THE COLD WAR HEATS UP

THE COLD WAR HEATS UP

The Space Race, the Arms Race, Espionage, and the

Cuban Missile Crisis

Essential Question:How did the arms race and space race escalate the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union?

From 1945 to 1991, the USA and USSR used a variety of strategies to win the Cold War

In the early years of the Cold War (1945-1949), the USA used a containment policy to successfully

stop the spread of communism in Europe

Truman Doctrine

Marshall Plan

NATO

Berlin Airlift

When communism spread to China in 1949, the USA feared the “domino effect” and became

more aggressive in its efforts to stop communism

The USA went to war in Korea to

defend South Korea from

communism

The Soviet Union supplied weapons to the communists in North Korea during the war

The type of indirect fighting between the USA and USSR

is called a “proxy war”

From 1949 to 1970, the Cold War escalated as a result of a nuclear arms

race, space race, and espionage

The U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons ended in 1949 when the USSR

successfully tested an atomic bomb

The Soviet development of the atomic bomb led to a nuclear arms race

between the USA and USSR

In 1952, the USA tested the first hydrogen bomb, which is 1000 times more powerful

than the atomic bomb

The Soviet Union responded by detonating its own hydrogen bomb in 1953

By 1959, both the USA and

USSR developed rockets called

intercontinental ballistic missiles

(ICBMs) that could deliver

nuclear warheads to

distant targets U.S. Titan ICMB from the 1960s

Soviet ICMBs from 1960-1975

By 1959, both the USA and

USSR developed rockets called

intercontinental ballistic missiles

(ICBMs) that could deliver

nuclear warheads to

distant targets

Soviet Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL)

U.S. Polaris Submarine

Unlike bomber planes carrying atomic bombs, these rockets

were impossible to

intercept

In the 1950s, President

Eisenhower escalated the

Cold War by using brinkmanship: threatening to

use nuclear weapons and

willingness to go to the brink of

war

If the USSR attacked a

NATO member, the U.S.

would use massive

retaliation: attack

every major Soviet city

and military target

As a result, the USA and USSR began stockpiling nuclear weapons and

building up their militaries

With the USA and USSR in possession of large nuclear stockpiles, each side could destroy each other:

this was known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

Throughout the Cold War, the USA and USSR looked for ways to gain first strike capability

In 1957, the USSR used its first ICBM to launch Sputnik, the first satellite into space

Sputnik shocked Americans, who feared the U.S. had fallen behind the

USSR in science and technology

As a result of Sputnik, the Cold War escalated into a space race, with Americans and Soviets

trying to assert their dominance

In 1958, the USA created National Aeronautics and

Space Administration (NASA) to catch up to the USSR

U.S. schools promoted

math, science, and technology

NASA’s original seven NASA Mercury astronauts

The USSR repeatedly beat the US in space by launching the first man into orbit and orbiting the moon

In 1962, President John Kennedy committed the USA to beating the Soviet Union in the race to the moon

In 1969, Apollo 11 landed U.S. astronauts on the moon

During the Cold War, the USA and USSR created intelligence agencies, the CIA and KGB, in order to spy and carry out covert operations (spying,

espionage, sabotage, assassinations)

Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) and

Central Intelligence Agency

The USA and USSR used spies to gather

intelligence

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of selling nuclear

weapon secrets to the USSR

U.S. and Soviet spy

planes also gathered

information

The Cold War escalated as the threat of communism spread into the Middle

East, Africa, and Latin America

The CIA overthrew the governments of Iran and Guatemala and intervened in Egypt, Bolivia, Chile, and Cuba in attempts to prevent communism

from taking hold in those countries

Cold War tensions were at an all-time high when the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the US and the USSR to

the very brink of a full nuclear war

Cuba, which is 90 miles off the coast of Florida, had a communist revolution, led by Fidel Castro

The U.S. failed in a covert operation to overthrow Castro and was humiliated

Because of this failure, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev thought the U.S. would not stop communist

expansion in Latin America

Cuba became allies with the Soviet Union

In July 1962, the Soviets secretly began to build missile sites in Cuba and ship warheads there to

counter the U.S. having missile sites in European nations close to the Soviet Union

These missiles gave the USSR the ability to strike first in a nuclear

war with the U.S.

An American spy plane flew over Cuba in October 1962 and discovered that the Soviets were building

the missile sites and directing them at the U.S.

An American spy plane flew over Cuba in October 1962 and discovered that the Soviets were building

the missile sites and directing them at the U.S.

U.S. President

John F. Kennedy

declared that missiles so close to the American mainland

were a threat that could

not be ignored

Kennedy demanded that the Soviets remove the missiles and announced a naval blockade to prevent

the USSR from shipping in any more missiles

Kennedy promised that the U.S. Navy would sink any Soviet ship that tried to get to Cuba

This brinkmanship by Kennedy and Khrushchev would bring the world closer to

nuclear war than ever before

Tensions nearly exploded into war when a U.S. spy plane was shot down over Cuba on October 27th and

Kennedy set the military at full battle readiness

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed; Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy,

promising removal of the missiles from Cuba if the U.S. would make promises in return

Khrushchev announced he would remove the missiles if

the U.S. promised never to invade Cuba or try to overthrow

Castro again

Kennedy agreed and both forces began to

stand down from battle readiness

A secret part of the deal is that the U.S. agreed to remove

missiles from Turkey the next year

This was the closest the world has gotten to nuclear war

Revamped and redone by

Christopher Jaskowiak

Thanks to Brooks Baggett for several of the slides