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The Yalta Conference, held 4-11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin. The conference was held near Yalta in Crimea, Soviet Union, within the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov palaces.

The aim of the conference was to shape a postwar peace that represented not only a collective security order, but also a plan to give self-determination to the liberated peoples of Europe. Intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe, within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, the conference became a subject of intense controversy.

Yalta was the second of three major wartime conferences among the Big Three. It was preceded by the Tehran Conference in November 1943 and was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July of the same year, 1945. It was also preceded by a conference in Moscow in October 1944, not attended by Roosevelt, in which Churchill and Stalin had spoken of Western and Soviet spheres of influence in Europe.

Soviet, American and British diplomats during the Yalta conference

Yalta American Delegation in Livadia Palace from left to right: Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Maj. Gen. L. S. Kuter, Admiral E. J. King, General George C. Marshall, Ambassador Averell Harriman, Admiral William Leahy, and President F. D. Roosevelt. Livadia Palace, Crimea, RSFSR

During the Yalta Conference, the Western Allies had liberated all of France and Belgium and were fighting on the western border of Germany. In the east, Soviet forces were 65 km (40 mi) from Berlin, having already pushed back the Germans from Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. There was no longer a question regarding German defeat. The issue was the new shape of postwar Europe.

The French leader General Charles de Gaulle was not invited to either the Yalta or Potsdam Conferences, a diplomatic slight that was the occasion for deep and lasting resentment. De Gaulle attributed his exclusion from Yalta to the longstanding personal antagonism towards him by Roosevelt, but the Soviets had also objected to his inclusion as a full participant. However, the absence of French representation at Yalta also meant that extending an invitation for de Gaulle to attend the Potsdam Conference would have been highly problematic since he would have felt honor-bound to insist that all issues agreed at Yalta in his absence be reopened.

The initiative for calling a second "Big Three" conference had come from Roosevelt, who hoped for a meeting before the US presidential elections in November 1944 but pressed for a meeting early in 1945 at a neutral location in the Mediterranean. Malta, Cyprus, Sicily, Athens, and Jerusalem were all suggested. Stalin, insisting that his doctors opposed any long trips, rejected those options. He proposed instead for them meet at the Black Sea resort of Yalta in the Crimea. Stalin's fear of flying also was a contributing factor in the decision. Nevertheless, Stalin formally deferred to Roosevelt as the "host" for the conference, and all plenary sessions were to be held in the US accommodation at the Livadia Palace, and Roosevelt was invariably seated centrally in the group photographs, all of which were taken by Roosevelt's official photographer.

Each of the three leaders had his own agenda for postwar Germany and liberated Europe. Roosevelt wanted Soviet support in the Pacific War against Japan, specifically for the planned invasion of Japan ( Operation August Storm), as well as Soviet participation in the United Nations. Churchill pressed for free elections and democratic governments in Central and Eastern Europe, specifically Poland. Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of political influence in Eastern and Central Europe as an essential aspect of the Soviets' national security strategy, and his position at the conference was felt by him to be so strong that he could dictate terms. According to US delegation member and future Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, "it was not a question of what we would let the Russians do, but what we could get the Russians to do".

Poland was the first item on the Soviet agenda. Stalin stated, "For the Soviet government, the question of Poland was one of honor" and security because Poland had served as a historical corridor for forces attempting to invade Russia. In addition, Stalin stated regarding history that "because the Russians had greatly sinned against Poland", "the Soviet government was trying to atone for those sins". Stalin concluded that "Poland must be strong" and that "the Soviet Union is interested in the creation of a mighty, free and independent Poland". Accordingly, Stalin stipulated that Polish government-in-exile demands were not negotiable, and the Soviets would keep the territory of eastern Poland that they had annexed in 1939, with Poland to be compensated for that by extending its western borders at the expense of Germany. Contradicting his prior stated position, Stalin promised free elections in Poland despite the existence of a Soviet sponsored provisional government that had recently been installed by him in the Polish territories occupied by the Red Army.

Roosevelt wanted the Soviets to enter the Pacific War against Japan with the Allies, which he hoped would end the war sooner and reduce American casualties.

One Soviet precondition for a declaration of war against Japan was an American official recognition of the Mongolian independence from China (the Mongolian People's Republic had been a Soviet satellite state from 1924 to World War II). The Soviets also wanted the recognition of Soviet interests in the Chinese Eastern Railway and Port Arthur but not asking the Chinese to lease. Those conditions were agreed to without Chinese participation.

The Soviets wanted the return of South Sakhalin, which had been taken from Russia by Japan in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, and the cession of Kuril Islands by Japan, both of which were approved by Truman. In return, Stalin pledged that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany. Later, at Potsdam, Stalin promised Truman to respect the national unity of Korea, which would be partly occupied by Soviet troops.

The fate of Korea is not mentioned on the records of demands and concessions at Yalta. However, several declassified documents later revealed that on 8 February, while Churchill was not present, Roosevelt and Stalin secretly discussed the peninsula. Roosevelt brought up the idea of putting Korea into a trusteeship divided among the Soviets, the Americans, and the Chinese for a period of 20 to 30 years. He expressed reluctance to invite the British to the trusteeship, but Stalin reportedly replied that the British "would most certainly be offended. In fact, the Prime Minister might 'kill us'". Roosevelt agreed with the assessment. Stalin suggested the trusteeship be as short as possible. The two quickly agreed that their troops should not be stationed in Korea. Korea was not discussed again throughout the conference.

A Big Three meeting room

Furthermore, the Soviets agreed to join the United Nations because of a secret understanding of a voting formula with a veto power for permanent members of the Security Council, which ensured that each country could block unwanted decisions.

The Soviet Army had occupied Poland completely and held much of Eastern Europe with a military power three times greater than Allied forces in the West. The Declaration of Liberated Europe did little to dispel the sphere of influence agreements, which had been incorporated into armistice agreements.

All three leaders ratified the agreement of the European Advisory Commission setting the boundaries of postwar occupation zones for Germany with three zones of occupation, one for each of the three principal Allies. They also agreed to give France a zone of occupation carved out of the US and UK zones, but De Gaulle maintained the principle of refusing to accept that the French zone would be defined by boundaries established in his absence. He thus ordered French forces to occupy Stuttgart in addition to the lands earlier agreed upon as comprising the French occupation zone. He only withdrew when threatened with the suspension of essential American economic supplies. Churchill at Yalta then argued that the French also needed to be a full member of the proposed Allied Control Council for Germany. Stalin resisted that until Roosevelt backed Churchill's position, but Stalin still remained adamant that the French should not be admitted to full membership of the Allied Reparations Commission to be established in Moscow and relented only at the Potsdam Conference.

Also, the Big Three agreed that all original governments would be restored to the invaded countries, with the exceptions of Romania and Bulgaria, and Poland, whose government-in-exile was also excluded by Stalin, and that all of their civilians would be repatriated.

Leaders of the Big Three at the negotiating table at the Yalta conference

The Declaration of Liberated Europe was created by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin during the Yalta Conference. It was a promise that allowed the people of Europe "to create democratic institutions of their own choice". The declaration pledged that "the earliest possible establishment through free elections governments responsive to the will of the people". That is similar to the statements of the Atlantic Charter for "the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live".

The key points of the meeting were as follows:

Agreement to the priority of the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. After the war, Germany and Berlin would be split into four occupied zones.

Stalin agreed that France would have a fourth occupation zone in Germany if it was formed from the American and the British zones.

Germany would undergo demilitarization and denazification. At the Yalta Conference, the Allies decided to provide safeguards against a potential military revival of Germany, to eradicate German militarism and the Nazi general staff, to bring about the denazification of Germany, to punish the war criminals and to disarm and demilitarise Germany.

German war reparations were partly to be in the form of forced labor. The forced labour was to be used to repair damage that Germany had inflicted on its victims. However, laborers were also forced to harvest crops, mine uranium, and do other work (see also Forced labor of Germans after World War II and Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union).

Creation of a reparation council which would be located in the Soviet Union.

The status of Poland was discussed. The recognition of the communist Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland, which had been installed by the Soviet Union "on a broader democratic basis", was agreed to.

The Polish eastern border would follow the Curzon Line, and Poland would receive territorial compensation in the west from Germany.

Stalin pledged to permit free elections in Poland.

Roosevelt obtained a commitment by Stalin to participate in the United Nations.

Stalin requested that all of the 16 Soviet Socialist Republics would be granted UN membership. That was taken into consideration, but 14 republics were denied. Truman agreed to membership for Ukraine and Byelorussia while reserving the right, which was never exercised, to seek two more votes for the United States.

Stalin agreed to enter the fight against the Empire of Japan "in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated". As a result, the Soviets would take possession of Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, the port of Dalian would be internationalized, and the Soviet lease of Port Arthur would be restored, among other concessions.

For the bombing of Japan, agreement was reached on basing U.S. Army Air Force B-29s near the mouth of the Amur River in the Komsomolsk-Nikolaevsk area (not near Vladivostok, as had earlier been proposed), but that did not eventuate. General Aleksei Antonov also said that the Red Army would take the southern half of Sakhalin Island as one of its first objectives and that American assistance to defend Kamchatka would be desirable.

Nazi war criminals were to be found and put on trial in the territories in which their crimes had been committed. Nazi leaders were to be executed.

A "Committee on Dismemberment of Germany" was to be set up. Its purpose was to decide whether Germany was to be divided into several nations. Some examples of partition plans are shown below:

The Big Three further agreed that democracies would be established, all liberated European and former Axis satellite countries would hold free elections and that order would be restored. In that regard, they promised to rebuild occupied countries by processes that will allow them "to create democratic institutions of their own choice. This is a principle of the Atlantic Charter - the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live." The resulting report stated that the three would assist occupied countries to form interim government that "pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of the Governments responsive to the will of the people" and to "facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections".

The agreement called on signatories to "consult together on the measures necessary to discharge the joint responsibilities set forth in this declaration". During the Yalta discussions, Molotov inserted language that weakened the implication of enforcement of the declaration.

Regarding Poland, the Yalta report further stated that the provisional government should "be pledged to the holding of free and unfettered elections as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot". The agreement could not conceal the importance of acceding to the pro-Soviet short-term Lublin government control and of eliminating language that called for supervised elections.

According to Roosevelt, "if we attempt to evade the fact that we placed somewhat more emphasis on the Lublin Poles than on the other two groups from which the new government is to be drawn I feel we will expose ourselves to the charges that we are attempting to go back on the Crimea decision". Roosevelt conceded that, in the words of Admiral William D. Leahy, the language of Yalta was so vague that the Soviets could "stretch it all the way from Yalta to Washington without ever technically breaking it".

The final agreement stipulated that "the Provisional Government which is now functioning in Poland should therefore be reorganized on a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland and from Poles abroad". The language of Yalta conceded predominance of the pro-Soviet Lublin government in a provisional government but a reorganized one.

Allied-occupied territories (red) on 15 February 1945, four days after the end of the conference

Poland's old and new borders, 1945 - Kresy in light red

Because of Stalin's promises, Churchill believed that he would keep his word regarding Poland and remarked, "Poor Neville Chamberlain believed he could trust Hitler. He was wrong. But I don't think I am wrong about Stalin."

Churchill defended his actions at Yalta in a three-day parliamentary debate starting on February 27, which ended in a vote of confidence. During the debate, many MPs criticised Churchill and expressed deep reservations about Yalta and support for Poland, with 25 drafting an amendment protesting the agreement.

After the Second World War ended, a communist government was installed in Poland. Many Poles felt betrayed by their wartime allies. Many Polish soldiers refused to return to Poland because of the Soviet repressions of Polish citizens (1939-1946), the Trial of the Sixteen and other executions of pro-Western Poles, particularly the former members of the AK ( Armia Krajowa). The result was the Polish Resettlement Act 1947, Britain's first mass immigration law.

On March 1, 1945, Roosevelt assured Congress, "I come from the Crimea with a firm belief that we have made a start on the road to a world of peace". However, the Western Powers soon realized that Stalin would not honour his promise of free elections for Poland. After receiving considerable criticism in London following Yalta regarding the atrocities committed in Poland by Soviet troops, Churchill wrote Roosevelt a desperate letter referencing the wholesale deportations and liquidations of opposition Poles by the Soviets. On March 11, Roosevelt responded to Churchill: "I most certainly agree that we must stand firm on a correct interpretation of the Crimean decision. You are quite correct in assuming that neither the Government nor the people of this country will support participation in a fraud or a mere whitewash of the Lublin government and the solution must be as we envisaged it in Yalta."

By March 21, Roosevelt's Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Averell Harriman, cabled Roosevelt that "we must come clearly to realize that the Soviet program is the establishment of totalitarianism, ending personal liberty and democracy as we know it". Two days later, Roosevelt began to admit that his view of Stalin had been excessively optimistic and that "Averell is right."

Four days later, on March 27, the Soviet People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs ( NKVD) arrested 16 Polish opposition political leaders who had been invited to participate in provisional government negotiations. The arrests were part of a trick employed by the NKVD, which flew the leaders to Moscow for a later show trial, followed by sentencing to a gulag. Churchill thereafter argued to Roosevelt that it was "as plain as a pike staff" that Moscow's tactics were to drag out the period for holding free elections "while the Lublin Committee consolidate their power". The Polish elections, held on January 16, 1947, resulted in Poland's official transformation to a communist state by 1949.

Following Yalta, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov expressed worry that the Yalta Agreement's wording might impede Stalin's plans, Stalin responded, "Never mind. We'll do it our own way later." The Soviet Union had already annexed several occupied countries as (or into) Soviet Socialist Republics, and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe were occupied and converted into Soviet-controlled satellite states, such as the People's Republic of Poland, the People's Republic of Hungary, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the People's Republic of Romania, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, the People's Republic of Albania, and later East Germany from the Soviet zone of German occupation. Eventually, the United States and the United Kingdom made concessions in recognizing the communist-dominated regions by sacrificing the substance of the Yalta Declaration although it remained in form.

Aborted enforcement plans

At some point in spring 1945, Churchill had commissioned a contingency military enforcement operation plan for war on the Soviet Union to obtain "square deal for Poland" ( Operation Unthinkable), which resulted in a May 22 report that stated unfavorable success odds. The report's arguments included geostrategic issues (a possible Soviet-Japanese alliance resulting in moving of Japanese troops from the Asian Continent to Home Islands, threat to Iran and Iraq) and uncertainties concerning land battles in Europe.

The Potsdam Conference was held from July to August 1945, which included the participation of Clement Attlee, who had replaced Churchill as prime minister and President Harry S Truman (representing the United States after Roosevelt's death). At Potsdam, the Soviets denied claims that they were interfering in the affairs of Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. The conference resulted in the Potsdam Declaration, regarding the surrender of Japan, and the Potsdam Agreement, regarding the Soviet annexation of former Polish territory east of the Curzon Line, provisions to be addressed in an eventual Final Treaty ending World War II, and the annexation of parts of Germany east of the Oder-Neisse line into Poland and of northern East Prussia into the Soviet Union.

From left to right: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin. Also present are Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (far left); Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, RN, Marshal of the RAF Sir Charles Portal, RAF, (standing behind Churchill); General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, USN (standing behind Roosevelt).

Butler, Susan. Roosevelt and Stalin (Knopf, 2015)

Clemens, Diane Shaver. Yalta (Oxford University Press). 1972

Dobbs, Michael. Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War (Vintage, 2013).

Gardner, Lloyd C. Spheres of influence : the great powers partition Europe, from Munich to Yalta (1993) online free to borrow

Harbutt, Fraser J. Yalta 1945: Europe and America at the Crossroads (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Haglund, David G. "Yalta: The Price of Peace." Presidential Studies Quarterly 42#2 (2012), p. 419+. online

Hamilton, Nigel. War and Peace: FDR's Final Odyssey D-Day to Yalta, 1943-1945 (2019).

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The Yalta Conference, held 4-11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three states were represented by President Franklin D.

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NOTE TO READERS
"Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations" has been retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice.

With the Truman Doctrine, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. The Truman Doctrine effectively reoriented U.S. foreign policy, away from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional conflicts not directly involving the United States, to one of possible intervention in far away conflicts.

The Truman Doctrine arose from a speech delivered by President Truman before a joint session of Congress on . The immediate cause for the speech was a recent announcement by the British Government that, as of March 31, it would no longer provide military and economic assistance to the Greek Government in its civil war against the Greek Communist Party. Truman asked Congress to support the Greek Government against the Communists. He also asked Congress to provide assistance for Turkey, since that nation, too, had previously been dependent on British aid.

At the time, the U.S. Government believed that the Soviet Union supported the Greek Communist war effort and worried that if the Communists prevailed in the Greek civil war, the Soviets would ultimately influence Greek policy. In fact, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had deliberately refrained from providing any support to the Greek Communists and had forced Yugoslav Prime Minister Josip Tito to follow suit, much to the detriment of Soviet-Yugoslav relations. However, a number of other foreign policy problems also influenced President Truman's decision to actively aid Greece and Turkey. In 1946, four setbacks, in particular, had served to effectively torpedo any chance of achieving a durable post-war rapprochement with the Soviet Union: the Soviets' failure to withdraw their troops from northern Iran in early 1946 (as per the terms of the Tehran Declaration of 1943); Soviet attempts to pressure the Iranian Government into granting them oil concessions while supposedly fomenting irredentism by Azerbaijani separatists in northern Iran; Soviet efforts to force the Turkish Government into granting them base and transit rights through the Turkish Straits; and, the Soviet Government's rejection of the Baruch plan for international control over nuclear energy and weapons in June 1946.

In light of the deteriorating relationship with the Soviet Union and the appearance of Soviet meddling in Greek and Turkish affairs, the withdrawal of British assistance to Greece provided the necessary catalyst for the Truman Administration to reorient American foreign policy. Accordingly, in his speech, President Truman requested that Congress provide $400,000,000 worth of aid to both the Greek and Turkish Governments and support the dispatch of American civilian and military personnel and equipment to the region.

Truman justified his request on two grounds. He argued that a Communist victory in the Greek Civil War would endanger the political stability of Turkey, which would undermine the political stability of the Middle East. This could not be allowed in light of the region's immense strategic importance to U.S. national security. Truman also argued that the United States was compelled to assist "free peoples" in their struggles against "totalitarian regimes," because the spread of authoritarianism would "undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States." In the words of the Truman Doctrine, it became "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

Truman argued that the United States could no longer stand by and allow the forcible expansion of Soviet totalitarianism into free, independent nations, because American national security now depended upon more than just the physical security of American territory. Rather, in a sharp break with its traditional avoidance of extensive foreign commitments beyond the Western Hemisphere during peacetime, the Truman Doctrine committed the United States to actively offering assistance to preserve the political integrity of democratic nations when such an offer was deemed to be in the best interest of the United States.

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Milestones: 1945-1952 - Office of the Historian

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Long title

An act to promote world peace and the general welfare, national interest, and foreign policy of the United States through economic, financial, and other measures necessary to the maintenance of conditions abroad in which free institutions may survive and consistent with the maintenance of the strength and stability of the United States.

Enacted by

the 80th United States Congress

Effective

April 3, 1948

Public law
80-472

Statutes at Large

62 Stat. 137

Introduced in the Senate as S. 2202

Passed the Senate on March 13, 1948 (71-19)

Passed the House on March 31, 1948 (333-78)

Reported by the joint conference committee on April 1, 1948; agreed to by the House on April 2, 1948 (321-78) and by the Senate on April 2, 1948 (agreed)

Signed into law by President Harry S. Truman on April 3, 1948

General George C. Marshall, the 50th U.S. Secretary of State

The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred $13.3 billion (equivalent to $173 billion in 2023) in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World War II. Replacing an earlier proposal for a Morgenthau Plan, it operated for four years beginning on April 3, 1948, though in 1951, the Marshall Plan was largely replaced by the Mutual Security Act. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-torn regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity and prevent the spread of communism. The Marshall Plan proposed the reduction of interstate barriers and the economic integration of the European Continent while also encouraging an increase in productivity as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.

The Marshall Plan aid was divided among the participant states roughly on a per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for the general European revival. Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed toward the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The largest recipient of Marshall Plan money was the United Kingdom (receiving about 26% of the total). The next highest contributions went to France (18%) and West Germany (11%). Some eighteen European countries received Plan benefits. Although offered participation, the Soviet Union refused Plan benefits and also blocked benefits to Eastern Bloc countries, such as Romania and Poland. The United States provided similar aid programs in Asia, but they were not part of the Marshall Plan.

Its role in rapid recovery has been debated. The Marshall Plan's accounting reflects that aid accounted for about 3% of the combined national income of the recipient countries between 1948 and 1951, which means an increase in GDP growth of less than half a percent.

Graham T. Allison states that "the Marshall Plan has become a favorite analogy for policy-makers. Yet few know much about it." Some new studies highlight not only the role of economic cooperation but approach the Marshall Plan as a case concerning strategic thinking to face some typical challenges in policy, as problem definition, risk analysis, decision support to policy formulation, and program implementation.

In 1947, two years after the end of the war, industrialist Lewis H. Brown wrote, at the request of General Lucius D. Clay, A Report on Germany, which served as a detailed recommendation for the reconstruction of post-war Germany and served as a basis for the Marshall Plan. The initiative was named after United States Secretary of State George C. Marshall. The plan had bipartisan support in Washington, where the Republicans controlled Congress and the Democrats controlled the White House with Harry S. Truman as president. Some businessmen feared the Marshall Plan, unsure whether reconstructing European economies and encouraging foreign competition was in the US' best interests. The plan was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan, with help from the Brookings Institution, as requested by Senator Arthur Vandenberg, chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Marshall spoke of an urgent need to help the European recovery in his address at Harvard University in June 1947. The purpose of the Marshall Plan was to aid in the economic recovery of nations after World War II and secure US geopolitical influence over Western Europe. To combat the effects of the Marshall Plan, the USSR developed its own economic recovery program, known as the Molotov Plan. However, the plan was said to have not worked as well due to the USSR particularly having been hit hard by the effects of World War II.

The phrase "equivalent of the Marshall Plan" is often used to describe a proposed large-scale economic rescue program.

The reconstruction plan, developed at a meeting of the participating European states, was drafted on June 5, 1947. It offered the same aid to the Soviet Union and its allies, but they refused to accept it, under Soviet pressure (as was the case for Finland's rejection) as doing so would allow a degree of US control over the communist economies. Secretary Marshall became convinced Stalin had no interest in helping restore economic health in Western Europe.

European Recovery Program expenditures by country. The Eastern Bloc is not included.

President Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan on April 3, 1948, granting $5 billion in aid to 16 European nations. During the four years that the plan was in effect, the United States donated $17 billion (equivalent to $240.95 billion in 2023) in economic and technical assistance to help the recovery of the European countries that joined the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. The $17 billion was in the context of a US GDP of $258 billion in 1948, and on top of $17 billion in American aid to Europe between the end of the war and the start of the plan that is counted separately from the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was replaced by the Mutual Security Plan at the end of 1951; that new plan gave away about $7.5 billion annually until 1961 when it was replaced by another program.

The ERP addressed each of the obstacles to postwar recovery. The plan looked to the future and did not focus on the destruction caused by the war. Much more important were efforts to modernize European industrial and business practices using high-efficiency American models, reducing artificial trade barriers, and instilling a sense of hope and self-reliance.

By 1952, as the funding ended, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels; for all Marshall Plan recipients, output in 1951 was at least 35% higher than in 1938. Over the next two decades, Western Europe enjoyed unprecedented growth and prosperity, but economists are not sure what proportion was due directly to the ERP, what proportion indirectly, and how much would have happened without it. A common American interpretation of the program's role in European recovery was expressed by Paul Hoffman, head of the Economic Cooperation Administration, in 1949 when he told Congress Marshall aid had provided the "critical margin" on which other investment needed for European recovery depended. The Marshall Plan was one of the first elements of European integration, as it erased trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a continental level-that is, it stimulated the total political reconstruction of Western Europe.

Belgian economic historian Herman Van der Wee concludes the Marshall Plan was a "great success":

It gave a new impetus to reconstruction in Western Europe and made a decisive contribution to the renewal of the transport system, the modernization of industrial and agricultural equipment, the resumption of normal production, the raising of productivity, and the facilitating of intra-European trade.

By the end of World War II, much of Europe was devastated. Sustained aerial bombardment during the war had badly damaged most major cities, and industrial facilities were especially hard-hit. Millions of refugees were in temporary camps. The region's trade flows had been thoroughly disrupted; millions were in refugee camps living on aid from the United States, which was provided by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and other agencies. Food shortages were severe, especially in the harsh winter of 1946-47. From July 1945 through June 1946, the United States shipped 16.5 million tons of food, primarily wheat, to Europe and Japan. It amounted to one-sixth of the American food supply and provided 35 trillion calories, enough to provide 400 calories a day for one year to 300 million people.

Especially damaged was transportation infrastructure, as railways, bridges, and docks had been specifically targeted by airstrikes, while much merchant shipping had been sunk. Although most small towns and villages had not suffered as much damage, the destruction of transportation left them economically isolated. None of these problems could be easily remedied, as most nations engaged in the war had exhausted their treasuries in the process.

The only major powers whose infrastructure had not been significantly harmed in World War II were the United States and Canada. They were much more prosperous than before the war, but exports were a small factor in their economy. Much of the Marshall Plan aid would be used by the Europeans to buy manufactured goods and raw materials from the United States and Canada.

Most of Europe's economies were recovering slowly, as unemployment and food shortages led to strikes and unrest in several nations. Agricultural production was 83% of 1938 levels, industrial production was 88%, and exports 59%. Exceptions were the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France, whereby the end of 1947 production had already been restored to pre-war levels before the Marshall Plan. Italy and Belgium would follow by the end of 1948. In Germany in 1945-46 housing and food conditions were bad, as the disruption of transport, markets, and finances slowed a return to normality. In the West, the bombing had destroyed 5,000,000 houses and apartments, and 12,000,000 refugees from the east had crowded in.

Food production was two-thirds of the pre-war level in 1946-48, while normal grain and meat shipments no longer arrived from the East. The drop in food production can be attributed to a drought that killed a major portion of the wheat crop while a severe winter destroyed the majority of the wheat crop the following year. This caused most Europeans to rely on a 1,500 calorie per day diet. Furthermore, the large shipments of food stolen from occupied nations during the war no longer reached Germany. Industrial production fell more than half and reached pre-war levels at the end of 1949. While Germany struggled to recover from the destruction of the War, the recovery effort began in June 1948, moving on from emergency relief. The currency reform in 1948 was headed by the military government and helped Germany to restore stability by encouraging production. The reform revalued old currency and deposits and introduced a new currency. Taxes were also reduced and Germany prepared to remove economic barriers.

During the first three years of occupation of Germany, the Allied occupational authorities vigorously pursued a military disarmament program in Germany, partly by removal of equipment but mainly through an import embargo on raw materials, part of the Morgenthau Plan approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Historian Nicholas Balabkins concluded that "as long as German industrial capacity was kept idle the economic recovery of Europe was delayed." By July 1947, Washington realized that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base, deciding that an "orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany." In addition, the strength of Moscow-controlled communist parties in France and Italy worried Washington.

In the view of the State Department under President Harry S Truman, the United States needed to adopt a definite position on the world scene or fear losing credibility. The emerging doctrine of containment (as opposed to rollback) argued that the United States needed to substantially aid non-communist countries to stop the spread of Soviet influence. There was also some hope that the Eastern Bloc nations would join the plan, and thus be pulled out of the emerging Soviet bloc, but that did not happen.[citation needed ]

The hunger-winter of 1947, thousands protest in West Germany against the disastrous food situation (March 31, 1947). The sign says: We want coal, we want bread

Need to rebuild Germany

In January 1947, Truman appointed retired General George Marshall as Secretary of State. In July 1947 Marshall scrapped Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067, which was based on the Morgenthau Plan which had decreed "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany [or] designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy." The new plan JCS 1779 stated that "an orderly and prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany." The restrictions placed on German heavy industry production were partly ameliorated; permitted steel production levels were raised from 25% of pre-war capacity to a new limit placed at 50% of pre-war capacity.

With a communist, although non-Soviet, insurgency threatening Greece, and Britain financially unable to continue its aid, the President announced his Truman Doctrine on March 12, 1947, "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures", with an aid request for consideration and decision, concerning Greece and Turkey. Herbert Hoover noted that "The whole economy of Europe is interlinked with the German economy through the exchange of raw materials and manufactured goods. The productivity of Europe cannot be restored without the restoration of Germany as a contributor to that productivity." Hoover's report led to a realization in Washington that a new policy was needed; "almost any action would be an improvement on current policy." In Washington, the Joint Chiefs declared that the "complete revival of German industry, particularly coal mining" was now of "primary importance" to American security.

The United States was already spending a great deal to help Europe recover. Over $14 billion was spent or loaned during the postwar period through the end of 1947 and is not counted as part of the Marshall Plan. Much of this aid was designed to restore infrastructure and help refugees. Britain, for example, received an emergency loan of $3.75 billion.

The United Nations also launched a series of humanitarian and relief efforts almost wholly funded by the United States. These efforts had important effects, but they lacked any central organization and planning, and failed to meet many of Europe's more fundamental needs. Already in 1943, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was founded to provide relief to areas liberated from Germany. UNRRA provided billions of dollars of rehabilitation aid and helped about 8 million refugees. It ceased the operation of displaced persons camps in Europe in 1947; many of its functions were transferred to several UN agencies.

After Marshall's appointment in January 1947, administration officials met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and others to press for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets in their occupied zone. Molotov refrained from supplying accounts of Soviet assets.[citation needed ] The Soviets took a punitive approach, pressing for a delay rather than an acceleration in economic rehabilitation, demanding unconditional fulfillment of all prior reparation claims, and pressing for progress toward nationwide socioeconomic transformation.

Marshall's speech

After the adjournment of the Moscow conference following six weeks of failed discussions with the Soviets regarding a potential German reconstruction, the United States concluded that a solution could not wait any longer. To clarify the American position, a major address by Secretary of State George Marshall was planned. Marshall gave the address at Harvard University on June 5, 1947. He offered American aid to promote European recovery and reconstruction. The speech described the dysfunction of the European economy and presented a rationale for US aid:

The modern system of the division of labor upon which the exchange of products is based is in danger of breaking down. ... Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned, the consequences to the economy of the United States should be apparent to all. It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health to the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is not directed against any country, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Any government that is willing to assist in recovery will find full co-operation on the part of the United States. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.

Marshall was convinced that economic stability would provide political stability in Europe. He offered aid, but the European countries had to organize the program themselves.

The speech, written at Marshall's request and guidance by Charles Bohlen contained virtually no details and no numbers. More a proposal than a plan, it was a challenge to European leaders to cooperate and coordinate. It asked Europeans to create their own plan for rebuilding Europe, indicating the United States would then fund this plan. The administration felt that the plan would likely be unpopular among many Americans, and the speech was mainly directed at a European audience. In an attempt to keep the speech out of American papers, journalists were not contacted, and on the same day, Truman called a press conference to take away headlines. In contrast, Dean Acheson, an Under Secretary of State, was dispatched to contact the European media, especially the British media, and the speech was read in its entirety on the BBC.

In the audience at Harvard was International Law and Diplomacy graduate student Malcolm Crawford, who had just written his Master's thesis entitled "A Blueprint for the Financing of Post-War Business and Industry in the United Kingdom and Republic of France." Crawford's thesis was read by future Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas and presented to President Truman as the solution for Marshall's proposal. It was Crawford's thesis which provided the key to selling the Marshall Plan to Congress by laying out the idea of "strategic partnerships." Instead of the Federal government granting money directly to Europe, American businesses would provide technology, expertise, and materials to Europe as a strategic partner, and in exchange, the Federal government would purchase stock in the US businesses to reimburse them. In this way, Europe would receive the aid it needed, American businesses would receive capital investment, and the federal government would make a profit when the stock was sold.

British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin heard Marshall's radio broadcast speech and immediately contacted French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault to begin preparing a quick European response to (and acceptance of) the offer, which led to the creation of the Committee of European Economic Co-operation. The two agreed that it would be necessary to invite the Soviets as the other major allied power. Marshall's speech had explicitly included an invitation to the Soviets, feeling that excluding them would have been a sign of distrust. State Department officials, however, knew that Stalin would almost certainly not participate and that any plan that would send large amounts of aid to the Soviets was unlikely to get Congressional approval.

Speaking at the Paris Peace Conference on October 10, 1946, Molotov had already stated Soviet fears: "If American capital was given a free hand in the small states ruined and enfeebled by the war [it] would buy up the local industries, appropriate the more attractive Romanian, Yugoslav ... enterprises and would become the master in these small states." While the Soviet ambassador in Washington suspected that the Marshall Plan could lead to the creation of an anti-Soviet bloc, Stalin was open to the offer. He directed that-in negotiations to be held in Paris regarding the aid-countries in the Eastern Bloc should not reject economic conditions being placed upon them. Stalin only changed his outlook when he learned that (a) credit would only be extended under conditions of economic cooperation, and (b) aid would also be extended to Germany in total, an eventuality which Stalin thought would hamper the Soviets' ability to exercise influence in western Germany.[clarification needed ]

Initially, Stalin maneuvered to kill the plan, or at least hamper it using destructive participation in the Paris talks regarding conditions. He quickly realized, however, that this would be impossible after Molotov reported-following his arrival in Paris in July 1947-that conditions for the credit were non-negotiable. Looming as just as large a concern was the Czechoslovak eagerness to accept the aid, as well as indications of a similar Polish attitude.

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov left Paris, rejecting the plan. After that, statements were made suggesting a future confrontation with the West, calling the United States both a "fascizing" power and the "center of worldwide reaction and anti-Soviet activity", with all U.S.-aligned countries branded as enemies. The Soviets blamed the United States for communist losses in elections in Belgium, France, and Italy months earlier, in the spring of 1947. It claimed that "marshallization" must be resisted and prevented by any means and that French and Italian communist parties were to make maximum efforts to sabotage the implementation of the plan. In addition, Western embassies in Moscow were isolated, with their personnel being denied contact with Soviet officials.

On July 12, a larger meeting was convened in Paris. Every country in Europe was invited, with the exceptions of Spain (a World War II neutral that had sympathized with the Axis powers) and the small states of Andorra, San Marino, Monaco, and Liechtenstein. The Soviet Union was invited with the understanding that it would likely refuse. The states of the future Eastern Bloc were also approached, and Czechoslovakia and Poland agreed to attend. In one of the most evident signs and reflections of tight Soviet control and domination over the region, Jan Masaryk, the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, was summoned to Moscow and berated by Stalin for considering Czechoslovakia's possible involvement with and joining of the Marshall Plan. The prime minister of Poland, Józef Cyrankiewicz, was rewarded by Stalin for his country's rejection of the plan which came in the form of the Soviet Union's offer of a lucrative trade agreement lasting for five years, a grant amounting to the approximate equivalent of $450 million (in 1948; the sum would have been $4.4 billion in 2014 ) in the form of long-term credit and loans and the provision of 200,000 tonnes of grain, heavy and manufacturing machinery and factories and heavy industries to Poland.

The Marshall Plan participants were not surprised when the Czechoslovakian and Polish delegations were prevented from attending the Paris meeting. The other Eastern Bloc states immediately rejected the offer. Finland also declined, to avoid antagonizing the Soviets (see also Finlandization). The Soviet Union's "alternative" to the Marshall plan which was purported to involve Soviet subsidies and trade with western Europe, became known as the Molotov Plan, and later, the Comecon. In a 1947 speech to the United Nations, Soviet deputy foreign minister Andrei Vyshinsky said that the Marshall Plan violated the principles of the United Nations. He accused the United States of attempting to impose its will on other independent states while at the same time using economic resources distributed as a relief to needy nations as an instrument of political pressure.

Szklarska Poręba meeting

In late September, the Soviet Union called a meeting of nine European communist parties at the resort town of Szklarska Poręba in southwest Poland. A Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) report was read at the outset to set the heavily anti-Western tone, stating now that "international politics is dominated by the ruling clique of the American imperialists" which have embarked upon the "enslavement of the weakened capitalist countries of Europe".Communist parties were to struggle against the US presence in Europe by any means necessary, including sabotage. The report further claimed that "reactionary imperialist elements throughout the world, particularly in the United States, in Britain and France, had put particular hope on Germany and Japan, primarily on Hitlerite Germany-first as a force most capable of striking a blow at the Soviet Union".

Party rules prevented Italian and French communist leaders from pointing out that it was Stalin who had directed them not to take opposition stances in 1944. The French communist party, like others, was then to redirect its mission to "destroy capitalist economy" and that the Soviet Communist Information Bureau ( Cominform) would take control of the French Communist Party's activities to oppose the Marshall Plan. When they asked Zhdanov if they should prepare for armed revolt when they returned home, he did not answer. In a follow-up conversation with Stalin, he explained that an armed struggle would be impossible and that the struggle against the Marshall Plan was to be waged under the slogan of national independence.

Congress, under the control of conservative Republicans, agreed to the program for multiple reasons. The 20-member conservative isolationist Senate wing of the party, based in the rural Midwest and led by Senator Kenneth S. Wherry (R-Nebraska), was outmaneuvered by the emerging internationalist wing, led by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-Michigan). The opposition argued that it made no sense to oppose communism by supporting the socialist governments in Western Europe; and that American goods would reach Russia and increase its war potential. They called it "a wasteful 'operation rat-hole'" Vandenberg, assisted by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (R-Massachusetts) admitted there was no certainty that the plan would succeed, but said it would halt economic chaos, sustain Western civilization, and stop further Soviet expansion. Senator Robert A. Taft (R-Ohio) hedged on the issue. He said it was without economic justification; however, it was "absolutely necessary" in "the world battle against communism." In the end, only 17 senators voted against it on March 13, 1948 A bill granting an initial $5 billion passed Congress with strong bipartisan support. Congress eventually allocated $12.4 billion in aid over the four years of the plan.

Congress reflected public opinion, which resonated with the ideological argument that communism flourishes in poverty. Across America, multiple interest groups, including business, labor, farming, philanthropy, ethnic groups, and religious groups, saw the Marshall Plan as an inexpensive solution to a massive problem, noting it would also help American exports and stimulate the American economy as well. Major newspapers were highly supportive, including such conservative outlets as Time magazine. Vandenberg made sure of bipartisan support on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Solid Democratic South was highly supportive, the upper Midwest was dubious, but heavily outnumbered. The plan was opposed by conservatives in the rural Midwest, who opposed any major government spending program and were highly suspicious of Europeans. The plan also had some opponents on the left, led by Henry A. Wallace, the former vice president. He said the plan was hostile to the Soviet Union, a subsidy for American exporters, and sure to polarize the world between East and West. However, opposition against the Marshall Plan was greatly reduced by the shock of the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948. The appointment of the prominent businessman Paul G. Hoffman as director reassured conservative businessmen that the gigantic sums of money would be handled efficiently.

Turning the plan into reality required negotiations among the participating nations. Sixteen nations met in Paris to determine what form the American aid would take, and how it would be divided. The negotiations were long and complex, with each nation having its own interests. France's major concern was that Germany not be rebuilt to its previous level of might. The Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), despite also suffering under the Nazis, had long been closely linked to the German economy and felt their prosperity depended on its revival. The Scandinavian nations, especially Sweden, insisted that their long-standing trading relationships with the Eastern Bloc nations not be disrupted and that their neutrality not be infringed.

The United Kingdom insisted on special status as a longstanding belligerent during the war, concerned that if it were treated equally with the devastated continental powers, it would receive virtually no aid. The Americans were pushing the importance of free trade and European unity to form a bulwark against communism. The Truman administration, represented by William L. Clayton, promised the Europeans that they would be free to structure the plan themselves, but the administration also reminded the Europeans that implementation depended on the plan's passage through Congress. A majority of Congress members were committed to free trade and European integration and were hesitant to spend too much of the money on Germany. However, before the Marshall Plan was in effect, France, Austria, and Italy needed immediate aid. On December 17, 1947, the United States agreed to give $40 million to France, Austria, China, and Italy.

Agreement was eventually reached, and the Europeans sent a reconstruction plan to Washington, which was formulated and agreed upon by the Committee of European Economic Co-operation in 1947. In the document, the Europeans asked for $22 billion in aid. Truman cut this to $17 billion in the bill he put to Congress. On March 17, 1948, Truman addressed European security and condemned the Soviet Union before a hastily convened Joint Session of Congress. Attempting to contain spreading Soviet influence in the Eastern Bloc, Truman asked Congress to restore a peacetime military draft and to swiftly pass the Economic Cooperation Act, the name given to the Marshall Plan. Of the Soviet Union Truman said, "The situation in the world today is not primarily the result of the natural difficulties which follow a great war. It is chiefly due to the fact that one nation has not only refused to cooperate in the establishment of a just and honorable peace but-even worse-has actively sought to prevent it.

Members of the Republican-controlled 80th Congress (1947-1949) were skeptical. "In effect, he told the Nation that we have lost the peace, that our whole war effort was in vain.", noted Representative Frederick Smith of Ohio. Others thought he had not been forceful enough to contain the USSR. "What [Truman] said fell short of being tough", noted Representative Eugene Cox, a Democrat from Georgia, "there is no prospect of ever winning Russian cooperation." Despite its reservations, the 80th Congress implemented Truman's requests, further escalating the Cold War with the USSR.

Truman signed the Economic Cooperation Act into law on April 3, 1948; the Act established the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) to administer the program. ECA was headed by economic cooperation administrator Paul G. Hoffman. In the same year, the participating countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, the United Kingdom, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States) signed an accord establishing a master financial-aid-coordinating agency, the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (later called the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or OECD), which was headed by Frenchman Robert Marjolin.[citation needed ]

According to Armin Grünbacher:

The U.S. government did not give money directly to the participating countries so that they could buy whatever they thought they needed. Instead the U.S. delivered the goods and provided services, mainly transatlantic shipping, to the participating governments, which then sold the commodities to businesses and individuals who had to pay the dollar value of the goods in local currency ("counterparts") into so-called ERP Special Accounts that were set up at the country's central bank. This way of operation held three advantages: the provision of U.S. goods to Europe without European dollar payments helped to narrow the dollar gap that strangled European reconstruction; the accumulated funds could be used for investments in long-term reconstruction (as happened in France and Germany) or for paying off a government's war debts (as in Great Britain); and the payments of the goods in local currencies helped to limit inflation by taking these funds temporarily out of circulation while they were held in the Special Accounts.

The ECA's official mission statement was to give a boost to the European economy: to promote European production, to bolster European currency, and to facilitate international trade, especially with the United States, whose economic interest required Europe to become wealthy enough to import US goods. Another unofficial goal of ECA (and of the Marshall Plan) was the containment of growing Soviet influence in Europe, evident especially in the growing strength of communist parties in France, and Italy.

The Marshall Plan money was transferred to the governments of the European nations. The funds were jointly administered by the local governments and the ECA. Each European capital had an ECA envoy, generally a prominent American businessman who would advise on the process. The cooperative allocation of funds was encouraged, and panels of government, business and labor leaders were convened to examine the economy and see where aid was needed. The recipient nations were represented collectively by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), headed by British statesman Oliver Franks.

The Marshall Plan aid was mostly used for goods from the United States. The European nations had all but exhausted their foreign-exchange reserves during the war, and the Marshall Plan aid represented almost their sole means of importing goods from abroad. At the start of the plan, these imports were mainly much-needed staples such as food and fuel, but later the purchases turned toward reconstruction needs as was originally intended. In the latter years, under pressure from the United States Congress and with the outbreak of the Korean War, an increasing amount of the aid was spent on rebuilding the militaries of Western Europe. Of the some $13 billion allotted by mid-1951, $3.4 billion had been spent on imports of raw materials and semi-manufactured products; $3.2 billion on food, feed, and fertilizer; $1.9 billion on machines, vehicles and equipment; and $1.6 billion on fuel.

The Netherlands received US aid for economic recovery in the Netherlands Indies. However, in January 1949, the American government suspended this aid in response to the Dutch efforts to restore colonial rule in Indonesia during the Indonesian National Revolution, and it implicitly threatened to suspend Marshall aid to the Netherlands if the Dutch government continued to oppose the independence of Indonesia.

At the time the United States was a significant oil producing nation-one of the goals of the Marshall Plan was for Europe to use oil in place of coal, but the Europeans wanted to buy crude oil and use the Marshall Plan funds to build refineries instead. However, when independent American oil companies complained, the ECA denied funds for European refinery construction.

A high priority was increasing industrial productivity in Europe, which proved one of the more successful aspects of the Marshall Plan. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) contributed heavily to the success of the Technical Assistance Program. The United States Congress passed a law on June 7, 1940, that allowed the BLS to "make continuing studies of labor productivity" and appropriated funds for the creation of a Productivity and Technological Development Division. The BLS could then use its expertise in the field of productive efficiency to implement a productivity drive in each Western European country receiving Marshall Plan aid. Counterpart funds were used to finance large-scale tours of American industry. France, for example, sent 500 missions with 4700 businessmen and experts to tour American factories, farms, stores, and offices. They were especially impressed with the prosperity of American workers, and how they could purchase an inexpensive new automobile for nine months work, compared to 30 months in France.

By implementing technological literature surveys and organized plant visits, American economists, statisticians, and engineers were able to educate European manufacturers in statistical measurement. The goal of the statistical and technical assistance from the Americans was to increase productive efficiency of European manufacturers in all industries.

To conduct this analysis, the BLS performed two types of productivity calculations. First, they used existing data to calculate how much a worker produces per hour of work-the average output rate. Second, they compared the existing output rates in a particular country to output rates in other nations. By performing these calculations across all industries, the BLS was able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each country's manufacturing and industrial production. From that, the BLS could recommend technologies (especially statistical) that each individual nation could implement. Often, these technologies came from the United States; by the time the Technical Assistance Program began, the United States used statistical technologies "more than a generation ahead of what [the Europeans] were using".

The BLS used these statistical technologies to create Factory Performance Reports for Western European nations. The American government sent hundreds of technical advisers to Europe to observe workers in the field. This on-site analysis made the Factory Performance Reports especially helpful to the manufacturers. In addition, the Technical Assistance Program funded 24,000 European engineers, leaders, and industrialists to visit America and tour America's factories, mines, and manufacturing plants. This way, the European visitors would be able to return to their home countries and implement the technologies used in the United States. The analyses in the Factory Performance Reports and the "hands-on" experience had by the European productivity teams effectively identified productivity deficiencies in European industries; from there, it became clearer how to make European production more effective.

Before the Technical Assistance Program even went into effect, United States Secretary of Labor Maurice Tobin expressed his confidence in American productivity and technology to both American and European economic leaders. He urged that the United States play a large role in improving European productive efficiency by providing four recommendations for the program's administrators:

1. That BLS productivity personnel should serve on American-European councils for productivity;

2. that productivity targets (based on American productivity standards) can and should be implemented to increase productivity;

3. that there should be a general exchange and publication of information; and

4. that the "technical abstract" service should be the central source of information.

The effects of the Technical Assistance Program were not limited to improvements in productive efficiency. While the thousands of European leaders took their work/study trips to the United States, they were able to observe a number of aspects of American society as well. The Europeans could watch local, state, and federal governments work together with citizens in a pluralist society. They observed a democratic society with open universities and civic societies in addition to more advanced factories and manufacturing plants. The Technical Assistance Program allowed Europeans to bring home many types of American ideas.

Another important aspect of the Technical Assistance Program was its low cost. While $19.4 billion was allocated for capital costs in the Marshall Plan, the Technical Assistance Program only required $300 million. Only one-third of that $300 million cost was paid by the United States.

In the aftermath of the war Britain faced a deep financial crisis, whereas the United States enjoyed an economic boom. The United States continued to finance the British treasury after the war. Much of this aid was designed to restore infrastructure and help refugees. Britain received an emergency loan of $3.75 billion in 1946; it was a 50-year loan with a low 2% interest rate. The Marshall Plan provided a more permanent solution as it gave $3.3 billion to Britain. The Marshall money was a gift and carried requirements that Britain balance its budget, control tariffs and maintain adequate currency reserves. The British Labour government under Prime Minister Clement Attlee was an enthusiastic participant.

The American goals for the Marshall plan were to help rebuild the postwar British economy, help modernize the economy, and minimize trade barriers. When the Soviet Union refused to participate or allow its satellites to participate, the Marshall plan became an element of the emerging Cold War.

There were political tensions between the two nations regarding Marshall plan requirements. London was dubious about Washington's emphasis on European economic integration as the solution to postwar recovery. Integration with Europe at this point would mean cutting close ties to the emerging Commonwealth. London tried to convince Washington that that American economic aid, especially to the sterling currency area, was necessary to solve the dollar shortage. British economists argued that their position was validated by 1950 as European industrial production exceeded prewar levels. Washington demanded convertibility of sterling currency on 15 July 1947, which produced a severe financial crisis for Britain. Convertibility was suspended on 20 August 1947. However, by 1950, American rearmament and heavy spending on the Korean War and Cold War finally ended the dollar shortage. The balance of payment problems the trouble the postwar government was caused less by economic decline and more by political overreach, according to Jim Tomlinson.

Marshall aid in general and the counterpart funds in particular had a significant impact in Cold-War propaganda and economic matters in Western Europe, which most likely contributed to the declining appeal of domestic communist parties.

The Marshall Plan aid was divided among the participant states on a roughly per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival. Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed toward the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. The exception was Iceland, which had been neutral during the war, but received far more on a per capita basis than the second highest recipient.

The table below shows Marshall Plan aid by country and year (in millions of dollars) from The Marshall Plan Fifty Years Later. There is no clear consensus on exact amounts, as different scholars differ on exactly what elements of American aid during this period were part of the Marshall Plan.

Country

1948/49
($ millions)

1949/50
($ millions)

1950/51
($ millions)

Cumulative
($ millions)

Belgium and Luxembourg

195

222

360

777

Italy and Trieste

594

405

205

1,204

Totals

4,924

3,652

4,155

12,731

The Marshall Plan, just as GARIOA, consisted of aid both in the form of grants and in the form of loans. Out of the total, US$1.2 billion were loan-aid.

Ireland which received US$146.2 million through the Marshall Plan, received US$128.2 million as loans, and the remaining US$18 million as grants. By 1969 the Irish Marshall Plan debt, which was still being repaid, amounted to 31 million pounds, out of a total Irish foreign debt of 50 million pounds. The UK received US$385 million of its Marshall Plan aid in the form of loans. Unconnected to the Marshall Plan the UK also received direct loans from the US amounting to US$4.6 billion. The proportion of Marshall Plan loans versus Marshall Plan grants was roughly 15% to 85% for both the UK and France.

Germany, which up until the 1953 debt agreement had to work on the assumption that all the Marshall Plan aid was to be repaid, spent its funds very carefully. Payment for Marshall Plan goods, "counterpart funds", were administered by the Reconstruction Credit Institute, which used the funds for loans inside Germany. In the 1953 debt agreement, the amount of Marshall Plan aid that Germany was to repay was reduced to less than US$1 billion. This made the proportion of loans versus grants to Germany similar to that of France and the UK. The final German loan repayment was made in 1971. Since Germany chose to repay the aid debt out of the German Federal budget, leaving the German ERP fund intact, the fund was able to continue its reconstruction work. By 1996 it had accumulated a value of 23 billion Deutsche Mark.

The Central Intelligence Agency received 5% of the Marshall Plan funds (about $685 million spread over six years), which it used to finance secret operations abroad. Through the Office of Policy Coordination money was directed toward support for labor unions, newspapers, student groups, artists and intellectuals, who were countering the anti-American counterparts subsidized by the communists. The largest sum went to the Congress for Cultural Freedom. There were no agents working among the Soviets or their satellite states. The founding conference of the Congress for Cultural Freedom was held in Berlin in June 1950. Among the leading intellectuals from the US and Western Europe were writers, philosophers, critics and historians: Franz Borkenau, Karl Jaspers, John Dewey, Ignazio Silone, James Burnham, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Bertrand Russell, Ernst Reuter, Raymond Aron, Alfred Ayer, Benedetto Croce, Arthur Koestler, Richard Löwenthal, Melvin J. Lasky, Tennessee Williams, Irving Brown, and Sidney Hook. There were conservatives among the participants, but non-communist (or former communist) leftists were more numerous.

One of the numerous posters created to promote the Marshall Plan in Europe. Note the pivotal position of the American flag. The blue and white flag between those of Germany and Italy is a version of the Trieste flag with the UN blue rather than the traditional red.

The Marshall Plan was originally scheduled to end in 1953. Any effort to extend it was halted by the growing cost of the Korean War and rearmament. American Republicans hostile to the plan had also gained seats in the 1950 Congressional elections, and conservative opposition to the plan was revived. Thus the plan ended in 1951, though various other forms of American aid to Europe continued afterward.

The years 1948 to 1952 saw the fastest period of growth in European history. Industrial production increased by 35%. Agricultural production substantially surpassed pre-war levels. The poverty and starvation of the immediate postwar years disappeared, and Western Europe embarked upon an unprecedented two decades of growth that saw standards of living increase dramatically. Additionally, the long-term effect of economic integration raised European income levels substantially, by nearly 20 percent by the mid-1970s. There is some debate among historians over how much this should be credited to the Marshall Plan. Most reject the idea that it alone miraculously revived Europe, as evidence shows that a general recovery was already underway. Most believe that the Marshall Plan sped this recovery, but did not initiate it. Many argue that the structural adjustments that it forced were of great importance. Economic historians J. Bradford DeLong and Barry Eichengreen call it "history's most successful structural adjustment program." One effect of the plan was that it subtly "Americanized" European countries, especially Austria, through new exposure to American popular culture, including the growth in influence of Hollywood movies and rock n' roll.

The political effects of the Marshall Plan may have been just as important as the economic ones. Marshall Plan aid allowed the nations of Western Europe to relax austerity measures and rationing, reducing discontent and bringing political stability. The communist influence on Western Europe was greatly reduced, and throughout the region, communist parties faded in popularity in the years after the Marshall Plan. The trade relations fostered by the Marshall Plan helped forge the North Atlantic alliance that would persist throughout the Cold War in the form of NATO. At the same time, the nonparticipation of the states of the Eastern Bloc was one of the first clear signs that the continent was now divided.

The Marshall Plan also played an important role in European integration. Both the Americans and many of the European leaders felt that European integration was necessary to secure the peace and prosperity of Europe, and thus used Marshall Plan guidelines to foster integration. In some ways, this effort failed, as the OEEC never grew to be more than an agent of economic cooperation. Rather, it was the separate European Coal and Steel Community, which did not include Britain, that would eventually grow into the European Union. However, the OEEC served as both a testing and training ground for the structures that would later be used by the European Economic Community. The Marshall Plan, linked into the Bretton Woods system, also mandated free trade throughout the region.

Dutch 10 guilder coin commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, 1997.

While some historians today feel some of the praise for the Marshall Plan is exaggerated, it is still viewed favorably and many thus feel that a similar project would help other areas of the world. The events of 1947 are thus part and parcel of the larger story of the Cold War. These events played a major role, but it would be a mistake to exaggerate their significance. The bloc system in Europe took years to develop, and the Marshall Plan was just one part of the story.After the fall of communism, several proposed a "Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe" that would help revive that region. Others have proposed a Marshall Plan for Africa to help that continent, and US Vice President Al Gore suggested a Global Marshall Plan. "Marshall Plan" has become a metaphor for any very large-scale government program that is designed to solve a specific social problem. It is usually used when calling for federal spending to correct a perceived failure of the private sector.

The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) took the leading role in allocating funds, and the OEEC arranged for the transfer of the goods. The American supplier was paid in dollars, which were credited against the appropriate European Recovery Program funds. The European recipient, however, was not given the goods as a gift but had to pay for them (usually on credit) in local currency. These payments were kept by the European government involved in a special counterpart fund. This counterpart money, in turn, could be used by the government for further investment projects. Five percent of the counterpart money was paid to the US to cover the administrative costs of the ERP. In addition to ERP grants, the Export-Import Bank (an agency of the US government) at the same time made long-term loans at low interest rates to finance major purchases in the US, all of which were repaid.

Large parts of the world devastated by World War II did not benefit from the Marshall Plan. The only major Western European nation excluded was Spain, whose regime under Francisco Franco was highly unpopular in Washington. With the escalation of the Cold War, the United States reconsidered its position and in 1951 embraced Spain as an ally since it was encouraged by Franco's aggressive anti-communist policies. Over the next decade, a considerable amount of American aid would go to Spain but less than its neighbors had received under the Marshall Plan.

The Soviet Union had been as badly affected as any other part of the world by the war. The Soviets imposed large reparations payments on the Axis allies that were in its sphere of influence. Austria, Finland, Hungary, Romania, and especially East Germany were forced to pay vast sums and ship large amounts of supplies to the Soviet Union. Those reparation payments meant the Soviet Union itself received about the same as 16 European countries received in total from Marshall Plan aid.

In accordance with the agreements with the Soviet Union, shipment of dismantled German industrial installations from the west began on March 31, 1946. Under the terms of the agreement, the Soviet Union would in return ship raw materials such as food and timber to the western zones. In view of the Soviet failure to do so, the western zones halted the shipments east, ostensibly on a temporary basis, although they were never resumed. It was later shown that the main reason for halting shipments east was not the behavior of the Soviet Union but rather the recalcitrant behavior of France. Examples of material received by the Soviets were equipment from the Kugel-Fischer ballbearing plant at Schweinfurt, the Daimler-Benz underground aircraft-engine plant at Obrigheim, the Deschimag shipyards at Bremen-Weser, and the Gendorf powerplant.

The Soviets established COMECON as a riposte to the Marshall Plan to deliver aid for Eastern Bloc countries, but that was complicated by the Soviet efforts to manage their own recovery from the war. The members of Comecon looked to the Soviet Union for oil and in turn provided machinery, equipment, agricultural goods, industrial goods, and consumer goods to the Soviet Union. Economic recovery in the East was much slower than in the West, resulting in the formation of the shortage economies and a gap in wealth between East and West. Finland, which the Soviets forbade from joining the Marshall Plan and was required to give large reparations to the Soviets, saw its economy recover to pre-war levels in 1947.[citation needed ] France, which received billions of dollars through the Marshall Plan, similarly saw its average income per person return to almost pre-war level by 1949. By mid-1948 industrial production in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia had recovered to a level somewhat above pre-war level.

From the end of the war to the end of 1953, the US provided grants and credits amounting to $5.9 billion to Asian countries, especially Rep. Of China (Taiwan) ($1.051 billion), India ($255 million), Indonesia ($215 million), Japan ($2.444 billion), South Korea ($894 million), Pakistan ($98 million) and the Philippines ($803 million). In addition, another $282 million went to Israel and $196 million to the rest of the Middle East. All this aid was separate from the Marshall Plan.

Canada's infrastructure was damaged little by the war, as most of the war was fought in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. In 1948, the US allowed ERP aid to be used to buy goods from Canada. In its first two years of operation, ERP funded over a billion dollars worth of trade with Canada

The total of American grants and loans to the world from 1945 to 1953 came to $44.2 billion.

Bradford DeLong and Barry Eichengreen conclude it was "History's Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program." They state:

It was not large enough to have significantly accelerated recovery by financing investment, aiding the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, or easing commodity bottlenecks. We argue, however, that the Marshall Plan did play a major role in setting the stage for post-World War II Western Europe's rapid growth. The conditions attached to Marshall Plan aid pushed European political economy in a direction that left its post World War II "mixed economies" with more "market" and less "controls" in the mix.

Prior to passing and enacting the Marshall Plan, President Truman and George Marshall started a domestic overhaul of public opinion from coast to coast. The purpose of this campaign was to sway public opinion in their direction and to inform the common person of what the Marshall Plan was and what the plan would ultimately do. They spent months attempting to convince Americans that their cause was just and that they should embrace the higher taxes that would come in the foreseeable future. The Great Depression left Americans acutely aware of the psychological and political effects of poverty. Though the Marshall Plan is seen as an act of compassion or sympathy for countries struggling after WWII, it is likely fear of slipping into another depression at home caused the United States to invest in diplomacy and pivot away from another economic calamity.

A copious amount of propaganda ended up being highly effective in swaying public opinion toward supporting the Marshall Plan. During the nationwide campaign for support, "more than a million pieces of pro-Marshall Plan publications-booklets, leaflets, reprints, and fact sheets", were disseminated. Truman's and Marshall's efforts proved to be effective. A Gallup Poll taken between the months of July and December 1947 shows the percentage of Americans unaware of the Marshall Plan fell from 51% to 36% nationwide. By the time the Marshall Plan was ready to be implemented, there was a general consensus throughout the American public that this was the right policy for both America, and the countries who would be receiving aid.

During the period leading up to World War II, Americans were highly isolationist, and many called The Marshall Plan a "milestone" for American ideology. By looking at polling data over time from pre-World War II to post-World War II, one would find that there was a change in public opinion in regards to ideology. Americans swapped their isolationist ideals for a much more global internationalist ideology after World War II.

Before proposing anything to Congress in 1947, the Truman administration made an elaborate effort to organize public opinion in favor of the Marshall Plan spending, reaching out to numerous national organizations representing business, labor, farmers, women, and other interest groups. Political scientist Ralph Levering points out that:

Mounting large public relations campaigns and supporting private groups such as the Citizens Committee for the Marshall Plan, the administration carefully built public and bipartisan Congressional support before bringing these measures to a vote.

Public opinion polls in 1947 consistently showed strong support for the Marshall plan among Americans. Furthermore, Gallup polls in England, France, and Italy showed favorable majorities over 60%.

The 1953 Spanish comedy film Welcome Mr. Marshall! depicts Castilian villagers preparing for a visit of the American authorities and hoping they will fulfill their desires. When the American motorcade arrives, it speeds through the village and the villagers themselves have to pay for the preparations. Underneath the surface, the film is an anti- Francoist satire despite receiving approval because the censorship board understood it to be an anti-American satire.

Laissez-faire criticism of the Marshall Plan came from a number of economists. Wilhelm Röpke, who influenced German Minister for Economy Ludwig Erhard in his economic recovery program, believed recovery would be found in eliminating central planning and restoring a market economy in Europe, especially in those countries which had adopted more fascist and corporatist economic policies. Röpke criticized the Marshall Plan for forestalling the transition to the free market by subsidizing the current, failing systems. Erhard put Röpke's theory into practice and would later credit Röpke's influence for West Germany's preeminent success.

Henry Hazlitt criticized the Marshall Plan in his 1947 book Will Dollars Save the World?, arguing that economic recovery comes through savings, capital accumulation, and private enterprise, and not through large cash subsidies. Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises criticized the Marshall Plan in 1951, believing that "the American subsidies make it possible for [Europe's] governments to conceal partially the disastrous effects of the various socialist measures they have adopted".

The Marshall Plan's role in the rapid recovery of Western Europe has been debated. Most reject the idea that it alone miraculously revived Europe since the evidence shows that a general recovery was already underway. The Marshall Plan grants were provided at a rate that was not much higher in terms of flow than the previous UNRRA aid and represented less than 3% of the combined national income of the recipient countries between 1948 and 1951, which would mean an increase in GDP growth of only 0.3%. In addition, there is no correlation between the amount of aid received and the speed of recovery: both France and the United Kingdom received more aid, but West Germany recovered significantly faster.

Criticism of the Marshall Plan became prominent among historians of the revisionist school, such as Walter LaFeber, during the 1960s and 1970s. They argued that the plan was American economic imperialism and that it was an attempt to gain control over Western Europe just as the Soviets controlled Eastern Europe economically through the Comecon. In a review of West Germany's economy from 1945 to 1951, German analyst Werner Abelshauser concluded that "foreign aid was not crucial in starting the recovery or in keeping it going". The economic recoveries of France, Italy, and Belgium, Cowen argues, began a few months before the flow of US money. Belgium, the country that relied earliest and most heavily on free-market economic policies after its liberation in 1944, experienced swift recovery and avoided the severe housing and food shortages seen in the rest of continental Europe.

Former US Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan gives most credit to German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard for Europe's economic recovery. Greenspan writes in his memoir The Age of Turbulence that Erhard's economic policies were the most important aspect of postwar Western European recovery, even outweighing the contributions of the Marshall Plan. He states that it was Erhard's reductions in economic regulations that permitted Germany's miraculous recovery, and that these policies also contributed to the recoveries of many other European countries. Its recovery is attributed to traditional economic stimuli, such as increases in investment, fueled by a high savings rate and low taxes. Japan saw a large infusion of US investment during the Korean War.

The Marshall Plan has been recently reinterpreted as a public policy approach to complex and multi-causal problems (wicked problems) in search of building integrated solutions with multilevel governance.

1. There was large-scale American aid to Nationalist China, and North Korea, as well as French Indochina, Thailand, Burma and the Philippines. (^ Price 1955, pp. 179-219)

2. West Germany was 6% higher, the other countries 45% higher (^ Eichengreen 2008, p. 57).

3. Marshall Plan style proposals for other parts of the world have been a perennial idea. For instance, ^ Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have referred to their African aid goals as "a Marshall Plan". After the end of the Cold War many felt Eastern Bloc needed a rebuilding plan.

4. All data from the official document: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1954 (1955) table 1075 pp. 899-902 online edition file 1954-08.pdf

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Long title An act to promote world peace and the general welfare, national interest, and foreign policy of the United States through economic, financial, and other measures necessary to the maintenance of conditions abroad in which free institutions may survive and consistent with the maintenance of the strength and stability of the United States.

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The Blockade of Berlin | Harry S. Truman

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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO, ; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states - 28 European and two North American. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implemented the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949. NATO is a collective security system: its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. During the Cold War, NATO operated as a check on the perceived threat posed by the Soviet Union. The alliance remained in place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and has been involved in military operations in the Balkans, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. The organization's motto is animus in consulendo liber (Latin for "a mind unfettered in deliberation").

NATO's main headquarters are located in Brussels, Belgium, while NATO's military headquarters are near Mons, Belgium. The alliance has targeted its NATO Response Force deployments in Eastern Europe, and the combined militaries of all NATO members include around 3.5 million soldiers and personnel. Their combined military spending as of 2020 constituted over 57 percent of the global nominal total. Moreover, members have agreed to reach or maintain the target defence spending of at least two percent of their GDP by 2024.

NATO formed with twelve founding members and has added new members eight times, most recently when North Macedonia joined the alliance in March 2020. Following the acceptance of their applications for membership in June 2022, Finland and Sweden are anticipated to become the 31st and 32nd members, with their Accession Protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty now in the process of being ratified by the existing members. In addition, NATO currently recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine as aspiring members. Enlargement has led to tensions with non-member Russia, one of the twenty additional countries participating in NATO's Partnership for Peace programme. Another nineteen countries are involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes with NATO.

The Treaty of Dunkirk was signed by France and the United Kingdom on 4 March 1947, during the aftermath of World War II and the start of the Cold War, as a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance in the event of possible attacks by Germany or the Soviet Union. In March 1948, this alliance was expanded in the Treaty of Brussels to include the Benelux countries, forming the Brussels Treaty Organization, commonly known as the Western Union. Talks for a wider military alliance, which could include North America, also began that month in the United States, where their foreign policy under the Truman Doctrine promoted international solidarity against actions they saw as communist aggression, such as the February 1948 coup d'état in Czechoslovakia. These talks resulted in the signature of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949 by the member states of the Western Union plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. Canadian diplomat Lester B. Pearson was a key author and drafter of the treaty.

The North Atlantic Treaty was largely dormant until the Korean War initiated the establishment of NATO to implement it with an integrated military structure. This included the formation of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in 1951, which adopted many of the Western Union's military structures and plans, including their agreements on standardizing equipment and agreements on stationing foreign military forces in European countries. In 1952, the post of Secretary General of NATO was established as the organization's chief civilian. That year also saw the first major NATO maritime exercises, Exercise Mainbrace and the accession of Greece and Turkey to the organization. Following the London and Paris Conferences, West Germany was permitted to rearm militarily, as they joined NATO in May 1955, which was, in turn, a major factor in the creation of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, delineating the two opposing sides of the Cold War.

The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 marked a height in Cold War tensions, when 400,000 US troops were stationed in Europe. Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion - doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO's military structure in 1966. In 1982, the newly democratic Spain joined the alliance.

The Revolutions of 1989 in Europe led to a strategic re-evaluation of NATO's purpose, nature, tasks, and focus on the continent. In October 1990, East Germany became part of the Federal Republic of Germany and the alliance, and in November 1990, the alliance signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) in Paris with the Soviet Union. It mandated specific military reductions across the continent, which continued after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in February 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union that December, which removed the de facto main adversaries of NATO. This began a draw-down of military spending and equipment in Europe. The CFE treaty allowed signatories to remove 52,000 pieces of conventional armaments in the following sixteen years, and allowed military spending by NATO's European members to decline by 28 percent from 1990 to 2015. In 1990 assurances were given by several Western leaders to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand further east, as revealed by memoranda of private conversations. However, the final text of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, signed later that year, contained no mention of the issue of eastward expansion.

In the 1990s, the organization extended its activities into political and humanitarian situations that had not formerly been NATO concerns. During the Breakup of Yugoslavia, the organization conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 and later Yugoslavia in 1999. These conflicts motivated a major post-Cold War military restructuring. NATO's military structure was cut back and reorganized, with new forces such as the Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps established.

Politically, the organization sought better relations with the newly autonomous Central and Eastern European states, and diplomatic forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbours were set up during this post-Cold War period, including the Partnership for Peace and the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative in 1994, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in 1997, and the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council in 1998. At the 1999 Washington summit, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic officially joined NATO, and the organization also issued new guidelines for membership with individualized " Membership Action Plans". These plans governed the addition of new alliance members: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, and North Macedonia in 2020. The election of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 led to a major reform of France's military position, culminating with the return to full membership on 4 April 2009, which also included France rejoining the NATO Military Command Structure, while maintaining an independent nuclear deterrent.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11 attacks, after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF. The organization has operated a range of additional roles since then, including sending trainers to Iraq, assisting in counter-piracy operations, and in 2011 enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

Russia's annexation of Crimea led to strong condemnation by all NATO members, and was one of the seven times that Article 4, which calls for consultation among NATO members, has been invoked. Prior times included during the Iraq War and Syrian Civil War. At the 2014 Wales summit, the leaders of NATO's member states formally committed for the first time to spend the equivalent of at least two percent of their gross domestic products on defence by 2024, which had previously been only an informal guideline. At the 2016 Warsaw summit, NATO countries agreed on the creation of NATO Enhanced Forward Presence, which deployed four multinational battalion-sized battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Before and during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, several NATO countries sent ground troops, warships and fighter aircraft to reinforce the alliance's eastern flank, and multiple countries again invoked Article 4. In March 2022, NATO leaders met at Brussels for an extraordinary summit which also involved Group of Seven and European Union leaders. NATO member states agreed to establish four additional battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia, and elements of the NATO Response Force were activated for the first time in NATO's history.

As of June 2022, NATO had deployed 40,000 troops along its 2,500-kilometres-long Eastern flank to deter Russian aggression. More than half of this number have been deployed in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, which five countries muster a considerable combined ex-NATO force of 259,000 troops. To supplement Bulgaria's Air Force, Spain sent Eurofighter Typhoons, the Netherlands sent eight F-35 attack aircraft, and additional French and US attack aircraft would arrive soon as well.

NATO enjoys public support across its member states.

Military operations

Early operations

No military operations were conducted by NATO during the Cold War. Following the end of the Cold War, the first operations, Anchor Guard in 1990 and Ace Guard in 1991, were prompted by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Airborne early warning aircraft were sent to provide coverage of southeastern Turkey, and later a quick-reaction force was deployed to the area.

Bosnia and Herzegovina intervention

The Bosnian War began in 1992, as a result of the Breakup of Yugoslavia. The deteriorating situation led to United Nations Security Council Resolution 816 on 9 October 1992, ordering a no-fly zone over central Bosnia and Herzegovina, which NATO began enforcing on 12 April 1993 with Operation Deny Flight. From June 1993 until October 1996, Operation Sharp Guard added maritime enforcement of the arms embargo and economic sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 28 February 1994, NATO took its first wartime action by shooting down four Bosnian Serb aircraft violating the no-fly zone.

On 10 and 11 April 1994, the United Nations Protection Force called in air strikes to protect the Goražde safe area, resulting in the bombing of a Bosnian Serb military command outpost near Goražde by two US F-16 jets acting under NATO direction. In retaliation, Serbs took 150 U.N. personnel hostage on 14 April. On 16 April a British Sea Harrier was shot down over Goražde by Serb forces.

In August 1995, a two-week NATO bombing campaign, Operation Deliberate Force, began against the Army of the Republika Srpska, after the Srebrenica genocide. Further NATO air strikes helped bring the Yugoslav Wars to an end, resulting in the Dayton Agreement in November 1995. As part of this agreement, NATO deployed a UN-mandated peacekeeping force, under Operation Joint Endeavor, named IFOR. Almost 60,000 NATO troops were joined by forces from non-NATO countries in this peacekeeping mission. This transitioned into the smaller SFOR, which started with 32,000 troops initially and ran from December 1996 until December 2004, when operations were then passed onto the European Union Force Althea. Following the lead of its member states, NATO began to award a service medal, the NATO Medal, for these operations.

Kosovo intervention

In an effort to stop Slobodan Milošević's Serbian-led crackdown on KLA separatists and Albanian civilians in Kosovo, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1199 on 23 September 1998 to demand a ceasefire. Negotiations under US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke broke down on 23 March 1999, and he handed the matter to NATO, which started a 78-day bombing campaign on 24 March 1999. Operation Allied Force targeted the military capabilities of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During the crisis, NATO also deployed one of its international reaction forces, the ACE Mobile Force (Land), to Albania as the Albania Force (AFOR), to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees from Kosovo.

The campaign was criticized over whether it had legitimacy and for the civilian casualties, including the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Milošević finally accepted the terms of an international peace plan on 3 June 1999, ending the Kosovo War. On 11 June, Milošević further accepted UN resolution 1244, under the mandate of which NATO then helped establish the KFOR peacekeeping force. Nearly one million refugees had fled Kosovo, and part of KFOR's mandate was to protect the humanitarian missions, in addition to deterring violence. In August-September 2001, the alliance also mounted Operation Essential Harvest, a mission disarming ethnic Albanian militias in the Republic of Macedonia. As of 1 December 2013, 4,882 KFOR soldiers, representing 31 countries, continue to operate in the area.

The US, the UK, and most other NATO countries opposed efforts to require the UN Security Council to approve NATO military strikes, such as the action against Serbia in 1999, while France and some others claimed that the alliance needed UN approval. The US/UK side claimed that this would undermine the authority of the alliance, and they noted that Russia and China would have exercised their Security Council vetoes to block the strike on Yugoslavia, and could do the same in future conflicts where NATO intervention was required, thus nullifying the entire potency and purpose of the organization. Recognizing the post-Cold War military environment, NATO adopted the Alliance Strategic Concept during its Washington summit in April 1999 that emphasized conflict prevention and crisis management.

War in Afghanistan

The September 11 attacks in the United States caused NATO to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter for the first time in the organization's history. The Article states that an attack on any member shall be considered to be an attack on all. The invocation was confirmed on 4 October 2001 when NATO determined that the attacks were indeed eligible under the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty. The eight official actions taken by NATO in response to the attacks included Operation Eagle Assist and Operation Active Endeavour, a naval operation in the Mediterranean Sea designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction, and to enhance the security of shipping in general, which began on 4 October 2001.

The alliance showed unity: on 16 April 2003, NATO agreed to take command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which included troops from 42 countries. The decision came at the request of Germany and the Netherlands, the two countries leading ISAF at the time of the agreement, and all nineteen NATO ambassadors approved it unanimously. The handover of control to NATO took place on 11 August, and marked the first time in NATO's history that it took charge of a mission outside the north Atlantic area.

ISAF was initially charged with securing Kabul and surrounding areas from the Taliban, al Qaeda and factional warlords, so as to allow for the establishment of the Afghan Transitional Administration headed by Hamid Karzai. In October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the expansion of the ISAF mission throughout Afghanistan, and ISAF subsequently expanded the mission in four main stages over the whole of the country.

On 31 July 2006, the ISAF additionally took over military operations in the south of Afghanistan from a US-led anti-terrorism coalition. Due to the intensity of the fighting in the south, in 2011 France allowed a squadron of Mirage 2000 fighter/attack aircraft to be moved into the area, to Kandahar, in order to reinforce the alliance's efforts. During its 2012 Chicago Summit, NATO endorsed a plan to end the Afghanistan war and to remove the NATO-led ISAF Forces by the end of December 2014. ISAF was disestablished in December 2014 and replaced by the follow-on training Resolute Support Mission.

On 14 April 2021, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance had agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan by May 1. Soon after the withdrawal of NATO troops started, the Taliban launched an offensive against the Afghan government, quickly advancing in front of collapsing Afghan Armed Forces. By 15 August 2021, Taliban militants controlled the vast majority of Afghanistan and had encircled the capital city of Kabul. Some politicians in NATO member states have described the chaotic withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan and the collapse of the Afghan government as the greatest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding.

Iraq training mission

In August 2004, during the Iraq War, NATO formed the NATO Training Mission - Iraq, a training mission to assist the Iraqi security forces in conjunction with the US-led MNF-I. The NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-I) was established at the request of the Iraqi Interim Government under the provisions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546. The aim of NTM-I was to assist in the development of Iraqi security forces training structures and institutions so that Iraq can build an effective and sustainable capability that addresses the needs of the country. NTM-I was not a combat mission but is a distinct mission, under the political control of the North Atlantic Council. Its operational emphasis was on training and mentoring. The activities of the mission were coordinated with Iraqi authorities and the US-led Deputy Commanding General Advising and Training, who was also dual-hatted as the Commander of NTM-I. The mission officially concluded on 17 December 2011.

Turkey invoked the first Article 4 meetings in 2003 at the start of the Iraq War. Turkey also invoked this article twice in 2012 during the Syrian Civil War, after the downing of an unarmed Turkish F-4 reconnaissance jet, and after a mortar was fired at Turkey from Syria, and again in 2015 after threats by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to its territorial integrity.

Gulf of Aden anti-piracy

Beginning on 17 August 2009, NATO deployed warships in an operation to protect maritime traffic in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean from Somali pirates, and help strengthen the navies and coast guards of regional states. The operation was approved by the North Atlantic Council and involved warships primarily from the United States though vessels from many other countries were also included. Operation Ocean Shield focused on protecting the ships of Operation Allied Provider which were distributing aid as part of the World Food Programme mission in Somalia. Russia, China and South Korea sent warships to participate in the activities as well. The operation sought to dissuade and interrupt pirate attacks, protect vessels, and to increase the general level of security in the region.

Libya intervention

During the Libyan Civil War, violence between protesters and the Libyan government under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi escalated, and on 17 March 2011 led to the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which called for a ceasefire, and authorized military action to protect civilians. A coalition that included several NATO members began enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya shortly afterwards, beginning with Opération Harmattan by the French Air Force on 19 March.

On 20 March 2011, NATO states agreed on enforcing an arms embargo against Libya with Operation Unified Protector using ships from NATO Standing Maritime Group 1 and Standing Mine Countermeasures Group 1, and additional ships and submarines from NATO members. They would "monitor, report and, if needed, interdict vessels suspected of carrying illegal arms or mercenaries".

On 24 March, NATO agreed to take control of the no-fly zone from the initial coalition, while command of targeting ground units remained with the coalition's forces. NATO began officially enforcing the UN resolution on 27 March 2011 with assistance from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. By June, reports of divisions within the alliance surfaced as only eight of the 28 member states were participating in combat operations, resulting in a confrontation between US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and countries such as Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Germany with Gates calling on the latter to contribute more and the latter believing the organization has overstepped its mandate in the conflict. In his final policy speech in Brussels on 10 June, Gates further criticized allied countries in suggesting their actions could cause the demise of NATO. The German foreign ministry pointed to "a considerable [German] contribution to NATO and NATO-led operations" and to the fact that this engagement was highly valued by President Obama.

While the mission was extended into September, Norway that day (10 June) announced it would begin scaling down contributions and complete withdrawal by 1 August. Earlier that week it was reported Danish air fighters were running out of bombs. The following week, the head of the Royal Navy said the country's operations in the conflict were not sustainable. By the end of the mission in October 2011, after the death of Colonel Gaddafi, NATO planes had flown about 9,500 strike sorties against pro-Gaddafi targets. A report from the organization Human Rights Watch in May 2012 identified at least 72 civilians killed in the campaign.

Following a coup d'état attempt in October 2013, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan requested technical advice and trainers from NATO to assist with ongoing security issues.

Syrian Civil War

Use of Article 5 has been threatened multiple times and four out of seven official Article 4 consultations have been called due to spillover in Turkey from the Syrian Civil War. In April 2012, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan considered invoking Article 5 of the NATO treaty to protect Turkish national security in a dispute over the Syrian Civil War. The alliance responded quickly, and a spokesperson said the alliance was "monitoring the situation very closely and will continue to do so" and "takes it very seriously protecting its members."

After the shooting down of a Turkish military jet by Syria in June of 2012 and Syrian forces shelling Turkish cities in October of 2012 resulting in two Article 4 consultations, NATO approved Operation Active Fence. In the past decade the conflict has only escalated. In response to the 2015 Suruç bombing, which Turkey attributed to ISIS, and other security issues along its southern border, Turkey called for an emergency meeting. The latest consultation happened in February of 2020, as part of increasing tensions due to the Northwestern Syria offensive, which involved Syrian and suspected Russian airstrikes on Turkish troops, and risked direct confrontration between Russia and a NATO member. Each escalation and attack has been meet with an extension of the initial Operation Active Fence mission.

Membership

NATO has thirty members, mainly in Europe and North America. Some of these countries also have territory on multiple continents, which can be covered only as far south as the Tropic of Cancer in the Atlantic Ocean, which defines NATO's "area of responsibility" under Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty. During the original treaty negotiations, the United States insisted that colonies such as the Belgian Congo be excluded from the treaty. French Algeria was, however, covered until its independence on 3 July 1962. Twelve of these thirty are original members who joined in 1949, while the other eighteen joined in one of eight enlargement rounds.

Few members spend more than two percent of their gross domestic product on defence, with the United States accounting for three quarters of NATO defence spending.

Special arrangements

The three Nordic countries which joined NATO as founding members, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway, chose to limit their participation in three areas: there would be no permanent peacetime bases, no nuclear warheads and no Allied military activity (unless invited) permitted on their territory. However, Denmark allowed the U.S. Air Force to maintain an existing base, Thule Air Base, in Greenland.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, France pursued a military strategy of independence from NATO under a policy dubbed "Gaullo-Mitterrandism". Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated the return of France to the integrated military command and the Defence Planning Committee in 2009, the latter being disbanded the following year. France remains the only NATO member outside the Nuclear Planning Group and unlike the United States and the United Kingdom, will not commit its nuclear-armed submarines to the alliance.

Enlargement

Accession to the alliance is governed with individual Membership Action Plans, and requires approval by each current member. NATO currently has three candidate countries that are in the process of joining the alliance: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, and Sweden. North Macedonia is the most recent state to sign an accession protocol to become a NATO member state, which it did in February 2019 and became a member state on 27 March 2020. Its accession had been blocked by Greece for many years due to the Macedonia naming dispute, which was resolved in 2018 by the Prespa agreement. In order to support each other in the process, new and potential members in the region formed the Adriatic Charter in 2003. Georgia was also named as an aspiring member, and was promised "future membership" during the 2008 summit in Bucharest, though in 2014, US President Barack Obama said the country was not "currently on a path" to membership.

Ukraine's relationship with NATO and Europe has been politically controversial, and improvement of these relations was one of the goals of the " Euromaidan" protests that saw the ousting of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Ukraine is one of eight countries in Eastern Europe with an Individual Partnership Action Plan. IPAPs began in 2002, and are open to countries that have the political will and ability to deepen their relationship with NATO. On 21 February 2019, the Constitution of Ukraine was amended, the norms on the strategic course of Ukraine for membership in the European Union and NATO are enshrined in the preamble of the Basic Law, three articles and transitional provisions. At the June 2021 Brussels Summit, NATO leaders reiterated the decision taken at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine would become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP) as an integral part of the process and Ukraine's right to determine its own future and foreign policy course without outside interference. On 30 November 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that an expansion of NATO's presence in Ukraine, especially the deployment of any long-range missiles capable of striking Russian cities or missile defence systems similar to those in Romania and Poland, would be a "red line" issue for Russia. Putin asked U.S. President Joe Biden for legal guarantees that NATO would not expand eastward or put "weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory." NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg replied that "It's only Ukraine and 30 NATO allies that decide when Ukraine is ready to join NATO. Russia has no veto, Russia has no say, and Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence to try to control their neighbors."

Russia continued to politically oppose further expansion, seeing it as inconsistent with informal understandings between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and European and US negotiators that allowed for a peaceful German reunification. NATO's expansion efforts are often seen by Moscow leaders as a continuation of a Cold War attempt to surround and isolate Russia, though they have also been criticized in the West. A June 2016 Levada poll found that 68 percent of Russians think that deploying NATO troops in the Baltic states and Poland - former Eastern bloc countries bordering Russia - is a threat to Russia. In contrast, 65 percent of Poles surveyed in a 2017 Pew Research Center report identified Russia as a "major threat", with an average of 31 percent saying so across all NATO countries, and 67 percent of Poles surveyed in 2018 favour US forces being based in Poland. Of non- CIS Eastern European countries surveyed by Gallup in 2016, all but Serbia and Montenegro were more likely than not to view NATO as a protective alliance rather than a threat. A 2006 study in the journal Security Studies argued that NATO enlargement contributed to democratic consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe. China also opposes further expansion.

Following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, public opinion in Finland and in Sweden swung sharply in favor of joining NATO, with more citizens supporting NATO membership than those who were opposed to it for the first time. A poll on 30 March 2022 revealed that about 61% of Finns were in favor of NATO membership, as opposed to 16% against and 23% uncertain. A poll on 1 April revealed that about 51% of Swedes were in favor of NATO membership, as opposed to 27% against. In mid-April, the governments of Finland and Sweden began exploring NATO membership, with their governments commissioning security reports on this subject. The addition of the two Nordic countries would significantly expand NATO's capabilities in the Arctic, Nordic, and Baltic regions.

On 15 May 2022, the Finnish government announced that it would apply for NATO membership, subject to approval by the country's parliament, which voted 188-8 in favor of the move on 17 May. Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced her country would apply for NATO membership on 17 May, and both Finland and Sweden formally submitted applications for NATO membership on 18 May. Turkey voiced opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, accusing the two countries of providing support to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the People's Defense Units (YPG), two Kurdish groups which Turkey has designated as terrorist organizations. On 28 June, at a NATO summit in Madrid, Turkey agreed to support the membership bids of Finland and Sweden. On 5 July, the 30 NATO ambassadors signed off on the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland and formally approved the decisions of the NATO summit on 28 June. This must be ratified by the various governments; all countries except Hungary and Turkey had ratified it in 2022.

NATO Defense Expenditure Budget

The increase in the number of NATO members over the years hasn't been sustained by an increase in the defense expenditures. Being concerned about the decreasing defense budgets and aiming to improve financial equity commitments and boost the effectiveness of financial expenditure, NATO members met at the 2014 Wales Summit to establish the Defense Investment Pledge. Members considered it necessary to contribute at least 2% of their Gross Domestic Product ( GDP) to defense and 20% of their defense budget to major equipment which includes allocations to defense research and development by 2024.

The implementation of the Defense Investment Pledge is hindered by the lack of legal binding obligation by the members, European Union fiscal laws, member states' domestic public expenditure priorities, and political willingness. In 2021, eight member states achieved the goal of 2% GDP contribution to defense spending. In 2020, 18 NATO members were able to reach the target of 20% contribution to major equipment. The improvements in the compliance with the Wales recommendations are facilitated by the increasing risk to the security of the members posed by the Russian Federation.

Partnerships with third countries

The Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme was established in 1994 and is based on individual bilateral relations between each partner country and NATO: each country may choose the extent of its participation. Members include all current and former members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) was first established on 29 May 1997, and is a forum for regular coordination, consultation and dialogue between all fifty participants. The PfP programme is considered the operational wing of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership. Other third countries also have been contacted for participation in some activities of the PfP framework such as Afghanistan.

The European Union (EU) signed a comprehensive package of arrangements with NATO under the Berlin Plus agreement on 16 December 2002. With this agreement, the EU was given the possibility of using NATO assets in case it wanted to act independently in an international crisis, on the condition that NATO itself did not want to act - the so-called " right of first refusal". For example, Article 42(7) of the 1982 Treaty of Lisbon specifies that "If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power". The treaty applies globally to specified territories whereas NATO is restricted under its Article 6 to operations north of the Tropic of Cancer. It provides a "double framework" for the EU countries that are also linked with the PfP programme.

Additionally, NATO cooperates and discusses its activities with numerous other non-NATO members. The Mediterranean Dialogue was established in 1994 to coordinate in a similar way with Israel and countries in North Africa. The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative was announced in 2004 as a dialogue forum for the Middle East along the same lines as the Mediterranean Dialogue. The four participants are also linked through the Gulf Cooperation Council. In June 2018, Qatar expressed its wish to join NATO. However, NATO declined membership, stating that only additional European countries could join according to Article 10 of NATO's founding treaty. Qatar and NATO have previously signed a security agreement together in January 2018.

Political dialogue with Japan began in 1990, and since then, the Alliance has gradually increased its contact with countries that do not form part of any of these cooperation initiatives. In 1998, NATO established a set of general guidelines that do not allow for a formal institutionalization of relations, but reflect the Allies' desire to increase cooperation. Following extensive debate, the term "Contact Countries" was agreed by the Allies in 2000. By 2012, the Alliance had broadened this group, which meets to discuss issues such as counter-piracy and technology exchange, under the names "partners across the globe" or "global partners". Australia and New Zealand, both contact countries, are also members of the AUSCANNZUKUS strategic alliance, and similar regional or bilateral agreements between contact countries and NATO members also aid cooperation. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that NATO needs to "address the rise of China," by closely cooperating with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. Colombia is NATO's latest partner and Colombia has access to the full range of cooperative activities NATO offers to partners; Colombia became the first and only Latin American country to cooperate with NATO.

All agencies and organizations of NATO are integrated into either the civilian administrative or military executive roles. For the most part they perform roles and functions that directly or indirectly support the security role of the alliance as a whole.

The civilian structure includes:

The North Atlantic Council (NAC) is the body which has effective governance authority and powers of decision in NATO, consisting of member states' permanent representatives or representatives at higher level (ministers of foreign affairs or defence, or heads of state or government). The NAC convenes at least once a week and takes major decisions regarding NATO's policies. The meetings of the North Atlantic Council are chaired by the secretary general and, when decisions have to be made, action is agreed upon by consensus. There is no voting or decision by majority. Each state represented at the Council table or on any of its subordinate committees retains complete sovereignty and responsibility for its own decisions.[citation needed ]

NATO Headquarters, located on Boulevard Léopold III/Leopold III-laan, B-1110 Brussels, which is in the City of Brussels municipality. The staff at the Headquarters is composed of national delegations of member countries and includes civilian and military liaison offices and officers or diplomatic missions and diplomats of partner countries, as well as the International Staff and International Military Staff filled from serving members of the armed forces of member states. Non-governmental groups have also grown up in support of NATO, broadly under the banner of the Atlantic Council/Atlantic Treaty Association movement.

The military structure includes:

The Military Committee (MC) is the body of NATO that is composed of member states' Chiefs of Defence (CHOD) and advises the North Atlantic Council (NAC) on military policy and strategy. The national CHODs are regularly represented in the MC by their permanent Military Representatives (MilRep), who often are two- or three-star flag officers. Like the council, from time to time the Military Committee also meets at a higher level, namely at the level of Chiefs of Defence, the most senior military officer in each country's armed forces. The MC is led by its chairman, who directs NATO's military operations.[citation needed ] Until 2008 the Military Committee excluded France, due to that country's 1966 decision to remove itself from the NATO Military Command Structure, which it rejoined in 1995. Until France rejoined NATO, it was not represented on the Defence Planning Committee, and this led to conflicts between it and NATO members. Such was the case in the lead up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. The operational work of the committee is supported by the International Military Staff

Allied Command Operations (ACO) is the NATO command responsible for NATO operations worldwide.

Allied Command Transformation (ACT), responsible for transformation and training of NATO forces.

The organizations and agencies of NATO include:

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) is a body that sets broad strategic goals for NATO, which meets at two session per year. NATO PA interacts directly with the parliamentary structures of the national governments of the member states which appoint Permanent Members, or ambassadors to NATO. The NATO Parliamentary Assembly is made up of legislators from the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance as well as thirteen associate members. It is however officially a structure different from NATO, and has as aim to join deputies of NATO countries in order to discuss security policies on the NATO Council.

Legal authority of NATO commanders

NATO is an alliance of 30 sovereign states and their individual sovereignty is unaffected by participation in the alliance. NATO has no parliaments, no laws, no enforcement, and no power to punish individual citizens. As a consequence of this lack of sovereignty the power and authority of a NATO commander are limited. NATO commanders cannot punish offences such as failure to obey a lawful order; dereliction of duty; or disrespect to a senior officer. NATO commanders expect obeisance but sometimes need to subordinate their desires or plans to the operators who are themselves subject to sovereign codes of conduct like the UCMJ. A case in point was the clash between General Sir Mike Jackson and General Wesley Clark over KFOR actions at Pristina Airport.

NATO commanders can issue orders to their subordinate commanders in the form of operational plans (OPLANs), operational orders (OPORDERs), tactical direction, or fragmental orders (FRAGOs) and others. The joint rules of engagement must be followed, and the Law of Armed Conflict must be obeyed at all times. Operational resources "remain under national command but have been transferred temporarily to NATO. Although these national units, through the formal process of transfer of authority, have been placed under the operational command and control of a NATO commander, they never lose their national character." Senior national representatives, like CDS, "are designated as so-called red-cardholders". Caveats are restrictions listed "nation by nation... that NATO Commanders... must take into account."

Similar organizations

References

1. "English and French shall be the official languages for the entire North Atlantic Treaty Organization". ^ Final Communiqué following the meeting of the North Atlantic Council on 17 September 1949 Archived 6 December 2006 at the Wayback Machine. "... the English and French texts [of the Treaty] are equally authentic ..." The North Atlantic Treaty, Article 14 Archived 14 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine

2. ^ Erlanger, Steven (26 March 2014). "Europe Begins to Rethink Cuts to Military Spending". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 29 March 2014. Last year, only a handful of NATO countries met the target, according to NATO figures, including the United States, at 4.1 percent, and Britain, at 2.4 percent.

3. ^ Findley, Paul (2011). Speaking Out: A Congressman's Lifelong Fight Against Bigotry, Famine, and War - Paul Findley - Google Books. ISBN 9781569768914.

4. ^ The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Biography: An International Reference Work - Google Books. McGraw-Hill. 1973. ISBN 9780070796331.

5. ^ Eichler, Jan (2021). NATO's Expansion After the Cold War: Geopolitics and Impacts for International Security. Springer Nature. pp. 34, 35. ISBN 9783030666415.

6. ^ Jing Ke (2008). "Did the US Media Reflect the Reality of the Kosovo War in an Objective Manner? A Case Study of The Washington Post and The Washington Times" (PDF). University of Rhode Island. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 March 2019.

7. ^ Techau, Jan (2 September 2015). "The Politics of 2 Percent: NATO and the Security Vacuum in Europe". Carnegie Europe. Archived from the original on 12 July 2018. A month before [the alliance's summit in Riga in 2006], Victoria Nuland, then the U.S. ambassador to NATO, called the 2 percent metric the "unofficial floor" on defence spending in NATO. But never had all governments of NATO's 28 nations officially embraced it at the highest possible political level - a summit declaration.

8. ^ "NATO BOOSTS FORCES IN EAST TO DETER RUSSIAN MENACE". BIRN. Balkan Insight. Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. 14 June 2022.

9. ^ Münch, Philipp (2021). "Creating common sense: Getting NATO to Afghanistan". Journal of Transatlantic Studies. 19 (2): 138-166. doi:10.1057/s42738-021-00067-0.

10. David P. Auerswald, and Stephen M. Saideman, eds. ^ NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (Princeton U.P., 2014)

11. ^ Rasmussen, Sune Engel (28 December 2014). "Nato ends combat operations in Afghanistan". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 2 January 2015.

12. ^ "NATO reaches deal to take over Libya operation; allied planes hit ground forces". Washington Post. 25 March 2011. Archived from the original on 17 February 2013.

13. ^ "Danish Planes in Libya Running Out of Bombs: Report", Defense News. 9 June 2011. Retrieved 11 June 2011

14. ^ "NATO: Ongoing resistance by pro-Gadhafi forces in Libya is 'surprising'". The Washington Post. UPI. 11 October 2011. Archived from the original on 16 October 2013.

15. ^ "Greece 'vetoes NATO statement' on support for Turkey amid Syria escalation". 29 February 2020. The Russian military later explained that the Syrian army targeted Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorists operating in the province, adding that Syrian government forces were not informed about the Turkish presence in the area.

16. ^ George J, Teigen JM (2008). "NATO Enlargement and Institution Building: Military Personnel Policy Challenges in the Post-Soviet Context". European Security. 17 (2): 346. doi:10.1080/09662830802642512. S2CID 153420615.

17. ^ "NATO chief: "Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence"". Axios. 1 December 2021. Archived from the original on 14 February 2022.

18. ^ Epstein, Rachel (2006). "Nato Enlargement and the Spread of Democracy: Evidence and Expectations". Security Studies. 14: 63. doi:10.1080/09636410591002509. S2CID 143878355.

19. ^ "Turkey clears way for Finland, Sweden to join NATO - Stoltenberg". . 28 June 2022. Archived from the original on 28 June 2022.

20. ^ "NATO: Finland and Sweden poised to join NATO after Turkey drops objection". . 28 June 2022. Archived from the original on 28 June 2022.

21. ^ Alozious, Juuko (19 May 2022). "NATO's Two Percent Guideline: A Demand for Military Expenditure Perspective". Defence and Peace Economics. 33 (4): 475-488. doi:10.1080/10242694.2021.1940649. ISSN 1024-2694. S2CID 237888569.

22. ^ Alozious, Juuko (19 May 2022). "NATO's Two Percent Guideline: A Demand for Military Expenditure Perspective". Defence and Peace Economics. 33 (4): 475-488. doi:10.1080/10242694.2021.1940649. ISSN 1024-2694. S2CID 237888569.

23. ^ "NATO Topics:NATO's relations with Contact Countries". www.nato.int. Archived from the original on 10 September 2013.

24. ^ "NATO PARTNERSHIPS: DOD Needs to Assess U.S. Assistance in Response to Changes to the Partnership for Peace Program" (PDF). United States Government Accountability Office. September 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 June 2013.

25. ^ Fuller, Thomas (18 February 2003). "Reaching accord, EU warns Saddam of his 'last chance'". International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on 12 October 2007.

26. Randall, Thomas E. (July 2014). "Legal Authority of NATO Commanders" (PDF). NATO Legal Gazette (34): 39-45. Archived (PDF) from the original on 29 August 2021.

27. ^ Jackson, General Sir Mike (4 September 2007). "Gen Sir Mike Jackson: My clash with Nato chief". Telegraph Media Group Limited. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.

Works cited

Further reading

Atlantic Council of the United States (August 2003). "Transforming the NATO Military Command Structure: A New Framework for Managing the Alliance's Future" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 October 2012.

Axelrod, Robert, and Silvia Borzutzky. "NATO and the war on terror: The organizational challenges of the post 9/11 world." Review of International Organizations 1.3 (2006): 293-307. online

Borawski, John, and Thomas-Durell Young. NATO after 2000: the future of the Euro-Atlantic Alliance (Greenwood, 2001).

Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay (1954). "NATO: The First Five Years". Paris: NATO.

Hendrickson, Ryan C. "NATO's next secretary general: Rasmussen's leadership legacy for Jens Stoltenberg." Journal of Transatlantic Studies (2016) 15#3 pp 237-251.

Pedlow, Dr Gregory W. "Evolution of NATO's Command Structure 1951-2009" (PDF). aco.nato.int. Brussels(?): NATO ACO. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2011.

Sayle, Timothy Andrews. Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order (Cornell University Press, 2019) online review

"NATO at 70: Balancing Collective Defense and Collective Security," Special issue of Journal of Transatlantic Studies 17#2 (June 2019) pp: 135-267.

NATO Office of Information and Press, NATO Handbook : Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, NATO, Brussels, 1998-99, Second Reprint, ISBN 92-845-0134-2

External links

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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO, ; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states - 28 European and two North American. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implemented the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949.

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This article See the needs attention from an expert in China. The specific problem is: Reliable Sources; encyclopedic style. talk page for details. WikiProject China may be able to help recruit an expert.

Chinese Communist Revolution中国人民解放战争

(Chinese People's War of Liberation)
反共衛國戡亂戰爭
(National Protection War against the Communist Rebellion)
第二次國共內戰 / 第二次国共内战
(Second Kuomintang-Communist Civil War)

Part of the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949)
Part of the Cold War (1947-1950)

People's Liberation Army occupies the Presidential Palace in Nanjing. April, 1949

Belligerents

Commanders and leaders

Strength

1,270,000 (Sep 1945)

2,800,000 (Jun 1948)

4,000,000 (Jun 1949)

4,300,000 (Jul 1946)

3,650,000 (Jun 1948)

1,490,000 (Jun 1949)

Casualties and losses

250,000 in three campaigns

1.5 million in three campaigns[2]

The Chinese Communist Revolution, known in mainland China as the War of Liberation ( simplified Chinese: 解放战争; traditional Chinese: 解放戰爭; pinyin: Jiěfàng Zhànzhēng ), was the conflict, led by the Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao Zedong, that resulted in the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, on 1 October 1949. The revolution began in 1946 after the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) and was the second part of the Chinese Civil War (1945-49).

Some historians have traced the origins of the 1949 Revolution to sharp inequalities in society. John Peter Roberts, for instance, writes that under the Qing dynasty, high rates of rent, usury and taxes concentrated wealth into the hands of a tiny minority of village chiefs and landlords. He quotes the statistic that "Ten percent of the agricultural population of China possessed as much as two-thirds of the land". Many of these historians also argue that China was under heavy colonialist pressure by the Western powers and the Japanese and " Century of Humiliation" starting with the Opium Wars and including unequal treaties, the Boxer Rebellion. This group concludes that extreme internal inequality and external aggression led to a rise in nationalism, class consciousness and leftism among vast swaths of the population.[citation needed ]

After internal unrest and foreign pressure weakened the Qing state, a revolt among newly modernized army officers led to the Xinhai Revolution, which ended 2,000 years of imperial rule and established the Republic of China. Following the end of World War I and October Revolution in Russia, labor struggles intensified in China. Workers were fighting for better wages. In Shanghai alone, there were over 450 strikes between 1919 and 1923.

The French historian Lucien Bianco, however, is among those who question whether imperialism and "feudalism" explain the revolution. He points out that the Chinese Communist Party did not have great success until the Japanese invasion of China after 1937. Before the war, the peasantry was not ready for revolution; economic reasons were not enough to mobilize them. More important was nationalism: "It was the war that brought the Chinese peasantry and China to revolution; at the very least, it considerably accelerated the rise of the CCP to power." The communist revolutionary movement had a doctrine, long-term objectives, and a clear political strategy that allowed it to adjust to changes in the situation. He adds that the most important aspect of the Chinese Communist movement is that it was armed.

Founding of the Communist Party of China

The Communist Party of China was founded in 1921, during the May Fourth Movement, which Mao Zedong referred to as the birth of communism in China.

After a period of slow growth and alliance with the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), the alliance broke down and the Communists fell victim in 1927 to a purge carried out by the Kuomintang under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. After 1927, the Communists retreated to the countryside and built up local bases throughout the country and continued to hold them until the Long March. During the Japanese invasion and occupation, the Communists built more secret bases in the Japanese occupied zones and relied on them as headquarters.

Chinese Civil War, 1945-1949

The Nationalists had an advantage in both troops and weapons, controlled a much larger territory and population, and enjoyed broad international support. The Communists were well established in the north and northwest. The best-trained Nationalist troops had been killed in early battles against the better equipped Japanese Army and in Burma, while the Communists had suffered less severe losses. The Soviet Union, though distrustful, provided aid to the Communists, and the United States assisted the Nationalists with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of military supplies, as well as airlifting Nationalist troops from central China to Manchuria, an area Chiang Kai-shek saw as strategically vital to retake. Chiang determined to confront the PLA in Manchuria and committed his troops in one decisive battle, the Battle of Liaohsi, in the autumn of 1948. The strength of Nationalist troops in July 1946 was 4.3 million, of which 2.3 million were well-trained and ready for country-wide mobile combat. However, the battle resulted in a decisive Communist victory and the Nationalists were never able to recover from it.

On October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong officially proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China at Tiananmen Square. Chiang Kai-shek, 600,000 Nationalist troops and about two million Nationalist-sympathizer refugees retreated to the island of Taiwan. After that, resistance to the Communists on the mainland was substantial but scattered, such as in the far south. An attempt to take the Nationalist-controlled island of Kinmen was thwarted in the Battle of Kuningtou. In December 1949 Chiang proclaimed Taipei, Taiwan the temporary capital of the Republic, and continued to assert his government as the sole legitimate authority of all China, while the PRC government continued to call for the unification of all China. The last direct fighting between Nationalist and Communist forces ended with the Communist capture of Hainan Island in May 1950, though shelling and guerrilla raids continued for several years. In June 1950, the outbreak of the Korean War led the American government to place the United States Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait to prevent either side from attacking the other.

Bianco, Lucien (1971), Origins of the Chinese Revolution, 1915-1949, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press Chapter 1, pages 1-26 (Archive). -- hosted at CÉRIUM (Centre d'études et de recherches internationales) at the Université de Montréal

Franke, Wolfgang, A Century of Chinese Revolution, 1851-1949 (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1970).

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Table of Contents

1. First Red Scare: 1917-1920

2. Cold War Concerns About Communism

3. Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee

4. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI

5. Hysteria and Growing Conservatism

6. Red Scare Impact

The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, which intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s. (Communists were often referred to as "Reds" for their allegiance to the red Soviet flag.) The Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on U.S. government and society. Federal employees were analyzed to determine whether they were sufficiently loyal to the government, and the House Un-American Activities Committee, as well as U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, investigated allegations of subversive elements in the government and the Hollywood film industry. The climate of fear and repression linked to the Red Scare finally began to ease by the late 1950s.

First Red Scare: 1917-1920

In the United States, labor strikes were on the rise, and the press sensationalized them as being caused by immigrants bent on bringing down the American way of life. The Sedition Act of 1918 targeted people who criticized the government, monitoring radicals and labor union leaders with the threat of deportation.

The fear turned to violence with the 1919 anarchist bombings, a series of bombs targeting law enforcement and government officials. Bombs went off in a wide number of cities including Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, D.C., and New York City.

The first Red Scare climaxed in 1919 and 1920, when United States Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer ordered the Palmer raids, a series of violent law-enforcement raids targeting leftist radicals and anarchists. They kicked off a period of unrest that became known as the "Red Summer."

Cold War Concerns About Communism

Did you know? FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was quick to equate any kind of protest with communist subversion, including the civil rights demonstrations led by Martin Luther King Jr. Hoover labeled King a communist and covertly worked to intimidate and discredit the civil rights leader.

Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee

J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI

The information obtained by the FBI proved essential in high-profile legal cases, including the 1949 conviction of 12 prominent leaders of the American Communist Party on charges that they had advocated the overthrow of the government. Moreover, Hoover's agents helped build the case against Julius Rosenberg (1918-53) and his wife, Ethel Rosenberg (1915-53), who were convicted of espionage in 1951. The Rosenbergs were executed two years later.

Hysteria and Growing Conservatism

Public concerns about communism were heightened by international events. In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested a nuclear bomb and communist forces led by Mao Zedong (1893-1976) took control of China. The following year saw the start of the Korean War (1950-53), which engaged U.S. troops in combat against the communist-supported forces of North Korea. The advances of communism around the world convinced many U.S. citizens that there was a real danger of "Reds" taking over their own country. Figures such as McCarthy and Hoover fanned the flames of fear by wildly exaggerating that possibility.

As the Red Scare intensified, its political climate turned increasingly conservative. Elected officials from both major parties sought to portray themselves as staunch anticommunists, and few people dared to criticize the questionable tactics used to persecute suspected radicals. Membership in leftist groups dropped as it became clear that such associations could lead to serious consequences, and dissenting voices from the left side of the political spectrum fell silent on a range of important issues. In judicial affairs, for example, support for free speech and other civil liberties eroded significantly. This trend was symbolized by the 1951 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dennis v. United States, which said that the free-speech rights of accused Communists could be restricted because their actions presented a clear and present danger to the government.

Red Scare Impact

Americans also felt the effects of the Red Scare on a personal level, and thousands of alleged communist sympathizers saw their lives disrupted. They were hounded by law enforcement, alienated from friends and family and fired from their jobs. While a small number of the accused may have been aspiring revolutionaries, most others were the victims of false allegations or had done nothing more than exercise their democratic right to join a political party.

Though the climate of fear and repression began to ease in the late 1950s, the Red Scare has continued to influence political debate in the decades since. It is often cited as an example of how unfounded fears can compromise civil liberties.

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Red Scare: Cold War, McCarthyism & Facts | HISTORY

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The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during the Cold War era.

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The Cuban Revolution ( Spanish: Revolución cubana) was a military and political effort to overthrow the government of Cuba between 1953 and 1959. It began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in court, Fidel Castro organized an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953. The rebels were arrested and while in prison formed the 26th of July Movement. After gaining amnesty the M-26-7 rebels organized an expedition from Mexico on the Granma yacht to invade Cuba. In the following years the M-26-7 rebel army would slowly defeat the Cuban army in the countryside, while its urban wing would engage in sabotage and rebel army recruitment. Over time the originally critical and ambivalent Popular Socialist Party would come to support the 26th of July Movement in late 1958. By the time the rebels were to oust Batista the revolution was being driven by the Popular Socialist Party, 26th of July Movement, and the Revolutionary Directorate of March 13.

The rebels finally ousted Batista on 1 January 1959, replacing his government. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as Día de la Revolución (from Spanish: "Day of the Revolution"). The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist-Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.

The Cuban Revolution had powerful domestic and international repercussions. In particular, it transformed Cuba-United States relations, although efforts to improve diplomatic relations, such as the Cuban thaw, gained momentum during the 2010s. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Castro's government began a program of nationalization, centralization of the press and political consolidation that transformed Cuba's economy and civil society. The revolution also heralded an era of Cuban intervention in foreign conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Several rebellions occurred in the six years following 1959, mainly in the Escambray Mountains, which were suppressed by the revolutionary government.

The Republic of Cuba at the turn of the 20th century was largely characterized by a deeply ingrained tradition of corruption where political participation resulted in opportunities for elites to engage in wealth accumulation. Cuba's first presidential period under Don Tomás Estrada Palma from 1902 to 1906 was considered to uphold the best standards of administrative integrity in the history of the Republic of Cuba. However, a United States intervention in 1906 resulted in Charles Edward Magoon, an American diplomat, taking over the government until 1909. Although Magoon's government did not condone corrupt practices, there is debate as to how much was done to stop what was widespread especially with the surge of American money coming into the small country. Hugh Thomas suggests that while Magoon disapproved of corrupt practices, corruption still persisted under his administration and he undermined the autonomy of the judiciary and their court decisions. On January 29, 1909, the sovereign government of Cuba was restored, and José Miguel Gómez became president. No explicit evidence of Magoon's corruption ever surfaced, but his parting gesture of issuing lucrative Cuban contracts to U.S. firms was a continued point of contention. Cuba's subsequent president, José Miguel Gómez, was the first to become involved in pervasive corruption and government corruption scandals. These scandals involved bribes that were allegedly paid to Cuban officials and legislators under a contract to search the Havana harbour, as well as the payment of fees to government associates and high-level officials. Gómez's successor, Mario García Menocal, wanted to put an end to the corruption scandals and claimed to be committed to administrative integrity as he ran on a slogan of "honesty, peace and work". Despite his intentions, corruption actually intensified under his government from 1913 to 1921. Instances of fraud became more common while private actors and contractors frequently colluded with public officials and legislators. Charles Edward Chapman attributes the increase of corruption to the sugar boom that occurred in Cuba under the Menocal administration. Furthermore, the advent of World War One enabled the Cuban government to manipulate sugar prices, the sales of exports and import permits. While in office, García Menocal hosted his college fraternity, in the 1920 Delta Kappa Epsilon National Convention, the first international fraternity conference outside the US, which took place in Cuba. He was responsible for creating the Cuban Peso; until his presidency Cuba used both the Spanish Real and US Dollar. President Menocal left the Cuban national treasury in overdraft and therefore in precarious financial situation. Menocal supposedly spent $800 million during his 8 years in office and left a floating debt of $40 million.

Alfredo Zayas succeeded Menocal from 1921 to 1925 and engaged in what Calixto Masó refers to as the "maximum expression of administrative corruption". Both petty and grand corruption spread to nearly all aspects of public life and the Cuban administration became largely characterized by nepotism as Zayas relied on friends and relatives to illegally gain greater access to wealth. Gerardo Machado succeeded Zayas from 1925 to 1933, and entered the presidency with widespread popularity and support from the major political parties. However, his support declined over time. Due to Zayas' previous policies, Gerardo Machado aimed to diminish corruption and improve the public sector's performance under his successive administration from 1925 to 1933. While he was successfully able to reduce the amounts of low level and petty corruption, grand corruption still largely persisted. Machado embarked on development projects that enabled the persistence of grand corruption through inflated costs and the creation of "large margins" that enabled public officials to appropriate money illegally. Under his government, opportunities for corruption became concentrated into fewer hands with "centralized government purchasing procedures" and the collection of bribes among a smaller number of bureaucrats and administrators. Through the development of real estate infrastructures and the growth of Cuba's tourism industry, Machado's administration was able to use insider information to profit from private sector business deals. Many people objected to his running again for re-election in 1928, as his victory violated his promise to serve for only one term. As protests and rebellions became more strident, his administration curtailed free speech and used repressive police tactics against opponents. Machado unleashed a wave of violence against his critics, and there were numerous murders and assassinations committed by the police and army under Machado's administration. The extent of his involvement in these is disputed, but in the end, Machado is described as a dictator. In May 1933, Machada was forced out as newly appointed US ambassador Sumner Welles arrived in Cuba and initiated negotiation with the opposition groups for a government to succeed Machado's. A provisional government headed by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada (son of Cuban independence hero Carlos Manuel de Céspedes) and including members of the ABC was brokered; it took power in August 1933 amidst a general strike in Havana.

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada subsequently was offered the position of President by ambassador Sumner Welles. He took office on August 13, 1933, and Welles proposed that "general elections may be held approximately 3 months from now so that Cuba may once more have a constitutional government in the real sense of the word." Céspedes agreed, and declared that a general election would be held on February 24, 1934, for a new presidential term to begin on May 20, 1934. However, on September 4-5, 1933, the Sergeants' Revolt took place while Céspedes was in Matanzas and Santa Clara after a hurricane had ravaged those regions. The junta of officers led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista and students proclaimed that it had taken power in order to fulfill the aims of the revolution; it briefly described a program which included economic restructuring, punishment of wrongdoers, recognition of public debts, creation of courts, political reorganization, and any other actions necessary to construct a new Cuba based on justice and democracy. Only five days after the coup, Batista and the Student Directory promoted Ramón Grau to the role of President. The ensuing One Hundred Days Government issued a number of reformist declarations but never gained diplomatic recognition from the US; it was overthrown in January 1934 under pressure from Batista and the US ambassador. Grau was replaced by Carlos Mendieta, and within five days the U.S. recognized Cuba's new government. The corruption was not curtailed under Mendieta and he resigned in 1935 after unrest continued, and their followed a number of interim and weak presidents under the guidance of Batista and the US. Batista, supported by the Democratic Socialist Coalition which included Julio Antonio Mella's Communist Party, defeated Grau in the first presidential election under the new Cuban constitution in the 1940 election, and served a four-year term as President of Cuba. Batista was endorsed by the original Communist Party of Cuba (later known as the Popular Socialist Party), which at the time had little significance and no probability of an electoral victory. This support was primarily due to Batista's labor laws and his support for labor unions, with which the Communists had close ties. In fact, Communists attacked the anti-Batista opposition, saying Grau and others were "fascists" and " reactionaries".

Senator Eduardo Chibás dedicated himself to exposing corruption in the Cuban government, and formed the Partido Ortodoxo in 1947 to further this aim. Argote-Freyre points out that Cuba's population under the Republic had a high tolerance for corruption. Furthermore, Cubans knew and criticized who was corrupt, but admired them for their ability to act as "criminals with impunity". Corrupt officials went beyond members of congress to also include military officials who granted favours to residents and accepted bribes. The establishment of an illegal gambling network within the military enabled army personnel such as Lieutenant Colonel Pedraza and Major Mariné to engage in extensive illegal gambling activities. Mauricio Augusto Font and Alfonso Quiroz, authors of The Cuban Republic and José Martí, say that corruption pervaded in public life under the administrations of Presidents Ramón Grau and Carlos Prío Socarrás. Prío was reported to have stolen over $90 million in public funds, which was equivalent to one fourth of the annual national budget. Prior to the Communist revolution, Cuba was ruled under the elected government of Fulgencio Batista from 1940 to 1944. Throughout this time period, Batista's support base consisted mainly of corrupt politicians and military officials. Batista himself was able to heavily profit from the regime before coming into power through inflated government contracts and gambling proceeds. In 1942, the British Foreign Office reported that the U.S. State Department was "very worried" about corruption under President Fulgencio Batista, describing the problem as "endemic" and exceeding "anything which had gone on previously". British diplomats believed that corruption was rooted within Cuba's most powerful institutions, with the highest individuals in government and military being heavily involved in gambling and the drug trade. In terms of civil society, Eduardo Saenz Rovner writes that corruption within the police and government enabled the expansion of criminal organizations in Cuba. Batista refused U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's offer to send experts to help reform the Cuban Civil Service. Batista didn't run in the 1944 election, and Partido Auténtico party member Ramón Grau was elected president, and oversaw extensive corruption during his administration. He had Carlos Prío Socarrás serve turns as Minister of Public Works, Minister of Labor and Prime Minister. On the next election July 1, 1948, Prio was elected president of Cuba as a member of the Partido Auténtico which presided over corruption and irresponsible government of this period. Prío was assisted by Chief of the Armed Forces General Genobebo Pérez Dámera and Colonel José Luis Chinea Cardenas, who had previously been in charge of the Province of Santa Clara.

The eight years under Grau and Prío, were marked by violence among political factions and reports of theft and self-enrichment in the government ranks. The Prío administration increasingly came to be perceived by the public as ineffectual in the face of violence and corruption, much as the Grau administration before it.

With elections scheduled for the middle of 1952, rumors surfaced of a planned military coup by long-shot presidential contender Fulgencio Batista. Prío, seeing no constitutional basis to act, did not do so. The rumors proved to be true. On March 10, 1952, Batista and his collaborators seized military and police commands throughout the country and occupied major radio and TV stations. Batista assumed power when Prío, failing to mount a resistance, boarded a plane and went into exile.

Batista, after his military coup against Prío Socarras, again took power and ruled until 1959. Under his rule, Batista led a corrupt dictatorship that involved close links with organized crime organizations and the reduction of civil freedoms of Cubans. This period resulted in Batista engaging in more "sophisticated practices of corruption" at both the administrative and civil society levels. Batista and his administration engaged in profiteering from the lottery as well as illegal gambling. Corruption further flourished in civil society through increasing amounts of police corruption, censorship of the press as well as media, and creating anti-communist campaigns that suppressed opposition with violence, torture and public executions. The former culture of toleration and acceptance towards corruption also dissolved with the dictatorship of Batista. For instance, one citizen wrote that "however corrupt Grau and Prío were, we elected them and therefore allowed them to steal from us. Batista robs us without our permission." Corruption under Batista further expanded into the economic sector with alliances that he forged with foreign investors and the prevalence of illegal casinos and criminal organizations in the country's capital of Havana.

In the decades following the United States' invasion of Cuba in 1898, and formal independence from the U.S. on 20 May 1902, Cuba experienced a period of significant instability, enduring a number of revolts, coups and a period of U.S. military occupation. Fulgencio Batista, a former soldier who had served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, became president for the second time in 1952, after seizing power in a military coup and canceling the 1952 elections. Although Batista had been relatively progressive during his first term, in the 1950s he proved far more dictatorial and indifferent to popular concerns. While Cuba remained plagued by high unemployment and limited water infrastructure, Batista antagonized the population by forming lucrative links to organized crime and allowing American companies to dominate the Cuban economy, especially sugar-cane plantations and other local resources. Although the US armed and politically supported the Batista dictatorship, later US president John F. Kennedy recognized its corruption and the justifiability of removing it.

During his first term as president, Batista was supported by the original Communist Party of Cuba (later known as the Popular Socialist Party), but during his second term he became strongly anti-communist. Batista developed a rather weak security bridge as an attempt to silence political opponents. In the months following the March 1952 coup, Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer and activist, petitioned for the overthrow of Batista, whom he accused of corruption and tyranny. However, Castro's constitutional arguments were rejected by the Cuban courts. After deciding that the Cuban regime could not be replaced through legal means, Castro resolved to launch an armed revolution. To this end, he and his brother Raúl founded a paramilitary organization known as "The Movement", stockpiling weapons and recruiting around 1,200 followers from Havana's disgruntled working class by the end of 1952.

Early stages: 1953-1955

Striking their first blow against the Batista government, Fidel and Raúl Castro gathered 70 fighters and planned a multi-pronged attack on several military installations. On 26 July 1953, the rebels attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and the barracks in Bayamo, only to be decisively defeated by the far more numerous government soldiers. It was hoped that the staged attack would spark a nationwide revolt against Batista's government. After an hour of fighting most of the rebels and their leader fled to the mountains. The exact number of rebels killed in the battle is debatable; however, in his autobiography, Fidel Castro claimed that nine were killed in the fighting, and an additional 56 were executed after being captured by the Batista government. Due to the government's large number of men, Hunt revised the number to be around 60 members taking the opportunity to flee to the mountains along with Castro. Among the dead was Abel Santamaría, Castro's second-in-command, who was imprisoned, tortured, and executed on the same day as the attack.

Numerous key Movement revolutionaries, including the Castro brothers, were captured shortly afterwards. In a highly political trial, Fidel spoke for nearly four hours in his defense, ending with the words "Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me." Castro's defense was based on nationalism, the representation and beneficial programs for the non-elite Cubans, and his patriotism and justice for the Cuban community. Fidel was sentenced to 15 years in the Presidio Modelo prison, located on Isla de Pinos, while Raúl was sentenced to 13 years. However, in 1955, under broad political pressure, the Batista government freed all political prisoners in Cuba, including the Moncada attackers. Fidel's Jesuit childhood teachers succeeded in persuading Batista to include Fidel and Raúl in the release.

Soon, the Castro brothers joined with other exiles in Mexico to prepare for the overthrow of Batista, receiving training from Alberto Bayo, a leader of Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. In June 1955, Fidel met the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who joined his cause. Raúl and Fidel's chief advisor Ernesto aided the initiation of Batista's amnesty. The revolutionaries named themselves the "26th of July Movement", in reference to the date of their attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953.

By late 1955, student riots and demonstrations became more common, and unemployment became problematic as new graduates could not find jobs. These protests were dealt with increasing repression. All young people were seen as possible revolutionaries. Due to its continued opposition to the Cuban government and much protest activity taking place on its campus, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on 30 November 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government).

While the Castro brothers and the other 26 July Movement guerrillas were training in Mexico and preparing for their amphibious deployment to Cuba, another revolutionary group followed the example of the Moncada Barracks assault. On 29 April 1956 at 12:50 pm during Sunday mass, an independent guerrilla group of around 100 rebels led by Reynol García attacked the Domingo Goicuria army barracks in Matanzas province. The attack was repelled with ten rebels and three soldiers killed in the fighting, and one rebel summarily executed by the garrison commander, Pilar García. Florida International University historian Miguel A. Brito was in the nearby cathedral when the firefight began. He writes, "That day, the Cuban Revolution began for me and Matanzas."

Insurgency: 1956-1957

Map of Cuba showing the location of the arrival of the rebels on the Granma in late 1956, the rebels' stronghold in the Sierra Maestra, and Guevara and Cienfuegos' route towards Havana via Las Villas Province in December 1958

The yacht departed from Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico, on 25 November 1956, carrying the Castro brothers and 80 others including Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, even though the yacht was only designed to accommodate 12 people with a maximum of 25. On 2 December, it landed in Playa Las Coloradas, in the municipality of Niquero, arriving two days later than planned because the boat was heavily loaded, unlike during the practice sailing runs. This dashed any hopes for a coordinated attack with the llano wing of the Movement. After arriving and exiting the ship, the band of rebels began to make their way into the Sierra Maestra mountains, a range in southeastern Cuba. Three days after the trek began, Batista's army attacked and killed most of the Granma participants - while the exact number is disputed, no more than twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the initial encounters with the Cuban army and escaped into the Sierra Maestra mountains.

On 13 March 1957, a separate group of revolutionaries - the anticommunist Student Revolutionary Directorate (RD) (Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, DRE), composed mostly of students - stormed the Presidential Palace in Havana, attempting to assassinate Batista and overthrow the government. The attack ended in utter failure. The RD's leader, student José Antonio Echeverría, died in a shootout with Batista's forces at the Havana radio station he had seized to spread the news of Batista's anticipated death. The handful of survivors included Dr. Humberto Castello (who later became the Inspector General in the Escambray), Rolando Cubela and Faure Chomon (both later Comandantes of the 13 March Movement, centered in the Escambray Mountains of Las Villas Province).

The plan, as explained by Faure Chaumón Mediavilla, was to attack the Presidential Palace and occupy the radio station Radio Reloj at the Radiocentro CMQ Building in order to announce the death of Batista and call for a general strike. The Presidential Palace was to be captured by fifty men under the direction of Carlos Gutiérrez Menoyo and Faure Chomón, with support from a group of 100 armed men occupying the tallest buildings in the surrounding area of the Presidential Palace (La Tabacalera, the Sevilla Hotel, the Palace of Fine Arts). However this secondary support operation was not carried out, as the men failed to arrive at the scene due to last-minute hesitation. Although the attackers reached the third floor of the palace, they did not locate or execute Batista.

The Humboldt 7 massacre occurred on 20 April 1957 at apartment 201 of the Humboldt 7 residential building when the National Police led by Lt. Colonel Esteban Ventura Novo assassinated four participants who had survived the assault on the Presidential Palace and in the seizure of the Radio Reloj station at the Radiocentro CMQ Building.

Juan Pedro Carbó was sought by police for the assassination of Col. Antonio Blanco Rico, Chief of Batista's secret service. Marcos Rodríguez Alfonso (also known as "Marquitos") began arguing with Fructuoso, Carbó and Machadito; Joe Westbrook had not yet arrived. Marquitos, who gave the airs to be a revolutionary, was strongly against the revolution and was thus resented by the others. On the morning of 20 April 1957, Marquitos met with Lt. Colonel Esteban Ventura and revealed the location of where the young revolutionaries were, Humboldt 7. After 5:00 pm on 20 April, a large contingent of police officers arrived and assaulted apartment 201, where the four men were staying. The men were not aware that the police were outside. The police rounded up and executed the rebels, who were unarmed.

The incident was covered up until a post-revolution investigation in 1959. Marquitos was arrested and, after a double trial, was sentenced by the Supreme Court to the penalty of death by firing squad in March 1964.

Frank País was a revolutionary organizer who had built an extensive urban network, who had been tried and acquitted for his role in organizing an unsuccessful uprising in Santiago de Cuba in support of Castro's landing. On 30 June 1957, Frank's younger brother, Josué País, was killed by the Santiago police. During the latter part of July 1957, a wave of systematic police searches forced Frank País into hiding in Santiago de Cuba. On 30 July he was in a safe house with Raúl Pujol, despite warnings from other members of the Movement that it was not secure. The Santiago police under Colonel José Salas Cañizares surrounded the building. Frank and Raúl attempted to escape. However, an informant betrayed them as they tried to walk to a waiting getaway car. The police officers drove the two men to the Callejón del Muro (Rampart Lane) and shot them in the back of the head. In defiance of Batista's regime, País was buried in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in the olive green uniform and red and black armband of 26 July Movement.

In response to the death of País, the workers of Santiago declared a spontaneous general strike. This strike was the largest popular demonstration in the city up to that point. The mobilization of 30 July 1957 is considered one of the most decisive dates in both the Cuban Revolution and the fall of Batista's dictatorship. This day has been instituted in Cuba as the Day of the Martyrs of the Revolution. The Frank País Second Front, the guerrilla unit led by Raúl Castro in the Sierra Maestra was named for the fallen revolutionary. His childhood home at 226 San Bartolomé Street was turned into The Santiago Frank País García House Museum and designated as a national monument. The international airport in Holguín, Cuba also bears his name.

On 6 September 1957 elements of the Cuban navy in the Cienfuegos Naval Base staged a rising against the Batista regime. Led by junior officers in sympathy with the 26th of July Movement, this was originally intended to coincide with the seizure of warships in Havana harbour. Reportedly individual officials within the U.S. Embassy were aware of the plot and had promised U.S. recognition if it were successful.

By 5:30am the base was in the hands of the mutineers. Most of the 150 naval personnel sleeping at the base joined with the twenty-eight original conspirators, while eighteen officers were arrested. About two hundred 26th of July Movement members and other rebel supporters entered the base from the town and were given weapons. Cienfuegos was in rebel hands for several hours. By the afternoon Government motorised infantry had arrived from Santa Clara, supported by B-26 bombers. Armoured units followed from Havana. After street fighting throughout the afternoon and night the last of the rebels, holding out in the police headquarters, were overwhelmed. Approximately 70 mutineers and rebel supporters were executed and reprisals against civilians added to the estimated total death toll of 300 men.

The use of bombers and tanks recently provided under a US-Cuban arms agreement specifically for use in hemisphere defence, now raised tensions between the two governments.

The United States supplied Cuba with planes, ships, tanks, and other technology such as napalm, which was used against the rebels. This would eventually come to an end due to a later arms embargo in 1958.

According to Tad Szulc, the United States began funding the 26th of July Movement around October or November 1957 and ending around middle 1958. "No less than $50,000" would be delivered to key leaders of the 26th of July Movement, the purpose being to instill sympathies to the United States amongst the rebels in case the movement succeeded.

While Batista increased troop deployments to the Sierra Maestra region to crush the 26 July guerrillas, the Second National Front of the Escambray kept battalions of the Constitutional Army tied up in the Escambray Mountains region. The Second National Front was led by former Revolutionary Directorate member Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo and the "Comandante Yanqui" William Alexander Morgan. Gutiérrez Menoyo formed and headed the guerrilla band after news had broken out about Castro's landing in the Sierra Maestra, and José Antonio Echeverría had stormed the Havana Radio station. Though Morgan was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army, his recreating features from Army basic training made a critical difference in the Second National Front troops battle readiness.

Thereafter, the United States imposed an economic embargo on the Cuban government and recalled its ambassador, weakening the government's mandate further. Batista's support among Cubans began to fade, with former supporters either joining the revolutionaries or distancing themselves from Batista. Once Batista started making drastic decisions concerning Cuba's economy, he began to nationalize U.S. oil refineries and other U.S. properties. Nonetheless, the Mafia and U.S. businessmen maintained their support for the regime.

Batista's government often resorted to brutal methods to keep Cuba's cities under control. However, in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro, aided by Frank País, Ramos Latour, Huber Matos, and many others, staged successful attacks on small garrisons of Batista's troops. Castro was joined by CIA connected Frank Sturgis who offered to train Castro's troops in guerrilla warfare. Castro accepted the offer, but he also had an immediate need for guns and ammunition, so Sturgis became a gunrunner. Sturgis purchased boatloads of weapons and ammunition from CIA weapons expert Samuel Cummings' International Armament Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia. Sturgis opened a training camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where he taught Che Guevara and other 26 July Movement rebel soldiers guerrilla warfare.

In addition, poorly armed irregulars known as escopeteros harassed Batista's forces in the foothills and plains of Oriente Province. The escopeteros also provided direct military support to Castro's main forces by protecting supply lines and by sharing intelligence. Ultimately, the mountains came under Castro's control.

In addition to armed resistance, the rebels sought to use propaganda to their advantage. A pirate radio station called Radio Rebelde ("Rebel Radio") was set up in February 1958, allowing Castro and his forces to broadcast their message nationwide within enemy territory. Castro's affiliation with the New York Times journalist Herbert Matthews created a front page-worthy report on anti-communist propaganda. The radio broadcasts were made possible by Carlos Franqui, a previous acquaintance of Castro who subsequently became a Cuban exile in Puerto Rico.

During this time, Castro's forces remained quite small in numbers, sometimes fewer than 200 men, while the Cuban army and police force had a manpower of around 37,000. Even so, nearly every time the Cuban military fought against the revolutionaries, the army was forced to retreat. An arms embargo - imposed on the Cuban government by the United States on 14 March 1958 - contributed significantly to the weakness of Batista's forces. The Cuban air force rapidly deteriorated: it could not repair its airplanes without importing parts from the United States.

Final offensives: 1958-1959

Batista finally responded to Castro's efforts with an attack on the mountains called Operation Verano ( Summer), known to the rebels as la Ofensiva. The army sent some 12,000 soldiers, half of them untrained recruits, into the mountains, along with his own brother Raúl. In a series of small skirmishes, Castro's determined guerrillas defeated the Cuban army. In the Battle of La Plata, which lasted from 11 to 21 July 1958, Castro's forces defeated a 500-man battalion, capturing 240 men while losing just three of their own.

However, the tide nearly turned on 29 July 1958, when Batista's troops almost destroyed Castro's small army of some 300 men at the Battle of Las Mercedes. With his forces pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and received, a temporary cease-fire on 1 August. Over the next seven days, while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces gradually escaped from the trap. By 8 August, Castro's entire army had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.

The Battle of Las Mercedes (29 July-8 August 1958) was the last battle of Operation Verano. The battle was a trap, designed by Cuban General Eulogio Cantillo to lure Fidel Castro's guerrillas into a place where they could be surrounded and destroyed. The battle ended with a cease-fire which Castro proposed and which Cantillo accepted. During the cease-fire, Castro's forces escaped back into the hills. The battle, though technically a victory for the Cuban army, left the army dispirited and demoralized. Castro viewed the result as a victory and soon launched his own offensive.

Battalion 17 began its pull back on 29 July 1958. Castro sent a column of men under René Ramos Latour to ambush the retreating soldiers. They attacked the advance guard and killed some 30 soldiers but then came under attack from previously undetected Cuban forces. Latour called for help and Castro came to the battle scene with his own column of men. Castro's column also came under fire from another group of Cuban soldiers that had secretly advanced up the road from the Estrada Palma Sugar Mill.

As the battle heated up, General Cantillo called up more forces from nearby towns and some 1,500 troops started heading towards the fighting. However, this force was halted by a column under Che Guevara's command. While some critics accuse Che for not coming to the aid of Latour, Major Bockman argues that Che's move here was the correct thing to do. Indeed, he called Che's tactical appreciation of the battle "brilliant".

By the end of July, Castro's troops were fully engaged and in danger of being wiped out by the vastly superior numbers of the Cuban army. He had lost 70 men, including René Latour, and both he and the remains of Latour's column were surrounded. The next day, Castro requested a cease-fire with General Cantillo, even offering to negotiate an end to the war. This offer was accepted by General Cantillo for reasons that remain unclear.

Batista sent a personal representative to negotiate with Castro on 2 August. The negotiations yielded no result but during the next six nights, Castro's troops managed to slip away unnoticed. On 8 August when the Cuban army resumed its attack, they found no one to fight.

Castro's remaining forces had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.

In 1958, Fidel Castro ordered his revolutionary army to go on the offensive against Batista's army. While Castro led one force against Guisa, Masó and other towns, another major offensive was directed at the capture of the city of Santa Clara, the capital of what was then Las Villas Province.

Three columns were sent against Santa Clara under the command of Che Guevara, Jaime Vega, and Camilo Cienfuegos. Vega's column was caught in an ambush and completely destroyed. Guevara's column took up positions around Santa Clara (near Fomento). Cienfuegos's column directly attacked a local army garrison at Yaguajay. Initially numbering just 60 men out of Castro's hardened core of 230, Cienfuegos's group had gained many recruits as it crossed the countryside towards Santa Clara, eventually reaching an estimated strength of 450 to 500 fighters.

The garrison consisted of some 250 men under the command of a Cuban captain of Chinese ancestry, Alfredo Abon Lee. The attack seems to have started around 19 December.

Convinced that reinforcements would be sent from Santa Clara, Lee put up a determined defense of his post. The guerrillas repeatedly attempted to overpower Lee and his men, but failed each time. By 26 December Camilo Cienfuegos had become quite frustrated; it seemed that Lee could not be overpowered, nor could he be convinced to surrender. In desperation, Cienfuegos tried using a homemade tank against Lee's position. The "tank" was actually a large tractor encased in iron plates with attached makeshift flamethrowers on top. It, too, proved unsuccessful.

Finally, on 30 December Lee ran out of ammunition and was forced to surrender his force to the guerrillas. The surrender of the garrison was a major blow to the defenders of the provincial capital of Santa Clara. The next day, the combined forces of Cienfuegos, Guevara, and local revolutionaries under William Alexander Morgan captured the city in a fight of vast confusion. Panicked by news of the defeat at Santa Clara and other losses, Batista fled Cuba the next day.

On the morning of 20 November 1958, a convoy of the Batista soldiers began its usual journey from Guisa. Shortly after leaving that town, located in the northern foothills of the Sierra Maestra, the rebels attacked the caravan.

Guisa was 12 kilometers from the Command Post of the Zone of Operations, located on the outskirts of the city of Bayamo. Nine days earlier, Fidel Castro had left the La Plata Command, beginning an unstoppable march east with his escort and a small group of combatants.

On 19 November, the rebels arrived in Santa Barbara. By that time, there were approximately 230 combatants. Fidel gathered his officers to organize the siege of Guisa, and ordered the placement of a mine on the Monjarás bridge, over the Cupeinicú river. That night the combatants made a camp in Hoyo de Pipa. In the early morning, they took the path that runs between the Heliografo hill and the Mateo Roblejo hill, where they occupied strategic positions. In the meeting on the 20th, the army lost a truck, a bus, and a jeep. Six were killed and 17 prisoners were taken, three of them wounded. At around 10:30 am, the military Command Post located in the Zone of Operations in Bayamo sent a reinforcement made up of Co. 32, plus a platoon from Co. L and another platoon from Co. 22. This force was unable to advance for the resistance of the rebels. Fidel ordered the mining of another bridge over a tributary of the Cupeinicú River. Hours later the army sent a platoon from Co. 82 and another platoon from Co. 93, supported by a T-17 tank.

The enemy soldier in the Cuban example which at present concerns us, is the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets the last crumb left by a long line of profiteers that begins in Wall Street and ends with him. He is disposed to defend his privileges, but he is disposed to defend them only to the degree that they are important to him. His salary and his pension are worth some suffering and some dangers, but they are never worth his life. If the price of maintaining them will cost it, he is better off giving them up; that is to say, withdrawing from the face of the guerrilla danger.

On 21 August 1958, after the defeat of Batista's Ofensiva, Castro's forces began their own offensive. In the Oriente province (in the area of the present-day provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Guantánamo and Holguín), Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida Bosque directed attacks on four fronts. Descending from the mountains with new weapons captured during the Ofensiva and smuggled in by plane, Castro's forces won a series of initial victories. Castro's major victory at Guisa, and the successful capture of several towns including Maffo, Contramaestre, and Central Oriente, brought the Cauto plains under his control.

Meanwhile, three rebel columns, under the command of Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and Jaime Vega, proceeded westward toward Santa Clara, the capital of Villa Clara Province. Batista's forces ambushed and destroyed Jaime Vega's column, but the surviving two columns reached the central provinces, where they joined forces with several other resistance groups not under the command of Castro. When Che Guevara's column passed through the province of Las Villas, and specifically through the Escambray Mountains - where the anticommunist Revolutionary Directorate forces (who became known as the 13 March Movement) had been fighting Batista's army for many months - friction developed between the two groups of rebels. Nonetheless, the combined rebel army continued the offensive, and Cienfuegos won a key victory in the Battle of Yaguajay on 30 December 1958, earning him the nickname "The Hero of Yaguajay".

General elections were held in Cuba on 3 November 1958. The three major presidential candidates were Carlos Márquez Sterling of the Partido del Pueblo Libre, Ramón Grau of the Partido Auténtico and Andrés Rivero Agüero of the Coalición Progresista Nacional. There was also a minor party candidate on the ballot, Alberto Salas Amaro for the Union Cubana party. Voter turnout was estimated at 50% of eligible voters. Although Andrés Rivero Agüero won the presidential election with 70% of the vote, he was unable to take office due to the Cuban Revolution.

Rivero Agüero was due to be sworn in on 24 February 1959. In a conversation between him and the American ambassador Earl E. T. Smith on 15 November 1958, he called Castro a "sick man" and stated it would be impossible to reach a settlement with him. Rivero Agüero also said that he planned to restore constitutional government and would convene a Constitutional Assembly after taking office.

This was the last competitive election in Cuba, the 1940 Constitution of Cuba, the Congress and the Senate of the Cuban Republic, were quickly dismantled shortly thereafter. The rebels had publicly called for an election boycott, issuing its Total War Manifesto on 12 March 1958, threatening to kill anyone that voted.

On 31 December 1958, the Battle of Santa Clara took place in a scene of great confusion. The city of Santa Clara fell to the combined forces of Che Guevara, Cienfuegos, and Revolutionary Directorate (RD) rebels led by Comandantes Rolando Cubela, Juan ("El Mejicano") Abrahantes, and William Alexander Morgan. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He fled Cuba by air for the Dominican Republic just hours later on 1 January 1959. Comandante William Alexander Morgan, leading RD rebel forces, continued fighting as Batista departed and had captured the city of Cienfuegos by 2 January.

Castro learned of Batista's flight in the morning and immediately started negotiations to take over Santiago de Cuba. On 2 January, the military commander in the city, Colonel Rubido, ordered his soldiers not to fight, and Castro's forces took over the city. The forces of Guevara and Cienfuegos entered Havana at about the same time. They had met no opposition on their journey from Santa Clara to Cuba's capital. Castro himself arrived in Havana on 8 January after a long victory march. His initial choice of president, Manuel Urrutia Lleó, took office on 3 January.

Manuel Urrutia Lleó (8 December 1901 - 5 July 1981) was a liberal Cuban lawyer and politician. He campaigned against the Gerardo Machado government and the second presidency of Fulgencio Batista during the 1950s, before serving as president in the first revolutionary government of 1959. Urrutia resigned his position after seven months, owing to a series of disputes with revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, and emigrated to the United States shortly afterward.

Once in power, Urrutia swiftly began a program of closing all brothels, gambling outlets and the national lottery, arguing that these had long been a corrupting influence on the state. The measures drew immediate resistance from the large associated workforce. The disapproving Castro, then commander of Cuba's new armed forces, intervened to request a stay of execution until alternative employment could be found.

Disagreements also arose in the new government concerning pay cuts, which were imposed on all public officials on Castro's demand. The disputed cuts included a reduction of the $100,000 a year presidential salary Urrutia had inherited from Batista. By February, following the surprise resignation of Miró, Castro had assumed the role of prime minister; this strengthened his power and rendered Urrutia increasingly a figurehead president. As Urrutia's participation in the legislative process declined, other unresolved disputes between the two leaders continued to fester. His belief in the restoration of elections was rejected by Castro, who felt that they would usher in a return to the old discredited system of corrupt parties and fraudulent balloting that had marked the Batista era.

Urrutia was then accused by the newspaper of buying a luxury villa, which was portrayed as a frivolous betrayal of the revolution and led to an outcry from the general public. He denied the allegation issuing a writ against the newspaper in response. The story further increased tensions between the various factions in the government, though Urrutia asserted publicly that he had "absolutely no disagreements" with Fidel Castro. Urrutia attempted to distance the Cuban government (including Castro) from the growing influence of the communists within the administration, making a series of critical public comments against the latter group. Whilst Castro had not openly declared any affiliation with the Cuban communists, Urrutia had been a declared anti-communist since they had refused to support the insurrection against Batista, stating in an interview, "If the Cuban people had heeded those words, we would still have Batista with us ... and all those other war criminals who are now running away".

The Cuban Revolution was a crucial turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations. Although the United States government was initially willing to recognize Castro's new government, it soon came to fear that Communist insurgencies would spread through the nations of Latin America, as they had in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, Castro's government resented the Americans for providing aid to Batista's government during the revolution. After the revolutionary government nationalized all U.S. property in Cuba in August 1960, the American Eisenhower administration froze all Cuban assets on American soil, severed diplomatic ties and tightened its embargo of Cuba. The Key West-Havana ferry shut down. In 1961, the U.S. government launched the Bay of Pigs Invasion, in which Brigade 2506 (a CIA-trained force of 1,500 soldiers, mostly Cuban exiles) landed on a mission to oust Castro; the attempt to overthrow Castro failed, with the invasion being repulsed by the Cuban military. The U.S. embargo against Cuba is still in force as of 2020, although it underwent a partial loosening during the Obama administration, only to be strengthened in 2017 under Trump. The U.S. began efforts to normalize relations with Cuba in the mid-2010s, and formally reopened its embassy in Havana after over half a century in August 2015. The Trump administration reversed much of the Cuban Thaw by severely restricting travel by US citizens to Cuba and tightening the US government's embargo against the country.

I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. The great aim of the Alliance for Progress is to reverse this unfortunate policy. This is one of the most, if not the most, important problems in America foreign policy. I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries.

Following the American embargo, the Soviet Union became Cuba's main ally. The Soviet Union did not initially want anything to do with Cuba or Latin America until the United States had taken an interest in dismantling Castro's communist government. At first, many people in the Soviet Union did not know anything about Cuba, and those that did saw Castro as a "troublemaker" and the Cuba Revolution as "one big heresy". There were three big reasons why the Soviet Union changed their attitudes and finally took interest in the island country. First was the success of the Cuban Revolution, to which Moscow responded with great interest as they understood that if a communist revolution was successful for Cuba, it could be successful elsewhere in Latin America. So from then on the Soviets began looking into foreign affairs in Latin America. Second, after learning about the United States' aggressive plan to deploy another Guatemala scenario in Cuba, the Soviet opinion quickly changed feet. Third, Soviet leaders saw the Cuban Revolution as first and foremost an anti-North American revolution which of course whet their appetite as this was during the height of the cold war and the Soviet, US battle for global dominance was at its apex.

The Soviets' attitude of optimism changed to one of concern for the safety of Cuba after it was excluded from the inter-American system at the conference held at Punta del Este in January 1962 by the Organization of American States. This coupled with the threat of a United States invasion of the island was really the turning point for Soviet Concern, the idea was that should Cuba be defeated by the United States it would mean defeat for the Soviet Union and for Marxism-Leninism. If Cuba were to fall, "other Latin American countries would reject us, claiming that for all our might the Soviet Union had not been able to do anything for Cuba except to make empty protests to the United Nations" wrote Khrushchev. The Soviet attitude towards Cuba changed to concern for the safety of the island nation because of increased US tensions and threats of invasion making the Soviet-Cuban relationship superficial insofar as it only cared about denying the US power in the region and maintaining Soviet supremacy. All of these events led to the two countries quickly developing close military and intelligence ties, which culminated in the stationing of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, an act which triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962.

The aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis saw embarrassment for the Soviet Union, and many countries including Soviet countries were quick to criticize Moscow's handling of the situation. In a letter that Khrushchev writes to Castro in January of the following year (1963), after the end of conflict, he talks about wanting to discuss the issues in the two countries' relations. He writes attacking voices from other countries, including socialist ones, blaming the USSR of being opportunistic and self-serving. He explained the decision to withdraw missiles from Cuba, stressing the possibility of advancing Communism through peaceful means. Khrushchev underlined the importance of guaranteeing against an American attack on Cuba and urged Havana to focus on economic, cultural, and technological development to become a shining beacon of socialism in Latin America. In closing he invites Fidel Castro to visit Moscow and discuss the preparations for such a trip.

The following two decades in the 1970s and 1980s were somewhat of an enigma in the sense that the 1970s and 1980s were filled with the most prosperity in Cuba's history, yet the revolutionary government hit full stride in achieving its most organized form, and it adopted and enacted several brutal features of socialist regimes from the Eastern Bloc. Despite this it seems to be a time of prosperity. In 1972 Cuba joined COMECON, officially joining their trade with the Soviet Union's socialist trade bloc. That along with increased Soviet subsidies, better trade terms, and better, more practical domestic policy led to several years of prosperous growth. This period also sees Cuba strengthening its foreign policy with other communistic anti-US imperial countries like Nicaragua. This period is marked as the Sovietization of the 1970s and 1980s.

Cuba maintained close links to the Soviets until the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The end of Soviet economic aid and the loss of its trade partners in the Eastern Bloc led to an economic crisis and period of shortages known as the Special Period in Cuba.

Current day relations with Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, ended in 2002 after the Russian Federation closed an intelligence base in Cuba over budgetary concerns. However, in the last decade, relations have increased in recent years after Russia faced international backlash from the West over the situation in Ukraine in 2014. In retaliation for NATO expansion towards the east, Russia has sought to create these same agreements in Latin America. Russia has specifically sought greater ties with Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico. Currently, these countries maintain close economic ties with the United States. In 2012, Putin decided that Russia focus its military power in Cuba like it had in the past. Putin is quoted saying "Our goal is to expand Russia's presence on the global arms and military equipment market. This means expanding the number of countries we sell to and expanding the range of goods and services we offer."

The greatest threat presented by Castro's Cuba is as an example to other Latin American states which are beset by poverty, corruption, feudalism, and plutocratic exploitation ... his influence in Latin America might be overwhelming and irresistible if, with Soviet help, he could establish in Cuba a Communist utopia.

Castro's victory and post-revolutionary foreign policy had global repercussions as influenced by the expansion of the Soviet Union into Eastern Europe after the 1917 October Revolution. In line with his call for revolution in Latin America and beyond against imperial powers, laid out in his Declarations of Havana, Castro immediately sought to "export" his revolution to other countries in the Caribbean and beyond, sending weapons to Algerian rebels as early as 1960. In the following decades, Cuba became heavily involved in supporting Communist insurgencies and independence movements in many developing countries, sending military aid to insurgents in Ghana, Nicaragua, Yemen, and Angola, among others. Castro's intervention in the Angolan Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s was particularly significant, involving as many as 60,000 Cuban soldiers.

At the time of the revolution various sectors of society supported the revolutionary movement from communists to business leaders and the Catholic Church.

At the time of the revolution the 26th of July Movement involved people of various political persuasions, but most were in agreement and desired the reinstatement of the 1940 Constitution of Cuba and supported the ideals of Jose Marti. Che Guevara commented to Jorge Masetti in an interview during the revolution that "Fidel isn't a communist" also stating "politically you can define Fidel and his movement as 'revolutionary nationalist'. Of course he is anti-American, in the sense that Americans are anti-revolutionaries".

Raúl Castro, Vilma Espín, Jorge Risquet and José Nivaldo Causse in 1958

The importance of women's contributions to the Cuban Revolution is reflected in the very accomplishments that allowed the revolution to be successful, from the participation in the Moncada Barracks, to the Mariana Grajales all-women's platoon that served as Fidel Castro's personal security detail. Tete Puebla, second in command of the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon, has said:

Women in Cuba have always been on the front line of the struggle. At Moncada we had Yeye ( Haydée Santamaría) and Melba (Hernández). With the Granma (yacht) and November 30, we had Celia, Vilma, and many other compañeras. There were many women comrades who were tortured and murdered. From the beginning there were women in the Revolutionary Armed Forces. First they were simple soldiers, later sergeants. Those of us in the Mariana Grajales Platoon were the first officers. The ones who ended the war with officers' ranks stayed in the armed forces.

Before the Mariana Grajales Platoon was established, the revolutionary women of the Sierra Maestra were not organized for combat and primarily helped with cooking, mending clothes, and tending to the sick, frequently acting as couriers, as well as teaching guerrillas to read and write. Haydée Santamaría and Melba Hernández were the only women who participated in the attack on the Moncada Barracks, afterward acting alongside Natalia Revuelta, and Lidia Castro (Fidel Castro's sister) to form alliances with anti-Batista organizations, as well as the assembly and distribution of "History Will Absolve Me". Celia Sánchez and Vilma Espin were leading strategists and highly skilled combatants who held essential roles throughout the revolution. Tete Puebla, founding member and second in command of the Mariana Grajales Platoon, said of Celia Sánchez, "When you speak of Celia, you've got to speak of Fidel, and vice versa. Celia's ideas touched almost everything in the Sierra."

There were many foreign presences in Cuba during this time. Esther Brinch was a Danish translator for the Danish government in 1960's Cuba. Brinch's work covered the Cuban Revolution and Cuban Missile Crisis. A collection of Brinch's archival materials is housed at the George Mason University Special Collections Research Center.

Brown, Gates; Tucker, Spencer C. (2013). "Cuban Revolution". In Tucker, Spencer C. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A New Era of Modern Warfare: A New Era of Modern Warfare. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-280-9.

Castro, Fidel (2007). Ignacio Ramonet (ed.). Fidel Castro: My Life. Translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-102626-8.

Clark, Juan (1992). Cuba: Mito y Realidad: Testimonios de un Pueblo. Miami: Saeta Ediciones. ISBN 978-0-917049-16-3.

Coltman, Leycester (2003). . New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10760-9.

English, T. J. (2008). Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution. William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-06-114771-5.

Font, Fabián Escalante (1995). The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62. Ocean Front. ISBN 1875284869.

Faria, Miguel A. Jr (2002). Cuba in Revolution: Escape from a Lost Paradise. Milledgeville, GA: Hacienda Pub Inc. ISBN 0-9641077-3-2.

Lazo, Mario (1968). Dagger in the heart: American policy failures in Cuba. New York: Twin Circle.

Quirk, Robert E. (1993). "The Political End of President Urrutia - Fidel Castro".

Thomas, Hugh (1998). Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80827-7.

Pirjevec, Jože (2018). Tito. Die Biografie [Tito. The biography]. Translated by Klaus Detlef Olof. Munich: Kunstmann. ISBN 978-3956142420.

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The Cuban Revolution ( Spanish: Revolución cubana) was a military and political effort to overthrow the government of Cuba between 1953 and 1959. It began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed.

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How does Khrushchev hope the exhibit might improve relations between the United States and the Soviet Union? How does Nixon think Soviet visitors will respond to the exhibit? Why does Nixon believe communication, especially through television, is necessary for both nations? How is Khrushchev’s claim…

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The Campaign and Election of 1960

The election of 1960 brought to the forefront a generation of politicians born in the twentieth century, pitting the 47-year-old Republican vice president Richard M. Nixon against the 43-year-old Democratic challenger John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy's chief rival for the nomination was Hubert H. Humphrey from Minnesota, whose steadfast liberalism played well with many in the Midwest. The two fought it out in thirteen primaries. Humphrey's best hope rested on winning in his "back yard" of neighboring Wisconsin, and then painting himself as the new favorite. But Kennedy's superior planning, financing, and political instincts won out, and he beat Humphrey in his own region.

The nomination's turning point occurred in the West Virginia primary. A working-class, heavily Protestant state, West Virginia was critical for Kennedy, who had to show that a wealthy Catholic was electable there. Humphrey desperately threw all his remaining resources into the fray, even tapping a savings fund for his daughter's upcoming wedding. But the Kennedy machine overwhelmed him with money and savvy. In West Virginia, the only state in which it was legal for a campaign to pay workers and voters money for showing up at the polls, Kennedy's financing gave him a distinct advantage. Dispirited and broke, Humphrey abandoned the race.

At the Democratic National Convention held in Los Angeles in early July, Kennedy defeated his nearest rival, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, the Senate majority leader, on the first ballot. Kennedy then invited Johnson to become his running mate, a controversial move made ostensibly to placate the South, bypassing other party leaders such as Humphrey and Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri. In his acceptance speech, Kennedy pledged to "get the country moving again." Americans, he said, stood "on the edge of New Frontier-of the 1960s-a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils-a frontier of unfilled hopes and threats."

The Republicans, meeting a few weeks later in Chicago, nominated Nixon, making him the first vice president in the history of the modern two-party system to win the presidential nomination in his own right. Nixon chose Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the chief US delegate to the United Nations, as his running mate.

Once he had won the nomination of his party, Kennedy undertook the task of convincing American voters that he would make a better president than his rival. Kennedy cast himself as a Cold War liberal and promised to lead America out of what he called the "conservative rut" into which he accused Eisenhower, and by implication Nixon, of running the country. It was apparent throughout the campaign that the election would be close. A Gallup poll in late August put Nixon and Kennedy tied at 47 percent each, with 6 percent undecided.

Kennedy faced two great hurdles in his quest for the White House: his youth and his religion. Polls revealed that many Americans balked at the prospect of such a young man, untested on the world stage, leading the nation at a time of threatening Cold War peril, especially after Dwight Eisenhower, who projected a comforting grandfatherly image. For Nixon, although he was only four years older than Kennedy, this issue was less acute since he had the advantage of having served as vice president for the duration of Eisenhower's two terms and was therefore a more familiar face.

Even more unsettling to many Protestants was the prospect of a Roman Catholic, whom the Catholic Church might "control," as the nation's president. Kennedy chose to tackle the religious issue openly and directly, giving a series of speeches designed to address any misgivings about his faith and voluntarily subjecting himself to a round of questioning about his views on church-state relations by leading Protestant clergy in Houston. The group's conclusion that they were satisfied with his answers provided a degree of comfort for many non-Catholic voters.

Televised Debates

In order to overcome Nixon's advantage in public recognition, Kennedy challenged Nixon to a series of televised debates. Nixon, an experienced debater, accepted. The series of debates between the two candidates became the first extensive use of what would thereafter become a staple medium of American political campaigns-television. Broadcast live on national television in late September and early October, the four debates ultimately provided the Kennedy campaign with a huge boost.

Seventy million people watched the first debate. The Richard Nixon that viewers saw on their black-and-white television sets appeared pallid, tense, and uncomfortable. Just out of the hospital for the treatment of an infected cut, he wore a light-colored suit that blended into the gray background; in combination with the harsh studio lighting that left Nixon perspiring, he offered a less-than commanding presence. By contrast, Kennedy appeared relaxed, tanned, and telegenic.

A mythology has taken root about post-debate opinion polls and their revelations about popular perceptions of the two candidates. Allegedly, those who had listened to the debates on the radio thought that Nixon had won, with the larger television audience being generally more impressed with Kennedy. No such comparative polls exist, however, and the market research on which those conclusions rest incorporated too few radio listeners to be statistically valid.

Both candidates traveled extensively and spent freely. Nixon, however, was hamstrung by an unfortunate early pledge to campaign in every state of the union. The trips to vote-poor states took precious time and money, while Kennedy focused his resources and time on the states with the most electoral college votes.

On Election Day, November 8, Kennedy won the popular vote by less than 120,000 votes out of a record 68.8 million ballots cast. Kennedy won the electoral college vote more clearly, winning 303 votes to Nixon's 219 (with Virginia's Harry F. Byrd winning 15). The closeness of the election naturally fueled speculation of tampering on both sides. In Chicago, Democratic mayor Richard Daley delivered an unusually good result for Kennedy-a result that came under scrutiny when Kennedy won Illinois by less than 9,000 votes. Citing voting irregularities, the Republican National Committee unsuccessfully challenged the Illinois vote in federal court, although Nixon carefully distanced himself from the various legal challenges presented by his party and his supporters. Suspicious results also emerged in Texas and elsewhere. Kennedy was initially believed to have won California, but after absentee ballots had been counted, that state's electors declared for Nixon.

Inauguration and Transition

On a cold January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy took the oath of office. After such a close campaign, Kennedy knew his inaugural address would have to reach out to his opponents. In the days and weeks before it was to be delivered, he carefully studied famous American speeches, such as the Gettysburg Address, and copied their terse, vivid style. Departing from the pattern of many inaugural addresses, Kennedy pulled few punches and focused almost exclusively on matters outside the nation's borders. In addition, he claimed that his election signaled a fundamental generational shift in America:

"We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom-symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning-signifying renewal, as well as change . . . Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans-born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage-and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world."

And he recalled the nation's revolutionary origins: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear in burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty." In forming his administration, Kennedy surrounded himself with liberal intellectuals and, in light of the close popular vote, moderate conservatives espousing strong executive governance, rational planning, and a belief in the virtues of social science. An elite group of young, rich professionals, dubbed the "New Frontiersmen," poured into Washington, adding to the tone of a White House seeking counsel from the nation's best and brightest.

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John F. Kennedy: Campaigns and Elections | Miller Center

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The Campaign and Election of 1960 The election of 1960 brought to the forefront a generation of politicians born in the twentieth century, pitting the 47-year-old Republican vice president Richard M. Nixon against the 43-year-old Democratic challenger John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's chief rival for the nomination was Hubert H.

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A left-wing revolution in Cuba had ended in 1959 with the ouster of President Fulgencio Batista and the establishment of a new government under Premier Fidel Castro. The Castro regime quickly severed the country's formerly strong ties with the United States by expropriating U.S. economic assets in Cuba and developing close links with the Soviet Union.

These developments proved a source of grave concern to the United States given Cuba's geographical proximity to the United States and brought Cuba into play as a new and significant factor in the Cold War. In March 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop a plan for the invasion of Cuba and overthrow of the Castro regime. The CIA organized an operation in which it trained and funded a force of exiled counter-revolutionary Cubans serving as the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, known as Brigade 2506.

Following his election in November 1960, President John F. Kennedy learned of the invasion plan, concluded that Fidel Castro was a Soviet client posing a threat to all of Latin America and, after consultations with his advisors, gave his consent for the CIA-planned clandestine invasion of Cuba to proceed. Launched from Guatemala, the attack went wrong almost from the start. Components of Brigade 2506 landed at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961 and were defeated within 2 days by Cuban armed forces under the direct command of Castro.

The failed invasion strengthened the position of Castro's administration, which proceeded to openly proclaim its intention to adopt socialism and pursue closer ties with the Soviet Union. It also led to a reassessment of Cuba policy by the Kennedy administration. The President established a committee under former Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell Taylor and Attorney General Robert Kennedy to examine the causes of the defeat suffered at the Bay of Pigs.

This examination and policy assessment, initiated in May 1961, led in November of that year to a decision to implement a new covert program in Cuba, with the codename of Operation Mongoose. Oversight for Operation Mongoose was provided by the 5412/2 Special Group, under the auspices of the National Security Council, expanded to include General Taylor and Attorney General Kennedy.

Operation Mongoose was designed to do what the Bay of Pigs invasion failed to do: remove the Communist Castro regime from power in Cuba. Orchestrated by the CIA and Department of Defense under the direction of Edward Lansdale, Operation Mongoose constituted a multiplicity of plans with wide-ranging purpose and scope. Lansdale presented the Project's six-phase schedule to Attorney General Kennedy on February 20, 1962, and President Kennedy received a briefing on the operation's components on March 16, 1962. Lansdale outlined the coordinated program of political, psychological, military, sabotage, and intelligence operations, as well as proposed assassination attempts on key political leaders, including Castro. Monthly components of the operation were to be set in place to destabilize the communist regime, including the publication of Anti-Castro propaganda, provision of armaments for militant opposition groups, and establishment of guerilla bases throughout the country, all leading up to preparations for an October 1962 military intervention in Cuba. Some (though not all) of the planned Operation Mongoose actions were deployed during 1962, but the military intervention did not occur, and the Castro regime remained in power.

Although not considered as significant a U.S. foreign policy failure and embarrassment as the Bay of Pigs invasion, Operation Mongoose failed to achieve its most important goals. Meanwhile, throughout the spring and summer of 1962, U.S. intelligence reports indicated expanded arms shipments from the Soviet Union to Cuba. Amidst growing concern in Washington over whether the Soviet weapons being introduced into Cuba included ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, in October 1962 the Kennedy administration suspended Operation Mongoose in the face of this far more serious threat-one that resulted in the most dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

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Milestones: 1961-1968 - Office of the Historian

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West and East Berlin borders overlaying a current road map (interactive map)

The ( Berlin Wall ( German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˌliːnɐ ˈmaʊ̯ɐ] listen )) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR).[a][1][3] Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[4] accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The primary intention for the Wall's construction was to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to the West.[5]

The ( Soviet Bloc propaganda portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from " fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people" from building a communist state in the GDR. The authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart ( German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, pronounced [antifaˌʃɪstɪʃɐ ˈʃʊt͡sval] listen )). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the " Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement.[6] Along with the separate and much longer inner German border, which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to symbolize physically the Iron Curtain that separated the Western Bloc and Soviet satellite states of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.[7]

Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this period, over 100,000 people attempted to escape, and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll of those murdered by East German authorities ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin.

In 1989, a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries-in Poland and Hungary in particular-caused a chain reaction in East Germany. In particular, the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989 set in motion a peaceful development during which the Iron Curtain largely broke, the rulers in the East came under pressure to cease their repressive policies, the Berlin Wall fell and finally the Eastern Bloc collapsed. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit the FRG and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall. The Brandenburg Gate, a few meters from the Berlin Wall, was opened on 22 December 1989. The demolition of the Wall officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1994. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which formally took place on 3 October 1990.

Background

Post-war Germany

After the end of World War II in Europe, what remained of pre-war Germany west of the Oder-Neisse line was divided into four occupation zones (as per the Potsdam Agreement), each one controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. The capital of Berlin, as the seat of the Allied Control Council, was similarly subdivided into four sectors despite the city's location, which was fully within the Soviet zone.

Within two years, political divisions increased between the Soviets and the other occupying powers. These included the Soviets' refusal to agree to reconstruction plans making post-war Germany self-sufficient, and to a detailed accounting of industrial plants, goods and infrastructure-some of which had already been removed by the Soviets. France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Benelux countries later met to combine the non-Soviet zones of Germany into one zone for reconstruction, and to approve the extension of the Marshall Plan.

Eastern Bloc and the Berlin airlift

Brandenburg Gate in 1945, after the end of World War II

Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the Soviet Union engineered the installation of communist regimes in most of the countries occupied by Soviet military forces at the end of the War, including Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the GDR, which together with Albania formed the Comecon in 1949 and later a military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. The beginning of the Cold War saw the Eastern Bloc of the Soviet Union confront the Western Bloc of the United States, with the latter grouping becoming largely united in 1949 under NATO and the former grouping becoming largely united in 1955 under the Warsaw Pact. As the Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its eastern satellite states by 1955, the pact has been long considered "superfluous", and because of the rushed way in which it was conceived, NATO officials labeled it a "cardboard castle". There was no direct military confrontation between the two organizations; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs. The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, its own member state, in August 1968.

At the same time, a parallel country was established under the control of the Western powers in the zones of post-war Germany occupied by them, culminating in the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949, which initially claimed to be the sole legitimate power in all of Germany, East and West. The material standard of living in the Western zones of Berlin began to improve quickly, and residents of the Soviet zone soon began leaving for the West in large numbers, fleeing hunger, poverty and repression in the Soviet Zone for a better life in the West. Soon residents of other parts of the Soviet zone began to escape to the West through Berlin, and this migration, called in Germany "Republikflucht", deprived the Soviet zone not only of working forces desperately needed for post-war reconstruction but disproportionately highly educated people, which came to be known as the "Brain Drain".

In 1948, in response to moves by the Western powers to establish a separate, federal system of government in the Western zones, and to extend the US Marshall Plan of economic assistance to Germany, the Soviets instituted the Berlin Blockade, preventing people, food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin by land routes through the Soviet zone. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began a massive " airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other supplies. The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against the Western policy change. Communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948, preceding large losses therein, while 300,000 Berliners demonstrated for the international airlift to continue. In May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin.

The German Democratic Republic (the "GDR"; East Germany) was declared on 7 October 1949. On that day, the USSR ended the Soviet military government which had governed the Soviet Occupation Zone (Sowetische Besatzungszone) since the end of the War and handed over legal power to the Provisorische Volkskammer under the new Constitution of the GDR which came into force that day. However, until 1955, the Soviets maintained considerable legal control over the GDR state, including the regional governments, through the Sowetische Kontrollkommission and maintained a presence in various East German administrative, military, and secret police structures. Even after legal sovereignty of the GDR was restored in 1955, the Soviet Union continued to maintain considerable influence over administration and lawmaking in the GDR through the Soviet embassy and through the implicit threat of force which could be exercised through the continuing large Soviet military presence in the GDR, which was used to repress protests in East Germany bloodily in June 1953.

East Germany differed from West Germany ( Federal Republic of Germany), which developed into a Western capitalist country with a social market economy and a democratic parliamentary government. Continual economic growth starting in the 1950s fueled a 20-year " economic miracle" ("Wirtschaftswunder"). As West Germany's economy grew, and its standard of living steadily improved, many East Germans wanted to move to West Germany.

Emigration westward in the early 1950s

After the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, the majority of those living in the newly acquired areas of the Eastern Bloc aspired to independence and wanted the Soviets to leave. Taking advantage of the zonal border between occupied zones in Germany, the number of GDR citizens moving to West Germany totaled 187,000 in 1950; 165,000 in 1951; 182,000 in 1952; and 331,000 in 1953. One reason for the sharp 1953 increase was fear of potential further Sovietization, given the increasingly paranoid actions of Joseph Stalin in late 1952 and early 1953. In the first six months of 1953, 226,000 had fled.

Erection of the inner German border

By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement, restricting emigration, was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc, including East Germany. The restrictions presented a quandary for some Eastern Bloc states, which had been more economically advanced and open than the Soviet Union, such that crossing borders seemed more natural-especially where no prior border existed between East and West Germany.

Up until 1952, the demarcation lines between East Germany and the western occupied zones could be easily crossed in most places. On 1 April 1952, East German leaders met the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Moscow; during the discussions, Stalin's foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov proposed that the East Germans should "introduce a system of passes for visits of West Berlin residents to the territory of East Berlin [so as to stop] free movement of Western agents" in the GDR. Stalin agreed, calling the situation "intolerable". He advised the East Germans to build up their border defenses, telling them that "The demarcation line between East and West Germany should be considered a border-and not just any border, but a dangerous one ... The Germans will guard the line of defence with their lives."

In 1955, the Soviets gave East Germany authority over civilian movement in Berlin, passing control to a regime not recognized in the West. Initially, East Germany granted "visits" to allow its residents access to West Germany. However, following the defection of large numbers of East Germans (known as Republikflucht) under this regime, the new East German state legally restricted virtually all travel to the West in 1956. Soviet East German ambassador Mikhail Pervukhin observed that "the presence in Berlin of an open and essentially uncontrolled border between the socialist and capitalist worlds unwittingly prompts the population to make a comparison between both parts of the city, which unfortunately does not always turn out in favour of Democratic [East] Berlin."

Berlin emigration loophole

With the closing of the inner German border officially in 1952, the border in Berlin remained considerably more accessible because it was administered by all four occupying powers. Accordingly, Berlin became the main route by which East Germans left for the West. On 11 December 1957, East Germany introduced a new passport law that reduced the overall number of refugees leaving Eastern Germany.

It had the unintended result of drastically increasing the percentage of those leaving through West Berlin from 60% to well over 90% by the end of 1958. Those caught trying to leave East Berlin were subjected to heavy penalties, but with no physical barrier and subway train access still available to West Berlin, such measures were ineffective. The Berlin sector border was essentially a " loophole" through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still escape. The 3.5 million East Germans who had left by 1961 totalled approximately 20% of the entire East German population.

An important reason that passage between East Germany and West Berlin was not stopped earlier was that doing so would cut off much of the railway traffic in East Germany. Construction of a new railway bypassing West Berlin, the Berlin outer ring, commenced in 1951. Following the completion of the railway in 1961, closing the border became a more practical proposition.

Brain drain

The emigrants tended to be young and well-educated, leading to the "brain drain" feared by officials in East Germany. Yuri Andropov, then the CPSU Director on Relations with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries, wrote an urgent letter on 28 August 1958 to the Central Committee about the significant 50% increase in the number of East German intelligentsia among the refugees. Andropov reported that, while the East German leadership stated that they were leaving for economic reasons, testimony from refugees indicated that the reasons were more political than material. He stated "the flight of the intelligentsia has reached a particularly critical phase."

By 1960, the combination of World War II and the massive emigration westward left East Germany with only 61% of its population of working age, compared to 70.5% before the war. The loss was disproportionately heavy among professionals: engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers, and skilled workers. The direct cost of manpower losses to East Germany (and corresponding gain to the West) has been estimated at $7 billion to $9 billion, with East German party leader Walter Ulbricht later claiming that West Germany owed him $17 billion in compensation, including reparations as well as manpower losses. In addition, the drain of East Germany's young population potentially cost it over 22.5 billion marks in lost educational investment. The brain drain of professionals had become so damaging to the political credibility and economic viability of East Germany that the re-securing of the German communist frontier was imperative.

The exodus of emigrants from East Germany presented two minor potential benefits: an easy way to smuggle East German secret agents to West Germany, and a reduction in the number of citizens hostile to the communist regime. Neither of these advantages, however, proved particularly useful.

Start of the construction (1961)

Aerial footage of the wall as filmed by the CIA in 1961

East German Combat Groups of the Working Class close the border on 13 August 1961 in preparation for the Berlin Wall construction.

Animation showing how the Berlin Wall was constructed

On 15 June 1961, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht stated in an international press conference, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!" (No one has the intention of erecting a wall!). It was the first time the colloquial term Mauer (wall) had been used in this context.

The transcript of a telephone call between Nikita Khrushchev and Ulbricht, on 1 August in the same year, suggests that the initiative for the construction of the Wall came from Khrushchev. However, other sources suggest that Khrushchev had initially been wary about building a wall, fearing negative Western reaction. Nevertheless, Ulbricht had pushed for a border closure for some time, arguing that East Germany's existence was at stake.

Khrushchev had become emboldened upon seeing US president John F. Kennedy's youth and inexperience, which he considered a weakness. In the 1961 Vienna summit, Kennedy made the error of admitting that the US wouldn't actively oppose the building of a barrier. A feeling of miscalculation and failure immediately afterwards was admitted by Kennedy in a candid interview with New York Times columnist James "Scotty" Reston. On Saturday, 12 August 1961, the leaders of the GDR attended a garden party at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee, in a wooded area to the north of East Berlin. There, Ulbricht signed the order to close the border and erect a wall.

At midnight, the police and units of the East German army began to close the border and, by Sunday morning, 13 August, the border with West Berlin was closed. East German troops and workers had begun to tear up streets running alongside the border to make them impassable to most vehicles and to install barbed wire entanglements and fences along the 156 km (97 mi) around the three western sectors, and the 43 km (27 mi) that divided West and East Berlin. The date of 13 August became commonly referred to as Barbed Wire Sunday in Germany.

The barrier was built inside East Berlin on East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point. Generally, the Wall was only slightly inside East Berlin, but in a few places it was some distance from the legal border, most notably at Potsdamer Bahnhof and the Lenné Triangle that is now much of the Potsdamer Platz development.

Later, the initial barrier was built up into the Wall proper, the first concrete elements and large blocks being put in place on 17 August. During the construction of the Wall, National People's Army (NVA) and Combat Groups of the Working Class (KdA) soldiers stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect. Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles were installed along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany proper. A huge no man's land was cleared to provide a clear line of fire at fleeing refugees.

Immediate effects

With the closing of the east-west sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Berlin soon went from being the easiest place to make an unauthorized crossing between East and West Germany to being the most difficult. Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs. West Berlin became an isolated exclave in a hostile land. West Berliners demonstrated against the Wall, led by their Mayor ( Oberbürgermeister) Willy Brandt, who criticized the United States for failing to respond and went so far as to suggest to Washington what to do next. Kennedy was furious. Allied intelligence agencies had hypothesized about a wall to stop the flood of refugees, but the main candidate for its location was around the perimeter of the city. In 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk proclaimed, "The Wall certainly ought not to be a permanent feature of the European landscape. I see no reason why the Soviet Union should think it is-it is to their advantage in any way to leave there that monument to communist failure."

United States and UK sources had expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin but were surprised by how long the East Germans took for such a move. They considered the Wall as an end to concerns about a GDR/Soviet retaking or capture of the whole of Berlin; the Wall would presumably have been an unnecessary project if such plans were afloat. Thus, they concluded that the possibility of a Soviet military conflict over Berlin had decreased.

The East German government claimed that the Wall was an "anti-fascist protective rampart" ( German: "antifaschistischer Schutzwall") intended to dissuade aggression from the West. Another official justification was the activities of Western agents in Eastern Europe. The Eastern German government also claimed that West Berliners were buying out state-subsidized goods in East Berlin. East Germans and others greeted such statements with skepticism, as most of the time, the border was only closed for citizens of East Germany traveling to the West, but not for residents of West Berlin travelling to the East. The construction of the Wall had caused considerable hardship to families divided by it. Most people believed that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering or fleeing to West Berlin.

Secondary response

Universal Newsreel of the 1st anniversary of the Berlin Wall

The National Security Agency was the only American intelligence agency that was aware that East Germany was to take action to deal with the brain drain problem. On 9 August 1961, the NSA intercepted an advance warning information of the Socialist Unity Party's plan to close the intra-Berlin border between East and West Berlin completely for foot traffic. The interagency intelligence Berlin Watch Committee assessed that this intercept "might be the first step in a plan to close the border." This warning did not reach John F. Kennedy until noon on 13 August 1961, while he was vacationing in his yacht off the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. While Kennedy was angry that he had no advance warning, he was relieved that the East Germans and the Soviets had only divided Berlin without taking any action against West Berlin's access to the West. However, he denounced the Berlin Wall, whose erection worsened the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In response to the erection of the Berlin Wall, a retired general, Lucius D. Clay, was appointed by Kennedy as his special advisor with ambassadorial rank. Clay had been the Military Governor of the US Zone of Occupation in Germany during the period of the Berlin Blockade and had ordered the first measures in what became the Berlin Airlift. He was immensely popular with the residents of West Berlin, and his appointment was an unambiguous sign that Kennedy would not compromise on the status of West Berlin. As a symbolic gesture, Kennedy sent Clay and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to West Berlin. They landed at Tempelhof Airport on the afternoon of Saturday, 19 August 1961 and were greeted enthusiastically by the local population.

They arrived in a city defended by three Allied brigades-one each from the UK ( Berlin Infantry Brigade), the US ( Berlin Brigade), and France ( Forces Françaises à Berlin). On 16 August, Kennedy had given the order for them to be reinforced. Early on 19 August, the 1st Battle Group, 18th Infantry Regiment (commanded by Colonel Glover S. Johns Jr.) was alerted.

On Sunday morning, U.S. troops marched from West Germany through East Germany, bound for West Berlin. Lead elements-arranged in a column of 491 vehicles and trailers carrying 1,500 men, divided into five march units-left the Helmstedt-Marienborn checkpoint at 06:34. At Marienborn, the Soviet checkpoint next to Helmstedt on the West German-East German border, US personnel were counted by guards. The column was 160 km (99 mi) long, and covered 177 km (110 mi) from Marienborn to Berlin in full battle gear. East German police watched from beside trees next to the autobahn all the way along.

The front of the convoy arrived at the outskirts of Berlin just before noon, to be met by Clay and Johnson, before parading through the streets of Berlin in front of a large crowd. At 04:00 on 21 August, Lyndon Johnson left West Berlin in the hands of General Frederick O. Hartel and his brigade of 4,224 officers and men. "For the next three and a half years, American battalions would rotate into West Berlin, by autobahn, at three-month intervals to demonstrate Allied rights to the city".

The creation of the Wall had important implications for both German states. By stemming the exodus of people from East Germany, the East German government was able to reassert its control over the country: in spite of discontent with the Wall, economic problems caused by dual currency and the black market were largely eliminated. The economy in the GDR began to grow. However, the Wall proved a public relations disaster for the communist bloc as a whole. Western powers portrayed it as a symbol of communist tyranny, particularly after East German border guards shot and killed would-be defectors. Such fatalities were later treated as acts of murder by the reunified Germany.

Structure and adjacent areas

Layout and modifications

Structure of the Berlin Wall (left to right)

Border

Outer strip

Concrete wall with rounded top

Anti vehicle ditch

"Death strip" sand bank

Guard road

Lighting

Observation towers

Spikes or tank traps

Electrified fence with alarms

Inner wall

Restricted zone

The Berlin Wall was more than 140 kilometres (87 mi) long. In June 1962, a second, parallel fence, also known as a "hinterland" wall (inner wall), was built some 100 m (110 yd) farther into East German territory. The houses contained between the wall and fences were razed and the inhabitants relocated, thus establishing what later became known as the death strip. The death strip was covered with raked sand or gravel, rendering footprints easy to notice, easing the detection of trespassers and also enabling officers to see which guards had neglected their task; it offered no cover; and, most importantly, it offered clear fields of fire for the Wall guards.

Through the years, the Berlin Wall evolved through four versions:

Wire fence and concrete block wall (1961)

Improved wire fence (1962-1965)

Improved concrete wall (1965-1975)

Grenzmauer 75 (Border Wall 75) (1975-1989)

The "fourth-generation Wall", known officially as " Stützwandelement UL 12.11" (retaining wall element UL 12.11), was the final and most sophisticated version of the Wall. Begun in 1975 and completed about 1980, it was constructed from 45,000 separate sections of reinforced concrete, each 3.6 metres (12 ft) high and 1.2 m (3.9 ft) wide, and cost DDM 16,155,000 or about US$3,638,000. The concrete provisions added to this version of the Wall were done to prevent escapees from driving their cars through the barricades. At strategic points, the Wall was constructed to a somewhat weaker standard, so that East German and Soviet armored vehicles could easily break through in the event of war.

Smooth piping lined the top of the Wall, intended to make it more difficult to scale. The areas just outside the wall, including the sidewalk, are de jure East Berlin territory (1984).

The top of the wall was lined with a smooth pipe, intended to make it more difficult to scale. The Wall was reinforced by mesh fencing, signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, dogs on long lines, " beds of nails" (also known as "Stalin's Carpet") under balconies hanging over the "death strip", over 116 watchtowers, and 20 bunkers with hundreds of guards. This version of the Wall is the one most commonly seen in photographs, and surviving fragments of the Wall in Berlin and elsewhere around the world are generally pieces of the fourth-generation Wall. The layout came to resemble the inner German border in most technical aspects, except that the Berlin Wall had no landmines nor spring-guns. Maintenance was performed on the outside of the wall by personnel who accessed the area outside it either via ladders or via hidden doors within the wall. These doors could not be opened by a single person, needing two separate keys in two separate keyholes to unlock.

As was the case with the inner German border, an unfortified strip of Eastern territory was left outside the wall. This outer strip was used by workers to paint over graffiti and perform other maintenance on the outside of the wall Unlike the inner German border, however, the outer strip was usually no more than four meters wide, and, in photos from the era, the exact location of the actual border in many places appears not even to have been marked. Also in contrast with the inner German border, little interest was shown by East German law enforcement in keeping outsiders off the outer strip; sidewalks of West Berlin streets even ran inside it.

Despite the East German government's general policy of benign neglect, vandals were known to have been pursued in the outer strip, and even arrested. In 1986, defector and political activist Wolfram Hasch and four other defectors were standing inside the outer strip defacing the wall when East German personnel emerged from one of the hidden doors to apprehend them. All but Hasch escaped back into the western sector. Hasch himself was arrested, dragged through the door into the death strip, and later convicted of illegally crossing the border outside the wall. Graffiti artist Thierry Noir has reported having often been pursued there by East German soldiers. While some graffiti artists were chased off the outer strip, others, such as Keith Haring, were seemingly tolerated.

Surrounding municipalities

Besides the sector-sector boundary within Berlin itself, the Wall also separated West Berlin from the present-day state of Brandenburg. The following present-day municipalities, listed in counter-clockwise direction, share a border with the former West Berlin:

Official crossings and usage

A You Are Leaving sign at a border of the American sector

There were nine border crossings between East and West Berlin. These allowed visits by West Berliners, other West Germans, Western foreigners and Allied personnel into East Berlin, as well as visits by GDR citizens and citizens of other socialist countries into West Berlin, provided that they held the necessary permits. These crossings were restricted according to which nationality was allowed to use it (East Germans, West Germans, West Berliners, other countries). The best known was the vehicle and pedestrian checkpoint at the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße ( Checkpoint Charlie), which was restricted to Allied personnel and foreigners.

Several other border crossings existed between West Berlin and surrounding East Germany. These could be used for transit between West Germany and West Berlin, for visits by West Berliners into East Germany, for transit into countries neighbouring East Germany (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark), and for visits by East Germans into West Berlin carrying a permit. After the 1972 agreements, new crossings were opened to allow West Berlin waste to be transported into East German dumps, as well as some crossings for access to West Berlin's exclaves (see Steinstücken).

Four autobahns connected West Berlin to West Germany, including Berlin-Helmstedt autobahn, which entered East German territory between the towns of Helmstedt and Marienborn (Checkpoint Alpha), and which entered West Berlin at Dreilinden (Checkpoint Bravo for the Allied forces) in southwestern Berlin. Access to West Berlin was also possible by railway (four routes) and by boat for commercial shipping via canals and rivers.

Non-German Westerners could cross the border at Friedrichstraße station in East Berlin and at Checkpoint Charlie. When the Wall was erected, Berlin's complex public transit networks, the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, were divided with it. Some lines were cut in half; many stations were shut down. Three western lines traveled through brief sections of East Berlin territory, passing through eastern stations (called , or ghost stations) without stopping. Both the eastern and western networks converged at Friedrichstraße, which became a major crossing point for those (mostly Westerners) with permission to cross.

West Germans and citizens of other Western countries could generally visit East Germany, often after applying for a visa at an East German embassy several weeks in advance. Visas for day trips restricted to East Berlin were issued without previous application in a simplified procedure at the border crossing. However, East German authorities could refuse entry permits without stating a reason. In the 1980s, visitors from the western part of the city who wanted to visit the eastern part had to exchange at least DM 25 into East German currency at the poor exchange rate of 1:1. It was forbidden to export East German currency from the East, but money not spent could be left at the border for possible future visits. Tourists crossing from the west had to also pay for a visa, which cost DM 5; West Berliners did not have to pay this fee.

West Berliners initially could not visit East Berlin or East Germany at all-all crossing points were closed to them between 26 August 1961 and 17 December 1963. In 1963, negotiations between East and West resulted in a limited possibility for visits during the Christmas season that year ( Passierscheinregelung). Similar, very limited arrangements were made in 1964, 1965 and 1966.

East Berlin "death strip" of the Berlin Wall, as seen from the Axel Springer AG Building, 1984

East Berliners and East Germans could not, at first, travel to West Berlin or West Germany at all. This regulation remained in force essentially until the fall of the Wall, but over the years several exceptions to these rules were introduced, the most significant being:

Elderly pensioners could travel to the West starting in 1964

Visits of relatives for important family matters

People who had to travel to the West for professional reasons (for example, artists, truck drivers, musicians, writers, etc.)[citation needed ]

For each of these exceptions, GDR citizens had to apply for individual approval, which was never guaranteed. In addition, even if travel was approved, GDR travellers could exchange only a very small amount of East German Marks into Deutsche Marks (DM), thus limiting the financial resources available for them to travel to the West. This led to the West German practice of granting a small amount of DM annually (Begrüßungsgeld, or welcome money) to GDR citizens visiting West Germany and West Berlin to help alleviate this situation.

Citizens of other East European countries were in general subject to the same prohibition of visiting Western countries as East Germans, though the applicable exception (if any) varied from country to country.

The Allies held that only the Soviet Union, and not the GDR, had the authority to regulate Allied personnel in such cases. For this reason, elaborate procedures were established to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when engaged in travel through the GDR and when in East Berlin. Special rules applied to travel by Western Allied military personnel assigned to the military liaison missions accredited to the commander of Soviet forces in East Germany, located in Potsdam.

Allied personnel were restricted by policy when travelling by land to the following routes:

Transit between West Germany and West Berlin

Road: the Helmstedt-Berlin autobahn (A2) (checkpoints Alpha and Bravo respectively). Soviet military personnel manned these checkpoints and processed Allied personnel for travel between the two points.

Rail: Western Allied military personnel and civilian officials of the Allied forces were forbidden to use commercial train service between West Germany and West Berlin, because of GDR passport and customs controls when using them. Instead, the Allied forces operated a series of official (duty) trains that traveled between their respective duty stations in West Germany and West Berlin. When transiting the GDR, the trains would follow the route between Helmstedt and Griebnitzsee, just outside West Berlin. In addition to persons traveling on official business, authorized personnel could also use the duty trains for personal travel on a space-available basis. The trains traveled only at night, and as with transit by car, Soviet military personnel handled the processing of duty train travelers. (See History of the Berlin S-Bahn.)

Entry into and exit from East Berlin

As with military personnel, special procedures applied to travel by diplomatic personnel of the Western Allies accredited to their respective embassies in the GDR. This was intended to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when crossing between East and West Berlin, which could jeopardize the overall Allied position governing the freedom of movement by Allied forces personnel within all Berlin.

Ordinary citizens of the Western Allied powers, not formally affiliated with the Allied forces, were authorized to use all designated transit routes through East Germany to and from West Berlin. Regarding travel to East Berlin, such persons could also use the Friedrichstraße train station to enter and exit the city, in addition to Checkpoint Charlie. In these instances, such travelers, unlike Allied personnel, had to submit to East German border controls.

Defection attempts

During the years of the Wall, around 5,000 people successfully defected to West Berlin. The number of people who died trying to cross the Wall, or as a result of the Wall's existence, has been disputed. The most vocal claims by Alexandra Hildebrandt, director of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and widow of the museum's founder, estimated the death toll to be well above 200. A historic research group at the Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam has confirmed at least 140 deaths. Prior official figures listed 98 as being killed.

The East German government issued shooting orders (Schießbefehl) to border guards dealing with defectors, though such orders are not the same as "shoot to kill" orders. GDR officials denied issuing the latter. In an October 1973 order later discovered by researchers, guards were instructed that people attempting to cross the Wall were criminals and needed to be shot:

Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used.

On 22 August 1961, Ida Siekmann was the first casualty at the Berlin Wall: she died after she jumped out of her third floor apartment at 48 Bernauer Strasse. The first person to be shot and killed while trying to cross to West Berlin was Günter Litfin, a twenty-four-year-old tailor. He attempted to swim across the Spree to West Berlin on 24 August 1961, the same day that East German police had received shoot-to-kill orders to prevent anyone from escaping.

Another dramatic escape was carried out in April 1963 by Wolfgang Engels, a 19-year-old civilian employee of the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA). Engels stole a Soviet armored personnel carrier from a base where he was deployed and drove it right into the Wall. He was fired at and seriously wounded by border guards. But a West German policeman intervened, firing his weapon at the East German border guards. The policeman removed Engels from the vehicle, which had become entangled in the barbed wire.

Memorial to the Victims of the Wall, with graffiti, 1982

East Germans successfully defected by a variety of methods: digging long tunnels under the Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights and, in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of defection, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints. The sewer system predated the Wall, and some people escaped through the sewers, in a number of cases with assistance from the Unternehmen Reisebüro. In September 1962, 29 people escaped through a tunnel to the west. At least 70 tunnels were dug under the wall; only 19 were successful in allowing fugitives-about 400 persons-to escape. The East Germany authorities eventually used seismographic and acoustic equipment to detect the practice. In 1962, they planned an attempt to use explosives to destroy one tunnel, but this was not carried out as it was apparently sabotaged by a member of the Stasi.

An airborne escape was made by Thomas Krüger, who landed a Zlin Z 42M light aircraft of the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik, an East German youth military training organization, at RAF Gatow. His aircraft, registration DDR-WOH, was dismantled and returned to the East Germans by road, complete with humorous slogans painted on it by airmen of the Royal Air Force, such as "Wish you were here" and "Come back soon".

If an escapee was wounded in a crossing attempt and lay on the death strip, no matter how close they were to the Western wall, Westerners could not intervene for fear of triggering engaging fire from the 'Grepos', the East Berlin border guards. The guards often let fugitives bleed to death in the middle of this ground, as in the most notorious failed attempt, that of Peter Fechter (aged 18) at a point near Zimmerstrasse in East Berlin. He was shot and bled to death, in full view of the Western media, on 17 August 1962. Fechter's death created negative publicity worldwide that led the leaders of East Berlin to place more restrictions on shooting in public places and provide medical care for possible "would-be escapers". The last person to be shot and killed while trying to cross the border was Chris Gueffroy on 6 February 1989, while the final person to die in an escape attempt was Winfried Freudenberg who was killed when his homemade natural gas-filled balloon crashed on 8 March 1989.

The Wall gave rise to a widespread sense of desperation and oppression in East Berlin, as expressed in the private thoughts of one resident, who confided to her diary "Our lives have lost their spirit... we can do nothing to stop them."

Concerts by Western artists and growing anti-Wall sentiment

David Bowie, 1987

On 6 June 1987, David Bowie, who earlier for several years lived and recorded in West Berlin, played a concert close to the Wall. This was attended by thousands of Eastern concertgoers across the Wall, followed by violent rioting in East Berlin. According to Tobias Ruther, these protests in East Berlin were the first in the sequence of riots that led to those of November 1989. Although other factors were probably more influential in the fall of the Wall, upon his death in 2016, the German Foreign Office tweeted "Good-bye, David Bowie. You are now among #Heroes. Thank you for helping to bring down the #wall."

Bruce Springsteen, 1988

On 19 July 1988, 16 months before the Wall came down, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, played Rocking the Wall, a live concert in East Berlin, which was attended by 300,000 in person and broadcast on television. Springsteen spoke to the crowd in German, saying: "I'm not here for or against any government. I've come to play rock 'n' roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down". East Germany and its FDJ youth organization were worried they were losing an entire generation. They hoped that by letting Springsteen in, they could improve their sentiment among East Germans. However, this strategy of "one step backwards, two steps forwards" backfired, and the concert only made East Germans hungrier for more of the freedoms that Springsteen epitomized. While John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan delivered their famous speeches from the safety of West Berlin, Springsteen's speaking out against the Wall in the middle of East Berlin added to the euphoria.

David Hasselhoff, 1989

On 31 December 1989, American TV actor and pop music singer David Hasselhoff was the headlining performer for the Freedom Tour Live concert, which was attended by over 500,000 people on both sides of the Wall. The live concert footage was directed by music video director Thomas Mignone and aired on broadcast television station Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen ZDF throughout Europe. During shooting, film crew personnel pulled people up from both sides to stand and celebrate on top of the wall. Hasselhoff sang his number one hit song "Looking For Freedom" on a platform at the end of a twenty-meter steel crane that swung above and over the Wall adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate. A small museum was created in 2008 to celebrate Hasselhoff in the basement of the Circus Hostel.

Complete speech by Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate, 12 June 1987. "Tear down this wall" passage begins at 11:10 into this video.

On 26 June 1963, 22 months after the erection of the Berlin Wall, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin. Speaking from a platform erected on the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg for an audience of 450,000 and straying from the prepared script, he declared in his Ich bin ein Berliner speech the support of the United States for West Germany and the people of West Berlin in particular:

Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis romanus sum ["I am a Roman citizen"]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!"... All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

The message was aimed as much at the Soviets as it was at Berliners and was a clear statement of U.S. policy in the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall. The speech is considered one of Kennedy's best, both a significant moment in the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an exclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation.

Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher commented in 1982:

Every stone bears witness to the moral bankruptcy of the society it encloses

In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin on 12 June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear down the Wall as a symbol of increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc:

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!

In January 1989 GDR leader Erich Honecker predicted that the Wall would stand for 50 or 100 more years if the conditions that had caused its construction did not change.

Due to the increasing economic problems in the Eastern Bloc and the failure of the USSR to intervene in relation to the individual communist states, the brackets of the Eastern Bloc slowly began to loosen from the end of the 1980s. One example is the fall of the communist government in neighboring Poland's 1989 Polish legislative election. Also in June 1989, the Hungarian government began dismantling the electrified fence along its border with Austria (with Western TV crews present) although the border was still very closely guarded and escape was almost impossible.

The opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on 19 August 1989, which was based on an idea by Otto von Habsburg to test the reaction of Mikhail Gorbachev, then triggered a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer the GDR and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated. Because with the non-reaction of the USSR and the GDR to the mass exodus, the media-informed Eastern Europeans could feel the increasing loss of power of their governments and more and more East Germans were now trying to flee via Hungary. Erich Honecker explained to the Daily Mirror regarding the Paneuropean picnic and thus showed his people his own inaction: "Habsburg distributed leaflets far into Poland, on which the East German holidaymakers were invited to a picnic. When they came to the picnic, they were given gifts, food and Deutsche Mark, and then they were persuaded to come to the West." Then, in September, more than 13,000 East German tourists escaped through Hungary to Austria. This set up a chain of events. The Hungarians prevented many more East Germans from crossing the border and returned them to Budapest. These East Germans flooded the West German embassy and refused to return to East Germany.

The East German government responded by disallowing any further travel to Hungary but allowed those already there to return to East Germany. This triggered similar events in neighboring Czechoslovakia. This time, however, the East German authorities allowed people to leave, provided that they did so by train through East Germany. This was followed by mass demonstrations within East Germany itself. Protest demonstrations spread throughout East Germany in September 1989. Initially, protesters were mostly people wanting to leave to the West, chanting "Wir wollen raus!" ("We want out!"). Then protestors began to chant "Wir bleiben hier!" ("We are staying here!"). This was the start of what East Germans generally call the " Peaceful Revolution" of late 1989. The protest demonstrations grew considerably by early November. The movement neared its height on 4 November, when half a million people gathered to demand political change, at the Alexanderplatz demonstration, East Berlin's large public square and transportation hub. On 9 October 1989, the police and army units were given permission to use force against those assembled, but this did not deter the church service and march from taking place, which gathered 70,000 people.

The longtime leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, resigned on 18 October 1989 and was replaced by Egon Krenz that day.

The wave of refugees leaving East Germany for the West kept increasing. By early November refugees were finding their way to Hungary via Czechoslovakia, or via the West German Embassy in Prague. This was tolerated by the new Krenz government, because of long-standing agreements with the communist Czechoslovak government, allowing free travel across their common border. However, this movement of people grew so large it caused difficulties for both countries. To ease the difficulties, the politburo led by Krenz decided on 9 November to allow refugees to exit directly through crossing points between East Germany and West Germany, including between East and West Berlin. Later the same day, the ministerial administration modified the proposal to include private, round-trip, and travel. The new regulations were to take effect the next day.

Günter Schabowski, the party boss in East Berlin and the spokesman for the SED Politburo, had the task of announcing the new regulations. However, he had not been involved in the discussions about the new regulations and had not been fully updated. Shortly before a press conference on 9 November, he was handed a note announcing the changes, but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. These regulations had only been completed a few hours earlier and were to take effect the following day, so as to allow time to inform the border guards. But this starting time delay was not communicated to Schabowski. At the end of the press conference, Schabowski read out loud the note he had been given. A reporter, ANSA's Riccardo Ehrman, asked when the regulations would take effect. After a few seconds' hesitation, Schabowski replied, "As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay". After further questions from journalists, he confirmed that the regulations included the border crossings through the Wall into West Berlin, which he had not mentioned until then. He repeated that it was immediate in an interview with American journalist Tom Brokaw.

Excerpts from Schabowski's press conference were the lead story on West Germany's two main news programs that night-at 7:17 p.m. on ZDF's and at 8 p.m. on ARD's Tagesschau. As ARD and ZDF had broadcast to nearly all of East Germany since the late 1950s and had become accepted by the East German authorities, the news was broadcast there as well simultaneously. Later that night, on ARD's Tagesthemen, anchorman Hanns Joachim Friedrichs proclaimed, "This 9 November is a historic day. The GDR has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide."

After hearing the broadcast, East Germans began gathering at the Wall, at the six checkpoints between East and West Berlin, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates. The surprised and overwhelmed guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors about the problem. At first, they were ordered to find the "more aggressive" people gathered at the gates and stamp their passports with a special stamp that barred them from returning to East Germany-in effect, revoking their citizenship. However, this still left thousands of people demanding to be let through "as Schabowski said we can". It soon became clear that no one among the East German authorities would take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use lethal force, so the vastly outnumbered soldiers had no way to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens. Finally, at 10:45 p.m. on 9 November, Harald Jäger, the commander of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing yielded, allowing for the guards to open the checkpoints and allowing people through with little or no identity checking. As the swarmed through, they were greeted by waiting with flowers and champagne amid wild rejoicing. Soon afterward, a crowd of West Berliners jumped on top of the Wall, and were soon joined by East German youngsters. The evening of 9 November 1989 is known as the night the Wall came down.

Another border crossing to the south may have been opened earlier. An account by Heinz Schäfer indicates that he also acted independently and ordered the opening of the gate at Waltersdorf-Rudow a couple of hours earlier. This may explain reports of East Berliners appearing in West Berlin earlier than the opening of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing.

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Guardian collected short stories from 9 November 1989 by five German writers who reflect on the day. In this, Kathrin Schmidt remembers comically: 'I downed almost an entire bottle of schnapps'.

Display of two sections of the Wall and a "You are leaving" sign at Fort Gordon, Georgia, US

Remaining stretch of the Wall near Ostbahnhof in Friedrichshain called East Side Gallery, August 2006

Little is left of the Wall at its original site, which was destroyed almost in its entirety. Three long sections are still standing: an 80-metre-long (260 ft) piece of the first (westernmost) wall at the Topography of Terror, site of the former Gestapo headquarters, halfway between Checkpoint Charlie and Potsdamer Platz; a longer section of the second (easternmost) wall along the Spree River near the Oberbaumbrücke, nicknamed East Side Gallery; and a third section that is partly reconstructed, in the north at Bernauer Straße, which was turned into a memorial in 1998. Other isolated fragments, lampposts, other elements, and a few watchtowers also remain in various parts of the city.

The former leadership in the Schlesischen Busch in the vicinity of the Puschkinallee-the listed, twelve-meter high watchtower stands in a piece of the wall strip, which has been turned into a park, near the Lohmühleninsel.

The former "Kieler Eck" (Kiel Corner) on Kieler Strasse in Mitte, close to the Berlin-Spandau Schifffahrtskanal-the tower is protected as a historic monument and now surrounded on three sides by new buildings. It houses a memorial site named after the Wallopfer Günter Litfin, who was shot at Humboldthafen in August 1961. The memorial site, which is run by the initiative of his brother Jürgen Liftin, can be viewed after registration.

The former management office at Nieder Neuendorf, in the district of Hennigsdorf of the same name-here is the permanent exhibition on the history of the border installations between the two German states.

The former management station at Bergfelde, today the district of Hohen Neuendorf-The tower is located in an already reforested area of the border strip and is used together with surrounding terrain as a nature protection tower by the Deutschen Waldjugend.

The only one of the much slimmer observation towers (BT-11) in the Erna-Berger-Strasse also in Mitte-however, was moved by a few meters for construction work and is no longer in the original location; There is an exhibition about the wall in the area of the Potsdamer Platz in planning.

Nothing still accurately represents the Wall's original appearance better than a very short stretch at Bernauer Straße associated with the Berlin Wall Documentation Center. Other remnants are badly damaged by souvenir seekers. Fragments of the Wall were taken and some were sold around the world. Appearing both with and without certificates of authenticity, these fragments are now a staple on the online auction service eBay as well as German souvenir shops. Today, the eastern side is covered in graffiti that did not exist while the Wall was guarded by the armed soldiers of East Germany. Previously, graffiti appeared only on the western side. Along some tourist areas of the city centre, the city government has marked the location of the former Wall by a row of cobblestones in the street. In most places only the "first" wall is marked, except near Potsdamer Platz where the stretch of both walls is marked, giving visitors an impression of the dimension of the barrier system.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there were initiatives that they want to preserve the death strip walkways and redevelop them into a hiking and cycling area, known as . It is part of the initiative by the Berlin Senate since 11 October 2001.

Cultural differences

For many years after reunification, people in Germany talked about cultural differences between East and West Germans (colloquially ), sometimes described as Mauer im Kopf (The wall in the head). A September 2004 poll found that 25 percent of West Germans and 12 percent of East Germans wished that East and West should be separated again by a "Wall". A poll taken in October 2009 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall indicated, however, that only about a tenth of the population was still unhappy with the unification (8 percent in the East; 12 percent in the West). Although differences are still perceived between East and West, Germans make similar distinctions between North and South.

Wall segments around the world

Not all segments of the Wall were ground up as the Wall was being torn down. Many segments have been given to various institutions in the world. They can be found, for instance, in presidential and historical museums, lobbies of hotels and corporations, at universities and government buildings, and in public spaces in different countries of the world.

50th anniversary commemoration

On 13 August 2011, Germany marked the 50th anniversary of East Germany beginning the erection of the Berlin Wall. Chancellor Angela Merkel joined with President Christian Wulff and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit at the Bernauer Straße memorial park to remember lives and liberty. Speeches extolled freedom and a minute of silence at noon honored those who died trying to flee to the West. "It is our shared responsibility to keep the memory alive and to pass it on to the coming generations as a reminder to stand up for freedom and democracy to ensure that such injustice may never happen again." entreated Mayor Wowereit. "It has been shown once again: Freedom is invincible at the end. No wall can permanently withstand the desire for freedom", proclaimed President Wulff.

Related media

Documentaries

Documentary films specifically about the Berlin Wall include:

The Tunnel (December 1962), an NBC News Special documentary film.

The Road to the Wall (1962), a documentary film.

Something to Do with the Wall (1991), a documentary about the fall of the Berlin Wall by Ross McElwee and Marilyn Levine, originally conceived as a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of its construction.

Rabbit à la Berlin (2009), a documentary film, directed by Bartek Konopka, told from the point of view of a group of wild rabbits that inhabited the zone between the two walls.

The American Sector (2020), a documentary by Courtney Stephens and Pacho Velez that tracks down the wall segments located in the U.S.

Feature films

Fictional films featuring the Berlin Wall have included:

Escape from East Berlin (1962), American-West German film inspired by story of 29 East Germans that tunneled under the wall

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), a Cold War classic set on both sides of The Wall, from the eponymous book by John le Carré, directed by Martin Ritt.

The Boy and the Ball and the Hole in the Wall (1965), Spanish-Mexican co-production.

Funeral in Berlin (1966), a spy movie starring Michael Caine, directed by Guy Hamilton.

Casino Royale (1967), a film featuring a segment centred on a house apparently bisected by the Wall.

Berlin Tunnel 21 (1981), a made-for-TV movie about a former American officer leading an attempt to build a tunnel underneath The Wall as a rescue route.

Night Crossing (1982), a British-American drama film starring John Hurt, Jane Alexander, and Beau Bridges, based on the true story of the Strelzyk and Wetzel families, who on 16 September 1979, attempted to escape from East Germany to West Germany in a homemade hot air balloon, during the days of the Inner German border-era.

The Innocent (1993), a film about the joint CIA/MI6 operation to build a tunnel under East Berlin in the 1950s, directed by John Schlesinger.

Good Bye Lenin! (2003), film set during German unification that depicts the fall of the Wall through archive footage

Bridge of Spies (2015), featuring a dramatized subplot about Frederic Pryor, in which an American economics graduate student visits his German girlfriend in East Berlin just as the Berlin Wall is being built. He tries to bring her back into West Berlin but is stopped by Stasi agents and arrested as a spy.

Literature

Some novels specifically about the Berlin Wall include:

John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), classic Cold War spy fiction.

Len Deighton, Berlin Game (1983), classic Cold War spy fiction

T.H.E. Hill, The Day Before the Berlin Wall: Could We Have Stopped It? - An Alternate History of Cold War Espionage, 2010 - based on a legend told in Berlin in the 1970s.

John Marks' The Wall (1999) in which an American spy defects to the East just hours before the Wall falls.

Marcia Preston's West of the Wall (2007, published as Trudy's Promise in North America), in which the heroine, left behind in East Berlin, waits for news of her husband after he makes his escape over the Berlin Wall.

Peter Schneider's The Wall Jumper, (1984; German: Der Mauerspringer, 1982), the Wall plays a central role in this novel set in Berlin of the 1980s.

Music related to the Berlin Wall includes:

"West of the Wall", a 1962 top 40 hit by Toni Fisher, which tells the tale of two lovers separated by the newly built Berlin Wall.

"Holidays in the Sun", a song by the English punk rock band Sex Pistols which prominently mentions the Wall, specifically singer Johnny Rotten's fantasy of digging a tunnel under it.

David Bowie's "", inspired by the image of a couple kissing at the Berlin Wall (in reality, the couple was his producer Tony Visconti and backup singer Antonia Maaß). The song (which, along with the album of the same name, was recorded in Berlin), makes lyrical references to the kissing couple, and to the "Wall of Shame" ("the shame was on the other side"). Upon Bowie's death, the Federal Foreign Office paid homage to Bowie on Twitter: see also above

"Over de muur" (1984), a song by the Dutch pop band Klein Orkest, about the differences between East and West Berlin during the period of the Berlin Wall.

"Chippin' Away" (1990), a song by Tom Fedora, performed by Crosby, Stills & Nash on the Berlin Wall, which appeared on Graham Nash's solo album Innocent Eyes (1986).

"Hedwig and the Angry Inch," a rock opera whose genderqueer protagonist Hedwig Robinson was born in East Berlin and later, living in the United States, describes herself as "the new Berlin Wall" standing between "East and West, slavery and freedom, man and woman, top and bottom." As a result, she says, people are moved to "decorate" her with "blood, graffiti and spit." (1998)

The music video for Liza Fox's song "Free" (2013) contains video clips of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Artworks related to the Berlin Wall include:

The Day the Wall Came Down (1996) by Veryl Goodnight, a statue depicting horses leaping over actual pieces of the Berlin Wall

In 1982, the West-German artist [Elsner de] created about 500 artworks along the former border strip around West Berlin as part of his work series Border Injuries. On one of his actions he tore down a large part of the Wall,[164] installed a prepared foil of 3x2m in it, and finished the painting there before the border soldiers on patrol could detect him. This performance was recorded on video.[165] His actions are well-documented both in newspapers from that time and in recent scientific publications.[166]

Video games related to the Berlin Wall include:

The Berlin Wall (1991), a video game.

Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall (2018), video game by Kremlingames, where the player, playing as the leader of the GDR from 1989 to 1991, can take down the Berlin Wall themselves or as a result of events in the game, or keep the wall intact as long as the country exists.

References

1. ^ Marck, Jack (October 2006). "Over the Wall: A Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience". American Heritage. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008.

2. ^ "Berlin Wall: Five things you might not know". The Telegraph. 12 August 2011. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.

3. Mary Elise Sarotte, Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, New York: Basic Books, 2014

4. Thomas Roser: DDR-Massenflucht: Ein Picknick hebt die Welt aus den Angeln (German - Mass exodus of the GDR: A picnic clears the world) in: Die Presse 16 August 2018.

5. Der 19. August 1989 war ein Test für Gorbatschows" (German - August 19, 1989 was a test for Gorbachev), in: FAZ 19 August 2009.

6. Fritsch-Bournazel, Renata, ^ Confronting the German Question: Germans on the East-West Divide, Berg Publishers, 1990, ISBN 0-85496-684-6, p. 143

7. ^ Kenull, Torsten (2005). Die Geschichte der DDR in Ihren Gründzügen. Hary: GRIN Verlag für akademische Texte.

8. In a congratulatory telegram, Stalin emphasized that, with the creation of East Germany, the "enslavement of European countries by the global imperialists was rendered impossible." (Wettig, Gerhard, ^ Stalin and the Cold War in Europe, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, ISBN 0-7425-5542-9, p. 179)

9. ^ Kenull, Torsten (2005). Die Geschichte der DDR in Ihren Grundzügen. Harz: GRIN Verlag für akademische Texte. p. 8.

10. ^ Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Arbeit und Sozialordnung, Familie und Frauen, Statistik Spätaussiedler Dezember 2007, p. 3 (in German)

11. Paul Maddrell, ^ Spying on Science: Western Intelligence in Divided Germany 1945-1961, p. 56. Oxford University Press, 2006

12. Volker Rolf Berghahn, ^ Modern Germany: Society, Economy and Politics in the Twentieth Century, p. 227. Cambridge University Press, 1987

13. ^ Wiegrefe, Klaus (May 2009). "Wir lassen euch jetzt ein, zwei Wochen Zeit". Einestages. Spiegel Online (in German). Archived from the original on 9 February 2014.

14. ^ Kempe, Frederick (27 May 2011). "The worst day of JFK's life". Archived from the original on 30 May 2011.

15. Keeling, Drew (2014), business-of-migration.com ^ "Berlin Wall and Migration," Migration as a travel business Archived 25 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine

16. ^ "Die Regierungen der Warschauer Vertragsstaaten wenden sich an die Volkskammer und an die Regierung der DDR mit dem Vorschlag, an der Westberliner Grenze eine solche Ordnung einzuführen, durch die der Wühltätigkeit gegen die Länder des sozialistischen Lagers zuverlässig der Weg verlegt und ringsum das ganze Gebiet West-Berlins eine verlässliche Bewachung gewährleistet wird." Die Welt: Berlin wird geteilt

17. "Berlin Crisis After Dividing Berlin, August 1961" (PDF). The National Security Archive at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 September 2013.

18. Matthew M. Aid & William Burr (25 September 2013). ""Disreputable if Not Outright Illegal": The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald, Frank Church, et al". The National Security Archive at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on 26 September 2013.

19. ^ Berliner Mauer (Stand 31. Juli 1989) Polizeipräsident von Berlin Archived 9 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine.

20. ^ Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der DDR Archived 9 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine, siehe: Statistiken + "Grenzsicherung in Berlin" 1989.

21. ^ "Hinterland wall on Bornholmer Straße - Witness to the events of 9 November 1989". Berlin.com.

22. According to Hagen Koch, former Stasi-officer, in Geert Mak's documentary In Europa (TV program), episode 1961 - DDR Archived 9 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine, 25 January 2009

23. Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall. History Channel, 2009. DVD-ROM.

24. ^ Rottman, Gordon L. (2012). The Berlin Wall and the Intra-German Border 1961-89. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781782005087 - via Google Books.

25. ^ "Graffiti in the death strip: the Berlin wall's first street artist tells his story". The Guardian. 3 April 2014. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017 - via www.theguardian.com.

26. ^ "E German 'licence to kill' found". . 12 August 2007. Archived from the original on 11 June 2009. A newly discovered order is the firmest evidence yet that the communist regime gave explicit shoot-to-kill orders, says Germany's director of Stasi files.

27. Hertle, Hans-Hermann (2008). ^ The Berlin Wall: Monument of the Cold War. Ch. Links Verlag, p. 72. ISBN 3-86153-463-0

28. ^ Crossland, David (4 November 2019). "Hatred of the Communist East that drove Berlin Wall tunneller". The Times. Archived from the original on 4 November 2019.

29. "Meet the Berlin Wall tunnel digger saved by Stasi 'hero'". France 24. Agence France-Presse. 1 November 2019. Archived from the original on 8 November 2019.

30. ^ Mrs. Thatcher Visits the Berlin Wall Archived 13 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, 30 October 1982

31. ^ "Berlin Wall anniversary: key dates in the history of Germany's Wall". The Telegraph. 9 November 2009. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.

32. ^ Crutchley, Peter (9 October 2015). "How prayers helped end the Cold War". BBC. Archived from the original on 2 February 2019.

33. ^ "The Guard Who Opened the Berlin Wall: 'I Gave my People the Order - Raise the Barrier'". Spiegel Online. 9 November 2014. Archived from the original on 13 October 2014.

34. ^ McElroy, Damien (7 November 2009). "East Germans may have arrived in West Berlin hours before previously thought". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.

35. ^ Protzman, Ferdinand; Times, Special To the New York (10 November 1989). "CLAMOR IN THE EAST; East Berliners Explore Land Long Forbidden". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 22 October 2021.

36. ^ Erpenbeck, Jenny; Brussig, Thomas; Schmidt, Kathrin; Wagner, David; Rennefanz, Sabine (9 November 2019). "Watching the fall of the Berlin Wall: 'I downed almost an entire bottle of schnapps'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 9 November 2019.

37. ^ "Berlin Wall Trail". Berlin.de. State of Berlin. 28 August 2015. Archived from the original on 25 June 2022. Construction of the Berliner Mauerweg (Berlin Wall Trail) began in 2002 and was completed in 2006, in line with a resolution passed by the Berlin House of Representatives on 11 October 2001. [...] The state-owned GRÜN BERLIN Park und Garten GmbH was charged with carrying out the project under the overall supervision of the Senate Department for Urban Development.

38. ^ "Germany marks 50th anniversary of Berlin Wall". London: UK Telegraph. 13 August 2011. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.

39. ^ "Berlin WALL Essay PART 3 English 101 - ENGLISH 101 BERLIN WALL ESSAY PART 3 O昀케cial crossings/Usage". StuDocu.

Buckley, William F. Jr. (2004). The Fall of the Berlin Wall. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-26736-2.

Cate, Curtis (1978). The Ides of August: The Berlin Wall Crisis - 1961. New York: M. Evans.

Childs, David (2001). The Fall of the GDR: Germany's Road To Unity, Longman, Pearsoned.co.uk. ISBN 978-0-582-31569-3, 0-582-31569-7

Childs, David (1986) [1983]. The GDR: Moscow's German Ally, London: George Allen & Unwin, ISBN 0-04-354029-5, 978-0-04-354029-9.

Childs, David (2001). The Fall of the GDR, Longman. ISBN 0-582-31569-7 Amazon.co.uk Archived 19 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine

Childs, David (2000). The Two Red Flags: European Social Democracy & Soviet Communism Since 1945, Routledge.[ISBN missing ]

Childs, David (1991). Germany in the Twentieth Century, (From pre-1918 to the restoration of German unity), Batsford, Third edition. ISBN 0-7134-6795-9

Childs, David (1987). East Germany to the 1990s Can It Resist Glasnost?, The Economist Intelligence Unit. ISBN 0-85058-245-8, 978-0-85058-245-1. WorldCat.org Archived 3 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine

Crozier, Brian (1999). The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire. Forum. ISBN 978-0-7615-2057-3.

Daum, Andreas (2008). Kennedy in Berlin. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85824-3.

Gaddis, John Lewis (2005). The Cold War: A New History. Penguin Press. ISBN 978-1-59420-062-5.

Harrison, Hope Millard (2003). Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-09678-0.

Catudal, Honoré M. (1980). "Kennedy and the Berlin Wall Crisis". West Berlin: Berlin Verlag.

Hertle, Hans-Hermann (2007). "The Berlin Wall". Bonn: Federal Centre for Political Education.

Kennedy, John F. "July 25, 1961 speech". Archived from the original on 29 April 2009.

Maclean, Rory (1992). Stalin's Nose: Across the Face of Europe. London: HarperCollins.

Mynz, Rainer (1995). "Where Did They All Come From? Typology and Geography of European Mass Migration In the Twentieth Century; European Population Conference Congress European de Démographie". United Nations Population Division.

Schneider, Peter (2005). The Wall Jumper. London: Penguin Classics.

Taylor, Frederick (2006). The Berlin Wall: 13 August 1961 - 9 November 1989. Bloomsbury[ISBN missing ]

Thackeray, Frank W. (2004). Events that changed Germany. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32814-5.

Luftbildatlas. Entlang der Berliner Mauer. Karten, Pläne und Fotos. Hans Wolfgang Hoffmann / Philipp Meuser (eds.) Berlin 2009. ISBN 978-3-938666-84-5

Sarotte, Mary Elise (2014). Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, New York: Basic Books,[ISBN missing ]

Sarotte, Mary Elise (2014) [1989]. The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe (Second Edition) Princeton: Princeton University Press,[ISBN missing ]

Further reading

Hockenos, Paul (2017). Berlin calling: a story of anarchy, music, the Wall, and the birth of the new Berlin. New York: The New Press. ISBN 978-1-62097-195-6. OCLC 959535547.

External links

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The ( Berlin Wall ( German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˌliːnɐ ˈmaʊ̯ɐ] listen )) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR).[a] [1] [3] Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961.

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“Missile Crisis” redirects here. For the missile crisis in Cyprus, see Cypriot S-300 crisis.

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On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife, Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife, Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by former U.S. Marine Lee Harvey Oswald. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally was also wounded in the attack but recovered. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was hastily sworn in as president two hours and eight minutes later aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field.

After the assassination, Oswald returned home to retrieve a pistol; he shot and killed lone Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit shortly afterwards. Around 70 minutes after Kennedy and Connally were shot, Oswald was apprehended by the Dallas Police Department and charged under Texas state law with the murders of Kennedy and Tippit. Two days later, at 11:21 a.m. on November 24, 1963, as live television cameras covered Oswald's being moved through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, he was fatally shot by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby. Like Kennedy, Oswald was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he soon died. Ruby was convicted of Oswald's murder, though the decision was overturned on appeal, and Ruby died in prison in 1967 while awaiting a new trial.

After a 10-month investigation, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald assassinated Kennedy, and that there was no evidence that either Oswald or Ruby was part of a conspiracy. In 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison brought the only trial for Kennedy's murder, against businessman Clay Shaw; Shaw was acquitted. Subsequent federal investigations-such as the Rockefeller Commission and Church Committee-agreed with the Warren Commission's general findings. In its 1979 report, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that Kennedy was likely " assassinated as a result of a conspiracy". The HSCA did not identify possible conspirators, but concluded that there was "a high probability that two gunmen fired at [the] President". The HSCA's conclusions were largely based on a police Dictabelt recording later debunked by the U.S. Justice Department.

Kennedy's assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned many conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios; polls found that a majority of Americans believed there was a conspiracy. The assassination left a profound impact and was the first of four major assassinations during the 1960s in the United States, coming two years before the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and five years before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Kennedy's brother Robert in 1968. Kennedy was the fourth U.S. president to be assassinated and is the most recent to have died in office.

Background

Kennedy delivering his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech at Rice University, 1962

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, was elected the 35th president of the United States with Lyndon B. Johnson as his vice presidential running mate. Kennedy's tenure saw the height of the Cold War, and much of his foreign policy was dedicated to countering the Soviet Union and communism. As president, he authorized operations to overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government in Cuba, which culminated in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, during which he declined to directly involve American troops. The following year, Kennedy deescalated the Cuban Missile Crisis, an incident widely regarded as the closest that humanity has come to nuclear holocaust.

In 1963, Kennedy decided to travel to Texas to smooth over frictions in the state's Democratic Party between liberal U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough and conservative Governor John Connally. The visit was first agreed upon by Kennedy, Johnson, and Connally during a meeting in El Paso in June. The motorcade route was finalized on November 18 and announced soon thereafter. Kennedy also viewed the Texas trip as an informal launch of his 1964 reelection campaign.

Lee Harvey Oswald (born 1939) was a former U.S. Marine who had served in Japan and the Philippines and had espoused communism since reading Karl Marx at the age of 14. After accidentally shooting his elbow with an unauthorized handgun and fighting an officer, Oswald was court-martialed twice and demoted. In September 1959, he received a dependency discharge after claiming his mother was disabled. A 19-year-old Oswald sailed on a freighter from New Orleans to France and then traveled to Finland, where he was issued a Soviet visa.

Oswald defected to the Soviet Union, and in January 1960 he was sent to work at a factory in Minsk, Belarus. In 1961, he met and married Marina Prusakova, with whom he had a child. In 1962, he returned to the United States with a repatriation loan from the U.S. Embassy. He settled in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where he socialized with Russian émigrés-notably George de Mohrenschildt. In March 1963, a bullet narrowly missed General Edwin Walker at his Dallas residence; a witness observed two conspicuous men. Relying on Marina's testimony, a note left by Oswald, and ballistic evidence, the Warren Commission attributed this assassination attempt to Oswald.

In April 1963, Oswald returned to his birthplace, New Orleans, and established an independent chapter of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee, of which he was the sole member. While passing out pro-Castro literature alongside unknown compatriots, Oswald was arrested after scuffling with anti-Castro Cuban exiles. In late September 1963, Oswald traveled to Mexico City, where, according to the Warren Commission, he visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies. On October 3, Oswald returned to Dallas and found work at the Texas School Book Depository on Dealey Plaza. During the workweek he lived separately from Marina at a Dallas rooming house. On the morning of the assassination, he carried a long package (which he told coworkers contained curtain rods) into the Depository; the Warren Commission concluded that this package contained Oswald's disassembled rifle.

November 22

Kennedy's arrival in Dallas and route to Dealey Plaza

On November 22, Air Force One arrived at Dallas Love Field at 11:40 a.m. President Kennedy and the First Lady boarded a 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible limousine to travel to a luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart. Other occupants of this vehicle-the second in the motorcade-were Secret Service Agent Bill Greer, who drove; Special Agent Roy Kellerman in the front passenger seat; and Governor Connally and his wife Nellie, who sat just forward of the Kennedys. Four Dallas police motorcycle officers accompanied the Kennedy limousine. Vice President Johnson, his wife Lady Bird, and Senator Yarborough rode in another convertible.

The motorcade's meandering 10-mile (16 km) route through Dallas was designed to give Kennedy maximum exposure to crowds by passing through a suburban section of Dallas, and Main Street in Downtown Dallas, before turning right on Houston Street. After another block, the motorcade was to turn left onto Elm Street, pass through Dealey Plaza, and travel a short segment of the Stemmons Freeway to the Trade Mart. The planned route had been reported in newspapers several days in advance. Despite concerns about hostile protestors-Kennedy's UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been spat on in Dallas a month earlier-Kennedy was greeted warmly by enthusiastic crowds.

Kennedy's limousine entered Dealey Plaza at 12:30 p.m. CST. Nellie Connally turned and commented to Kennedy, who was sitting behind her, "Mr. President, they can't make you believe now that there are not some in Dallas who love and appreciate you, can they?" Kennedy's reply - "No, they sure can't" - were his last words.

From Houston Street, the limousine made the planned left turn onto Elm, passing the Texas School Book Depository. As it continued down Elm Street, multiple shots were fired: about 80% of the witnesses recalled hearing three shots. The Warren Commission concluded that three shots were fired and noted that most witnesses recalled that the second and third shots were bunched together. Shortly after Kennedy began waving, some witnesses heard the first gunshot, but few in the crowd or motorcade reacted, many interpreting the sound as a firecracker or backfire.

Within one second of each other, Governor Connally and Mrs. Kennedy turned abruptly from their left to their right. Connally-an experienced hunter-immediately recognized the sound as that of a rifle and turned his head and torso rightward, noting nothing unusual behind him. He testified that he could not see Kennedy, so he started to turn forward again (turning from his right to his left), and that when his head was facing about 20 degrees left of center, he was struck in his upper right back by a shot he did not hear, then shouted, "My God. They're going to kill us all!"

According to the Warren Commission and the HSCA, Kennedy was waving to the crowds on his right when a shot entered his upper back and exited his throat just beneath his larynx. He raised his elbows and clenched his fists in front of his face and neck, then leaned forward and leftward. Mrs. Kennedy, facing him, put her arms around him. Although a serious wound, it likely would have been survivable.

According to the Warren Commission's single-bullet theory-derided as the "magic bullet theory" by conspiracy theorists-Governor Connally was injured by the same bullet that exited Kennedy's neck. The bullet created an oval-shaped entry wound near his right shoulder, struck and destroyed several inches of Connally's right fifth rib, and exited his chest just below his right nipple, puncturing and collapsing his lung. That same bullet then entered his arm just above his right wrist and shattered his right radius bone. The bullet exited just below the wrist at the inner side of his right palm and finally lodged in his left thigh.

As the limousine passed the grassy knoll, Kennedy was struck a second time, by a fatal shot to the head. The Warren Commission made no finding as to whether this was the second or third bullet fired, and concluded-as did the HSCA-that the second shot to strike Kennedy entered the rear of his head. It then passed in fragments through his skull, creating a large, "roughly ovular" [] hole on the rear, right side of the head, and spraying blood and fragments. His brain and blood spatter landed as far as the following Secret Service car and the motorcycle officers.

Secret Service Agent Clint Hill was riding on the running board of the car immediately behind Kennedy's limousine. Hill testified to the Warren Commission that he heard one shot, jumped onto the street, and ran forward to board the limousine and protect Kennedy. Hill stated that he heard the fatal headshot as he reached the Lincoln, "approximately five seconds" after the first shot that he heard. After the headshot, Mrs. Kennedy began climbing onto the limousine's trunk, but she later had no recollection of doing so. Hill believed she may have been reaching for a piece of Kennedy's skull. He jumped onto the limousine's bumper, and he clung to the car as it exited Dealey Plaza and sped to Parkland Memorial Hospital. After Mrs. Kennedy crawled back into her seat, both Governor and Mrs. Connally heard her repeatedly saying: "They have killed my husband. I have his brains in my hand."

Bystander James Tague received a minor wound to the cheek-either from bullet or concrete curb fragments-while standing by the triple underpass. Nine months later, the FBI removed the curb, and spectrographic analysis revealed metallic residue consistent with the lead core in Oswald's ammunition. Tague testified before the Warren Commission and initially stated that he was wounded by either the second or third shot of the three shots that he remembered hearing. When the commission counsel pressed him to be more specific, Tague testified that he was wounded by the second shot.

Aftermath in Dealey Plaza

Civilians shielding their children after hearing shots and dropping to the grass. The grassy knoll and its picket fence are visible in the background.[note 7]

As the motorcade left Dealey Plaza, some witnesses sought cover, and others joined police officers to run up the grassy knoll in search of a shooter. No shooter was found behind the knoll's picket fence. Among the 178 witnesses who testified to the Warren Commission, 78 were unsure of the shots' origin, 49 believed they came from the Depository, and 21 thought they came from the grassy knoll. No witness ever reported seeing anyone - with or without a gun (except policemen) - immediately behind the knoll's picket fence at the time of the shooting.

Lee Bowers was in a two-story railroad switch tower 120 yards (110 m) behind the grassy knoll's picket fence; he was watching the motorcade and had an unobstructed view of the only route by which any shooter could flee the grassy knoll; he saw no one leaving the scene. Bowers testified to the Warren Commission that "one or two" men were between him and the fence during the assassination: one was a familiar parking lot attendant and the other wore a uniform like a county courthouse custodian. He testified seeing "some commotion" on the grassy knoll at the time of the assassination: "something out of the ordinary, a sort of milling around, but something occurred in this particular spot which was out of the ordinary, which attracted my eye for some reason which I could not identify".

At 12:36 p.m., Black teenager Amos Euins approached Dallas police Sergeant D.V. Harkness to report having seen a " colored man ... leaning out of the window [with] a rifle" on the sixth floor of the Depository during the assassination; in response, Harkness radioed that he was sealing off the Depository. Witness Howard Brennan then approached a police inspector to report seeing a shooter-a white man in khaki clothing-in the same window. Police broadcast Brennan's description of the man at 12:45 p.m. Brennan testified that, after the second shot, "This man... was aiming for his last shot ... and maybe paused for another second as though to assure himself that he had hit his mark." Witness James R. Worrell Jr. also reported seeing a gun barrel emerge from a sixth floor Depository window. Bonnie Ray Williams, who was on the fifth floor of the Depository, stated that the rifle's report was so loud and near that ceiling plaster fell onto his head.

Oswald's flight, killing of J. D. Tippit, and arrest

When searching the sixth floor of the Depository, two deputies found an Italian Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle. Oswald had purchased the used rifle the previous March under the alias "A. Hidell" and had it delivered to his Dallas P.O. box. The FBI found Oswald's partial palm print on the barrel, and fibers on the rifle were consistent with those of Oswald's shirt. A bullet found on Governor Connally's hospital gurney and two fragments found in the limousine were ballistically matched to the Carcano.

Oswald left the Depository and traveled by bus to his boarding house, where he retrieved a jacket and revolver. At 1:12 p.m., police officer J. D. Tippit spotted Oswald walking in the residential neighborhood of Oak Cliff and called him to his patrol car. After an exchange of words, Tippit exited his vehicle; Oswald then shot Tippit three times in the chest. As Tippit lay on the ground, Oswald fired a final shot into Tippit's right temple. Oswald then calmly walked away before running as witnesses emerged.

As Dallas police officers conducted a roll call of Depository employees, Oswald's supervisor Roy Truly realized that Oswald was absent and notified the police. Based on a false identification of Oswald, Dallas police raided a library in Oak Cliff before realizing their mistake. At 1:36 p.m., the police were called after a conspicuous Oswald, tired from running, was seen sneaking into the Texas Theatre without paying. With the film still playing, Dallas policemen arrested Oswald after a brief struggle in which Oswald drew his fully loaded gun. He denied shooting anyone and claimed he was being made a " patsy" because he had lived in the Soviet Union.

Kennedy declared dead; Johnson sworn in

Cecil Stoughton's photograph of Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as President as Air Force One prepares to depart Love Field in Dallas. Jacqueline Kennedy, still in her Chanel suit (the blood spatters not visible here), looks on.

At 12:38 p.m., Kennedy arrived in the emergency room of Parkland Memorial Hospital. Although Kennedy was still breathing after the shooting, his personal physician, George Burkley, immediately saw that survival was impossible. After Parkland surgeons performed futile cardiac massage, Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m., 30 minutes after the shooting. CBS host Walter Cronkite broke the news on live television.

The Secret Service was concerned about the possibility of a larger plot and urged Johnson to leave Dallas and return to the White House, but Johnson refused to do so without any proof of Kennedy's death. Johnson returned to Air Force One around 1:30p.m., and shortly thereafter, he received telephone calls from advisors McGeorge Bundy and Walter Jenkins advising him to depart for Washington, D.C., immediately. He replied that he would not leave Dallas without Jacqueline Kennedy and that she would not leave without Kennedy's body. According to , Johnson did "not want to be remembered as an abandoner of beautiful widows".

At the time of Kennedy's assassination, the murder of a president was not under federal jurisdiction. Accordingly, Dallas County medical examiner Earl Rose insisted that Texas law required him to perform an autopsy. A heated exchange between Kennedy's aides and Dallas officials nearly erupted into a fistfight before the Texans yielded and allowed Kennedy's body to be transported to Air Force One. At 2:38 p.m., with Jacqueline Kennedy at his side, Johnson was administered the oath of office by federal judge Sarah Tilghman Hughes aboard Air Force One shortly before departing for Washington with Kennedy's coffin.

Immediate aftermath

President Kennedy's autopsy was performed at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland on the night of November 22. Jacqueline Kennedy had selected a naval hospital as the postmortem site as President Kennedy had been a naval officer during World War II. The autopsy was conducted by three physicians: naval commanders James Humes and J. Thornton Boswell, with assistance from ballistics wound expert Pierre A. Finck; Humes led the procedure. Under pressure from the Kennedy family and White House staffers to expedite the procedure, the physicians conducted a "rushed" and incomplete autopsy. Kennedy's personal physician, Rear Admiral George Burkley, signed a death certificate on November 23 and recorded that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the skull.

Three years after the autopsy, Kennedy's brain-which had been removed and preserved for later analysis-was found to be missing when the Kennedy family transferred material to the National Archives. Conspiracy theorists often claim that the brain may have shown that the headshot entered from the front. Alternatively, the HSCA concluded that an assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the president's brother, likely removed the footlocker holding the brain and other materials at his direction, and he "either destroyed these materials or otherwise rendered them inaccessible" to prevent "misuse" of said material or to hide the extent of the president's chronic illnesses and consequent medication. Some autopsy X-rays and photographs have also been lost.

Most historians regard the autopsy as the "most botched" segment of the government's investigation. The HSCA forensic pathology panel concluded that the autopsy had "extensive failings", including failure to take sufficient photographs, failure to determine the exact exit or entry point of the head bullet, not dissecting the back and neck, and neglecting to determine the angles of gunshot injuries relative to body axis. The panel further concluded that the two doctors were not qualified to have conducted a forensic autopsy. Panel member Milton Helpern- Chief Medical Examiner for New York City-said that selecting Humes (who had only taken a single course on forensic pathology) to lead the autopsy was "like sending a seven-year-old boy who has taken three lessons on the violin over to the New York Philharmonic and expecting him to perform a Tchaikovsky symphony".

Kennedy's coffin is carried from the Capitol, November 25.

Following the autopsy, Kennedy lay in repose in the East Room of the White House for 24 hours. President Johnson issued Presidential Proclamation 3561, declaring November 25 to be a national day of mourning, and that only essential emergency workers be at their posts. The coffin was then carried on a horse-drawn caisson to the Capitol to lie in state. Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined up to view the guarded casket, with a quarter million passing through the rotunda during the 18 hours of lying in state. Even in the Soviet Union-according to a memo by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover -news of the assassination "was greeted by great shock and consternation and church bells were tolled in the memory of President Kennedy".

Kennedy's funeral service was held on November 25, at St. Matthew's Cathedral, with the Requiem Mass led by Cardinal Richard Cushing. About 1,200 guests, including representatives from over 90 countries, attended. Although there was no formal eulogy, Auxiliary Bishop Philip M. Hannan read excerpts from Kennedy's speeches and writings. After the service, Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. An eternal flame was lit at his burial site in 1967.

Killing of Oswald

Robert H. Jackson's photograph Jack Ruby Shoots Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was being escorted by police detective Jim Leavelle (tan suit) for the transfer from the city jail to the county jail. Ruby died in prison in 1967.

On Sunday, November 24, at 11:21 a.m., as Oswald was being escorted to a car in the basement of Dallas Police headquarters for the transfer from the city jail to the county jail, he was shot by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The shooting was broadcast live on television. Robert H. Jackson of the Dallas Times Herald photographed the shooting which was titled, Jack Ruby Shoots Lee Harvey Oswald for which he was awarded the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Photography.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Oswald was taken by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital; he was treated by the same surgeons who had tried to save Kennedy. The bullet had entered his lower left chest but had not exited; major heart blood vessels such as the aorta and inferior vena cava were severed, and the spleen, kidney, and liver were hit. Despite surgical intervention and defibrillation, Oswald died at 1:07 p.m.

Arrested immediately after the shooting, Ruby testified to the Warren Commission that he had been distraught by Kennedy's death and that killing Oswald would spare "Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial". He also stated he shot Oswald on the spur of the moment when the opportunity presented itself, without considering any reason for doing so. Initially, Ruby wished to represent himself in his trial until his lawyer Melvin Belli dissuaded him: Belli argued that Ruby had an episode of psychomotor epilepsy and was thus not responsible. Ruby was convicted, but the decision was overturned on appeal. While awaiting retrial in 1967, Ruby died of a pulmonary embolism, secondary to cancer. Like Oswald and Kennedy, Ruby was declared dead at Parkland Hospital.

Films and photographs of the assassination

The Bell & Howell Zoomatic movie camera used by Abraham Zapruder to capture footage of the motorcade and Kennedy's killing, which later came to be known as the Zapruder film. The camera is preserved within the collection of the National Archives.

Standing on the pergola wall some 65 feet (20 m) from the road, tailor Abraham Zapruder recorded Kennedy's killing on 26 seconds of silent 8 mm film - known as the Zapruder film. Frame 313 captures the exact moment at which Kennedy's head explodes. magazine published frame enlargements from the Zapruder film shortly after the assassination. The footage itself was first publicly shown at the 1969 trial of Clay Shaw, and on television in 1975 by Geraldo Rivera. In 1999, an arbitration panel ordered the federal government to pay $615,384 per second of film to Zapruder's heirs, valuing the complete film at $16 million (equivalent to $27.5 million in 2022).

Zapruder was one of at least 32 people in Dealey Plaza known to have made film or still photographs at or around the time of the shooting. Most notably among the photographers, Mary Moorman took several photos of Kennedy with her Polaroid, including one of Kennedy less than one-sixth of a second after the headshot.

As well as Zapruder, Charles Bronson, Marie Muchmore, and Orville Nix filmed the assassination, but at farther distances than Zapruder. Of the three, only Nix - who filmed the assassination from the opposite side of Elm Street from Zapruder, capturing the grassy knoll - actually recorded the fatal shot. In 1966, Nix claimed that, after he gave the film to the FBI, the duplicate that they returned had frames "missing" or "ruined". Although lower-quality duplicates exist, the original film has been missing since 1978. Previously unknown footage filmed by George Jefferies was released in 2007. Recorded a few blocks before the shooting, the film captures Kennedy's bunched suit jacket, explaining the discrepancies between the location of the bullet hole in Kennedy's back and his jacket.

Some films and photographs captured an unidentified woman apparently filming the assassination; researchers have nicknamed her the Babushka Lady due to the shawl around her head. In 1978, Gordon Arnold came forward and claimed that he had filmed the assassination from the grassy knoll and that a police officer had confiscated his film. Arnold is not visible in any photographs taken of the area, which Vincent Bugliosi-author of Reclaiming History-called "conclusive photographic proof that Arnold's story was fabricated".

Official investigations

Dallas Police

Lee Harvey Oswald in police custody.

At the Dallas Police headquarters, officers interrogated Oswald about the shootings of Kennedy and Tippit; these intermittent interviews lasted for approximately 12 hours between 2:30 p.m. on November 22 and 11 a.m. on November 24. Throughout, Oswald denied any involvement and resorted to statements that were found to be false.

Captain J. W. Fritz of the Homicide and Robbery Bureau did most of the questioning and kept only rudimentary notes. Days later, Fritz wrote a report of the interrogation from notes he made afterwards. There were no stenographic or tape recordings. Representatives of other law enforcement agencies were also present, including the FBI and the Secret Service, and occasionally participated in the questioning. Several of the FBI agents who were present wrote contemporaneous reports of the interrogation.

On the evening of November 22, Dallas Police performed paraffin tests on Oswald's hands and right cheek in an effort to establish whether or not he had recently fired a weapon. The results were positive for the hands and negative for the right cheek. Such tests were unreliable, and the Warren Commission did not rely on these results.

The Dallas police forced Oswald to host a press conference after midnight on November 23, and, early in the investigation, made many leaks to the media. Their conduct angered Johnson, who instructed the FBI to tell them to "stop talking about the assassination". Dallas Police, after the FBI expressed concerns that someone might try to kill Oswald, assured federal authorities that they would provide him adequate protection.

FBI investigation

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (pictured between Robert and John F. Kennedy in May 1963) wrote in a 1964 memo that "we left no stone unturned".[196]

The FBI immediately launched an investigation into the assassination, relying on a federal statute that forbade assaulting a federal officer. Within 24 hours of the killing, FBI Director Hoover sent President Johnson a preliminary report finding that Oswald was the sole culprit. After Ruby killed Oswald, Johnson decided that the Texan authorities were incompetent and instructed the FBI to conduct a complete investigation.

On December 9, 1963, the Warren Commission received the FBI's report of its investigation which concluded that three bullets had been fired‍-‌the first striking Kennedy in the upper back; the second striking Connally; and the third striking Kennedy in the head, killing him. The FBI continued to serve as the main investigative arm of the Warren Commission in the field. A total of 169 FBI agents worked on the case, conducting over 25,000 interviews and writing over 2,300 reports.

The thoroughness of the FBI's investigation is contested. Bugliosi applauded its quality and cites conspiracy theorist Harrison Edward Livingstone's praise of the FBI's commitment to following all leads. In its 1979 report, the HSCA found that the FBI's investigation of pro- and anti-Castro Cubans, and any connections to Oswald or Ruby, was insufficient. The HSCA also noted that Hoover "seemed determined [to make the case that Oswald was the lone assassin] within 24 hours of the assassination".

Warren Commission

The Warren Commission presents its report to President Johnson. From left to right: John McCloy, J. Lee Rankin (General Counsel), Senator Richard Russell, Congressman Gerald Ford, Chief Justice Earl Warren, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Allen Dulles, Senator John Sherman Cooper, and Congressman Hale Boggs.

On November 29, President Johnson established by executive order " The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy" and selected Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court to chair the investigation, commonly known as the Warren Commission. Its 888-page final report was presented to Johnson on September 24, 1964, and made public three days later. It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy and wounding Connally, and that Jack Ruby acted alone in killing Oswald. It made no conclusions as to Oswald's motive, but noted his Marxism, anti-authoritarianism, violent tendencies, failure to form personal relationships, and his desire to be significant in history.

Upon examining the Zapruder film, commission staffers realized that the FBI's gunshot theory was impossible. The reaction times of Kennedy and Connally were too close to have been caused by two bullets from Oswald: the reaction interval was less than the 2.3 seconds that it took to reload. This was one of the commission's most crucial findings: that a single shot caused the non-fatal wounds of Kennedy and Connally, known as the "single-bullet theory". In May 1964, staffer Arlen Specter replicated the single bullet's trajectory via a reenactment in Dealey Plaza: the bullet's path was exactly consistent with Kennedy's and Connally's wounds.

Out of the eight commission members, three-Representative Hale Boggs and Senators John Cooper and Richard Russell-found the theory "improbable"; their qualms were not mentioned in the final report. Conspiracy theorists labelled this theory the "magic bullet theory", partly due to the bullet's intact and purportedly pristine state. However, the HSCA's Michael Baden noted that the bullet, despite its lack of fragmentation, was fundamentally deformed. In 2023, Secret Service Agent Paul Landis-who had stood on the running board of Kennedy's car-told The New York Times that he retrieved the "magic bullet" from immediately behind Kennedy's seat upon arrival at Parkland, and that he placed it on Kennedy's stretcher. Landis believes that the bullet dislodged from a shallow wound in Kennedy's back.

As well as the Warren Report's 27 published volumes, the commission created hundreds of thousands of pages of investigative reports and documents. Relman Morin stated that "Never in history was a crime probed as intensely"; Bugliosi concluded that the commission's basic findings have "held up remarkably well". According to Gerald Posner, the Warren report is "universally derided" by the American public. Walter Cronkite noted that, "Although the Warren Commission had full power to conduct its own independent investigation, it permitted the FBI and the CIA to investigate themselves - and so cast a permanent shadow on the answers." According to a 2014 report by CIA Chief Historian David Robarge, then-CIA director John A. McCone was involved in a "benign cover-up" by withholding information from the commission.

Trial of Clay Shaw

Clay Shaw (pictured in 1951) was acquitted by the New Orleans jury after less than an hour of deliberation.

On March 22, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested and charged New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw with conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy, with the help of Oswald, David Ferrie, and others. A respected businessman who had helped renovate and preserve the French Quarter, Shaw was described as "the unlikeliest villain since Oscar Wilde". Both Shaw and the neurotic, avidly anti-Castro Ferrie were members of New Orleans' gay community. Ferrie died, possibly by suicide, four days after news of the investigation broke. On The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1968, Garrison first publicly alleged that Shaw and Ferrie had been part of a larger CIA scheme to kill Kennedy and frame Oswald. In the 34-day trial conducted in 1969, Garrison played the Zapruder film and argued that the backwards motion of Kennedy's head after the fatal shot was indicative of a shooter in front on the grassy knoll.

After a brief deliberation, the jury found Shaw not guilty. Mark Lane interviewed the jurors after the trial and stated that some believed that Shaw likely was involved in a conspiracy but that there was insufficient evidence to convict. Lane's claims have been disputed by playwright James Kirkwood -a personal friend of Clay Shaw-who said that he met several jurors who denied ever speaking to Lane. Kirkwood also questioned Lane's claim that the jury believed that there was a conspiracy: jury foreman Sidney Hebert told Kirkwood, "I didn't think too much of the Warren Report either until the trial. Now I think a lot more of it than I did before."

According to academic E. Jerald Ogg, the Shaw trial is now widely regarded as a "travesty of justice"; Kirkwood likened the trial to a Spanish Inquisition hearing. Other observers have characterized the proceedings as relying on homophobia. It remains the only trial to be brought for the Kennedy assassination. In 1979, former CIA director Richard Helms testified that Shaw had been a part-time contact of the Domestic Contact Service of the CIA, through which Shaw volunteered information from his travels abroad, mostly to Latin America. However, according to Max Holland, some 150,000 Americans were contacts. In 1993, the PBS program obtained a group photograph that featured Ferrie and Oswald together at a 1955 cookout for the Civil Air Patrol: Ferrie had denied ever knowing Oswald.

Ramsey Clark Panel

The panel organized by Attorney General Ramsey Clark (pictured with President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968) found that two bullets struck Kennedy from behind.

Excluding Chief Justice Warren, the members of Warren Commission did not view the photographs or X-rays taken during Kennedy's autopsy. According to Warren, this was to avoid having to publicly release the explicit material to "sensation mongers". Due to persistent speculation, in February 1968, Attorney General Ramsey Clark convened a panel of four medical experts to examine the photographs and X-rays from the Kennedy autopsy. Their findings concurred with the Warren Commission: Kennedy was struck by two bullets, both from behind.

Rockefeller Commission

In 1975, President Gerald Ford-who had been a member of the Warren Commission a decade prior-established the United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, better known as the Rockefeller Commission after its chairman, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. The commission received a mandate to determine if any domestic activities by the CIA were unlawful and to make appropriate recommendations: accordingly, it also re-examined the Kennedy assassination.

The Rockefeller Commission first proposed that the backwards motion of Kennedy following the fatal shot-which conspiracy theorists claim is indicative of a shot from the grassy knoll-was due to a "seizure-like neuromuscular reaction".

After five months of investigation, the Rockefeller Commission submitted its report to President Ford. The report reviewed the medical evidence and agreed that Kennedy had been killed by two shots from behind. Refuting Garrison's claims that the backwards motion of Kennedy's head seen on the Zapruder film was indicative of a grassy knoll shooter, the commission found that "such a motion would be caused by a violent straightening and stiffening of the entire body as a result of a seizure-like neuromuscular reaction to major damage inflicted to nerve centers in the brain". The later HSCA suggested that the " propulsive effect resulting from brain matter" ejected from the exit wound may have been responsible. Pathologist Vincent Di Maio testified before the HSCA that the notion of a "transfer of momentum" from a grassy knoll bullet was unfounded and something from " Arnold Schwarzenegger pictures".

The Rockefeller Commission also sought to determine whether CIA operatives-particularly E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis-were present in Dealey Plaza during the assassination, and whether they were among the " three tramps" pictured shortly after the assassination. The commission found no evidence for these claims. It also inquired into purported connections between the CIA and Oswald and Ruby, for which it found no evidence and concluded was "farfetched speculation". They concluded that there was "no credible evidence of CIA involvement".

Church Committee

Church Committee report (Book II)

In 1975, following the Watergate scandal and the revelation of CIA misconduct by Seymour Hersh (the CIA's so-called " Family Jewels"), the U.S. Senate launched the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities-better known as the Church Committee after its chairman, Senator Frank Church. The committee was to investigate all improper and unlawful actions by the CIA and FBI, both foreign and domestic. Due to persisting theories, the Church Committee organized a subcommittee (staffed by Senators Richard Schweiker and Gary Hart) to examine CIA and FBI conduct pertaining to the assassination.

In its final report, the Church Committee concluded that there was no evidence of a CIA- or FBI-led conspiracy. They found that the original investigation into the assassination was "deficient" and criticized the FBI and CIA for withholding information from the Warren Commission. In particular, it noted that knowledge of the CIA's many failed attempts to assassinate Castro may have significantly affected the course of the investigation. Moreover, the Church Committee revealed that the CIA had conspired with the Mafia in these plots against Castro. These revelations led to further public scrutiny of the assassination.

United States House Select Committee on Assassinations

As a result of increasing public and congressional skepticism of the Warren Commission's findings and the transparency of government agencies, in 1976 the House Select Committee on Assassinations was created to investigate the assassinations of Kennedy and that of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The HSCA conducted its inquiry until 1978 and issued its final report the following year, concluding that Kennedy was likely assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. They concluded that there was a "high probability" that a fourth shot was fired from the grassy knoll, but they stated that this shot missed Kennedy. Concerning the conclusions of "probable conspiracy", four of the twelve committee members wrote dissenting opinions.

The HSCA also concluded that previous investigations into Oswald's responsibility were "thorough and reliable" but did not adequately investigate the possibility of a conspiracy, and that federal agencies performed with "varying degrees of competency". Specifically, the FBI and CIA were found to be deficient in sharing information with other agencies and the Warren Commission. Instead of furnishing all relevant information, the FBI and CIA only responded to specific requests and were still occasionally inadequate. Furthermore, the Secret Service did not properly analyze information it possessed prior to the assassination and was inadequately prepared to protect Kennedy.

The chief reason for the conclusion of "probable conspiracy" was, according to the report's dissent, the subsequently discredited acoustic analysis of a police channel Dictabelt recording. In accordance with the recommendations of the HSCA, the Dictabelt recording and acoustic evidence of a second assassin was subsequently reexamined. In light of investigative reports from the FBI's Technical Services Division and a specially appointed National Academy of Sciences Committee determining that "reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman", the Justice Department concluded "that no persuasive evidence can be identified to support the theory of a conspiracy" in the Kennedy assassination.

JFK Act and Assassination Records Review Board

Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK spurred the "JFK Act", which mandated the release of all relevant classified files.

In 1991, Oliver Stone's film renewed interest in the assassination and particularly in the still-classified files relating to the killing. In response, Congress passed the JFK Records Act, which called for the National Archives to collect and release all assassination-related documents within 25 years. The act also mandated the creation of an independent office, the Assassination Records Review Board, to review the submitted records for completeness and continued secrecy. From 1994 until 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board gathered and unsealed about 60,000 documents comprising over 4 million pages.

A 1998 staff report for the Assassinations Records Review Board contended that brain photographs in the Kennedy records may not be of Kennedy's brain, reportedly showing much less damage than Kennedy sustained. Dr. Boswell refuted these allegations. The board also found that, conflicting with the photographic images showing no such defect, several witnesses (at both Parkland hospital and the autopsy) remembered a large wound in the back of Kennedy's head. The board, and board member Jeremy Gunn, stressed the problems with witness testimony, urging people to weigh all of the evidence, with due concern for human error, rather than take single statements as "proof" for one theory or another.

All remaining assassination-related records were scheduled to be released by October 2017, with the exception of documents certified for continued postponement by succeeding presidents due to "identifiable harm... to the military, defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations... of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure." President Donald Trump said in October 2017 that he would not block the release of documents, but in April 2018-the deadline he set to release all JFK records-Trump blocked the release of some records until October 2021. President Joe Biden, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, delayed the release further, before releasing 13,173 unredacted documents in 2022. A second group of files were unsealed in June 2023, at which point 99 percent of documents had been made public.

Conspiracy theories

The Kennedy assassination has been described as "the mother of all conspiracies". For decades, polls have consistently found that a majority of Americans believe there was a conspiracy; some 1,000 to 2,000 books-mostly pro-conspiracy-have been written about the killing. Across different theories, Oswald's role varies from co-conspirator to entirely innocent. Common culprits include the FBI, the CIA, the U.S. military, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex, Vice President Johnson, Castro, the KGB, or some combination thereof. Bugliosi estimated that a total of 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214 people had been accused in various assassination theories.

Conspiracy theorists often argue that there were multiple shooters-a "triangulation of crossfire"-and that the fatal shot was fired from the grassy knoll and struck Kennedy in the front of the head. Individuals present in Dealey Plaza have been the subject of much speculation, including the three tramps, the umbrella man, and the purported Badge Man. Conspiracy theorists argue that the autopsy and official investigations were flawed or, at worst, complicit, and that witnesses to the Kennedy assassination met mysterious and suspicious deaths.

Conspiracy theories have been espoused by notable figures, such as L. Fletcher Prouty, Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Kennedy, who believed that elements of the U.S. military and intelligence communities had conspired to assassinate the president. Governor Connally also rejected the single-bullet theory, and President Johnson reportedly expressed doubt regarding the Warren Commission's conclusions prior to his death. According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his father believed that the Warren Report was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship" and that John F. Kennedy had been killed by a conspiracy, possibly involving Cuban exiles and the CIA. Communist rulers like Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev believed that Kennedy had been killed by right-wing Americans. Former CIA director R. James Woolsey has argued that Oswald killed Kennedy as part of a Soviet conspiracy.

Political impact and memorialization

Congress authorized the minting of a new 50-cent piece, the Kennedy half dollar, in December 1963.[294]

On November 27-five days after the assassination-President Johnson delivered his " Let Us Continue" speech to Congress. Effectively an inaugural address, Johnson called for the realization of Kennedy's policies, particularly on civil rights; this effort soon materialized as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Confusion surrounding Johnson's succession led to the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the U.S Constitution, which was adopted in 1967 and affirmed that the vice president became president upon the president's death.

On November 29, President Johnson issued Executive Order 11129, renaming Florida's Cape Canaveral-a name borne since at least 1530-to Cape Kennedy. NASA's Launch Operations Center, located on the cape, was also renamed as the Kennedy Space Center. The federal government honored Kennedy in other ways, such as replacing the Benjamin Franklin half dollar with the Kennedy half dollar, and renaming Washington, D.C.'s long-planned National Culture Center as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. New York City's airport was also renamed as the John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Kennedy's assassination also resulted in an overhaul of the Secret Service and its procedures. Open limousines were eliminated, staffing was significantly increased, and specialized teams like counter-sniper units were established. The agency's budget has also increased, from $5.5 million in 1963 (equivalent to $42 million in 2013) to over $1.6 billion by the 50th anniversary in 2013.

Cultural impact and depictions

They say they can't believe it; It's a sacrilegious shame.

Now, who would want to hurt such a hero of the game?

But you know I predicted it; I knew he had to fall.

How did it happen? Hope his suffering was small.

Tell me every detail, for I've got to know it all,

And do you have a picture of the pain?

John F. Kennedy's assassination was the first of four major assassinations during the 1960s, coming two years before the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and five years before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. For the public, Kennedy's assassination mythologized him into a heroic figure. Although scholars typically regard Kennedy as a good but not great president, public opinion polls consistently find him the most popular post-WWII president.

Kennedy's murder left a lasting impression on many worldwide. As with the attack on Pearl Harbor of December 7, 1941, and, much later, the September 11 attacks in 2001, asking "Where were you when you heard about President Kennedy's assassination?" became a common topic of discussion. Journalist Dan Rather opined that the Kennedy assassination will be discussed "a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, in somewhat the same way as people discuss the . Different people read Homer's description of the war and come to different conclusions, and so it shall be for Kennedy's death."

Along with Oliver Stone's JFK, the assassination has been portrayed in several films: the pro-conspiracy, Dalton Trumbo-written Executive Action (1973) was the first feature film to depict the assassination. Besides explicit portrayals, some critics have argued that the Zapruder film-which itself has been featured in many films and television episodes-advanced cinéma vérité or inspired more graphic depictions of violence in American cinema. Many works of literature have also explored the killing, such as Don DeLillo's 1988 novel in which Oswald is a CIA agent, James Ellroy's 1995 work American Tabloid, and Stephen King's 2011 time travel novel . The assassination has also been featured in several musical compositions, such as Igor Stravinsky's 1964 piece Elegy for J.F.K. and Phil Ochs' 1966 song " Crucifixion", which reportedly brought Robert Kennedy to tears. Other songs include " Abraham, Martin and John" (1968) and Bob Dylan's " Murder Most Foul" (2020).

Artifacts, museums, and locations today

An "X" in the Dealey Plaza roadway marks where the fatal bullet struck Kennedy.[328]

In 1993, the National Park Service designated Dealey Plaza, the surrounding buildings, the overpass, and a portion of the adjacent railyard as a National Historic Landmark District. The Depository and its Sixth Floor Museum, operated by the city of Dallas, draw over 325,000 visitors annually.

The Boeing 707 that served as Air Force One at the time of the assassination is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force; Kennedy's limousine is at the Henry Ford Museum. The Lincoln Catafalque, on which Kennedy's coffin rested in the Capitol, is exhibited at the Capitol Visitor Center. Jacqueline's pink suit, autopsy X-rays, and President Kennedy's blood-stained clothing are in the National Archives, with access controlled by the Kennedy family. Other items in the Archives include Parkland Hospital trauma room equipment; Oswald's rifle, diary, and revolver; bullet fragments; and the limousine's windshield. The Texas State Archives preserve Connally's bullet-punctured clothes; the gun Ruby used to kill Oswald came into the possession of Ruby's brother Earl, and was sold in 1991 for $220,000 (equivalent to $439,000 in 2022).

At the direction of Robert F. Kennedy, some items were destroyed. The casket in which Kennedy's body was transported from Dallas to Washington was dropped into the sea, because "its public display would be extremely offensive and contrary to public policy".

Notes and references

1. ^ This photo and a similar one are known as the "backyard photographs"; according to Bugliosi, it is one of the pieces of evidence most damning for Oswald. Oswald told Dallas police that the photographs were not genuine and that someone must have superimposed his head. Marina Oswald testified that she took the pictures.

2. In 1964, KGB Agent ^ Yuri Nosenko defected to the United States. He divulged that Soviet intelligence surveilled Oswald, regarded him as mentally unstable, and had no association with him. Although the FBI trusted Nosenko, the CIA believed that he was a mole and convinced the Warren Commission not to interview him.

3. ^ Jack Dougherty, the only witness who saw Oswald enter the Depository on the morning of the assassination, testified to the Warren Commission that he did not remember seeing Oswald with any package. Bugliosi questioned his reliability as a witness: Dougherty's father told FBI agents on November 23 that his son "had considerable difficulty in coordinating his mental facilities with his speech".

4. Bugliosi notes that Lee Bowers Jr. did not mention the "commotion" in an earlier affidavit, in which Bowers did take time to list all other suspicious happenings like circling vehicles with "^ Goldwater for '64" stickers. Moreover, conspiracy theorist Jim Moore questions whether Bowers could even have seen the area. Bowers testified that he "threw [the] red-on-red [signal]" just after the fatal shot, but the grassy knoll was partially obstructed from Bowers' position at the work panel.

5. ^ Lieutenant Day of the Dallas police examined the weapon prior to its seizure by the FBI. He found and photographed fingerprints on the trigger housing. Although Day believed the prints to be those of Oswald's right middle and ring fingers, the ridges were not clear enough to make a positive identification. Day then discovered a palm-print on the barrel underneath the wooden stock. He tentatively identified it as Oswald's, but was not able to photograph or analyze it in more depth as the FBI took the Carcano. In D.C., FBI fingerprint expert Sebastian Latona found the photographs and extant prints to be "insufficient" as to make any conclusion. The rifle was returned to the Dallas police on November 24. Five days later, the FBI made a positive identification using a card from Day.

6. In 1973, due to Floridians' discontent with the change, Florida Governor ^ Reubin Askew mandated that Cape Kennedy be referred to as Cape Canaveral on all state documents and maps. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names accepted the name change later that year.

Works cited

Government and institutional documents and reports

Hoover, J. Edgar (December 1, 1963). Reaction of Soviet and Communist Party Officials to JFK Assassination (PDF) (Report). National Archives.

Warren, Earl (1964). Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. United States Government Printing Office. ASIN B0065RJ63E.

Clark, Ramsey (1968). 1968 Panel Review of Photographs, X-Ray Films, Documents and Other Evidence Pertaining to the Fatal Wounding of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas (Report). United States Government Printing Office.

Stokes, Louis (1979). Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives (Report). United States Government Printing Office. Archived from the original on April 3, 2020.

Assassination Records Review Board (September 30, 1998). "Chapter 1: The Problem of Secrecy and the JFK Act" (PDF). Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board. United States Government Printing Office. p. 6. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 11, 2021.

Report of the Committee on Ballistic Acoustics. National Research Council. 1982. doi:10.17226/10264. ISBN 9780309253727. Archived from the original on December 6, 2013.

Assassination Records Review Board (September 30, 1998). Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board (PDF) (Report). United States Government Printing Office. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 11, 2021.

Warren Commission documents, exhibits, and testimonies

Journal articles

News publications and websites

External links

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Assassination of John F. Kennedy - Wikipedia

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On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife, Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife, Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by former U.S.

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Still frame from a video transmission, taken moments before Neil Armstrong became the first human to step onto the surface of the Moon, at 02:56 UTC on 21 July 1969. An estimated 500 million people worldwide watched this event, the largest television audience for a live broadcast at that time.[1][2]

A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, including both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959.

In 1969 Apollo 11 was the first crewed mission to land on the Moon. There were six crewed landings between 1969 and 1972, and numerous uncrewed landings. All crewed missions to the Moon were conducted by the Apollo program, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972. After Luna 24 in 1976 there were no soft landings on the Moon until Chang'e 3 in 2013. All soft landings took place on the near side of the Moon until January 2019, when Chang'e 4 made the first landing on the far side of the Moon.

Uncrewed landings

Government landings

Stamp with a drawing of the first soft landed probe Luna 9, next to the first view of the lunar surface photographed by the probe

Six government space agencies, Interkosmos, NASA, CNSA, ISRO, JAXA and ESA, have reached the Moon with uncrewed missions. Three private/commercial missions, Beresheet (hard landing), Hakuto-R (hard landing), and Odysseus (soft landing) have also reached the lunar surface (see #Commercial landings). The Soviet Union (Interkosmos), the United States (NASA), China (CNSA), India (ISRO), and Japan (JAXA) are the only five nations to have successfully achieved soft landings.

The Soviet Union performed the first hard Moon landing - "hard" meaning the spacecraft intentionally crashes into the Moon at high speeds - with the Luna 2 spacecraft in 1959, a feat the U.S. duplicated in 1962 with Ranger 4.

Following their initial hard landings on the Moon, sixteen Soviet, U.S., Chinese and Indian spacecraft have used braking rockets ( retrorockets) to make soft landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface. In 1966 the Soviet Union accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the lunar surface during the Luna 9 and Luna 13 missions. The U.S. followed with five Surveyor soft landings. China's ongoing "Chang'e" program has landed 3 times since 2013, achieving soil sample return and the first landing on the far side of the Moon.

On 23 August 2023, ISRO successfully landed its Chandrayaan-3 module in the lunar south pole region, making India the fourth nation to successfully complete a soft landing on the Moon. Chandrayaan-3 saw a successful soft landing of its Vikram lander and Pragyan rover at 6.04 pm IST (1234 GMT), marking the first uncrewed soft landing in the little-explored region.

Commercial landings

On 22 February 2024, Intuitive Machine's Odysseus successfully landed on the Moon after taking off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 liftoff on 15 February 2024 in a mission between NASA, SpaceX, and Intuitive Machines, marking the United States' first soft unmanned moon landing in over 50 years. This event marked the first successful landing of a privately owned spacecraft on the Moon.

Crewed landings

The view through the window of the Lunar Module Orion shortly after Apollo 16's landing

A total of twelve astronauts have landed on the Moon. This was accomplished with two pilot-astronauts flying a Lunar Module on each of six NASA missions. The missions spanned a 41-month period starting 20 July 1969, beginning with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, and ending on 14 December 1972 with Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17. Cernan was the last man to step off the lunar surface.

All Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the command module.

Scientific background

To get to the Moon, a spacecraft must first leave Earth's gravity well; currently, the only practical means is a rocket. Unlike airborne vehicles such as balloons and jets, a rocket can continue accelerating in the vacuum outside the atmosphere.

The speed of a crash landing on its surface is typically between 70 and 100% of the escape velocity of the target moon, and thus this is the total velocity which must be shed from the target moon's gravitational attraction for a soft landing to occur. For Earth's Moon, the escape velocity is 2.38 kilometres per second (1.48 mi/s). The change in velocity (referred to as a delta-v) is usually provided by a landing rocket, which must be carried into space by the original launch vehicle as part of the overall spacecraft. An exception is the soft moon landing on Titan carried out by the Huygens probe in 2005. As the moon with the thickest atmosphere, landings on Titan may be accomplished by using atmospheric entry techniques that are generally lighter in weight than a rocket with equivalent capability.

The Soviets succeeded in making the first crash landing on the Moon in 1959. Crash landings may occur because of malfunctions in a spacecraft, or they can be deliberately arranged for vehicles which do not have an onboard landing rocket. There have been many such Moon crashes, often with their flight path controlled to impact at precise locations on the lunar surface. For example, during the Apollo program the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn V rocket as well as the spent ascent stage of the Lunar Module were deliberately crashed on the Moon several times to provide impacts registering as a moonquake on seismometers that had been left on the lunar surface. Such crashes were instrumental in mapping the internal structure of the Moon.

To return to Earth, the escape velocity of the Moon must be overcome for the spacecraft to escape the gravity well of the Moon. Rockets must be used to leave the Moon and return to space. Upon reaching Earth, atmospheric entry techniques are used to absorb the kinetic energy of a returning spacecraft and reduce its speed for safe landing. These functions greatly complicate a moon landing mission and lead to many additional operational considerations. Any moon departure rocket must first be carried to the Moon's surface by a moon landing rocket, increasing the latter's required size. The Moon departure rocket, larger moon landing rocket and any Earth atmosphere entry equipment such as heat shields and parachutes must in turn be lifted by the original launch vehicle, greatly increasing its size by a significant and almost prohibitive degree.

Political background

The political context of the 1960s helps to parse both the United States and Soviet Union's efforts to land spacecraft, and eventually humans, on the Moon. World War II had introduced many new and deadly innovations including blitzkrieg-style surprise attacks used in the invasion of Poland and Finland, as well as in the attack on Pearl Harbor; the V-2 rocket, a ballistic missile which killed thousands in attacks on London and Antwerp; and the atom bomb, which killed hundreds of thousands in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the 1950s, tensions mounted between the two ideologically opposed superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union that had emerged as victors in the conflict, particularly after the development by both countries of the hydrogen bomb.

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched as the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth and so initiated the Space Race. This unexpected event was a source of pride to the Soviets and shock to the U.S., who could now potentially be surprise attacked by nuclear-tipped Soviet rockets in under 30 minutes. The craft was also barely visible to the naked eye as the steady beeping of the radio beacon aboard Sputnik 1 as it passed overhead every 96 minutes, which was widely viewed on both sides as effective propaganda to Third World countries demonstrating the technological superiority of the Soviet political system compared to that of the U.S. This perception was reinforced by a string of subsequent rapid-fire Soviet space achievements. In 1959, the R-7 rocket was used to launch the first escape from Earth's gravity into a solar orbit, the first crash impact onto the surface of the Moon, and the first photography of the never-before-seen far side of the Moon. These were the Luna 1, Luna 2, and Luna 3 spacecraft.

A 1963 conceptual model of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module

The U.S. response to these Soviet achievements was to greatly accelerate previously existing military space and missile projects and to create a civilian space agency, NASA. Military efforts were initiated to develop and produce mass quantities of intercontinental ballistic missiles ( ICBMs) that would bridge the so-called missile gap and enable a policy of deterrence to nuclear war with the Soviets known as mutual assured destruction or MAD. These newly developed missiles were made available to civilians of NASA for various projects (which would have the added benefit of demonstrating the payload, guidance accuracy and reliabilities of U.S. ICBMs to the Soviets).

Early Soviet uncrewed lunar missions (1958-1965)

Early U.S. uncrewed lunar missions (1958-1965)

The U.S. was not able to reach the Moon with the Pioneer and Ranger programs, with fifteen consecutive U.S. uncrewed lunar missions from 1958 to 1964 failing their primary photographic missions. However, Rangers 4 and 6 successfully repeated the Soviet lunar impacts as part of their secondary missions.

Three U.S. missions in 1962 attempted to hard land small seismometer packages released by the main Ranger spacecraft. These surface packages were to use retrorockets to survive landing, unlike the parent vehicle, which was designed to deliberately crash onto the surface. The final three Ranger probes performed successful high altitude lunar reconnaissance photography missions during intentional crash impacts between 2.62 and 2.68 kilometres per second (9,400 and 9,600 km/h).

Pioneer missions

Three different designs of Pioneer lunar probes were flown on three different modified ICBMs. Those flown on the Thor booster modified with an Able upper stage carried an infrared image scanning television system with a resolution of 1 milliradian to study the Moon's surface, an ionization chamber to measure radiation in space, a diaphragm/microphone assembly to detect micrometeorites, a magnetometer, and temperature-variable resistors to monitor spacecraft internal thermal conditions. The first, a mission managed by the United States Air Force, exploded during launch; all subsequent Pioneer lunar flights had NASA as the lead management organization. The next two returned to Earth and burned up upon reentry into the atmosphere after achieved maximum altitudes of around 114,000 kilometres (71,000 mi) and 1,530 kilometres (950 mi) respectively, far short of the roughly 400,000 kilometres (250,000 mi) required to reach the vicinity of the Moon.

NASA then collaborated with the United States Army's Ballistic Missile Agency to fly two extremely small cone-shaped probes on the Juno ICBM, carrying only photocells which would be triggered by the light of the Moon and a lunar radiation environment experiment using a Geiger-Müller tube detector. The first of these reached an altitude of only around 100,000 kilometres (62,000 mi), gathering data that established the presence of the Van Allen radiation belts before reentering Earth's atmosphere. The second passed by the Moon at a distance of more than 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), twice as far as planned and too far away to trigger either of the on-board scientific instruments, yet still becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to reach a solar orbit.

The final Pioneer lunar probe design consisted of four " paddlewheel" solar panels extending from a one-meter diameter spherical spin-stabilized spacecraft body equipped to take images of the lunar surface with a television-like system, estimate the Moon's mass and topography of the poles, record the distribution and velocity of micrometeorites, study radiation, measure magnetic fields, detect low frequency electromagnetic waves in space and use a sophisticated integrated propulsion system for maneuvering and orbit insertion as well. None of the four spacecraft built in this series of probes survived launch on its Atlas ICBM outfitted with an Able upper stage.

Following the unsuccessful Atlas-Able Pioneer probes, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory embarked upon an uncrewed spacecraft development program whose modular design could be used to support both lunar and interplanetary exploration missions. The interplanetary versions were known as Mariners; lunar versions were Rangers. JPL envisioned three versions of the Ranger lunar probes: Block I prototypes, which would carry various radiation detectors in test flights to a very high Earth orbit that came nowhere near the Moon; Block II, which would try to accomplish the first Moon landing by hard landing a seismometer package; and Block III, which would crash onto the lunar surface without any braking rockets while taking very high resolution wide-area photographs of the Moon during their descent.

Ranger missions

The Ranger 1 and 2 Block I missions were virtually identical. Spacecraft experiments included a Lyman-alpha telescope, a rubidium-vapor magnetometer, electrostatic analyzers, medium-energy-range particle detectors, two triple coincidence telescopes, a cosmic-ray integrating ionization chamber, cosmic dust detectors, and scintillation counters. The goal was to place these Block I spacecraft in a very high Earth orbit with an apogee of 110,000 kilometres (68,000 mi) and a perigee of 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi).

From that vantage point, scientists could make direct measurements of the magnetosphere over a period of many months while engineers perfected new methods to routinely track and communicate with spacecraft over such large distances. Such practice was deemed vital to be assured of capturing high-bandwidth television transmissions from the Moon during a one-shot fifteen-minute time window in subsequent Block II and Block III lunar descents. Both Block I missions suffered failures of the new Agena upper stage and never left low Earth parking orbit after launch; both burned up upon reentry after only a few days.

The first attempts to perform a Moon landing took place in 1962 during the Rangers 3, 4 and 5 missions flown by the United States. All three Block II missions basic vehicles were 3.1 m high and consisted of a lunar capsule covered with a balsa wood impact-limiter, 650 mm in diameter, a mono-propellant mid-course motor, a retrorocket with a thrust of 5,050 pounds-force (22.5 kN), and a gold- and chrome-plated hexagonal base 1.5 m in diameter. This lander (code-named Tonto) was designed to provide impact cushioning using an exterior blanket of crushable balsa wood and an interior filled with incompressible liquid freon. A 42-kilogram (93 lb) 30-centimetre-diameter (0.98 ft) metal payload sphere floated and was free to rotate in a liquid freon reservoir contained in the landing sphere.

"Everything that we do ought to really be tied-in to getting onto the Moon ahead of the Russians. ...We're ready to spend reasonable amounts of money, but we're talking about fantastic expenditures which wreck our budget and all these other domestic programs, and the only justification for it, in my opinion, to do it is because we hope to beat them and demonstrate that starting behind, as we did by a couple of years, by God, we passed them."

- John F. Kennedy on the planned Moon landing, 21 November 1962
This payload sphere contained six silver- cadmium batteries to power a fifty-milliwatt radio transmitter, a temperature sensitive voltage controlled oscillator to measure lunar surface temperatures, and a seismometer designed with sensitivity high enough to detect the impact of a 2.3 kg (5 lb) meteorite on the opposite side of the Moon. Weight was distributed in the payload sphere so it would rotate in its liquid blanket to place the seismometer into an upright and operational position no matter what the final resting orientation of the external landing sphere. After landing, plugs were to be opened allowing the freon to evaporate and the payload sphere to settle into upright contact with the landing sphere. The batteries were sized to allow up to three months of operation for the payload sphere. Various mission constraints limited the landing site to Oceanus Procellarum on the lunar equator, which the lander ideally would reach 66 hours after launch.

No cameras were carried by the Ranger landers, and no pictures were to be captured from the lunar surface during the mission. Instead, the 3.1 metres (10 ft) Ranger Block II mother ship carried a 200-scan-line television camera to capture images during the free-fall descent to the lunar surface. The camera was designed to transmit a picture every 10 seconds. Seconds before impact, at 5 and 0.6 kilometres (3.11 and 0.37 mi) above the lunar surface, the Ranger mother ships took pictures (which may be viewed here).

Other instruments gathering data before the mother ship crashed onto the Moon were a gamma ray spectrometer to measure overall lunar chemical composition and a radar altimeter. The radar altimeter was to give a signal ejecting the landing capsule and its solid-fueled braking rocket overboard from the Block II mother ship. The braking rocket was to slow and the landing sphere to a dead stop at 330 metres (1,080 ft) above the surface and separate, allowing the landing sphere to free fall once more and hit the surface.

On Ranger 3, failure of the Atlas guidance system and a software error aboard the Agena upper stage combined to put the spacecraft on a course that would miss the Moon. Attempts to salvage lunar photography during a flyby of the Moon were thwarted by in-flight failure of the onboard flight computer. This was probably because of prior heat sterilization of the spacecraft by keeping it above the boiling point of water for 24 hours on the ground, to protect the Moon from being contaminated by Earth organisms. Ranger 3 later began orbiting the Sun, called heliocentric orbit. Heat sterilization was also blamed for subsequent in-flight failures of the spacecraft computer on Ranger 4 and the power subsystem on Ranger 5. Only Ranger 4 reached the Moon in an uncontrolled crash impact on the far side of the Moon.

Block III probes replaced the Block II landing capsule and its retrorocket with a heavier, more capable television system to support landing site selection for upcoming Apollo crewed Moon landing missions. Six cameras were designed to take thousands of high-altitude photographs in the final twenty-minute period before crashing on the lunar surface. Camera resolution was 1,132 scan lines, far higher than the 525 lines found in a typical U.S. 1964 home television. While Ranger 6 suffered a failure of this camera system and returned no photographs despite an otherwise successful flight, the subsequent Ranger 7 mission to Mare Cognitum was a complete success.

Soviet uncrewed soft landings (1966-1976)

The Luna 9 spacecraft, launched by the Soviet Union, performed the first successful soft Moon landing on 3 February 1966. Airbags protected its 99-kilogram (218 lb) ejectable capsule which survived an impact speed of over 15 metres per second (54 km/h; 34 mph). Luna 13 duplicated this feat with a similar Moon landing on 24 December 1966. Both returned panoramic photographs that were the first views from the lunar surface.

Luna 16 was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and safely return a sample of lunar soil back to Earth. It represented the first lunar sample return mission by the Soviet Union, and was the third lunar sample return mission overall, following the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions. This mission was later successfully repeated by Luna 20 (1972) and Luna 24 (1976).

In 1970 and 1973 two Lunokhod ("Moonwalker") robotic lunar rovers were delivered to the Moon, where they successfully operated for 10 and 4 months respectively, covering 10.5 km (6.5 mi) ( Lunokhod 1) and 37 km (23 mi) ( Lunokhod 2). These rover missions were in operation concurrently with the Zond and Luna series of Moon flyby, orbiter and landing missions.

U.S. uncrewed soft landings (1966-1968)

Pete Conrad, commander of Apollo 12, stands next to Surveyor 3 lander. In the background is the Apollo 12 lander, Intrepid.

The U.S. robotic Surveyor program was part of an effort to locate a safe site on the Moon for a human landing and test under lunar conditions the radar and landing systems required to make a true controlled touchdown. Five of Surveyor's seven missions made successful uncrewed Moon landings. Surveyor 3 was visited two years after its Moon landing by the crew of Apollo 12. They removed parts of it for examination back on Earth to determine the effects of long-term exposure to the lunar environment.

Transition from direct ascent landings to lunar orbit operations

Within four months of each other in early 1966 the Soviet Union and the United States had accomplished successful Moon landings with uncrewed spacecraft. To the general public both countries had demonstrated roughly equal technical capabilities by returning photographic images from the surface of the Moon. These pictures provided a key affirmative answer to the crucial question of whether or not lunar soil would support upcoming crewed landers with their much greater weight.

However, the Luna 9 hard landing of a ruggedized sphere using airbags at a 50-kilometre-per-hour (31 mph) ballistic impact speed had much more in common with the failed 1962 Ranger landing attempts and their planned 160-kilometre-per-hour (99 mph) impacts than with the Surveyor 1 soft landing on three footpads using its radar-controlled, adjustable-thrust retrorocket. While Luna 9 and Surveyor 1 were both major national accomplishments, only Surveyor 1 had reached its landing site employing key technologies that would be needed for a crewed flight. Thus as of mid-1966, the United States had begun to pull ahead of the Soviet Union in the so-called Space Race to land a man on the Moon.

Advances in other areas were necessary before crewed spacecraft could follow uncrewed ones to the surface of the Moon. Of particular importance was developing the expertise to perform flight operations in lunar orbit. Ranger, Surveyor and initial Luna Moon landing attempts all flew directly to the surface without a lunar orbit. Such direct ascents use a minimum amount of fuel for uncrewed spacecraft on a one-way trip.

In contrast, crewed vehicles need additional fuel after a lunar landing to enable a return trip back to Earth for the crew. Leaving this massive amount of required Earth-return fuel in lunar orbit until it is used later in the mission is far more efficient than taking such fuel down to the lunar surface in a Moon landing and then hauling it all back into space yet again, working against lunar gravity both ways. Such considerations lead logically to a lunar orbit rendezvous mission profile for a crewed Moon landing.

Accordingly, beginning in mid-1966 both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. naturally progressed into missions featuring lunar orbit as a prerequisite to a crewed Moon landing. The primary goals of these initial uncrewed orbiters were extensive photographic mapping of the entire lunar surface for the selection of crewed landing sites and, for the Soviets, the checkout of radio communications gear that would be used in future soft landings.

An unexpected major discovery from initial lunar orbiters were vast volumes of dense materials beneath the surface of the Moon's maria. Such mass concentrations (" mascons") can send a crewed mission dangerously off course in the final minutes of a Moon landing when aiming for a relatively small landing zone that is smooth and safe. Mascons were also found over a longer period of time to greatly disturb the orbits of low-altitude satellites around the Moon, making their orbits unstable and forcing an inevitable crash on the lunar surface in the relatively short period of months to a few years.

Controlling the location of impact for spent lunar orbiters can have scientific value. For example, in 1999 the NASA Lunar Prospector orbiter was deliberately targeted to impact a permanently shadowed area of Shoemaker Crater near the lunar south pole. It was hoped that energy from the impact would vaporize suspected shadowed ice deposits in the crater and liberate a water vapor plume detectable from Earth. No such plume was observed. However, a small vial of ashes from the body of pioneer lunar scientist Eugene Shoemaker was delivered by the Lunar Prospector to the crater named in his honor - the only human remains on the Moon.

Soviet lunar orbit satellites (1966-1974)

Cosmos - 111

1 March 1966

Lunar orbiter

Failure - stranded in low Earth orbit

5,700

28 September 1971

Lunar orbiter

Success - 140-by-140-kilometre (87 mi × 87 mi) × 41 deg orbit, 121-metre (397 ft) period, 388-day science mission

Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon on 3 April 1966.

U.S. lunar orbit satellites (1966-1967)

Lunar Orbiter 1

386

10 August 1966

Lunar orbiter

Success - 1,160-by-189-kilometer (721 mi × 117 mi) × 12 deg orbit, 208-meter (682 ft) period, 80-day photography mission

Soviet circumlunar loop flights (1967-1970)

It is possible to aim a spacecraft from Earth so it will loop around the Moon and return to Earth without entering lunar orbit, following the so-called free return trajectory. Such circumlunar loop missions are simpler than lunar orbit missions because rockets for lunar orbit braking and Earth return are not required. However, a crewed circumlunar loop trip poses significant challenges beyond those found in a crewed low-Earth-orbit mission, offering valuable lessons in preparation for a crewed Moon landing. Foremost among these are mastering the demands of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere upon returning from the Moon.

Inhabited Earth-orbiting vehicles such as the Space Shuttle return to Earth from speeds of around 7,500 m/s (27,000 km/h). Due to the effects of gravity, a vehicle returning from the Moon hits Earth's atmosphere at a much higher speed of around 11,000 m/s (40,000 km/h). The g-loading on astronauts during the resulting deceleration can be at the limits of human endurance even during a nominal reentry. Slight variations in the vehicle flight path and reentry angle during a return from the Moon can easily result in fatal levels of deceleration force.

Achieving a crewed circumlunar loop flight prior to a crewed lunar landing became a primary goal of the Soviets with their Zond spacecraft program. The first three Zonds were robotic planetary probes; after that, the Zond name was transferred to a completely separate human spaceflight program. The initial focus of these later Zonds was extensive testing of required high-speed reentry techniques. This focus was not shared by the U.S., who chose instead to bypass the stepping stone of a crewed circumlunar loop mission and never developed a separate spacecraft for this purpose.

Initial crewed spaceflights in the early 1960s placed a single person in low Earth orbit during the Soviet Vostok and U.S. Mercury programs. A two-flight extension of the Vostok program known as Voskhod effectively used Vostok capsules with their ejection seats removed to achieve Soviet space firsts of multiple person crews in 1964 and spacewalks in early 1965. These capabilities were later demonstrated by the U.S. in ten Gemini low Earth orbit missions throughout 1965 and 1966, using a totally new second-generation spacecraft design that had little in common with the earlier Mercury. These Gemini missions went on to prove techniques for orbital rendezvous and docking crucial to a crewed lunar landing mission profile.

Like Zond, Apollo flights were generally launched on a free return trajectory that would return them to Earth via a circumlunar loop if a service module malfunction failed to place them in lunar orbit. This option was implemented after an explosion aboard the Apollo 13 mission in 1970, which is the only crewed circumlunar loop mission flown to date.[when? ]

5,400

10 March 1967

High Earth Orbit

uncrewed

Partial success - Successfully reached high Earth orbit, but became stranded and was unable to initiate controlled high speed atmospheric reentry test

Zond 5 was the first spacecraft to carry life from Earth to the vicinity of the Moon and return, initiating the final lap of the Space Race with its payload of tortoises, insects, plants, and bacteria. Despite the failure suffered in its final moments, the Zond 6 mission was reported by Soviet media as being a success as well. Although hailed worldwide as remarkable achievements, both these Zond missions flew off-nominal reentry trajectories resulting in deceleration forces that would have been fatal to humans.

As a result, the Soviets secretly planned to continue uncrewed Zond tests until their reliability to support human flight had been demonstrated. However, due to NASA's continuing problems with the lunar module, and because of CIA reports of a potential Soviet crewed circumlunar flight in late 1968, NASA fatefully changed the flight plan of Apollo 8 from an Earth-orbit lunar module test to a lunar orbit mission scheduled for late December 1968.

In early December 1968 the launch window to the Moon opened for the Soviet launch site in Baikonur, giving the USSR their final chance to beat the US to the Moon. Cosmonauts went on alert and asked to fly the Zond spacecraft then in final countdown at Baikonur on the first human trip to the Moon. Ultimately, however, the Soviet Politburo decided the risk of crew death was unacceptable given the combined poor performance to that point of Zond/Proton and so scrubbed the launch of a crewed Soviet lunar mission. Their decision proved to be a wise one, since this unnumbered Zond mission was destroyed in another uncrewed test when it was finally launched several weeks later.

By this time flights of the third generation U.S. Apollo spacecraft had begun. Far more capable than the Zond, the Apollo spacecraft had the necessary rocket power to slip into and out of lunar orbit and to make course adjustments required for a safe reentry during the return to Earth. The Apollo 8 mission carried out the first human trip to the Moon on 24 December 1968, certifying the Saturn V booster for crewed use and flying not a circumlunar loop but instead a full ten orbits around the Moon before returning safely to Earth. Apollo 10 then performed a full dress rehearsal of a crewed Moon landing in May 1969. This mission orbited within 14.4 kilometres (47,400 ft) of the lunar surface, performing necessary low-altitude mapping of trajectory-altering mascons using a factory prototype lunar module too heavy to land. With the failure of the robotic Soviet sample return Moon landing attempt Luna 15 in July 1969, the stage was set for Apollo 11.

Human Moon landings (1969-1972)

US strategy

The U.S. Saturn V and the Soviet N1

Plans for human Moon exploration began during the Eisenhower administration. In a series of mid-1950s articles in magazine, Wernher von Braun had popularized the idea of a crewed expedition to establish a lunar base. A human Moon landing posed several daunting technical challenges to the US and USSR. Besides guidance and weight management, atmospheric re-entry without ablative overheating was a major hurdle. After the Soviets launched Sputnik, von Braun promoted a plan for the US Army to establish a military lunar outpost by 1965.

After the early Soviet successes, especially Yuri Gagarin's flight, US President John F. Kennedy looked for a project that would capture the public imagination. He asked Vice President Lyndon Johnson to make recommendations on a scientific endeavor that would prove US world leadership. The proposals included non-space options such as massive irrigation projects to benefit the Third World. The Soviets, at the time, had more powerful rockets than the US, which gave them an advantage in some kinds of space mission.

Advances in US nuclear weapon technology had led to smaller, lighter warheads; the Soviets' were much heavier, and the powerful R-7 rocket was developed to carry them. More modest missions such as flying around the Moon, or a space lab in lunar orbit (both were proposed by Kennedy to von Braun), offered too much advantage to the Soviets; landing, however, would capture the world's imagination.

Johnson had championed the US human spaceflight program ever since Sputnik, sponsoring legislation to create NASA while he was still a senator. When Kennedy asked him in 1961 to research the best achievement to counter the Soviets' lead, Johnson responded that the US had an even chance of beating them to a crewed lunar landing, but not for anything less. Kennedy seized on Apollo as the ideal focus for efforts in space. He ensured continuing funding, shielding space spending from the 1963 tax cut, but diverting money from other NASA scientific projects. These diversions dismayed NASA's leader, James E. Webb, who perceived the need for NASA's support from the scientific community.

The Moon landing required development of the large Saturn V launch vehicle, which achieved a perfect record: zero catastrophic failures or launch vehicle-caused mission failures in thirteen launches.

For the program to succeed, its proponents would have to defeat criticism from politicians both on the left (more money for social programs) and on the right (more money for the military). By emphasizing the scientific payoff and playing on fears of Soviet space dominance, Kennedy and Johnson managed to swing public opinion: by 1965, 58 percent of Americans favored Apollo, up from 33 percent two years earlier. After Johnson became President in 1963, his continuing defense of the program allowed it to succeed in 1969, as Kennedy had planned.

Soviet strategy

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said in October 1963 the USSR was "not at present planning flight by cosmonauts to the Moon," while insisting that the Soviets had not dropped out of the race. Only after another year did the USSR fully commit itself to a Moon-landing attempt, which ultimately failed.

With Korolev's death and the failure of the first Soyuz flight in 1967, coordination of the Soviet Moon landing program quickly unraveled. The Soviets built a landing craft and selected cosmonauts for a mission that would have placed Alexei Leonov on the Moon's surface, but with the successive launch failures of the N1 booster in 1969, plans for a crewed landing suffered first delay and then cancellation.

Apollo missions

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Lunar Module pilot of the first lunar landing mission, poses for a photograph beside the deployed United States flag during an Apollo 11 Extravehicular Activity (EVA) on the lunar surface.

In total, twenty-four U.S. astronauts have traveled to the Moon. Three have made the trip twice, and twelve have walked on its surface. Apollo 8 was a lunar-orbit-only mission, Apollo 10 included undocking and Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI), followed by LM staging to CSM redocking, while Apollo 13, originally scheduled as a landing, ended up as a lunar fly-by, by means of free return trajectory; thus, none of these missions made landings. Apollo 7 and Apollo 9 were Earth-orbit-only missions. Apart from the inherent dangers of crewed Moon expeditions as seen with Apollo 13, one reason for their cessation according to astronaut Alan Bean is the cost it imposes in government subsidies.

Human Moon landings

Other aspects of the successful Apollo landings

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land the first Apollo Lunar Module on the Moon, 20 July 1969, creating Tranquility Base. Apollo 11 was the first of six Apollo program lunar landings.

On 16 August 2006, the Associated Press reported that NASA is missing the original Slow-scan television tapes (which were made before the scan conversion for conventional TV) of the Apollo 11 Moon walk. Some news outlets have mistakenly reported the SSTV tapes found in Western Australia, but those tapes were only recordings of data from the Apollo 11 Early Apollo Surface Experiments Package. The tapes were found in 2008 and sold at auction in 2019 for the 50th anniversary of the landing.

Scientists believe the six American flags planted by astronauts have been bleached white because of more than 40 years of exposure to solar radiation. Using LROC images, it has been determined that five of the six American flags are still standing and casting shadows at all of the sites, except Apollo 11. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine during liftoff of Apollo 11.

Late 20th century-21st century uncrewed crash landings

Hiten (Japan)

Lunar Prospector (U.S.)

Launched 27 September 2003, 23:14 UTC from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. At the end of its mission, the ESA lunar orbiter SMART-1 performed a controlled crash into the Moon, at about 2 km/s (7,200 km/h; 4,500 mph). The time of the crash was 3 September 2006, at 5:42 UTC.

Chandrayaan-1 (India)

Chang'e 1 (China)

The Chinese lunar orbiter Chang'e 1, executed a controlled crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009, 20:44 GMT, after a 16-month mission. Chang'e 1 was launched on 24 October 2007, 10:05 UTC.

SELENE (Japan)

SELENE or Kaguya after successfully orbiting the Moon for a year and eight months, the main orbiter was instructed to impact on the lunar surface near the crater Gill at 18:25 UTC on 10 June 2009. SELENE or Kaguya was launched on 14 September 2007.

The LCROSS data collecting shepherding spacecraft was launched together with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on 18 June 2009 on board an Atlas V rocket with a Centaur upper stage. On 9 October 2009, at 11:31 UTC, the Centaur upper stage impacted the lunar surface, releasing the kinetic energy equivalent of detonating approximately 2 tons of TNT (8.86 GJ). Six minutes later at 11:37 UTC, the LCROSS shepherding spacecraft also impacted the surface.

The GRAIL mission consisted of two small spacecraft: GRAIL A ( Ebb), and GRAIL B ( Flow). They were launched on 10 September 2011 on board a Delta II rocket. GRAIL A separated from the rocket about nine minutes after launch, and GRAIL B followed about eight minutes later. The first probe entered orbit on 31 December 2011 and the second followed on 1 January 2012. The two spacecraft impacted the Lunar surface on 17 December 2012.

LADEE was launched on 7 September 2013. The mission ended on 18 April 2014, when the spacecraft's controllers intentionally crashed LADEE into the far side of the Moon, which, later, was determined to be near the eastern rim of Sundman V crater.

Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (Luxemburg)

The Manfred Memorial Moon Mission was launched on 23 October 2014. It conducted a lunar flyby and operated for 19 days which was four times longer than expected. The Manfred Memorial Moon Mission remained attached to the upper stage of its launch vehicle (CZ-3C/E). The spacecraft along with its upper stage impacted the Moon on 4 March 2022.

21st century uncrewed soft landings and attempts

Chang'e 3 (China)

Yuto rover on lunar surface

On 14 December 2013 at 13:12 UTC, Chang'e 3 soft-landed a rover on the Moon. This was China's first soft landing on another celestial body and world's first lunar soft landing since Luna 24 on 22 August 1976. The mission was launched on 1 December 2013. After successful landing, the lander release the Yutu rover, which moved 114 meters before being immobilized due to system malfunction. But the rover was still operational until July 2016.

Chang'e 4 (China)

Chinese Chang'e 4 lander on the surface of far side of the Moon

Yutu-2 rover deployed by Chang'e 4 lander

On 3 January 2019 at 2:26 UTC, Chang'e 4 became the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the Moon. Chang'e 4 was originally designed as the backup of Chang'e 3. It was later adjusted as a mission to the far side of the Moon after the success of Chang'e 3. After making a successful landing within Von Kármán crater, the Chang'e 4 lander deployed the 140-kilogram (310 lb) Yutu-2 rover and began human's first close exploration of the far side of the Moon. Because the Moon blocks the communications between far side and Earth, a relay satellite, Queqiao, was launched to the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrangian point a few months prior to the landing to enable communications.

, the second lunar rover from China, was equipped with panoramic camera, lunar penetrating radar, visible and near-infrared Imaging spectrometer and advanced small analyzer for neutrals. As of July 2022, it has survived more than 1000 days on the lunar surface and is still driving with cumulative travel distance of over 1200 meters.

Beresheet (Israel/SpaceIL)

On 22 February 2019, Israeli private space agency SpaceIL launched their spacecraft on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida with the intention of achieving a soft landing. SpaceIL lost contact with the spacecraft during final descent on 11 April 2019, and it crashed as a result of a main engine failure.

The mission was the first Israeli, and the first privately funded, lunar landing attempt. Despite the failure, the mission represents the closest a private entity has come to a soft lunar landing.

SpaceIL was originally conceived in 2011 as a venture to pursue the Google Lunar X Prize. The Beresheet lunar lander's target landing destination was within Mare Serenitatis, a vast volcanic basin on the Moon's northern near side.

Chandrayaan-2 (India)

ISRO, the Indian National Space agency, launched Chandrayaan-2 on 22 July 2019. It had three major modules: orbiter, lander and rover. Each of these modules had scientific instruments from scientific research institutes in India and the US. On 7 September 2019 contact was lost with the Vikram lander at an altitude of 2.1 km (1.3 mi) after a rough braking phase. Vikram was later confirmed to have crashed and been destroyed.

Chang'e 5 (China)

The Chang'e 5 returner carrying lunar sample was transported back to CAST.

On 6 December 2020 at 21:42 UTC, Chang'e 5 landed and collected the first lunar soil samples in over 40 years, and then returned the samples to Earth. The 8.2t stack consisting of lander, ascender, orbiter and returner was launched to lunar orbit by a Long March 5 rocket on 24 November. The lander-ascender combination was separated with the orbiter and returner before landing near Mons Rümker in Oceanus Procellarum. The ascender was later launched back to lunar orbit, carrying samples collected by the lander, and completed the first-ever robotic rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit. The sample container was then transferred to the returner, which successfully landed on Inner Mongolia on 16 December 2020, completing China's first extraterrestrial sample return mission.

Luna 25 (Russia)

Chandrayaan-3 (India)

Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 near lunar south pole

India's national space agency ISRO launched Chandrayaan-3 on 14 July 2023. Chandrayaan-3 consists of an Indigenous Lander Module (LM), Propulsion module (PM) and the Pragyan rover. The lander with the rover successfully landed near the lunar south pole at 18:04 IST on 23 August 2023.

Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Japan)

JAXA launched the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission on 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC (7 September 08:42 Japan Standard Time). It landed on 19 January 2024 at 15:20 UTC, making Japan the fifth country to soft-land on the Moon. Solar panel orientation issues and possible landing damage complicated the spacecraft's operation. The mission also deployed two rovers which operated successfully and independently communicated with Earth.

Intuitive Machines-1 Odysseus lander (U.S.)

On 22 February 2024, Intuitive Machine's Odysseus successfully landed on the Moon after taking off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 liftoff on 15 February 2024 in a mission between NASA, SpaceX, and Intuitive Machines, marking the United States' first soft unmanned Moon landing in over 50 years. This mission also marks the first privately owned spacecraft to land on the Moon and the first landing with cryogenic propellants. Though it landed successfully, one of the lander's legs broke upon landing and it tilted up on the other side, 18°, due to landing on a slope, but the lander survived and payloads are functioning as expected. EagleCam was not ejected prior to landing. It was later ejected on 28 February but was partially a failure as it returned all types of data except post-IM-1 landing images that were the main aim of its mission.

Chang'e 6 (China)

China sent Chang'e 6 on 3 May, which will conduct the first lunar sample return from the far side of the Moon. This is China's second lunar sample return mission, the first was achieved by Chang'e 5 from the lunar near side 4 years ago. It also carried a chinese rover to conduct infrared spectroscopy of lunar surface.

Landings on moons of other Solar System bodies

21st century progress in space exploration has broadened the phrase moon landing to include other moons in the Solar System. The Huygens probe of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn performed a successful moon landing on Titan in 2005. Similarly, the Soviet probe Phobos 2 came within 190 km (120 mi) of performing a landing on Mars' moon Phobos in 1989 before radio contact with that lander was suddenly lost. A similar Russian sample return mission called Fobos-Grunt ("grunt" means "soil" in Russian) launched in November 2011, but stalled in low Earth orbit. There is widespread interest in performing a future landing on Jupiter's moon Europa to drill down and explore the possible liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface.

Proposed future missions

The Lunar Polar Exploration Mission is a robotic space mission concept by ISRO and Japan's space agency JAXA that would send a lunar rover and lander to explore south pole region of the Moon in 2025. JAXA is likely to provide launch service using the future H3 rocket, along with responsibility for the rover. ISRO would be responsible for the lander. ISRO, following the succes of Chandrayaan 3 also has plans to launch Chandrayaan 4, a lunar sample return mission, which would possibly be the first to return soil from the water rich south polar basin, in a landing close to Shiv Shakthi point. The mission is planned by late 2028. Both nations are also active participants in the Artemis program.

On 11 December 2017, US President Donald Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, which directed NASA to return to the Moon with a crewed mission, for "long-term exploration and use" and missions to other planets. On 26 March 2019, Vice President Mike Pence formally announced that the mission will include the first female lunar astronaut. The Artemis program had intended to land a crewed mission on the Moon in 2024, and to begin sustained operations by 2028, supported by a planned Lunar Gateway. The NASA lunar landing mission has since been postponed to launch no earlier than September 2026.

The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program plans 3 additional "Chang'e" uncrewed missions between 2025 and 2028, in active preparation for the International Lunar Research Station it plans to construct with Russia, Venezuela, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates in the 2030s. In addition, the China Manned Space Agency intends to conduct crewed lunar landings by 2029 or 2030; in preparation for this effort, the various Chinese space agencies and contractors are currently developing a human-rated super-heavy launch vehicle (the Long March 10), a new crewed lunar spacecraft, and a crewed lunar lander.

Russia's Roscosmos has announced plans to launch a lunar polar orbiter as Luna 26, in 2027.

References

Further reading

James Gleick, "Moon Fever" [review of Oliver Morton, The Moon: A History of the Future; Apollo's Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, 3 July - 22 September 2019; Douglas Brinkley, American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race; Brandon R. Brown, The Apollo Chronicles: Engineering America's First Moon Missions; Roger D. Launius, Reaching for the Moon: A Short History of the Space Race; Apollo 11, a documentary film directed by Todd Douglas Miller; and Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys (50th Anniversary Edition)]

Mehta, Jatan (8 February 2024). "How to test a Moon landing from Earth". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-00352-w. PMID 38326425. S2CID 267545517.

External links

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A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, including both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959. In 1969 Apollo 11 was the first crewed mission to land on the Moon.