Khrushchev Trip to the U.S.
Sept 15, 1959 - Khrushchev arrived in U.S. for 13 days
- helicopter ride over D.C.
- escorted by Henry Cabot Lodge to New York
- tour of Can Can set in Hollywod (no Disneyland)
- San Francisco, Roswell Garst farm in Iowa, steel mill in Pittsburgh
- Camp David meeting with Ike - bowling unknown in USSR - 1
- "Spirit of Camp David" - Paris summit planned
- Ike agreed that Berlin "abnormal"
- Ike polls up from 49% in '57 to 66% in '59
Dec. 4 1959 - Ike began 18-day goodwill trip to 11 countries by jet
Feb. 10, 1960 - De Gaulle tested first French A-bomb
- De Gaulle had returned to power in the 1958 Algerian crisis and created the Fifth Republic on May 29, 1958
Feb. 13- Russia-Cuba Trade Pact
- Fidel Castro had won his revolution against Batista in 1959 and became the first successful Marxist leader in the American hemisphere
Feb. 25 - Ike began 10-day trip to South America
March 24, 1960 - Ike agreed to stop U.S. atomic tests
U-2 Crisis
April 9, 1960 - resumption of U-2 flights - possible ICBM site at Plesetsk
April 16 - Sino-Soviet split made public
May 1 - Gary Powers' U-2 shot down by SAM-2 missile
May 3 - "weather plane" cover story released to press
May 6 - U.S. named Powers as pilot of the "weather plane"
May 7 - Ike learned from Malik slip that Powers was alive
- 1st admission made that U.S. spied on Russia
- but no apology or admission of presidential responsibility
May 11 - Khrushchev displayed U-2 remains in Moscow's "second U.S. Exhibition"
- U-2 wreckage still on display at the Central Army Museum in Moscow
May 14 - Ike trip to Paris Big Four summit on Air Force One jet
- with secret camera in nose, unknown to Ike
May 15 - Khrushchev threat against U-2 bases; U.S. put on DefCon 3 alert
May 16 - Khrushchev cancelled Ike's Moscow visit; refused any summit agreements
May 19 - Ike left Paris after Khru shook fist
May 22 - Midas 2 launched -1st infrared spy satellite
July 1 - RB-47 shot down
Aug. 10, - Discoverer 13 launched
- first successful test, after 12 failures, of the CORONA system approved by Eisenhower Feb. 7, 1958, to use rocket-launched satellites with cameras that returned film to earth in a cannister.
Aug. 18, 1960 - CORONA satellite launched - 1st photo spy satellite
- the satellite "orbited the Earth for a day, and returned its canister to earth, where it was snatched out the air by a specially equipped aircraft on August 19. The camera carried on that flight would be retroactively designated the KH-1 (KH for KEYHOLE) and was cable of producing images with resolution in the area of 25-40 feet - a far cry from what would be standard in only a few years. It did yield, however, more images of the Soviet Union in its single day of operation than did the entire U-2 program" (quote from U.S. Satellite Imagery, 1960-1999 by Jeffrey T. Richelson)
Aug. 19, 1960 - Powers made confession during trial
- "deeply repentant and profoundly sorry"
- jailed in Russia until exchanged for Rudolf Abel in Feb. 1962
Sep. 21- Khrushchev arrived in U.S. for 25 days
- to attend United Nations session
- Nehru, Nasser, Tito, Sukarno plus 14 new nations
- Khrushchev pounded table during Macmillan's speech
- Khrushchev embraced Castro
Nov. 4, 1960 - Kennedy defeated Nixon 34,227,096 to 34,108,546
revised 4/5/02 by Schoenherr | Kitchen Debate | Cold War Policies
