Transcript Student Presentations that Nobody Did

Student Presentations that
Nobody Did
List
• Cuban Revolution, Missile Crisis and MAD
• Vietnam War and Protests at Home
• Reagan + Gorbachev and the Fall of the Berlin
Wall
• SALT I and SALT II & Nuclear Proliferation Treaty
• Superpower Summit Talks
• 1980-1984 Olympics
• Congo Crisis
• Korean War
Berlin Airlift and the Iron Curtain
• After WWII, the four countries that
participated in Peace Talks were USA, Britain,
France and the USSR.
• They decided to divide Germany so that they
could better protect themselves and monitor
Germany.
• They also divided the capital of Germany,
Berlin.
• Russia began to isolate the territories under their
rule, including other border countries.
• The USSR even went to such extremes as to build
a wall between western and eastern Germany.
• French, British and American occupied zones of
Berlin became isolated and cut off from the west.
• The US, France and Britain of course did not want
the USSR to take control of Berlin so they sent
food and supplied to Berlin by Air
Iron Curtain
Cuban Revolution
• Fidel Castro – Unhappy with a pro-USA
dictator named Fulgencio Batista – trained a
group of guerrilla fighters in Mexico and
boarded a ship called the Granma, set sail for
Cuba to over throw the dictator.
• Upon arrival his command suffered heavy
casualties and fled to the hills, where they
gained support from the people.
Cuba Si!
• Gaining support and joining forced with rebels
from other parts of the island, Fidel Castro
and his troops overthrew Batista and set up a
communist inspired government in Cuba.
Cuban Revolution
• Fidel set up a communist dictatorship on the
island and went about nationalizing once the
American owned, Texaco Oil Refinery.
• America set up a trade sanctions and
demanded the privatization of the refinery.
• Nikita Khruschev, Soviet PM, promised he
would send oil to Cuba to be refined if, Cuba
joined the Soviet Sphere of Influence.
Cuban Missile Crisis
• In 1962, the Soviet Union was desperately behind
the United States in the arms race.
• Soviet missiles were only powerful enough to be
launched against Europe but U.S. missiles were
capable of striking the entire Soviet Union.
• In late April 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing
intermediate-range missiles in Cuba.
• A deployment in Cuba would double the Soviet
strategic arsenal and provide a real deterrent to a
potential U.S. attack against the Soviet Union.
Fidel and the Bay of Pigs
• The US had recently attempted to invade Cuba
via the Bay of Pigs. Castro feared a second attack.
• Castro approved of Khruschev’s plan to place
intermediate-range missiles on the island of
Cuba.
• Crisis began on October 15th, 1962 when spy
planes found missile sites being built.
• Embargo and a blockade was set up and trade
was blocked by the US navy.
"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
• Finally tensions eased on October 28th when
Khruschev agreed to take missiles back to the
Soviet union in return for Kennedy’s promise
of never to invade Cuba again.
Mutually Assured Destruction
Vietnam
Vietnam
• Proxy war fought by the USSR and the USA
indirectly through the use of US troops and North
and South Vietnamese troops.
• France had been given Vietnam following the
surrender of Japan. Communist Troops, lead by
Ho Chi Min, invaded from the North.
• In an attempt to “CONTAIN” communism in South
East Asia, the United States sent Military Advisors
and Troops 1955.
• By 1968, during the Tet Offensive, there were
500,000 US troops in Vietnam.
Home front
• On May 4, l970 members of the Ohio National
Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University
demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine.
• The event triggered a nationwide student strike
that forced hundreds of colleges and universities
to close.
• H. R. Haldeman, a top aide to President Richard
Nixon, suggests the shootings had a direct impact
on national politics.
Why?
• Nixon was elected. Promised to end war but
on April 30th, 1978 announced that it would
be expanded into Cambodia as well.
• People were genuinely upset and called for
direct action! Kent State Students had planned
a non-violent protest but things had gotten
out of hand the night before at a local bar.
National Guard was called in to protect
civilians against protestors.
Protests at Home
Kent State Protest
Bandung Conference
• Bandung Conference
• Zhou Enlai 1955 - a meeting of Asian and
African states—organized by Indonesia,
Myanmar (Burma), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India,
and Pakistan—which took place April 18–24,
1955, in Bandung, Indonesia.
• Countries were determined to stay nonaligned to either of the super powers.
Bandung
• 29 countries sent Delegates representing more
than half the world population.
• The conference reflected Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, India and Myanmar’s dissatisfaction with
the west.
• They wanted to continue to have peaceful
relationships with China (communist under Mao
Ze Dong)
• Strongly Opposed Colonialism chose not to align
with any super power but stick together.
Truman Doctrine
•
•
Send Money to Eastern Bloc Countries because then they would be less inclined to
be swayed by communism if they were financially secure.
The Truman Doctrine was beginning to be formulated in 1946, when George
Kennan, US ambassador in Moscow, wrote a ‘long telegram’
– “…Soviet power was growing, and [the]US should follow a policy of ‘containment’ to stop
Russian ‘salami tactics’. It was recommended that the US ‘support and assist all democratic
countries which are in any way menaced by the USSR’.
•
•
•
•
February 1947, the British government announced that it could no longer afford to
keep its soldiers fighting Communist rebels in Greece.
March 12, 1947, President Truman warned Congress that, without help, Greece
would fall to Communism. Nearby Turkey, he added, was in a similar
situation. He introduced an idea that if America let one country fall to
Communism, all the countries round about would follow (this was later called the
‘domino theory’).
Truman said that the Cold War was a choice between freedom and oppression.
America was OBLIGED to get involved:
– ‘I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are
resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.’
Marshall Plan
• Secretary of State George Marshall – why
don’t we make the same thing but offer it to
Soviet States too? Maybe they will choose to
Join capitalism as well?
• Dollar Diplomacy.
Summit Talks/Berlin Wall
• After a period of increasing tension (Iranian
Hostage Crisis, Afghanistan, Increase in Arms
production, fuel shortages, etc.) between the
Soviet Union and the United States.
• Gorbachev and Reagan met to discuss the future
of their super power nations.
• Discussion ranged from Human rights obligations
to stock pile of missiles, bankruptcy,
international relations, democracy etc.
Berlin Wall
• Ronald Reagan challenged Gorbachev to tear
down the wall as a symbol of freedom to all men
• “We welcome change and openness; for we believe that
freedom and security go together, that the advance of
human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.
There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be
unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of
freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you
seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and
eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this
gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear
down this wall!”
SALT I & SALT II
• SALT I – Strategic Arms Limitation Talks – 1972
• At Geneva in 1964 it was decided that the two
sides should "explore a verified freeze of the
number and characteristics of their strategic
nuclear offensive and defensive vehicles.“
• It was not until 1969 that these talks began
and it continued into 1972
SALT II
• Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev from 1972 to 1979 between the U.S.
and the Soviet Union, which sought to curtail the manufacture of strategic
nuclear weapons.
• It was a continuation of the progress made during the SALT I talks.
• SALT II was the first nuclear arms treaty which assumed real reductions in
strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles on both sides.
• SALT II helped the U.S. to discourage the Soviets from arming their third
generation ICBMs of SS-17, SS-19, SS18 types with many more Multiple
independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).
• In the late 1970s the USSR's missile design bureaus had developed
experimental versions of these missiles equipped with anywhere from 10
to 38 thermonuclear warheads each.
1964-1972
SALT I
Gerald Ford and
Brezhnev
1972-1979
SALT II
Jimmy Carter &
Brezhnev
Olympics Moscow, 1980
• The United States as well as a number of other
countries boycotted the Olympic Games because
of the Soviet Union invasion Afghanistan.
• The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan was a 9 year
proxy war during the cold war, involving the
Soviet Union supporting the Marxist Leninist
government of the democratic Republic of
Afghanistan. The invasion increased the tensions
between the superpowers in a Cold War which
had already rumbled on for over 30 years.
Los Angeles, 1984
• Followed by the boycott in 1980 was the boycott
of the games in 1984 held in LA, California. 14
eastern countries including Cuba, Soviet Union
and East Germany boycotted the games.
• Because of "United States interference in the
Middle East, its support for the regime occupying
Jerusalem and the crimes being committed by
the U.S.A. in Latin America, especially in El
Salvador.“ Iran was the only country not to attend
both the 1980 Moscow and the 1984 Los Angeles
Olympics.
Boycotts
Iranian Hostage Crisis
• The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis
between Iran and the United States where 52
Americans were held hostage for 444 days
from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981,
after a group of Islamist students and militants
took over the American Embassy in Tehran
supporting the Iranian Revolution. The US
President Carter called the hostages "victims
of terrorism and anarchy," including that the
"United States will not yield to blackmail."
Iranian Hostage Crisis
• With such tension between the two countries it’s a wonder they
lasted this long without something or someone cracking. But
eventually that did happen, the governments of the United States
and the United Kingdom claimed that Iraq's alleged possession of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed a threat to their
security and that of their coalition/regional allies.
• Although this could not be proved by the United Nations
Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)
they invaded anyway found that Iraq had ended its nuclear,
chemical, and biological programs in 1991 and had no active
programs at the time of the invasion. Although some degraded
remnants of misplaced or abandoned chemical weapons from
before 1991 were found, they were not the weapons which had
been the one of the main arguments for the invasion.
Congo Crisis
• The Congo crisis, as it took shape in 1960 and
1961, Patrice Lumumba, to retain control after
the revolt of the army on July 11, 1960, and
the mobilization of large numbers of Belgian
troops to defend Belgians in the Congo. The
United Nations moved in response to
Lumumba‘s immediate request for assistance,
deploying on 15 July a large peacekeeping
force, the United Nations Operations in the
Congo.
In October, 1958, Patrice Lumumba founded
the National Congolese Movement (MNC), he
became president of the organization and the
following year led a series of demonstrations
and strikes against the Belgian colonial
government.
MNC became the
country's strongest party.
Lumumba was arrested,
soon after was released
Congo
little was done to prepare the
country for independence
Lumumba appealed to the United
Nations for help and Dag Hammarskjold
agreed to send in a peace-keeping force
to restore order.
Contributions
• The failure to hold free elections throughout the Korean
Peninsula in 1948 deepened the division between the two
sides.
• Because the northern part of Korea had communist ideologies
due to USSR influencing and separated from the south
• Cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel
persisted
• escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces
invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. It was the first
significant armed conflict of the Cold War.
The Beginning
• USA and other countries passed a security council resolution
authorizing military intervention in Korea.
•
341,000 international soldiers which aided South Korean
forces in repelling the invasion, with twenty other countries of
the United Nations offering assistance.
Active stage
• Months in the war, the south had lost a lot of valuable solders
and they were pushed to the south Korean Peninsula, known
as the Pusan perimeter
• Chinese intervention forced the Southern-allied forces to
retreat behind the 38th Parallel.
• While not directly committing forces to the conflict, the
Soviet Union provided material aid to both the North Korean
and Chinese armies.
Semi Dormant stage
• The active stage of the war ended on 27 July 1953, when the
armistice agreement was signed. The agreement restored the
border between the Koreas near the 38th Parallel and created
the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 4 km wide fortified
buffer zone between the two Korean nations. Minor
outbreaks of fighting continue to the present day.