Eisenhower & The Cold War

How did the United States react to the following 7 events, and why?

1. The Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb in 1949.

The United States reacted to this by making an even more powerful nuclear bomb, the hydrogen bomb also called the H-bomb. The United States did this because they thought that the only way to win and survive a nuclear war was to out-weapon the Soviet Union. Or in other words in order to be more powerful than the Soviet Union the United States had to make a better and more powerful weapon.

2. In 1951, the Iranian prime minister placed the oil industry in Iran under the Iranian government’s control.

Soon after Iranian's government began to diminish or "falter" and America was afraid that they would go to the Soviets for help. So the United States allowed the CIA to give millions of dollars to anti-Mossadegh supporters hoping that the previous leader would be put back into office. It ended up working and control of the oil fields returned to the Western countries.

3. The Guatemalan head of government gave American-owned land in Guatemala to peasants.

The CIA trained an army to invade Guatamala and they did, but the Guatamalan army refused to support the president and so a dictator ended up leading Guatamala. However, the United States did this to stop communism from spreading in Guatamala, they thought that since Guatamala's government gave over 200,000 acres of land to peasants they were pro-communism.

4. In 1956, Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt and occupied the Suez Canal. The United States helped to withdraw French, British, and Isrealian troops from the Suez Canal, but it kept control of the canal in the hands of Egypt which greatly angered the other countries. The United States only helped though because the United Nations stepped in and the U.S. is a part of that. The United States acted this way because they were afraid of the USSR coming in and fighting as well, possibly starting and third world war.

5. Soviet tanks invaded Hungary and fired on protesters in 1956.

The United States did nothing to help the Hungarian people. The United States probably did this because they were afraid again of getting into a third world war with the Soviets. The Soviets looked really powerful by bringing in tanks to Hungary to fight the people off, and this made America hesitant. They probably assumed that there's more of those tanks and fierce fighting because of what they saw in Hungary. It is like Iwo Jima in WWII and how it was the preface of what it would be like in Japan.

6. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik.

America was shocked and humiliated; the U.S. never thought that the Soviets would beat them to space. They were humiliated because after Sputnik was launched the U.S. tried launching their own satellite into space, but the rocket completely failed (it just toppled and tumbled over). However, this pushed America to try to beat the Soviets in space exploration, America, soon after the failed satellite, sent a successful rocket into space. This began the space race between the Soviets and America.

7. In 1960, the Soviet Union brought down an American U-2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers.

America agreed to hault all flights going over the Soviet Union, but President Eisenhower refused to apologize. When Francis Gary Powers landed in Soviet territory after parachuting out of his plane, USSR accused him of spying but Powers denied it. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union had proof that he was spying, and then asked President Eisenhower to stop all flights over the territory and to apologize. He agreed to stop the flights because he didn't want to go to war with USSR, but he didn't apologize because of his personality (just didn't want to pretty much). Although there is no real reason stated in the text about why President Eisenhower didn't apologize.