Hello, and thank you for joining me.

I'm Mr. Marchant.

And I'll be your history teacher for today's lesson.

I'll be guiding you through all of our resources.

And my top aims are to ensure not only that you enjoy our learning, but also that you can successfully meet today's lesson objective.

Welcome to today's lesson, which is part of our unit on the development of the Cold War, where we've been asking ourselves, how peaceful was peaceful coexistence? By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to explain the impact of the U2 crisis on East-West relations.

There are three key words which will help us navigate our way through today's lesson.

Those are peaceful coexistence, treaty, and espionage.

Peaceful coexistence is the belief that conflict between the USA and USSR could be avoided.

A treaty is a written agreement between two or more countries.

And espionage is the act of spying and gaining secret information about another country.

Today's lesson will be split into three parts.

And we'll begin by focusing on Paris and peaceful coexistence.

The 1950s witnessed many challenges for superpower relations.

Nevertheless, despite repeated moments of tension, there was also optimism during the decade that some of the divide between the USA and the USSR could be closed.

This optimism was best represented by the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev's, idea of peaceful coexistence.

So thinking about what we've heard so far, What was Nikita Khrushchev's belief that tensions and conflicts did not have to exist between the USA and USSR known as? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answer.

Okay, well done To everybody who said that the correct answer was peaceful coexistence.

This was the name of Nikita Khrushchev's belief that tensions and conflict between the USA and USSR did not have to exist.

There were signs during the 1950s that peaceful coexistence was possible.

At the 1955 Geneva Summit, the leaders of the USSR and USA met for the first time since 1945.

Both superpowers halted nuclear weapons testing in November, 1958.

And in 1959, Khrushchev visited the USA and met with President Dwight D.

Eisenhower at Camp David.

So let's just check we have a secure understanding of what we've just heard.

Who did Khrushchev meet at Camp David in 1959? Was it the Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, U.

S.

President, Dwight D.

Eisenhower, or Yugoslav leader, Josip Tito? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said the correct answer was B.

In 1959, Khrushchev met with U.

S.

President, Dwight D.

Eisenhower, at Camp David.

This was a really important opportunity for the two leaders of the superpowers to get into contact with one another.

At Camp David, Eisenhower and Khrushchev agreed to meet again the following year, 1960, in Paris to continue their talks.

This planned meeting became known as the Paris Summit, to which the leaders of Britain and France were also invited.

It was hoped that formal agreements could be reached in several areas at Paris, including the status of Berlin, as the USSR was worried about the city's role in East Germany's refugee crisis, a nuclear test ban treaty, and the situation in Cuba, as the USA was worried about the island's recent revolution.

So considering what we've just heard, I want you to identify at least two issues which were scheduled for discussions at the 1960 Paris Summit.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answers.

Okay, well done to anybody who said that so many issues scheduled to be discussed at Paris included the status of Berlin, a nuclear test ban treaty, and the situation in Cuba.

So we are now in a good position to put all of our knowledge about Paris and peaceful coexistence into practise.

I want you to summarise why there was optimism about the possibility of peaceful coexistence at the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s.

Your summary should refer to each of the following, nuclear weapons, Paris, and Summit meeting.

So pause video here and press play when you're ready to reflect on your response.

Okay, well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So I asked you to summarise why there was optimism about the possibility of peaceful coexistence at the end of the 1950s and beginning at the 1960s.

Your answer may have included, there was optimism about peaceful coexistence at the end of the 1950s and beginning at the 1960s because of growing signs of superpower cooperation.

For instance, in 1958, both the USA and USSR agreed to stop testing nuclear weapons.

The following year, the leaders of the two superpowers, Khrushchev and Eisenhower, met one another at Camp David to discuss areas of disagreement between the two countries.

Both sides agreed to continue these talks at a further summit meeting in Paris in 1960 where issues such as Berlin, Cuba, and a formal treaty to ban nuclear testing were to be negotiated.

So really well done if your own response looks something like that model, which we've just seen.

And now, we're ready to move on to the second part of today's lesson, where we are going to think about the U2 crisis.

Despite the optimism about the Paris Summit, the meeting was significantly disrupted by the U2 crisis.

This crisis began to develop just before the Summit began in May, 1960.

During the Cold War, espionage was conducted by both the USA and the USSR.

Since 1956, the USA had been conducting surveillance flights over the Soviet Union using U2 spy planes.

These flights involved violating the airspace of the USSR, but President Eisenhower was willing to approve them.

For one, the operations were able to reveal important details about the USSR's military.

In particular, the flights helped the U.

S.

to gather information about the Soviet's development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs. Eisenhower was also willing to approve these flights, as Soviet authorities had been unable to stop them themselves.

American U2s flew at a height and a speed which put them out of reach of Soviet fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles.

And so, there appeared to be little danger involved in the operations.

The USSR did make private complaints to the U.

S.

government on three separate occasions, but the flights continued anyway.

So thinking about what we've just heard, what was a U2? Was it an American ICBM, an American satellite or an American spy plane? Pause video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that The correct answer was C.

U2s were American spy planes.

They were not weapons, like ICBMs. And when they first came into use in 1956, they were not satellites which could be used for the same purposes of surveillance.

And let's try another question.

This time we have a statement which reads, "The USSR was unaware of U2 flights occurring in its airspace." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was false.

But we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that Soviet authorities were aware of the flights, but did not consider them to pose any security risk to the USSR.

And the second says that Soviet authorities were aware of the flights, but did not have technology capable of shooting down U2s.

So which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause a video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct justification was B.

Soviet authorities were aware of the U2 flights, but did not have technology capable of shooting down those U2s.

Despite improving relations between the two superpowers and the upcoming Paris Summit, Eisenhower continued to approve U2 flights over the USSR in early 1960.

However, on the 1st of May, 13 days before the summit, a U2 spy plane piloted by Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR.

Improvements in their technology had finally enabled Soviet anti-aircraft missiles to reach the height which the U2s flew at.

Powers survived, but was captured and revealed the details of his mission when he was interrogated by Soviet officials.

The U.

S.

, which did not know that Powers had survived and been captured, claimed that the U2 had only been a weather monitoring plane, as it did not want to publicly admit to espionage.

However, at this point, the USSR publicly revealed that they had captured Powers and demonstrated that the American government had lied about the U2.

As a result, President Eisenhower was forced to admit to lying and to approving espionage operations, which he justified as a distasteful, but vital necessity.

Both Khrushchev and Eisenhower still travelled to Paris to attend the Summit.

But once they arrived, the Soviets demanded an American apology.

When Eisenhower refused, Khrushchev walked out the day after the Summit had begun.

Okay, so let's make sure we have a secure understanding of what we've just heard.

Who offers the best explanation for why the U.

S.

lied about the U2 flight shutdown on the 1st of May? Laura says that the U.

S.

did not think that the USSR was aware of the U2 spy missions.

Izzy says that President Eisenhower was unaware that a U2 flight had taken place.

And Sam says that the U.

S.

believed it might look bad if it admitted to espionage.

So who has the most convincing explanation? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the best explanation was provided by Sam.

It is right to say that the U.

S.

believed it might look bad if it admitted to espionage.

President Eisenhower was well aware that a U2 flight had taken place just before the Paris Summit, as it was him who had approved it.

And the U.

S.

also knew that the USSR must know about it because the plane crashed in their territory.

It was because the U.

S.

was worried about its prestige and its public reputation that it decided to lie about the flight.

So we're now in a good position to put our knowledge of the U2 crisis into practise.

We have six events in our table.

Starting with the earliest, I want you to sort the events into chronological order.

You should use the numbers one to six to indicate your answers.

So pause the video here and press play when you're ready to check your answers.

Okay, well done for all of your effort on that task.

So I asked you to sort the events in our table into chronological order.

You should have identified the first event as the beginning of U2 flights over the USSR.

These started in 1956.

Our second event was that Soviets captured Gary Powers after shooting down his U2 at the start of May, 1960.

This was followed by the USA claiming that Powers was flying a weather plane.

However, fourthly, you should have identified that Khrushchev exposed that the USA was flying, something he was able to do because the Soviets had captured Powers himself.

Fifthly, Eisenhower refused to apologise for the U2 flights when Khrushchev demanded that he do so at the Paris Summit.

And so, the final event that we had from our table should have been that Khrushchev walked out of the Paris Summit.

So really well done if you identified that chronological order correctly.

And now, we're ready to move on to the third and final part of our lesson for today, where we are going to think about the consequences of the U2 crisis.

The U2 crisis had a very disruptive effect on the Cold War.

It was particularly significant for U.

S.

prestige, and also for the relationship between the two superpowers.

The U2 crisis damaged the USA's prestige.

Not only was the country court conducting espionage operations at a time when the superpowers was supposedly working towards peaceful coexistence, but it was also exposed lying about its spying activities.

The Soviets use this for their own propaganda to depict the U.

S.

as untrustworthy.

At the same time, there were protests in some countries where American U2s were based, including in Japan, where there was already opposition to the existence of U.

S.

military bases around the country.

Although unsuccessful, by July, 1960, there were protests in Tokyo involving over 100,000 people against Japan's alliance with the USA.

America's actions were also criticised by other American allies.

Britain's Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was disappointed by Eisenhower's refusal to apologise to Khrushchev.

And there were criticisms in other European countries about how American mismanagement had destabilised the Paris Summit.

Nevertheless, the USA's allies remained loyal, despite their frustrations.

So thinking about what we've just heard, which statement is most accurate? U.

S.

allies, like Britain and Japan, were critical of the Americans during the U2 crisis.

U.

S.

allies, like Britain and Japan, ended their alliances with the USA during the U2 crisis.

Or U.

S.

allies, like Britain and Japan, sided with the USSR during the U2 crisis.

Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct answer was A.

U.

S.

allies, like Britain and Japan, were critical of the Americans during the U2 crisis.

However, they still remained loyal to their ally.

The U2 crisis was blamed for a deterioration in relations between the two superpowers.

A clear indication of this breakdown was Khrushchev's decision to withdraw an invitation that had been made during the Camp David Summit the previous year for President Eisenhower to visit the USSR.

Similarly, the USSR attempted to lead a condemnation of the USA at the United Nations, or the UN, after the collapse at the Paris Summit.

Meanwhile, many figures in the USA accused the Soviets of hypocrisy arguing that the USSR also committed many acts of espionage.

Other critics suggested that Khrushchev had overreacted to the crisis, and wrecked the Paris Submit in the process because he was more interested in achieving a propaganda victory against the USA than he was in securing real agreements, which could benefit both sides.

Superpower relations were also undermined as the failure of the Paris Summit meant that the issues which were set to be discussed, Berlin, Cuba, and nuclear testing, went unresolved.

This allowed these issues to become worse and contributed to some of the crises which occurred between the USA and the USSR during the early 1960s.

According to Eisenhower, had it not been for U2 crisis, the Paris Summit and his visit to the Soviet Union could have greatly helped Soviet and American relations.

So let's check our understanding of what we've just heard.

We have a statement on the screen that reads, "Some limited agreements were made at the Paris Summit." Is that statement true or false? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that that statement was false.

But we need to be able to justify our response.

So two justifications have appeared on the screen.

The first says that Eisenhower walked out after the first day, so no deals could be reached.

And the second says that Khrushchev walked out after the first day, so no deals could be reached.

Which one of those two justifications is correct? Pause the video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the correct justification was B.

Khrushchev walked out after the first day of the Paris Summit, so no deals could be reached.

And let's try another question.

This time, I want you to write the missing word from the following statement.

Some critics suggested that Khrushchev overreacted to the U2 crisis in order to achieve a blank victory against the U.

S.

So what's the missing word? Pause video here and press play when you're ready to see the right answer.

Okay, well done to everybody who said that the missing word was propaganda.

Some critics suggested that Khrushchev overreacted to the U2 crisis in order to achieve a propaganda victory against the U.

S.

, and that he was more interested in this than he was in trying to overcome the two countries' differences.

So we're now in a good position to put all of our knowledge about the consequences of the U2 crisis into practise.

I want you to study Sofia's view.

She says, "Because of the USA, a serious opportunity to make peaceful coexistence a reality was wasted." I want you to do two things in response to Sofia's statement.

Firstly, I want you to explain why some historians might agree with Sofia's view.

And then, I want you to explain why some historians might disagree with Sofia's view.

So pause video here and press play when you are ready to reflect on your responses.

Okay, well done for all of your hard work on that task.

So firstly, I asked you to explain why some historians might agree with Sofia's view.

And your answer may have included, some historians may agree with Sofia's view because the U2 crisis helped lead to the collapse at the Paris Summit in 1960.

It had been intended that the superpowers would discuss major issues, such as Berlin, Cuba, and nuclear testing at the Summit.

However, the continuation of American espionage flights above the USSR immediately before the Summit undermined Soviet trust in the U.

S.

Furthermore, despite the urging of countries, like Britain, President Eisenhower refused to apologise for U2 flights leading to Khrushchev's walkout from the Paris Summit.

Therefore, the U.

S.

could be blamed for provoking the USSR and preventing the Paris Summit from reaching agreements which may have made peaceful coexistence possible.

It's really well done if your own response to the first part of Task C look something like that model.

I then asked you to explain why some historians might disagree with Sofia's view.

And your answer may have included, some historians may disagree with Sofia's view because the failure of the Paris Summit was guaranteed by Soviet reactions to the U2 crisis.

Whilst the U.

S.

did provoke the Soviets by launching a U2 flight just before the Summit, lying about it, and refusing to apologise, some people at the time accused Khrushchev of overreacting.

Indeed, the Soviet Union itself engaged in many forms of espionage against the USA.

So the outrage it claimed to feel could be considered hypocritical.

Similarly, some critics suggested that the USSR's demand for an American apology showed that Khrushchev was more interested in securing a propaganda victory than he was in making agreements with the USA, which could make peaceful coexistence a reality.

So again, really well done if your own response look something like that model there.

And that means we'd now reach the end of today's lesson, which puts us in a good position to summarise our learning about the U2 crisis.

We've seen that U.

S.

and Soviet relations showed signs of improvement at the end of the 1950s, making some people optimistic that peaceful coexistence could become a reality.

The 1960 Paris Summit was a scheduled meeting between the leaders of the superpowers to try and resolve issues, such as Berlin, Cuba, and nuclear testing.

In May, 1960, an American U2 spy plane was shot down over the USSR, just before the beginning of the Paris Summit.

And as a result, the USSR walked out of the Paris Summit and blamed this on the USA's untrustworthy behaviour and espionage, although some American critics of the Soviets claim that Khrushchev overreacted.

So really well done for all of your effort during today's lesson.

It's been a pleasure to help guide you through our resources today, and to think together about the development of the Cold War in the 1950s and very early '60, and really ask ourselves, how peaceful was peaceful coexistence?.