1960's Government and Politics | The Cold War Continued: Crisis Years, 1960-1965

A Summit Canceled.

During the first few years of the 1960s, the Cold War continued at the same high level of antagonism as in the late 1950s. After Soviet premier Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics made occasional tentative steps toward reducing tensions. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had summit meetings with Soviet leaders in 1955 and 1959, but a planned summit meeting in 1960 was canceled in the wake of the U-2 incident.

The U-2 Affair.

An American U-2 spy plane, flown by CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers, was shot down over Soviet territory on 1 May 1960. Eisenhower at first denied that the United States was engaged in aerial spying over the Soviet Union, but when the Soviets put the captured pilot on display, Eisenhower was forced to admit that the incident had indeed happened. Yet he defended the U-2 spy missions and refused to apologize for the intrusion...