a time of raceing, comunism, democracy, and oddly no fighting.
Created by abelj360 on Apr 25, 2011
Last updated: 04/27/11 at 05:37 AM
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The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the invading combatants within three days. The main invasion landing took place at a beach named Playa Girón, located at the mouth of the bay
Shot down by a Soviet surface to air missile on the morning of May 1, 1960, CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers had been on a top secret mission: to over fly and photograph denied territory from his U2 spy plane deep inside Russia. His fate and that of the entire U2 program remained a mystery for days. when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet Union airspace. The United States government at first denied the plane's purpose and mission, but then was forced to admit its role as a covert surveillance aircraft when the Soviet government produced its remains (largely intact) and surviving pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Coming just over two weeks before the scheduled opening of an East–West summit in Paris, the incident was a great embarrassment to the United States and prompted a marked deterioration in its relations with the Soviet Union.
Since Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, that country has been transformed socially, economically, and politically. Cuba's alignment with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was seen as a threat to both the safety and democracy of the United States by many US politicians and citizens. A country less than 90 miles off the southern coast of Florida aligned with an unfriendly country in the Nuclear Age posed a real challenge to our Foreign Policy makers. We as a nation have been conditioned over the years to make communism synonymous with depravity and associated with mal intentions. From this fear coupled with intense anti-Cuban propaganda, has come the current status of the United States-Cuban relationship. This relationship is among the most evident examples of United States foreign policy in the Americas, for it demonstrates the distrust, as well as the severity of our country's actions against those we deem to necessarily be under our influence.
The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During the Cold War, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries also developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers.
On April 4, 1949, twelve nations - the United States, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Italy, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington. (The Brussels Treaty was not dissolved.) The partners of the Treaty believed that Russian Communism, an anti-democratic ideology, had posed a new threat to the democratic world. Thus they stated that "an armed attack against one or more of them shall be considered an attack against them all." In the event of such an attack, for the preservation of peace and their civilized way of life, they promised to take whatever action deemed necessary, including the use of armed force. This regional security arrangement for the defence of the North Atlantic area was valid for 20 years.
The Western Allies organized the Berlin Airlift to carry supplies to the people in West Berlin. The United Kingdom's Royal Air Force and the recently independent United States Air Force flew over 200,000 flights in one year, providing up to 4700 tonnes of daily necessities such as fuel and food to the Berliners.[1] Alongside British and US personnel the airlift involved aircrews from the Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force and South African Air Force.
The Truman Doctrine created the containment policy which was used to not estroy comunism but to spread democracy. The basis to this policy was to aid nations that were overrun by comunism.
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