JFK and the Cold War

Bay of Pigs

• When Fidel Castro overthrew the Cuban dictator, he established ties with the Soviets and seized many American businesses.
• Fearing that the Soviets would use Cuba as a base to spread revolution, Eisenhower authorized the CIA to secretly train and arm a group of Cuban exiles to invade the island.
• When Kennedy took over, his advisers approved the plan, and about 1,400 exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs. It was a disaster.
• The boats ran aground on coral reefs and Kennedy cancelled their air support to keep America's involvement a secret.
• Within two days, Castro's forces killed or captured almost all the members of La Brigada. It made the United States look weak and disorganized.

Berlin Wall

• In June 1961, Nikita Khrushchev demanded that to stop Germans from leaving communist East Germany for West Berlin, the Western powers had to recognize East germany and withdraw from berlin.
• Berlin was a city that completely within the East Germany borders, but Kennedy refused and reaffirmed the West's commitment to West Berlin.
• In retaliation, Khrushchev built a wall through Berlin, blocking the Soviet sector from interacting with the rest of the city.
• Guards along the wall shot at people who tried to cross from East Berlin to West Berlin.

Cuban Missile Crisis

• On October 22, Kennedy announced that the Soviet Union had placed long-range missiles in Cuba, which made them a threat to the United States.
• Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine to stop the delivery of more missiles, and demanded the existing missile sites be taken down. He warned that if attacked, the United States would fully respond against the Soviets.
• After secret negotiations, the Soviets offered to remove their missiles if the United States promised not to invade Cuba. The United States also agreed to remove their missiles from Turkey near the Soviet border.
• This crisis force both the United States and the Soviet Union to consider the consequences of nuclear war.

Assassination

• On November 22, 1963, Kennedy and his wife went to Texas. As they went through the streets of Dallas, gunfire rang out.
• Kennedy was shot twice and government officials rushed him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
• Lee Harvey Oswald was the man accused of killing the president. He appeared to be a Marxist who had spent time in the Soviet Union. He himself was shot to death two days after Kennedy's assassination while in police custody.
• Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson took over and set out to promote many of the programs that Kennedy left unfinished.

The Cold War in Space

• In 1961, a Soviet astronaut became the first person to orbit Earth.
• Before, in 1957, the Soviets launched the first satellite called Sputnik.
• In 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.
• In July, 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first human being to walk on the moon.
• The United States demonstrated its technological superiority over the Soviet Union.