Topic 1: President John F. Kennedy
President John Frizgerald Kennedy started his involvement in the cold war as a candidate for congress. His campaign addressed the issues involving the coldwar and took a anti-Cold War platform along with many of the other Democrats of the era. Along with this, he also "tough on communism". In 1952, while running for senator he boasted on his work that lead to the conviction of a communist union official.
Even in his campaign for the presendency, Kennedy held a "tough on the Soviets" issue which criticized Eisenhower for "falling behind the Soviets". He promised more money toward the national defense while charging Eisenhower for allowing non-existent "missile gaps" to develop between US and Soviet nuclear arsenals.
In order to make up for this missile gap, Kennedy ordered and increase on the production of nuclear arms. This then set off a nuclear arms race which then lead to the US losing it role as the top nuclear power by the end of the decade. Kennedy did, on the other hand, sign the Limited Test Ban Treaty which started the disarment of nuclear weapons, but it has been said that he signed it only for enviromental means, not for any longterm goals of eliminating nuclear weapons.JFK tried to reduce tensions with the USSR following the Cuban Missile Crisis. But in the resuction of tention, he had no intention of pulling out of the containment set by the Truman Doctrine. It was also for these reasons that Kennedy held the line in Vietnam, increasing the number of troops from 500 to 16,000. Confronted with the suggestion of pulling out he responded "I think that would be a mistake"
Kennedy also was determined in not seeing Vietnam lost. It was he who decided that South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem needed to be removed from office because Kennedy felt he was an obstacle in winning the war. Kennedy authorized the coup that overthrew Diem by assassination on November 1, 1963. Kennedy was involved with Vietnam all the way even until the eve of his own death.
Topic 2: Josef Stalin
Joseph Stalin assumed power over the Soviet Union in 1933 as Lenin's successor. He had a shrewd concept of politics and his number one goal was to make the Soviet Union into a major player on the world stage. To do this, Stalin had to start building up the Soviet's economy and in modernizing the military. He had tanks and guns made over food, housing, and consumer goods. This was his way of changing the Soviet Unions from a preindustrial society to a modern country, capable of overthrowing other nations.
In acheiving his goals, Stalin had no concern for human life if it stood in the way of progress. Adolf Hitler was his only rival when it came to mass murder. Historians believe that as many as twelve million people died from standing in the war of Stalin's ambitions. Millions died from starvation and overworking even though they had no political beliefs whatsoever.
In 1939 at around the beginning of World War II, Stalin signed a nonaggression pact with the Germans which stated that the Nazi's would not attck the Soviets and the Soviets would do the same. As a part of this deal, Poland was invaded and split up between Germany and the Soviet Union. Stalin although not liking this deal, saw that Hitler would invade the Soviet Union sometime in the future and this pact allowed him to prepare for it. Eight days after the pact was signed, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began.Years later, Pearl Harbor was hit by Japan and the United States entered the war. President Roosevelt teamed up with Winston Churchill of Great Britain and Stalin to form the "Big Three", a group commited to destroying Hitler and the expanding Nazi empire. One reason the United States got along so well with the Soviet Union was because Roosevelt had started an effort in changing America's view of the Soviet Union. The three leaders held conferences together of which the most important one was held at Yalta. There they discussed the Soviets help in fighting the Japanese.
But as the Axis powers were being defeated, the bond between the Soviet Union and the other two nations in the "Big Three" began to fall apart. Roosevelt had died and Harry Truman had taken over the Presidency. Once the War was over, Truman demanded free election in the East European countries that were taken over during the war and now set free. Stalin opposed this idea stating, "A freely elected government in any of these East European countries would be anti-Soviet and that we cannot allow."
One of Stalin's post-war plans was to repress the millions of Soviet citizens who were living outside of the soviet border when the war ended. Some were captured by the Nazi's while other were just living abroad. Stalin demanded that these "traitors" were sent back to the Soviet Union and they were shipped off to forced-labor camps, no better than the camps that the Nazi's had in WWII. More than 50 percent who went to these camps never came out.
In 1953, Stalin died after twenty-five years of power. He had brought the government of Lenin and his revolutionary Bolsheviks back to the dictatorship. After his death, reformers led by Nikita Khrushchev argued for major innovations. This started the "de-stalinization" period of Soviet history.
Topic 3: Mikhail Gorbichev
Mikhail Gorbichev was the Soviet leader who saw the end of the Cold War through his efforts along with that of the American Presidents Ronald Reagen and George Bush. He took office as Secretary General of the Communist Party in 1985 thus making him the head of the Soviet Union.
Within his first year as secretary general, Gorbachev had already started to work on ending the Cold War. In 1986 he started to discontinue economic support from the soviet's satellites which included Cuba. That same year he called for the reform of the soviet system. In October of 1986, Gorbachev met with Reagen in Iceland to discuss and see to the removal of all intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe.In 1987, Reagen and Gorbachev met in Washington to sign a treaty eliminating all short and medium range nuclear missiles. In December of 1988 Gorbachev renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine, thus giving more freedom to the states of Eastern Europe. A month later he withdrew the soviet military from Afghanistan. By the end of 1988 Gorbachev renouced the use of force in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Rumania whose communist regimes had fallen, and as a result, recognizing the end of the soviet empire. By 1990 the world began to realize that the Cold War was coming to an end.
In May of 1990, Bush and Gorbachev met in Washington and sign more than a dozen treaties for reducing nuclear weapons, a ban on chemical weapons, and agreements normalizing trade. Later that year Gorbachev met with German chancelor Kohl and signed a nonagression pact. The Soviet troops were moved out of Eastern Germany. The lines between Poland and the USSR were perminantly drawn. Finally at the end of 1991, Grobichev turned over power to Boris Yeltsin who was President by means of the first free election in the history of the Soviet Union.
Topic 4: Harry Truman
After a few weeks as Vice-President under Franklin Delenor Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman took over the Presidency on April 12, 1945. Unaware of all the situations that were taking place with Japan and the Soviet Russia, Truman took the job with a load of problems.
Harry S. Truman, although born in Lamar, Missouri in 1884, grew up in Independance. He worked 12 years as a farmer until World War I, where he went to France as a Field Artillery Captain. When he returned from war, Harry Truman married Elizabeth Virginia Wallace and opened a business in Kansas City.
Truman was active in the Democratic Party and because of this, he was elected a judge of the Jackson County Court in 1922. Over the next 12 years he worked his way up the ladder to become a Senator in 1934. During World War II, Truman headed the Senate was investigating committee, looking into the waste and corruption of the military and perhaps saved close to 15 billion dollars.
Amoung the crucial decisions that a President has had to make, Truman's was the greatest. Victory in Europe had occurred and now the U.S. was fighting Japan. A plea to Japan for them to surrender was rejected and so Truman made the decision to drop two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki. The Japanese surrendered quickly. This event started the nuclear arms race between the super powers, Russia and the U.S.
In 1947 Truman asked congress to aid Turkey and Greece which were being pressured by The Soviet Union and guerrillas. The legislation that came out was known as the Truman Doctrin. The Marshall Plan, another piece of legislation that was named for Truman's Secretary of State, stimulated spectacular economic recovery in war-torn western Europe.
In June of 1950, Truman met with his advisors to discuss the situation that was happening in Korea. They decided that neither the United Nations nor the U.S. could back away from the conflict. While the U.N. held the 38th parallel, Truman kept the war a limited one, keeping China and Russia from being involved.
Truman decided not to run again and so he retired to Independence. At the age 88, Harry S. Truman died on December 26, 1972.
Topic 5: The Korean War
Following World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed in 1945 to divide Korea into U.S. and Soviet occupation zones, with the U.S. staying south of the thirty-eighth Parallel. Tension began to mount in early 1950 following the failure of efforts to unite the country. In 1947 the U.S. submitted the Korean question to the U.N. General Assembly for disposition, but Russia refused to go along. South Korea held elections anyway in May 1948 under U.N. supervision, while the Russians set up a puppet government in the north.
On June 25, 1950, North Korean troops crossed the thirty-eighth parallel in force. Within hours of the attack, the United States responded. It pushed a resolution through the U.N. Security Council that gave the U.N.'s approval and support for military action against North Korea. The U.S. began to support the South Koreans with air and sea units. However, the North Korean Army continued to drive the South Korean Army down the peninsula, the American bombing missions having virtually no effect on slowing the North. In response, The U.S. sent in the American troops that were stationed in Japan. Arriving just in time, they aided the South Koreans in holding the Pusan bridgehead through June and July. By August it was clear that the U.S. troops under General MacArthur would be able to hold the North Korean, and possibly even roll them back. On September 15, MacArthur outflanked the North Koreans with an amphibious landing at Inchon, far up the Korean peninsula. In a little more than a week, MacArthur's troops took the South Korean capital, Seoul, back, an action which cut off the North Korea n forces around Pusan.
Following American authorization to conduct military operations north of the thirty-eighth parallel, MacArthur crossed the parallel in an effort to invade North Korea. That same day, October 7, the U.N. approved an American resolution endorsing the action. The Chinese issued a series of warnings to the United States, saying that they would not "sit back with folded hands and let the Americans come to the border." The U.S. ignored this and continued to invade North Korea. Finally, China made a public statement on October 10 that they would become involved in the conflict if the Americans continued north. MacArthur advanced into North Korea by two separated routes, leaving his middle wide open. The Chinese poured thousands of "volunteers" into the gap, and sent the Americans reeling back. Within two weeks, the Chinese had cleared much of North Korea.
In January and February 1951, MacArthur resumed the offensive, and drove the Chinese and the North Koreans back. He reached the thirty-eighth parallel by March. Peace talks began on July 10, 1951. They broke down on July 12. For the rest of the year they were on again, off again. The lines began to stabilize around the thirty-eighth parallel. By July 1953, North Korea and America reached an armistice that restored the pre-war conditions.
Topic 6: Vietnam War
The Vietnam War began in 1957, and was divided into Communist ruled North Vietnam and non-Communist South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese and some of their South Vietnamese supporters fought to take over South Vietnam.
The ruler of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, became increasingly unpopular when he ended local elections and appointed his own village officials. In 1957 members in the south began to rebel against Diem. Diem called these rebels Viet Cong, meaning Vietnamese Communists. North Vietnam supported the revolt from the early stages, and began to develop a supply route to South Vietnam in 1959, which came to be known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The United States sent several hundred U.S. civilian and military advisors to assist Diem.
By 1960, discontent with the Diem government was widespread, and the Viet Cong had about 10,000 troops. They soon began to attack South Vietnamese army bases, and threatened in 1961 to overthrow Diem's government. In response, President John F. Kennedy greatly expanded economic and military aid to South Vietnam. From 1961 to 1963, he increased the number of U.S. advisors in Vietnam from 900 to over 16,000.
In May 1963, unrest broke out within the Buddhist population of South Vietnam. They were upset that Diem's government was restricting their religious practices. The government responded with mass arrests and raids on Buddhist temples after large protests were staged. A group of generals who opposed Diem's harsh treatment and policies overthrew the Diem government and murdered him. A period of political disorder followed, with new governments coming in rapid succession. North Vietnam stepped up its supply of war materials and began to send its own army units into the South. By late 1964, the Viet Cong controlled up to 75 over cent of South Vietnam's population.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that the U.S. destroyers Maddox and C. Turner Joy had been attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. Some Americans doubted that the attack had occurred, and the attack has never been confirmed. Johnson ordered immediate air strikes against North Vietnam, and received power from Congress to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." In M arch 1965, John used this power to send a group of U.S. Marines to South Vietnam. The war grew. The United States forces rose from about 60,000 in mid-1965 to a peak of over 543,000 in 1969. They joined 800,000 South Vietnamese troops and about 69,000 men from Australia, New Zealand, the Philippine, South Korea, and Thailand. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong had over 300,000 troops.
The American leaders hoped that superior U.S. firepower would force the enemy to stop fighting, and thus relied on bombing missions over North Vietnam, and "search and destroy" missions on the ground in the south. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese prefer red guerilla tactics, including ambushes and hand-laid bombs. They had knowledge of the terrain and large amounts of war equipment from the Soviet Union and China. The two sides fought to a destructive draw between 1965 and 1967. The highly destructive bombing of the north did not affect the enemy's willingness or ability to keep fighting.
Opposition to the war began to mount in America. Increased casualties and taxes produced a large drop of support for the war. The Tet offensive also had a major impact. This new phase of the war began on Jan. 30, 1968 wh cities of South Vietnam. This caused Johnson to call for peace negotiations.
These peace talks failed to produce an agreement, so President Nixon, feeling he had to reduce the U.S. involvement in the war, announced a new policy known as Vietnamization. This policy called for stepped up training programs of South Vietnamese forces and a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops in Vietnam.
In March 1972, North Vietnam began a major invasion of South Vietnam, which was stopped by the Americans just short of Saigon, South Vietnam's capital. Peace negotiations ensued, and on Jan 27, 1973 a cease fire agreement was signed, in which the U.S. agreed to withdraw its troops. It also called for internationally supervised election to decide the future of South Vietnam. The last U.S. troops left on March 29, 1973, but peace talks broke down and the war resumed. No American troops returned to the war, and the U.S. reduced its aid. The war ended on April 39, 1975 when South Vietnam surrendered.
Topic 7: The Cuban Missle Crisis
Before the Cuban Missle Crisis occurred, the Soviet Union were way ahead in the technology race. They didn't believe they needed to make ICBMs (see Technology) because of the present state of their economy, and so the Soviets started production of MRBM's (Medium Range Balistic Missle) and IRBM's (Intermediate Range Balistic Missles). With the advice of the Strategic Rocket Forces, a Soviet organization, and the backing of premier Nikita S. Khrushchev, 42 MRBM's and 24 IRBM's were shipped to Cuba, escorted by about 22,000 soldiers in the early months of 1962. On October 22, 1962, Kennedy announced to the public that the Soviet Union had placed nuclear missles in Cuba, close to 90 miles from the American coast. For months the Soviet union had been shipping a couple thousand vehicles and around 22,000 men to Cuba in an offensive attempt to attack the US. For this Kennedy put Cuba under quarantine. He had only two other choices, a surgical air strike or doing nothing, and the these would be either too much or too little action. During that week, meetings went on inside the White House as Kennedy's administration prepared for a possible nuclear war. Finally on October 28, 1962 Khrushchev announced that the missles were placed on Cuba for offensive reasons and that now the construction of the sites had stopped. World War III had been averted.
Multimedia files about the Cuban Missle Crisis
*Audio files from the Executive Committee Meeting on October 18, 1962.
Topic 8: Bay of Pigs
About a year before the Cuban missle crisis, an incident occurred in Cuba that raised the idea of conspiracy in the U.S. government. On April 15, 1961, bombings occurred in Cuba by what seemed like cuban planes. That Saturday morning, three Cuban Military Bases were bombed by B-26 bombers. 54 people died in this attack. After the bombings, two of the B-26's flew to Miami. A statement was released by the Cuban Revolutionary Council in New York saying that the bombings in Cuba were "carried out by 'Cubans inside Cuba' who were 'in contact with' the top command of the Revolutionary Council."The planes landed in Miami, one at the Key West Naval Air Station and the other at Miami international, both in terrible condition with their gas tanks nearly empty. A picture of one f the pilots was shown in the New York Times, hiding behind a baseball cap and dark sunglasses. Even his name was withheld from the newspaper.
On April 17, the assault on the Bay of Pigs began. A team of frogmen set up landing lights and cleared the area for the main assault force. Between 2:30 and 3:00 AM, two battalion arrived at Playa Girón and one battalion at Playa Larga. The area at which they landed was swampy which was hard on the troops. Fidel Castro reacted quickly and sent T-33 trainer jets, two Sea Furies, and two B-26's to stop the invaders. They destroyed the supply ships, including the Houston, and the command vessel the Marsopa.With the supply and command ships lost, the invading forces' logistics of the operation soon broke down.
Castro's T-33 took out the invaders' B-26's. By Wednesday, 10 of the invader's 12 planes were shot out of the sky. After 72 hours of fighting, the invader's surrendured but 114 had already died. Another 36 died in Cuban prison cells being held as men plotting to overthrow Castro's reign. The Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations were blamed for this assault as an attempt not to lose Latin America's resources that are exported to the USA to be exploited by the Soviets.
For more information on the Bay of Pigs invasion see:
Bay of Pigs
Topic 9: United Nations
The term United Nations was first used by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his "Declaration by United Nations," on January 1, 1942. In the declaration, representatives of 26 nations pledged to fight together against the Axis powers during the Second World War.Following a meeting at Yalta, a resort in southern Russia, 50 countries met together at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in 1945, where they drew up the United Nations Charter, which was signed on June 26, 1945 by the 50 countries. The UN officially came into existence on October 24, 1945, the charter having been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries.
The preamble to the charter reads:
We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save future generations from the scourge of war which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women, and of nations large and small . . . have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims. . . . Our respective governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco . . . do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.
The United Nations consists of two main bodies: the General Assembly and the Security Council. The General Assembly included delegates from all the charter countries, and allowed new members to join, with a vote of approval from two-thirds of the General Assembly. The General Assembly was to meet annual, and its tasks included to create a budget, receive annual reports from UN agencies, and to choose the members of the Security Council and other bodies.The Security Council is primarily responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. It functions continuously, and a representative form each of its members is present at all time at the United Nations' headquarters. The security council began with eleven members- five permanent and six elected by the General Assembly for two year terms.
Topic 10: NATO
NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and was established to bind Western Europe and the United States together in a common defense alliance against the communist Soviet Union and its allies.
As Communist parties began to rise everywhere and Eastern European nations were absorbed into the Soviet sphere of influence, Western Europe and the United States began to develop a plan for assistance. A 50-year collective defense alliance, known as the Brussels Treaty, was established on March 17, 1948 by Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. However, it was realized that without the assistance of the United States to treaty was not strong enough militarily. An enlarged collective defense arrangement was signed on April 4, 1949 in Washington D.C. The initial signatories were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The government of NATO is vested in the North Atlantic Council (NAC), which is made up of representative from the 16 member nations. The highest military authority in NATO is the Military Committee, which is composed of representatives of all the armed forces of member nations except for France and Iceland.
NATO has three regional commands: the European Command, led by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR); the Atlantic Command, led by the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT); and the Channel Command, led by the Allied Commander in Chief Channel (CINCHAN). An American admiral has always had the post of SACLANT, and the British have always controlled the CINCHAN command.
Topic 11: Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact was the Soviet Union's answer to NATO. Its full title is the Warsaw Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. It began when, in 1955, the Soviet Union wanted to establish a strong alliance to defend against any military or economic threats from the West, and to strengthen its hold over its Eastern European satellites. The treaty was signed on May 14, 1955 by the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, and Romania.
Part of the treaty included the stationing of Soviet troops and weaponry in Eastern Europe, so that the Soviets could maintain strict control. The presence of these troops led to a revival of nationalism and hostility toward the Soviet Union in several countries, especially Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. In 1956, the Soviet troops quickly put down an uprising in Hungary, and in 1968 Warsaw Pact troops were sent into Czechoslovakia after that nation's government began to lift restraints on personal freedom. Soviet troops were withdrawn from Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in 1990, in accordance with Gorbachev's reform policies. The Warsaw Pact's military structure disbanded on March 31, 1991 and the political arm agreed to disband three months later.
US-China Relations
In the late 1920's and early 30's, China was a republic lead by Chiang Kai-Sheck that was opposed to communism. The students and workers were unhappy about the situation in China and saw communism as a means to fix it. Chiang was against this and in 1927 he had more than 3000 communists killed. Mao Zedong, who later became the communist party leader in China, led a march out of China. It lasted two years and although 90,000 left, only a few thousand came back but it gained support for communism.In the late 1940's the communist party took advantage of the public's distrust in Chiang. They took rich people's land and gave it to the peasants. The communists introduced medicine, education, and raised the status of women. Soon the Communists drove Chiang out and Mao Zedong became the leader of China. Chiang went to Taiwan and continued the Republic of China while the Communists made China "The People's Republic of China".
By 1962, China started to position itself as the 'other' superpower. The US made attemts to meet with China because as the largest power in the world and the controller of the spread of communism. Nixon met with Chinese Prime Minister Mr. Chou En-lai, the communist leader that replaced Mao Zedong, in February, 1972. This broke the tensions that were building since the beginning of the Cold War. Throughout the war in Vietnam, there was fear that China might get involved by backing up the Vietcong, our enemy. This meeting gave the american people the assurance that the relations between China and the U.S. was fine.
Topic 12: "The Space Race"
The Space Age dawned on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into orbit around the earth. Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite around earth. (Sputnik is a Russian word meaning "traveler.") Until this point, it had been assumed that the first satellite would be American, not Russian. As Sputnik ushered in the beginning of the space age, many Americans reacted with astonishment. President Eisenhower tried to downplay the situation, even though he had been warned as early as 1955 that "severe psychological shock" would result if the Soviet Union won the race to orbit.
While Americans tried to make sense of the situation, the Soviet Union followed up on its initial success with the launch of Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957. Inside Sputnik 2 was a pressurized compartment containing a dog named Laika, who was the first passenger to orbit earth.
In the United States, Project Vanguard was the program initiated in September of 1955 to provide a launch vehicle for artificial satellites. Despite attempts to speed it up after the launch of Sputnik, it proceeded slowly. The first real test of the system did not take place until October 23, 1957, about three weeks after Sputnik 1 reached orbit. Americans anxiously waited for and artificial satellite to call their own. Their opportunity can on December 6, 1957, which was the launch date of the first fully operational Vanguard rocket. However, soon after ignition, the booster settled back onto the launch pad, toppled over, and exploded. Two months later, a second Vanguard veered off course after a launch and broke up in the atmosphere.
Until this point, the United States military had not gotten involved because Eisenhower thought that space exploration should be a purely scientific endeavor. However, the unexpected launch of Sputnik 1 changed all this. Within a few weeks after launch, the Army got the go ahead for a satellite program. Using a modified Jupiter rocket booster, the Army worked quickly to prepare. On January 31, 1958, the Juno 1 launched America's first satellite into orbit, the Explorer 1.
To respond to the budding Soviet space program, President Eisenhower turned to a small scientific agency called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautic (NACA), which had made many contribution to aircraft design. On July 27, 1958 Eisenhower signed legislation transforming NACA into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
NASA was designed to operate separately from the Department of Defense and was also required by its 1958 charter to make its research available to the American public. Through the years, NASA developed its own rockets, spacecraft, and communications networks.
Topic 13: Reaching for the Moon
Even after the United States got its first spacecraft into orbit, the lead remained with the Soviets. In 1959, the Soviet space program began its attempts to reach the moon. The Soviets launched the unmanned Luna 2 on September 12, 1959, which then struck the moon 35 hours later. Luna 3 was sent toward the moon on October 4, 1959 and returned photographs of the moon's far side three day later. The Soviet Luna series dropped of for about three years, and returned in 1963 with the goal of placing instrumented capsules onto the lunar surface. The first five attempts, and perhaps a sixth, were failures. However, the first to succeed was the Luna 9 which left earth on January 31, 1966, and dropped its round capsule on the lunar surface three days later.
The American program to reach the moon was the Apollo program. Apollo 8 was launched using the powerful Saturn 5 booster on December 21, 1968. It took three days for Apollo to reach the moon, and then orbited the moon. The Apollo 11 mission was the first lunar landing. Nearly a million people jammed Cape Kennedy roads for a view of the July 16, 1969 launch. The Eagle was the lunar landing module aboard which were Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin. On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong took the first step on the moon and said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Topic 14: ICBM Testing
InterContinental Balistic MIssles were a new range of weaponary that both the United States and The Soviet Union were developing during the Cold War. In the United States, the MX (missle experimental) program was developed in the early 70's. Before then, the U.S. Military believed that the Soviets were dramatically improving on the accuracy and number of missle systems. They thought that the Soviets could attack, even destroy, the concrete missile silos in which U.S. ICBM's were being held.
The US felt that they needed a way to deploy the missles that would be invulnerable to Soviet attack. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter began a full-scale development of the MX but could not resolve the issue of deployment. The invulnerability of the MX would not be achieved. Jimmy Carter developed a deployment plan in which 200 ICBM would be mounted on movable launchers. Those launchers would be underground in a system of tunnels that lead to 4,600 shelters. At any one time, 4,400 shelters would be empty so if attacked, the chances that a missle would be destroyed would be slim. President Reagen saw how this plan would be very expensive and so he went with a plan of placing the missles deep underground, making them invulnerable to Soviet attack.
In the end, neither of these plans would be implemented but in 1985, Congress passed a program that would deploy 50 MX missiles in fixed silos. However in 1992, the arm-reduction talks between Bush and Yeltsin resulted in the removal of all land-based missiles.
Here is some declassified newsreal of ICBM Testing
