The Cuban Missile Crisis

2.Flash point

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

The Vietnam War

3.Flash point

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