eq: what events led to tension between the u.s. and soviet union during the 1950’s?
TRANSCRIPT
Two Nations Live on the Edge
EQ: What events led to tension between the U.S. and
Soviet Union during the 1950’s?
Brinksmanship John Foster Dulles Liberate all nations
under Soviet control
Confront the Soviets to brink of war
Threat of massive retaliation
CIA Covert Operations Iran
• 1951: oil fields nationalized• CIA overthrew Mosaddeq• Shah Reza Pahlavi to power
Guatemala• 1954: land seized by gov’t• United Fruit Company• CIA overthrew Arbenz• Installed new pro-US leader
Warsaw Pact Eastern European
communist countries
Response to NATO
“Together we are invincible”
Crisis in the Suez Diplomacy Nasser seized canal
in 1955 Attacks by Israel,
Britain, France in 1956
UN forced troops to withdraw
Hungarian Uprising 1956 – Khrushchev
denounced Stalin October – Hungarians
took over government Crushed by Soviets No American
intervention
Nuclear Anxiety
Hydrogen Bomb 1000x more
powerful than atomic bombs
1952 – test vaporized pacific island
Soviets tested own H-bomb 9 months later…
Duck and Cover
Air Raid Drills in School
Fallout Shelter
Protesting Nuclear Tests
Sputnik Launched October
1957 US behind in tech
development Fear of the skies
Reactions to Sputnik
National Defense
Education Act
U-2 Incident Francis Gary
Powers shot down over Soviet Union
U-2 spy plane captured
American denials Powers admitted
mission Thaw in Cold War
over