Lecture seven. The Cold War at its Height: 1953-1963

So two weeks ago we looked at the early stages of the cold war when East and West were learning how to deal with the new situation in the world. We saw The United States developing policies in relation to the Soviet Union, which ranged from Containment (protecting their own space – the West), to rollback where the US attempted to bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union through covert operations. We also saw covert operations on the part of the Soviets and their explosion of nuclear weapons in 1949. These issues pushed the United States towards debating the idea of Hot and Cold War, debates on how the cold war should be fought and how hot war could be prevented. We also saw how issues regarding world communism affecting the states with the rise of Communist China and the breakout of the Korean war, with the lack of victory of either sides. This week we’re going to look at quite a different stage of the Cold War, partly caused by the disappearance of the two leaders who had defined the early cold War, Stalin in the Soviet Union (who died in 1953) and President Truman (who decided not to stand in the presidential election in 1952). The death of Stalin brought mass changes to the Soviet Union, in many ways his personality had driven the country and the Communist side of the Cold War. After his death, there was a policy of destalinisation as Beria, Malenkov and Kruschev clashed for power. When Kruschev finally won out, very different style of leadership to Stalin, Stalin morose, Kruschev combative. The period saw crisis in Eastern Europe as a number of satellite states reacted to the different situation at the top. In America 1950’s dominated by Eisenhower who was elected in 1952, Eisenhower had to decide how to adapt US defence policy linked to containment and rollback. The end of the period saw crisis arise in Berlin and Cuba between America and the Soviet Union. A fact which eventually led to more peaceful coexistence on the part of the great powers. Now let’s look at how the lecture will be structured.

Ok so this is what we’re going to look at during the lecture. First of all we’re going to look at the general situation regarding US-Soviet relations after the death of Stalin. We will look initially at the change of policies at the top of the Soviet tree and how this affected US/Soviet relations and the general situation during the Cold War. We will then move on to look at American security and foreign policies during the period, especially regarding changes made by President Eisenhower concerning the US troop build up and how the cold war should be won, this section will also link back to the dilemma posed in the last lecture, whether the US should focus on containment or rollback or something else. I will then explain the general US-Soviet relations from 1953-5, starting with moves by the Soviets to search for peace and then relatively peaceful coexistence in the middle of the 1950s. We will then look at some of the flashpoints between 1953-63, may of these were in the Soviet bloc - including tensions over Germany in 1953 which led to a revolt in East Germany in that year. Soviet policies of liberalisation also affected other areas of the Eastern bloc, we will look at the situation specifically in Hungary where a massive revolt broke out in 1956. As the 1950s moved on further tension developed between East and West. To illustrate this We will look at the crisis which developed in Berlin at the end of the 1950’s which eventually led to the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961. Finally we will look at the missile crisis in Cuba which can be said to be the last act of the first Cold War, an issue which scared both US and Soviets so much that it pushed the two states towards coexistence from the mid 1960s onwards. I will then offer some conclusions.

As explained in the introduction, the death of Stalin provoked a profound change at the top of the Soviet hierarchy which in turn affected the power balance between East and West during the Cold War. Let’s have a look at the general themes of this period before we look at the situation in the Soviet Union then post Stalin’s death. Stalin’s death gave the Soviet Union an opportunity to critically look at what had gone on under his reign, this in addition to fears of Hot War (we remember what happened in the Korean war and the possession of Nuclear weapons of the USA and Soviet Union), drove the Soviet Union to reform both internally and externally. Increased great power competition but at the same time move towards coexistence (fears of general public of war). The main way of reacting was the move away from the Stalinist ‘cult of personality’ and dominance of one leader to shared government under the leadership of Lavrenty Beria, Gyorgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov (Kruschev also important later) All three of them sought to liberalise the Soviet Union through reforms (these would have an effect on relations not just inside the Soviet Union but also in the Eastern bloc – a situation we will look at later). Beria spoke of ‘de-Bolshevisation’. Young states that Beria, as head of the KGB under Stalin, focused on a more conciliatory foreign policy with the West to avoid recriminations for his secret police activities (one of the main propagators of the purges in the Soviet Union) In 1953 Beria even planned to jettison East Germany and let Western loans into the country. In addition Malenkov and Kruschev also wanted better relations with the United States. Despite this belief in better relations Young argues that the Soviets did not want to give off the impression of weakness, their security interests were still paramount but it was generally agreed that Hot war between East and West had to be avoided.

Central to this new approach was the policy of Vyacheslav Molotov, who became foreign minister again in 1953. Molotov had been foreign minister from 1939-49 but then had fallen out of favour with Stalin. Famous for the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact which brought war, Molotov second time round about promoting peace – his ‘peace offensive’ followed on from the Soviet intention to avoid hot war with the United States. Beria’s failure to reform the situation in East Germany (we will look at this later) brought his removal in 1953, he was actually shot at the end of 1953. Gyorgy Malenkov took up the position of premier from 1953-1955, pushing an agenda of anti-nuclear war (whilst at the same time the Soviet Union exploded a Hydrogen bomb in 1954), but he was eventually removed from power in 1955 for his links to Beria. This left Molotov as the only one of the troika still in power. In the years after Stalin’s death a fouth figure Nikita Kruschev rose to prominence. Kruschev wanted to improve relations between East and West. Domestically he wanted to move the Soviet Union away from its preoccupation with industry and the military and put more of a focus on consumerism and a host of other reforms. He felt the Soviet Union needed to compete with the West by increasing its standard of living. Kruschev began to gain more an more influence from 1953-5 through these moves. In the international sphere he contintued to support some sort of coexistence with the United States. This was done in a number of ways which we will talk about later, most importantly Kruschev (and other of the triumvirate) were prepared to discuss disarmament and arms control with the West, Kruschev was also prepared to discuss general Cold War issues with the West, travels to the US in 1959 to meet up with Eisenhower and meets with Kennedy in 1961 in Berlin. Kruschev often behaved agressively as we will see later, but he was prepared to communicate with the West, something that Stalin was reluctant to do.

Kruschev’s insistence on reforms and coexistence won him the battle for leadership of the Soviet Union and it was his speech at the 20th party congress of the Soviet Union where he denounced the crimes of Stalinism brought a new era in the Soviet Union and its relationship with its satellites.

On the American side there was also more of a desire to come to the table in the wake of Korea and the disappearance of Truman. The New president Dwight D Eisenhower wanted to fight the cold War like Truman but he was unsure about the extensive rearmament programs supported by Truman. He also wanted to show to the American people that peace was possible, at the same time he wanted to maintain American strength. This led to a double position of Soviet-American thaw at the same time as maintaining their position. Move towards coexistence.

One way that intensification can be seen, with the from the maintenance of strong security policies is through the intensification of covert operations as part of the Cold War

The importance of early warning systems in preparation for attack from one side or the other, Soviet Air defence built up, the continued build up of nuclear capabilities and the crucial role of civil defence (what should be done to prevent attack).

At the same time each power ran spying activities on the other, psychological war, covert ops and propaganda, everything without provoking hot war. Several examples of this from the US side, project control in 1953 where the US sends reconnaisance planes in order to find out information about the capabilities of the Soviet military. A more intense example of this was ‘operation home run’ in 1956 where the US sent 50 bomber planes from into Northern Russia for a period of eight weeks, they contained eavesdropping and photographic equipment, ran 156 missions.

The Soviets also responded with covert operations of their own – the Soviets sent spies to the United States – the most famous of which George Blake was able to discover another US attempt to spy on the Soviets an underground tunnel between East and West Berlin constructed by the Americans. He infiltrated the British SIS who were working with the US CIA (he had been recruited in the Korean war).

Soviet agents had more freedom in the West but they did not seek to provoke uprisings as Western spies did in the East. Western spies operated in much more difficult circumstances but they support uprisings, broadcasting US propaganda, carry out food drops etc

Young says Soviet propaganda about strengthening the Soviet state, US propaganda more offensive and more ideological.

• As the decade went on more and more focus was but on the non-European world, was North Vietnam falling to Communists in 1954.

• Despite all these covert operations US-Soviet relations moved towards coexistence as the decade moved on and away from outright confrontation. Coexistence threatened by Cuba and Berlin but eventually these events strengthened it. So let’s look a bit closer at American position towards the Cold War from 1953 onwards…

At the same time as the move towards a flaw between the Soviets and the US, the American government still realised the importance of maintaining a strong security policy. The new US administation led by President Dwight Eisenhower decided to move away from aspects of US defence policy which he inherited from his predecessor President Truman. Truman and his advisors had pushed the US to a more confrontative position with the Soviet Union, in reaction to the Soviet explosion of an atom bomb in 1949, NSC memorandums but also rearmament which put large financial strains on the US populace. Eisenhower was worried about the loss of personal freedoms in the United States which would come with a move towards a military/industrial model. Eisenhower thus sought a way to defend the US way of life as well as their territory. How did Eisenhower propose this to be done. He believed first of all that a focus needed to be put on the development of nuclear weapons and their integration into US defence strategy. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles his secretary of State believed that these weapons could be used as a deterrant to warfare, the more focus was put on them, the less war would happen. They based this belief on the end of the Korean war – where the threat of nuclear weapons forced the Chinese to agree to an armistice.

There were other benefits to this focus on nuclear weapons, they were a much cheaper alternative to conventional weapons build up of NSC 68. So nuclear weapons would prevent reductions in personal liberties and prevent war (according to this theory).

Autumn 1953 – New Look – nuclear weapons an integral part of US policy, this meant the reduction of conventional forces, more emphasis put on the cost effective covert operations I was discussing before, also the United States hoped for more support from its Nato allies, instead of the US playing such a dominant role in world security.

Despite this plan there were still worries for the United States, they (and their allies) worried about the massive Soviet advantage in the field of conventional troops, West Europe knew that they would not have a chance if the Soviets invaded.

US policy thus focused on a Mixture of nuclear weapons, conventional troops and deterrence, many US diplomats, including Dulles did not believe in disarmament and co-operation (which were what the US was talking about in the public arena – we will talk about this later) wanted to take the initiative against the Soviet Union.

A major change in the defence perspectives of the United States was the Soviet use of Sputnik in 1957

In 1957 the Soviet Union developed the Sputnik satellite, which could leave the atmosphere and return to earth, this provoked a dramatic reaction in the United States. The famous American physicist Edward Teller stated that the US had lost a major battle, America feels it has fallen behind in the technological stakes against the Soviet Union. Linden Baines Johnson the future president stated that he was especially unsettled as the Soviets had put something ‘up in the air.’ Sputnik affected disarmament talks which we will talk about later and pushed the US to a further technological building program to catch up with the Soviets and think of how to improve their civil defence.

Sputnik had an effect on the rethinking of US policy – one classic example of this rethinking was the Gaither committee in May 1957, where the US discussed the impact of the Soviet explosion of the Hydrogen bomb on civil defence.

Industrialists, engineers and others discussed second strike capability, (the possibility of replying to an opponent’s nuclear attack), The use of Sputnik meant the US were more and more worried about Soviet nuclear missiles hitting the States

Curtis Le May – strategic air command of the United States says that US spy planes would be able to attack Soviet missiles ‘knock the shit out of them’ but it was discovered that it would take a full six hours to get a nuclear bomber off the ground. US wanted to be able to strike first on the Soviets, nuclear weapons recommended to be stationed in Europe.

Final report in November 1957 stated that the Soviets had considerable nuclear missiles and intercontinental missiles and that the US needed to rearm

Eisenhower wouldn’t be affected by this information, wouldn’t exaggerate the situation, wouldn’t rearm, despite this information put out by the Gaither committee suggested the US was falling behind, reports in 1961 suggested that the Soviets would have 650 nuclear missiles in mid 1963 – this information was called the bomber and missile gap, actually they had only 3.5 % of this

Eisenhower plays the situation down but this situation was used by the democrats against the republicans in the 1961 presidential election

Let’s look at the US policy towards fighting the cold war in a bit more detail. We looked two weeks ago at the move towards a more aggressive US cold war policy, with covert warfare against the Soviet Union. The idea of rollback.

As mentioned before Eisenhower and Dulles felt that a new strategy was needed to reduce the risk of Americans losing their civil liberties and to save money. With worries of a hot war prevalent, the US realised it needed to fight the cold war more offensively.

The criticism of NSC 68 were as follows, there had been no disintegration of Soviet power, and the Soviets had not transformed their ideology or diplomacy, there was also no real war plan to overthrow the Soviet regime. As a result of this E calls for more covert operations to end the cold war.

US diplomats questioned whether NSC 68 was good enough to provoke roll-back or not. Some want rollback in the short term – chance of Stalin’s death, these defence analysts believed that need to use exploitation of the Soviet armed forces –so they would overthrow the regime

Others had different ideas for example the NSC memorandum 158 Jun 1953 attempted to provoke Satellite unrest in Eastern Europe – nourish resistance to Soviet rule everthing apart from mass rebellion.

As you can see in the US there was a division over which approach to take regarding the cold war, a more aggressively threatening approach – which could lead to hot war, or a more covert approach, everything apart from hot war

A major policy program which tried to answer this question – and link to the New Look was Operation Solarium

The operation set up three teams, or task forces – team A and C regarded general policy towards fighting the cold war and Team B regarded the US approach to nuclear weapons

Team A were to were to work on roll back but at the same time peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union, it was about attempting to liberate Sovet satellites through covert operations.

C- destruction of the Soviet Union –about overthrow f the soviet Union, removal of iron curtain, the plan was for in 5 years Korea,Germany united – China to nationalists, 1965 satellites would fall however there was no real plan regarding how this was going to occur

US policy was a mixture of different methods, most important was to prevent a hot war

After Solarium was put in place it became more and more obvious that task force c’s work was impossible, the US didn’t really know how to bring about C, shows there was confusion about how to fight the Cold War, Task force A basically started to gain prevalence

This meant a pull back from overly aggressive fighting of the Cold War, prevention of the spread of communism became the main focus

Thus peaceful coexistence becomes the main accepted policy by the Americans

Covert operations and intelligent operations begin to be accepted as the main way to fight the cold war – move away from aggressive roll back

So let’s look a little more closely at events between East and West in the aftermath of Stalin’s death. Important to look at this within the perspective of greater Soviet openness and general moves away from open confrontation.

As we have discussed the explosion of Soviet nuclear weapons pushed the two great powers away from Hot War. Discussions began to emerge regarding the controlling and restricting of weapons. Both sides try to show they were looking for peace but at same time threatened by aggression of the other

Young is unsure whether these moves were genuine or not but they needed to show the public they were pulling back from the idea of Nuclear war (dualism of the cold war – say one thing, do another).

As we have seen before Molotov put forward his idea of a peace offensive – way of coming to the table, trying to find solutions. Several ways this was shown. UN disarmament commission, Malenkov calls for a body…. Rejected by the United States

Another Soviet move in 1954 – regarded no first use agreement - this was again rejected by the United States

How did the Americans react to these moves by the Soviets

Eisenhower plays a dualist game during this period, on the one side he makes moves to the public which state he wants peace and disarmament but at the same time he seriously doubts this can happen (and we have seen American moves to fight a cold and Hot war continued).

Division between the American hierarchy –

State department sought some sort of progress regarding disarmament, the defence department didn’t want to talk about it, state department wanted inspections, the defence department very dubious about it.

Disarmament dilemma – Eisenhower works between the two different schools – has to show he wants arms control but not sure if that is what he wants

Many believe E wanted the Soviets to move properly before he did

Eisenhower’s main move regarding arms reduction was his chance for Peace speech in April 1953 which he gave to the american society of Newspaper editors. As part of the speech he mentioned a five point plan for arms reduction – have a look on the next page and generally discussed the imporatance of speech between the two major powers, he talked about Korea, Germany and other issues

Of the issues which needed to be solved – debates over what to do with Germany – we will look at these more later, what should be done with the division of Austria – it had been divided into four occupying zones just like Germany

Eisenhower’s speech has an empty element about it

Second idea was the idea of Dulles – large zone in Europe with restricted armaments and for the US and Soviets to withdraw from Western and Eastern Europe – would never be accepted

In December 1953 – e gave his atoms for peace speech – in it e proposed that certain amount of nuclear items be handed over to an atomic agency – again not a very big step by e – symbolic

Difficult to know how genuine the plans were on both sides – were they actually just in order to win the cold war or not?

Let’s see how things changed in 1955 regarding these moves

A very forward looking plan by Eisenhower but he didn’t really trust the Soviet Union enough to carry it out properly – many issues which needed to be solved.

Important to stress the disarmament dilemma for the US – seeking disarmament publicly but at the same time not sure if that’s what they want but situation improves during this period – two powers prepared to talk

Difficult to say whether the US were seeking disarmament for peace’s sake or to be the victors of the cold war, massive amount of distrust between the two powers

The Soviets were intent on moving towards some sort of arms control organisation, in 1955 Soviet pressure regarding disarmament was added to by the British and the French, whose public were also worried about the threat of nuclear war. In February 1955 the British and French Total ban on the manufacture of nuclear weapons, reductions in nuclear and other forces, they proposed a Central organ to do this

In early 1955 the Soviet proposed inspections of nuclear weapons by a central agency, Jan 1955 – Malenkov had stated that as a result of nuclear weapons on both side, need for peaceful coexistence

Soviet proposals of inspections of nuclear weapons were at first angrily rejected by Eisenhower

Also important in this period regarding a relaxation of the atmosphere was the agreement over Austria – from the middle of 1955 American and Soviet troops left Austria and it became an independent country again- shows the Soviets were prepared to move somewhat

In July 1955 the big four – presidents and prime ministers (+foreign ministers)of US, Britain, Soviets and France met up in Geneva to talk about global security, issues about disarmament and peaceful coexistence. Important as people came to the table to discuss the issues. Although nothing important in principle was agreed and all powers not prepared to be concrete about disarmament.

One crucial thing which came out of the Geneva conference was Eisenhower’s open skies speech

Eisenhower proposed the free exchange of security information, aerial photography of opponent’s bases – reacted to with horror by Soviet and American diplomats – Soviet reject the proposal

Debatable that the US actually wanted disarmament - was open skies just an attempt to bring down communism?

Important however that both sides by the middle of 1956 had basically come to accept the idea of peaceful coexistence – as Hot war was to high a price to pay

Disarmament was however not as lucky, In some respects however this was the high point of US-Soviet cooperation in 1956 – Hungary in October 1956, Sputnik, Berlin crisis

Soviets and the US wouldn’t discuss disarmament again until well into the 1960s – nice ideas behind Soviet-US disarmament policy – but no real action taken

Let’s now look at some of the specific major issues during the period which caused stress and tension between the Soviets and the US