GLO: Lesson - The 1960s
The 1960s
Continuing the Cold War
The Cuban Missile Crisis proved how dangerous Cold War Brinksmanship could be. In 1959, Fidel Castro led a Communist revolution and allied himself with the USSR. The USSR positioned ICBMs in Cuba that could easily reach the United States. In late October 1962, the United States spied the ICBMs and the two superpowers threatened to destroy each other. After a tense two-week standoff, both nations agreed to remove ICBMs from their allied countries: the USSR took them out of Cuba while the US took them out of Turkey.
The United States also stationed additional troops in Germany in response to the Soviet construction of the Berlin Wall between the Eastern (Communist) and Western (Capitalist) sections of the city. In 1964, the US declared war on North Vietnam, but even after 4 years of napalm bombing, the USA was no closer to winning.
Image note (top right): East Germans build the Berlin Wall in 1961.
The 1960s did see new developments in the arms and space races. In 1968, the USA, USSR, and UK signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. Interestingly, this did not limit the development of nuclear weapons in the countries they already existed – those talks began the next year with SALT I.
Meanwhile, the USSR led the space race for a long time. In the 1960s, the Soviets launched the first male and female astronauts into space. US President Kennedy called for the USA to put a person on the moon (and “win” the Space Race) by the end of the decade. He did not live to see this crowning American achievement. On July 20, 1969, Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first human beings to walk on the moon.
Moon missions in the United States lasted until 1972.
Image note: Photo of Buzz Aldrin when he landed on the moon, taken by the first person to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong.
Continued Independence and Conflict: Africa
1960 was called the Year of Africa. 17 countries earned their independence from the imperialists that had controlled them.
That year also started the first armed conflict against apartheid in South Africa. Decades earlier, when South Africa industrialized, whites of British and Dutch descent were worried black immigrants would take their factory jobs. In 1948, the government legalized Apartheid: blacks and whites lived apart, had different jobs, and couldn’t intermarry. While early anti-apartheid movements followed Gandhi’s nonviolent movement, after a massacre by South African police against protesters, the anti-apartheid movement grew and turned violent.
This decade also saw the height of the Pan-African movement. The Pan-African movement called for Africans and African descendants across the globe to work together for freedom and equality. In the United States, it manifested in the Black Power movement.
Rise of Terrorism and Nationalism
Also in 1960, the ethno-nationalist group, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), formed in the Palestine region of Israel. The PLO was originally considered a terrorist organization. The PLO believed that the settlement of Israel as a Jewish state had violated their rights as an ethnic group and they used that aggrievement as a basis to carry out attacks on Israel.
Image note (left): Logo of Fatah, the largest faction of the PLO, with reference to the Palestinian flag and weapons used to achieve their aim. The Map of Palestine/Israel is in the background.
Later in the decade, Egypt embargoed Israel, so Israel went to war with Egypt and won. Any hope for a Pan-Arabism like Pan-Africanism ended with Egypt’s loss.
In Europe, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), considered a terrorist group by world authorities, tried to liberate Northern Ireland from Britain through bombings and assassinations. The conflicts between the IRA and the British, called The Troubles, would last until the 1990s. The Troubles trace back to ancient conflicts between Catholic and Protestant factions of Christianity.
Image note (right): Badge of the IRA. A phoenix rises from the flames, representing the IRA's resurrection from the ashes of burnt-out Catholic areas of Belfast, Ireland. The IRA existed earlier but was “reborn” in the 1960s. This is also reflected in the Gaelic phrase on top, Óglaigh na hÉireann, which meant the volunteers from Ireland’s independence from Great Britain in 1919-1922.
In Latin America, several terrorists targeted police, public buildings, and military posts in fights against US economic intervention and their own cruel government leaders.
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