and promising the release of thousands from labor camps, relaxation of censorship, more contact with foreigners, and an increase in consumer goods. The “Khrushchev thaw” began to change the face of the Cold War.
OCTOBER 1957 The Soviet Sputnik in Space
When the Soviet Union launched “sputnik,”the first man-made earth satellite, on October 4, 1957, American space scientists publicly acknowledged that its transporting missile could just as easily carry a nuclear warhead. The American public, long accustomed to leadership in military technology, reacted with understandable dismay. Widespread soul- searching led not only to a renewed civil defense effort but also to the passage of the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which provided millions of dollars for scientific education in American high schools and universities. Problems with the launchings of America’s first satellites soon prompted claims by political critics such as Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA) that a disadvantageous “missile gap” existed. This was the beginning of a decade-long “space race” with Russia, intensified by Khrushchev’s recklessness in falsely asserting that Soviet pre-eminence in space exploration required negotiations on issues like the status of Berlin. SEE FIGURE 50
Figure 50. The Soviet Sputnik or “little traveler” launched in 1957 was the first man made object to orbit the earth. Image courtesy of National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
and the new medium of television. Walt Disney’s greatest success — the creation of the world’s most famous amusement park — was yet to come. Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney had been four when his family moved to a remote Missouri farm town called Marceline. This town would have a formative impact on Disney’s later life, as it provided him with archetypal American images that were later incorporated into Disneyland, which opened in Anaheim in July 1955 and became the all-consuming focus of Disney’s life. Disneyland’s appeal can be attributed to its re-creation of small-town America, as well as its use of adventure, frontier, space, and storybook themes. In 2007, nearly fifteen million people visited the park, a figure surpassed only by the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. SEE FIGURE 49 FEBRUARY 1956 Nikita Khrushchev Introduces “De-Stalinization” Following Stalin’s death in March 1953, his former lieutenants, convinced that his domestic and foreign policies had been too severe and intimidating, cast about for alternatives, first under the leadership of Georgi Malenkov and then, after January 1955, under Nikita Khrushchev. The new Soviet foreign policy they devised strove for closer ties with Eastern Europe, the creation of buffers between military blocs, and more economic and political cooperation with NATO countries. The inevitability of war was played down; peaceful coexistence and non-violent competition became the objective. In a secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress on February 2, 1956, Khrushchev extended these ideas to domestic affairs, attacking and discrediting Stalin for his crimes
LATE 1950S Aerospace-Defense Industry Launched in Orange County
During the Cold War, industrial firms receiving Department of Defense contracts were located primarily in the suburban areas of southern and western states, referred to by some as the Pacific’s “defense perimeter.” From 1951 to 1965 California received more defense contracts than any other state. Many of Orange County’s employers and workers participated in aerospace-defense. Indeed, that industry served as a major catalyst for the county’s economic boom, with firms such as Northrop Corporation, Hughes Aircraft, Douglas Aircraft’s Space Systems (later McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company), North American Rockwell’s Autonetics Electronics Systems Division, and Ford Motor Company’s Aeronutronics establishing divisions in the region. With the decline of the aerospace-defense industry in the late 1980s, the county experienced a successful, if highly disruptive, transition to a more diversified economy.
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