Cold War (1953–1962)
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The Cold War (1953–1962) discusses the period within the
Eisenhower and Khrushchev
When Harry S. Truman was succeeded in office by Dwight D. Eisenhower as the 34th U.S. President in 1953, the Democrats lost their two-decades-long control of the U.S. presidency. Under Eisenhower, however, the United States' Cold War policy remained essentially unchanged. Whilst a thorough rethinking of foreign policy was launched (known as "Project Solarium"), the majority of emerging ideas (such as a "rollback of communism" and the liberation of Eastern Europe) were quickly regarded as unworkable. An underlying focus on the containment of Soviet communism remained to inform the broad approach of U.S. foreign policy.
While the transition from the
During a subsequent period of
The effect of this speech on Soviet politics was immense. With it Khrushchev stripped his remaining Stalinist rivals of their legitimacy in a single stroke, dramatically boosting the First Party Secretary's domestic power. Khrushchev followed by easing restrictions, freeing some dissidents and initiating economic policies that emphasized commercial goods rather than just coal and steel production.
U.S. strategy: "massive retaliation" and "brinksmanship"
Conflicting objectives
When Eisenhower entered office in 1953, he was committed to two possibly contradictory goals: maintaining—or even heightening—the national commitment to counter the spread of Soviet influence; and satisfying demands to balance the budget, lower taxes, and curb
Eisenhower inherited from the Truman administration a military budget of roughly US$42 billion, as well as a paper (NSC-141) drafted by Acheson, Harriman, and Lovett calling for an additional $7–9 billion in military spending.[4] With Treasury Secretary George Humphrey leading the way, and reinforced by pressure from Senator Robert A. Taft and the cost-cutting mood of the Republican Congress, the target for the new fiscal year (to take effect on July 1, 1954) was reduced to $36 billion. While the Korean armistice was on the verge of producing significant savings in troop deployment and money, the State and Defense Departments were still in an atmosphere of rising expectations for budgetary increases. Humphrey wanted a balanced budget and a tax cut in February 1955, and had a savings target of $12 billion (obtaining half of this from cuts in military expenditures).
Although unwilling to cut deeply into defense, the President also wanted a balanced budget and smaller defense allocations. "Unless we can put things in the hands of people who are starving to death we can never lick communism", he told his cabinet. With this in mind, Eisenhower continued funding for America's innovative cultural diplomacy initiatives throughout Europe which included goodwill performances by the "soldier-musician ambassadors" of the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Moreover, Eisenhower feared that a bloated "military–industrial complex" (a term he popularized) "would either drive U.S. to war—or into some form of dictatorial government" and perhaps even force the U.S. to "initiate war at the most propitious moment." On one occasion, the former commander of the greatest amphibious invasion force in history privately exclaimed, "God help the nation when it has a President who doesn't know as much about the military as I do."[14]
In the meantime, however, attention was being diverted elsewhere in Asia. The continuing pressure from the "China lobby" or "Asia firsters", who had insisted on active efforts to restore Chiang Kai-shek to power was still a strong domestic influence on foreign policy. In April 1953 Senator Robert A. Taft and other powerful Congressional Republicans suddenly called for the immediate replacement of the top chiefs of the Pentagon, particularly the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Omar Bradley. To the so-called "China lobby" and Taft, Bradley was seen as having leanings toward a Europe-first orientation, meaning that he would be a possible barrier to new departures in military policy that they favored. Another factor was the vitriolic accusations of McCarthyism, where large portions of the U.S. government allegedly contained covert communist agents or sympathizers. But after the mid-term elections in 1954–and censure by the Senate–the influence of Joseph McCarthy ebbed after his unpopular accusations against the Army.
Eisenhower administration strategy
I think most of our people cannot understand that we are actually at war. They need to hear shells. They are not psychologically prepared for the concept that you can have a war when you don't have actual fighting.
— Admiral Hyman G. Rickover addressing U.S. Senate Committee on Defense Preparedness on January 6, 1958[15]
The administration attempted to reconcile the conflicting pressures from the "Asia firsters" and pressures to cut federal spending while continuing to fight the Cold War effectively. On May 8, 1953, the President and his top advisors tackled this problem in "Operation Solarium", named after the White House sunroom where the president conducted secret discussions. Although it was not traditional to ask military men to consider factors outside their professional discipline, the President instructed the group to strike a proper balance between his goals to cut government spending and an ideal military posture.
The group weighed three policy options for the next year's military budget: the Truman-Acheson approach of containment and reliance on conventional forces; threatening to respond to limited Soviet "aggression" in one location with nuclear weapons; and serious "liberation" based on an economic response to the Soviet political-military-ideological challenge to Western hegemony: propaganda campaigns and psychological warfare. The third option was strongly rejected. Eisenhower and the group (consisting of Allen Dulles, Walter Bedell Smith, C.D. Jackson, and Robert Cutler) instead opted for a combination of the first two, one that confirmed the validity of containment, but with reliance on the American air-nuclear deterrent. This was geared toward avoiding costly and unpopular ground wars, such as Korea.
The Eisenhower administration viewed atomic weapons as an integral part of U.S. defense, hoping that they would bolster the relative capabilities of the U.S. vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. The administration also reserved the prospects of using them, in effect, as a weapon of first resort, hoping to gain the initiative while reducing costs. By wielding the nation's nuclear superiority, the new Eisenhower-Dulles approach was a cheaper form of containment geared toward offering Americans "more bang for the buck".[citation needed]
Thus, the administration increased the number of nuclear warheads from 1,000 in 1953 to 18,000 by early 1961. Despite overwhelming U.S. superiority, one additional nuclear weapon was produced each day. The administration also exploited new technology. In 1955 the eight-engined
In 1961, the U.S. deployed 15
In 1962, the United States had more than eight times as many bombs and missile warheads as the USSR: 27,297 to 3,332.[17]
During the
Fear of Soviet influence and nationalism
Allen Dulles, along with most U.S. foreign policy-makers of the era, considered many Third World nationalists and "revolutionaries" as being essentially under the influence, if not control, of the Warsaw Pact. Ironically, in War, Peace, and Change (1939), he had called Mao Zedong an "agrarian reformer", and during World War II he had deemed Mao's followers "the so called 'Red Army faction'".[18] But he no longer recognized indigenous roots in the Chinese Communist Party by 1950. In War or Peace, an influential work denouncing the containment policies of the Truman administration, and espousing an active program of "liberation", he writes:
Thus the 450,000,000 people in China have fallen under leadership that is violently anti-American, and takes its inspiration and guidance from Moscow... Soviet Communist leadership has won a victory in China which surpassed what Japan was seeking and we risked war to avert.[19]
Behind the scenes, Dulles could explain his policies in terms of geopolitics. But publicly, he used the moral and religious reasons that he believed Americans preferred to hear, even though he was often criticized by observers at home and overseas for his strong language.
Two of the leading figures of the interwar and early Cold War period who viewed international relations from a "realist" perspective, diplomat George Kennan and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, were troubled by Dulles' moralism and the method by which he analyzed Soviet behavior. Kennan disagreed with the notion that the Soviets even had a world design after Stalin's death, being far more concerned with maintaining control of their own bloc. However, the underlying assumptions of a monolithic world communism, directed from the Kremlin, of the Truman-Acheson containment after the drafting of NSC-68 [20] were essentially compatible with those of the Eisenhower-Dulles foreign policy. The conclusions of Paul Nitze's National Security Council policy paper were as follows:
What is new, what makes the continuing crisis, is the polarization of power which inescapably confronts the slave society with the free... the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority... [in] the Soviet Union and second in the area now under [its] control... In the minds of the Soviet leaders, however, achievement of this design requires the dynamic extension of their authority... To that end Soviet efforts are now directed toward the domination of the Eurasian land mass.[21]
The end of the Korean War
Prior to his election in 1953,
Origins of the Space Race
The Space Race between the
Creation of NASA
In reaction to the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union, the President's Science Advisory Committee advised President Dwight D. Eisenhower to convert National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics into a new organization that would be more progressive in the United States' efforts for space exploration and research.[27] This organization was to be named the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This agency would effectively shift the control of space research and travel from the military into the hands of NASA, which was to be a civilian-government administration.[29] NASA was to be in charge of all non-military space activity, while another organization (DARPA) was to be responsible for space travel and technology intended for military use.[30]
On April 2, 1958, Eisenhower presented legislation to Congress to implement the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Congress responded by supplementing the creation of NASA, with an additional committee to be called the
Kennedy's space administration
Since the conception of NASA, there had been considerations about the possibility of flying a man to the Moon. On July 5, 1961, the "Research Steering Committee on Manned Spaceflight", led by George Low presented the concept of the Apollo program to the NASA "Space Exploration Council". Although under the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidential administration NASA was given very little authority to further explore space travel, it was proposed that after the crewed Earth-orbiting missions, Project Mercury, that the government-civilian administration should make efforts to successfully complete a crewed lunar spaceflight mission. NASA administrator T. Keith Glennan explained that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, restricted any further space exploration beyond Project Mercury. After John F. Kennedy had been elected as president the previous November, policy for space exploration underwent a revolutionary change.[29]
"This nation should commit itself to the achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth" -John F. Kennedy[31]
After President John F. Kennedy made this proposal to Congress on May 25, 1961, he remained true to this commitment to send a crewed lunar spaceflight in the ensuing 30 months prior to his assassination. Directly after his proposal, there was an 89% increase in government funding for NASA, followed by a 101% increase in funding the subsequent year.[31] This marked the beginning of the United States' mission to the Moon.
The Soviet Union in the Space Race
In August 1957 the Soviet Union tested the world's first successful
The R7 ICBM
Prior to the start of the space race, the Soviet Union and the United States were struggling to build and obtain a missile that could not only carry nuclear cargo, but could also travel effectively from one country to another. These missiles, also known as ICBMs or
Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched the first Earth satellite into space. Sputnik 1's official mission was to send back data from space, however the effects of this launch were monumental for both the
Sputnik 2 launched almost a month later on November 3, 1957, with a mission goal of carrying the first dog, Laika, into Earth orbit. This mission, though unsuccessful in the sense that Laika did not survive the mission, further established the USSR's position in the Cold War. Not only were the Soviets capable of launching a missile into space, but they could continue to complete successful space launches before the United States could complete one launch.
Lunar missions
The USSR launched three Lunar missions in 1959. The Lunar missions were the Russian equivalent to the United States Project Mercury and Project Gemini space programs, whose primary mission was to prepare to put the first human on the Moon.[36] The first of the Lunar missions was Luna 1, which launched on January 2, 1959. Its successful mission established the first rocket engine restart within Earth orbit and the first man-made object to establish heliocentric orbit. Luna 2, which launched on September 14, 1959, established the first impact into another celestial body (the Moon). Finally, Luna 3 launched on October 7, 1959, and took the first pictures of the dark side of the Moon. After these three missions in 1959, the Soviets continued their exploration of the Moon and its environment in 21 other Luna missions.[36]
Soviet space travel from 1960–1962
The
Over this two-year period, the Soviets were taking major steps forward in getting to the Moon with one mission set back,
Other notable launches include:
- Vostok 1: Launched on April 12, 1961. Successfully carried the first human into space, Yuri Gagarin, and completed the first crewed orbital flight.
- Vostok 2: Launched August 6, 1961. Successfully carried the first crewed mission lasting one day carrying Gherman Titov.
- Vostok 4: Launched August 12, 1962. Vostok 3 carried Andriyan Nikolayev and Vostok 4 carried Pavel Popovich. Successfully completed the first dual crewed space flight, the first ship-to-ship radio contact and first simultaneous flight of crewed spacecraft.
The race continues
The Soviet Union continued to extend its lead in the space race with its mission on April 12, 1961, which made Soviet cosmonaut
Soviet strategy
In 1960 and 1961, Khrushchev tried to impose the concept of nuclear deterrence on the military. Nuclear deterrence holds that the reason for having nuclear weapons is to discourage their use by a potential enemy, with each side deterred from war because of the threat of its escalation into a nuclear conflict, Khrushchev believed, "peaceful coexistence" with capitalism would become permanent and allow the inherent superiority of socialism to emerge in economic and cultural competition with the West.
Khrushchev hoped that exclusive reliance on the nuclear firepower of the newly created Strategic Rocket Forces would remove the need for increased defense expenditures. He also sought to use nuclear deterrence to justify his massive troop cuts; his downgrading of the Ground Forces, traditionally the "fighting arm" of the Soviet armed forces; and his plans to replace bombers with missiles and the surface fleet with nuclear missile submarines.[38] However, during the Cuban Missile Crisis the USSR had only four R-7 Semyorkas and a few R-16s intercontinental missiles deployed in vulnerable surface launchers.[16] In 1962 the Soviet submarine fleet had only 8 submarines with short range missiles, which could be launched only from submarines that surfaced and lost their hidden submerged status.
Khrushchev's attempt to introduce a nuclear 'doctrine of deterrence' into Soviet military thought failed. Discussion of nuclear war in the first authoritative Soviet monograph on strategy since the 1920s, Marshal Vasilii Sokolovskii's "Military Strategy" (published in 1962, 1963, and 1968) and in the 1968 edition of Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army, focused upon the use of nuclear weapons for fighting rather than for deterring a war. Should such a war break out, both sides would pursue the most decisive aims with the most forceful means and methods. Intercontinental ballistic missiles and aircraft would deliver massed nuclear strikes on the enemy's military and civilian objectives. The war would assume an unprecedented geographical scope, but Soviet military writers argued that the use of nuclear weapons in the initial period of the war would decide the course and outcome of the war as a whole. Both in doctrine and in strategy, the nuclear weapon reigned supreme.[38]
Mutual assured destruction
An important part of developing stability was based on the concept of Mutual assured destruction (MAD). While the Soviets acquired atomic weapons in 1949, it took years for them to reach parity with the United States. In the meantime, the Americans developed the
This fact often made leaders on both sides extremely reluctant to take risks, fearing that some small flare-up could ignite a war that would wipe out all of human civilization. Nonetheless, leaders of both nations pressed on with military and espionage plans to prevail over the other side. At the same time, different avenues were pursued to try to advance their causes; these began to encompass
One of the most important forms of
Soon the Americans had a space program of their own but remained behind the Soviets until the mid-1960s. American President John F. Kennedy launched an unprecedented effort, promising that by the end of the 1960s Americans would land a man on the Moon, which they did, thus beating the Soviets to one of the more important objectives in the space race.
Another alternative to outright battle was the shadow war that was taking place in the world of espionage. There was a series of shocking spy scandals in the west, most notably that involving the Cambridge Five. The Soviets had several high-profile defections to the west, such as the Petrov Affair. Funding for the KGB, CIA, MI6 and smaller organizations such as the Stasi increased greatly as their agents and influence spread around the world.
In 1957 the CIA started the program of reconnaissance flights over the USSR using
Eastern Bloc events
As the Cold War became an accepted element of the international system, the battlegrounds of the earlier period began to stabilize. A de facto buffer zone between the two camps was set up in Central Europe. In the south, Yugoslavia became heavily allied with the other European communist states. Meanwhile, Austria had become neutral.
1953 East Germany uprising
Following large numbers of East Germans traveling west through the only "loophole" left in the
Creation of the Warsaw Pact
In 1955, the
1956 Polish protests
After the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, the communist regime in Poland relaxed some of its policies. This led to a desire within the Polish public for more radical reforms of this kind, though the majority of Polish officials did not share this desire and were hesitant to reform. This caused impatience among industrial workers who began to strike; demanding better wages, lower work quotas, and cheaper food. 30,000 demonstrators carried banners demanding "Bread and Freedom".
In
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
After Stalinist dictator Mátyás Rákosi was replaced by
The new government that came to power during the revolution formally disbanded the
1960 U-2 incident
The United States sent pilot Francis Gary Powers in a U-2 spy plane on a mission over Russian airspace to accumulate intelligence on the Soviet Union on 1 May 1960. The spy plan had taken off from Peshawar, Pakistan. Eisenhower administration authorized multiple such flights into Russian airspace, however, this one increased the tension on American-Soviet relations. On this day, Powers' plane was shot down and recovered by the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower and the United States tried to claim the plane was only used for weather purposes. The incident occurred just weeks before the two countries were supposed to attend a summit along with France and Great Britain. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev would not release any information about the plane or its pilot in the days leading up to the summit so that the United States would continue its "weather plane" lie, though eventually Eisenhower would be forced to admit that the CIA had been conducting such surveillance missions for years. This was because, at the summit, Khrushchev admitted that the Soviets had captured the pilot alive and recovered undamaged sections of the spy plane. He demanded that President Eisenhower apologize at the summit. Eisenhower did agree to bring the intelligence gathering excursions to an end but would not apologize for the incident. Upon Eisenhower's refusal to apologize, the summit came to an end as Khrushchev would no longer contribute to the discussion. One of Eisenhower's primary goals as president was to improve the American-Soviet relationship, however, this exchange proved to damage such relations. The summit was also an opportunity for the two leaders to finalize a limited nuclear test ban treaty, but this was no longer a possibility after the United States handling of the incident.[55] Khrushchev threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on Peshawar,[56] thus warning Pakistan that it had become a target of Soviet nuclear forces.[57]
Berlin Crisis of 1961
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The crucial sticking point was still
Germany was an important issue because it was regarded as the power center of the continent, and both sides believed that it could be crucial to the world balance of power. While both might have preferred a united neutral Germany, the risks of it falling into the enemy's camp for either side were too high, and thus the temporary post-war occupation zones became permanent borders.
In November 1958, Soviet first secretary Khrushchev issued an ultimatum giving the Western powers six months to agree to withdraw from Berlin and make it a free, demilitarized city. At the end of that period, Khrushchev declared, the Soviet Union would turn over to East Germany complete control of all lines of communication with West Berlin; the western powers then would have access to West Berlin only by permission of the East German government. The United States, Britain, and France replied to this ultimatum by firmly asserting their determination to remain in West Berlin and to maintain their legal right of free access to that city.
In 1959, the Soviet Union withdrew its deadline and instead met with the Western powers in a Big Four foreign ministers' conference. Although the three-month-long sessions failed to reach any important agreements, they did open the door to further negotiations and led to Soviet leader Khrushchev's visit to the United States in September 1959. At the end of this visit, Khrushchev and President Eisenhower stated jointly that the most important issue in the world was general disarmament and that the problem of Berlin and "all outstanding international questions should be settled, not by the application of force, but by peaceful means through negotiations."
However, in June 1961 Soviet first secretary Khrushchev created a new crisis over the status of West Berlin when he again threatened to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany, which he said, would end existing four-power agreements guaranteeing American, British, and French access rights to West Berlin. The three powers replied that no unilateral treaty could abrogate their responsibilities and rights in West Berlin, including the right of unobstructed access to the city.
As the confrontation over Berlin escalated, on 25 July President Kennedy requested an increase in the Army's total authorized strength from 875,000 to approximately 1 million men, along with an increase of 29,000 and 63,000 men in the active duty strength of the Navy and the Air Force. Additionally, he ordered that draft calls be doubled, and asked Congress for authority to order to active duty certain ready reserve units and individual reservists. He also requested new funds to identify and mark space in existing structures that could be used for fall-out shelters in case of attack, to stock those shelters with food, water, first-aid kits and other minimum essentials for survival, and to improve air-raid warning and fallout detection systems.
During the early months of 1961, the government actively sought a means of halting the emigration of its population to the West. By the early summer of 1961, East German President Walter Ulbricht apparently had persuaded the Soviets that an immediate solution was necessary and that the only way to stop the exodus was to use force. This presented a delicate problem for the Soviet Union because the four-power status of Berlin specified free travel between zones and specifically forbade the presence of German troops in Berlin.
During the spring and early summer, the East German regime procured and stockpiled building materials for the erection of the Berlin Wall. Although this extensive activity was widely known, few outside the small circle of Soviet and East German planners believed that East Germany would be sealed off.
On June 15, 1961, two months before the construction of the Berlin Wall started, First Secretary of the
On Saturday, August 12, 1961, the leaders of East Germany attended a garden party at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee, in a wooded area to the north of East Berlin, and Walter Ulbricht signed the order to close the border and erect a Wall.
At midnight the army, police, and units of the East German army began to close the border and by morning on Sunday, August 13, 1961, the border to West Berlin had been shut. East German troops and workers had begun to tear up streets running alongside the barrier to make them impassable to most vehicles, and to install barbed wire entanglements and fences along the 156 km (97 mi) around the three western sectors and the 43 km (27 mi) which actually divided West and East Berlin. Approximately 32,000 combat and engineer troops were used in building the Wall. Once their efforts were completed, the Border Police assumed the functions of manning and improving the barrier. East German tanks and artillery were present to discourage interference by the West and presumably to assist in the event of large-scale riots.
On 30 August 1961, President John F. Kennedy ordered 148,000 Guardsmen and Reservists to active duty in response to East German moves to cut off allied access to Berlin. The Air Guard's share of that mobilization was 21,067 individuals. ANG units mobilized in October included 18 tactical fighter squadrons, 4 tactical reconnaissance squadrons, 6 air transport squadrons, and a tactical control group. On 1 November; the Air Force mobilized three more ANG fighter interceptor squadrons. In late October and early November, eight of the tactical fighter units flew to Europe with their 216 aircraft in operation "Stair Step", the largest jet deployment in the Air Guard's history. Because of their short range, 60 Air Guard F-104 interceptors were airlifted to Europe in late November. The United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) lacked spare parts needed for the ANG's aging F-84s and F-86s. Some units had been trained to deliver tactical nuclear weapons, not conventional bombs and bullets. They had to be retrained for conventional missions once they arrived on the continent. The majority of mobilized Air Guardsmen remained in the U.S.[58]
The four powers governing Berlin (France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States) had agreed at the 1945 Potsdam Conference that Allied personnel would not be stopped by East German police in any sector of Berlin. But on 22 October 1961, just two months after the construction of the Wall, the U.S. Chief of Mission in West Berlin, E. Allan Lightner, was stopped in his car (which had occupation forces license plates) while going to a theater in East Berlin. Army General Lucius D. Clay (retired), U.S. President John F. Kennedy's Special Advisor in West Berlin, decided to demonstrate American resolve.
The attempts of a U.S. diplomat to enter East Berlin were backed by U.S. troops. This led to the stand-off between US and Soviet tanks at Checkpoint Charlie on 27–28 October 1961. The stand-off was resolved only after direct talks between Ulbricht and Kennedy.
The Berlin Crisis saw US Army troops facing East German Army troops in a stand-off, until the East German government backed down. The crisis ended in the summer of 1962 and the personnel returned to the United States.[58]
During the crisis KGB prepared an elaborate subversion and disinformation plan "to create a situation in various areas of the world which would favor dispersion of attention and forces by the U.S. and their satellites, and would tie them down during the settlement of the question of a German peace treaty and West Berlin". On 1 August 1961 this plan was approved by CPSU Central Committee.[59]
Third World arena of conflict
The Korean War marked a shift in the focal point of the Cold War, from postwar Europe to East Asia. After this point, in the wake of the disintegration of Europe's colonial empires, proxy battles in the Third World became an important arena of superpower competition in the establishment of alliances and jockeying for influence in these emerging nations. Many Third World nations, however, did not want to align themselves with either of the superpowers. The Non-Aligned Movement, led by India, Egypt, and Yugoslavia, attempted to unite the third world against what was seen as imperialism by both the East and the West.
Defense pacts
The Eisenhower administration attempted to formalize its alliance system through a series of pacts. Its Southeast Asian allies were joined into the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) while allies in Latin America were placed in the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR). The ANZUS alliance was signed between the Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. None of these groupings was as successful as NATO had been in Europe.
John Foster Dulles, a rigid anti-communist, focused aggressively on Third World politics. He intensified efforts to "integrate" the entire non-communist Third World into a system of mutual defense pacts, traveling almost 500,000 miles in order to cement new alliances. Dulles initiated the Manila Conference in 1954, which resulted in the SEATO pact that united eight nations (either located in Southeast Asia or with interests there) in a neutral defense pact. This treaty was followed in 1955 by the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), uniting the United Kingdom, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan in a defense organization. A Northeast Asia Treaty Organization (NEATO) comprising the U.S., Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan was also considered.
Decolonization
The combined effects of two great European wars had weakened the political and economic domination of Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, and the Middle East by European powers. This led to a series of waves of African and Asian decolonization following World War II; a world that had been dominated for over a century by Western imperialist colonial powers was transformed into a world of emerging African, Middle Eastern, and Asian nations. The sheer number of nation states increased drastically.
The Cold War started placing immense pressure on developing nations to align with one of the superpower factions. Both promised substantial financial, military, and diplomatic aid in exchange for an alliance, in which issues like corruption and human rights abuses were overlooked or ignored. When an allied government was threatened, the superpowers were often prepared and willing to intervene.
In such an international setting, the Soviet Union propagated a role as the leader of the "anti-imperialist" camp, currying favor in the Third World as being a more staunch opponent of colonialism than many independent nations in Africa and Asia. Khrushchev broadened Moscow's policy by establishing new relations with India and other key non-aligned, non-communist states throughout the Third World. Many countries in the emerging Non-Aligned Movement developed a close relationship with Moscow.
Meanwhile, the Eisenhower administration adjusted U.S. policy to the effects of decolonization. This shifted the focus of 1947–1949 away from war-torn Europe. By the early 1950s, the NATO alliance had already integrated Western Europe into the system of mutual defense pacts, providing safeguards against subversion or neutrality in the bloc. The Marshall Plan had already rebuilt a functioning Western economic system, thwarting the electoral appeal of the radical left. When economic aid had ended the dollar shortage and stimulated private investment for postwar reconstruction, in turn sparing the U.S. from a crisis of over-production and maintaining demand for U.S. exports, the Eisenhower administration began to focus on other regions.
In an exercise of the new "rollback" policies, acting on the doctrines of Dulles, Eisenhower thwarted Soviet intervention, using the CIA to overthrow unfriendly governments. In the Arab world, the focus was pan-Arab nationalism. U.S. companies had already invested heavily in the region, which contained the world's largest oil reserves. The U.S. was concerned about the stability and friendliness of governments in the region, upon which the health of the U.S. economy increasingly grew to depend.
Africa
Africa would be a major battleground during the Cold War. The U.S. viewed the decolonization movement in Africa as an opportunity to gain access to raw materials that had previously been monopolized by the imperialist powers in Europe. U.S. policymakers also recognized that the poverty and instability that had persisted in Africa because of the colonial empires would provide a breeding ground for communist ideologies, so the U.S. would respond by providing economic assistance to the newly developing nations in Africa. Though the United States championed itself as a beacon of freedom and democracy, it often supported repressive regimes within Africa, such as the apartheid system led by a minority white population in South Africa.[60]
Communist governments also had, sometimes conflicting, policy objectives within Africa. The Soviet Union sought to respond to United States intervention within Africa by establishing alliances with newly born nations against Western imperialism. The Soviet Union saw the elimination of colonial capitalism from Africa, and the rest of the Third World, as necessary for the advancement of those nations and by extension the triumph of socialism over capitalism. Third World nationalists viewed the command-style economy of the Soviet Union as promising since it allowed that country to advance from an agrarian to an industrial economy. However, Soviet doctrine was not only challenged by the United States but by other communist powers. China also moved to support nationalist movements in Africa in order to challenge imperialism. Though the Soviet Union provided more substantial assistance, Maoist ideology became more alluring than Soviet ideology due to its emphasis on the rural population as opposed to Soviet doctrine which focused more on the urban proletariat. As such, Maoist ideology became popular within the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO). Often the Soviet Union and China found themselves supporting opposing liberation movements in Africa. Such as with Zimbabwe, with the Soviet Union supporting the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU) while China supported the ZANU's breakaway movements.[60]
Cuba would also play a major role in the nationalist movements within Africa. Cuba's focus on Africa stemmed from the belief that it provided an arena for the struggle between socialism and capitalism. Another reason cited by the Cuban government for its support of African socialist movements was the shared link between Cuba and Africa due to the fact that one-third of Cubans were of significant African heritage. As such,
Congo Crisis
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), previously known as Belgian Congo, achieved independence from Belgium in 1960, after which Western leaders were determined to keep the country, and its enormous quantities of mineral wealth, within the West's sphere of influence. However, in May 1960, the elected government. led by Patrice Lumumba, envisioned an economic model that would benefit the citizens of the Congo as opposed to supporting western economic interests. As such western powers sought to replace Lumumba with a more pro-western leader.[60]
On July 5, five days after independence, Congolese soldiers mutinied after being told by their Belgian officers that there would be no wage increases, promotions, or African officers in the post-colonial army. After which Lumumba dismissed the Belgians, and elevated Joseph Mobutu to army chief of staff. Later on July 11, Moïse Tshombe, who was closely associated with Belgian settlers and international mining interests seceded the mineral-rich Katanga province from the DRC Convinced that Belgium was attempting to recolonize the Congo, Lumumba appealed for intervention at the United Nations. However the U.N. and U.S. refused to provide support, and thus Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union for aid. The United States government saw this as a threat and thus formulated plans to assassinate Lumumba.[60]
On September 5, President Joseph Kasa-Vubu ordered the dismissal of Lumumba and his cabinet over massacres by the armed forces during the invasion of South Kasai and for allowing Soviets military advisers into the country.[61] Later on September 14, with CIA and Belgian army support, Mobutu staged a coup against Lumumba. Lumumba was captured and transferred to Katanga in January where he was executed by the secessionist forces there. Tshombe then replaced Lumumba as prime minister In July 1964. Despite Tshombe's rule, the Congo would continue to be in crisis throughout the rest of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Though Communist nations would support rebel groups in the Congo, those groups would not succeed in taking power. The Congolese crisis had the effect of alienating from both the West and the East some in the third world who saw the East as weak and impotent, and the West as unethical and unscrupulous.[60]
East Africa
The Mau Mau uprising who fought against the British colonists and white settlers in Kenya, which was dominated by the Kikuyu which spreads the entire region of British Kenya. Jomo Kenyatta was arrested in 1954 and was released later in 1961. In 1957, Dedan Kimathi, the leader of Mau Mau who calls for Kenya's independence from British rule was hanged in the capital Nairobi which has laid down by the King's African Rifles (KAR) when the British lieutenant Idi Amin who would later become the dictator of Uganda, has served in the British Army in 1946 which has led Uganda's independence from the United Kingdom on 9 October 1962 with Milton Obote as Prime Minister.
Suez Crisis
The Middle East in the Cold War was an area of extreme importance and also great instability. The region lay directly south of the Soviet Union, which traditionally had great influence in Turkey and Iran. The area also had vast reserves of oil, not crucial for either superpower in the 1950s (who each held large oil reserves on their own) but essential for the rapidly rebuilding American allies in Europe and Japan. The original American plan for the Middle East was to form a defensive perimeter along the north of the region. Thus, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan signed the Baghdad Pact and joined METO.
The Eastern response was to seek influence in states such as Syria and Egypt. In accordance with this, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria made arms deals with Egypt, worth up to $225– 50 million in exchange for surplus cotton, giving Warsaw Pact members a strong presence in the region. Egypt, a former British protectorate, was one of the region's most important prizes with a large population and political power throughout the region.[60]
General Gamal Abdel Nasser's dealings with the Soviet Union and its allies antagonized the administrations of the West, including the Eisenhower administration in the U.S. In July 1956, the Eisenhower administration balked at funding the massive Aswan Dam project. In response, that same year, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and ejected British troops from Egypt.[60]
Eisenhower persuaded the United Kingdom and France to retreat from a badly planned invasion with Israel that was launched to regain control of the canal from Egypt for fear of alienating other Arab states, and driving them into the arms of the Soviet Union. While the Americans were forced to operate covertly, so as not to embarrass their allies, the Eastern Bloc nations made loud threats against the "imperialists" and worked to portray themselves as the defenders of the Third World. Nasser was later lauded around the globe, but especially in the Arab world.
Thus, the Suez stalemate was a turning point heralding an ever-growing rift between the Atlantic Cold War allies, which were becoming far less of a united monolith than they were in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Italy, France, Spain, West Germany, Norway, Canada, and Britain developed a common market to be less dependent on the United States. Such rifts mirror changes in global economics. American economic competitiveness faltered in the face of the challenges of Japan and West Germany, which recovered rapidly from the wartime decimation of their respective industrial bases. The 20th-century successor to the UK as the "workshop of the world", the United States found its competitive edge dulled in the international markets while at the same time it faced intensified foreign competition at home. Meanwhile, the Warsaw Pact countries were closely allied both militarily and economically.
Latin America
The Eisenhower-Dulles approach sought to overthrow unfriendly governments, but did so in a covert way. Throughout much of Latin America, reactionary oligarchies ruled through their alliances with the military elite and the United States. Although the nature of the U.S. role in the region was established many years before the Cold War, the Cold War gave U.S. interventionism a new ideological tinge. But by the mid-20th century, much of the region passed through a higher state of economic development, which bolstered the power and ranks of the lower classes. This left calls for social change and political inclusion more pronounced, thus posing a challenge to the strong U.S. influence over the region's economies. By the 1960s, Marxists gained increasing influence throughout the regions, prompting fears in the United States that Latin American instability posed a threat to U.S. national security.
Future Latin American revolutionaries shifted to
Haiti
After several coups d'état of
Guatemala
Throughout the Cold War years, the U.S. acted as a barrier to socialist revolutions and targeted populist and nationalist governments that were aided by the communists. The CIA overthrew other governments suspected of turning pro-communist, such as
Cuba
Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution
The Castro Regime overthrew the dictatorship of
Fidel Castro was the first political leader to establish a communist state in the western hemisphere and held control of Cuba for over five decades. Castro's political career started when he entered law school at the University of Havana.[66] He then joined the Orthodox Party movement, but tried and failed to overthrow the dictator of the Dominican Republic Trujillo in 1947. In 1952 he ran for a seat in Cuba's House of Representatives, but the election failed to happen due to the rise of the dictator. In 1953 Castro launched a coup in an attempt to overthrow Batista, but failed and was jailed soon after. While in jail he renamed his revolutionary group "26th of July Movement" and helped coordinate the group from prison. In 1955 was released from Cuban prison under an amnesty deal,[67] after which fled to Mexico in order to rally support for his second attempt at overthrowing Batista and dictatorship.[68] In December 1956, Castro, along with about 80 of his comrades, landed on Cuba. Though most of his forces were killed or captured for their attempt to overthrow the government during this time, Castro and what was left of his forces escaped into the mountains and began their guerrilla warfare campaign. Over the next two years Castro continued his guerrilla warfare while slowly growing his militant forces. In 1959 Castro's forces had key victories at important Cuban strongholds that, combined with Barista's loss of popularity and military power, led to Barista fleeing Cuba and Castro taking power.[69]
Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba on February 16, 1959, at this point in time he had control of the Cuban government's 30,000 man army. One of Castro's first acts as leader of Cuba was to nationalize American assets on the island without compensation. Before the fall of the pro-U.S. Batista regime, U.S. interests had owned four-fifths of the stakes in the island's utilities, nearly half of its sugar, and nearly all of its mining industries. The U.S. could manipulate the Cuban economy at a whim by tinkering with the island's financial services or by tampering with government quotas and tariffs on sugar–the country's staple export commodity. In response to these acts, the U.S. government refused to recognize Castro as the leader of Cuba,[70] the U.S. government made the first of several attempts of overthrow Castro by launching the infamous Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Castro then signed a trade agreement in February 1960 with communist states, which would emerge as a market for the island's agricultural commodities (and a new source for machinery, heavy industrial equipment, and technicians) that could replace the country's traditional patron–the United States. The East garnered a huge victory when they formed an alliance with Cuba after Fidel Castro's successful revolution in 1959. This was a major victory for the Soviet Union, which had garnered an ally in close proximity to the American coast. Overthrowing the new regime became a focus for the CIA.
Plans against Castro
After Fidel Castro's takeover of Cuba, the United States was unsure about the nation's new leader's political ideologies. Potential economic cooperation between Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in 1959, leaders of the Soviet Union and Cuba, respectively, resulted in the immediate perturbation of the United States. The largest concern at this time was a Soviet satellite just 90 miles from the United States' mainland. The administration then began planning to intervene in this situation. The CIA initially proposed sabotaging the sugar refineries in Cuba, but President Eisenhower felt the threat was Castro and that he was the issue the United States needed to resolve. The CIA then began planning for an overthrow or possible assassination of Castro in December 1959. In February 1960, President Eisenhower requested the CIA develop a formal program to remove Castro from power. The request resulted in a plan for a task force led by
Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Hoping to copy the success of Guatemala and Iran in 1961, the CIA, noting the large wave of emigration to the U.S. after Castro took power, trained and armed a group of Cuban exiles who landed at the Bay of Pigs where they were to attempt to spark an uprising against the Castro regime. The assault failed miserably, however. Afterwards, Castro publicly declared himself a Marxist-Leninst and set up Cuba as the first Communist state in the Americas and continued to nationalize virtually all major industries in the country.
The Soviet government seized on the abortive invasion as a rationale for the placing of Soviet troops in Cuba. It was also decided to position on Cuba
In response, President John F. Kennedy quarantined the island, and after several intense days the Soviets decided to retreat in return for promises from the U.S. not to invade Cuba and to pull missiles out of Turkey. After this brush with nuclear war, the two leaders banned nuclear tests in the air and underwater after 1962. The Soviets also began a huge military buildup. The retreat undermined Khrushchev, who was ousted soon afterwards and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
The Cuban Revolution led to Kennedy's initiation of the "Alliance for Progress" program. The program was to provide billions of dollars of loans and aid over the course of the 1960s for economic development in order to stave off socialist revolution. The Alliance also contained counterinsurgency measures, such as the establishment of the Jungle Warfare School in the Panama Canal Zone and the training of police forces.
Asia
Mossadegh and the CIA in Iran
The United States reacted with alarm as it watched developments in Iran, which had been in a state of instability since 1951.
Through the
Many Iranians demanded that a higher share of the company's earnings be paid. In response, the AIOC replied that it had a binding agreement with the Shah until 1993, and collaborated with some Iranian political forces to draft a report opposing nationalization. In February 1951, the Iranian prime minister, suspected of being involved with the report, was assassinated. He was replaced by nationalist Mohammad Mosaddegh. Later that year the new prime minister nationalized his nation's British-owned oil wells.[citation needed]
As the Iranians moved toward seizing the reserves, the Truman administration attempted to mediate. Later, the Eisenhower administration, convinced that Iran was developing communist ties, used the CIA, joining forces with Iran's military leaders to overthrow Iran's government. Mossadegh drew on the
To replace Mossadegh, the U.S. favored the young
Since the turn of the 20th century the United States had been trying to get into the Iranian oil fields only to encounter British competition. The breakthrough for the U.S. was made possible by the Cold War-era ties to the Shah and under the guidance of the State Department official
Indochina
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (French: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu; Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ) was the climactic battle of the First Indochina War between French Union forces of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps, and Vietnamese Viet Minh communist revolutionary forces led by Ho Chi Minh. The battle occurred between March and May 1954, and culminated in a massive French defeat that effectively ended the war.
Cambodia and Laos both achieved independence from France which led to the founding of the Workers' Party of Kampuchea. As a result of blunders in the French decision-making process, the French undertook to create an air-supplied base at Dien Bien Phu, deep in the hills of Vietnam. Its purpose was to cut off Viet Minh supply lines into the neighboring French protectorate of Laos and Cambodia, at the same time drawing the Viet Minh into a battle that would cripple them. Instead, the Viet Minh, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, surrounded and besieged the French, who were unaware of the Viet Minh's possession of heavy artillery (including anti-aircraft guns) and their ability to move such weapons to the mountain crests overlooking the French encampment. The Viet Minh occupied the highlands around Dien Bien Phu, and were able to fire down accurately onto French positions. Tenacious fighting on the ground ensued, reminiscent of the trench warfare of World War I. The French repeatedly repulsed Viet Minh assaults on their positions. Supplies and reinforcements were delivered by air, although as the French positions were overrun and the anti-aircraft fire took its toll, fewer and fewer of those supplies reached them. After a two-month siege, the garrison was overrun and most French surrendered. Despite the loss of most of their best soldiers, the Viet Minh marshaled their remaining forces and pursued those French who did flee into the wilderness, routing them and ending the battle.
Shortly after the battle, the war ended with the 1954 Geneva accords, under which France agreed to withdraw from its former Indochinese colonies including Cambodia led by Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) and Laos by Souphanouvong. The accords partitioned the country in two; fighting later resumed, in 1959, among rival Vietnamese forces as the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War).[80]
The U.S. intervention with the greatest ramifications was in
Indonesia
In
South Asia
There were some strategic reasons to be involved in South Asia. The Americans hoped that the Pakistani armed forces could be used to block any Soviet thrust into the crucial Middle East. It was also felt that as a large and high-profile nation, India would be a notable prize if it fell into either camp. India, a fledgling democracy, was never particularly in any grave danger of falling to insurgents or external pressure from a great power. It also did not wish to ally with the United States.
A key event in the South Asian arena of Cold War competition was the signing of the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement between Pakistan and the United States in 1954. This pact would limit the later options of all the major powers in the region. The U.S. committed to remaining closely tied to Pakistan. For Pakistan, the U.S. alliance became a central tenet of its foreign policy, and despite numerous disappointments with it, it was always seen as far too valuable a connection to abandon. After the
Soviet policy towards South Asia had closely paralleled that of the United States. At first the Soviets, like the Americans, had been largely uninterested in the region and maintained a neutral position in the Indo-Pakistani disputes. With the signing of the accords between Pakistan and the United States in 1954, along with the countries enlisting in METO and SEATO, the situation changed. In 1955, Khrushchev and Bulganin toured India and promised large quantities of financial aid and assistance in building industrial infrastructure. In Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, the Soviet leaders announced that the Soviet Union would abandon its neutralist position and back India in the ongoing Kashmir dispute.
Indian prime minister
By the late 1960s, Indian development efforts had again stalled. A large current accounts deficit had developed and a severe drought hit the agricultural sector hard. As with the downturn of a decade earlier, India again looked to outside assistance. However, relations were at a low ebb with the United States, which was largely preoccupied with Vietnam. On top of that, several smaller issues had turned American indifference into antipathy. Western international organizations such as the World Bank were also unwilling to commit money to India's development projects without Indian trade concessions.
Along with other Warsaw Pact nations, the Soviets began to provide extensive support for India's efforts to create an industrial base. In 1969, the two powers negotiated a treaty of friendship that would make non-alignment little more than a pretext. Two years later, when faced with a growing crisis in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), India signed the agreement.
Sino-Soviet split
Before the Sino-Soviet split, tensions between China and India complicated the Soviet Union's efforts to maintain close relations with both of Asia's leading emerging nations. In March 1959, China suppressed a revolt in Tibet, leading to open conflict between China and India. On March 31, the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and temporal ruler, fled to India, where he was granted asylum over China's protest. India later backed a move in the United Nations general assembly to enter into a full debate on charges of Chinese suppression of human rights in Tibet over the objections of the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, and Mongolia. However, despite the Warsaw Pact's, Mongolia's, and North Korea's objections to the Indian-backed debate in the UN, Mao grew increasingly frustrated with the Soviet Union's rather muted and reluctant backing of Chinese actions in Tibet. Director of Central Intelligence at the time Allen W. Dulles believed that India and Pakistan could best combat communist China politically and economically, but noted that the ruthless suppression of the Tibetan Revolt was likely to cause each country to focus resources on protecting their Himalayan borders militarily. This would likely escalate the contest, and not in favor of India.[83]
China's active presence in Tibet preceded a much more dangerous confrontation between India and China. Successive Chinese governments had rejected the Sino-Indian border dictated by the British Empire in the early 20th century, called the
By the time the Sino-Indian border dispute developed into full-fledged fighting in the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the alliance between the world's two leading communist powers was irreparably shattered. Although the Warsaw Pact nations backed China's October 1962 peace offer, urging Nehru to accept it, Albania's and Romania's offer to deliver MiG fighter planes to India sent Sino-Albanian and Sino-Romanian relations into crisis. This also turned China against other Eastern European communist states. By the end of 1963, the Eastern Bloc and China were engaging in open polemics against each other, initiating a period of open hostility between the former allies that lasted for the remainder of the Cold War era.
Culture and media
In the ensuing years of World War II in the United States, media and culture portrayed a general sense of anxiety and fear of the spread of the Soviet Union's communism in American entertainment, political, social, and scientific sectors. As tensions between the two nations increased over the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, public hysteria over communism subverting American daily life was coined the "Red Scare",
After the downfall of Senator
During this great period, Cold War themes first entered mainstream culture as a public preoccupation. The 1959 film On the Beach, for example, depicted a gradually dying, post-apocalyptic world that remained after a nuclear Third World War.
James Bond first appeared in 1954; the films were loosely connected to the Cold War, but fans loved the beautiful women, exotic locations, tricky gadgets, and death-defying stunts, and probably paid less attention to the politics. Bond movies followed the political climate in depicting Soviets and "Red" Chinese.
Frederick Forsyth's formula spy novels sold in the hundreds of thousands. His 1984 novel The Fourth Protocol, whose title refers to a series of conventions that, if broken, will lead to nuclear war and that are now all broken except for the fourth and last thread, was made into a major 1987 film starring Michael Caine. The point of such novels—like that of American movies of the 1950s, such as My Son John, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Manchurian Candidate—is to vilify the "enemy within", the treacherous peace movement activists, and simple Labor Party voters who, by 1988, were marching against the Cold War.
Computers in the Cold War
Computer technology began to be influential in the mid-1940s during World War II and continued to increase in use during the 1950s and 1960s. The first computers were designed and built in Great Britain and the United States to store digital programs. The first electronic digital computers were used for large-scale military calculations. These computers would go on to help scientists in the fields of ballistic missiles, nuclear missiles, and anti-missile defense systems.
Computers in the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union faced a dilemma in that Western science was what Soviet scientific progress had been measured against. The dilemma for the Soviets was that while they wanted to surpass and overtake Western science, they had to borrow it in order to further their scientific progress. The results were that many Soviets were denouncing Western science but would turn around and describe a national need for the same theory they just denounced. The Soviet Union first began getting reports about electronically stored digital programs designed and built in Britain and the United States in the 1940s which got great attention from Soviet mathematicians and physicists working on defense projects that needed large amounts of computation.[92] Soviet scientists got information about these computers from publications and survey articles. But they may have also got some of this information through their intelligence channels. One former intelligence officer attached to the Soviet consulate in New York has recently revealed that in 1942-1946 he obtained over 20,000 pages of classified documents from seven agents working at the plants and laboratories of RCA, Western Electric, Westinghouse, General Electric, and two aircraft companies that held military contracts which these documents contained scientific and technical information on radar, sonar, computers, and other electrical equipment.[92] The first electronic digital computers were used for large-scale military calculations. Ballistic missile programs were major clients of Soviet digital computing and were used for calculating missile trajectories which the first problem solved but the large high speed computer M-2, was the calculation of thermodynamic and hydrodynamic parameters for missile design. Anti-missile defenses also pushed for computer developments.[92] One of the first problems solved by a computer was the calculation of the dependency of the target destruction probability on the detonation efficiency of fragmentation warheads.[92]
The Soviet Union got into the game of computers early and further developed them to make them into useful pieces of equipment for military purposes. This was fueled in part by wanting to compete with Western sciences but also this was during the Cold War which meant the United States was also investing in computers which gave the Soviet Union extra motive to keep investing in them.
Computers in the United States
The U.S. and Britain were some of the first countries to start developing computers and the United States did not stop developing. The U.S. saw that using computers for military purposes would be beneficial and this came during the beginning of the Cold War. The Soviet Union also began to integrate computers into military programs and so the competition between the Soviet Union and the United States with computers began.
The U.S. quickly started to adapt computers for defense and military purposes. The air force was one of the first military branches to adapt and use computers for their uses. The air force established a Reeves analogue computer at the Wright Air Development Center at Daytona for developing weapons systems.[93] It had already been used in the Korean War to track enemy shells back to their source which was then destroyed. The U.S. Navy then deployed its Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC) as a means of accurately firing a naval gun at a target, taking into account the multiple variables of ship speed, wind velocity, direction and roll and pitch of the vessel.[93] As the United States knew how computers would impact military programs, they began collecting what information they could on how the Soviet Union was coming on with their own computer program. The information the United States got was that the Soviet Union was not really able to keep up with the U.S. because they had insufficient and poor standards of equipment needed for making computers. A U.S. report of 1959 demonstrated that whereas the Soviets had 400 general-purpose digital computers of all types, the U.S. had produced more than 4000, and while the Soviet computer production in 1958 was at most worth $55 million, that for the U.S. was $1 billion.[93] This would show that unlike the nuclear programs of each country which was a pretty even race, the United States had a pretty sizable lead in the computer competition with the Soviet Union.
The U.S. had a good lead in computer development against the Soviet Union. Not only were the military branches using computers avidly but the civilian population also got to be able to use computers. 66% of computers in the United States were used for military purposes while 30% were used for civilian uses.[93] Computers became a very big role in the military after World War II while also being available to civilians and the U.S. led this change into the technical world through the 1950s and 1960s.
See also
- History of the Soviet Union (1953–1964)
- History of the United States (1945–1964)
- Timeline of events in the Cold War
- McCloy–Zorin Accords
Notes
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- ^ Hoopes, p. 193
- ^ Dance for Export: Cultural Diplomacy and the Cold War Naima Prevots. Wesleyan University Press, CT. 1998 p. 11 Dwight D. Eisenhower requests funds to present the best American cultural achievements abroad on books.google.com
- ^ 7th Army Symphony Chronology - General Palmer authorizes Samuel Adler to found the orchestra in 1952 on 7aso.org
- ISBN 978-0-8108-8401-4 Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra founded by Samuel Adler in 1952 on https://books.google.com
- ^ Army - "Musical Ambassadors, Soldiers Too" James I. Kenner. Editor Lt. General Walter L. Weible . Association of the United States Army Vol 9. No. 1 August 1958 p. 60-62 - Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra on https://books.google.com
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- ISBN 9781580460 194 Seventh Army Symphony on https://books.google.com
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- ^ Heiss
- ^ LaFeber, p. 162
- ^ Engler, p. 207
- ^ Kolko, p. 419
- ^ Embassy of France in the USA, Feb. 25, 2005 Archived 2007-04-25 at the Wayback Machine
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- ^ Kinzer, Stephen (2013). The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War. New York: Times Books.
- ^ Dulles, Allen. "Letter to Gen. William Dapper" (PDF).
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References
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Further reading
- OCLC 55497101. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2013-10-29.
- Pickett, William B. (June 1985). "The Eisenhower Solarium Notes". The SHAFR Newsletter. 16. Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations: 1–10.