Once allies against Hitler, the Soviet Union and the United States confront each other at the end of World War II.	Stalin's death brings new leadership to the Soviet Union -- and ignites reform movements behind the Iron Curtain.
The balance of power shifts as the Soviet Union dominates Eastern Europe and the United States accepts the leadership role for the impoverished West.	Tensions heighten as the superpowers engage in a high-stakes arms race and space race.
Washington sees the Marshall Plan as a means to shore up postwar European economies and avoid further world catastrophe; to Moscow, it is simply an attempt to buy control.	To stem the flood of East Germans fleeing communism, Nikita Khrushchev raises a Wall that divides Germany, and later the world.
The standoff to determine who will control Berlin threatens 2 million people with starvation. But help arrives from on high.	Kennedy and Khrushchev play "chicken" over Soviet missiles in Cuba; at stake is nuclear war.
Korean civil war becomes a platform of engagement between the Soviet Union and United States.	America confronts communism in Vietnam -- only to get mired in a costly war.
The Fifties usher in an era of fear and ideological persecution on both sides of the globe as the United States and Soviet Union pursue "the enemy within."	Mutual assured destruction becomes the United States' nuclear strategy, making the possibility of global annihilation all too real.