A Balance of Terror

• 1952 – American scientists developed the hydrogen bomb, by the next year, Russians had also one – this fact determined their behavior towards each other in following years

• US promised Eastern Europe they could trust them but when Hungary rebelled, help didn’t come – American help would mean war with Soviet Unio1957 – 1^st earth satellite “Sputnik” was sent to the orbit from Soviet Union

• US were worried – the rocked that carried Sputnik into space could also be powerful to carry an H-bomb to its target – work on US rockets started – soon a range of “nuclear missiles”

• Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor realized that both countries had enough nuclear missiles to kill everybody on earth – therefore he believed in “peaceful coexistence”

• Eisenhower welcomed this idea – they agreed on a summit meeting in Paris which have never started because a Russian missile shot down a US spy plane designed to take photographs of military targets from space

• next US spy plane discovered later that Russian missile launching sites were built on Cuba

• Russian supported Fidel Castro who took over the island and seemed to be organizing communist state near the “door-step” of US

• Kennedy was shocked by the photographs – ordered American ships and aircraft to set up a blockade, in order to stop any Soviet ship carrying missile equipment to Cuba

• Russia was warned to take away the missiles and destroy the bases - any missile fired from Cuba would be treated as a direct Soviet attack on US – after few days Russian did so

• Kennedy called off the blockade and promised to leave Cuba alone

The Vietnam Years

• Vietnam was divided in 2 – communist North and non-communist South

• communist leader Ho Chi Minh set out to unite Vietnam by war – US feared that if Vietnam fell under communist rule, other Asian countries would do the same – US sent weapons and advisers to the government of South Vietnam

• 1960 – South Vietnam was losing the war

• North – army of 100 000 men “Vietcong” who were helped by ordinary villagers and knew the land, so they hid themselves very well

• Johnson sent 500 000 soldiers but they couldn’t beat Vietcong

• film reports all over the world on TV – Americans burned down Vietnamese villagers and bombed northern cities – shown as cruel monsters

• Nixon’ s plan of “Vietnamization” – to strengthen the South army to make it strong enough to defend themselves without US troops – excuse to withdraw US troops from Vietnam

• Nixon’s adviser Kissinger – talks with NV and Russian leaders to withdraw all US troops within 6 months in return for a cease-fire – they were slow to agree, persuasion by bombing

• finally they put together an agreement

• May 1975 – communist tanks rolled into Saigon, capital of South Vietnam, renamed it (Ho Chi Minh City) – end of the war, Americans failed