Eisenhower and Khrushchev

• By Sept. 1953 he was First Secretary of the Communist Party but shared power with Prime Minister Malenkov. In Feb. 1954 he began the Virgins Lands experiment, to cultivate the untilled steppes of Kazakhstan and southwestern Siberia, using 120,000 tractors to plow 32 million acres, triple the existing cultivated area in Russia at that time. The first harvest in the fall of 1954 was successful and he signed a trade agreement with Mao during a trip to China in 1954 with Bulganin and Mikoyan. He replaced Malenkov with Bulganin as Prime Minister in Feb. 1955.

• end of joint occup. of Ger. May 9, Austria May 15, 1955
  
• Khru. apologized to Tito May 30
  
• Sino-Soviet 2-year tech & scientific aid pact
  
• Malik disarmament proposal at UN - ground survel. OK
  
• Ike's Atoms for Peace speech Dec. 8, 1953
  
• UN will create Internatl Atomic Energy Agency 1957
  

Geneva Conference July 18-23, 1955

• Eden, Premier Edgar Faure, Ike, Premier Bulganin
  
• but Adams, Dulles opposed: not to be "another Yalta"
  
• Ike proposed Nelson Rockefeller's Open Skies plan
  

• de-Stalinization, "peaceful co-existence," "many roads to socialism"

• Khru flew to Warsaw Oct. 19, confronted Gomulka on tarmac
• but accepted Gomulka's independent socialism Oct. 20

• Nagy recognized as PM of Hungary Oct. 29 but sought to leave the Warsaw Pact
• Khru sent Russian troops Nov. 3
• U.S. rhetoric of "liberation" & "rollback"
  
• U.S. balloon caused air crash in Czech. 3/56
  

• liquid fuel, multi-stage developed by Sergei Korolev
  

• but AF's Atlas not ready - "missile gap" by critics
  

Sputnik II launched Nov. 3 - 1120 lbs - Laika, not Checkers

• Laika died in space - no landing of capsule
  

• same day as 40th anniversary of Russian Revolution
• agreed with Gaither Report for new programs
• especially the "big job of molding public opinion as well as avoiding extremes. We must get the American public to understand that we are confronting a tough problem that we can lick."

LBJ's Preparedness subcommittee investigation Nov. 28

Vanguard rocket with 1st satellite failed Dec. 6

• exploded 2 seconds after ignition at Cape Canaveral on live TV

• SAGE pioneered computer technology

• Jupiter rocket carried the first of 31 satellites launched during Ike's presidency
• Explorer I from NASA Sputnik Anniversary

• MIT President James Killian was Presidential Assistant for Science

Lyndon Johnson led Congress to create NASA July 16 as the nation's civilian space agency

• NASA began Mercury project using Atlas rocket

midterm elections in Nov. 1958 won by Democrats

Cultural Competiton

Jan. 27, 1958 - Russian-American Cultural Agreement signed

• 15,000 visit USSR, Ed Sullivan
• Khru suspends testing Mar. 31

• visit to 8 countries, but opp. in Lima May 7-8
• "12 minutes of terror" in Caracas May 13

Nov. 10 - Khrushchev's Berlin ultimatum

Jan. 4, 1959 - Deputy Premier Mikoyan trip to U.S.

Feb. 25 - Macmillan met with Khrushchev in Moscow, but ended by "toothache insult"

March - Billy Graham's first tour of Russia (2nd in 1984)

May 11 - Geneva Foreign Ministers Conference failed

May 27 - Berlin deadline expired (so did John Foster Dulles)

June 23 - Averill Harriman's "Alarming Interview" on Berlin

June 28 - Deputy Premier Kozlov trip to U.S.

• world nonstop record of 11 hrs in TU-114 designed by Andrei Tupolev
• to open NY trade fair, furs, cars, rockets
• saw ship Savannah Jn 30 in Camden on way to DC
• Russian icebreaker Lenin was 1st in 1958

July 19, 1959 - Congress proclaimed Captive Nations Week

Nixon's Trip to Moscow

• set new 8 hr-45min. nonstop record in 707 - 1

July 24, 10 am - Nixon met Khrushchev at Kremlin

• group portrait with Khru, Kozlov, Nixon, Gregory Zhukov, 1st Deputy Premier Mikoyan, Ambass. L. Thompson, Milton Eisenhower
• The debate began in Khrushchev's office - 1
• Khru: he used to be poor also, shoveled cow -- and nothing smells worse.
• Nixon: pig -- smells worse
• Khru: "It stinks like fresh horse --"

Impromptu debate took place in Pavilion; recorded on new Ampex color videotape - Telenews clip

debate continued at the free Pepsi stand, with Milton Eisenhower - 1

debate continued at the model home with GE electric kitchen

Nixon: "This is the newest model. This is the kind which is built in thousands of units for direct installation in the houses.... Our steel workers, as youb know, are on strike. But any steel worker could buy this house. They earn $3 an hour. This house costs about $100 a month to buy on a contract running 25 to 30 years."

Khrushchev: "The Americans have created their own image of the Soviet man and thinks he is as you want him to be. But he is not as you think. You think the Russian people will be dumfounded to see these things, but the fact is that newly built Russian houses have all this equipment right now. Moreover, all you have to do to get a house is to be born in the Soviet Union... Yet you say that we are slaves to communism."

July 24, 6pm - official opening ceremonies start second tour

July 24, 9pm - wine toasts end second tour

Khrushchev: "A good wine. To the elimination of all military bases on foreign lands."

Nixon: "I am for peace. We will drink to talking - as long as we are talking we are not fighting... One hundred years of life. I will drink to that."

Khrushchev: "When I reach 99 years, we will discuss the question of bases further."

Nixon: "You mean that at 99 you will still be in power? No free elections?"

July 25 - on 2nd day, Nixon toured Moscow

• Spaso House dinner
• 30 mile trip to Dacha guest house

• Moscow River boat ride - "Are you captive people?"
• 6-hour whitefish picnic in the trees near Dacha
• return to Spaso House

• Leningrad shipyards
• Novosibirsk ballet
• Ural hydroelectric plant
• Sverdlovsk city council
• Petrolyarsk copper mine
• Beloyarsk nuclear power plant

Aug. 2 - Nixon trip to Poland

• Tomb of Unknown Soldier
• Warsaw Ghetto Shrine
• meeting with Gomulka

Sept 12 - Russian Luna II hit moon

Khrushchev Trip to the U.S.

• 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
• "Spirit of Camp David" - Paris summit planned
• Ike agreed that Berlin "abnormal"
• Ike polls up from 49% in '57 to 66% in '59

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

• Fidel Castro had won his revolution against Batista in 1959 and became the first successful Marxist leader in the American hemisphere

March 24, 1960 - Ike agreed to stop U.S. atomic tests

U-2 Crisis

• photo and description of U-2 from Air Force Museum

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

• U-2 wreckage still on display at the Central Army Museum in Moscow

• with secret camera in nose, unknown to Ike

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.

• 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 - 1

• "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

Sources:

• Beschloss, Michael R. MAYDAY: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair. New York: Harper, 1986.
• Crankshaw, Edward. Khrushchev: A Career. New York: Viking, 1966.
• The pictures on this page, unless otherwise noted, are from the Vice-Presidential Trip Files of the Nixon Prepresidential Papers at the National Archives - Pacific Southwest Region at Laguna Niguel
• Corona satellite history and photos from National Reconnaissance Office
• Hobbes' Internet Timeline
• Cheyenne Mountain
• Redstone Aresenal History
• Satellites from Recording Technology History
• Cold War Museum from Francis Gary Powers Jr.
• Francis Gary Powers film
• John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums film from USIA

Articles:

• Francis Gary Powers Jr. from Washington Post, January 10, 2000
• U.S. Finally Honors U2 Spy Plane Pilot Gary Powers from Reuters, May 1, 2000

Maps:

• Berlin access routes from Time, 1959
• "K's Target" U-2, RB-47 in Newsweek 1960/7/25