Why was it so difficult to reduce cold war tensions?

1953-63

Eisenhower

• Strengths lay in strategy and planning

• utilised this in his homely and populist campaign strategy

• Worked very closely with Dulles (secretary of state)

  • In touch with all governmental and administrative issues

  • quick problem solving mind

• Fiercely anti-communist

• Relative thaw of tensions from 1955-59

  • Nicknamed ‘co-existing’

Instability under Eisenhower

• Threatened nuclear weapons against China 3 times during presidency

• Hungarian uprising

  • Lack of decisive action

  • Mimics his cautious approach to conflict

• Suez crisis

• Shooting of U2 spy plane over Soviet airspace

Strategy of Containment

• 1953 - The New Look

• Fundamentals stayed the same as in the Truman Doctrine

• believed that Marxist/Leninist states had the natural instinct to expand

• Global alliance system against Communism needed extensive world bases

• Kept American servicemen in overseas bases as physical barriers

• Huge sums of money given to countries that would resist insurgency

  • Ngo Dimh Diem 1954

Differences to the Truman Doctrine

• Rhetoric

  • Tone

• Rollback of the Eastern Bloc and criticised Truman’s passive approach

• Liberation by passive means only

• Acknowledged the integrity of Soviet influence in the countries they rightly controlled

• Sovereignty of North Korea recognised in 1953 - no attempt to retake territory held by the North Koreans

• Increased reliance on the nuclear threat

  • Dulles’ approach of massive retaliation

  • USSR building their own arsenal - dangerous to play with blackmail as brinkmanship was getting ever closer

Further differences

• Rejecting NSC 68 and calling for a reduction in physical armed forces

• Balanced ends with means and cost

  • High technology and low manpower

• Increased involvement with the CIA and Intelligence service

• Negotiation with China and USSR seen as vital

  • Acting as US peacekeeper

  • had many meetings with Khrushchev and Zhou Enlai

Cold War tensions in Europe

• stayed away from uprisings and unrest in Eastern Europe

• Only broadcasted Hungarian and East Berlin uprisings

• 1958 - Khrushchev demands the removal of Allied influence in Berlin

  • Kremlin calling for Allied forces to withdraw from their nuclear programme in West Germany

• France becoming more radical

  • Challenging Eisenhower’s position on German rearmament

• Russians forced to acquiesce with West German sovereignty and acceptance into NATO in 1955

  • Warsaw Pact created as a consequence

• Sputnik launched 1957

  • launching space race

Cold War tensions in Asia

• Repatriation of Korean and Chinese prisoners of war after the Korean War - big issue

• 1954

  • Jiang Jieshi - wanted US soldiers to attack mainland China and help in his Holy War

  • China attacked Quemay and Matsu

  • threatened to invade Taiwan

• 1955

  • China attacks Tachen Islands

Central and South America

• Rio Pact 1947

  • an attack on any American country means an attack on the American continent as a whole

  • led to the Organisation of American States in 1948

  • Trying to exclude Communism from the Western Hemisphere

• Castro seizing US assets 1959

  • Revolution 1953-59

  • led to confiscation of US assets and diplomatic relations breaking off 1961 after the Bay of Pigs

Kennedy’s ‘Flexible Response’

• increase in conventional forces

• increase in the nuclear arsenal

  • modernisation - not brinkmanship

• increasing economic aid and covert action

• more negotiations with the Soviet Union

  • realisation that the Soviet Union was diversifying

  • not the unipolar enemy it was in 1947

• wanted to be prepared to fight limited, conventional, non-conventional and nuclear wars in both Europe and non-revolutionary third world countries

Difference from Eisenhower

• deliberate departure from deterrence policy

  • Massive retaliation threat didn’t give many options if the bluff was called

• Kennedy’s budget

  • tighter

  • strong control over government expenditure

  • would free up money for the increasing cost of the armed forces

• Defence spending

  • $47.4 bil. 1961

  • $53.6 bil. 1964

• More reminiscent of NSC 68

• Number of combat ready divisions

  • 11/2.5 mil. men 1961

  • 16/2.7 mil. men 1964

Practical implementation

• economic aid to other countries

  • Mixture of idealism and minimising communist influence

  • dollar subsidies creating economically viable states that could not breed the conditions necessary for communism

• Khrushchev taking advantage of Kennedy

  • thought he was weak after first summit

  • Having issues with East Berliners escaping to West Berlin

• Expenditure of $25-35 billion in space to beat the Soviets to the moon

  • Achieved in 1969

The Berlin Crisis 1961

• Khrushchev coming away from June 1961 Vienna summit thinking Kennedy was weak

  • issue of East-West Berlin was paramount

  • 12 August - 4000 refugees fleeing to West Berlin

• 13 August - begun the building of the Berlin Wall

  • Khrushchev starts stockpiling nuclear weapons

  • Threatened to sign a pact with East Germany which would cut off West German access to Berlin

• Standoff when tanks approached the new border

  • Both sides agreed to back off

• Solidified the border between East and West Berlin but established a stable status quo for the Superpowers

Cuban Missile Crisis

• Peak of tensions

• 1962 - Castro and Khrushchev reach an agreement to place nuclear missiles on Cuba

• Cuba already a sore spot since the bay of pigs failure

• Castro wanted direct Soviet commitment to Cuban interests

• Kennedy’s more active measures and pressure from the top brass directly led to US involvement

Events of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Oct 16

• Kennedy is shown U‑2 photos revealing Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba.

• EXCOMM (a crisis advisory group) is formed.

Oct 18

• Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko meets Kennedy, denying offensive weapons in Cuba.

Oct 20

• Kennedy decides on a naval “quarantine” (blockade) rather than an immediate airstrike.

Oct 22

• Kennedy announces the discovery of missiles and the naval quarantine on national TV.

Oct 24

• Soviet ships approach the quarantine line then turn back.

• Khrushchev sends a defiant message but avoids direct confrontation.

Oct 25

• U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson confronts the USSR at the UN with photographic evidence.

Oct 26

• Khrushchev sends a private letter proposing:

• Remove Soviet missiles from Cuba

• U.S. promises not to invade Cuba

Oct 27 (“Black Saturday”)

• A U‑2 is shot down over Cuba; pilot Rudolf Anderson is killed.

• A U.S. Navy ship nearly provokes a Soviet submarine into launching a nuclear torpedo

• Khrushchev sends a second, harsher letter demanding U.S. missile removal from Turkey.

Oct 28

• Kennedy publicly accepts the first Soviet offer and privately agrees to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.

• Khrushchev announces the dismantling of Cuban missile sites.

Consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis

• Brinkmanship humbling

• closest the world came to nuclear war

• shift away from EU focus to the rest of the world

• Historians later critique Kennedy’s over-aggressive stance

• Fear of escalation in the future as both superpowers recognise the levels of luck involved

• Disillusionment - step back from brinkmanship

  • Hotline between the Kremlin and the White House

• Kennedy emerges with popular credit

  • Latin American more likely to follow his line

• 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty