TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93HT0330> <link 93XP0403> <link 93XP0199> <link 89TT3062> <title> 1960s: Cold War Contained </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1960s Highlights </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> Cold War Contained </hdr> <body> [At the start of the 1960s, the world still trembled under the pall of atomic terror, and the very real possibility of nuclear war with the Soviet Union dominated the foreign policy deliberations of the U.S. and other Free World nations. At borders and trouble spots from Europe's Iron Curtain to Korea's Demilitarized Zone, wherever the superpowers or their allies and satellites confronted each other, the threat hovered in the background. But there were hints of thaw. The two countries had managed to observe an informal moratorium on nuclear test since 1958. After Vice President Nixon toured the Soviet Union and Khrushchev met with President Eisenhower at Camp David in 1959, the two countries agreed to attend a summit meeting in Paris the following May. Only eleven days before the conference, Khrushchev announced with unconcealed glee that the Soviets had shot down an American spy plane over Russian territory.] (May 16, 1960) The low black plane with the high tail looked out of place among the shiny military jets crowding the U.S. Air Force base at Incirlik, near Adana, Turkey. Its wide wings drooped with delicate languor--like a squatting seagull, too spent to fly. Its pilot seemed equally odd: a dark, aloof young man who wore a regulation flying suit and helmet but no markings, and had a revolver on his hip. Pilot Francis Gary Powers, 30, climbed into the one-man cockpit, gunned the black ship's single engine, and as the plane climbed toward takeoff speed, the wide wings stiffened and the awkward outrigger wheels that had served as ground support dropped away. Steadily the plane climbed--beyond the ceiling of transports, beyond the ceiling of bombers and interceptors, up through 60,000 ft., beyond the reach of any other operational craft and, as far as the pilot knew, of antiaircraft fire as well. Francis Powers was on an intelligence mission, like many unsung pilots before him. But Pilot Powers had bad luck: he got caught, and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev says that he talked. Thus Khrushchev had the chance to tell the world about the U-2's mission last week--with all the embellishment and distortion that best suited his case. After taking off from his base in Turkey on April 27, said Khrushchev, Powers flew across the southern boundary of the U.S.S.R. to Peshawar in Pakistan. From there, on May 1, he took off on a reconnaissance flight that was supposed to take him up the Ural Mountains to Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula to a landing in Norway. Soviet radar tracked him all the way, and over Sverdlovsk, on Khrushchev's personal order, he was shot down at 65,000 ft. by a Soviet ground-to-air rocket. Pilot Powers, said Khrushchev, declined to fire his ejection seat because that would have blown up his plane, its instrumentation and possibly Powers himself. Instead, he climbed out of his cockpit, parachuted to earth and was captured, while his plane crashed near by. [Although Eisenhower insisted on assuming full responsibility for Powers' flight, he refused to yield to Khrushchev's demand in Paris for an abject apology, and the summit collapsed. As revolutionary Cuba under the rule of Fidel Castro emerged as a Communist tyranny and Soviet satellite, the U.S. stood by helplessly, unwilling to incur world disapprobation by forcibly intervening in Latin America yet again. But when John Kennedy took office in 1961, he learned that the CIA had been training Cuban counterrevolutionaries for an invasion of the island. He had deep misgivings about the plan, but reluctantly went along.] (April 28, 1961) At the Bay of Pigs, on Cuba's south coast, a force of 1,300 well-armed, well-trained anti-Castro freedom fighters last week launched a major campaign to rid their homeland of Communist dictatorship. They were defeated within two days by a better-armed, better-led enemy, who withstood their attack and delivered a crushing counterblow. The defeat, as all the world sensed, was a tragedy not only for Cuba's exiles. The operation started with a surprise attack by B-26 light bombers on Cuban airports where Russian MIG-15s were reportedly being uncrated and assembled. In the best cloak and dagger tradition, to lend credence to a cover story that the bombings were by pilots defecting from Castro's air force, a few .30-cal. bullets were fired into an old Cuban B-26. A pilot took off in the crate and landed it at Miami with a cock-and-bull story that he had attacked the airfields. After midnight, in simultaneous landings at three beaches on the Bay of Pigs, 90 miles southeast of Havana, the attackers went in with artillery, tanks and B-26 air support. Soon afterward, Castro's military duty officer at Jaguey Grande reported fighting on the beach. The expected mass uprising failed to take place, and the tide of rebellion ran out. The airstrip at Jaguey Grande was seized, but when the first rebel B-26 came in to land, it hit unexpected ridges of sand that had drifted across the runway, and crashed. Paratroopers, dropped inland, were wiped out--few prisoners were taken. The invaders from the beach never quite reached Jaguey Grande. Obviously forewarned of the general area where the landing would take place ("Someone committed treason," charged a council member), Castro had 10,000 troops on hand to meet the men coming up the track bed. Heavy artillery pinned the invaders down. The invasion ship carrying all the broadcasting equipment was sunk, and with it another landing craft. The Castro command threw its Soviet-built T-34 tanks into the fight: a dozen jets, some of them MIGs flown by Czech pilots, shot down five of the invaders' twelve B-26 bombers. Other Castro aircraft swept over the exposed troops in strafing runs. A desperate call for help went out from the beachhead: "We are under attack by two Sea Fury aircraft and heavy artillery. Do not see any friendly air cover as you promised. Need jet support immediately." The support never came. Foot by foot, the anti-Castro forces were driven back down the road and railroad bed toward the Bay of Pigs. A few soldiers scattered across the swamps in a desperate attempt to reach the hills of Escambray, 50 miles away. A radio ham in New Jersey picked up a faint signal: "This is Cuba calling Where will help come from? This is Cuba calling the free world. We need help in Cuba." In Miami, Miro Cardona and the Revolutionary Council finally broke silence to issue a statement. They had radioed the men at the Bay of Pigs to ask whether they wished to be evacuated. The answer: "We will never leave this island." The lessons of Cuba came with jolting swiftness. Again, Kennedy underestimated his adversary and overestimated the realism of his own expectations. In backing the invasion of Cuba by a force of U.S.-trained Cuban exiles, Kennedy hoped to bring down Fidel Castro's Communist regime in Cuba without stirring too many international accusations of "imperialism" and "colonialism" against the U.S. But the bungled invasion ended in a massacre. And the onlooking nations blamed the U.S. for the invasion almost as shrilly as if Kennedy had sent in the Marines. [Still smarting from his defeat, Kennedy met in Vienna with Soviet Leader Khrushchev, who tried to bully him by threatening to sign a separate peace treaty with the East Germans that would cut off Western access to Berlin. The Communists would in any case have had to do something about Berlin, where East Germany's population was hemorrhaging to the West through the Free City's relatively porous frontier.] (August 25, 1961) The scream of sirens and the clank of steel on cobblestones echoed down the mean, dark streets. Frightened East Berliners peeked from behind their curtains to see military convoys stretching for blocks. At each major intersection, a platoon peeled off and ground to a halt, guns at the ready. As the troops arrived at scores of border points, cargo trucks were already unloading rolls of barbed wire, concrete, posts, wooden horses, stone blocks, picks and shovels. When dawn came four hours later, a wall divided East Berlin from West for the first time in eight years. The wall was illegal, immoral and strangely revealing--illegal because it violated the Communists' solemn contracts to permit free movement throughout the city; immoral because it virtually jailed millions of innocent people; revealing because it advertised to all the world the failure of East Germany's Communist system, and the abject misery of a people who could only be kept within its borders by bullets, bayonets and barricades. For Walter Ulbricht, East Germany's goat-bearded, Communist boss, the wall was utterly necessary to preserve the very life of his dismal satrapy. For seldom had history witnessed so great an exodus as had been flowing Westward in great clotted spurts. "You are sharing in the Great Socialist Experiment," Ulbricht cried to his people in 1949, as he cut their food ration and trimmed away their liberties. Far from sharing Ulbricht's enthusiasm, almost 3,500,000 East Germans--no less than 20% of the post-World War II population--fled to the West in the eleven years that followed. In the first eleven days of August 1961 alone, 16,500 sought haven in West Berlin; the refugees included an East German Supreme Court judge, East German policemen, soldiers, physicians, lawyers, engineers, farmers, workers, merchants--the lifeblood of any country. [Moscow's next aggressive move was to abrogate the informal moratorium on nuclear testing.] (September 8, 1961) Moscow's millions knew something was afoot even as they awoke and dressed for work one morning last week. The radio was droning out the full text of a long government communique. First came the strident buildup: "The United States and its allies are fanning up the arms race...preparing a new world holocaust while the Soviet government strives for peace. The Soviet Union considers it its duty to take all necessary measures..." Slowly, as the high-charge prose unwound, the reason for all the excitement began to dawn on the Muscovites: the Kremlin had decided to start testing its nuclear weapons again. Just 49 hours later, a brilliant flash lit the bleak plains of Central Asia, and a mighty bang echoed for miles. Bluntly, the government declared that Russian scientists were working on "super-powerful" bombs in the 100-megaton range (the equivalent of 100 million tons of TNT), made to fit rockets "similar to those used by Major Y.A. Gagarin and Major G.S. Titov for their unrivaled cosmic flights." In case somebody missed the point, Russia's army newspaper Red Star explained that nuclear weapons of such power could wipe out anyone anywhere: "No super-deep shelter can save them from an all- shattering blow from this weapon." As students of psychological warfare, the Russians well knew that they risked being branded as enemies of peace by the bloc of neutral nations coveted by both East and West. But as a man who lives by power, Khrushchev was forced by the requirements of power to take that chance. Russia badly needed to test its family of nuclear weapons. In particular, Russian scientists needed to test small, limited-yield battlefield weapons, a category in which the Soviet Union is thought to trail far behind the U.S. Moreover, Khrushchev was gambling that this ruthless maneuver would intimidate the U.S., weaken the resolve of the Western Allies, and scare the East Germans into submission. The Soviet announcement of new nuclear test did indeed hand the U.S. a major propaganda victory. In the cold war of nerves, the U.S. had won its bet that it could outlast the Russians at the test-ban conference table--the "bladder technique," as the approach was called by U.S. Negotiator Arthur Dean. [President Kennedy tried to persuade the Soviets to work toward a test-ban treaty at Geneva, but eventually decided that the U.S. would have to resume atmospheric testing in the Pacific in order not to be left behind in the arms race.] (May 4, 1962) Dawn's first light broke through a heavy haze, diffusing Christmas Island's end-of-the-world ugliness. The barren stretches of sand and scrub, the grey hulls of freighters and barges in the tiny harbor, the naked steel testing towers, the exposed beams of half-completed buildings, all took on a weird beauty. In a small operations building, about 15 technicians sat amid the coffee-cup litter of a sleepless night. Alone in a darkened room, an electronics technician pressed a microphone switch and began the countdown on Operation Dominic--the U.S. series of nuclear tests in the atmosphere that the free world did not want, but for its survival's sake could not avoid. At 5:45 a.m., the countdown reached zero. The B-52 dropped its payload. A flash pierced the haze. The tests had begun. [In October 1962, U.S. intelligence obtained evidence that the Soviets, in their most brazen act yet, were building missile emplacements in Cuba. It was the biggest crisis of Kennedy's presidency. "There was danger in standing still or moving forward. I thought it was the wisest policy to risk that which was incident to the latter course." -- James Monroe to Thomas Jefferson (1822)] (November 2, 1962) Last week that perilous choice confronted another, younger President of the U.S. Generations to come may well count John Kennedy's resolve as one of the decisive moments of the 20th century. For Kennedy determined to moved forward at whatever risk. And when faced by that determination, the bellicose Premier of the Soviet Union first wavered, then weaseled and finally backed down. To Kennedy, the time of truth arrived when he received sheaves of photographs taken during the preceding few days by U.S. reconnaissance planes over Cuba. They furnished staggering proof of a massive, breakneck buildup of Soviet missile power on Casto's island. Already poised were missiles capable of hurling a megaton each--or roughly 50 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb--at the U.S. Under construction were sites for launching five-megaton missiles. As if by magic, thick woods had been torn down, empty fields were clustered with concrete mixing plants, fuel tanks and mess halls. Chillingly clear to the expert eye were some 40 slim, 52-ft. medium-range missiles, many of them already angled up on their mobile launchers and pointed at the U.S. mainland. With an estimated range of 1,200 miles, these missiles, armed with one-megaton warheads, could reach Houston, St. Louis--or Washington. The bases were located at about ten spots, including Sagua la Grande and Remedios on the northern coast, and San Cristobal and Guanajay on the western end of the island. Under construction were a half-dozen bases for 2,500-mile missiles, which could smash U.S. cities from coast to coast. In addition, the films showed that the Russians had moved in at least 25 twin-jet bombers that could carry nuclear bombs. But why? More and more in Kennedy's mind, the Cuban crisis became linked with impending crisis in Berlin--and with an all-out Khrushchev effort to upset the entire power balance of the cold war. He hoped to present the U.S. with a fait accompli, carried out while the U.S. was totally preoccupied--or so, at least, Khrushchev supposed--with its upcoming elections. If he got away with it, he could presume that the Kennedy Administration was so weak and fearful that he could take over Berlin with impunity. Kennedy shattered those illusions. He did it with a series of dramatic decisions that swiftly brought the U.S. to a showdown not with Fidel Castro but with Khrushchev's own Soviet Union. Basic to those decisions were two propositions: It would not be enough for the Russians to halt missile shipments to Cuba. Instead, all missiles in Cuba must be dismantled and removed. If necessary, the U.S. would remove them by invasion. Any aggressive act from Cuba would be treated by the U.S. as an attack by the Soviet Union itself. And the U.S. would retaliate against Russia with the sudden and full force of its thermonuclear might. As a first step, and only as a first step, President Kennedy decided to impose a partial blockade, or quarantine, on Cuba, stopping all shipments of offensive weapons--ground-to-ground and air-to-ground missiles, warheads, missile launching equipment, bombers and bombs. When Kennedy first made known this plan, there were some complaints that it was not enough. But Kennedy meant it only to give Khrushchev an opportunity to think things over; more precipitant action by the U.S., Kennedy felt, might cause Khrushchev to lurch wildly into nuclear war. The decision to start with the quarantine also gave the U.S. time to rally support in Latin America and forestall criticism that Europeans might have directed at an immediate invasion. President Kennedy announced his decisions on television to a somber nation and found that nation overwhelmingly behind him. From the governments of the U.S.'s allies in NATO and SEATO too came strong, heartening assurances of support. At a Washington meeting of the Organization of American States, the delegates by a vote of 20 to 0 adopted a resolution calling for the "immediate dismantling and withdrawal from Cuba of all missiles." Against this surge of feeling, Khrushchev reacted hesitantly. Twelve hours after Kennedy's speech, the Kremlin issued a cautiously worded statement. Then Khrushchev sent a peace- rattling message to British Pacifist Bertrand Russell. Next, Khrushchev grasped eagerly at a suggestion by U Thant, Acting Secretry-General of the United Nations, for a two or three weeks "suspension," with Russia halting missile shipments to Cuba and Kennedy lifting the blockade. Kennedy politely declined, writing U Thant: "The existing threat was created by the secret introduction of offensive weapons into Cuba, and the answer lies in the removal of such weapons." But Khrushchev had one more trick up his sleeve. He offered to take his missile bases out of Cuba if the U.S. would dismantle its missile bases in Turkey. With a speed that must have bewildered Khrushchev, the President refused. That did it. Early Sunday morning came the word from Moscow Radio that Khrushchev had sent a new message to Kennedy. In it, Khrushchev complained about a U-2 flight over Russia on Oct. 28, groused about the continuing "violation" of Cuban airspace. But, he said, he had noted Kennedy's assurances that no invasion of Cuba would take place if all offensive weapons were removed. Hence, wrote Khrushchev, the Soviet Government had "issued a new order for the dismantling of the weapons, which you describe as offensive, their crating and returning to the Soviet Union." Finally, he offered to let United Nations representatives verify the removal of the missiles. [With defeat, coupled with the steady worsening of the split between the Soviet and Chinese Communist camps, came a change of attitude on the part of the Soviets. Within months, all was cooperation at the arms talks, and a partial test-ban treaty was negotiated.] (August 2, 1963) Around a green baize table sat U.S. Secretary for Political Affairs W. Averell Harriman, British Science Minister Lord Hailsham and Russia's Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. At each man's elbow was a copy of the agreement, initialed a few minutes earlier--WAH, H and AT. The atmosphere was jovial. "Let us pretend we are discussing something," said AT for the benefit of photographers. Volunteered H: "I'll make my famous speech in Russian." He grinned but said nothing, since he speaks no Russian. Suddenly finding a microphone in front of his face, WAH declared: "The treaty is a very important step forward in many respects. It provides the possibility of further steps." The big, unanswered and for the present unanswerable question is where the further steps may lead. It may or may not be a major turning point in the cold war. Given all the bitter memories of Communist deceit and broken pledges, all the past "peace offensives" that only served to aggravate the battle, no one can discount the possibility that the test ban agreement will only serve to give the Russians a breather in their struggle with the West, to be resumed later with even more ferocity. Still, the evidence points to a more hopeful interpretation. The Moscow agreement itself is simple--some feel too simple. In 800 refreshingly brief words, the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union agree to "prohibit, to prevent and not to carry out any nuclear weapons test explosion or any other nuclear explosion" in the atmosphere, outer space or under water, the treaty to be of "indefinite duration." The biggest significance of the treaty is probably symbolic. History will note, after all, that Year 21 of the Atomic Age had brought a reaching out, however guarded, across the chasm, the first concrete move, however small, by both East and West to control the thought-defying force that had been unbound. Between them, the three major nuclear powers had set off 425 announced test blasts with 545 megatons of destruction--more than enough to destroy civilization. For 15 years of nerve-racking cold war and five years of futile, frustrating negotiations, fear and reason had not been enough to halt the weapons race. The test ban, though it may accomplish little else, at least suggests that fear and reason, those eminently constructive forces, can still operate with some success in human affairs. [With the test-ban treaty, the pall over the world from the threat of nuclear annihilation receded decisively, never since then to lie so heavily over the superpowers' deliberations. Nikita Khrushchev paid the price for his mistakes a year later. Unlike his predecessors, however, he was not tried, imprisoned or murdered. He lived in seclusion on his dacha until his death in 1971.] (October 23, 1964) Shortly after midnight, Tass tersely announced it. Nikita Khrushchev had been "released" from all his duties "at his own request" for reasons of "age and deteriorating health." His successors were named and congratulated: Leonid Brezhnev, 57, Secretary of the Central Committee, and Alekesi Kosygin, 60, who had served as First Deputy Premier. Exactly how it happened might not be clear for weeks or months, or indeed ever, but the official announcements added up to this much: there had been two meetings, one of the powerful 170-member Central Committee, which usually convenes in a cramped Kremlin conference room, and the other next day of the 30-member Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The inference was that Khrushchev had been present at both sessions. At the Central Committee meeting, Mikhail Suslov, an ideologue who had once been a Stalinist but has more recently served as Khrushchev's polemical hatchet man in the fight with Peking, read a speech that contained the party's accusations against Nikita--nepotism, fostering a personality cult, and errors of policy toward China. Both Brezhnev and Kosygin were handpicked by Nikita to buttress his domain, and consequently in the past they represented many of his own ideas and methods. On the face of it, they now stand for "Khrushchevism" without Khrushchev--the same show run more smartly, more carefully, with the old irritant out of the way. </body> </article> </text>