that Kennedy had risked nuclear di-
COLD WAR
saster when quiet diplomacy might
P
have been effective . But most Ameri-
resident Kennedy came into of- cans and much of the non-Commu-
fice pledging to carry on the Cold nist world applauded his decisiveness .
War vigorously, but he also hoped The missile crisis made him for the
for accommodation and was reluc- first time the acknowledged leader of
tant to commit American power . the democratic West .
During his first year-and-a-half
In retrospect, the Cuban mis-
in office, he rejected American in- sile crisis marked a turning point
tervention after the CIA-guided
in U .S .-Soviet relations . Both sides
Cuban exile invasion at the Bay of saw the need to defuse tensions that
Pigs failed, effectively ceded the could lead to direct military con-
landlocked Southeast Asian nation flict . The following year, the United
of Laos to Communist control, and States, the Soviet Union, and Great
acquiesced in the building of the Britain signed a landmark Limited
Berlin Wall . Kennedy’s decisions Test Ban Treaty prohibiting nuclear
reinforced impressions of weakness weapons tests in the atmosphere .
that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrush-
Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cam-
chev had formed in their only per- bodia), a French possession before
sonal meeting, a summit meeting at World War II, was still another Cold
Vienna in June 1961 .
War battlefield . The French effort to
It was against this backdrop that reassert colonial control there was
Kennedy faced the most serious opposed by Ho Chi Minh, a Viet-
event of the Cold War, the Cuban namese Communist, whose Viet
missile crisis .
Minh movement engaged in a guer-
In the fall of 1962, the adminis- rilla war with the French army .
tration learned that the Soviet Union
Both Truman and Eisenhower,
was secretly instal ing offensive nu- eager to maintain French support for
clear missiles in Cuba . After con- the policy of containment in Europe,
sidering different options, Kennedy provided France with economic aid
decided on a quarantine to prevent that freed resources for the struggle
Soviet ships from bringing addition- in Vietnam . But the French suffered
al supplies to Cuba . He demanded a decisive defeat in Dien Bien Phu in
publicly that the Soviets remove the May 1954 . At an international confer-
weapons and warned that an attack ence in Geneva, Laos and Cambodia
from that island would bring retali- were given their independence . Viet-
ation against the USSR . After sever- nam was divided, with Ho in power
al days of tension, during which the in the North and Ngo Dinh Diem, a
world was closer than ever before to Roman Catholic anti-Communist in
nuclear war, the Soviets agreed to a largely Buddhist population, head-
remove the missiles . Critics charged ing the government in the South .
284
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
Elections were to be held two years
After Kennedy’s death, President
later to unify the country . Persuaded Lyndon Johnson enthusiastically
that the fall of Vietnam could lead to supported the space program . In
the fall of Burma, Thailand, and In- the mid-1960s, U .S . scientists devel-
donesia, Eisenhower backed Diem’s oped the two-person Gemini space-
refusal to hold elections in 1956 and craft . Gemini achieved several firsts, effectively established South Viet- including an eight-day mission in
nam as an American client state .
August 1965 — the longest space
Kennedy increased assistance, flight at that time — and in No-
and sent small numbers of military vember 1966, the first automatically
advisers, but a new guerrilla strug- controlled reentry into the Earth’s
gle between North and South con- atmosphere . Gemini also accom-
tinued . Diem’s unpopularity grew plished the first manned linkup of
and the military situation wors- two spacecraft in flight as well as the
ened . In late 1963, Kennedy secretly first U .S . walks in space .
assented to a coup d’etat . To the
The three-person Apol o space-
president’s surprise, Diem and his craft achieved Kennedy’s goal and
powerful brother-in-law, Ngo Dien demonstrated to the world that the
Nu, were killed . It was at this uncer- United States had surpassed Soviet
tain juncture that Kennedy’s presi- capabilities in space . On July 20,
dency ended three weeks later .
1969, with hundreds of millions of
television viewers watching around
THE SPACE PROGRAM
the world, Neil Armstrong became
D
the first human to walk on the sur-
uring Eisenhower’s second face of the moon .
term, outer space had become an
Other Apol o flights followed, but
arena for U .S .-Soviet competition . many Americans began to question
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the value of manned space flight . In
Sputnik — an artificial satellite — the early 1970s, as other priorities thereby demonstrating it could became more pressing, the United
build more powerful rockets than States scaled down the space pro-
the United States . The United States gram . Some Apol o missions were launched its first satellite, Explorer I, scrapped; only one of two proposed in 1958 . But three months after Ken- Skylab space stations was built .
nedy became president, the USSR
put the first man in orbit . Kennedy
DEATH OF A PRESIDENT
responded by committing the Unit-
ed States to land a man on the moon John Kennedy had gained world
and bring him back “before this de- prestige by his management of the
cade is out .” With Project Mercury Cuban missile crisis and had won
in 1962, John Glenn became the first great popularity at home . Many be-
U .S . astronaut to orbit the Earth .
lieved he would win re-election eas-
285