U2 Crisis
You ought to know about the story of the U2 crisis and its
results.
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Background |
By 1960, Cold War tension was at an all-time
high:
Russia was winning the space race (Sputnik
1957/Gagarin 1961) and had a HUGE army in eastern Europe.
The Communists had taken over Cuba in 1959, and
China was very aggressive, demanding that Russia get tough
with the West.
Russia wanted the Americans out of West Berlin.
The Americans wanted an 'open skies' agreement
giving them the right to fly over Communist countries.
A Summit meeting was arranged for May 1960
in
Paris
to try and sort all this out. |
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Meat |
1
May 1960: Soviets shot down an American U2
spy plane over USSR, and captured pilot Gary Powers.
(neither Russian planes nor guns could get high
enough to shoot down a U2 plane, but the U2 got shot down by
accident when a Russian gun trying to shoot it down blew up a
Russian plane trying to shoot it down)
At first the Americans claimed it was a weather plane, but
they were shown to be liars when the Russians put Gary Powers
on trial as a spy - the Americans
had to admit he was a spy.
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End |
When the Paris summit met 14 May 1960,
Khrushchev
immediately demanded apology + end to
spying flights.
Eisenhower agreed to end spy-flights, but
refused to apologise, so Khrushchev walked out.
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The
Paris summit was ruined - Cold War tension
increased
Eisenhowers
planned visit to Russia was cancelled
In America:
America
came off badly (had been caught lying) = propaganda victory for USSR.
Eisenhower lost prestige.
In 1961 the
Americans elected a new president (Kennedy), who promised to get tougher on Communism.
In Russia
Attitudes hardened - Khrushchev
demanded that US left West Berlin
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Revision Focus
This is a Paper 1
topic, so concentrate on learning:
1. WHAT
happened
2. EFFECTS/
Importance
Links
e-book on the U2 Crisis.
Online revision sheet
Spidergram:
The
U2 incident
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Revision Diary