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

KruschevKhrushchev
detinateddetonated
cliniclyclinically
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