© 1997-2007 Bill Mesham

Cuba Missile Crisis

That same year, Americans launched the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a surprise attack against communist Cuba. It was a horrible failure with all 1,500 CIA trained Cuban fighters either killed or captured. Stinging from these losses, the United States stepped up surveillance of Cuba. In 1962, an American U-2 spy plane photographed Soviet military installations in Cuba which were discovered to contain nuclear missiles. The infamous Cuban Missile Crisis had begun. U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced to an anxious American public, on October 22nd, his request for withdrawal or elimination of the nuclear weapons. He also established a naval blockade of all Cuban ports. Threatened by nuclear retaliation, the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles the next day. President Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev realized how frighteningly close they had come to nuclear war, and vowed to discuss prevention of future nuclear conflict. Steps were finally in place to end the manic Cold War arms race.

But there was no rest for the United States. Communism was expanding in Asia once again, and Vietnam was in serious jeopardy. From 1959 onward, communist North Vietnam had been trying to overrun the democratic South. Americans were compelled to intervene in 1965 when the fighting intensified. Following an established policy of containment, the United States sent troops to support the South Vietnamese. The resulting Vietnam War, which dragged on until 1975, was a failure for the South Vietnamese and United States. To make matters worse, neighboring Cambodia also fell to communist rule.

Arms Race

NATO and Soviet bloc countries fought several minor conflicts in the late 1970s and early 1980s—Afghanistan and Grenada—and the Solidarity movement in Poland was banned. Just as the hostilities seemed to be winding down, American President Ronald Reagan decided to revive Cold War policies and step up rhetoric. He was convinced the Soviets would be intimidated by a display of military might, and orchestrated a massive U.S. arms buildup. Reagan's dramatic escalation of the nuclear arms race and increasing weakness of the Soviet state ultimately facilitated the demise of Soviet communism.

Conclusion

Mikhail Gorbachev, a visionary, courageous Soviet leader who came to power in 1985, recognized that communism was not working for his country. His strength and conviction turned Soviet foreign policy on its head. In the process, he shattered the now antiquated Cold War assumptions of East versus West.

By 1989, the Berlin Wall which had separated East and West Germany was torn down. Gorbachev bravely acquiesced as one Eastern European country after another shed its communist regime in favor of democracy. He officially approved when East Germany was reunited with West Germany in 1990. Internally, Gorbachev’s reforms fundamentally changed the ideological landscape of the Soviet Union. In 1991, the Communist Party fell apart, the Soviet state broke into 15 independent nations, and Russia elected an anticommunist leader.

To the world's good fortune, it appeared that the communist inspired threat of nuclear war collapsed with the Soviet Union.