Bay of Pigs Invasion

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Before jumping into the details of the Bay of Pigs invasion I want to make sure we understand the environment in Cuba and the United States leading up to the invasion.

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So, going into the late 1950's Cuba was controlled by this guy right over here: Batista

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and he was a dictator that was supported by the United States.

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Just to give a sense of what he was like. Here's a quote from John F. Kennedy in 1963.

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So this is after he's already had, you know, the Bay of Pigs has happened, the Cuban Missle Crisis has happened.

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He is not a big fan of Fidel Castro. But with that said, in hindsight, JFK did say this.

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This is pretty objective assessment of what Batista was like as the dictator of Cuba.

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This is John F. Kennedy saying this:

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"I believe there is no country in the world

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including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation

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were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime.

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To some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States.

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Now we shall have to pay for those sins." So even JFK in hindsight is saying that Batista

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was really not the best person and it really was not a good idea for the United States to support such a

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corrupt dictator for so long in Cuba. This is Batista

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right over here, riding with some U.S. generals in a parade when he visited DC. So you can imagine

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he was not a popular person in control of Cuba and in 1959 you have a successful revolution against him.

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In 1959 there is a revolution and the revolution is led by this character, Fidel Castro, and

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his kind of two right hand men are Raul Castro and Che Guevara right over here

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and they take control of Cuba. They're part of this nationalist, revolutionary movement. Now the one thing

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they do do, and they are left-leaning from the beginning, people assume that they are maybe communists or

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quasi-communists. But even from the get-go as soon as they take power, they start taking over lands that were owned by,

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well, one that was private Cuban property, some of it that was United States property. Their arguement would

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have probably been that this was wealth, private property that was ill gotten, that was gotten in the time of Batista,

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but they did in a broad sweep , so they took over a lot of private land, a lot of private property, which also led to people thinking

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hey, this is not just a nationalist revolution, this is also a communist revolution but you could also imagine

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that once they take over there this huge migration of Cubans to the United States and there, it's

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primarily middle class, upper middle class Cubans, educated Cubans, who were really afraid of what Fidel Castro

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is doing in terms of taking over of private land, taking people's property. So you start having this

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Cuban exile community really focused around Florida and mainly Miami and they're still there.

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And they're very unhappy with this Fidel Castro character right over here. So when we fast forward into 1961 John F. Kennedy becomes president,

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He gets elected in 1960, becomes president in early 1961. We're now fast forwarding to April, 1961 so JFK has only been president for a few months.

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But you can imagine a lot of levels you have all of these Cuban exiles, upper middled class, educated, middle

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class, Cuban exiles who hate Fidel Castro. He's taking over their land he's turning it into what looks like a leftist state.

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This is all happening within the context of the cold war, the US is afraid of

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countries falling to communism. It looks like Fidel Castro is a communist, so the US decides the fact

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that you have all of the exisles who wanna oust him to the US porbably wants to oust him just because

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he's a communist and they're afraid that he's going to align himself with the Soviet Union. So in conjunction

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with the Cuban exiles and the CIA, and this right here is the director of the Central Intelligence

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during the Kennedy administration or at least the beginning part of the Kennedy administration, this is Allen

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Dulles, his brother is John Foster Dulles, where Dulles Airport is named after and he was a US Secretary of State.

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They decide that they want to oust Fidel Castro, but they want to do it in a way that the US does

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not look like it's the one doing the invasion, so what they do is they plan an invasion where they

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take Cuban exiles and they get 1400 men to sign up to be kind of part of this CIA backed , US backed force

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to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro. And a lot of this was based on the premise, and you can imagine

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this even happened in the iraq war, where the CIA, the American President, they kind of surround themselves with people who tell

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them, who one give them a very optimistic, hopeful scenario telling them "Look. We represent what the rest

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of the Cuban people want," They'll say, "Look if we just start a revolution Fidel Castro will be overthrown."

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The reality that came out, at least at that point in time, in early 1960's, Fidel Castro was actually

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pretty popular with the Cuban people and you can imagine he was at that time popular with the poor

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people who did not have land and now all of the sudden you have this leader for the people, I don't know

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about his popularity now but at that point he was probably a lot more popular than the exiles and the

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CIA would have had Kennedy believe. So they plan this attack

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Kennedy says oh, if we can get rid of Fidel Castro then that derisks the possibility of having this

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communist nation right off of the Florida coast. So they plan this invasion and you know it's shady to

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begin with because they didn't want to make it look like an official U.S. invasion. They wanted to

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make it look like a pure Cuban counter-revolution and to some degree that really mixed up everything and

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made it look, and well it really was suspect because they really were doing something that was not what it really

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was. But the invasion the way it all worked out is that by April 15th, and this is just going into the

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details of the invasion,

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So they had the fourteen hundred exiles

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They had some ships, some planes they marked them

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They either removed the markings so that it didn't look like they were American

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ships or planes

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Or they put false markings of the Cuban military

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So that it would cause some confusion or whatever

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So on April 15, 1961,

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Remember this is only a few months into Kennedy's administration,

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they start air attacks

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and these air attacks launch from Nicaragua and they go to Cuba.

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And the whole point of these air attacks was to kind of soften the Cuban Air Force

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for an eventual invasion by the 1400 exiles.

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And so they have eight aircraft, eight bombers

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leaving Nicaragua. They bomb Cuba at a base outside of Havana

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and a base near the south, actually not too far from the current Guantanamo Bay.

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And the point or their goal was to destroy the Cuban Air Force

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It turns out they didn't do it.

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And once again, to kind of cause confusion, they did it not under the U.S. markings, but they put Cuban Air Force markings on the planes.

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You had eight planes going and doing the bombing

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One of them gets shot down

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and a ninth plane actually leaves from Nicaragua and they falsely put bullet holes

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in it to look like it was hit with anti-aircraft guns

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and had it defect to Florida.

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So I guess the idea behind this was to make it look like there is a Cuban

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pilot who takes off from Cuba or somehow gets out of Cuba

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with a Cuban plane (that's why they put the markings there) and then tries to destroy a bunch of Cuban aircraft

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and then defects to the United States.

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That's the impression that they wanted to convey.

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It's not so clear that the Cubans actually fell for it.

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And so that happened in 1961. Most everyone kind of saw this as a U.S. attack, or at least said they viewed it as a U.S. attack.

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Then you fast forward to the night of April 16th

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and this whole time everyone was expecting a US attack

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This all leads to the fact that this was not a well orchestrated series of events

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It's pretty well established that some of these exiles were just not as tightlipped as they should have

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been about the invasion. It got out to Soviet intelligence. The Cubans knew that an invasion was imminent.

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So on April 16th you have kind of a false attack - a decoy attack -

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at Bahia Honda right over here, with a bunch of decoy boats with loudspeakers on them

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that made it sound like they were firing to cause confusion

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and it did temporarily cause Castro to look in that direction

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because they were on hair trigger notice expecting an imminent invasion

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that was not the real one. This was on the evening of April 16th

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When you go to the early morning of April 17th you have the real invasion

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where you have the 1400 Cuban exiles with CIA and US military support (but all of that was hidden )

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to actually invade at the Bay of Pigs.

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And to make a long story short it was kind of a invasion that did not go well.

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It has been blamed on bad planning, on incompetance at some parts of the invasion.

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The invasion lasted from April 17th which was the first day of the invasion.

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By April 19th the invading force, or counter-revolutionary force, the 1400 cuban exiles,

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had been pushed back to the beaches.

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And for the most part a little over 100 of them were killed

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and most of them, over 1000 of them, were captured. And then later on in the year Fidel Castro,

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- and some were executed after after being captured - but later on in the year Fidel Castro makes a deal with the United States

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where he hands over the captured exiles to the United States in exchange for

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$58 million in aid and supplies and all the rest.

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So this, at least from a military point of view, was a complete debacle from the United States point of view.

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You can imagine after this happened people in the United States started

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pointing fingers

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You have the CIA (and this is Allen Dulles right here) and the exiles blaming the Kennedy administration

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saying that look he wasn't willing to do what it takes to actually do a proper invasion.

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He wasn't willing to supply the proper air support once the invasion started happening.

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He was not willing to commit more U.S. troops once the invasion started looking like it was not going in

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the direction of the exiles.

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Kennedy on the other hand blames the CIA.

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He says look this was just done and planned incompetently

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He also says that "You gave me all sorts of misinformation. You told me that once the invasion

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started there was all sorts of resentment against Fidel Castro and it would cause this broader

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uprising, which never ever happened."

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This is actually a quote from John F Kennedy that he said after the Bay of Pigs invasion:

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"The first advice I am going to give to my successor is to watch

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the generals and to avoid the feeling that because they were military men their opinions on military matters

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were worth a damn."

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This is John F. Kennedy saying this after the Bay of Pigs invasion.

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You can dig deeper and figure out who probably was in the right here,

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but the bottom line here is that it lead to all-round negative consequences for the United States.

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After this kind of strengthened Fidel Castro's hold on Cuba.

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He was like, "Hey that was the United States' best shot."

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Huge embarrassment for them. It allowed his to concentrate his control.

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It also caused him to now become very openly communist

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Before the Bay of pigs invasion he was kind of trying to get the U.S. to somewhat like him.

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Although they wouldn't like him because he was taking over private property and he was clearly left-leaning.

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But after the Bay of Pigs invasion he definitely aligned himself closely with the Soviet Union.

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He became much more open about being a Marxist, Leninist, communist state

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and because he as afraid of future US invasions he was open to what eventually leads

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to the Cuban Missile Crisis which is the Soviet Union actually placing ballistic missiles with nuclear

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warheads in Cuba at short range to the United States. It set up this whole

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series of events that really didn't work in the U.S.'s favor.


Cuban Missile Crisis

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Before we go into the details of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it's important to understand the world's environment

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entering into October of 1962.

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In 1959, you have a revolution in Cuba led by Fidel Castro.

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And he is heading the Communist party there.

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Cuba is now a Communist nation right off of the coast of the United States.

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This is the middle of the Cold War. The U.S. believes in a strategy of containment, does not like this.

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So in 1961, the United States, the CIA, the Kennedy Administration, they try using Cuban exiles,

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people who have left Cuba,

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they try to support them to enter and invade Cuba

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at the Bay of Pigs. But, the whole effort wasn't planned properly.

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The support for the Cuban exiles, the counter-revolutionaries, those [who] were

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trying to oust Castro, it was kind of this

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half-hearted effort. And it was this big failure.

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So the Bay of Bigs invasion was a failure in 1961.

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And it made John F. Kennedy seem a little bit weak. It made the CIA seem [weak]. It didn't make

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anyone on the American side look all that competent, because of that failure.

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On top of that, we're in the middle of the Cold War, remember this.

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And at the same time, if you go to what the US was doing around the Soviet Union, it started placing missiles,

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starting [in] the late 50's, all the way into 1961 and 1962 ---

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it started placing medium-ranged ballistic missiles in Turkey and in Italy.

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These are where they were allocated.

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And the significance of that is that now these missiles could reach the major population

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centers of the Soviet Union in really a matter of minutes, in 10 to 20 minutes, I think.

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16 minutes was how long most of these stayed airborne.

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And in a situation where both sides have nuclear weapons, there was this kind of notion of

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well, maybe if you're able to get to the other guy faster, they wouldn't be able to retaliate,

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and maybe you wouldn't have that mutually assured destruction.

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So there's this whole idea that you want to get your missiles as close as possible [to your enemies]

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so that they could reach the populations centers, the strategic centers of your opponent,

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as quickly as possible.

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And if you look up on the Web, you can actually find the actual missile sites,

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and where they were installed, and when they became operational.

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These are the ones that were in Italy, kind of right here, near the heel of Italy.

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So you have this environment, the United States was looking a little bit weak

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after the Bay of Pigs invasion.

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It looks like they wanted to oust Castro, but they weren't able to do it.

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They weren't able because they were slightly inept.

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And at the same time you could imagine that the Soviet Union did not appreciate the United States

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placing these missiles so close to its population centers.

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Missiles that could reach its population centers very easily.

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So now, we fast forward to October of 1962 and the entire Cuban Missile Crisis will occur

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over 13 or 14 days during October of 1962.

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So, on the 14th of October we're sending these U2 spy planes over Cuba.

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So this right here is a U2 spy plane. That is a U2 spy plane.

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And it takes pictures that look like this. And on the next day, on October 15th, you have the CIA analysts.

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And they're saying, "Wow - that looks like missiles over there.

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This looks like ballistic missiles that are being set up, that are being set up in Cuba".

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And so all of a sudden, it looks like the Soviet Union is using Cuba to do the same thing that

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we used Turkey and Italy for, to set up ballistic missiles, really, right off of our coast --

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and ballistic missiles that could now now reach any of the

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strategic population centers, especially on the east coast or the midwest of the United States.

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So by the 16th-- So this is literally two days after the pictures were taken.

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The next day, they're analyzing them, [and] they tell the State Department about them.

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[On] the 16th, they tell Kennedy about them, and Kennedy holds a meeting

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of the Executive Committee. It wasn't called "ExComm," just [yet].

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But it was really a subset of special advisors -- a subset of the National Security Council

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and other advisors that essentially become the brain trust to figure out

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what to do about this forming crisis. Because of all of a sudden you have a state that we don't

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like off of our borders -- a Communist state -- a state aligned with the Soviet Union.

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All of a sudden, it has nuclear missiles. it looks like these are offensive weapons.

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These are weapons being designed for a first-strike capability.

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Once again, if they're being launched from Cuba, maybe they can attack -- maybe they can obliterate

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the US before the US even has an opportunity to respond properly.

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So this really freaks out the Kennedy Administration.

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And so they start to think about what can they do about it and early on--

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Well, there's a couple--

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You could just kind of call and talk to the Soviets about it

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and say: "Hey, we don't like that. Why don't you undo your missiles?"

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But they didn't really think that that would have any significant effect on the Soviets.

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Especially, because they probably thought that Kennedy was weak at this point.

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And just to understand who was leading the Soviets at this time,

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it was Khrushchev. (This is Khrushchev right over here.)

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And he had even made remarks to the effect that he thought that Kennedy was young

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and may be naive, and maybe too intellectual to really play a good game of chicken here.

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And so the US kind of felt that it had to look strong here. And so the only real

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options on the table were: maybe blockade Cuba - and so a blockade could be an 'all out' blockade,

00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:35.482
so it would be an economic blockade. But then that's actually considered an act of war

00:05:35.482 --> 00:05:41.217
because you are, to a large degree, starving a country. Another option for the United States,

00:05:41.217 --> 00:05:45.467
(because it was completely viewed as unacceptable that these missiles should be here,

00:05:45.467 --> 00:05:49.901
and that they should be deployable from Cuba), the other option would be to do air attacks

00:05:49.901 --> 00:05:55.400
on these missile silos. And then the most extreme

00:05:55.400 --> 00:06:00.885
action would be to actually invade Cuba. And ,obviously that goes in line

00:06:00.885 --> 00:06:05.552
with, the US' general interest of not having a communist regime

00:06:05.552 --> 00:06:07.457
so close to its own borders.

00:06:07.457 --> 00:06:11.021
So, this is what Kennedy and his team was wrestling with.

00:06:11.021 --> 00:06:17.318
And really early on in these early days, most of the team was actually advising Kennedy

00:06:17.318 --> 00:06:20.320
that they should do a full-scale invasion of Cuba.

00:06:20.320 --> 00:06:22.804
They thought that this was the only thing that the Soviets would take seriously,

00:06:22.804 --> 00:06:25.702
it would show that the US is serious about this.

00:06:25.702 --> 00:06:30.072
And they didn't think that the Soviet Union would really try to put up a fight

00:06:30.072 --> 00:06:32.267
in Cuba, so far away from their own borders.

00:06:32.267 --> 00:06:35.933
But Kennedy, probably thinking about it pretty reasonably,

00:06:35.933 --> 00:06:38.338
realized "Well, hey. They might not do anything in Cuba,

00:06:38.338 --> 00:06:42.733
and they might allow us to oust Castro and install a new regime there.

00:06:42.733 --> 00:06:48.200
But they might retaliate, in fact, they probably would retaliate in Europe, but specifically, in Berlin,

00:06:48.200 --> 00:06:53.010
probably in Germany as a whole. So, just for the sake of getting these things out of Cuba,

00:06:53.010 --> 00:06:59.579
we could sacrifice a lot in Europe. And even more, that any type of conflict

00:06:59.579 --> 00:07:04.554
between the US and the Soviet Union could easily escalate to a nuclear war".

00:07:04.554 --> 00:07:07.400
So these were all on the table. The US goes on high alert.

00:07:07.400 --> 00:07:11.148
It prepares for any of these situations, because they really don't know what's going to happen.

00:07:11.148 --> 00:07:18.741
The Army, the Air Force and the Navy [start] mobilizing. So, on, kind of with hours notice,

00:07:18.741 --> 00:07:23.153
any of those options can, kind of, go into effect.

00:07:23.153 --> 00:07:27.600
By the 22nd, you have the Executive Committee -- (And that just becomes formalized

00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:32.905
as an actual, official group that is advising the President in this capacity.) --

00:07:32.905 --> 00:07:40.467
and on the 22nd, Kennedy finally puts out his first salvo on what is the US' position

00:07:40.467 --> 00:07:41.891
on what's going on here.

00:07:41.891 --> 00:07:46.535
And before this -- just to make things clear -- on the 18th, he did meet,

00:07:46.535 --> 00:07:50.600
he did meet with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs,

00:07:50.600 --> 00:07:52.292
Andrei Gromyko --

00:07:52.292 --> 00:07:54.639
and I'm sure I'm butchering the pronunciations --

00:07:54.639 --> 00:07:58.238
and this is where the first time, Kennedy is like "Hey, you've got these offensive weapons..."

00:07:58.238 --> 00:08:00.933
And Gromyko is insisting that "No, they're just defensive weapons".

00:08:00.933 --> 00:08:04.867
And, to most people, defensive weapons would mean things like surface-to-air missiles,

00:08:04.867 --> 00:08:08.803
things that would stop planes from bombings. But not surface-to-surface missiles,

00:08:08.803 --> 00:08:10.333
not something that could attack a country.

00:08:10.333 --> 00:08:14.608
But we'll see, in future letters from Khrushchev, that maybe they actually did perceive

00:08:14.608 --> 00:08:19.195
these missiles as somehow being defensive. But you fast forward.

00:08:19.195 --> 00:08:23.800
That was on the 18th, it kind of made, it made Kennedy and the US frustrated with the

00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:26.938
Russians, because it felt like the Americans are saying,

00:08:26.938 --> 00:08:29.887
"Look, we clearly know you have missiles there", but Gromyko is saying "No, these are just

00:08:29.887 --> 00:08:32.933
defensive weapons - nothing to worry about. Why are you taking this so seriously?"

00:08:32.933 --> 00:08:35.067
The 19th: US goes on high alert.

00:08:35.067 --> 00:08:36.737
It starts thinking about all of these options.

00:08:36.737 --> 00:08:42.472
The 22nd: this Committee is formed formally. But more importantly,

00:08:42.472 --> 00:08:46.933
Kennedy gives a speech to state the United States' opinion.

00:08:46.933 --> 00:08:49.400
And I'll just read it right here:

00:08:49.400 --> 00:08:54.152
"To halt this offensive build-up, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment

00:08:54.152 --> 00:08:59.562
under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba

00:08:59.562 --> 00:09:06.267
from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargos of offensive weapons,

00:09:06.267 --> 00:09:11.219
be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers.

00:09:11.219 --> 00:09:14.562
We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life,

00:09:14.562 --> 00:09:19.000
as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948."

00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:25.533
So, the Kennedy administration's position became slightly more nuanced.

00:09:25.533 --> 00:09:29.067
They said "We can't do an all out blockade. 1) That is an act of war;

00:09:29.067 --> 00:09:33.904
2) That is, to a large degree, inhumane. Why should we starve the Cuban people?

00:09:33.904 --> 00:09:40.000
What we're gonna do is, kind of a filter on the cargo going into Cuba.

00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:44.655
We will only inspect things that we suspect are holding armaments,

00:09:44.655 --> 00:09:48.138
and we will only turn back the ships that are actually doing it."

00:09:48.138 --> 00:09:53.000
But then on the 24th, there is a cable from Khrushchev, and it say,:

00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:57.667
"If you cooly weigh the situation which has developed, not giving away to passions,

00:09:57.667 --> 00:10:01.815
you will understand that the Soviet Union cannot fail to reject the arbitrary

00:10:01.815 --> 00:10:05.867
demands of the United States -- and that the Soviet Union views the blockade

00:10:05.867 --> 00:10:09.933
as an act of aggression, and that their ships will be instructed to ignore it."

00:10:09.933 --> 00:10:13.448
So the game of chicken is beginning to emerge.

00:10:13.448 --> 00:10:15.468
The United States if just saying "Look, this is unacceptable.

00:10:15.468 --> 00:10:17.767
We're gonna stop you from shipping arms to Cuba."

00:10:17.767 --> 00:10:21.533
On the 24th, Khrushchev is saying "Who are you to tell us what to do?"

00:10:21.533 --> 00:10:25.005
and, you know, there's this kind of under current like, "Wait, you've already got stuff set up

00:10:25.005 --> 00:10:30.667
in Italy and Turkey, not too far from us. How can you dare..." -- (you know, and they call it

00:10:30.667 --> 00:10:33.133
a blockade, even though the US is calling it a quarantine) --

00:10:33.133 --> 00:10:35.867
"this is an act of aggression and we will ignore it."

00:10:35.867 --> 00:10:37.133
So both parties are kind of saying,

00:10:37.133 --> 00:10:40.360
"We don't care what you're gonna do. We're gonna do what whatever we have to do"

00:10:40.360 --> 00:10:44.772
And this whole time, both sides are getting tense,

00:10:44.772 --> 00:10:49.067
the whole world is kind of taking sides, they're making public statements about what's right or wrong.

00:10:49.067 --> 00:10:55.400
So, we really are getting very close to the brink of a very major confrontation between

00:10:55.400 --> 00:10:56.869
the Soviet Union and the United States.

00:10:56.869 --> 00:10:59.733
And you know, you can read the book "13 Days - Robert Kennedy",

00:10:59.733 --> 00:11:02.698
there's also the movie "13 Days," which actually is not based on the book.

00:11:02.698 --> 00:11:07.783
But both of them really kind of give the account of what happened over this period.

00:11:07.783 --> 00:11:11.200
But then you fast forward to the 25th and Kennedy essentially replies,

00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:16.867
"Look, these are offensive weapons and these require the responses I have announced.

00:11:16.867 --> 00:11:20.467
I hope that your government will take necessary action to permit restoration of the earlier

00:11:20.467 --> 00:11:25.267
situation." Ok, so he's saying - "Look, we have to do this. These are offensive weapons.

00:11:25.267 --> 00:11:28.867
We cannot tolerate these weapons so close to US borders.

00:11:30.445 --> 00:11:32.133
And so, also on the 25th, the quarantine is in effect.

00:11:32.133 --> 00:11:33.600
It does get challenged.

00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:37.690
The US does start to inspect some ships. They try to inspect one ship that got away a little bit.

00:11:37.690 --> 00:11:43.267
So the Soviets, even though they're speaking the game of chicken,

00:11:43.267 --> 00:11:49.439
they are turning back. They did turn back 14 ships. And the best guess is that those 14 ships

00:11:49.439 --> 00:11:51.800
probably did contain some type of armament.

00:11:51.800 --> 00:11:55.267
So even though, publicly, everyone is playing a very strong game,

00:11:55.267 --> 00:11:59.667
behind the scenes, there is a little bit of a softening of the stance.

00:11:59.667 --> 00:12:06.947
And then you fast forward to the 26th, and Khrushchev essentially sends his first proposal.

00:12:06.947 --> 00:12:12.533
And it's interesting here. Because, in Khrushchev's mind -- (And this is a fascinating letter to read.

00:12:12.533 --> 00:12:16.351
It's a fairly long letter, so I'm not gonna go into the whole thing and you can get it at this URL right

00:12:16.351 --> 00:12:19.400
over here. It's a fascinating letter. Maybe I'll do a whole video where I just read this letter.)

00:12:19.400 --> 00:12:24.200
He kind of goes into the nuance of what he views as a defensive or an offensive weapon.

00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:28.733
He implicitly admits that the missiles are there --

00:12:28.733 --> 00:12:31.282
That they're not these benign weapons.

00:12:31.282 --> 00:12:35.333
But, in his letter, he kind of makes the nuance that he'd use them as defensive weapons.

00:12:35.333 --> 00:12:39.733
He says: "Look, you guys attempted to oust Castro already.

00:12:39.733 --> 00:12:44.754
We view Castro as an ally. We think that by placing these weapons here, that you will be less

00:12:44.754 --> 00:12:48.800
likely to be able to oust Castro, because you will be afraid of these weapons."

00:12:48.800 --> 00:12:54.455
So, Khrushchev is kind of setting up-- Kruschev is saying, "We don't have the intention of using these to attack

00:12:54.455 --> 00:12:59.401
you for no reason. We're just putting these here to essentially defend one of our allies."

00:12:59.401 --> 00:13:00.701
So he's saying that's the reason.

00:13:00.701 --> 00:13:03.800
That's the reason that they placed those weapons there in the first place.

00:13:03.800 --> 00:13:06.667
He's kind of saying "Look, you did Bay of Pigs. You were the ones that took the first shot.

00:13:06.667 --> 00:13:08.267
Now we are defending it."

00:13:08.267 --> 00:13:10.533
That might have been the rationale.

00:13:10.533 --> 00:13:15.133
Another rationale for why they did it -- and it's just, and probably the more strategic rationale --

00:13:15.133 --> 00:13:20.087
is that we already did have these missiles that were pointed at the Soviet Union in

00:13:20.087 --> 00:13:23.800
Turkey and Italy. And the Soviet Union just wanted to have parity.

00:13:23.800 --> 00:13:29.133
So, they wanted to put missiles near the US [in] some ally's country, from the Soviet Union's

00:13:29.133 --> 00:13:29.935
point of view.

00:13:29.935 --> 00:13:35.113
So, on the 26th, Khrushchev's first proposa,l that was given through a cable, says:

00:13:35.113 --> 00:13:38.400
"If assurances were given by the President and the Government of the United States

00:13:38.400 --> 00:13:41.870
that the USA itself would not participate..." - so 'assurances'...

00:13:41.870 --> 00:13:47.118
(Let me underline this in a different color.) --

00:13:47.118 --> 00:13:53.527
"assurances that the USA itself would not participate in an attack on Cuba, and would restrain others

00:13:53.527 --> 00:13:57.400
from actions of this sort" -- probably the Cuban exiles --

00:13:57.400 --> 00:14:00.600
"... if you would recall your fleet, this would immediately change everything.

00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:04.267
I am not speaking for Fidel Castro, but I think that he and the government

00:14:04.267 --> 00:14:07.807
of Cuba evidently would declare demobilization and would appeal to the people

00:14:07.807 --> 00:14:10.733
to get down to peaceful labor. Then, too, the question of--"

00:14:10.733 --> 00:14:13.403
(And, you know, the Communists always like talking about "labor.") --

00:14:13.403 --> 00:14:18.372
"then, too, the question of armaments would disappear, since, if there is no threat,

00:14:18.372 --> 00:14:20.467
then armaments are a burden for every people."

00:14:20.467 --> 00:14:23.527
So in this first proposal that came over a cable, he's essentially saying:

00:14:23.527 --> 00:14:28.542
"Look, if you guys just promise not to attack Cuba, if you just make 'assurances' that

00:14:28.542 --> 00:14:31.333
you will not attack Cuba, then we'll essentially undo everything.

00:14:31.333 --> 00:14:35.601
We'll give in to your wishes."

00:14:35.601 --> 00:14:38.667
And this stance right here really does make it look like

00:14:38.667 --> 00:14:42.707
their main interest in having those missiles was, kind of, to protect Cuba --

00:14:42.707 --> 00:14:47.067
so that the US would not try to oust the Communists from there.

00:14:47.067 --> 00:14:52.800
But then on the next day, Khrushchev has a public broadcast

00:14:52.800 --> 00:14:55.133
where he kind of changes his tone a little bit.

00:14:55.133 --> 00:15:01.533
Now he's saying that they would undo the situation in Cuba only if the United States removed

00:15:01.533 --> 00:15:03.733
their missiles from Italy and Turkey.

00:15:03.733 --> 00:15:05.369
So, he's sending little mixed messages.

00:15:05.369 --> 00:15:07.622
His first message was kind of a softer stance:

00:15:07.622 --> 00:15:11.400
"Look, you guys just promise not to invade Cuba and we're gonna pull out of Cuba."

00:15:11.400 --> 00:15:15.958
The second stance is saying: "No, no. We're only gonna take our missiles out of Cuba

00:15:15.958 --> 00:15:19.800
if you take your missiles out of Italy and Turkey."

00:15:19.800 --> 00:15:24.733
And on the same day, another U2 spy plane gets shot down over Cuba.

00:15:24.733 --> 00:15:30.029
This is when both armies are really at, kind of, they're at hair-trigger notice,

00:15:30.029 --> 00:15:35.133
it's a really scary situation. And this was actually done by-- It was a local decision by a Soviet commander.

00:15:35.133 --> 00:15:38.333
(And Khrushchev actually did not want this to happen.)

00:15:38.333 --> 00:15:43.800
And lucky for, I guess, the world, the US did not use this, alone, as

00:15:43.800 --> 00:15:48.400
a reason to engage in war. They said: "Maybe it's an accident. If this happens again,

00:15:48.400 --> 00:15:49.626
then we'll use it as [a pretext for] war."

00:15:49.626 --> 00:15:54.340
So it was lucky that this did not trigger an immediate war with the Soviets.

00:15:54.340 --> 00:15:59.333
But the Kennedy Administration still had the question: "Which of these was a more serious,

00:15:59.333 --> 00:16:03.800
you know, which of these requests were the Soviets really making?

00:16:03.800 --> 00:16:05.533
This is a more significant request.

00:16:05.533 --> 00:16:07.622
Are they requesting for both?

00:16:07.622 --> 00:16:10.362
And so it was eventually decided, on the 27th, that:

00:16:10.362 --> 00:16:15.215
"Hey, let's just pretend like we didn't even know -- that the Americans didn't even know about

00:16:15.215 --> 00:16:19.067
the second request that asked for more -- and let's just reply to this first request."

00:16:19.067 --> 00:16:22.467
So, you essentially have Kennedy agreeing [with] Khrushchev, and saying:

00:16:22.467 --> 00:16:30.133
"Ok, we'll do your first request. We will agree not to invade Cuba if you remove your missiles."

00:16:30.133 --> 00:16:34.371
And then, essentially, what happens--.
And that puts Khrushchev in a weird situation.

00:16:34.371 --> 00:16:38.400
(Because this is something that he did recommend. But they were ignoring this over here.)

00:16:38.400 --> 00:16:40.800
But through back channels we said "Well, we'll offically agree to this."

00:16:40.800 --> 00:16:44.067
But through back channels the Kennedy administration said: "And we would

00:16:44.067 --> 00:16:47.133
also be on an understanding,

00:16:47.133 --> 00:16:51.467
we will also have an understanding on the missiles in Italy and Turkey."

00:16:51.467 --> 00:16:56.616
That, "Look, this isn't part of the deal, but we see what you're saying and we're probably,

00:16:56.616 --> 00:16:58.933
we're probably going to remove them."

00:16:58.933 --> 00:17:03.200
And what the Soviets also didn't know at that time is that the Americans were planning on --

00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:07.135
that these missiles, to a large degree, by this point in time, were already obsolete.

00:17:07.135 --> 00:17:10.400
Because we already Polaris missiles that were deployable by submarines.

00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:14.635
And clearly, submarines can deploy things much closer to the action, and they're much harder to track.

00:17:14.635 --> 00:17:16.887
You can't surveil them and all the rest.

00:17:16.887 --> 00:17:20.133
So the US kind of agreed to it. But they did it secretly.

00:17:20.133 --> 00:17:23.800
And the whole point here is that neither side wanted to look like they're giving in.

00:17:23.800 --> 00:17:26.000
Neither side wanted to look weak.

00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:29.766
But on the 28th, there was finally an agreement. And so, publicly,

00:17:29.766 --> 00:17:35.667
the first Khrushchev proposal was agreed to by both Khrushchev and the United States.

00:17:35.667 --> 00:17:38.900
Khrushchev agreed to remove --

00:17:38.900 --> 00:17:42.475
to not send any more weapons, and also dismantle the weapons that were there,

00:17:42.475 --> 00:17:46.993
and the Americans agreed that they would not invade Cuba.

00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:49.232
So you can imagine the big winner here.

00:17:49.232 --> 00:17:52.901
The big winner here is probably Fidel Castro, because the whole time he's paranoid that

00:17:52.901 --> 00:17:56.733
the US is planning another attack on him. And, at least publicly now, they're saying

00:17:56.733 --> 00:18:00.533
that they cannot invade him. And if they did, it would like they're going back on their word.

00:18:00.533 --> 00:18:02.892
And privately,

00:18:02.892 --> 00:18:06.555
the US agreed to remove its missiles from Turkey and Italy.

00:18:06.555 --> 00:18:09.550
They didn't wanna do this publicly, because then it would like they were being weak.

00:18:09.550 --> 00:18:13.118
Then it would like the Soviets were able to do this

00:18:13.118 --> 00:18:17.747
aggressive action. And by doing it, they were able to extract something out of the United States.

00:18:17.747 --> 00:18:20.036
Which is actually the reality. They were able to --

00:18:20.138 --> 00:18:25.154
By doing this action, they were able to get these missiles removed from Turkey and Italy.

00:18:25.154 --> 00:18:27.000
But the United States wanted to look strong.

00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:32.333
Kennedy has, well -- there's always an approaching election. Especially after the Bay of Pigs,

00:18:32.333 --> 00:18:33.583
he needed to look like a strong leader.

00:18:33.583 --> 00:18:38.133
And so, to some degree, you have to give Khrushchev credit for this. He kind of swallowed

00:18:38.133 --> 00:18:42.569
his pride and allowed it to publicly look like he lost the negotiation.

00:18:42.569 --> 00:18:46.330
He publicly made it look like he got nothing in return for backing down,

00:18:46.330 --> 00:18:49.933
but in reality he did. He just didn't necessarily get credit for it.

00:18:49.933 --> 00:18:57.000
But this was a big deal. Because this was the closest that the Soviet Union and the US ever got to

00:18:57.000 --> 00:18:59.975
really the brink during the Cold War.


Vietnam War

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.542 --> 00:00:03.000
In order to have a respectable
understanding of the Vietnam

00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:06.130
War, we have to rewind all
the way back to the late 1800s

00:00:06.130 --> 00:00:09.190
when France was
colonizing Southeast Asia.

00:00:09.190 --> 00:00:12.400
And in particular, it colonized
what is now Laos, Vietnam,

00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:14.450
and Cambodia-- and
they were collectively

00:00:14.450 --> 00:00:16.260
called French Indochina.

00:00:16.260 --> 00:00:19.170
You can see Cambodia here,
Vietnam along the coast,

00:00:19.170 --> 00:00:21.340
and then, Laos, right over here.

00:00:21.340 --> 00:00:23.150
And France stayed the
colonizing power--

00:00:23.150 --> 00:00:25.380
I have a little gap
in my timeline here--

00:00:25.380 --> 00:00:26.980
and they stayed a
colonizing power

00:00:26.980 --> 00:00:33.537
all the way through
World War II.

00:00:33.537 --> 00:00:35.370
And so you can imagine,
during World War II,

00:00:35.370 --> 00:00:37.740
France was quickly
overrun by the Germans.

00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:39.790
The Vietnamese wanted
their independence,

00:00:39.790 --> 00:00:42.410
and so you have a liberation
movement that rises up.

00:00:42.410 --> 00:00:45.950
And it was led by the Viet
Minh, and the Viet Minh

00:00:45.950 --> 00:00:50.270
were led by Ho Chi Minh.

00:00:50.270 --> 00:00:52.620
This right here is a
picture of Ho Chi Minh.

00:00:52.620 --> 00:00:54.730
And besides being a
liberation movement,

00:00:54.730 --> 00:01:00.770
they were also communist,
which, you could imagine, later

00:01:00.770 --> 00:01:03.840
on during the Cold
War will kind of bias

00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:05.930
the United States against them.

00:01:05.930 --> 00:01:08.930
But you fast forward
through World War II.

00:01:08.930 --> 00:01:13.170
Eventually, the Japanese
take control over Indochina,

00:01:13.170 --> 00:01:14.980
over Vietnam.

00:01:14.980 --> 00:01:17.260
But by the time '45
rolls around, or at least

00:01:17.260 --> 00:01:19.960
the end of '45-- and we know
that the United States defeats

00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:22.140
Japan-- now, all of a
sudden, the Viet Minh

00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:25.950
are able to declare a somewhat
temporary independence.

00:01:25.950 --> 00:01:27.880
And it's temporary
because shortly

00:01:27.880 --> 00:01:30.640
after that-- and the region
is occupied temporarily

00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:34.585
by the Chinese in the north, and
the British in the south, who

00:01:34.585 --> 00:01:38.030
were part of the Allied
forces against the Axis.

00:01:38.030 --> 00:01:40.030
But eventually, you have
the French coming back,

00:01:40.030 --> 00:01:43.430
and they want to
reassert their control

00:01:43.430 --> 00:01:44.880
over their former colony.

00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:48.010
And you have this war that
develops-- the First Indochina

00:01:48.010 --> 00:01:50.540
War between the
French and the people

00:01:50.540 --> 00:01:52.465
sympathetic to the
French-- the Vietnamese

00:01:52.465 --> 00:01:55.527
who were loyal to the
French-- and the North.

00:01:55.527 --> 00:01:57.110
And the French--
just to make it clear

00:01:57.110 --> 00:02:01.140
how it sets up, at the
end of World War II

00:02:01.140 --> 00:02:03.740
when you had the temporary
occupiers, the British

00:02:03.740 --> 00:02:05.660
and the Chinese, the
Chinese, obviously,

00:02:05.660 --> 00:02:07.690
had more influence in the North.

00:02:07.690 --> 00:02:10.350
The British had more
influence in the South.

00:02:10.350 --> 00:02:12.260
When the French come
back they, essentially,

00:02:12.260 --> 00:02:14.710
are able to reinstate
control over the South.

00:02:14.710 --> 00:02:17.780
So right when the
Indochina War is beginning,

00:02:17.780 --> 00:02:20.320
the French already have
more control over the South.

00:02:20.320 --> 00:02:21.930
And actually,
historically the French

00:02:21.930 --> 00:02:23.700
had more influence in
the South, as well.

00:02:23.700 --> 00:02:26.780
During French colonial rule it
was really the southern third

00:02:26.780 --> 00:02:29.640
of Vietnam where you had
a lot of French influence.

00:02:29.640 --> 00:02:31.730
And this is a current
map, and the current map

00:02:31.730 --> 00:02:33.620
does not have this
orange boundary over here

00:02:33.620 --> 00:02:35.890
that we'll talk
about in a second.

00:02:35.890 --> 00:02:37.620
Vietnam is now unified.

00:02:37.620 --> 00:02:41.660
But before the Vietnam War,
this was not Ho Chi Minh City,

00:02:41.660 --> 00:02:44.410
this was Saigon.

00:02:44.410 --> 00:02:48.740
And Saigon was kind of where
most of the French control

00:02:48.740 --> 00:02:50.190
was centered.

00:02:50.190 --> 00:02:52.590
But you fast forward
to 1954, this

00:02:52.590 --> 00:02:54.910
ends up in a bit of a stalemate.

00:02:54.910 --> 00:02:57.750
And so you have the
Geneva Conference of 1954

00:02:57.750 --> 00:03:01.990
that partitions Vietnam along
the 17th parallel between North

00:03:01.990 --> 00:03:03.339
Vietnam and South Vietnam.

00:03:03.339 --> 00:03:04.880
And the whole point
of this partition

00:03:04.880 --> 00:03:07.136
was, really, to just
allow for a cooling

00:03:07.136 --> 00:03:09.010
off period, a period
where you can have thing

00:03:09.010 --> 00:03:11.130
settling down, and
then having elections.

00:03:11.130 --> 00:03:13.930
It wasn't meant to be
a permanent partition.

00:03:13.930 --> 00:03:15.450
But there was a
300-day period where

00:03:15.450 --> 00:03:17.306
people could move
across the partition.

00:03:17.306 --> 00:03:18.930
And during that
partition, you actually

00:03:18.930 --> 00:03:22.790
had 900,000 people, mainly
Catholics, move from the North

00:03:22.790 --> 00:03:23.290
to South.

00:03:23.290 --> 00:03:25.123
You also had several
hundred thousand people

00:03:25.123 --> 00:03:26.840
moving from the
South to the North,

00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:28.560
so it wasn't a one-way movement.

00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:31.530
But net net, most of the
movements by Roman Catholic

00:03:31.530 --> 00:03:35.520
Vietnamese was from
the North to the south.

00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:40.660
You fast forward a little
bit, you eventually have--

00:03:40.660 --> 00:03:43.220
and I'm sure I'm butchering
the pronunciation here--

00:03:43.220 --> 00:03:45.770
Ngo Dinh Diem take control.

00:03:45.770 --> 00:03:47.710
He starts off as
prime minister in '54,

00:03:47.710 --> 00:03:51.000
eventually he takes control,
and becomes president in '55.

00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:51.970
This is him right here.

00:03:51.970 --> 00:03:53.900
He takes control
of South Vietnam,

00:03:53.900 --> 00:03:56.870
and this guy is not a big
fan of things like elections,

00:03:56.870 --> 00:04:00.227
or non-corrupt government,
and all the rest.

00:04:00.227 --> 00:04:01.810
And he takes control
of South Vietnam.

00:04:01.810 --> 00:04:04.800
But you could imagine that the
United States is positively

00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:05.780
inclined to him.

00:04:05.780 --> 00:04:09.063
One, he dresses in nice
Western suits and all of that,

00:04:09.063 --> 00:04:10.530
and had nicely combed hair.

00:04:10.530 --> 00:04:12.360
But he was also anti-communist.

00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:14.860
And at this time period,
the United States

00:04:14.860 --> 00:04:17.990
is starting to think in
terms of the Cold War.

00:04:17.990 --> 00:04:20.420
And in terms of, how
do we stop communism?

00:04:20.420 --> 00:04:21.540
How do we contain it?

00:04:21.540 --> 00:04:22.970
This whole theory
of containment--

00:04:22.970 --> 00:04:25.370
that the best way to
stop the Soviet Union

00:04:25.370 --> 00:04:28.160
is to just make sure that
communism can not spread.

00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:29.714
That it gets contained.

00:04:29.714 --> 00:04:31.630
We have the domino theory
in the United States

00:04:31.630 --> 00:04:34.390
that if one country falls
to communism in a region,

00:04:34.390 --> 00:04:36.690
that the rest of the countries
will eventually fall.

00:04:36.690 --> 00:04:38.990
And that is not good
for containment.

00:04:38.990 --> 00:04:41.150
So we did not want
South Vietnam to fall.

00:04:41.150 --> 00:04:44.162
We essentially start supporting
these characters over here.

00:04:44.162 --> 00:04:46.120
And even from the early
'50s, the United States

00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:48.570
starts supporting
the anti-communist.

00:04:48.570 --> 00:04:51.480
And at first, this
support, it's in the-- I

00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:54.880
guess we should say--
the guise of advisers.

00:04:54.880 --> 00:04:56.710
But these advisers--
one, we start

00:04:56.710 --> 00:04:58.990
sending more and more aid,
and more and more advisers.

00:04:58.990 --> 00:05:01.510
And these advisers started
getting more and more involved

00:05:01.510 --> 00:05:03.100
in the actual conflict.

00:05:03.100 --> 00:05:05.050
And so after this
partition, you can imagine,

00:05:05.050 --> 00:05:07.500
that you still have
an ongoing conflict

00:05:07.500 --> 00:05:09.620
between the North and the South.

00:05:09.620 --> 00:05:11.670
And on top of that,
you have actors

00:05:11.670 --> 00:05:13.520
who are sympathetic
to the North,

00:05:13.520 --> 00:05:16.270
sympathetic to the Viet Minh,
sympathetic to Ho Chi Minh,

00:05:16.270 --> 00:05:17.110
in the South.

00:05:17.110 --> 00:05:19.850
Some of them were in the North,
they come back to the South.

00:05:19.850 --> 00:05:22.220
Some of them were
just in the South.

00:05:22.220 --> 00:05:24.764
And they did not like
the Diem government.

00:05:24.764 --> 00:05:26.680
Besides just being
sympathetic to Ho Chi Minh,

00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:31.580
Diem was a fairly
corrupt autocratic ruler,

00:05:31.580 --> 00:05:34.160
who wasn't a big
fan of democracy.

00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:36.830
And so these
players in the South

00:05:36.830 --> 00:05:41.440
who started to rise up against
President Diem or the Viet

00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:44.120
Cong.

00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:47.790
And so this really sets up what
the Vietnam War is all about.

00:05:47.790 --> 00:05:52.200
You have the communist Ho
Chi Minh-controlled North

00:05:52.200 --> 00:05:55.020
that was fighting a conventional
war against the South.

00:05:55.020 --> 00:05:58.700
You have this partition
on the 17th parallel.

00:05:58.700 --> 00:06:02.490
And on top of that, you have an
unconventional fighting force--

00:06:02.490 --> 00:06:03.990
I guess you'd call
them guerrillas--

00:06:03.990 --> 00:06:07.220
in the South of Vietnam
called the Viet Cong.

00:06:07.220 --> 00:06:10.172
So it was, kind of, a
double-- There were two things

00:06:10.172 --> 00:06:12.630
that the South had to fight
against-- the North officially,

00:06:12.630 --> 00:06:16.692
and also this insurrection that
was occurring within the South.

00:06:16.692 --> 00:06:18.650
And so the whole time
the United States did not

00:06:18.650 --> 00:06:20.680
want this insurrection
to succeed-- they did not

00:06:20.680 --> 00:06:22.710
want all of Vietnam
to become communist.

00:06:22.710 --> 00:06:24.920
We keep sending more
and more advisers.

00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:26.660
It actually started
even before Kennedy,

00:06:26.660 --> 00:06:30.110
but Kennedy he starts
sending-- he escalates

00:06:30.110 --> 00:06:31.830
the number of advisers
that gets sent.

00:06:31.830 --> 00:06:36.280
It's still not, at this point,
it's still not a formal war.

00:06:36.280 --> 00:06:37.920
We haven't officially
declared-- where

00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:42.380
we don't have, officially,
soldiers in battle.

00:06:42.380 --> 00:06:45.400
You fast forward to
1963, besides all

00:06:45.400 --> 00:06:49.260
of the great characteristics of
Diem that I already mentioned,

00:06:49.260 --> 00:06:52.220
he also was into
persecuting Buddhists.

00:06:52.220 --> 00:06:55.510
So to make matters worse,
not only was he corrupt,

00:06:55.510 --> 00:06:57.200
not only did he
not like elections,

00:06:57.200 --> 00:06:59.460
but he liked persecuting
his own people.

00:06:59.460 --> 00:07:02.580
And by 1963, this
kind of got out

00:07:02.580 --> 00:07:06.480
of hand, his level of
persecution of the Buddhists.

00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:09.060
He started toward storming
temples, and all the rest.

00:07:09.060 --> 00:07:11.530
And so he was assassinated.

00:07:11.530 --> 00:07:14.191
And not only was
he assassinated,

00:07:14.191 --> 00:07:15.690
it kind of leaves
this power vacuum,

00:07:15.690 --> 00:07:18.800
and you have all these
people jockeying for control,

00:07:18.800 --> 00:07:21.180
none of these really
especially savory characters

00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:22.470
inside the South.

00:07:22.470 --> 00:07:25.460
These two guys eventually
come to power, Nguyen Cao Ky

00:07:25.460 --> 00:07:27.080
and Nguyen Van Thieu.

00:07:27.080 --> 00:07:28.810
Wait a few years,
Nguyen Van Thieu

00:07:28.810 --> 00:07:30.870
is able to get this
guy out of the picture.

00:07:30.870 --> 00:07:33.270
And then by 1967--
I don't have it

00:07:33.270 --> 00:07:38.430
over here-- you have Thieu
has now taken control.

00:07:38.430 --> 00:07:40.030
But during that
period-- or actually,

00:07:40.030 --> 00:07:43.830
before Ky and Thieu
take power-- in 1964,

00:07:43.830 --> 00:07:48.260
you have one of the shadiest
incidents in American history.

00:07:48.260 --> 00:07:51.880
As you can imagine, we, in
our function as advisors,

00:07:51.880 --> 00:07:55.360
we had sent ships into the
Gulf of Tonkin, right off

00:07:55.360 --> 00:07:59.030
of the coast of North Vietnam.

00:07:59.030 --> 00:08:01.080
So the original
story goes-- and this

00:08:01.080 --> 00:08:05.440
is a very suspect
original story-- in 1964,

00:08:05.440 --> 00:08:08.974
the US Maddox-- and this is
the original story-- claimed

00:08:08.974 --> 00:08:10.390
to that it was
attacked, or it was

00:08:10.390 --> 00:08:12.380
claimed that the US
Maddox was attacked

00:08:12.380 --> 00:08:15.920
by North Vietnamese
patrol boats,

00:08:15.920 --> 00:08:18.280
and that there was a
little skirmish-- there

00:08:18.280 --> 00:08:19.530
was an exchange of fire.

00:08:19.530 --> 00:08:22.690
And it was also claimed that
a few days later another boat

00:08:22.690 --> 00:08:24.580
in the Gulf of Tonkin,
another US vessel,

00:08:24.580 --> 00:08:26.860
was attacked by a
North Vietnamese boat.

00:08:26.860 --> 00:08:28.850
That was the original story.

00:08:28.850 --> 00:08:31.890
This angered Congress, this
angered the American people.

00:08:31.890 --> 00:08:35.789
How dare they attack ships that
are sitting off of the coast,

00:08:35.789 --> 00:08:37.669
warships that are
sitting off the coast.

00:08:37.669 --> 00:08:44.590
And so this kind of
gave the emotional fuel

00:08:44.590 --> 00:08:47.420
to pass the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution.

00:08:47.420 --> 00:08:50.560
So these incidents, or these
purported incidents-- this,

00:08:50.560 --> 00:08:52.182
kind of, attack
on the USS Maddox,

00:08:52.182 --> 00:08:54.390
and this other thing that
might have happened-- these

00:08:54.390 --> 00:08:56.320
were called the Gulf
of Tonkin Incidents.

00:08:56.320 --> 00:08:58.810
This angered Congress,
angered the American people,

00:08:58.810 --> 00:09:01.880
so we passed the Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution,

00:09:01.880 --> 00:09:05.720
and what's relevant about it
is that it gave LBJ, here,

00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:08.940
it gave him the
authority to officially

00:09:08.940 --> 00:09:13.060
engage in a war in Vietnam,
to officially escalate it

00:09:13.060 --> 00:09:15.712
to an actual war that
the US was involved in.

00:09:15.712 --> 00:09:17.420
And this whole time
I've been saying it's

00:09:17.420 --> 00:09:19.040
shady, because
it's now been shown

00:09:19.040 --> 00:09:23.360
that one, the Gulf of
Tonkin-- well it's not clear

00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:24.730
that really anything happened.

00:09:24.730 --> 00:09:29.480
There might have been some
firing from the USS Maddox.

00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:34.180
They might have actually engaged
the North Vietnamese patrol

00:09:34.180 --> 00:09:35.240
boats.

00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:37.880
The other possibility
that might have happened

00:09:37.880 --> 00:09:40.170
is that nothing happened.

00:09:40.170 --> 00:09:44.110
But any way you look at it,
it's now been fairly established

00:09:44.110 --> 00:09:46.955
that it was not a real incident.

00:09:46.955 --> 00:09:52.280
It was not really North Vietnam
attacking the United States.

00:09:52.280 --> 00:09:56.010
But it was relevant because
it really escalated the war.

00:09:56.010 --> 00:09:59.120
So now you have Johnson-- did
I say North Korea originally?

00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:00.164
I apologize for that.

00:10:00.164 --> 00:10:01.580
We're talking about
North Vietnam.

00:10:01.580 --> 00:10:03.710
I don't remember what
my brain actually said.

00:10:03.710 --> 00:10:05.190
Of course, North Vietnam.

00:10:05.190 --> 00:10:11.490
But it gave Johnson the
power to escalate the war.

00:10:11.490 --> 00:10:13.080
And so his
administration is really

00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:14.630
the heart of the
Vietnam War, when

00:10:14.630 --> 00:10:16.300
the war was really escalated.

00:10:16.300 --> 00:10:19.880
We eventually get to
500,000 US troops.

00:10:19.880 --> 00:10:22.500
But the whole time this is
happening, you can imagine,

00:10:22.500 --> 00:10:26.800
Johnson and the American
military leaders in Vietnam

00:10:26.800 --> 00:10:29.610
are telling the American people,
oh, we're fighting communism.

00:10:29.610 --> 00:10:31.090
We're about to win.

00:10:31.090 --> 00:10:32.910
This is a noble war.

00:10:32.910 --> 00:10:35.590
And you fast forward,
and especially,

00:10:35.590 --> 00:10:39.152
the part about to win--
you fast forward to 1968,

00:10:39.152 --> 00:10:41.110
and all of a sudden you
have the Viet Cong, who

00:10:41.110 --> 00:10:43.750
the American leaders have
told the American people

00:10:43.750 --> 00:10:46.350
and the Congress, that
they're about to be defeated,

00:10:46.350 --> 00:10:50.020
and then in 1968, the Viet Cong
orchestrate the Tet Offensive,

00:10:50.020 --> 00:10:53.550
which is this massive
coordinated attack

00:10:53.550 --> 00:11:00.750
on a bunch of targets
throughout South Vietnam.

00:11:00.750 --> 00:11:03.010
And so even though it was
wasn't completely successful

00:11:03.010 --> 00:11:05.460
militarily, the intent
of the Tet Offensive

00:11:05.460 --> 00:11:07.940
was to completely turn
the tides in the war.

00:11:07.940 --> 00:11:09.970
It made the American
people and the Congress

00:11:09.970 --> 00:11:11.020
rightfully suspicious.

00:11:11.020 --> 00:11:14.450
You, Mr. Johnson,
you had told us

00:11:14.450 --> 00:11:15.970
that we were about
to win the war,

00:11:15.970 --> 00:11:19.350
and the Viet Cong were almost
defeated, and all of a sudden,

00:11:19.350 --> 00:11:22.380
they orchestrate this
sophisticated attack on us.

00:11:22.380 --> 00:11:25.860
It rightfully made the
American public suspicious.

00:11:25.860 --> 00:11:28.890
On top of that, and this
probably made matters

00:11:28.890 --> 00:11:31.860
a lot worse, the My
Lai Massacre comes out.

00:11:31.860 --> 00:11:33.900
And in every war
there are massacres,

00:11:33.900 --> 00:11:36.130
but the United States,
at least believes,

00:11:36.130 --> 00:11:39.880
that its soldiers can kind
of take the high road.

00:11:39.880 --> 00:11:42.680
They don't engage in
these type of things.

00:11:42.680 --> 00:11:45.800
But the My Lai Massacre showed
that, really, no soldiers

00:11:45.800 --> 00:11:47.760
are immune to massacres.

00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:50.120
And this is really a
disgusting massacre,

00:11:50.120 --> 00:11:51.300
and it was documented.

00:11:51.300 --> 00:11:53.280
And if you really
want to be disturbed,

00:11:53.280 --> 00:11:55.730
do a Google search for images
of the My Lai Massacre.

00:11:55.730 --> 00:11:57.360
It will ruin your weekend.

00:11:57.360 --> 00:12:00.080
It'll depress you.

00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:05.520
It's US soldiers killing a
village of innocent women

00:12:05.520 --> 00:12:06.450
and children.

00:12:06.450 --> 00:12:07.870
There's pictures of dead babies.

00:12:07.870 --> 00:12:10.410
It's horrible, and to
make matters worse--

00:12:10.410 --> 00:12:13.095
or even, add insult to injury--
the soldiers who committed

00:12:13.095 --> 00:12:14.470
it-- there was
actually a few who

00:12:14.470 --> 00:12:19.860
tried to defend the villagers
and when they came back,

00:12:19.860 --> 00:12:22.070
they were treated
almost like traitors.

00:12:22.070 --> 00:12:25.390
But the soldiers who actually
did the attack, only one

00:12:25.390 --> 00:12:27.930
of them got jail time and it
was only a couple years of jail

00:12:27.930 --> 00:12:29.500
time, and this
was for massacring

00:12:29.500 --> 00:12:32.250
a village of women and children.

00:12:32.250 --> 00:12:34.130
So already, you had
the Tet Offensive.

00:12:34.130 --> 00:12:36.120
It makes the American
public suspicious

00:12:36.120 --> 00:12:37.834
of whether we can
even win this war.

00:12:37.834 --> 00:12:39.250
Then you have the
My Lai Massacre,

00:12:39.250 --> 00:12:42.600
which just disgusts
the public, and makes

00:12:42.600 --> 00:12:44.540
people realize that
we're involved in a war

00:12:44.540 --> 00:12:47.860
that it's not even clear who are
the good guys anymore, not even

00:12:47.860 --> 00:12:49.790
clear what the real goals are.

00:12:49.790 --> 00:12:52.860
Make matters worse, you
fast forward to 1971.

00:12:52.860 --> 00:12:56.110
The Pentagon Papers get
leaked to the New York Times.

00:12:56.110 --> 00:12:57.590
And these pretty
much articulate--

00:12:57.590 --> 00:13:00.680
it's a classified
document that articulates

00:13:00.680 --> 00:13:03.640
that the leadership, the
military and non-military

00:13:03.640 --> 00:13:06.990
leadership of the Vietnam
War, was, to some degree,

00:13:06.990 --> 00:13:08.882
lying to Congress and
the American people.

00:13:08.882 --> 00:13:10.590
It was lying about
how the war was going.

00:13:10.590 --> 00:13:13.140
It was lying about what
activities it was doing.

00:13:13.140 --> 00:13:15.360
It did not tell the
American people and Congress

00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:18.620
that it was actually engaged
in war in Laos and Cambodia.

00:13:18.620 --> 00:13:20.757
And a lot of the reason
why we were engaged

00:13:20.757 --> 00:13:22.340
in Laos and Cambodia
is because that's

00:13:22.340 --> 00:13:24.950
where the supply routes
were between the North

00:13:24.950 --> 00:13:28.510
and the South-- they ran
through Laos and Cambodia.

00:13:28.510 --> 00:13:31.260
And the most famous of them,
and you might have heard of it,

00:13:31.260 --> 00:13:33.290
is the Ho Chi Minh trail.

00:13:33.290 --> 00:13:35.640
And it wasn't just one
trail, it was actually

00:13:35.640 --> 00:13:37.050
a network of trails.

00:13:37.050 --> 00:13:38.530
And so a lot of
the activity that

00:13:38.530 --> 00:13:40.280
was going on in
Laos and Cambodia

00:13:40.280 --> 00:13:44.230
was, kind of, carpet bombing
of what the US thought were

00:13:44.230 --> 00:13:45.630
some of these supply routes.

00:13:45.630 --> 00:13:48.434
And we never really
got a good-- well,

00:13:48.434 --> 00:13:49.600
that's a whole other debate.

00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:52.209
But it wasn't just one
trail the was easily bombed.

00:13:52.209 --> 00:13:53.750
It was all of these
little foot paths

00:13:53.750 --> 00:13:55.250
and all of these
other things, where

00:13:55.250 --> 00:13:58.320
arms were able to be transported
from the North to the South.

00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:01.030
But the Pentagon
Papers, rightfully,

00:14:01.030 --> 00:14:03.880
made the American people
even more suspicious.

00:14:03.880 --> 00:14:06.320
And then now we're entering
into Nixon's administration,

00:14:06.320 --> 00:14:09.890
and he was still doing
the carpet bombing, still

00:14:09.890 --> 00:14:14.070
atrocities going on,
but he, his whole goal

00:14:14.070 --> 00:14:15.690
was to kind of
wind down the war,

00:14:15.690 --> 00:14:18.340
bring the troops out on a
timetable without, kind of,

00:14:18.340 --> 00:14:20.210
an unofficial defeat.

00:14:20.210 --> 00:14:23.930
So you fast forward to 1973, you
have the Paris Peace Accords,

00:14:23.930 --> 00:14:29.210
where officially there is peace
between the North, the South,

00:14:29.210 --> 00:14:30.960
the North, and the Americans.

00:14:30.960 --> 00:14:32.480
You can imagine it from
the North's point of view,

00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:34.100
they're like, sure, we'll
sign some peace accords.

00:14:34.100 --> 00:14:35.683
It'll just make the
Americans go away,

00:14:35.683 --> 00:14:37.520
once the Americans
go away they won't

00:14:37.520 --> 00:14:39.228
be able to come back,
since this was such

00:14:39.228 --> 00:14:40.510
a hugely unpopular war.

00:14:40.510 --> 00:14:46.330
It was such a waste for
America on so many dimensions.

00:14:46.330 --> 00:14:49.374
Especially, America's
prestige as a global actor.

00:14:49.374 --> 00:14:50.790
We'll just wait
for them to leave,

00:14:50.790 --> 00:14:52.960
and then we can overrun
the South after that.

00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:54.460
And that's essentially
what happens.

00:14:54.460 --> 00:14:58.720
In 1975, the North just
overruns the South,

00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:02.630
and then later
that year, you have

00:15:02.630 --> 00:15:04.390
Saigon falling to the North.

00:15:04.390 --> 00:15:06.460
And then it becomes
Ho Chi Minh City.

00:15:06.460 --> 00:15:08.650
And just this whole
period, you have

00:15:08.650 --> 00:15:10.730
President Thieu is in
power, and just to show

00:15:10.730 --> 00:15:13.450
where his priorities
are-- near the end,

00:15:13.450 --> 00:15:16.642
right when the North is
falling to South Vietnam--

00:15:16.642 --> 00:15:18.100
and you can kind
of see the writing

00:15:18.100 --> 00:15:20.725
on the wall-- he gives a speech
to the Vietnamese people saying

00:15:20.725 --> 00:15:22.040
that he'll never desert them.

00:15:22.040 --> 00:15:24.860
But then when it
becomes pretty clear

00:15:24.860 --> 00:15:27.310
that Saigon is going to fall
to the North Vietnamese,

00:15:27.310 --> 00:15:30.800
he gets on a big
US transport plane

00:15:30.800 --> 00:15:35.857
with, literally,
15 tons of luggage.

00:15:35.857 --> 00:15:37.940
I'll let you think about
how much luggage that is.

00:15:37.940 --> 00:15:44.880
And $15 million worth of
gold, and this is $15 million

00:15:44.880 --> 00:15:46.990
worth of gold in 1975.

00:15:46.990 --> 00:15:49.170
So you can imagine
how much he really

00:15:49.170 --> 00:15:51.390
cared about the
Vietnamese people.

00:15:51.390 --> 00:15:53.890
And he eventually ends up
settling in Massachusetts.

00:15:53.890 --> 00:15:57.360
And he died there
about 10 years ago.

00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:01.845
So you could imagine, this was
an ugly incident for the world.

00:16:01.845 --> 00:16:05.030
A super ugly incident for
the Vietnamese people.

00:16:05.030 --> 00:16:09.220
A super ugly chapter
in American history.

00:16:09.220 --> 00:16:12.390
It was the first war
that one, America lost,

00:16:12.390 --> 00:16:16.320
but more, it hurts prestige,
it hurts America's ability

00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:20.640
to influence what was going on
in other parts of the world.

00:16:20.640 --> 00:16:23.060
You had the containment
theory, that we

00:16:23.060 --> 00:16:24.740
have to stop communism
from spreading.

00:16:24.740 --> 00:16:27.870
And the domino theory,
that if one country

00:16:27.870 --> 00:16:30.930
would fall to communism
then the other ones were.

00:16:30.930 --> 00:16:31.770
That didn't happen.

00:16:31.770 --> 00:16:33.450
The South did
fall, but we didn't

00:16:33.450 --> 00:16:36.530
have the rest of Southeast
Asia falling to communism.

00:16:36.530 --> 00:16:39.020
So it kind of disproved
the domino theory,

00:16:39.020 --> 00:16:40.810
especially because
after the Vietnam War

00:16:40.810 --> 00:16:42.750
the United States would
not be able to enter

00:16:42.750 --> 00:16:44.930
another war like
it for some time,

00:16:44.930 --> 00:16:47.190
because the American people
wouldn't let it happen.

00:16:47.190 --> 00:16:49.310
So to some degree, it would
have been easier for communism

00:16:49.310 --> 00:16:50.420
to spread, because
people would have

00:16:50.420 --> 00:16:52.250
known that the US
couldn't engage it.

00:16:52.250 --> 00:16:55.410
But despite that, the
domino theory didn't happen.

00:16:55.410 --> 00:16:56.820
But it was just all-around ugly.

00:16:56.820 --> 00:17:00.155
I mean, besides the
massacres, and the raping,

00:17:00.155 --> 00:17:03.110
and the pillaging of innocence
that happened on, really,

00:17:03.110 --> 00:17:09.474
on all sides of this, you have
1 to 3 million Vietnamese--

00:17:09.474 --> 00:17:11.390
and no one will really
know the actual count--

00:17:11.390 --> 00:17:12.431
but that's a huge number.

00:17:12.431 --> 00:17:14.849
1 to 3 million
Vietnamese were killed.

00:17:14.849 --> 00:17:21.804
You have 58,000 American
troops being killed.

00:17:21.804 --> 00:17:23.220
And you have
hundreds of thousands

00:17:23.220 --> 00:17:27.020
of Cambodians and Laotions
who are never really formally

00:17:27.020 --> 00:17:29.090
involved in the war,
they were killed.

00:17:29.090 --> 00:17:31.980
Especially, due to a lot of
this carpet bombing campaign.

00:17:31.980 --> 00:17:37.010
So these are just atrocious
numbers, and really one

00:17:37.010 --> 00:17:41.310
of the worst and ugliest
chapters in US history.


US History Overview 3 - WWII to Vietnam

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.580 --> 00:00:02.440
We finished off the
last video entering

00:00:02.440 --> 00:00:03.770
into the Great Depression.

00:00:03.770 --> 00:00:05.430
It wasn't just a
depression for the US.

00:00:05.430 --> 00:00:06.650
It was a depression
for the world.

00:00:06.650 --> 00:00:08.108
But I want to back
up a little bit,

00:00:08.108 --> 00:00:11.150
because I forgot to mention
a very important fact that's

00:00:11.150 --> 00:00:14.680
hugely important to
the rest of US history

00:00:14.680 --> 00:00:15.980
into the 20th century.

00:00:15.980 --> 00:00:19.750
And that's what happened in
1917, actually during World War

00:00:19.750 --> 00:00:22.790
I. And that's the
Bolshevik Revolution.

00:00:22.790 --> 00:00:26.350
The Russian empire was
overthrown by the Bolsheviks.

00:00:26.350 --> 00:00:30.970
And it became the Soviet
Union, which you probably know

00:00:30.970 --> 00:00:33.870
was a communist state, and
it became the United States

00:00:33.870 --> 00:00:35.950
archenemy over the
rest of-- well,

00:00:35.950 --> 00:00:38.960
not over the rest of--
but near the, I guess,

00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:41.182
the second half of
the 20th century.

00:00:41.182 --> 00:00:42.640
So with that out
of the way, I just

00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:46.000
want to make sure you know that
Russia is now the Soviet Union.

00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:48.689
Let's fast forward back
through the Great Depression,

00:00:48.689 --> 00:00:50.230
and probably the
one point when we're

00:00:50.230 --> 00:00:53.150
doing this very high-level
overview that's of interest.

00:00:53.150 --> 00:00:56.020
And as you can see, even
though the focus of this series

00:00:56.020 --> 00:00:57.864
of videos is on US
interest, what's

00:00:57.864 --> 00:00:59.280
happening in the
rest of the world

00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:01.780
is starting to become much more
important, because the US is

00:01:01.780 --> 00:01:05.450
starting to become this
really serious global actor.

00:01:05.450 --> 00:01:09.150
And so in 1933-- so this
is right in the middle

00:01:09.150 --> 00:01:11.840
of this global depression,
and Germany was especially

00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:14.890
hit hard because of all the
damage done by World War

00:01:14.890 --> 00:01:17.510
I and the war reparations
and all the rest.

00:01:17.510 --> 00:01:21.890
You have Hitler coming to
power as chancellor of Germany.

00:01:21.890 --> 00:01:24.175
And it's interesting to
note that it was actually--

00:01:24.175 --> 00:01:26.760
he came to power in
a democratic process.

00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:29.500
Chancellor of Germany is
analogous to prime minister

00:01:29.500 --> 00:01:32.540
of other countries,
and so essentially he

00:01:32.540 --> 00:01:34.830
was ruling a coalition.

00:01:34.830 --> 00:01:37.690
The Nazis, his party, did
not have the majority.

00:01:37.690 --> 00:01:40.000
But they were able to
control this coalition.

00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:41.371
Although it was a very weak one.

00:01:41.371 --> 00:01:43.620
But what they were good at
is intimidating and rigging

00:01:43.620 --> 00:01:45.250
elections and all the rest.

00:01:45.250 --> 00:01:47.340
And so over the course
of the rest of the '30s,

00:01:47.340 --> 00:01:50.540
essentially the Nazis
consolidated power

00:01:50.540 --> 00:01:52.110
until we get to 1939.

00:01:52.110 --> 00:01:55.140
And the rest of the world
would kind of watch Hitler.

00:01:55.140 --> 00:01:57.030
He was consolidating power.

00:01:57.030 --> 00:01:59.920
He came in democratically,
but he was essentially

00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:01.700
consolidating power
under himself,

00:02:01.700 --> 00:02:04.060
turning it into a dictatorship.

00:02:04.060 --> 00:02:05.780
He was militarizing Germany.

00:02:05.780 --> 00:02:09.417
People started to get
concerned, but they all

00:02:09.417 --> 00:02:10.750
had the doctrine of appeasement.

00:02:10.750 --> 00:02:13.940
Hey, you know, let's just
not make him too angry

00:02:13.940 --> 00:02:16.520
and maybe he won't
start anything too bad.

00:02:16.520 --> 00:02:19.335
But in 1939, Germany
invades Poland.

00:02:22.360 --> 00:02:25.700
And this is kind of
viewed as the one event

00:02:25.700 --> 00:02:28.270
that kind of-- the straw
that breaks the camel's

00:02:28.270 --> 00:02:29.450
back, so to speak.

00:02:29.450 --> 00:02:31.160
And so it begins World War II.

00:02:31.160 --> 00:02:34.870
So this is the beginning
of World War II.

00:02:34.870 --> 00:02:37.590
And initially it's
between-- I guess

00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:39.870
if you think about the great
powers that initially get

00:02:39.870 --> 00:02:43.270
involved, it is the British
Empire and the Soviet Union.

00:02:43.270 --> 00:02:44.310
France is involved.

00:02:44.310 --> 00:02:47.100
It quickly gets
overrun by the Nazis.

00:02:47.100 --> 00:02:50.130
And what happens
is that the US-- it

00:02:50.130 --> 00:02:51.930
wasn't like the situation
with World War I

00:02:51.930 --> 00:02:53.990
where the US was
trying to stay neutral.

00:02:53.990 --> 00:02:56.820
The US had recognized,
especially FDR, Franklin Delano

00:02:56.820 --> 00:03:01.690
Roosevelt, he had recognized
that Hitler was an aggressor,

00:03:01.690 --> 00:03:06.141
that he was, from FDR's point
of view, definitely in the wrong

00:03:06.141 --> 00:03:06.640
here.

00:03:06.640 --> 00:03:08.980
So even from the
beginning of World War II,

00:03:08.980 --> 00:03:15.210
the US did help
support the Allies.

00:03:15.210 --> 00:03:18.810
So it would send arms and
any other type of assistance.

00:03:18.810 --> 00:03:22.780
When Japan and Italy joined
on the side of Germany,

00:03:22.780 --> 00:03:26.410
the US embargoed oil to Japan.

00:03:26.410 --> 00:03:28.552
The US was an exporter
of oil to Japan.

00:03:28.552 --> 00:03:30.010
And you could
imagine Japan did not

00:03:30.010 --> 00:03:33.030
produce a lot of its own oil,
and oil is super important

00:03:33.030 --> 00:03:35.090
when you're trying
to run a war machine.

00:03:35.090 --> 00:03:36.940
So that didn't make
Japan too happy.

00:03:36.940 --> 00:03:41.560
So you fast forward to 1941,
and you have Japan bombing Pearl

00:03:41.560 --> 00:03:42.070
Harbor.

00:03:42.070 --> 00:03:46.910
So until this point, US kind
of played a non-direct role.

00:03:46.910 --> 00:03:48.850
It definitely
supported the Allies.

00:03:48.850 --> 00:03:51.370
It did what it
could economically

00:03:51.370 --> 00:03:54.270
and by providing military
aid, but it did not actively

00:03:54.270 --> 00:03:55.660
participate in the fighting.

00:03:55.660 --> 00:03:59.940
But then December 7,
1941, the Japanese

00:03:59.940 --> 00:04:05.060
bombed the US Pacific
fleet at Pearl Harbor.

00:04:05.060 --> 00:04:07.100
And that's a whole
interesting debate

00:04:07.100 --> 00:04:10.480
because, or discussion,
it was lucky for the US

00:04:10.480 --> 00:04:13.570
that a lot of the Pacific
fleet was not there.

00:04:13.570 --> 00:04:18.720
But it was obviously this thing
that convinced the US public

00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:21.920
that World War II
was worth joining.

00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:26.640
So in 1941, because of Pearl
Harbor, the US enters the war.

00:04:26.640 --> 00:04:28.240
And it enters the
war in both arenas,

00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:31.630
both in Europe and
in the Pacific.

00:04:31.630 --> 00:04:33.130
And then you fast forward.

00:04:33.130 --> 00:04:35.760
It goes against the
Italians in North Africa.

00:04:35.760 --> 00:04:39.000
And then you fast forward
to 1944, it actually

00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:43.090
enters into the fight
in mainland Europe.

00:04:43.090 --> 00:04:44.500
This is the invasion
of Normandy.

00:04:44.500 --> 00:04:45.530
This is D-Day.

00:04:45.530 --> 00:04:47.577
June 6, 1944.

00:04:47.577 --> 00:04:49.410
If you have ever seen
"Saving Private Ryan,"

00:04:49.410 --> 00:04:51.690
it starts with this.

00:04:51.690 --> 00:04:54.730
I've never stormed
a beach, but I

00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:57.390
could imagine that's probably
the most realistic reenactment

00:04:57.390 --> 00:05:01.420
of what it was like to
storm the beach at Normandy.

00:05:01.420 --> 00:05:04.240
But you fast forward to 1945.

00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:08.880
And eventually, especially
between the Soviet and the US,

00:05:08.880 --> 00:05:10.840
or I should say all
the Allied forces,

00:05:10.840 --> 00:05:15.000
they're able to, I guess, win
the European front of World War

00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:16.030
II.

00:05:16.030 --> 00:05:18.170
And then you fast forward
to the end of that year.

00:05:18.170 --> 00:05:21.570
Japan was still kind of
fighting pretty ferociously.

00:05:21.570 --> 00:05:24.125
And so the US-- and
this is once again--

00:05:24.125 --> 00:05:25.500
I could make many
videos of this.

00:05:25.500 --> 00:05:28.710
We can debate the ethical
implications of this.

00:05:28.710 --> 00:05:31.960
But the US develops
the atomic bomb,

00:05:31.960 --> 00:05:34.960
ignites one over Hiroshima
and then a few days later one

00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:36.380
over Nagasaki.

00:05:36.380 --> 00:05:39.710
And that essentially
ends World War II.

00:05:39.710 --> 00:05:41.640
And so the outcome
of World War II

00:05:41.640 --> 00:05:43.540
is you have two
remaining superpowers.

00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:49.790
You have the Soviet Union, and
you have the United States.

00:05:49.790 --> 00:05:52.540
And what happens after that
is that you have the Cold War.

00:05:52.540 --> 00:05:55.560
These two huge powers,
the Soviet Union

00:05:55.560 --> 00:05:57.200
is this communist country.

00:05:57.200 --> 00:06:00.170
It's obviously trying to
create this communist sphere

00:06:00.170 --> 00:06:00.720
of influence.

00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:03.730
A lot of Eastern Europe was
falling under Soviet sway.

00:06:03.730 --> 00:06:06.240
The United States, not
a communist country,

00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:08.732
a very capitalist
country, you can imagine.

00:06:08.732 --> 00:06:10.690
And this is something
that gets confused a lot.

00:06:10.690 --> 00:06:14.770
The Soviet Union was communist,
and it was totalitarian.

00:06:14.770 --> 00:06:16.975
Communism and Democracy
aren't necessarily things

00:06:16.975 --> 00:06:18.100
that go against each other.

00:06:18.100 --> 00:06:21.250
But the Soviet Union had
neither a capitalist system,

00:06:21.250 --> 00:06:22.550
nor democracy.

00:06:22.550 --> 00:06:25.649
It was both communist
and totalitarian.

00:06:25.649 --> 00:06:27.190
And when I say
communist, I'm talking

00:06:27.190 --> 00:06:29.740
about no private wealth.

00:06:29.740 --> 00:06:32.360
The state really
owned all resources.

00:06:32.360 --> 00:06:35.120
The United States, on the other
hand, was hugely capitalist.

00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:37.370
And you could imagine many
people in the United States

00:06:37.370 --> 00:06:39.540
did not want any of
this communism business

00:06:39.540 --> 00:06:42.280
to come to us.

00:06:42.280 --> 00:06:45.500
So you have this major battle
that never really erupts

00:06:45.500 --> 00:06:48.320
into direct conflict between
the Soviet Union and the United

00:06:48.320 --> 00:06:48.820
States.

00:06:48.820 --> 00:06:51.270
It's always done
through proxies,

00:06:51.270 --> 00:06:53.750
through people who the United
States or the Soviet Union

00:06:53.750 --> 00:06:56.229
is acting on the behalf--
or who are acting on behalf

00:06:56.229 --> 00:06:57.770
of the United States
or Soviet Union.

00:06:57.770 --> 00:06:59.665
But you have the
Cold War beginning.

00:06:59.665 --> 00:07:02.040
And it's called the Cold War
because it wasn't a hot war.

00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:03.850
The United States
and the Soviet Union

00:07:03.850 --> 00:07:06.370
never really fired
bullets at each other.

00:07:06.370 --> 00:07:08.837
Instead, they
supported other parties

00:07:08.837 --> 00:07:10.670
that would fire bullets
at the Soviet Union.

00:07:10.670 --> 00:07:12.628
Or the Soviet Union would
support other parties

00:07:12.628 --> 00:07:15.040
that would fire bullets
at the United States.

00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:17.090
And for the United
States, it was all

00:07:17.090 --> 00:07:18.630
about stopping communism.

00:07:18.630 --> 00:07:21.850
It was all about preventing
this domino theory

00:07:21.850 --> 00:07:24.275
that if one country in a
region would fall to communism,

00:07:24.275 --> 00:07:25.400
that other countries would.

00:07:25.400 --> 00:07:28.220
So the United States
became a bit paranoid,

00:07:28.220 --> 00:07:29.420
or maybe it was justified.

00:07:29.420 --> 00:07:31.370
Either way, it
was very concerned

00:07:31.370 --> 00:07:33.364
about the spread of communism.

00:07:33.364 --> 00:07:35.780
And the first time that this
really gets tested-- and 1950

00:07:35.780 --> 00:07:39.000
is an interesting year, because
this is the first time--

00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.320
obviously, the US had
nuclear weapons as of 1945.

00:07:42.320 --> 00:07:45.360
But in 1950, the
Soviet Union tested

00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:46.850
its first nuclear weapon.

00:07:46.850 --> 00:07:49.580
So now the Cold War is
starting to get very serious.

00:07:49.580 --> 00:07:51.470
Both of these
adversaries can now

00:07:51.470 --> 00:07:53.560
nuke each other
if they wanted to.

00:07:53.560 --> 00:07:56.060
And also in 1950,
you have Korea.

00:07:56.060 --> 00:07:58.700
And Korea, before World
War II-- so that's

00:07:58.700 --> 00:08:01.160
a very small
depiction of Korea--

00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:02.680
it was a Japanese colony.

00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:04.980
But obviously,
Japan had now lost.

00:08:04.980 --> 00:08:06.660
And so after World
War II, it was

00:08:06.660 --> 00:08:10.290
split between an area,
North Korea, which

00:08:10.290 --> 00:08:12.590
was influenced by the Russians,
and South Korea, which

00:08:12.590 --> 00:08:14.420
was influenced by
the United States.

00:08:14.420 --> 00:08:16.430
And it was split along
the 38th parallel,

00:08:16.430 --> 00:08:18.356
and I know this is a
super small diagram.

00:08:18.356 --> 00:08:19.730
We'll go into more
detail when we

00:08:19.730 --> 00:08:23.120
do detailed videos
about the Korean War.

00:08:23.120 --> 00:08:28.120
But in 1950, you have the North
Koreans invaded the South.

00:08:28.120 --> 00:08:29.350
So it started the Korean War.

00:08:29.350 --> 00:08:30.490
The US sent troops.

00:08:30.490 --> 00:08:33.740
The North Koreans had China on
their side, the Chinese army.

00:08:33.740 --> 00:08:36.690
The Soviets were
also supplying them.

00:08:36.690 --> 00:08:39.720
But at the end of
the day in 1953,

00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:41.570
you fast forward,
it ends up being

00:08:41.570 --> 00:08:44.750
a little bit of a stalemate,
because the end result was is

00:08:44.750 --> 00:08:48.310
that the original 38th
parallel border gets,

00:08:48.310 --> 00:08:49.620
I guess, reinstated.

00:08:49.620 --> 00:08:52.920
But that was the first real
conflict of the Cold War.

00:08:52.920 --> 00:08:55.610
And notice there were
never US or Russian--

00:08:55.610 --> 00:08:58.430
or I shouldn't say Russian--
US or Soviet troops

00:08:58.430 --> 00:09:00.780
directly firing at each other.

00:09:00.780 --> 00:09:03.730
The US were at
war with the North

00:09:03.730 --> 00:09:05.520
Korean and the Chinese
troops, but they

00:09:05.520 --> 00:09:08.460
were kind of proxies
for the Soviet Union.

00:09:08.460 --> 00:09:11.010
And at the same time,
as you can imagine,

00:09:11.010 --> 00:09:13.370
because you have these
two adversaries, these two

00:09:13.370 --> 00:09:15.730
technically sophisticated
adversaries--

00:09:15.730 --> 00:09:18.670
they both had
nuclear weapons-- it

00:09:18.670 --> 00:09:22.240
became very interesting on who
can kind of dominate space.

00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:26.040
So you have this kind of
space race developing in 1957.

00:09:26.040 --> 00:09:31.052
The Soviets are able to launch
the first artificial satellite

00:09:31.052 --> 00:09:31.760
around the earth.

00:09:31.760 --> 00:09:34.900
This is Sputnik One over here.

00:09:34.900 --> 00:09:36.490
Some people think
the first Sputnik

00:09:36.490 --> 00:09:38.110
is the one that
had the dog in it.

00:09:38.110 --> 00:09:39.640
No, that came a
few months later.

00:09:39.640 --> 00:09:41.360
That was Sputnik Two, actually.

00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:44.240
Had the picture of the dog here,
but the dog eventually dies.

00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:46.764
But it was alive for
a little bit in orbit.

00:09:46.764 --> 00:09:48.180
So that gets
everyone freaked out.

00:09:48.180 --> 00:09:49.250
The US responds.

00:09:49.250 --> 00:09:52.100
Then in 1961 you
have Yuri Gagarin.

00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:55.760
He's the first person in space,
first human being in space.

00:09:55.760 --> 00:09:57.490
He returns safely.

00:09:57.490 --> 00:09:59.990
We eventually get up there--
or the United States eventually

00:09:59.990 --> 00:10:01.330
gets up there as well.

00:10:01.330 --> 00:10:03.590
And you fast forward all
the way to 1969, the US

00:10:03.590 --> 00:10:05.090
is the first to be on the moon.

00:10:05.090 --> 00:10:06.490
So you have this space race.

00:10:06.490 --> 00:10:10.300
The two countries are really
trying to one up each other.

00:10:10.300 --> 00:10:12.520
And at the same time
that that's happening,

00:10:12.520 --> 00:10:14.790
you have-- and I bring this
up just because so much

00:10:14.790 --> 00:10:16.620
happened during his presidency.

00:10:16.620 --> 00:10:21.210
In 1960, you have
John F. Kennedy

00:10:21.210 --> 00:10:24.640
being elected kind of in
the heart of the Cold War.

00:10:24.640 --> 00:10:26.200
And the other
interesting thing is

00:10:26.200 --> 00:10:28.420
he was the first
Catholic president,

00:10:28.420 --> 00:10:31.199
which people questioned.

00:10:31.199 --> 00:10:32.490
That by itself was interesting.

00:10:32.490 --> 00:10:35.130
But what was really interesting
in his short presidency-- and I

00:10:35.130 --> 00:10:38.030
think you might know
that only had really--

00:10:38.030 --> 00:10:39.720
he actually became
president in '61.

00:10:39.720 --> 00:10:40.470
This is an error.

00:10:40.470 --> 00:10:43.590
He was elected in '60, but
he became president in '61.

00:10:43.590 --> 00:10:45.560
He had a very short presidency.

00:10:45.560 --> 00:10:47.560
He was assassinated
in '63, but a lot

00:10:47.560 --> 00:10:50.410
happened in that
short presidency.

00:10:50.410 --> 00:10:55.950
In 1957, right before he became
president, you had-- oh, sorry.

00:10:55.950 --> 00:10:56.787
Not 1957.

00:10:56.787 --> 00:10:57.870
Let me get my years right.

00:10:57.870 --> 00:11:01.510
1959 you had the
Cuban Revolution.

00:11:01.510 --> 00:11:03.710
Cuba became communist.

00:11:03.710 --> 00:11:05.920
Fidel Castro takes over.

00:11:05.920 --> 00:11:07.740
It becomes communist.

00:11:07.740 --> 00:11:09.980
So you could imagine,
the Americans

00:11:09.980 --> 00:11:13.950
didn't like a communist state
so close to our own borders.

00:11:13.950 --> 00:11:21.240
So in 1961 we support
some ex-Cubans,

00:11:21.240 --> 00:11:24.880
or some Cuban exiles,
to try to invade Cuba.

00:11:24.880 --> 00:11:28.800
And that also can be a whole
topic for another video.

00:11:28.800 --> 00:11:31.590
There's debates between the CIA
and the Kennedy administration

00:11:31.590 --> 00:11:34.940
for who was to blame for
it being such a failure,

00:11:34.940 --> 00:11:36.195
but it was a failure.

00:11:36.195 --> 00:11:39.030
So it was a huge embarrassment
to the United States.

00:11:39.030 --> 00:11:41.770
And from the
revolutionaries' point

00:11:41.770 --> 00:11:44.300
of view, the communist
revolutionaries' point of view,

00:11:44.300 --> 00:11:47.770
they kind of viewed this as
solidifying their hold of Cuba.

00:11:47.770 --> 00:11:50.500
It showed that
they could fend off

00:11:50.500 --> 00:11:55.370
a counter-revolutionary assault.

00:11:55.370 --> 00:11:58.270
And then you have in 1962.

00:11:58.270 --> 00:11:59.640
We have these spy planes.

00:11:59.640 --> 00:12:01.930
And we see that the
Soviets are starting

00:12:01.930 --> 00:12:05.099
to put these ballistic missiles
in Cuba, which really freaks

00:12:05.099 --> 00:12:07.640
the United States out, because
these ballistic missiles could

00:12:07.640 --> 00:12:09.500
reach any part of
the United States.

00:12:09.500 --> 00:12:12.640
We actually had similar ones
in parts of Europe and Turkey,

00:12:12.640 --> 00:12:14.540
but we don't like
these things here.

00:12:14.540 --> 00:12:18.160
So we essentially used
our Navy to, I would say,

00:12:18.160 --> 00:12:22.810
blockade any more arms
shipments to the Soviet Union.

00:12:22.810 --> 00:12:25.860
So Kennedy really has this kind
of stand-off with the Soviet

00:12:25.860 --> 00:12:29.470
Union during the Cuban
Missile Crisis in 1962.

00:12:29.470 --> 00:12:30.910
And most people
believe that this

00:12:30.910 --> 00:12:34.270
was the closest that the United
States and the Soviet Union

00:12:34.270 --> 00:12:37.100
ever got to actually
having a war,

00:12:37.100 --> 00:12:40.640
and which would have probably
turned into a nuclear war.

00:12:40.640 --> 00:12:44.050
But the stand-off
eventually got resolved.

00:12:44.050 --> 00:12:47.650
The Soviet Union agreed
to remove their missiles.

00:12:47.650 --> 00:12:50.300
Well, one, not send anymore
missiles and dismantle the ones

00:12:50.300 --> 00:12:52.367
that they had already set up.

00:12:52.367 --> 00:12:54.200
And this wasn't publicly
stated at the time,

00:12:54.200 --> 00:12:55.630
but the United
States also agreed

00:12:55.630 --> 00:12:57.860
to do the same thing
for our missiles

00:12:57.860 --> 00:12:59.460
that were pointed
at the Soviet Union,

00:12:59.460 --> 00:13:01.660
to remove those from Turkey.

00:13:01.660 --> 00:13:05.140
So the world, at least
at that point in time,

00:13:05.140 --> 00:13:09.217
had avoided a mutually
assured destruction.

00:13:09.217 --> 00:13:10.800
The whole time that
this is happening,

00:13:10.800 --> 00:13:12.960
remember, the United
States is paranoid.

00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:14.500
And maybe justifiably so.

00:13:14.500 --> 00:13:16.940
Paranoia usually means worried
when there's not a cause.

00:13:16.940 --> 00:13:20.000
But maybe justifiably worried
about the spread of communism.

00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:22.720
You have a situation
where, in Vietnam, you

00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:27.460
have a Vietnam, which
is right about-- let

00:13:27.460 --> 00:13:30.230
me make sure I circle the
right country-- you have

00:13:30.230 --> 00:13:35.840
in Vietnam the communists come
to power in North Vietnam.

00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:38.610
This was formally
a French colony.

00:13:38.610 --> 00:13:41.080
The US, right from
the get-go in 1950,

00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:45.850
start sending advisers to
aid the anti-communists

00:13:45.850 --> 00:13:47.490
in South Vietnam.

00:13:47.490 --> 00:13:50.800
In Kennedy's administration,
the amount of advisors-- and I

00:13:50.800 --> 00:13:52.890
should probably
put that in quotes,

00:13:52.890 --> 00:13:56.930
because these advisers started
becoming much more involved--

00:13:56.930 --> 00:13:58.140
really grew.

00:13:58.140 --> 00:14:00.430
And until 1965,
the United States

00:14:00.430 --> 00:14:04.630
started sending it acts
actual official combat

00:14:04.630 --> 00:14:07.480
troops to fight in Vietnam.

00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:09.735
And you fast forward
that all the way to 1975.

00:14:09.735 --> 00:14:11.360
And the reason why
this is significant,

00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:14.370
other than this being one of
the more recent major wars

00:14:14.370 --> 00:14:16.350
the United States
has been in, it's

00:14:16.350 --> 00:14:19.061
the first war that the United
States kind of unambiguously

00:14:19.061 --> 00:14:19.560
lost.

00:14:19.560 --> 00:14:25.600
In 1975, the last presence
of the United States left.

00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:27.140
And essentially
Saigon, which was

00:14:27.140 --> 00:14:30.770
the capital of South Vietnam,
fell to the communists.

00:14:30.770 --> 00:14:33.430
So I'll leave you there,
and we're now essentially

00:14:33.430 --> 00:14:35.120
in modern history.

00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:37.370
At least from my point
of view, because I

00:14:37.370 --> 00:14:39.470
was born not too
long after that.

00:14:39.470 --> 00:14:41.830
Anyway, hopefully you
found that interesting.

00:14:41.830 --> 00:14:44.740
Let me, oh, I couldn't
find the stop button.

00:14:44.740 --> 00:14:46.500
There you go.