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- President Richard Nixon visited Chairman Mao in Beijing in February 1972, accompanied by National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. Secretary of State William Rogers was largely excluded from the secret preparations. Premier Zhou Enlai hosted the American delegation. The Shanghai Communiqué was issued at the end of the visit. Ambassador Arthur Burns monitored the diplomatic impact from Tokyo.
British Agent Kim Philby defected to Moscow in 1963 after being exposed as a double agent working for the Soviet KGB. Fellow Cambridge spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean had defected earlier in 1951. MI5 officer Arthur Martin led the investigation. CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton had maintained a close friendship with Philby. Anthony Blunt was later revealed as the Fourth Man.
General Colin Powell served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Operation Desert Storm against Iraq in 1991. General Norman Schwarzkopf commanded the coalition forces in the theater. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney oversaw the operation from the Pentagon. President George H.W. Bush assembled the international coalition. Saudi King Fahd hosted American forces at bases in Saudi Arabia.
Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico from 1942 to 1945. General Leslie Groves oversaw the entire project from the Army side. Physicist Enrico Fermi achieved the first sustained nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago. Edward Teller advocated for a hydrogen bomb. The first nuclear test, Trinity, was conducted on July 16, 1945 at Alamogordo.
President Lyndon Johnson signed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 10, 1964, escalating American military involvement in Vietnam. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara presented evidence to Congress. Senator William Fulbright guided the resolution through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp commanded the Pacific Fleet from Honolulu. Captain John Herrick commanded the USS Maddox in the Tonkin Gulf.
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer led West Germany through reconstruction and integration with NATO and the European Economic Community. Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard designed the social market economy. Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano negotiated European integration. French President Charles de Gaulle signed the Élysée Treaty with Adenauer in January 1963, establishing Franco-German reconciliation.
Marshal Georgy Zhukov led the Red Army's capture of Berlin in April 1945, accepting Germany's unconditional surrender. Marshal Ivan Konev commanded the First Ukrainian Front advancing from the south. General Vasily Chuikov's Eighth Guards Army fought through the city center. Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker on April 30. General Hans Krebs attempted to negotiate a ceasefire with Chuikov.
President Harry Truman authorized the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945. Secretary of War Henry Stimson advised Truman on the decision. General Curtis LeMay commanded the strategic bombing campaign from the Mariana Islands. Colonel Paul Tibbets piloted the Enola Gay over Hiroshima on August 6. Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender on August 15.
Premier Fidel Castro allied Cuba with the Soviet Union after the Bay of Pigs invasion organized by the CIA in April 1961. CIA Director Allen Dulles planned the operation under President Eisenhower. President Kennedy inherited and approved the plan. Brigade 2506 of Cuban exiles landed at Playa Girón. Castro's brother Raúl commanded the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Soviet Premier Khrushchev pledged military support to Cuba.
Spy Rudolf Abel was exchanged for American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers on the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin in February 1962. Attorney James Donovan negotiated Abel's defense and the subsequent exchange. CIA pilot Powers had been shot down over Soviet territory on May 1, 1960. KGB officer Vilyam Fisher had operated in New York under the Abel alias. President Eisenhower was embarrassed by the U-2 incident.
General William Westmoreland commanded US forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, headquartered in Saigon. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. served as the senior American diplomat. General Creighton Abrams succeeded Westmoreland as commander. CIA station chief William Colby ran the Phoenix Program. South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu coordinated military operations with American forces.
President Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO's integrated military command in 1966, asserting French independence. Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville delivered the formal notification. Secretary of State Dean Rusk protested the decision. NATO headquarters relocated from Paris to Brussels, Belgium. General Lyman Lemnitzer served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe during the transition.
Agent Oleg Penkovsky provided intelligence to MI6 and the CIA about Soviet missile capabilities before his arrest in Moscow in 1962. MI6 officer Greville Wynne served as the contact in Moscow. CIA officer Joe Bulik managed the American side of the operation. KGB Chairman Vladimir Semichastny ordered Penkovsky's arrest. Penkovsky's intelligence proved crucial during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Secretary Dean Acheson helped create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 as President Truman's Secretary of State. British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin co-designed the alliance framework. Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester Pearson contributed to the treaty negotiations. General Eisenhower became NATO's first military commander in 1950. The treaty was signed in Washington on April 4, 1949.