Peaceful coexistence
On March 5, 1953, Stalin died. He is replaced by Nikita Khrushchev, who condemns Stalin's crimes and allows peaceful coexistence (1956):the two blocs only clash ideologically.
Although officially the two powers never directly clashed, it seems that more than a hundred American spy planes were shot down during overflights of Soviet airspace. As early as 1950, a PB4Y Privateer was shot down by Soviet fighters. From 1956, the Americans used U2s flying at an altitude of more than 20,000 meters. But, in May 1960, one of them was shot down and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was imprisoned following a highly publicized trial. The Americans will then create more and more sophisticated spy planes, before developing a program of surveillance satellites.
During this period, there is a more open dialogue between the leaders of the two blocs. Khrushchev met Eisenhower in 1956 in the United Kingdom, in 1959 in the United States, in 1960 in France and Kennedy in 1961 in Vienna[20]. Indeed, the young democrat John F. Kennedy won the 1960 elections. He preferred a peaceful coexistence with the USSR, but at the same time wanted to prevent communism from spreading in the Third World. He therefore created the “Alliance for Progress” to help Latin America, he increased American aid to Congo-Kinshasa, he sent “military advisers” to Laos and Vietnam.
Budapest Uprising (1956)
The Soviet bloc is experiencing a major crisis crystallized by the Hungarian revolt in Budapest, which leads to Soviet repression at the time of the 1956 Summer Olympics.
The Suez Crisis (1956)
This crisis is not part of the Cold War in the strict sense of the term, since it is not a conflict directly opposing the United States and the USSR. However, some see this crisis as the end of the autonomous actions of the two blocs and therefore include it in the Cold War.
In 1956, the world witnessed a war between Egypt on the one hand, France, the United Kingdom and Israel on the other. France and the United Kingdom are under pressure from the two superpowers, which resent not being made aware of the operation around the Suez Canal. The USSR threatens to use atomic weapons, because it sees it as a colonial war. In this dossier, the two great powers adopt the same position.
Main article:Suez Crisis.
The Second Berlin Crisis (1961)
Between 1949 and 1961, 3.6 million East Germans transited through Berlin to enter the FRG. This demographic haemorrhage was an economic disaster for the GDR, because it was above all engineers, doctors and skilled workers who committed the “hit and run” (Republikflucht). At the same time, it was a political catastrophe in that it damaged the official image of the GDR.
In November 1958, this situation gave rise to a diplomatic crisis known as the "Khrushchev ultimatum" and in which all the Western powers were involved.
In June 1961, Kennedy and Khrushchev meet in Vienna. Khrushchev announces that he will sign a peace treaty with the GDR, which would deprive the United States of its access to West Berlin. Kennedy finds the situation unacceptable and the conference leads nowhere. Khrushchev sends his army to West Berlin. Kennedy retaliated by spreading out American tanks in front of Soviet forces and increasing the American military budget. Khrushchev pulls back his army under pressure.
On August 13, 1961, the construction of the Berlin Wall between the Soviet sector and the three Western sectors put an end to this “systematic poaching of citizens of the German Democratic Republic”. But since the East German and Soviet authorities made no attempt to block the lines of communication between the FRG and West Berlin, and since Khrushchev did not question the quadripartite status of the city, the reaction Westerners were limited to verbal protests and symbolic gestures:the visit to West Berlin of General Lucius D. Clay, the organizer of the airlift, and the reinforcement of the American garrison by 1,500 men. Indeed, in the eyes of the West, the construction of the wall constituted only an aggression against the East Germans and did not threaten the three essentials (i.e. the essential interests) of the bloc of the West.
Main article:Berlin Wall.
The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
The Cuban Missile Crisis[24] brought into sharper focus the threat of nuclear war. In January 1959, Fidel Castro's guerrillas overthrew US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. The new regime took a series of measures that earned it growing hostility from Washington:in 1959, dismantling of the latifundia; signing of a trade agreement with the Soviet Union in May 1960, after the reduction of Cuban sugar purchases by the United States; in June and July, confiscation of North American companies, which controlled, in addition to all the oil refineries, 40% of the sugar industry, 80% of tobacco and 90% of the mines.
In retaliation, the US government, under pressure from the business community, implemented an economic embargo on the island in October 1960 and, on January 2, 1961, it severed diplomatic relations with Havana. At the same time, the CIA was recruiting "anti-Castro forces" among Cuban refugees. At the beginning of April, Kennedy agreed to a plan to invade the island, while refusing to commit American troops and limiting the number of troops to 1,200 Cubans. The landing, which took place on April 17, 1961 in the Bay of Pigs, was a disaster. Kennedy declares himself solely responsible, but, in private, accuses the CIA of having lied to him and of having manipulated him. The president falls out with the agency. He declared to his advisers:“I am going to cut the CIA to pieces and scatter the shreds to the winds. »The CIA is now working clandestinely against Castro, collaborating with the Mafia, which frustrates Kennedy.
In July 1961, Cuba signifies its membership of the “socialist bloc”. On September 4, 1962, the country concluded a military assistance agreement with the Soviet Union, and a week later Moscow declared that any attack on Cuba would provoke a nuclear response. The American Congress for its part votes on October 3 a resolution which puts in formal notice against any “subversive action in the Western hemisphere”. Kennedy, however, banned Operation Northwoods, devised and proposed by the General Staff, which planned to orchestrate a series of attacks against the United States and then blame Cuba in order to mobilize public opinion against Castro. .
On October 14, 1962, an American U2 plane photographed launch pads for medium-range nuclear missiles (IRBM and MRBM) on the island of Cuba, capable of reaching American territory. At the same time, the White House learns that 24 Soviet cargo ships carrying rockets and Ilyushin bombers are en route to Cuba (Operation Anadyr).
On the 22nd, Kennedy, after hesitating between inaction and the bombardment of the launching pads, decided on the naval blockade of the island. This “graduated response”, proportionate to the threat, left Khrushchev the choice between escalation or negotiation. But Kennedy uses the greatest firmness to force Khrushchev to back down. On October 24, the first Soviet freighters turned around. Moscow could not immediately contact the submarines armed with torpedoes with nuclear heads (Operation Kama) which accompanied the convoy with the mission of protecting it (a fact which would not be revealed until 2001). Meanwhile, a face-saving arrangement for Khrushchev is negotiated behind the scenes between unofficial emissaries. On October 26 and 27, in two messages, the Kremlin proposes the withdrawal of offensive weapons; in return, the Americans should undertake not to overthrow the Cuban regime and to withdraw the Jupiter rockets installed in Turkey and aimed at the USSR. On October 28, Kennedy accepted this compromise in extremis. However, he asks to hide the fact that the United States was withdrawing its missiles from Turkey. Khrushchev accepted, and he thought he had won the game. But he had been duped. Kennedy had decided to withdraw the missiles from Turkey long before the crisis. Moreover, Khrushchev's retreat humiliated him before Castro, Mao Zedong and the other communist leaders. It is decidedly Kennedy who won the game, in addition he sees his popularity and his world prestige skyrocket. Kennedy will nevertheless say after this diplomatic crisis that he "negotiated on the edge of the abyss".
The outcome of the crisis was a political success for the United States, although it must tolerate a communist country within its "perimeter of defense". On the other hand, this “diplomacy on the edge of the abyss” had frightened “even the highest decision-makers, to the point of reminding them of rational behavior. [26] The installation of a hotline, a direct line between Moscow and Washington, and the opening of negotiations on the limitation of armaments concretized this return to rationality. Kennedy, who had become even more popular, changed his country's policy towards a somewhat more peaceful plan. But he did not have time to implement all his ideas:on November 22, 1963, on a trip to Dallas, Texas, Kennedy paraded through the streets of the city in a convertible limousine. During the parade, he is assassinated in full glory by a sniper, in front of the horrified eyes of the crowd. Khrushchev, meanwhile, came out of the crisis very weak. In 1964 he was replaced by Brezhnev.