“What attempts did the USA make to stop the spread of communism worldwide during the 1950s? What was this process known as?”
In 1953, CIA led a group in Iran that removed democratically elected, highly popular reformer Mohammed Mossadegh and replaced him with Shah Reza Pahlavi. Mossadegh wanted a fair price for the oil that was being siphoned from his nation in order to do silly things like build schools and powerplants and hospitals and roads. To keep the Shah in power, CIA created, organized, trained and assisted SAVAK. Oil interests were secured - for a time. The coup leads in a straight line to the Iranian Revolution, the emissary hostages and 9/11. In 1954, CIA overthrew the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz and replaced him with the bloodthirsty tyrant Castillo Armas in Guatemala. Hundreds of thousands are slaughtered by Armas and his successors but United Fruit Co. assets are secured (along with the fortunes of Allen and John Foster Dulles - major UFC shareholders and respectively Director of CIA and Secretary of State). Arbenz had threatened to nationalize UFC holdings to stop the exploitation of his people and to finance his reforms.