genre washington
A ___MASK2___ or script is a written work by screenwriters for a film , video ___MASK43___ , or television program . These screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing . In them , the movement , actions , expression , and dialogues of the characters are also narrated . A ___MASK2___ written for television is also known as a teleplay . The ___MASK79___ Bloc or Capitalist Bloc during the Cold War refers to the countries allied with the NATO against the Soviet Union and its allies . The latter were referred to as the " Eastern Bloc ", a more common term in English than " ___MASK79___ Bloc ". The governments and press of the ___MASK79___ Bloc were more inclined to refer to themselves as the " Free World " or the " ___MASK79___ world ". " ___MASK79___ Europe " is a controversial term used to refer to democratic countries in Europe during the Cold War , but the concept is sometimes still used for quick ___MASK34___ by the media . The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR " ) was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991 . A union of multiple subnational republics , its ___MASK77___ and economy were highly centralized . The Soviet Union was a one - party federation , governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital . ___MASK47___ ( often abbreviated to WWII or WW2 ), also known as the Second World ___MASK41___ , was a global ___MASK41___ that lasted from 1939 to 1945 , although related conflicts began earlier . It involved the vast majority of the world ' s nations  including all of the great powers  eventually forming two opposing ___MASK19___ alliances : the Allies and the Axis . It was the most widespread ___MASK41___ in ___MASK69___ , and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries . In a state of " total ___MASK41___ ", the major participants threw their entire economic , industrial , and scientific capabilities behind the ___MASK41___ effort , erasing the distinction between civilian and ___MASK19___ resources . Marked by mass deaths of civilians , including the Holocaust ( in which approximately 11 million people were killed ) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres ( in which approximately one million were killed , and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities . These made ___MASK47___ the deadliest conflict in human ___MASK69___ . Washington , D . C . by ___MASK28___ Vidal is the sixth in his Narratives of Empire series of historical novels ( although the first one published , in 1967 ) . It begins in 1937 and continues into the Cold War , tracing the families of Senator James Burden Day and influential newspaper publisher Blaise Sanford . This book is the least historical and most novelistic of any of the seven books . The Golden Age , the seventh book in the series , takes place during nearly the same span of years with many of the same characters , and needed to be written around the events of Washington D . C . The novel is written in the third person and is inspired by the novels of Henry James . The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical spread during the Cold ___MASK41___ . It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S . Truman on ___MASK27___ 12 , 1947 and further developed on July 12 , 1948 when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey . American ___MASK19___ force was usually not involved , but Congress appropriated free gifts of financial aid to support the economies and the ___MASK19___ of Greece and Turkey . More generally , the Truman doctrine implied American support for other nations threatened by Soviet communism . The Truman Doctrine became the foundation of American foreign policy , and led , in 1949 , to the formation of NATO , a ___MASK19___ alliance that is still in effect . Historians often use Truman ' s speech to date the start of the Cold ___MASK41___ . Truman told Congress that " it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures ." Truman reasoned that because the totalitarian regimes coerced free peoples , they represented a threat to international peace and the national security of the United States . Truman made the plea amid the crisis of the Greek Civil ___MASK41___ ( 1946  49 ). He argued that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid that they urgently needed , they would inevitably fall to communism with grave consequences throughout the region . Because Turkey and Greece were historic rivals , it was necessary to help both equally even though the threat to Greece was more immediate . Historian Eric Foner argues the Truman Doctrine " set a precedent for American assistance to anticommunist regimes throughout the world , no matter how undemocratic , and for the creation of a set of global ___MASK19___ alliances directed against the Soviet Union ." The Narratives of Empire series is a heptalogy of historical novels , by ___MASK28___ Vidal , published between 1967 and 2000 , which chronicle the dawn - to - decadence ___MASK69___ of the American Empire ; the narratives interweave the personal stories of two families with the personages and events of U . S . ___MASK69___ . Despite the publisher ' s preference for the politically neutral series - title  American Chronicles , the author Vidal preferred the series - title  Narratives of Empire . The seven narratives of empire can be read in either historical or publication order without losing narrative intelligibility . The term satellite state designates a ___MASK4___ that is formally independent in the world , but under heavy political , economic and ___MASK19___ influence or control from another ___MASK4___ . The term was coined by analogy to planetary objects orbiting a larger object , such as smaller moons revolving around larger planets , and is used mainly to refer to Central and Eastern European countries of the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War or to Mongolia between 1924 and 1990 , for example . As used for Central and Eastern European countries it implies that the countries in question were " satellites " under the hegemony of the Soviet Union . In some contexts it also refers to other countries in the Soviet sphere of influence during the Cold War  such as North Korea ( especially in the years surrounding the Korean War of 1950  1953 ) and Cuba ( particularly after it joined the Comecon in 1972 ). In Western usage , the term has seldom been applied to states other than those in the Soviet orbit . In Soviet usage , the term applied to the states in the orbit of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy . ___MASK28___ Vidal ( born Eugene Louis Vidal ; October 3 , 1925  July 31 , 2012 ) was an American writer ( of novels , essays , screenplays , and stage plays ) and a public intellectual known for his patrician manner , epigrammatic wit , and polished style of writing . The Cold ___MASK41___ was a state of political and ___MASK19___ tension after World ___MASK41___ II between powers in the Eastern Bloc ( the Soviet Union and its satellite states ) and powers in the Western Bloc ( the United States , its NATO allies and others ). Historians do not fully agree on the dates , but a common timeframe is the period ( the second half of the 20th century ) between 1947 , the year the Truman Doctrine ( a U . S . policy pledging to aid nations threatened by Soviet expansionism ) was announced , and 1991 , the year the Soviet Union collapsed . The North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO '), also called the North Atlantic Alliance , is an intergovernmental ___MASK19___ alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949 . The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party . Three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear - weapon states : the United States , France and the United Kingdom . NATO ' s headquarters are located in Haren , Brussels , Belgium , where the Supreme Allied Commander also resides . Belgium is one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe , the newest of which , Albania and Croatia , joined in April 2009 . An additional 22 countries participate in NATO ' s Partnership for Peace program , with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes . The combined ___MASK19___ spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70 % of the global total . Members ' defence spending is supposed to amount to 2 % of GDP .