Bernard Baruch, the financier and trusted adviser to several U.S. presidents coined the term "Cold War" in 1947 to characterize the increasingly chilly relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Baruch used the phrase during a speech to the South Carolina House of Representatives, where he was being honored with the unveiling of his portrait. The phrase caught on — to describe the unique state of affairs where the two nations did not engage in direct military confrontation but were nonetheless engaged in an intense, high-stakes struggle for global influence and ideological supremacy.
