The Cuban Missile Crisis A Nuclear Arms Race

The Cuban Missile Crisis A Nuclear Arms Race  The Soviet Union had learned how to develop and test nuclear weapons by 1949  Triggered a race between American and Soviet military to stockpile nuclear weapons in an effort to gain supremacy  Eventually, they made ballistic missiles – rockets with nuclear warheads attached In case you haven’t noticed, Canada is close to Russia… DEW Line  Canada and the USA teamed up to create radar lines that would detect and intercept flights of Soviet bombers (NORAD)  The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line: More than 20 sites in the North, along the 70th parallel of Canada’s arctic. Completed in 1957, paid for entirely by U.S.  Canada was now under the protection of the U.S. Canadians were not Bay of Pigs Invasion  In 1959, Cuba was taken over by a young anti-American communist Fidel Castro.  Castro ordered the takeover of any American businesses in Cuba and established close relations with the Soviets.  President Kennedy gave approval for an American plan to try to take control of Cuba. The CIA trained a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles for an invasion. They thought that once they got there, the Cuban people would rally around the invaders and help oust Castro. Bay of Pigs Invasion  April, 1961, Bay of Pigs invasion did not go well. No one came to help the invaders and they were captured.  America was very embarrassed by this failure. Soviets get even closer to Cuba.  Summer of 1962, Soviets began developing nuclear missile sites in Cuba. Soviet Missile Sites in Cuba  October 14, 1962, a USA U-2 spy plane takes aerial photographs confirming presence of missiles.  Soviets could now easily hit targets in North and South America.  October 22, Kennedy goes on T.V. tells the world what the U.S. is going to do. The Situation Gets Tense…  Both sides issue exchange warnings and threats of nuclear war  US military is put on high alert  October 26, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gets word to U.S. that they would remove the missiles if the Americans promise not to invade Cuba, and remove a few other military sites around the world within striking distance of Russia.  October 28, Crisis ends. Khrushchev publicly agrees to remove missiles from Cuba, Kennedy publicly agrees to not invade Cuba, and secretly agrees to remove US missiles from The Aftermath  U.S. agrees, install a “hot line” between Kremlin and White House. In 1963, all countries except for China agree to stop above-ground testing of nuclear weapons.  November 22, 1963 Kennedy shot by former U.S. Marine, one-time Soviet Union resident Lee Harvey Oswald. (Officially). Two days later Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas police station.  Diefenbaker hated Kennedy, but Lyndon Johnson was not an improvement. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel  Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray, South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe, Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye" Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen, Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No we didn't light it But we tried to fight it Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc, Roy Hn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, dacron, Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock" Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team, Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland, Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev, Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in children of thalidomide, Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia, Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a nogo, U-2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy, Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo, Chorus Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land" Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion, "Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania, Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson, Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex, JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say? Chorus Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again, Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock, Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline, Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan, "Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide, Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz,