Escalation of the Cold War

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Escalation of the Cold War 
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President Eisenhower (1953 1961)

• threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union
  created a sense of high anxiety in international
  relations in the 1950s.
•  John Foster Dulles
• Eisenhowers Secretary of State
• Firm hatred towards communism
• Announced that Trumans policies of containment
  were passive

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• Massive retaliation
• Brinkmanship - goal was to push U.S.S.R to the
  brink of war in order to exact concessions
• H-bomb (increasingly destructive power) (500X
  more powerful than A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima
  and Nagasaki) (fusion reaction, created by
  fission reaction)
• US tests first H bomb on Enewetak Atoll (pac.
  Ocean) on 11/1/52
• USSR tests first H bomb on 8/12/53

4

• Korea
• July 27, 1953 agreement signed (armistice)
• Vietnam
• In 1953 USA faced with difficult decision in S.E.
  Asia
• France was fighting to retain control of its
  colony of Vietnam
• Opposing the French were the powerful
  nationalist, communist forces lead by Ho Chi Minh
• Truman had originally supported the French, who
  were a very important Cold War ally
• 1954 Dien Bien Phu French forces surrounded in a
  disastrous siege

5
Latin America

• Latin American resentment grows towards the US
  during the 1950s as many people began to view the
  expanding influence of American corporations as a
  form of imperialism
• Cuba
• Batista ruled as military dictator of Cuba
• Cubas prosperous economy had become a fiefdom of
  American corporations
• Fidel Castro leads popular movement against
  Batista beg. in 1957

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Castro, Che and Batista
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Cuba and Castro

• At first USA reacted warmly to Castro, hoping
  that American economic activity would continue
• Castro began implementing significant land
  reforms
• Expropriating foreign-owned businesses and
  resources
• As one of its last acts in 1961Eisenhower
  administration severs diplomatic relations with
  Cuba
• American CIA begins training of Cuban expatriates
  for an invasion of the island to topple the new
  regime
• Isolated by the US, Castro cemented an alliance
  with the Soviet Union

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Europe and the Soviet Union

• resisting communist expansion in Europe was a
  principle concern of the Eisenhower
  administration
• USA arming West Germany, but hopeful
• Stalin dies in 1953
• 1955 Eisenhower and other NATO reps met with
  Soviet premier Nicolai Bulganin but they could
  find no basis for agreement on any issue
• 1956 Soviet Tanks roll into Budapest, Hungary and
  crush a democratic revolution
• Eisenhower administration refuses to intervene
• Action convinced American leaders that Soviet
  policies had not softened

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HUGE arms race

• USSR and USA re-double their efforts to develop
  effective intercontinental ballistic missiles
• Competition everywhere
• Emphasis on mathematics and science in the
  classroom
• Space race
• Sputnik, first satellite launched by Russians in
  1957
• 1969 Americans walk on the moon
• Olympics

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The U-2 Crisis

• 1958 Nikita Khrushchev succeeds Bulganin as
  Soviet premier
• First meeting goes well in the US but right
  before the second meeting, U.S.S.R announces that
  it has shot down a high altitude U-2 spy plane
  over Russian soil and that pilot Francis Gary
  Powers was in captivity
• Eisenhower does not react well

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Assessing Eisenhower

• Escalated tensions between USA and Soviet Union
  what was once a limited confrontation, became a
  massive global effort to resist communism
• Failed to end a costly and dangerous arms race
• Placed a measure of restraint on those who urged
  the creation of an enormous American military
• Resisted military intervention in Vietnam
• Caution and moderateness in domestic and
  international affairs

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President Kennedy

• Inaugural address
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vxE0iPY7XGBofeature
  related
• More nukes
• Continued development and production of atomic
  weapons
• USSR, which had slowed the growth of its nuclear
  stockpile, responded by building more nukes
• Third World Focus

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Expanding American Influence

• Alliance for Progress
• Agency of International Development
• Peace Corps

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The Bay of Pigs

• Eisenhower administration had launched the
  project to overthrow Castro
• Kennedy had misgivings but he believed that
  Castro represented a threat
• April 17, 1961 armed exiles land near the Bay of
  Pigs in Cuba
• No uprising, instead well armed Castro forces
  easily crushed the invaders

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The Berlin Wall

• June 1961 Kennedy travels to the Soviet Union in
  the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs
• August 13, 1961 USSR constructs a wall between
  East Berlin and West Berlin

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Cuban Missile Crisis

• October 14, 1962 US aerial reconnaissance photos
• From Soviet perspective this was fair because USA
  had nuclear missiles in Turkey (aimed at them)
• Armament of Cuba with nukes would prevent further
  US invasion
• Kennedy determined that such weapons could not be
  allowed to remain

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CMC (cont.)

• October 22 Kennedy ordered a naval and air
  blockade around Cuba quarantine against all
  offensive weapons
• USSR ships headed for Cuba turn around
• But missile preparation continues in Cuba
• Tense, final moment agreement
• USSR promises to take missiles out of Cuba in
  return for American promise not to invade Cuba
• USA takes missiles out of Turkey

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Good Consequences of Cuban Missile Crisis

• USA and USSR both forced to confront the
  momentous consequences of war
• both countries seemed ready to move toward a new
  accommodation

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Bad Consequences of Cuban Missile Crisis

• humiliating retreat of USSR forced Nikita
  Khrushchev from power a year later
• replacement, Leonid Brezhnev was much more
  orthodox party figure
• Military inferiority felt by Soviets led to
  dramatic arms buildup that contributed to a
  comparable increase by the United States in the
  early 1980s