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U-2 Incident

On May 1, 1960, two weeks prior to the United
States-Soviet Summit in Paris, a U-2 high altitude
reconnaissance airplane was shot down while flying a
spy mission over the Soviet Union. The Eisenhower
administration was forced to own up to the mission,
and Khrushchev canceled the Paris Summit. As a
result, The Cold War between the United States and
the Soviet Union continued for over 30 years.
Shortly after the end of World War II, United States
and the Soviet Union emerged as the two superpowers.
These two former wartime allies found themselves
locked in a struggle that came to be known as the Cold
War. Eisenhower saw the Cold War in stark moral
terms: "This is a war of light against darkness,
freedom against slavery, Godliness against atheism."
But the President refused to undertake an effort to
"roll back" Soviet gains in the years after WW II.
Early in his administration he embraced a policy of
containment as the cornerstone of his administration's
Soviet policy. Eisenhower rejected the notion of a
"fortress America" isolated from the rest of the
world, safe behind its nuclear shield. He believed
that active US engagement in world affairs was the
best means of presenting the promise of democracy to
nations susceptible to the encroachment of
Soviet-sponsored communism. Additionally, Eisenhower
maintained that dialogue between the US and the Soviet
Union was crucial to the security of the entire globe,
even if, in the process, each side was adding to its
pile of nuclear weapons.
The death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, two months
into the Eisenhower presidency, gave rise to hopes of
a more flexible, accommodating Soviet leadership. In
1953, Eisenhower delivered a speech underscoring the
potential human cost of the Cold War to both sides.
Hoping to strike a more compatible tone with Georgi
Malenkov, Stalin's successor, Eisenhower suggested the
Soviets cease their brazen expansion of territory and
influence in exchange for...