5. How effectively did the USA contain the spread of communism?

Question 1

What was Domino Theory?

Answer 1

Once one country fell to communism, its neighbors will soon follow and eventually reach America

Question 2

What led to the Korean war?

Answer 2

• Before the end of WW2, Japan controlled Korea
• After that, the USSR liberated the Northern half and the USA liberated the south
• North was communist, South was anticommunist
• Reunification wouldn’t happen bc the leaders hated each other

Question 3

Why did Truman get involved in the Korean War?

Answer 3

• Sun June 25 - He’s sneak attacked Korea! We must defend it at all costs!
• MUST DESTROY USSR THREAT
• Thought it was an attack on all of Asia
• Wants ‘peace loving nations’ to join together

Question 4

What happened during the beginning Korean War?

Answer 4

• June 28 1950 - 80,000 soldiers→SK, take Seoul and most of South Korea
• Truman sends advisers, supplies, and warships to seas around Korea but doesn’t do anything military-wise bc it would look better if the UN did it
• Truman pressured the UN security council to condemn the actions of the North Koreans
• UN uses members’ armies to drive North Korean troops out of South Korea (mostly Americans - MacArthur was the commander)

Question 5

Why was the UN able to support US troops in the Korean War?

Answer 5

Normally the USSR would have been able to use its veto, but it was too busy boycotting the UN for not letting China join, so although the US was able to claim that this was a UN backed decision, Soviet propaganda claimed that it was invalid.

Question 6

What development with the Korean War happened in September 1950?

Answer 6

• UN force advances - storms Inchon. North Koreans driven back beyond og border (38th parallel) within weeks

Question 7

What development with the Korean War happened in October-November 1950?

Answer 7

Americans keep going into North Korean territory - China’s leader warms them to stop because they’re getting pretty close to China, but MacArthur and Truman wanted to fully kick communism out of North Korea. Then China sent 200,000 soldiers to fight the Americans and sent them back to SK - not only that, the Americans were worse at fighting in the conditions

Question 8

What happened during the end of the Korean war?

Answer 8

• April 1951 - MacArthur was sacked for openly threatening to invade China with nuclear weapons - Truman said no and went back to containment
• Peace talks/stalemate in June 1951 - Armistice in 1953. Truman and Stalin were replaced with Eisenhower and Khrushchev, and the border went pretty much right back to where it started.

Question 9

Consequences of the Korean War

Answer 9

• 1.4 million dead - 30,000 americans, 70,000 South Koreans, 4,500 other UN soldiers, 500,000 South Korean civilians, 780,000 North Korean and Chinese soldiers and civilians
• Showed USA had the means to contain communism with SK
• Showed that USA had to accept NK’s communism
• Highlighted tensions among US leaders - fight communism vs containment
• NK becomes a communist dictatorship

Question 10

1959 - How did the US respond to Fidel Castro and communist rebels taking over Cuba?

Answer 10

Did nothing - Cuba was 160km from the USA, but it wasn’t important to the US at the time, and the old leader might have been worse than Castro

Question 11

What were the 2 main methods of doing containment?

Answer 11

Building alliances, developing more powerful weapons

Question 12

How did the US use alliances for containment?

Answer 12

SEATO in Southeast Asia, CENTO in Central Asia and the Middle East - USA gave money, advice, and arms, while the leaders suppressed communist influence in their own countries - USSR saw it as aggressive and trying to encircle the communists - also helped lead to Warsaw Pact

Question 13

How did the US use nukes for containment?

Answer 13

Destructive power of nukes meant the US could threaten to use them to get whatever they wanted - including containing communism. Helped lead to arms race, and threats of using the nukes was pretty clear in the Cuban Missile crisis.

Question 14

1960 - How did the US react when Castro’s communist government took over US property and kicked out those who were loyal to the USA plus American companies?

Answer 14

Eisenhower stopped buying Cuban sugar and stopped exporting goods to Cuba (like oil)

Question 15

June 1960 - how did the US react to Castro getting the USSR to buy Cuban sugar and promising to sell Cuba oil and sending 100 million dollars and arms to Cuba?

Answer 15

Kennedy and Eisenhower (Eisenhower according to the Textbook) authorized the CIA to help solve the problem and got the media to start dissing the communists (saying they “sold out to premier Khrushchev of the communists”)

Question 16

April 1961 - How did the US interpret the CIA’s invasion plan for Cuba?

Answer 16

January 1961 - diplomatic relationships broken off
Kennedy sent in 1400 anti-Castro ex-Cuban exiles trained by the CIA to invade Cuba - wrong answer. It was the Bay of Pigs invasion and an absolute disaster - defeated by 20,000 Cubans in 2 days.

Question 17

Why did the Bay of pigs invasion fail?

Answer 17

• Lack of secrecy - US couldn’t deny involvement
• Poor links between various US departments
• Failure to organize resistance against Castro inside Cuba
• Insufficient Spanish speaking staff

Question 18

1962 - How did the US react to Castro asking Khrushchev to help him defend Cuba against future attacks, and Khrushchev sending arms (nuclear and/or conventional) to Cuba?

Answer 18

The US started sending U2 spy planes (that could read a newspaper from 14 miles up) over cuba regularly - Kennedy warned Khrushchev not to send the missiles and he said he wouldn’t, but in October 1962 the planes took photos of missile sites in Cuba - START OF OCTOBER CRISIS

Question 19

1962 - How did Kennedy react to his advisers saying that the sites could be ready to launch missiles in just 7 days, and that 20 Soviet ships were on their way to Cuba with missiles?

Answer 19

Kennedy put Cuba in “quarantine” - he surrounded Cuba in a ring of ships to stop Soviet ships from sailing through and missiles from reaching Cuba

Question 20

1962 - How did Kennedy respond to Khrushchev sending a letter stating that Soviet ships would break through the blockade and issuing a statement that the USSR would use nukes if the US declared war?

Answer 20

Kennedy stood his ground - he sent a letter to Khrushchev saying that the US would declare war if the ships didn’t turn around - risky but it worked

Question 21

1962 - Khrushchev sent 2 letters - when did each one come?

Answer 21

1st one - October 26
2nd one - October 27

Question 22

1962 - Khrushchev sent 2 letters. The first one said that he would withdraw his missiles from Cuba if the US promised never to invade Cuba, and the second one said he would remove his stuff from Cuba if the US took their stuff out of Turkey. Then Cuba shot down a US spy plane and advisers started demanding that the US go to war. How did Kennedy react?

Answer 22

Publicly he accepted the first letter while privately accepting the second, removing missiles and ending the conflict.

Question 23

Why did the USSR put missiles on Cuba?

Answer 23

• To bargain with the USA
• To test the USA
• To trap the USA
• To close the missile gap (alleged advantage of USSR over USA in nukes)
• To defend Cuba
• To strengthen his own position in the USSR

Question 24

Outcomes of Cuban Missile Crisis for USA and Kennedy

Answer 24

• Kennedy has a great reputation for making Khrushchev back down
• Kennedy resists hardliners in his government, weakening their case (going to war)
• Missiles out of Turkey - NATO unhappy but better than nuclear war
• Cuba is communist and exists

Question 25

Outcomes of Cuban Missile Crisis for USSR and Khrushchev (Kr)

Answer 25

• Kr highlights his role as peacemaker
• Cuba safe from American attack - also exists as valuable ally
• Missiles out of Turkey, but it was a secret and couldn’t be used for propaganda
• USA criticised by some allies
• Kr forced to back down - Soviet leaders felt humiliated
• USSR still had worse arms than USA
• 1964 - Kr forced down from power by enemies in USSR - Cuban Missile Crisis prolly condributed

Question 26

Outcomes of Cuban Missile Crisis for Cold War

Answer 26

• Helped thaw relations between US and and USSR - no one wanted nuclear war, so they set up the “hot line” and a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to limit nuclear tests
• Made it clear that the USSR couldn’t match US tech or weapons but that it didn’t matter - the US still avoided confrontation because they could both destroy each other many times over

Question 27

Outcomes of Cuban Missile Crisis for Castro’s Cuba

Answer 27

• Castro mad at deal but had to accept it bc he needed USSR support
• Cuba stayed highly armed and communist - important base for communist operations
• Castro kept control of US companies and economic resources he nationalised during his revolution

Question 28

When did the USSR get its first nukes?

Answer 28

1949

Question 29

What was MAD?

Answer 29

Mutually Assured Destruction - both would die if either struck - aka the nuclear deterrent

Question 30

What was the average age of (US?) conscripts in the Vietnam war?

Answer 30

19 years old

Question 31

What was Indochina?

Answer 31

Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the early to mid 20th century

Question 32

What is an oligarch?

Answer 32

a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence (particularly with reference to ppl who benefited from the privatization of state-run industries after the collapse of the Soviet Union).

Question 33

When was the Geneva Agreement made?

Answer 33

1954

Question 34

What was the situation in Vietnam before the Vietnam-France war?

Answer 34

• Pre WW2 - France ruled indochina
• Japan controlled Vietnam during WW2 and treated the Vietnamese really badly
• A resistance movement called the viet minh overthrew the Japanese and Ho Chi Minh became ruler

Question 35

Who supported who in the Vietnam-France war? Who won?

Answer 35

USA provided support in the form of $500 million to France, and China supported Vietnam. Vietnam won and France lost, leading to the Geneva agreement.

Question 36

Who made the Geneva agreement?

Answer 36

The UN

Question 37

What were the terms of the Geneva agreement?

Answer 37

• Ceasefire
• French get out
• Vietnam split into North and South vietnam at the 17th parallel, a demilitarized zone between the two, until elections are figured out (voting whether or not to reunite country).
• Elections to figure it out would be held by July 1956 (within 2 years) throughout Indochina
• No foreign bases
• Laos and Cambodia independent
• Free to move between North and South vietnam for 300 days → fluxes of refugees moving north and mostly south

Question 38

How and when did the US react to the elections clause of the Geneva agreement?

Answer 38

The US stopped it from happening because of domino theory - they didn’t want all of asia to fall to communism. This showed the US’s ignorance and also their hypocritical foreign policy - they were meddling with free and fair elections. They did this in 1954.

Question 39

Who was the leader of North Vietnam? What was he like?

Answer 39

Ho Chi Minh - Communist and nationalist, but he looked after the people and respected religions. The people were devoted to him.

Question 40

Who was the leader of South Vietnam (1955)? What was he like?

Answer 40

Ngo Dinh Diem - Christian oligarch with a western education. He never connected to or supported the people, and he didn’t care about their needs or interests. He was corrupt (or “questionably democratic”) and very anti buddhism, which was a big religion in Vietnam. No one liked him except the USA, as he wasn’t communist. “We knew of no one better”.