Post on 17-Dec-2015
Before the Cuban
revolution American
Companies controlled…
1.
% of the mineral wealth90
2.
% of the public services80
3.
% of the sugar cane industry40
Fulgencio Batista
The US supports the dictator ....
… who does not share the
wealth with the
poor.
Batista Eisenhower
In 1959, a young communist
revolutionary comes to power
by force.
Fidel Castro
His friend, an Argentinean
physician helps in the revolution.
Ernesto Che
Guevara
Castro improves the lives of the Cuban people.
1.He confiscates American private property for the
use of all Cubans
$1 000 000 000
2. He nationalises all main industries
3. He redistributes land to the poor
4. He constructs housing for the poor
5.
He provides free universal health care
6.
Education is universal and free
But…
…there is a loss of freedom
Castro controls…
1.
The media
2.the unions
3. The economy
4. The army
During the revolution, the rich Cubans ...
Went into exile in the
U.S. ... especially in Miami.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
is furious and
imposes an embargo on
Cuba.
Castro asks for help from Nikita Khrushchev.
The Soviets buy a lot of Cuba’s sugar and provide Castro
with arms.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy asked
the CIA to organize an
invasion of Cuba with the help of
an army of Cuban exiles.
The Bay of Pigs was a disaster.
The Cuban people defended their island with the help of Soviet
weapons and the invasion failed. This was a great
success for Castro, great
embarrassment for JFK.
…many soldiers were captured
Citing the US threat to Cuba, the USSR secretly ships missiles to
Cuba…
…and secretly builds missile bases.
The estimated range of missiles in Cuba
JFK announced a naval blockade of
all shipping around Cuba
Timeline• 14 Oct, 1962 —U2 spy plane gets photos of
missile site in Cuba• 22 Oct—US announces it will stop and
search all ships bound for Cuba in 48 hours• 23 Oct—Kr calls this an act of war and says
USSR ships will not respect blockade• 24 Oct—18 Soviet ships turn around just
before reaching limit set by US (phew!)• US then announced it would invade Cuba if
all missiles not removed at once• 25 Oct—US planned air strike for 29th or 30.
THIS WOULD START WWIII!!!
In secret negotiations, Kennedy agreed to remove US missiles from Turkey if
Khrushchev withdrew Soviet missiles from Cuba.
2400 km
End of the Crisis• In a secret deal the Soviets agreed to
withdraw the missiles in exchange for:– US promise never to invade Cuba– Immediate end to the naval blockade– US must withdraw its missiles from Turkey
The American public didn’t know about the missiles in Turkey so Kennedy wanted to do that in secret at a later date
They agree to install a hotline for direct communication between the
two superpowers so as to avoid brinkmanship in future
War By Proxy• Rather than fight each other directly and
risk nuclear war, the superpowers got involved in other conflicts and indirectly “fought” one another that way
• Because the west (US) supplied South Vietnam and the east (USSR & China) supported the north, Vietnam is known as a proxy war
This region was called Indochina and was
controlled …
…by France as a colony
Vietnam War: Background• In WWII the Japanese conquered
Vietnam• After WWII, Vietnam was divided. The
Soviets set up a communist gov’t in North Vietnam and the French maintained a capitalist gov’t in the South
• The Vietnamese people did not like being ruled by foreigners—most resented the occupation
For 25 years the communist
revolutionary leader Ho Chi
Minh, led a guerrilla war
against the foreign occupation
In 1954 the French were forced to surrender
Like Korea, it was decided in
Geneva to divide the
country in 2: North Vietnam (communist) & South Vietnam
(capitalist)
17th
17th
Ho Chi Minh
Ngo Dinh Diem
17th
Communist supporters in the North are called Viet Minh, but in the south, much
of the countryside was controlled by the Viet Cong the
communist opposition of the
south
17th
Ho Chi Minh doesn’t want
another Korean War. He decides not to attack directly, but instead…
...support the Viet Cong guerillas
In the US, Dwight D.
Eisenhower introduces the domino theory.
If one country becomes communist then so will its
neighbor, and so on, and so on…
Fearing communist
expansion in the region,
the US sends…
800 military advisors.
After JFK becomes
president, the number jumps
to 16 000.
800
16 000
American intervention in Vietnam
November 22, 1962,
JFK is assassinated
Lyndon B. Johnson
(LBJ)becomes president
LBJ didn’t want to
appear “soft” on
communism
In 1964, in the Gulf of Tonkin, US navy ships fired
on NV ships, which returned fire in a brief
skirmish.LBJ used this NV “aggression” to
justify massive US intervention in
Vietnam.
17th
Most historians now
believe the whole incident was staged by
the US to justify the war
By 1965, 500 000 American soldiers are in Vietnam
How did the US and the southern
Vietnamese forces lose the war?
1.
Corruption of the SV government
2.
Most Vietnamese people did not support the US occupiers
3.
Viet Cong were motivated, well armed & organized in defence of their country
4.The U.S. was
never able to stop the Ho Chi Minh
Trail and the supply of
weapons from the north.
Guerrilla tacticsThe Vietcong used non-traditional
war tactics to great advantage against the Americans
5.
6.
Most Americans were against the war
Why?
1. A large population of young baby
boomers did not approve of war
2.
The media coverage
Walter Cronkite
The living room war
Watching Americans killing and
being killed every night on
TV turned many people against the
war
3.
Conscription
Thousands of young American deserters preferred exile in
Canada to going to war in
Vietnam
4.
American war atrocities
The My Lai Massacre• On March 16, 1968
American soldiers murdered close to 500 unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai.
• Many of the women and children were raped and mutilated before they were killed
Kent State University: May 1970National guard soldiers
shoot and kill 4 students protesting the Vietnam War in Ohio
"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We're finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio."
"Gotta get down to itSoldiers are cutting us downShould have been done long ago."
“Ohio” by Neil Young
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkg-bzTHeAk
The Vietnam War: The End• In 1973 the last US troops pulled out of
Vietnam after signing a peace deal• In 1975 the Vietcong took control of the
city of Saigon and proclaimed a united communist Vietnam
• Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honour of the man who had attempted to drive out the foreigners and unite the country in the first place
• By the end the US lost close to 50,000 people, the Vietnamese lost millions