Nixon-Khruschev Kitchen Debate
https://youtu.be/XRgOz2x9c08 During a visit to the Soviet Union in July 1959, Vice President Richard Nixon got into a "kitchen debate" with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a US exhibition. Source: Wikipedia
Ho Chi Minh Trail
In May 1959 the Peoples’ Army of Vietnam’s Military Transportation Group 559 was established in North Vietnam. The group ultimately created and maintained the Ho Chi Minh Trail to facilitate the infiltratiion of troops and supplies from North Vietnam in support...
Fidel Castro’s Forces Triumphant
Fidel and Raul Castro formed an underground movement in the early 1950s to overthrow the brutal and corrupt regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista, under whose rule Cuba had become a haven for organized crime. After an unsuccessful rising against Batista in 1953 the...
Second Taiwan Strait Crisis
https://youtu.be/lS2DPx-4sbI 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, was a conflict between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). The PRC shelled the islands of Kinmen(Quemoy) and the Matsu Islands along the east coast...
Execution of Hungarian Communist Leader
Imre Nagy served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Hungarian People's Republic from 1953 to 1955. In 1956 Nagy. a committed communist, became leader of the Hungarian Revolution against the Soviet-backed government....
Fidel Castro Behind Rebel Lines in Cuba
Believing support for the revolution was waning, Cuba's president Fulgencio Batista called for a major military offensive against Fidel Castro's rebels in the Sierra Maestra mountains in the summer of 1958. But the rebels turned back the offensive, forcing the army to...
John Birch Society
https://youtu.be/mide9z5q_3c In 1958 the John Birch Society, an American ultraconservative political advocacy group was founded by retired candy manufacturer Robert Welch to promote anti-communism and social conservatism. At its height,...
Eisenhower Warns of Communist Threat
Text of January 1958 address: The threat to our safety, and to the hope of a peaceful world, can be simply stated. It is communist imperialism. This threat is not something imagined by critics of the Soviets. Soviet spokesmen, from the beginning, have publicly and...
Mao Zedong: Handling of Contradictions
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (关于正确处理人民内部矛盾的问题) was a 1957 essay by Mao Zedong that made a distinction between "contradictions amongst the people" and "counter-revolutionary contradictions." The stated policy was to "isolate...
Eisenhower Doctrine
https://youtu.be/1N1_JGG4XX8 In January 1957 President Eisenhower declared that US forces could be deployed to protect the territorial integrity and political independence of nations from overt armed aggression by any nation controlled by international communism....
The Daily Worker
In 1924 the Communist Party USA began publishing the Daily Worker newspaper in in New York City. At its peak, the newspaper achieved a circulation of 35,000. Contributors to its pages included: Robert Minor and Fred...
Hungarian Uprising
https://youtu.be/_Vy5RGJNvGg In October 1956 a countrywide revolution arose against the Stalinist government of the Hungarian People's Republic and the domestic policies imposed by the USSR. In November 1956, after initially agreeing to negotiate the withdrawal of...
The Polish Revolution
The Poznań protests of 1956 (Poznański Czerwiec) were several massive protests against the communist government of the Polish People's Republic. In June 1956 demonstrations by workers demanding better working conditions at Poznań's Cegielski...
Khrushchev Denounces “Dictator” Stalin
After the death of Josef Stalin in 1953, little criticism regarding his leadership was tolerated until, in a closed session of 1,500 delegates and visitors in 1956 First Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev denounced The Personality Cult of Josef Stalin...
President Eisenhower’s Open Skies Proposal Rejected
https://youtu.be/4DH3c9WJMQU The concept of "mutual aerial observation" initially proposed to Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin at the Geneva Conference of 1955 by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, was promptly rejected by the USSR...
First US Advisors Sent to South Vietnam
https://youtu.be/qtaX8MIimwE After WWII, American Cold War policy was based on the "domino theory”— if one country fell to communism, the surrounding countries would fall, like dominoes. The Eisenhower administration was worried that the potential fall of Vietnam...
Georgy Malenkov Resigns
In 1953, Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov briefly succeeded Joseph Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union. However, at the insistence of the rest of the Presidium, he relinquished control over the party apparatus in exchange for...
West Germany joins North Atlantic Treaty Organization
https://youtu.be/0rICHFt7Gg4 In 1949, the Americans, British, and French combined their zones of occupation in West Germany to establish the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany). The Soviets responded by forming the Deutsche Demokratische Republik...
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization – SEATO
https://youtu.be/6_Hb8IDU4Tk Wikipedia In September 1954 the United States, France, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Although most of the SEATO member states were...
Coup D’état in Guatemala
https://youtu.be/uVkthJcKQxg In June 1954, Operation PBSuccess (a covert operation directed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) orchestrated the invasion of Guatemala from Honduras by a force of Guatemalan mercenaries. The successful coup d'état deposed...
First Taiwan Strait Crisis
In August 1954 the Communist People's Republic of China attacked several islands located a few miles from mainland China in the Taiwan Strait that were held by the Nationalist Republic of China. Wikipedia In January 1955, the Formosa Resolution was...
Fall of French Indochina
https://youtu.be/ZMPNY9w8OmQ In May 1954 communist Viet Minh forces won a decisive victory over the French colonial army in the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. The war ended shortly afterward with signing of the 1954 Geneva Accords in which France agreed to withdraw its...
Eisenhower Describes Domino Theory
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower described the domino theory during an April 1954, news conference, when referring to communism in Indochina. The geopolitical theory stated that if one country fell to a communist takeover, the surrounding...
Edward R. Murrow vs. Joseph McCarthy
Edward Roscoe Murrow was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent who first gained radio prominence with a series of live radio broadcasts from Europe during WWII. In the spring of 1954 the US Senate held a series of hearings to investigate...
Nationwide Atom Bomb Drills
The development of the H-bomb committed the United States to an arms race with the Soviet Union. Despite the specter of nuclear holocaust, both the United States and the Soviet Union vied to build ever more powerful nuclear weapons. The Federal Civil Defense...