AskEssays.com - Discover essay samples

U 2 Incident

4.9 of 5.0 (77 reviews)

Contains
511 words
Category
History

U 2 Incident Page 1
U 2 Incident Page 2
U 2 Incident Page 3
U 2 Incident Page 4
U 2 Incident Page 5
U 2 Incident Page 6
The above thumbnails are of reduced quality. To view the work in full quality, click download.

U-2 Incident


On May 1, 1960, two weeks prior to the United

States-Soviet Summit in Paris, a U-2 high altitude

reconnaissance airplane was shot down while flying a

spy mission over the Soviet Union. The Eisenhower

administration was forced to own up to the mission,

and Khrushchev canceled the Paris Summit. As a

result, The Cold War between the United States and

the Soviet Union continued for over 30 years.

Shortly after the end of World War II, United States

and the Soviet Union emerged as the two superpowers.

These two former wartime allies found themselves

locked in a struggle that came to be known as the Cold

War. Eisenhower saw the Cold War in stark moral

terms: "This is a war of light against darkness,

freedom against slavery, Godliness against atheism."

But the President refused to undertake an effort to

"roll back" Soviet gains in the years after WW II.

Early in his administration he embraced a policy of

containment as the cornerstone of his administration's

Soviet policy. Eisenhower rejected the notion of a

"fortress America" isolated from the rest of the

world, safe behind its nuclear shield. He believed

that active US engagement in world affairs was the

best means of presenting the promise of democracy to

nations susceptible to the encroachment of

Soviet-sponsored communism. Additionally, Eisenhower

maintained that dialogue between the US and the Soviet

Union was crucial to the security of the entire globe,

even if, in the process, each side was adding to its

pile of nuclear weapons.

The death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, two months

into the Eisenhower presidency, gave rise to hopes of

a more flexible, accommodating Soviet leadership. In

1953, Eisenhower delivered a speech underscoring the

potential human cost of the Cold War to both sides.

Hoping to strike a more compatible tone with Georgi

Malenkov, Stalin's successor, Eisenhower suggested the

Soviets cease their brazen expansion of territory and

influence in exchange for American cooperation and

goodwill. The Soviets responded coolly to the speech,

especially to the US's insistence on free elections

for German unification, self-determination for Eastern

Europe, and a Korean armistice. The two sides would

not meet face-to-face until the Geneva Summit of 1955.

At the Summit, Eisenhower asserted, "I came to Geneva

because I believe mankind longs for freedom from war

and the rumors of war. I came here because my lasting

faith in the decent instincts and good sense of the

people who populate this world of ours." In this

spirit of ...

You are currently seeing 50% of this paper.

You're seeing 511 words of 1021.

Keywords: u 2 incident cold war, u 2 incident gary powers, u-2 incident quizlet, u-2 incident apush, u-2 incident date, u-2 incident significance cold war, u-2 incident cuban missile crisis, u-2 incident location

Similar essays


Joseph McCarthy

Throughout the early 1950?s, the nation was deeply engrossed in fears of a Communist takeover. At a time when America?s fears were at their very height, , a Republican Senator from Wisconsin pushed America?s fears to an extreme. As a ploy to get himself re-elected, and to make America hate Communism as much as he did, the Senator d...

61 reviews
Download
Operation Barbarossa in WWII

?When Operation Barbarossa is launched, the world will hold its breath!? - Adolf Hitler On the night of June 22, 1941, more than 3 million German soldiers, 600 000 vehicles and 3350 tanks were amassed along a 2000km front stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Their sites were all trained on Russia. This force was p...

44 reviews
Download
Descartes epistemology

is known as foundationalism. In his Meditations, Descartes tries to discover certain, indubitable foundations for knowledge. He is searching for absolute certainty, and does this by subjecting everything to doubt. Through this he reaches the one thing he believes to be certain, his existence. In Meditation One, Descartes describes his meth...

121 reviews
Download
The History of Women in Law Enforcement

THESIS: Since first being implemented, policewomen have proven themselves to be extremely effective and essential elements of law enforcement, facing many inequalities along the way. While recent advances in equality have been made, law enforcement is still seen as a male-dominated field. If we are to see further progress in the...

94 reviews
Download
Liberalism And Anticlericalism

Why was anti-clericalism such an important aspect of liberalism in France and Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century? The mid-nineteenth century was a time of great change throughout Europe. Revolutions and social upheavals meant new ideologies and perspectives coming to the forefront as existing social orders began to crumble under po...

84 reviews
Download
Atsisiųsti šį darbą