Transcript The 1960s

National Debt 286.3 Billion
Minimum Wage $1.00
Life Expectancy: Males 66.6 years
Females 73.1 years
1960s
This was the most dangerous
decade.
Fasten your seatbelts!
It’s going to be a bumpy ride!
The U-2 Incident
May 1, 1960
The U-2 Crisis of 1960 occurred when an
American U-2 spy plane was shot down over
the Soviet Union.
The U.S. denied the true purpose of the
plane, but were forced to admit it when the
U.S.S.R produced the living pilot and the
largely intact plane to corroborate their claim
of being spied on aerially.
The incident worsened East-West relations
during the Cold War and was a great
embarrassment for the United States.
On May 1, 1960 (fifteen days before the scheduled opening of an East-West summit
conference in Paris), a U.S. Lockheed U-2 spy plane, piloted by Gary Powers, left
Pakistan intending to overfly the Soviet Union and land at Norway.
The goal of the mission was to photograph ICBM development sites in and around
Sverdlovsk and Plesetsk in the Soviet Union.
Attempts to intercept the plane by Soviet fighters failed
due to the U-2's extreme altitude, but eventually one of
the 14 SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missiles launched
at the plane managed to get close enough – altitude
70,000 feet
According to a Soviet defector (Viktor Belenko), a
Soviet fighter (MiG-19 interceptor)
pursuing Powers was caught and destroyed in the
missile salvo.
Powers' aircraft was badly damaged, and crashed near
Sverdlovsk, deep inside Soviet territory.
Powers was captured after making a parachute
landing.
Four days after Powers disappeared, NASA issued a
very detailed press release noting that an aircraft had
"gone missing" north of Turkey.
The press release speculated that the pilot might
have fallen unconscious while the autopilot was still
engaged, even claiming that "the pilot reported over
the emergency frequency that he was experiencing
oxygen difficulties."
To bolster this, a U-2 plane was quickly painted in
NASA colors and shown to the media. (see photo).
After hearing this, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev
announced to the Supreme Soviet (and hence the
world) that a "spyplane" had been shot down,
. . . whereupon the U.S. issued a statement claiming
that it was a "weather research aircraft" which strayed
into Soviet airspace after the pilot had "difficulties with
his oxygen equipment" while flying over Turkey.
The White House, presuming Powers was dead,
gracefully acknowledged that this might be the same
plane, but still proclaimed "there was absolutely no
deliberate attempt to violate Soviet airspace and never
has been", and attempted to continue the facade by
grounding all U-2 aircraft to check for "oxygen
problems".
On May 7, Khrushchev dropped the bombshell:
I must tell you a secret. When I made my first
report I deliberately did not say that the pilot
was alive and well... and now just look how
many silly things [the Americans] [would] have
said.
Not only was Powers still alive, but his plane was
essentially intact.
The Soviets managed to recover the surveillance
camera and even developed the photographs.
Powers' survival pack, including 7500 rubles and
jewelry for women, was also recovered.
Aftermath
Powers is placed on trial as a spy.
Aftermath
Powers
pleaded
guilty and
was
convicted
of
espionage
on August
19 and
sentenced
to 3 years
imprisonme
nt and 7
years of
hard labor.
• The Paris Summit between Dwight
Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev
collapsed.
• Eisenhower refused to make apologies
over the incident, demanded by
Khrushchev.
He served one and
three-quarter years of
the sentence before
being exchanged for
Rudolf Abel on February
10, 1962.
The exchange occurred
on the Glienicke Bridge –
the checkpoint between
West and East Germany
in Potsdam.
Another result of the
crisis was that the US
Corona spy satellite
project was accelerated.
Effects of the U2 incident
1. The Paris meeting collapsed, and
there was no Test Ban Treaty.
2. There was no discussion of the
problem of Berlin - which led ultimately
to the Berlin Wall.
3. The incident was seen as a defeat
for the US - so they elected John F
Kennedy as President because he
promised to get much tougher on the
Russians.
The Cuban Revolution
Castro!
Until 1959, Cuba was ruled by a military
dictator called Juan Battista.
At this time Cuba was very dependant on the
USA; there were many US banks and
businesses on the island, as well as a
massive US naval base at Guantanamo.
Cuba’s main export was sugar, and the USA
was their biggest customer.
All this changed in
1959; there was a
Communist revolution
in Cuba, and Battista
was replaced by Fidel
Castro.
He severed all ties
with the USA and
turned to the USSR
for aid and support.
The USSR signed a treaty of friendship and gave Castro massive aid, as well as
agreeing to buy all his sugar.
Thus Cuba became a kind of Soviet satellite state on the USA’s doorstep.
China
China breaks relations off with
the Soviet Union!
1960
China made remarkable progress in the 1960s
in developing nuclear weapons.
--In a thirty-two-month period, China joined the
nuclear community of nations
--
China successfully exploded its first atomic bomb
(October 16, 1964),
--codenamed 59-6 for the year and month that Nikita
Krushchev refused to provide China with a prototype
bomb, it was an implosion device weighing 1,550
kilograms.
first
nuclear
bomb
called
"59-6",
China's first intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM)
launched its first nuclear missile (October 25, 1966),
The DongFeng-3 (DF-3, NATO designation: CSS-2) is a
single-warhead, single-stage, liquid-propellant ballistic missile –
30~40 remaining in service today.
and detonated its first hydrogen bomb (June 14,
1967).
The thermonuclear device was codenamed Test No.
6. Yield 3.3 Mgt. (mega tons)
Kennedy elected
president!
1961
Bay of Pigs
Bay of Pigs Invasion, unsuccessful attempt in 1961 to overthrow the government of the
Cuban revolutionary and premier Fidel Castro by United States-backed Cuban exiles.
Increasing friction between the United States and Castro's socialist regime led
President Dwight D. Eisenhower to break off diplomatic relations with Cuba in January
1961.
The operation was designed as a means of overthrowing the Castro regime without
revealing US involvement in the operation. The plan originally called for the gradual
build-up of anti-Castro forces within Cuba into a cohesive political and military unit
capable of toppling Castro. However, the operation quickly escalated into plans for a
full-scale invasion, with the budget expanding from US$4 million to US$46 million and
the CIA training and supplying anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Guatemala.
On April 15, two days before the invasion, CIA pilots bombed and destroyed part of
Castro’s air force. They were preparing to complete the job on April 16 when Kennedy,
for reasons that have never been properly explained, ordered a halt to the air strikes.
On April 17 about 1,500 exiles, armed with US weapons, landed at the Bahía de
Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the south coast of Cuba.
Hoping to find support from the local population, they intended to cross the island to
Havana, but were quickly stopped by Castro's army.
The failure of the invasion seriously embarrassed the Kennedy administration, which
was blamed by some for not giving it adequate air support and by others for allowing it
to take place at all. The success of Castro’s forces secured the Cuban regime and
pushed it closer to the Soviet Union,
April 17,
1961
Richard M. Nixon proposed it; Dwight D.
Eisenhower planned it; John F. Kennedy approved
it; the CIA carried it out . . .
CIA planned and funded -- amphibious landing by
armed Cuban exiles in southwest Cuba in an
attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel
Castro
President Kennedy receives the Brigade 2506 flag in Miami in Dec. 29, 1962
and declares: "I promise to return this flag in a free Havana."
The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations had made the judgment that
Castro's shift toward the Soviet Union could not be tolerated, and moved to
overthrow him.
However, the invasion failed miserably and proved to
be a major international embarrassment for the
Kennedy administration.
The Berlin Wall
1. Growing tension
Kennedy tried to get tough
on Communism.
He financed the forces
fighting the Communists in
Vietnam and Laos
In 1961 he helped an
invasion of Cuba
2. Refugees
West Berlin was wealthy
and free.
Many East Germans
worked in West Berlin, and
saw this.
By 1961, 3 million had fled
to the west through Berlin.
by August 1961, the flow
was 1,800 a day.
3. Sabotage
The Russians claimed that
the Americans used West
Berlin for spying and
sabotage
Obstacles such as pipes and barbed wire were put on
top to prevent people from climbing over.
The point of the wall was to stop people from moving
from East Berlin to West Berlin. It had many guard
towers which were equipped with machine guns.
From 1949 to 1961 around 2.5 million people moved from East
to West Berlin.
During 1961 no one made it from East to West Berlin, but 170
people died trying.
Overall the Berlin Wall was very effective for the Soviet Union
in keeping Germans in East Berlin.
Results of Berlin Wall
• 1. Berlin was split in two. Hundreds of East
Berliners died trying to cross it.
• 2. America complained, but did not try to take it
down – it was not worth a war.
• 3. The West became more anti-communist.
The Berlin Wall is the Symbol of
the Cold War!!!!
Cuban Missile
Crisis
October 14 – November 20, 1962
Nuclear catastrophe was hanging by a thread ... and we weren't
counting days or hours, but minutes."
-Soviet General and Army Chief of Operations, Anatoly
Gribkov
Causes
• 1. Superpower Tension
• 2. Fidel Castro’s Cuba
• 3. The Bay of Pigs
• October
– U2 spy plane
took pictures of missile bases
in Cuba
th
14
• Kennedy told ten days before
operational
What to do?
• 1. Nuclear Strike? It would cause a nuclear war.
• 2. Conventional attack? There were Russian troops
in Cuba, and it would probably lead to a war with Russia.
• 3. Use the UN? Too slow.
• 4. Do nothing? The missile bases were too
dangerous.
• 5. Blockade? This would stop the missiles getting to
the missile bases, but it was not a direct act of war.
13 Days on the Brink!!
• October 22 - Kennedy announced
• that he was mounting a naval blockade of Cuba.
• October 23 - Khrushchev explained that the missile sites
were ‘solely to defend Cuba against the attack of an
aggressor’.
• October 24 Russia would get ready ‘a fitting reply to the
aggressor’.
• 20 Russian ships were heading for Cuba.
• October 25 The first Russian ship reached the naval
blockade. It was an oil ship and was allowed through
• More Soviet ships approached the “quarantine line”.
Missiles on Board!!!
• America wondered if Khrushchev had enough time to
instruct the ship captains.
• Soviet ships stopped dead in the water after receiving a
radio message from Moscow.
13 Days on the Brink!!
• "We were eyeball to eyeball and the other guy just
blinked." Secretary of State Dean Rusk
• Not out of the woods yet!!!!
• October 25 - Military alert was raised to DEFCON 2, the
highest ever in U.S. history. The military could, at a
moment's notice, launch an attack on Cuba or the Soviet
Union.
• October 26 – US received a letter from Khrushchev.
(letter one)
• The Soviets would remove their missiles if Kennedy
publicly guaranteed the U.S. would never invade Cuba.
•
•
•
•
Then we received another letter from Russia.
Demanding that we remove missile bases in Turkey.
They were old and out of date. BUT!!!!!
October 27 - Kennedy wrote to Khrushchev that US
would lift the blockade
• And agree not to invade Cuba if Khrushchev would
dismantle the missile bases.
• Kennedy also offered secretly to dismantle the Turkish
missile bases.
Results
• 1. Khrushchev
lost prestige –
he had failed,
but prevented
nuclear
disaster.
• 2. Kennedy gained prestige.
He was seen as the men who
faced down the Russians.
• 3. Both sides had had a
fright. The two leaders set up a
telephone ‘hotline’ to talk
directly in a crisis.
• 4. In 1963, they agreed a
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Cuba was the start of the end
of the Cold War.
• 5. Cuba remained a
Communist dictatorship, but
America left it alone.
Vietnam
Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese waged an anti-colonial war
against France, which received $2.6 billion in financial support from
the United States. The French defeat at the Dien Bien Phu was
followed by a peace conference in Geneva. As a result of the
conference, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam received their
independence, and Vietnam was temporarily divided between an antiCommunist South and a Communist North. In 1956, South Vietnam,
with American backing, refused to hold unification elections. By 1958,
Communist-led guerrillas, known as the Viet Cong, had begun to
battle the South Vietnamese government.
To support the South's government, the United States sent in 2,000
military advisors--a number that grew to 16,300 in 1963. The military
condition deteriorated, and by 1963, South Vietnam had lost the
fertile Mekong Delta to the Viet Cong. In 1965, President Lyndon
Johnson escalated the war, commencing air strikes on North Vietnam
and committing ground forces--which numbered 536,000 in 1968.
The 1968 Tet Offensive by the North Vietnamese turned many
Americans against the war.
The next president, Richard Nixon, advocated Vietnamization,
withdrawing American troops and giving South Vietnam greater
responsibility for fighting the war. In 1970, Nixon attempted to slow
the flow of North Vietnamese soldiers and supplies into South
Vietnam by sending American forces to destroy Communist supply
bases in Cambodia. This act violated Cambodian neutrality and
provoked antiwar protests on the nation's college campuses.
From 1968 to 1973, efforts were made to end the conflict through
diplomacy. In January 1973, an agreement was reached; U.S. forces
were withdrawn from Vietnam, and U.S. prisoners of war were
released. In April 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North, and
Vietnam was reunited.
Consequences
1. The Vietnam War cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000
casualties. It also resulted in between one and two million
Vietnamese deaths.
2. Congress enacted the War Powers Act in 1973, requiring the
president to receive explicit Congressional approval before
committing American forces overseas.
Tet Offensive
An offensive by Vietcong and
North Vietnamese forces
against South Vietnamese and
U.S. positions in South
Vietnam, beginning on Jan. 31,
1968, the start of Tet.
Yuri Gagarin
First man in space
It became the first human to travel into space, as well as orbit the Earth.
The Russians are pulling ahead in the space race!
Nuclear Test Ban
August 5, 1963
On August 5, 1963, the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed by the United
States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.
---banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere, in outer space,
and under water – DID NOT ban testing underground . . .
Continued testing of atomic and then hydrogen devices lead to a rising
concern about the effects of radioactive fallout. As knowledge of the
nature and effects of fallout increased, and as it became apparent that no
region in the world was untouched by radioactive debris, the issue of
continued nuclear tests drew widened and intensified public attention.
Assassination of
JFK
November 22, 1963
Shortly after noon on November 22,
1963, President John F. Kennedy
was assassinated as he rode in a
motorcade through Dealey Plaza in
downtown Dallas, Texas. By the fall
of 1963, President John F. Kennedy
and his political advisers were
preparing for the next presidential
campaign.
Johnson being sworn in
as president.
Lee Harvey Oswald
Brezhnev
1964
Khrushchev was ousted – Brezhnev became the new Soviet leader -ruler of the
Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982. Both LBJ and Brezhnev were hard liners . . .
Czechoslovakia held peaceful demonstrations to end communism. Brezhnev sent
Soma troops and tanks to crush the popular movement. The Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia was forced to suppress all moves made towards democracy. But it
finally had to surrender on December 9, 1989, in a revolution later called - "The
Velvet revolution".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9MBpdc6Jyw