Cold War who’s who

This Cold War who’s who contains brief biographical summaries of key individuals, noting their role, involvement or contribution to the Cold War between 1945 and 1991. These profiles have been written by Alpha History authors. If you would like to suggest or contribute a profile for inclusion here, please contact us.

United States leaders and politicians
Dean Acheson
George Bush
James F. Byrnes
Jimmy Carter
Allen Dulles
John Foster Dulles
Dwight Eisenhower
J. Edgar Hoover
Lyndon Johnson
George Kennan
John F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Henry Kissinger
Joseph McCarthy
Robert McNamara
George Marshall
Richard Nixon
Ronald Reagan
Franklin Roosevelt
Harry Truman

Other Western bloc leaders and politicians
Konrad Adenauer (West Germany)
Willy Brandt (West Germany)
Winston Churchill (Great Britain)
Charles de Gaulle (France)
Ngo Dinh Diem (South Vietnam)
John Paul II (Catholic church)
Helmut Kohl (West Germany)
Robert Menzies (Australia)
Augusto Pinochet (Chile)
Syngman Rhee (South Korea)
Anwar Sadat (Egypt)
Margaret Thatcher (Great Britain)
Lech Walesa (Poland)

Soviet leaders and politicians
Yuri Andropov
Leonid Brezhnev
Konstantin Chernenko
Mikhail Gorbachev
Andrei Gromyko
Nikita Khrushchev
Joseph Stalin
Boris Yeltsin

Soviet bloc, socialist and left wing leaders
Salvador Allende (Chile)
Fidel Castro (Cuba)
Nicolae Ceausescu (Romania)
Alexander Dubcek (Czechoslovakia)
Zhou Enlai (China)
‘Che’ Guevara (Various)
Kim Il-Sung (North Korea)
Ho Chi Minh (North Vietnam)
Erich Honecker (East Germany)
Enver Hoxha (Albania)
János Kádár (Hungary)
Imre Nagy (Hungary)
Pol Pot (Cambodia)
Josip Tito (Yugoslavia)
Walter Ulbricht (East Germany)
Mao Zedong (China)

Non-aligned leaders
Muammar Gaddafi (Libya)
Dag Hammarskjold (United Nations)
Saddam Hussein (Iraq)
Ayatollah Khomeini (Iran)
Osama bin Laden (al-Qaeda)
Trygve Lie (United Nations)
Gamal Nasser (Egypt)
U Thant (United Nations)

Soldiers, spies, diplomats and others
Anthony Blunt (British spy)
James Bond (fictional spy)
Guy Burgess (British spy)
Roy Cohn (US aide to McCarthy)
Jane Fonda (US actor and activist)
Alger Hiss (US spy)
Curtis LeMay (US Air Force chief)
Douglas Macarthur (US general)
Rudolf Nureyev (Soviet dancer and defector)
Kim Philby (British spy)
Francis Gary Powers (US U-2 pilot)
Vladimir Putin (Russian leader)
Paul Robeson (US singer and activist)
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (executed US spies)
Samantha Smith (US peace activist)
Maxwell Taylor (US general and diplomat)


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