. Cullather's account now reveals that the agency lied to the president, telling him that only one of the rebels it had backed was killed.

http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1?file=index
THE KOREAN WAR
The Korean War is also known as the "Forgotten War," because it was overshadowed by World War II and Vietnam. The Korean War was one of the first episodes of the Cold War and a lot of important personalities were involved: Truman, MacArthur, Mao, and Stalin. It began on June 25, 1950, when North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. Nearly 37,000 American servicemen died in three years. On this war U.S. soldiers retreat in the opening days of the war; there was the savage hill fighting during the last years of the conflict; and the Inchon landings by MacArthur.
Although an armistice was signed in 1953 between the United Nations, China and North Korea, South Korea refused to sign, leaving the two Koreas separate until today.