The building of the Berlin Wall was the most serious crisis between the USA and the Soviet Union in the years 1960-68. How far do you agree? You may use the following in your answer. The Building of the Berlin Wall The Cuban Missile Crisis I fully agree that the Berlin Wall was an important cause of poor relations between the USA and the Soviet Union. However, there were other important events too, such as the Prague Spring and the Cuban Missile Crisis. One significant Cold War crisis was the invasion of Czechoslovakia. After the Soviet coup in Czechoslovakia, the leader of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, Klement Gottwald made liberal use of the secret police, and banned rival political parties. As Czechoslovakia was relatively industrialized …show more content…
After the Cuban Revolution that overthrew the Batista government, Fidel Castro became the de-facto leader of Cuba. This worried the West, which levied economic sanctions, and canceled the import of Cuban sugar. Tensions continued to percolate in the US government, with Kennedy planning an invasion aimed to overthrow Castro. This invasion, which was staged at the Bay of Pigs, was a massive failure, and a great source of embarrassment for the Americans. Kennedy continued to seek to destabilize the Cuban government under Operation Mongoose, which planned assassinations of Castro. However, after the Bay of Pigs invasion, Cuban relations with the Soviet Union improved, with Cuba viewing the influence of the Soviet Union necessary to prevent an American invasion of Cuba. Previously a staunch critic of communism, Castro declared Cuba a “socialist state”. Khrushchev also sent Kennedy a telegram on the second day of the invasion, claiming that nuclear retaliation would follow if the Americans continued interfering in Cuban sovereignty. In 1962, the Soviet Union decided to place nuclear missiles on Cuba, which ultimately culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev wanted to improve his personal prestige with the Soviet people, protect Cuba, and show the Americans that placing missiles in Turkey and Italy would bring serious consequences. Soon, a U-2 spy plane flying over Cuba noticed infrastructure for nuclear missiles, …show more content…
Leading into the 1960s, many skilled East German workers such as engineers, technicians and professors were escaping across the inner German border to West Germany, where they saw increased economic prosperity. Walter Ulbricht, the leader of East Germany saw this development, and closed the inner German border in 1953. However, residents were still able to escape through Berlin into West Berlin, where they could take a short flight into the GDR. Khrushchev viewed Berlin as a “malignant tumor”, and ordered the Allies to withdraw. The Allies refused, leading to the construction of the Berlin Wall, a barrier made out of barbed wire and concrete that separated East and West Berlin, and surrounded the outer portion of West Berlin. Construction of the wall took place at midnight, and many families found themselves separated on either side of the wall, with East German border guards ordered to shoot anyone trying to pass. A particularly tragic death was the case of Peter Fechter, who along with Helmut Kulbeik tried to cross the Berlin Wall. Kulbeik was able to cross into West Berlin, but Fechter was shot in the pelvis by East German border guards. He fell back into the East German sector, and West Berliners were unable to rescue him. They screamed “murderer” at the border guards until Fechter bled to death, and his body was removed an hour later. After the construction of the Berlin
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union had started since the early conference in World War Two and increased further at the War’s conclusion. These tensions developed further during the Berlin Blockade and Airlift during 1948 and 1949, China becoming communist in 1949, and the Korean War between 1950 and 1953. The events, have been labelled as the early crisis of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and greatly increased tensions between the two superpowers and further led the countries into a Cold War.
... Cuban attack with all-out nuclear retaliation. In response to the increased Soviet ships coming with weapons, JFK ordered a blockade, which he called quarantine because a blockade is an act of war, around Cuba. For 13 days, the world held its breath as the threat of a nuclear war hung over the world, but the Soviets eventually turned back and Khrushchev agreed to remove weapons from Cuba in exchange for no US invasion of Cuba. Meanwhile in Berlin, the city was in turmoil between the East (Soviet) and the West (US controlled). In order to stop the mass exodus of East Berliners, the construction of the 90-mile Berlin Wall began. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev sought ways to ease the tension between the two groups, establishing a hotline between the White House and the Kremlin, and later this led to the Limited Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere.
The feud between the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) lasted from the end of World War II until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The fuel that powered their feud was the desire to be the greater superpower. After World War II ended, the USSR gained control of Eastern Germany. On the night of August 13, 1961, a wall was constructed that divided the already separate East and West Berlin. This wall would become what was known around the world as the Berlin Wall. It stood as a barrier to freedom from the East Berliners. The Berlin Wall in Germany caused the USSR to lose the Space Race to the United States in 1969 because the USSR was communist, they alone had control of East Germany, and the United States was tough competition. With the Berlin Wall making tensions high in Germany during the 1960s, the USSR had a lot more business to take care of than they had thought.
In the year 1961, the building of Berlin Wall called upon disasters in Germany. United States controlled the west of Berlin while German Democratic Republic held the East. Being stuck under the rule of day to day terror, people from East Berlin were making their way to the West Berlin. West Berlin was a safe spot and freedom checkpoint in the middle of terror. To stop the moving of East Berliners, the East German government decided to build a barrier that limited and halted the East Berliners from leaving. But the battle to control Berlin between, the United States and the Soviet Union, had been taking place since after the division of Germany. The German Democratic Republic wanted better control over its people to spread its communist ideas
Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev was affiliated with Castro, and the two countries made many military decisions together. As Kennedy and the United States tried to stop Cuba and Russia from becoming a threat to the world, an invasion was planned out and executed. The results were a disaster. The Bay of Pigs invasion was the largest military mistake ever made by the United States government and the CIA in the 20th century and brought America to the brink of war with Cuba and Russia. The Bay of Pigs invasion was not a quick decision, many hours of meetings and conferences occurred before President Kennedy gave permission for the attack.
1 The missiles were being brought to Cuba by Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, who guaranteed President Kennedy that the missiles would never be used as a weapon against the United States. This is a lie. Khrushchev fully intended to use the missiles as a mechanism of defense against the United States and as a way to further pursue a relationship with Fidel Castro, who was the President of Cuba at the time. The United States needed to find a way to stop the development of missile sites without causing a break out of violent warfare.
The U.S. had just elected President Kennedy two years prior to this very threatening occasion, and every nation thought he was a weak leader who just craved attention. During this time, the Soviets and the U.S. were right in the middle of the Cold War (1947-1991): the period of time when both nations were trying to spread their type of government and become superior, making us enemies. Just a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. had made a failed attempt at invading Cuba at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow their communist dictator, Fidel Castro. Once Russia caught wind of this failed invasion, they quickly jumped at their chance at becoming allies with Castro, and started building nuclear bombs in Cuba. Kennedy had recently placed bombs in Turkey, Russia’s neighbor probably leading the soviets to place some of theirs in Cuba, because of how close it was to America; one nuclear bomb could reach Washington D.C. in 30 minutes.
and the USSR grew worse. In August of 1961, to prevent emigrants fleeing from East to West Berlin, the Soviets constructed a wall that separated the two parts of the city. Until it was demolished in 1989, the Berlin Wall was a symbol of the Cold War and the division within Europe. However, a far more threatening crisis started up in Cuba in October 1962. U.S. spy planes uncovered that the Soviets were creating missiles that were capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the U.S. The Russians’ motivations are unclear, however, the Kennedy administration refused to accept the presence of
Many great words have been spoken towards the Berlin Wall and the issues that surrounded it. The speeches and incredible words spoken by both John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan brought a new light to those uses and the conflict with the separation of Berlin, Germany. In their inspiring words they used countless uses of rhetoric al strategies such as anaphora, imagery, and the use of their addressers language to enhance and emphasize their words and appeal to the people and in doing so it soon brought the city of Berlin back together. Their uses of rhetoric were indeed similar to each other and the way they addressed the people of Berlin, and the Russian Chancellor, and their purpose both the same as well, to bring down the Berlin Wall, and the parting between whole communities, families, and friends be closed.
In conclusion Berlin Wall was an important milestone in the growth of the Cold War. It was the expansion that represented the thinking of a determined Communist system. Western Capitalism, which was more powerful, eventually defeated the system. The massive wall that did so much harm to a country was finally destroyed, and the people of Germany could now live the way they all wanted to live. They could live the life of freedom. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall East Germany has went through a lot of changes, and it still is not easy for all of the people in East Germany. But no matter how hard it is for the people of East Germany now, it is better than being alone and separated from their families, friends and rest of Europe.
Between 1961 and today, the Berlin Wall saw many changes, and so did the people that it entrapped. Prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall, borders between East and West Germany were closed in 1952 because of tension between Communists and Democratic superpowers and the only open crossing left in Berlin. West Germany was blockaded by the Soviets and only kept alive because of air drops made by the Western Allies (Time). The Soviets had to do something about the mass amount of people leaving Soviet East Berlin for West Berlin, and the non-communist world. The most visible aspect of the Cold War was the Berlin Wall. Before the wall was constructed, East and West Germans could travel freely between the two states.
The Berlin Crisis reached its height in the fall of 1961. Between August and October of that year, the world watched as the United States and the Soviet Union faced off across a new Cold War barrier, the Berlin Wall. In some ways, the Wall was Khrushchev’s response to Kennedy’s conventional buildup at the end of July, and there were some in the West who saw it that way. However, as Hope Harrison has clearly shown, Khrushchev was not the dominant actor in the decision to raise the Wall, but rather acquiesced to pressure from East German leader Walter Ulbricht, who regarded the Wall as the first step to resolving East Germany’s political and economic difficulties. The most pressing of these difficulties was the refugee problem, which was at its height in the summer of 1961 as thousands of East Germans reacted to the increased tensions by fleeing westward. But Ulbricht also saw the Wall as a way to assert East German primacy in Berlin, and thus as a way to increase the pressure on the West to accept East German sovereignty over all of Berlin.
"The political course of action" of openly approaching Castro, Khrushchev, and U.S. allies in a gambit to resolve the crisis diplomatically, an option that McNamara and others considered unlikely to succeed; "a course of action that would involve declaration of open surveillance" coupled with "a blockade against offensive weapons entering Cuba"; and "military action directed against Cuba, starting with an air attack against the missiles" (Chang, 2). When U.S. reconnaissance flights revealed the clandestine construction of missile launching sites, President Kennedy publicly denounced (Oct. 22, 1962) the Soviet actions. The options of taking military action against Cuba and Russia luckily never took place and President Kennedy chose to impose a naval blockade on Cuba and declared that any missile launched from Cuba would warrant a full-scale retaliatory attack by the United States against the Soviet Union. On Oct. 24, Russian ships carrying missiles to Cuba turned back, and when Khrushchev agreed (Oct. 28) to withdraw the missiles and dismantle the missile sites, the crisis ended as suddenly as it had begun. The United States ended its blockade on Nov. 20, and by the end of the year, the missiles and bombers were removed from Cuba.
Taking into consideration the failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro with the CIA in the catastrophic bay of pig’s operation, it becomes clearer why Khrushchev felt the need to arm Cuba with nuclear weapons. This decision was a distinct departure from Soviet policy leading up to that point as never before had soviet controlled nuclear weapons been installed outside of the USSR. This decision caught Kennedy and the entire administration off guard as it was an incredibly aggressive move for the traditionally conservative and calculating Khrushchev. Kennedy called the Soviet Ambassador to America in for a meeting in which Kennedy asked directly about the missiles in Cuba and to which Gromyko denies unequivocally any offensive weapons. The world later learns that Gromyko was not lying but instead uninformed on the situation.
The major reason why the Berlin Wall was built was because of the differences of economic and political ideals between the western nation of England, France, and the United States versus the political and economic ideals of the Soviet Union. After the event of the Berlin Airlift, many of the East Berlin citizens wanted to go to West Berlin and Germany because of the economy is more prosperous than the communist economic and saw that the Western side had a better life for them than the Eastern side. As many raced to cross over to West Berlin and Germany, the Soviet Union decided to construct the Berlin Wall in order to stop the excessive flow of citizens from leaving East Germany to enter West Germany. For many of the people that are trapped in East Berlin, the money is not the problem, but there was a lack of goods being distributed and the quality of the goods were not as great for East Berlin citizens. After twenty-eight years of the Berlin Wall standing to separate West and East Berlin and Germany, two people made an important impact in the Cold War that the Berlin Wall is then finally collapsed. Ronald Regan, the United States president during that time period, heavily spent millions upon billions of dollars to fund the military in the Cold War that surpasses the Soviet Union’s military in the arms race between the two. Regan spent so much money in the United States military that the Soviet Union could not catch up with the United States. Ultimately, Regan drained the Soviet Union’s economy drastically to the point that the do not have any money left to help sustain the country. Mikhail Gorbachev also had a very important role in for the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Gorbachev wanted to reform the Soviet Union in order