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Notes on video lecture:
1958-1962: The World at the Brink
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on August 2, 2014 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
retaliate, happening, killed, conventional, Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Mao, overthrown, target, Turkey, nuclear, embarrassment, shore, failure, military, capitulates, mainland, accompli, empathizes, economy, meddle, missiles, confrontation, bulwark, crisis, spy, four, reveal, nationalism, distraction, hole, asking, Faisal, manage, 1960, Hashemite, ultimatum, proxy, routine, industrialize, bluff, 50
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1958-1962: the years of maximum              during the Cold War
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1957: Sputnik
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the curtain raiser for this         -year period
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USSR demonstrates its ability to launch heavy                  and put things into space
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October 4, 1957: Sputnik
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circled globe at 18,000 M.P.H.
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was crossing the United States
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1958 crises
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1. Middle East crisis
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Iraq
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monarchy that had long been supported by British and Americans was                     
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Kingdom of Iraq's                    monarchy was overthrown, ruler murdered
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Hashemite monarchy had been established by King              I in 1921 under the auspices of the British
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ruler murdered
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nationalist dictatorship takes its place
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America
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worried that Soviets would             
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tried to stay on the right side of Arab                       
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tried to create an Arab                against Soviet penetration there
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2. Taiwan Straits crisis
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USA defends the Republic of China (Taiwan) because of a treaty
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finds itself in a long-grade confrontation with                  China
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meanwhile the Chinese are secretly pleading to the Soviet Union to give them                weapons so that they will be in a better position in this confrontation with the United States
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the Soviet refusal to give the Chinese nuclear weapons intensifies the split between Mao and                     
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3. Berlin crisis
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Berlin sitting divided in the middle of a new communist East German state
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West Berlin is a kind of          in the East German state
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Khrushchev wants to convert this                            to East Germany
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wants to force the West out of Berlin
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grand designs of communist leaders
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China
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Great Leap Forward
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convulsing his country in an effort to rapidly                            it
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Sino-Soviet split
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Khrushchev doesn't want        to get in a war with the United States
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he doesn't trust him enough
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Khrushchev wants himself and the Soviets to remain the leader of the global communist movement
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this splits was largely in secret but which breaks open by         
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creates a dangerous triangle
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Soviets and Chinese are competing for who is to lead the global communist movements, with the United States opposing them both
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Khrushchev's designs
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travels
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September 1959: visited the United States
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speech at UN
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increase nuclear power or at least its appearance
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win victory in Berlin
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cut spending on the huge                          forces of Soviet military
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use this money to develop the Soviet                and perhaps instigate a thaw in the hard communist approach to the economy, which is a bit of a contradiction with being global communist leader
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1960 Soviets shoot down American        plane
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USA denies it
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Khrushchev reveals captured pilot Gary Powers
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summit with                      cancelled
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April 1961: Cuban Crisis: Bay of Pigs
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Fidel Castro's Cuba becomes tightly aligned with Soviets
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USA attempts invasion of Cuba
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Cuban exiles invade but fail
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Americans do not come to their aid
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embarrassment to Kennedy administration
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Kennedy wants little to do with Cuba, sees it as a                       
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June 1961: Vienna Conference, Khrushchev and Kennedy
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ended in               
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Kennedy comes away convinced that the superpowers are headed toward a                            centered on Berlin
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August 1961: Khrushchev and the East Germans build a physical wall which cuts off West Berlin
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shooting down anyone who tries to scale the wall
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1961: Americans are realizing that Soviet brandishing of missile power is a bit of a           
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they don't have as many long range missiles as the USA feels they might
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Soviet perform many nuclear tests
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the largest nuclear weapons ever detonated in history where during this time:      megatons of explosive power and more
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Americans follow with their own tests
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May 1962: Khrushchev secretly deploy missiles and troops to Cuba
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making Cuba a point for striking the US
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this would make the USA unable to defend Berlin
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the USA could not defend Berlin with conventional forces, because it is sitting in the middle of East Germany
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the USA's stance was: if you attack Berlin, we will escalate to using nuclear weapons first
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the Soviet's response was: if you start a nuclear war, we have these missiles right off your            which can devastate your country
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you have to ask: why would the Cubans go along with this plan?
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they aren't              for nuclear missiles
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their worry was that this will help make them a             
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Khrushchev is convinced Cuba will do this in return for other favors
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September 1962: Kennedy speech
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we will tolerate this if Soviets are just giving Cubans conventional supplies
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Soviet plan is discovered before Krushchev was going to              it
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October flight: spots missiles being prepared for deployment
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Kennedy debates what to do
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October 19th, 1962, meeting
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five people in the room: Kennedy and four                  leaders
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Kennedy: first clinically and coldly                      with the other side trying to work through their calculations
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sees reasons why the Russians did this:
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1. if we do nothing, they have a missile base there
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2. if we do anything, it gives the Soviets the excuse to                    on Berlin
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Kennedy feels that any action he takes on Cuba, Khrushchev will take on Berlin
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yet Kennedy has to do something, otherwise Khrushchev will take Berlin in November, since: they take Berlin, USA only has nuclear war as response, won't do it now because of nuclear weapons in Cuba
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does he attack or negotiate
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Kennedy develops a third, middle option
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he blockades with an                   
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Americans launch diplomatic offensive in secret
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rallied international support with Latin American countries and in Europe
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Moscow reacts:
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we will have to step down somehow now
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Americans don't want the missiles to become a fait                 
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October 27, the most dangerous day of the crisis
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Castro expects an invasion, ready for war
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the Soviets and Cubans start shooting at spy planes, another U2 is shot down, pilot             
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Castro is writing a letter to Krushchev, called "The Armegeddon Letter", basically saying, the invasion is underway, you might as well get prepared for nuclear war
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October 28, Khrushchev                        and decides to remove missiles
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America mentions that they will remove missiles from              at some point
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aftermath of Cuban Missile Crisis
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world is saved from nuclear war
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with both superpowers having stepped up to the brink, there is a sense that they need to keep this from                   
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incentive to              the arms race
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in Europe, the Berlin crisis comes to an end
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Soviets simply don't make that move in November 1962
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Soviets feel they have the wall, that is enough
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in Europe the Cold War settles down into grim               
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the Cold War goes back to            battles in the Third World

People:

######################### (1929-1977)
American CIA pilot whose spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident
  • he ejected, plane crashed almost fully intact
  • was held in Vladimir Central Prison, 100 miles east of Moscow, developed a good rapport with Russian prisoners there
  • 1962 exchanged on the Glienicke Brücke

Spelling Corrections:

Kruschev ⇒ Khrushchev
detinated ⇒ detonated
clinicly ⇒ clinically
1914: Schizophrenic Germany
1914: The Balkan Whirlpool
1914: From Balkan Crisis to War
1914-1916: All War Plans Fail Horribly
The 1916 Missed Opportunity for Peace
WWI Pushes Warring Countries Toward Total States
Why the Allies Won World War One
Post-WWI: Filling the Void of Collapsed Empires
Post-WWI Communism vs. Anti-Communism
Post World War I: The Age of Uncertainty
1910s/1920s: Modern Women
The World of 1930
The 1930s World Crisis
1930s: The Decade of Contingency
America's Entry into World War II
WWII: Strategies for Total War
1945: Hour Zero
Post WWII: Imagining New Countries
Conflicts in Postwar Nation Building
The Two Europes That Emerged After WWII
1947 China: Undesirable Communists vs. Flawed Nationalists
Post WWII: The Age of America
Reasons for the Korean War
How WWIII was Avoided in the Korean War
1950-1952: The Cold War Comes to Main Street
1950-1954: The H-Bomb and the Nuclear Revolution
1950s: Loosening Empires and Building Confederations
The Emergence of the Third World
1958-1962: The World at the Brink
Third World Proxy Wars of the 1950s and 1960s
Managerial States and the Transnational Disruption of 1968
1970s Obstacles to Reducing Cold War Tensions
1970s Democratic Socialism Becomes a Non-Choice
1980s Political Polarization
1980s: Global Capitalism Transformed