History

Timeline of Key Points During the Cold War

THAW 1962-1969
Less risk of war after Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Wall Crisis

1963: President Kennedy was assassinated and replaced by Lyndon B. Johnson.

President Johnson

1964: Khrushchev replaced by Brezhnev (and Kosygin).

1966: Mao started the Chinese Cultural Revolution -- using enthusiastic young communists known as Red Guards they attacked senior communist officials -China was viewed as extremist and incredibly anti-western.

1968: Prague Spring -- People were upset with poor living conditions. In January 1968 Dubcek became the head of the Communist Party, he wanted a more open Communist society, in March Ludvik Svodoba a supporter of Dubcek became Prime Minister, Dubcek introduced reforms known as 'socialism with a human face' on censorship, business, workers councils, foreign travel and a new parliament would be elected. This alarmed the USSR who thought they would lose power over Eastern Europe if these reforms continued. In June Warsaw pact armed forces threatened Dubcek to stop making reforms. Even through he was willing to make some changes the Soviet government decided to invade Czechoslovakia. Dubcek and his supporters were removed from government.
--Brezhnev Doctrine - Brezhnev made a speech stating that if communist government decided to make Western-style reforms it was up to other communist governments to stop them, this he believed justified the Czechoslovakian invasion in 1968 and Hungarian invasion in 1956.

1969: July 20 -- Apollo 11 lands on the moon