The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Cold War (A Synopsis) - Part III - Sep 22nd, 2004

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[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

...................................................................................... ...........................................

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After Stalin: 1953-1956

STALIN

In March 1953, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin dies following a brain hemorrhage. Despite his decades of brutal rule -- or perhaps because of it -- the sense of loss among Soviets is strong.

Stalin died without naming a successor in the Kremlin. Following his death, a collective leadership of four men emerged. One of those men, Nikita Khrushchev, would soon rise to the top of the Soviet hierarchy.

EAST GERMANY

Stalin had chosen Walter Ulbricht to govern East Germany. After the Soviet leader's death, Ulbricht continued his policy of rebuilding East Germany along Stalinist lines. But repressive policies and harsh working conditions were prompting thousands of East Germans to leave for the West.



Anger over strict production quotas boiled over in June 1953. Government authority in East Berlin collapsed as demonstrators took to the streets. Soviet troops were called in to put down the revolt. At least 40 people were killed, and thousands more were arrested.

NATO/POLAND

In September 1953, Konrad Adenauer was re-elected chancellor of West Germany. With U.S. backing, Adenauer persuaded Britain and France to allow West Germany into NATO, the Western military alliance. In 1955, West Germany was allowed to form an army. In response, the Soviets formed their own military alliance -- the Warsaw Pact.


Poznan, June 27, 1956 between 10 am and 12 noon

In June 1956, workers in the Polish city of Poznan demanded an end to harsh working conditions. The Polish military responded with tanks and gunfire, killing 74 people. The uprising in Poznan fueled calls for reform in Poland. Polish communists chose Wladyslaw Gomulka, who had been imprisoned under Stalin, as their new leader. Gomulka calmed Soviet fears -- and threats of invasion -- by promising that Poland would remain part of the Warsaw Pact.

HUNGARY

As Soviet troops were returning to their barracks in Poland, students in Hungary's capital of Budapest launched a more serious challenge to Soviet rule, demonstrating in sympathy with the Poles.



The demonstrators demanded free elections, an end to the secret police and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary.They also urged Imre Nagy, recently ousted as Hungarian premier, to take charge. Street battles broke out between demonstrators and the secret police. The Soviet Union still occupied Hungary, and Soviet tanks were moved into Budapest. But Hungarians fought back.

CRACKDOWN

After four days of fighting, Nagy, who was quickly installed as Hungarian Prime Minister, arranged a ceasefire, assuring Moscow of Hungary's loyalty. Soviet forces withdrew from the city on October 28.

Losses on both sides had been heavy, but Hungarians believed they had won their revolution. Open elections were held in villages and towns. New councils were formed to challenge the state. Carried along by events he could not control, Nagy on November 1 announced Hungary's neutrality and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact.



Three days later, the Soviet army re-entered Budapest, smashing all opposition. Despite appeals from Nagy for Western support, no help was forthcoming. Western attention was diverted by a crisis at the Suez Canal . What's more, U.S leaders were reluctant to intervene in the affairs of a Soviet satellite.

Thousands were killed in the crackdown. Nagy was arrested and eventually executed. Two hundred thousand Hungarians fled the country. Khrushchev had re-enforced the Iron Curtain.

[SAMWolf]

Sputnik: 1949-1961

DUCK & COVER

In August 1949, the United States finds itself shocked to discover the Soviet Union has broken Washington's atomic monopoly. The new Soviet bomb was developed quickly, thanks to the acquisition of U.S. atomic secrets by Soviet agents. The bomb also signals the start of the nuclear arms race between the Cold War rivals.

By 1952, the United States develops and tests the first hydrogen bomb. The Soviets match that milestone several years later. Meanwhile, American children watch as bomb shelters are dug in their backyards and learn in school to "duck and cover" should nuclear bombs fall in their neighborhoods.

SPUTNIK

In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower was elected to succeed Harry Truman as U.S. president. Less than a year later, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was dead, starting a power struggle among the Kremlin leadership. In 1955, Eisenhower met with a Soviet delegation in Geneva and proposed an "Open Skies" policy -- giving both sides the freedom to fly over each other's territory and observe for themselves military developments on the ground. Nikita Khrushchev, then emerging as top Soviet leader, announced his delegation's refusal.

October 4, 1957 -- Sputnik destroyed U.S. complacency

Soviet engineers, meanwhile, had been busy developing missile technology. They tested the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile in May 1957. And on October 4 of that year they surprised the world by launching Sputnik -- the world's first satellite.

CATCH-UP

Sputnik came as a shock to the West and especially the United States, which realized the Soviets now had the ability to send not only satellites around the world, but nuclear weapons as well. The U.S. military tried to push forward with its own satellite, called Vanguard, but the first attempt to launch Vanguard was a spectacular failure. Eventually, with the help of German scientist Werner von Braun, the Explorer satellite was fired into space on top of a military Redstone missile.

December 6, 1957: Two seconds after launch Vanguard was four feet off the pad. Thrust ceased, it crumpled and then exploded.

In 1959, Khrushchev became the first Soviet leader to visit the United States. While he and Eisenhower spent part of the visit discussing ways to slow the arms race, Khrushchev's visit is best remembered for his ideological sparring with then-U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon.

U-2

Eisenhower was concerned about how big the "missile gap" was between the United States and Soviet Union. U.S. reconnaissance planes, designated U-2s, secretly flew over the U.S.S.R., looking for evidence of missiles. On one such mission, a U-2 was shot down by the Soviet military.

Gary Powers’ U-2B over Sverdlovsk, USSR

Despite U.S. denials, the Soviets presented as evidence the plane's wreckage -- as well as its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who had survived the shoot-down. The U-2 incident undermined a Paris summit several weeks later between Khrushchev and Eisenhower. Powers was sentenced to prison but was later exchanged for a Soviet spy.

DISASTER/TRIUMPH

Khrushchev feared the American U-2 flights had exposed his claims of missile superiority as a bluff. At the Baikonur Cosmodrome, engineers under the command of Marshal Nedelin were ordered to create a new missile. During the rush to production, a fire erupted -- killing nearly 200 people.

Yuri Gagarin

While the Soviets were behind in the missile race, they still had one card to play: Yuri Gagarin. On April 12, 1961, Gagarin achieved international acclaim when he became the first human to be launched into space.

[SAMWolf]

The Wall: 1958-1963
BERLIN

By 1958, West Germany was NATO's front line along the Iron Curtain. The United States had been training a new West German army since 1955. German rearmament brought back nightmares for many Europeans, especially for the Soviets and East Germans.


At 2 a.m. on Aug. 13, 1961, a low, barbed-wire barrier was strung between East and West Berlin. It effectively divided the city in half. Within days, workers cemented concrete blocks into a low wall through the city

Berlin, meanwhile, was creating a different kind of nightmare for the Soviet bloc. The city was still under the joint occupation of France, Britain, the U.S.S.R. and the United States -- an arrangement that began when the four powers were wartime allies. Berliners could move freely between the city's Eastern and Western sectors, giving East Germans a tantalizing glimpse of the West.

West Berlin was considered a danger to the existence of East Germany. Nikita Khrushchev proposed Berlin become a "free city," with its own foreign policy. But the West rejected Khrushchev's idea.

KHRUSHCHEV

Khrushchev issued a new demand, calling on the Western powers to withdraw from Berlin. Ensuing talks between the West and the U.S.S.R. got nowhere. But the talks persuaded Khrushchev to shelve his Berlin ultimatum. In September 1959, he became the first Soviet leader to visit the United States, where he met with President Eisenhower.



Khruschev's hopes for a Cold War truce lasted only six months. A second Eisenhower-Khrushchev summit collapsed before it had even begun -- following the shoot-down of an American U-2.

EAST GERMANY

By the end of the 1950s, East Germany portrayed itself as a socialist paradise. But the reality was far different. Dependence on heavy industry created shortages of essential goods and consumer items. East Germany knew it could not compete with the swelling prosperity of West Germany.


Walter Ulbricht

Every month, thousands of East Germans fled across the open Berlin border and took refuge in the West. Most of the refugees were young and skilled. Their departure was bleeding the East German economy to death. East German leader Walter Ulbricht urged Khrushchev to recognize East Germany as a sovereign state.

THE WALL

John F. Kennedy became U.S. president in January 1961. He agreed to meet Khrushchev in June of that year. But shortly before the summit in Vienna, Kennedy's attempted invasion of Castro's Cuba, at the Bay of Pigs, failed miserably. Khrushchev attempted to bully Kennedy at the summit, warning him that Soviet bloc forces could invade West Berlin at any time.



By that time, the flow of refugees from East to West Berlin had become a torrent. East German officials begged Moscow to let them stem the flow. On the morning of August 13, 1961, East German and Soviet troops sealed the East Berlin side of the border, closing crossing points and erecting barricades. Berlin was divided.

DIVIDED

Angry West Berliners demonstrated against the division of their city, a divide that separated many families. The allies were unsure how to react -- their rights within Berlin had not been challenged by the Soviets. But a border crossing confrontation prompted U.S. Gen. Lucius Clay to bring up tanks. The Soviets responded with their own show of force. Both sides later withdrew their armor.


In August 1962, Fechter bled to death at the base of the wall in the "death zone". Guards had shot him in the back as he tried to escape. Bystanders in the West tried to rescue him, but were prevented from it at gunpoint.

Many in the East, meanwhile, risked death to flee across the Wall. Within the first year, 50 Germans died trying to cross to the West. One of them, 18-year-old Peter Fechter, bled to death in the no-man's land between East and West, in front of outraged West Berliners.


President John F. Kennedy stands on a platform looking over the Berlin Wall into the Eastern sector on the day of his famous "I am a Berliner" speech.

In 1963, Kennedy visited West Berlin -- telling its residents that all free people were citizens of Berlin and "therefore as a free man, I take pride in the words, 'Ich bin ein Berliner.'"

Yet for the next three decades, the Wall remained a symbol of the Cold War's cruelty and Europe's division. Its message was a bitter one: Whatever happened beyond that line, the West might lament, but would not interfere.

Additional Sources:

www.cnn.com
pandora.cii.wwu.edu
www.volksaufstand1953.de
www.videofact.com
www.informationwar.org
www.othercinema.com
www.wiw.pl
www.natch.co.uk
svvs.narod.ru
www.tfhrc.gov
www.weltchronik.de
www.coastlinevideo.com
www.time.com

[SAMWolf]

In 1953, the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin creates a power vacuum in the Kremlin's leadership. It also unleashes a wave of unrest in Eastern Europe, as some Soviet satellites test the limits of Moscow's tolerance.

The Soviet atomic bomb gives birth to a new arms race -- which turns into a space race. But any promising technological advances are overshadowed by the threat of long-range nuclear destruction.

For years, West Berlin was an escape route for East Germans seeking to flee communism. But growing Cold War tensions forced the Soviet bloc to erect a deadly blockade across the city -- a Wall that divided Berlin for nearly three decades.

[SAMWolf]

Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization. The primary area of concern to all VetsCoR members is that our national and local educational systems fall short in teaching students and all American citizens the history and underlying principles on which our Constitutional republic-based system of self-government was founded. VetsCoR members are also very concerned that the Federal government long ago over-stepped its limited authority as clearly specified in the United States Constitution, as well as the Founding Fathers' supporting letters, essays, and other public documents.

---

Actively seeking volunteers to provide this valuable service to Veterans and their families.

---

UPDATED THROUGH APRIL 2004



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[snippy_about_it]

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[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone!

[snippy_about_it]

Hi feather.


It takes us an hour to drive into Maryland with good traffic flow. LOL.

Time to turn in. Good night.

[Soaring Feather]

Nite snippy, yeah running on East Coast time again!! LOL

[A Jovial Cad]

Good morning, snippy. Hope the vacation is still going well.

[Professional Engineer]

Good late evening ladies. Flag-o-gram.

[Professional Engineer]

So long Cold War, your equipment has become tourist curiousities.

My sister bought this hat for me in Berlin sometime in the early 90's

[Professional Engineer]

Old Ironsides, as promised, Valin.

[Soaring Feather]

Beautiful, thank you.

[Soaring Feather]

PE, is this Mink??

[Valin]

From booknotes
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (Part 1)
by Simon Sebag Montefiore
http://www.booknotes.org/Program/?ProgramID=1785

Fifty years after his death, Stalin remains a figure of powerful and dark fascination. The almost unfathomable scale of his crimes–as many as 20 million Soviets died in his purges and infamous Gulag–has given him the lasting distinction as a personification of evil in the twentieth century. But though the facts of Stalin’s reign are well known, this remarkable biography reveals a Stalin we have never seen before as it illuminates the vast foundation–human, psychological and physical–that supported and encouraged him, the men and women who did his bidding, lived in fear of him and, more often than not, were betrayed by him.

In a seamless meshing of exhaustive research, brilliant synthesis and narrative élan, Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicles the life and lives of Stalin’s court from the time of his acclamation as “leader” in 1929, five years after Lenin’s death, until his own death in 1953 at the age of seventy-three. Through the lens of personality–Stalin’s as well as those of his most notorious henchmen, Molotov, Beria and Yezhov among them–the author sheds new light on the oligarchy that attempted to create a new world by exterminating the old. He gives us the details of their quotidian and monstrous lives: Stalin’s favorites in music, movies, literature (Hemmingway, The Forsyte Saga and The Last of the Mohicans were at the top of his list), food and history (he took Ivan the Terrible as his role model and swore by Lenin’s dictum, “A revolution without firing squads is meaningless”). We see him among his courtiers, his informal but deadly game of power played out at dinners and parties at Black Sea villas and in the apartments of the Kremlin. We see the debauchery, paranoia and cravenness that ruled the lives of Stalin’s inner court, and we see how the dictator played them one against the other in order to hone the awful efficiency of his killing machine.

With stunning attention to detail, Montefiore documents the crimes, small and large, of all the members of Stalin’s court. And he traces the intricate and shifting web of their relationships as the relative warmth of Stalin’s rule in the early 1930s gives way to the Great Terror of the late 1930s, the upheaval of World War II (there has never been as acute an account of Stalin’s meeting at Yalta with Churchill and Roosevelt) and the horrific postwar years when he terrorized his closest associates as unrelentingly as he did the rest of his country.

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar gives an unprecedented understanding of Stalin’s dictatorship, and, as well, a Stalin as human and complicated as he is brutal. It is a galvanizing portrait: razor-sharp, sensitive and unforgiving.


Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (Part 2)
http://www.booknotes.org/Program/?ProgramID=1786

Two very good interviews.

[Valin]

I like it! Thanks.

That sound you may be hearing is my bed calling me.

[Iris7]

In 1963, Kennedy visited West Berlin -- telling its residents that all free people were citizens of Berlin and "therefore as a free man, I take pride in the words, 'Ich bin ein Berliner.'"

A "Berliner" in the German language is a type of jelly doughnut. The krauts thought Kennedy was an ass for making such an obvious mistake - not realizing that 'Ich bin ein Berliner' was aimed at the American public. Sound bite for CBS, some BS for the next election.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Freeper foxhole.

Today is Norton update day. Download them when they arrive.

[SAMWolf]

Good morning Feather.

So, do you like us being in your time zone better?

[SAMWolf]

Morning Jovial Cad.

About to call Snippy's room and wake her up, thought I'd get some pings answered first.