Understanding the Politics of the 1960s: Key Events

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Table of Contents

The Space Program
Bay of Pigs
The Cuban Missile Crisis
Works Cited

With the rise in the levels of social well-being and financial security observed in the U.S. in the 1960s, the extent of involvement in the struggles of other countries has been observed in the U.S. politics, particularly, in the policies promoted by John F. Kennedy. Shortly after his inauguration, JFK founded the organization known as Peace Corps, which was supposed to provide support to countries in crisis (The 1960s). Relying on volunteer work, Peace Corps sought to improve its relationships with developing countries and promote the ideas of peace and support globally. Therefore, Peace Corps overall performance has been generally defined by the need to maintain peace globally and extend help to the countries that faced an imminent economic, financial, or political threat.

The Space Program

In an attempt to surpass the USSR in technological development and the pace of progress in research and technology, the U.S. started participating in what would later be defined as the Space Race. As a result, JFK set the goal of the moon landing as a part of the space exploration process, thus, creating the Space program. The efforts put into the development of space technologies eventually led to unbelievably impressive results as Neil Armstrong set his foot on the Moon (The 1960s). Being the second part of the Space Program, known as Project Gemini, the specified event was seminal in the expansion of the U.S. space exploration process. However, since the goals of expanding into the space and exploring its environment were exceptionally costly, a significant amount of time would pass until the U.S. made another tremendous advance in the trajectory of its space program development.

Bay of Pigs

Being overwhelmingly concerned with the political situation observed in Cuba, particularly, the development of a potential threat to the U.S. democracy, Kennedy introduced a range of measures to counteract the danger. The Bay of Pigs Operation was one of such steps, representing an attempt at invading Cuba (The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962). The operation was developed immediately after the Cuban revolution as the means of containing the threat that the new Communist government represented in Cuba (The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962). Supported and implemented by Cuban rebels, who were against Fidel Castros political ideology and the direction in which he took the country, the Bay of Pigs Operation largely represented a series of guerilla interventions (The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962). However, despite thorough planning and the use of a range of resources, as well as the attempt at a plane attack, the U.S. suffered a defeat (The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962).

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The U.S. also considered the USSR as a massive threat to global political well-being. While the tension between the U.S. and the USSR developed gradually at first, it quickly escalated to a global concern in the 60s, when collaboration between Cuba and the USSR started taking place (The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962). Supposedly being a response to the U.S. placing its PGM-19 in Turkey, the USSRs collaboration with Cuba and the further transportation of its nuclear strike missiles to Cuba led to a dramatic rise in the political tension between the U.S. and the USSR (The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962). However, as the threat of a nuclear war became imminent, the USSR leader, Khrushchev, suggested that the political discrepancies and major disagreements should be handled from a diplomatic perspective rather than a military one (The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962). With Kennedy agreeing to the specified suggestion, the crisis was eventually averted.

Works Cited

The 1960s. U.S. National Archives, n.d., Web.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962. The Historian of the U.S. Department of State, n.d., Web.

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