{{Infobox Officeholder | name = Leonid BrezhnevЛеонид Брежнев | image = Brezhnev-color.jpg | caption = | citizenship = Soviet | nationality = Russian & Ukrainian | office = General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union(As First Secretary from 1964 to 1966) | president = Anastas Mikoyan (until 1965)Nikolai Podgorny (until 1977)Himself | premier = Alexei Kosygin (until 1980)Nikolai Tikhonov | term_start = 14 October 1964 | term_end = 10 November 1982 | predecessor = Nikita Khrushchev | successor = Yuri Andropov | office2 = Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union | term_start2 = 16 June 1977 | term_end2 = 10 November 1982 | predecessor2 = Nikolai Podgorny | successor2 = Vasili Kuznetsov (acting) | term_start3 = 7 May 1960 | term_end3 = 15 July 1964 | predecessor3 = Kliment Voroshilov | successor3 = Anastas Mikoyan | office4 = Chairman of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian SFSR | term_start4 = 16 November 1964 | term_end4 = 8 April 1966 | predecessor4 = Nikita Khrushchev | successor4 = None—post abolished | 1blankname4 = Deputy | 1namedata4 = Andrei Kirilenko | birth_date = December 19, 1906 | birth_place = Kamenskoe, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire | death_date = November 10, 1982 | death_place = Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | spouse = Viktoria Brezhneva | children = Galina BrezhnevaYuri Brezhnev | signature = Leonid Brezhnev Signature.svg | profession = Metallurgical Engineer, Civil servant | party = Communist Party of the Soviet Union | residence = Kutuzovsky Prospekt | allegiance = Soviet Union | branch = Red Army | serviceyears = 1941–1946 | rank = Major GeneralMarshal of the Soviet Union | commands = Soviet Armed Forces | battles = World War II | awards = | footnotes = This article is part of the series He was now a senior member of Khrushchev's entourage, and in June 1957, he backed Khrushchev in his struggle with the Stalinist old guard in the Party leadership, the so-called "Anti-Party Group". Following the defeat of the old guard, Brezhnev became a full member of the Politburo. Brezhnev became Second Secretary of the Central Committee in 1959, and in May 1960 was promoted to the post of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, making him nominal head of state although the real power resided with Khrushchev as Party Secretary. In 1962, Brezhnev became an honorary citizen of Belgrade.

Removal of Khrushchev

Until about 1962, Khrushchev's position as Party leader was secure; but as the leader aged, he grew more erratic and his performance undermined the confidence of his fellow leaders. The Soviet Union's mounting economic problems also increased the pressure on Khrushchev's leadership. Outwardly, Brezhnev remained loyal to Khrushchev, but he became involved in a 1963 plot to remove the leader from power, possibly playing a leading role. In 1963 also, Brezhnev succeeded Frol Kozlov, another Khrushchev protege, as Secretary of the Central Committee, positioning him as Khrushchev's likely successor. Khrushchev made him Second Secretary, literally deputy party leader, in 1964.

After returning from Scandinavia and Czechoslovakia, sensing nothing afoot, Khrushchev went on holiday in Pitsunda, near the Black Sea in October 1964. Upon his return, his Presidium officers congratulated him for his work in office. Anastas Mikoyan visited Khrushchev, hinting that he should not be too complacent about his present situation. Vladimir Semichastny, head of the KGB, was a crucial part of the conspiracy, as it was his duty to inform Khrushchev if anyone was plotting against his leadership. Nikolay Ignatov, who had been sacked by Khrushchev, discreetly requested the opinion of several Central Committee members. After some false starts, fellow conspirator Mikhail Suslov phoned Khrushchev on 12 October and requested that he return to Moscow to discuss the state of Soviet agriculture. Eventually Khrushchev understood what was happening, and said to Mikoyan, "If it's me who is the question, I will not make a fight of it". While a minority headed by Mikoyan wanted to remove Khrushchev from the office of First Secretary but retain him as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, the majority headed by Brezhnev wanted to remove him from active politics.

Brezhnev and Nikolai Podgorny appealed to the Central Committee, blaming Khrushchev for economic failures, and accusing him of voluntarism and immodest behavior. Influenced by the Brezhnev allies, Politburo members voted to remove Khrushchev from office. In addition, some members of the Central Committee wanted him to undergo punishment of some kind. But Brezhnev, who had already been assured the office of the General Secretary, saw little reason to punish his old mentor further. Brezhnev was appointed First Secretary, but at the time was believed to be a transition leader of sorts, who would only "keep the shop" until another leader came in. Alexei Kosygin was appointed head of government, and Mikoyan became head of state. Brezhnev and his companions supported the general party line taken after Joseph Stalin's death, but felt the Khrushchev reforms had removed much of the Soviet Union's stability. One of the main reasons for Khrushchev's ousting was that he continuously overruled other party members. ''Pravda'', a newspaper in the Soviet Union, wrote of new enduring themes such as collective leadership, scientific planning, consultation with experts, organisational regularity and the ending of schemes. When Khrushchev left the public spot light, there was no popular commotion because most Soviet citizens, including the intelligentsia, anticipated a period of stabilisation, steady development of Soviet society and continuing economic growth in the years to come.

Leader (1964–82)

Consolidation of power

Early policy reforms were seen as predictable. In 1964, a plenum of the Central Committee forbade any single individual to hold the two most powerful posts of the country (the office of the General Secretary and the Premier). Former Chairman of the State Committee for State Security (KGB) Alexander Shelepin disliked the new collective leadership and its reforms. He made a bid for the supreme leadership in 1965 by calling for restoration of "obedience and order". Shelepin failed to gather support in the Presidium and Brezhnev's position was fairly secure; however, he was not able to remove Shelepin from office until 1967.

Khrushchev was removed mainly because of his disregard of many high-ranking organisations within the CPSU and the Soviet government. Throughout the Brezhnev era, the Soviet Union was controlled by a collective leadership (officially coined "Collectivity of leadership"), at least through the late 1960s and 1970s. The consensus within the party was that the collective leadership prevailed over the supreme leadership of one individual. T.H. Rigby argued that by the end of the 1960s, a stable oligarchic system had emerged in the Soviet Union, with most power vested around Brezhnev, Kosygin and Podgorny. While the assessment was true at the time, it coincided with Brezhnev's strengthening of power by means of an apparent clash with Central Committee Secretariat Mikhail Suslov. American Henry A. Kissinger, in the 1960s, mistakenly believed Kosygin to be the dominant leader of Soviet foreign policy in the Politburo. During this period, Brezhnev was gathering enough support to strengthen his position within Soviet politics. In the meantime, Kosygin was in charge of economic administration in his role as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. However Kosygin's position was weakened when he proposed an economic reform in 1965, which was widely referred to as the "Kosygin reform" within the Communist Party. The reform led to a backlash, and party Conservatives continued to oppose Kosygin after witnessing the results of reforms leading up to the Prague Spring. His opponents then flocked to Brezhnev, and they happily helped him in his task of strengthening his position within the Soviet system.

Brezhnev was adept at the politics within the Soviet power structure. He was a team player and never acted rashly or hastily; unlike Khrushchev, he did not make decisions without substantial consultation with his colleagues, and was always willing to hear their opinions. During the early 1970s, Brezhnev consolidated his domestic position. In 1977, he forced the retirement of Podgorny and became once again Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, making this position equivalent to that of an executive president. While Kosygin remained Premier until shortly before his death in 1980 (replaced by Nikolai Tikhonov as Premier), Brezhnev was the dominant driving force of the Soviet Union from the mid-1970s to his death in 1982.

Domestic policies

Repression

Brezhnev's stabilisation policy included ending the liberalising reforms of Khrushchev, and clamping down on cultural freedom. During the Khrushchev years Brezhnev had supported the leader's denunciations of Stalin's arbitrary rule, the rehabilitation of many of the victims of Stalin's purges, and the cautious liberalisation of Soviet intellectual and cultural policy. But as soon as he became leader, Brezhnev began to reverse this process, and developed an increasingly conservative and regressive attitude.

The trial of the writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky in 1966—the first such trials since Stalin's day—marked the reversion to a repressive cultural policy. Under Yuri Andropov the state security service (the KGB) regained much of the power it had enjoyed under Stalin, although there was no return to the purges of the 1930s and 1940s, and Stalin's legacy remained largely discredited among the Soviet intelligentsia. On 22 January 1969, a Soviet Army deserter, Viktor Ilyin, tried to assassinate Brezhnev and was diagnosed with mental illness and placed in solitary confinement in a psychiatric hospital. By the mid-1970s, there were an estimated 10,000 political and religious prisoners across the Soviet Union, living in grievous conditions and suffering from malnutrition; many of these prisoners were considered by the Soviet state to be mentally unfit and were hospitalised in mental asylums across the Soviet Union. The KGB infiltrated most if not all anti-government organisations under Brezhnev's rule, which ensured that there was little to no opposition against him or his power base. Brezhnev did however refrain from the all-out violence seen under the rule of Stalin.

Economics

Economic growth until 1973

! Period	GNP(according tothe CIA)	GNP(according toGrigorii Khanin)	GNP(according tothe USSR)
1960–1965	4.8	4.4	6.5
1965–1970	4.9	4.1	7.7
1970–1975	3.0	3.2	5.7
1975–1980	1.9	1.0	4.2
1980–1985	1.8	0.6	3.5

Between 1960 and 1970, Soviet agriculture output increased by 3% annually. Industry also improved, during the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1968–1970) the output of factories and mines increased by 138%, compared to 1960. While the Politburo became aggressively anti-reformist, Kosygin was able to convince both Brezhnev and the politburo to leave the reformist communist leader János Kádár of the People's Republic of Hungary alone because of an economic reform entitled New Economic Mechanism (NEM), which granted limited permission for the establishment of retail markets. In the People's Republic of Poland, another approach was taken in 1970 under the leadership of Edward Gierek, he believed that the government needed Western loans to facilitate the rapid growth of heavy industry. The Soviet leadership gave its approval for this, as the Soviet Union could not afford to maintain its massive subsidy for the Eastern Bloc in the form of cheap oil and gas exports. However, the Soviet Union did not accept all kinds of reforms, an example being the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 in response to Alexander Dubček's reforms. Under Brezhnev, the Politburo abandoned Khrushchev's decentralisation experiments. By 1966, two years after taking power, Brezhnev abolished the Regional Economic Councils, which were organised to manage the regional economies of the Soviet Union.

The Ninth Five-Year Plan delivered a change: for the first time industrial consumer products out-produced industrial capital goods. Consumer goods such as watches, furniture and radios were produced in abundance. However, the Plan still left the bulk of state's investment in industrial capital-goods production. This outcome was not seen as a positive sign for the future of the Soviet state by the majority of top party functionaries within the government; by 1975 consumer goods expanded 9% slower than industrial capital-goods. The policy continued despite Brezhnev's committement to make a rapid shift of investment which would satisfy Soviet consumers and lead to an even higher standard of living. This did not happen.

From 1928–1973, the Soviet Union was growing economically at a pace that would eventually catch up with the United States and Western Europe. This was true despite the advantage the United States had—the USSR was hampered by Joseph Stalin's bold policy of collectivisation and the effects of the Second World War which had left most of Western USSR in ruins. In 1973, the process of catching up with the rest of the West came to an abrupt end, with this year being seen by some scholars as the start of the Era of Stagnation. The beginning of the stagnation coincided with a financial crisis in Western Europe and the US. By the early 1970s, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest industrial capacity and produced more steel, oil, pig-iron, cement and tractors than any other country. Before 1973, the Soviet economy was expanding at a rate faster, by a small margin, than that of the United States. The USSR also kept a steady pace with the economies of Western Europe. Between 1964–1973, the Soviet economy stood at roughly half the output per head of Western Europe and a little more than one third that of the US.

Agricultural policy

Brezhnev's agricultural policy reinforced the conventional methods for organising the collective farms. The central imposition of quotas of output was maintained. Khrushchev's policy of amalgamating farms was continued by Brezhnev, because he shared the same belief as Khrushchev that bigger kolkhozes would increase productivity. Brezhnev pushed for an increase in state investments in farming, which mounted to an all-time high in the 1970s to 27% of all state investement – this figure did not include investments in farm equipment. In 1981 alone, 33,000 million American dollars (by contemporary exchange rate) was invested into agriculture.

Agricultural output in 1980 was much higher than the average production rate between 1966–1970; 21% higher than the average. Cereal crop output increased by 18%. However, these improved results are not encouraging. In the Soviet Union the criterion for assessing agricultural output was the grain harvest. The import of cereal, which begun under Khrushchev, had in fact become a normal phenomenon by Soviet standards. When Brezhnev had difficulties sealing commercial trade agreements with the United States, he went elsewhere, such as to Argentina. Trade was necessary because the Soviet Union's domestic production of fodder crops was severely deficient. Another sector which was meeting the wall was the sugar beet harvest which had declined by 2% in the 1970s. Brezhnev's way of resolving these issues was to increase state investment. Politburo member Gennady Voronov advocated for the division of each farm's work-force into what he called "links". These "links" would be entrusted with specific functions, such as to run a farm's dairy unit. His argument was that the larger the work force, the less responsible they felt. This program had been proposed to Joseph Stalin by Andrey Andreyev in the 1940s, and been opposed by Khrushchev before and after Stalin's death. Voronov was also unsuccessful; Brezhnev turned him down, and in 1973 he was removed from the Politburo.

Experimentation with "links" was not disallowed on a local basis, with Mikhail Gorbachev, the then First Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, experimenting with links in his region. In the meantime, the Soviet government's involvement in agriculture was otherwise "unimaginative" and "incompetent". Facing mounting problems with agriculture, the Politburo issued a resolution entitled; "On the Further Development of Specialisation and Concentration of Agricultural Production on the Basis of Inter-Farm Co-operation and Agro-Industrial Integration". The resolution ordered kolkhozes close to each other to collaborate in their efforts to increase production. In the meantime, the state's subsidies to the food-and-agriculture sector did not prevent bankrupt farms from operating: rises in the price of produce were offset by rises in the cost of oil and other resources. By 1977, oil cost 84% more than it did in the late 1960s. The cost of other resources had also climbed by the late 1970s.

Brezhnev's answer to these problems was to issue two decrees, one in 1977 and one in 1981, which called for the expansion of all plots owned by the Soviet Union to half a hectare. These measures removed important obstacles for the expansion of agricultural output, but did not solve the problem. Under Brezhnev, private plots yielded 30% of the national agricultural production when they only cultivated four percent of Soviet agriculture. This was seen by some as proof that de-collectivisation was necessary to prevent Soviet agriculture from collapsing. On the other hand, leading Soviet politicians withheld from such drastic measures due to individual ideological and political interests. The underlying problems were the growing shortage of skilled labourers, a wrecked rural culture, the payment of workers in proportion to the quantity and not the quality of their work performance, too large farm machinery for the small collective farms and the roadless countryside. In the face of this, Brezhnev could only propose schemes such as large reclamation and irrigation projects, or of course, radical reform.

Economic stagnation

The Era of Stagnation, a term coined by Mikhail Gorbachev, was seen as the result of a compilation of factors, including the ongoing "arms race" between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, the decision of the Soviet Union to participate in international trade (thus abandoning idea of economic isolation) while ignoring the changes occurring in Western societies, increasing harshness such as Soviet tanks rolling in to crush the Prague Spring in 1968, the intervention in Afghanistan, the stifling bureaucracy overseen by a cadre of increasingly elderly men running the country, the political corruption, supply bottlenecks, and other unaddressed structural problems with the economy under Brezhnev's rule. Social stagnation domestically was stimulated by the growing demands of unskilled workers, labour shortages and a decline in productivity and labour discipline. While Brezhnev, albeit "sporadically", attempted to reform the economy in the late 1960s and 1970s, he ultimately failed to produce any positive results. One of these reforms was the reorganisation of the Council of Ministries; this led to low unemployment at the price of low productivity and technological stagnation. The economic reform of 1965 was initiated by Alexei Kosygin, but its origin dates back to Nikita Khrushchev. The Central Committee was not willing to go through with the reform, while at the same time it admitted to economic problems. In 1973, the Soviet economy slowed down and started to lag behind that of the West because of enormous expenditure on the armed forces and too little spending on light industry and consumer goods. Soviet agriculture could not feed the urban population, let alone provide for the rising standard of living which the government promised as the fruits of "mature socialism", and on which industrial productivity depended. One of the most prominent critics of Brezhnev's economical policies was Mikhail Gorbachev who, when leader, called the economy under Brezhnev's rule "the lowest stage of socialism".

With the GNP growth of the Soviet economy drastically decreasing from the level it held in the 1950s and 1960s, the country began to lag behind Western Europe and the United States. The GNP's growth was slowing down to 1 to 2% each year, and with the technology falling farther and farther behind that of the West, the Soviet Union was facing economic stagnation by the early 1980s. During Brezhnev's last years of reign, the CIA monitored the Soviet Union's economic growth, and reported that the Soviet economy peaked in the 1970s, calculating that it had reached 57% of the American GNP. However, the development gap between the two nations widened, with the United States growing an average of one percent over the Soviet Union.

The last significant reform undertaken by the Kosygin government, and some believe the pre-''perestroika'' era, was a joint decision of the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers named; "Improving planning and reinforcing the effects of the economic mechanism on raising the effectiveness in production and improving the quality of work", or more commonly known as the 1979 reform. The reform, in contrast to the 1965 reform, wanted to increase the central government's economic involvement by enhancing the duties and responsibilities of the ministries. Due to Kosygin's death in 1980, and due to his successor, Nikolai Tikhonov, conservative approach to economics, very little of the reform was actually carried out.

The Eleventh Five-Year Plan of the Soviet Union delivered a disappointing result: a change in growth from 4 to 5%. During the earlier Tenth Five-Year Plan, they had tried to meet the target of 6.1% of growth but failed. Brezhnev was able to defer the economic collapse by trading with Western Europe and the Arab World. However, the Soviet Union out-produced the United States in heavy industry during the Brezhnev era. One more galling result of Brezhnev's rule was that some of the Eastern Bloc economies were more advanced than the Soviet Union.

Soviet society

Early changes

Before 1973, the GDP per head in US dollars increased. Over the eighteen years Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union, average income per head increased by half; however three-quarters of this growth came in the 1960s and early 1970s. There was one-quarter average income per head growth during the second half of Brezhnev's reign. In the first half of the Brezhnev period, income per head increased by 3.5% per annum; slightly less growth than what it had been the previous years. This can be explained by the reversion of most of Khrushchev's policies when Brezhnev came to power. The consumption per head rose by an estimate of 70% under Brezhnev, but with three-quarters of this growth happening before 1973 and only one-quarter in the second half of his reign. Most of the increase in consumer production in the early Brezhnev era can be attributed to the Kosygin reform.

The period of 'stagnation'

When the USSR's economic growth stalled in the 1970s, the standard of living and housing quality improved significantly. Instead of paying more attention to the economy, the Soviet leadership under Brezhnev tried to improve the living standard in the Soviet Union by extending social benefits, which led to an increase, though minor, in public support. The standard of living in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) had fallen behind that of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (GSSR) and the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR) under Brezhnev; this led many Russians to believe that the policies of the Soviet Government were hurting the Russian population. With the mounting economic problems, skilled workers were usually paid more than had been intended in the first place, while unskilled labourers were indulged in punctuality, conscientiousness and sobriety. The state usually moved workers from one job to another which ultimately became an ineradicable feature in Soviet industry; the Soviet Government had no effective counter-measure because of the country's lack of unemployment. Government industries such as factories, mines and offices were staffed by indisciplined personnel who put a great effort into not doing their jobs; this ultimately led to a "work-shy workforce" among Soviet workers and administrators.

While some areas improved during the Brezhnev era, the majority of civilian services deteriorated, with the physical environment for the common Soviet citizen falling apart rapidly. Diseases were on the rise because of the decaying healthcare system. The living space remained rather small by First World standards, with the common Soviet person living on 13.4 square metres. At the same time thousands of Moscow inhabitants were homeless, most of them living in shacks, doorways and parked trams. Nutrition ceased to improve in the late 1970s, while rationing of staple food products returned to Sverdlovsk for instance. The state provided daily recreation and annual holidays for hard-working citizens. Soviet trade unions rewarded hard-working members and their families with beach vacations in Crimea and Georgia.

Social "rigidification" became a common feature in Soviet society. During the Stalin era in the 1930s and 1940s, a common labourer could expect promotion to a white-collar job if they studied and obeyed Soviet authorities. In Brezhnev's Soviet Union this was not the case. Holders of attractive offices clung to them as long as possible; mere incompetence was not seen as a good reason to dismiss anyone. In this way, too, the Soviet society Brezhnev passed on had become "static".

Foreign and defence policies

Soviet–US relations

During his eighteen years as Leader of the USSR, Brezhnev's only major foreign policy innovation was the inclusion of détente. However, it did not differ much from the Khrushchev Thaw, a domestic and foreign policy started by Nikita Khrushchev. Historian Robert Service sees détente simply as a continuation of Khrushchev's foreign policy. Despite an increasing tension in East–West relations under Khrushchev, relations had generally improved, as evidenced by the Partial Test Ban Treaty, Helsinki Accords and the installation of the telephone line between the White House and the Kremlin. Brezhnev's détente policy differed from that of Khrushchev in two ways. The first was that it was more comprehensive and wide-ranging in its aims, and included signing agreements on arms control, crisis prevention, East–West trade, European security, and human rights. The second part of the policy built on the importance of equalising the military strength of the United States and the Soviet Union. Defence spending under Brezhnev between 1965–1970 increased by 40%, and annual increases continued thereafter. Fifteen percent of GNP was spent on the military by the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982. By the mid 1970s, it had become clear that Kissinger's policy of détente towards the Soviet Union had failed. The détente had rested on the assumption that a "linkage" of some type could be found between the two countries, with the US hoping that the signing of SALT I and a increase in Soviet–US trade would stop the aggressive growth of communism in the third world. This did not happen and the Soviet Union started funding the communist guerillas who fought actively against the US during the Vietnam War. The US lost the Vietnam War and at the same time lost many countries to communism in Asia. After Gerald Ford lost the presidential election to Jimmy Carter, American foreign policies became more hostile towards the Soviet Union and the communist world; while at the same time aiming to stop funding for some repressive anti-communist governments the United States supported. While at first standing for a decrease in all defence initiatives, the later years of Carter's presidency would increase spending on the US military.

In the 1970s, the Soviet Union reached the peak of its political and strategic power in relation to the United States. The first SALT Treaty effectively established parity in nuclear weapons between the two superpowers, the Helsinki Treaty legitimised Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe, and the United States defeat in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal weakened the prestige of the United States. The Soviet Union extended its diplomatic and political influence in the Middle East and Africa.

The Vietnam War

Nikita Khrushchev had initially supported North Vietnam out of "fraternal solidarity", but as the war escalated he had urged the North Vietnamese leadership to give up the quest of liberating South Vietnam. He continued by rejecting an offer of assistance made by the North Vietnamese government, and instead told them to enter negotiations in the United Nations Security Council. Brezhnev, after Khrushchev's ousting, started once again to aid the communist resistance in Vietnam. In February 1965 Kosygin travelled to Hanoi with a dusin of Soviet air force generals and economic experts. During the Soviet visit, President Lyndon B. Johnson had allowed US bombing raids on North Vietnamese soil in retaliation of a recent attack by the Viet Cong. Johnson privately suggested to Brezhnev that he would guarantee an end South Vietnamese hostility if Brezhnev would guarantee a North Vietnamese one. Brezhnev was interested in this offer initially; however, after being told by Andrei Gromyko that the North Vietnamese government was not interested in a diplomatic solution to the war, Brezhnev rejected the offer. The Johnson administration responded to this rejection by expanding American presence in Vietnam, but later invited the USSR to negotiate a treaty concerning arms control. The USSR simply did not respond, initially because Brezhnev and Kosygin were fighting over which of them had the right to represent the USSR abroad, but later because of the escalation of the "dirty war" in Vietnam. In early 1967 Johnson offered to make a deal with Ho Chi Minh, and said he was prepared to end bombing raids in North Vietnam if he ended his infiltration of South Vietnam. The US bombing raids halted for a few days. In the meantime, Kosygin publicly announced his support for this offer. The North Vietnamese government failed to respond however, and because of this, the US continued its raids in North Vietnam. The Brezhnev leadership concluded from this event that diplomatic solutions to the ongoing war in Vietnam were hopeless. Later in 1968, Johnson invited Kosygin to the United States to discuss ongoing problems in Vietnam and the arms race. The summit was marked with a friendly atmosphere, but there were no concrete breakthrough's by either side.

In the aftermath of the Sino–Soviet border conflict, the Chinese continued to aid the North Vietnamese regime, but with the death of Minh in 1969, China's strongest link to Vietnam had died. In the meantime, Richard Nixon had been elected President of the United States. While having been known for his anti-communist rhetoric, Nixon said in 1971 that the US "''must'' have relations with Communist China". His plan was for a slow withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, and still retain the capitalist dictatorship of South Vietnam. The only way he thought possible was to improve relations with both Communist China and the USSR. He later made a visit to Moscow to negotiate a treaty on arms control and the Vietnam war, but on Vietnam nothing could be agreed. On his visit to Moscow, Nixon and Brezhnev signed the SALT I, marking the beginning of the "détente" era.

Sino–Soviet relations

With Soviet foreign relations with the People's Republic of China quickly deteriorating after Nikita Khrushchev's attempts to reach a ''rapprochement'' with more liberal Eastern European states such as Yugoslavia and the west. When Brezhnev consolidated his power base in the 1960s, China was descending into crisis because of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution which led to the decimination of the Communist Party of China and other ruling offices. Soviet reaction to the seemingly turned anarchy state of the country, exacerbated the Soviet reaction. The Brezhnev leadership who promoted the idea of "stabilisation", could not comprehend why Mao would start such a "self-destructive" drive to finish the socialist revolution, according to himself. At the same time, Brezhnev had problems of his own, the Czechoslovakiaan leadership were also deviating from the Soviet model. In the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet leadership proclaimed the Brezhnev doctrine, which said the USSR had the right to intervene in any fraternal communist state which did not follow the Soviet model. This doctrine increased tension not only with the Eastern Bloc, but also the Asian communist states. By 1969 relations with other communist countries had deteriorated to a level were Brezhnev was not even able to gather five of the fourteen ruling communist parties to attend an international conference in Moscow. In the aftermath of the failed conference, the Soviets concluded that there "were no leading center of the international communist movement".

Later in 1969, Chinese forces started the Sino–Soviet border conflict. The Sino–Soviet split had chagrined Premier Alexei Kosygin a great deal, and for a while refused to accept its irrevocability; he briefly visited Beijing in 1969 due to the increase of tension between the USSR and China. By the early 1980s, both the Chinese and the Soviets were issuing statements calling for a normalisation of relations between the two states. The conditions given to the Soviets by the Chinese were the reduction of Soviet military presence in the Sino–Soviet border and the withdrawal of Soviets troops in Afghanistan and Mongolia and to support for the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. Brezhnev responded in his March 1982 speech in Tashkent were he called for the normalisation of relations. Full Sino–Soviet normalisations of relations would prove to take years, until the last Soviet ruler, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power.

Intervention in Afghanistan

After the communist revolution in Afghanistan in 1978, the Afghan civil war started because of authoritarian actions forced upon the populace by the Communist regime; the popular backlash against the regime was led by the mujahideen. With a KGB report claiming that Afghanistan could be taken in a matter of weeks, Brezhnev and several top party officers agreed to a full intervention in Afghanistan in the worry that the Soviet Union was losing their influence in Central Asia. Parts of the Soviet military establishment were opposed to any sort of active Soviet military presence in the country, believing that the Soviet Union should leave Afghan politics alone. President Carter, following the advice of his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, denounced the intervention describing it as the "most serious danger to peace since 1945". The US stopped all grain export to the Soviet Union and boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics held in Moscow. The Soviet Union responded by boycotting the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles.

Eastern Europe

The first crisis for Brezhnev's regime came in 1968, with the attempt by the Communist leadership in Czechoslovakia, under Alexander Dubček, to liberalise the Communist system (Prague Spring). In July, Brezhnev publicly criticised the Czechoslovak leadership as "revisionist" and "anti-Soviet", and in August he orchestrated the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and Dubček's removal. The invasion led to public protests by dissidents in various Eastern Bloc countries. Brezhnev's assertion that the Soviet Union had the right to interfere in the internal affairs of its satellites to "safeguard socialism" became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine, although it was really a restatement of existing Soviet policy, as Khrushchev had shown in Hungary in 1956. In the aftermath of the invasion, Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party on 13 November 1968:

Brezhnev was not the one pushing hardest for the use of military force when discussing the situation in Czechoslovakia with the Politburo. Brezhnev was aware of the dire situation he was in, and if he had abstained or voted against Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia he may have been faced with growing turmoil — domestically and in the Eastern Bloc. Archival evidence suggests that Brezhnev was one of the few who was looking for a temporary compromise with the reform-friendly Czechoslovak government when their relationship was at its brinking point. Significant voices in the Soviet leadership demanded the re-installation of a so-called 'revolutionary government'. After the military intervention in 1968, Brezhnev met with Czechoslovak reformer Bohumil Simon, then a member of the Politburo of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, and said; "If I had not voted for Soviet armed assistance to Czechoslovakia you would not be sitting here today, but quite possibly I wouldn't either".

In the early 1980s a political crisis emerged in Poland with the emergence of the Solidarity mass movement. By the end of October Solidarity had 3 million members, and by December 9 million. In a public opinion poll done by the Polish government, 89% of the respondents supported Solidarity. With the Polish leadership split on what to do, the majority of did not want to impose martial law, as suggested by Wojciech Jaruzelski. The Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc was unsure how to handle the situation, but Erich Honecker of East Germany pressed for military action. In a formal letter to Brezhnev Honecker proposed a joint military measure to control the escalating problems in Poland. A CIA report suggested the Soviet military were mobilising for an invasion.

In 1980 representatives from the Eastern Bloc nations met at the Kremlin to discuss the Polish situation. Brezhnev eventually concluded that it would be better to leave the domestic matters of Poland alone for the time being, re-assuring the Polish delegates that the USSR would intervene only if asked to. With domestic matters escalating out of control in Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed state of war, the Polish version of martial law, on 12 December 1981.

Personality cult

The last years of Brezhnev's rule were marked by a growing personality cult. He was well known for his love of medals (he received over 200), so in December 1966, for his 60th birthday, he was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union. Brezhnev received the award, which came with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star, three more times in celebration of his birthdays. On his 70th birthday he was awarded the Marshal of the Soviet Union – the highest military honour in the Soviet Union. After being awarded the medal, he attended the 18th Army Veterans dressed in a long coat and saying; "Attention, Marshal's coming!". His weakness for undeserved medals was proven with his poorly written memoir about his military service during World War II. Despite the apparent weaknesses of his memoirs, they were awarded the Lenin Prize for Literature and were met with critical acclaim by the Soviet press. The book was however followed by two other books, one on the Virgin Lands Campaign. Brezhnev's vanity made him the victim of many political jokes. Nikolai Podgorny warned him of this fact, but Brezhnev replied, "If they are poking fun at me, it means they like me". It is now believed by Western historians and political analysts that the books were written by some of his "court writers". The memoirs treated the little known and minor Battle of Novorossiysk as the decisive military theatre of World War II.

Brezhnev's personality cult was growing outrageously fast at a time when his health was in decline. His physical condition was deteriorating; he had become addicted to sleeping pills and began drinking an excessive amount of alcohol, smoked heavily and had over the years become overweight. From 1973 until his death Brezhnev's central nervous system underwent chronic deterioration and he had several minor strokes. When receiving the Order of Lenin, Brezhnev walked shakily and fumbled his words. The Chief of Fourth Directorate of the Ministry of Health Yevgeniy Chazov had to keep doctors by Brezhnev's side at all times, with Brezhnev being brought back from limbo on several occasions. At this time, most senior officers of the CPSU wanted to keep him alive, even if such men as Mikhail Suslov, Dmitriy Ustinov and Andrei Gromyko among others were growing increasingly frustrated with Brezhnev's policies. However they did not want to risk a new period of domestic turmoil caused by his death. It was about this time First World commentators started guessing Brezhnev's heirs apparent, the most notable competitors being Suslov and Andrei Kirilenko were both older than he was, while Fyodor Kulakov and Konstantin Chernenko were younger than Brezhnev; Kulakov died of natural causes in 1978.

Last years and death

Brezhnev's health worsened in the winter of 1981–82. In the meantime, the country was governed by Gromyko, Ustinov, Suslov and Yuri Andropov and crucial Politburo decisions were made in his absence. While the Politburo was pondering the question of who would succeed, all signs indicated that the ailing leader was dying. The choice of the successor would have been influenced by Suslov, but he died at the age of 79 in January 1982. Andropov took Suslov's seat in the Central Committee Secretariat; by May it became obvious that Andropov would try to make a bid for the office of the General Secretary. He, with the help of fellow KGB associates, started circulating rumours that political corruption had become worse during Brezhnev's tenure as leader in an attempt to create an environment hostile to Brezhnev in the Politburo. Andropov's actions showed that he was not afraid of Brezhnev's wrath.

Brezhnev rarely appeared in public during the spring, summer and the autumn of 1982. The official explanation by the Soviet government was that Brezhnev was not seriously ill, while at the same time doctors were surrounding him. He suffered a severe stroke in May 1982, but refused to relinquish office. Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 after suffering a heart attack. He was honoured with a state funeral which was followed with a five-day period of nationwide mourning. He was buried in the Kremlin in Red Square. National and international statesmen from around the globe attended his funeral. His wife and family attended, with his daughter Galina Brezhneva outraging spectators by not showing up in a sombre garb. Brezhnev on the other hand was dressed for burial in his Marshal's uniform along with all his medals.

Legacy

Brezhnev presided over the Soviet Union for longer than any other person except Joseph Stalin. He is often criticised for the prolonged era of economic stagnation, the Era of Stagnation, in which fundamental economic problems were ignored and the Soviet political system was allowed to decline. During Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure as leader there was an increase in criticism of the Brezhnev years, such as claims that Brezhnev followed "a fierce neo-Stalinist line". The Gorbachevian discourse blamed Brezhnev for failing to modernise the country and to change with the times, although in a later statement Gorbachev made assurances that Brezhnev was not as bad as he was made out to be, saying, "Brezhnev was nothing like the cartoon figure that is made of him now". The intervention in Afghanistan, which was one of the major decisions of his career, also significantly undermined both the international standing and the internal strength of the Soviet Union. In Brezhnev's defence, it can be said that the Soviet Union reached unprecedented and never-repeated levels of power, prestige, and internal calm under his rule.

Brezhnev has fared well in opinion polls when compared to his successors and predecessors in Russia. However in the West he is most commonly remembered for starting the economic stagnation which triggered the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In an opinion poll by VTsIOM in 2007 the majority of Russians wanted to live during the Brezhnev's era rather than any other period of Soviet-Russian history during the 20th century.

Personality traits and family

Brezhnev's vanity became a problem during his reign. For instance, when Moscow City Party Secretary N. G. Yegorychev refused to sing his praises, he was shunned, forced out of local politics and earned only an obscure ambassadorship. Brezhnev had no problem with political corruption claiming that "Nobody lives just on their wages". His main passion was driving foreign cars given him by leaders of state from across the world. He usually drove these between his dacha and the Kremlin with flagrant disregard for public safety.

Brezhnev was well known for his passion for awards and decorations. He was Hero of Socialist Labour, four times Hero of the Soviet Union, three times Hero of Czech Republic, three times Hero of Republic of Bulgaria, etc. Having spent the Great Patriotic War as a political commissar and having never been a military commander, he, nevertheless, was promoted to the highest military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Brezhnev's vanity undermined the authority of Soviet power and contributed to the general corruption of the regime. It was made fun of in numerous anecdotes.

Brezhnev lived at 26 Kutuzovsky Prospekt, Moscow. During vacations, he lived in his Gosdacha in Zavidovo. He was married to Viktoria Petrovna (1912–1995). During her final four years she lived virtually alone, abandoned by everybody. She had suffered for a long time from diabetes and was nearly blind in her last years. He had a daughter, Galina, and a son, Yuri. Galina in her later life became an alcoholic who together with a circus director started a gold-bullion fraud gang in the later years of the Soviet Union.

Offices held

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Annotated Bibliography for Leonid Brezhnev from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues

''Our Course: Peace and Socialism'' Collection of Brezhnev's 1973 speeches

CCCP TV Videoprograms with L. Brezhnev on Soviet TV portal (in Russian)

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Coordinates	35°27′″N139°38′″N
Name	Fidel Castro
Colorcode	Red
Office	First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba
Deputy	Raúl Castro
Term start	October 3, 1965
Term end	April 19, 2011
Predecessor	Position established
Successor	Raúl Castro
Office2	President of the Council of State of Cuba
Term start2	December 2, 1976
Term end2	February 19, 2008
Deputy2	Raúl Castro
Predecessor2	Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado(as President of Cuba)
Successor2	Raúl Castro
Office3	President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba
Term start3	December 2, 1976
Term end3	February 19, 2008
Deputy3	Raúl Castro
Predecessor3	Himself (as Prime Minister)
Successor3	Raúl Castro
Office4	Prime Minister of Cuba
President4	Manuel Urrutia LleóOsvaldo Dorticós Torrado
Term start4	February 16, 1959
Term end4	December 2, 1976
Predecessor4	José Miró Cardona
Successor4	Position abolished
Office5	7th and 23rd Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement
Term start5	September 16, 2006
Term end5	February 24, 2008
Predecessor5	Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Successor5	Raúl Castro
Term start6	September 10, 1979
Term end6	March 6, 1983
Predecessor6	Junius Richard Jayawardene
Successor6	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Birth date	August 13, 1926
Birth place	Birán, Cuba
Party	Communist Party of Cuba
Relations	(siblings)Raúl CastroEnma CastroAgustina CastroRamon Castro RuzAngelita Castro
Spouse	Mirta Diaz-Balart (1948–1955)Dalia Soto del Valle (1980–present)
Children	Fidel Ángel Castro Diaz-BalartAlina Fernández-RevueltaAlexis Castro-SotoAlejandro Castro-SotoAntonio Castro-SotoAngel Castro-SotoAlex Castro-SotoJorge Angel CastroFrancisca Pupo
Alma mater	University of Havana
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Deist
Signature	Fidel Castro Signature.svg
Footnotes	*Acting presidential powers were transferred to Raúl Castro from July 31, 2006. }}

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, under his administration the Republic of Cuba was converted into a one-party socialist state, with industry and business being nationalised under state ownership and socialist reforms implemented in all areas of society.

Born the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer, Castro became involved in leftist anti-imperialist politics whilst studying law at the University of Havana. Subsequently involving himself in armed rebellions against right wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he went on to conclude that the U.S.-backed Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, who was widely seen as a dictator, had to be overthrown; to this end he led a failed armed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. Imprisoned for a year, he then traveled to Mexico, and with the aid of his brother Raúl Castro and friend Che Guevara, he assembled together a group of Cuban revolutionaries, the July 26 Movement. Returning with them to Cuba, he took a key role in the Cuban Revolution, leading a successful guerrilla war against Batista's forces, with Batista himself fleeing into exile in 1959.

Castro subsequently became Commander in Chief of the armed forces and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister. His involvement in the overthrow of Batista, as well as a suspected relationship with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, alarmed the United States, who through the CIA organised the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 to overthrow his government, before proceeding to orchestrate repeated assassination attempts against him and implement an economic blockade of Cuba. To counter this threat, Castro forged an alliance with the Soviet Union and allowed them to store nuclear weapons on the island, leading to the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Adopting Marxism-Leninism as his guiding ideology, in 1961 Castro proclaimed the socialist nature of the Cuban revolution, and in 1965 became First Secretary of the newly founded Communist Party, with all other parties being abolished. He then led the transformation of Cuba into a socialist republic, nationalising industry and introducing free universal healthcare and education, as well as suppressing internal opposition. A keen internationalist, Castro then introduced Cuban medical brigades who worked throughout the developing world, and aided a number of foreign revolutionary socialist groups in the hope of toppling world capitalism.

In 1976 he became President of the Council of State as well as of the Council of Ministers. On the international stage, he held the post of Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983. Following the collapse of key ally the Soviet Union in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its economic "Special Period", before then taking the country into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas in 2006 and forging economic and political alliances with other nations in the Latin American "Pink Tide". Amidst failing health, in 2006 Castro transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who was then elected President when Fidel stepped down in 2008.

Castro is a controversial and highly divisive world figure, being lauded as a champion of anti-imperialism, humanitarianism, environmentalism and the world's poor by his supporters, but his critics have accused him of being a dictator whose authoritarian administration has overseen multiple human rights abuses. Nonetheless, he has had a significant influence on the politics of a number of other world leaders, namely Nelson Mandela, Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales, and he is widely admired for leading his country's resistance to imperialism.

Early life

Childhood and education: 1927–1945

Fidel's father, Ángel Castro y Argiz (1875–1956) was a Spaniard born to a poor peasant family in rural Galicia, north-west Spain. Working as a manual laborer on local farms, in 1895 he was conscripted into the Spanish army to fight in the Cuban War of Independence against the Cuban forces who wished to secede from the Spanish Empire. Wishing to gain greater influence in the Caribbean, the United States subsequently declared war on Spain, leading to the Spanish-American War of 1898, in which the U.S. seized control of Cuba, setting up their own American government on the island. In 1902, the Republic of Cuba was proclaimed, however it remained only partially independent of the U.S., which retained economic and political dominance over it. For a time, Cuba enjoyed economic growth, and Ángel Castro decided to migrate there permanently in search of employment. Doing so, he undertook various jobs, eventually earning enough money to set up his own business growing sugar cane on a farm in Birán, near Mayarí in Oriente Province.

Ángel took a wife, María Luisa Argota, with whom he had two daughters, but they separated after several years and he began a relationship with a household servant who was thirty years his junior. This woman, Lina Ruz González (September 23, 1903 – August 6, 1963), came from an impoverished Cuban family of Canarian descent, but became Ángel's domestic partner, bearing him three sons and four daughters.

Fidel was Lina's third child, being born at his father's farm on August 13, 1927, and was given his mother's surname of Ruz rather than his father's because he had been born out of wedlock, something that carried a particular social stigma at the time. Although he was from a prosperous background, with his father's business proving ever more profitable, his father ensured that he grew up alongside the children of the farm's workforce, many of whom were Haitian economic migrants of African descent, something that Fidel would later relate prevented him from absorbing "bourgeois culture" at an early age. Aged six, Fidel, along with his elder siblings Ramón and Angela, was sent to live with their teacher in Santiago de Cuba, and it was here that the children dwelt in cramped conditions and in relative poverty, often failing to have enough to eat because of their tutor's poor economic situation. Aged eight, Fidel was then baptized into the Roman Catholic Church (something usually performed soon after birth), although later gave up his faith in Christianity, becoming an atheist. Being baptized enabled Fidel to begin attending the La Salle boarding school in Santiago, but here he often got into trouble with the school authorities for misbehavior, and so he was instead sent to the privately-funded, Jesuit-run Dolores School in Santiago.

In 1945 he transferred to the more prestigious Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana, although to get in he had to pretend to be a year older than he was; his father bribed an administrator to supply him with a fake birth certificate stating that he was born in 1926 rather than 1927. Although Fidel took an interest in history and debating at Belén, he did not excel academically, instead devoting much of his time to playing sport, including swimming, mountain climbing, table tennis, athletics, basketball and baseball. Meanwhile, Ángel Castro finally dissolved his first marriage when Fidel was fifteen, allowing him to marry Fidel's mother; Fidel was formally recognized by his father when he was seventeen, when his surname was legally changed from Ruz to Castro.

University and early political activism: 1945–1947

In late 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana. Here he became immediately embroiled in the student protest movement, which in Cuba at that time was particularly volatile: under the regimes of centre-left Cuban Presidents Gerardo Machado (1925–1933), Fulgencio Batista (1933–1944) and Ramón Grau (1944–1948) there had been a government crackdown on student protesters, with student leaders being killed or terrorized by violent gangs. This led to a form of ''gangsterismo'' culture within the university that was dominated by a variety of violent and often armed student groups who spent much of their time fighting one another and running criminal enterprises rather than opposing the government. Becoming surrounded by this gang culture, Castro focused on political objectives, unsuccessfully campaigning for the position of President of the Federation of University Students (FEU). To do so he put forward a platform of "honesty, decency and justice" and emphasized his opposition to political corruption, something that he increasingly associated with the involvement of the U.S. government in Cuban politics. He became passionate about anti-imperialism and opposing American intervention in the Caribbean, joining the University Committee for the Independence of Puerto Rico and the Committee for Democracy in the Dominican Republic.

He was in contact with members of several different student leftist groups at the time, including the Popular Socialist Party (''Partido Socialista Popular'' – PSP), the Socialist Revolutionary Movement (''Movimiento Socialista Revolucionaria'' – MSR) and the Insurrectional Revolutionary Union (''Unión Insurrecional Revolucionaria'' – UIR), although did not adopt the Marxist ideas of the former and mistrusted some of MSR's connections to the Grau government. Castro himself had become highly critical of the corruption and violence of Grau's regime, delivering a public speech on the subject in November 1946 that earned him a place on the front page of several newspapers. Instead, it was to the UIR that he grew closest to, although whether he ever became a member or not has remained unknown. In 1947, Castro joined a newly founded socialist party, the Party of the Cuban People (''Partido Ortodoxo''), which had been formed by veteran politician Eduardo Chibás (1907–1951). A charismatic figure, Chibás attracted many Cubans with his message of social justice, honest government, and political freedom. The Partido Ortodoxo publicly exposed corruption and demanded governmental and social reform. Though Chibás lost the election, Castro, considering Chibás his mentor, remained committed to his cause, working fervently on his behalf.

Meanwhile, the student gang violence had escalated after Grau had employed several prominent gang leaders, including members of the MSR, as officers in the police force, and Castro soon received a threat urging him to either leave the university and its political arena or be killed. He did not give in to the threat, instead going around with a gun and surrounded himself with friends who were similarly armed. Various accusations would arise in later years alleging that Castro carried out gang-related assassination attempts at this time, including of prominent UIR member Lionel Gómez, MSR leader Manolo Castro and university policeman Oscar Fernandez, but these are supported by "scant evidence" and remain unproven.

Latin American rebellions: 1947–1948

In June 1947, Castro learned of a planned international expedition to invade the Dominican Republic and overthrow its right-wing president, Rafael Trujillo, a military general widely seen as a dictator who had overseen a system of "repressive brutality" through the use of a violent secret police which routinely murdered and tortured opponents. An ally of the United States, Trujillo angered many across the world when he ordered the Parsley Massacre that killed 20,000–30,000 impoverished Haitian migrants. Castro had become a heavy critic of Trujillo's regime, rising to the presidency of the University Committee for Democracy in the Dominican Republic, and decided to join the military expedition, which was led by General Juan Rodríguez, a Dominican exile, and supported by Grau's Cuban government which feared Trujillo's militaristic behavior. The invasion was carried out on July 29, 1947, by around 1,200 men, most of whom were exiled Dominicans or Cubans, although other volunteers came from across Latin America. However, both Dominican and U.S. intelligence had gained foreknowledge of the event, and it was soon quashed by the Dominican army and the Cuban government, who had been pressured by the U.S. to cease their support for it. Whilst Grau's government immediately arrested many of those involved, Castro managed to escape the police by jumping off of the naval frigate he was aboard and swimming to shore in the dark of night.

The botched mission only served to further Castro's opposition to the Grau administration, and returning to Havana, he took a leading role in the student protests that were centred against the killing of a high school pupil by government bodyguards. The protests, accompanied by a U.S.-imposed crackdown on those considered to be communists, led to violent clashes between protesters and police in February 1948, in which Castro was badly beaten. It was at this point that his public speeches took on a distinctively leftist slant, condemning the social and economic inequalities of Cuba under the Grau government, something that was in contrast to his former public criticisms, which had centered around condemning corruption and U.S. imperialism. Castro's biographer Leycester Coltman would later remark that "Castro was not yet expressing a Marxist viewpoint, but he was moving in that direction."

After a quick visit to Venezuela and Panama, in April 1948 Castro traveled to the city of Bogotá in Colombia with a number of other Cuban students on a trip sponsored by the government of Argentine President Juan Perón, whose anti-imperialist politics impressed Castro. Once there, the assassination of popular leftist leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala led to widespread rioting that came to be known as the Bogotazo. Leaving three thousand dead, the riots revolved around clashes between rightist Conservatives, who then controlled the country's government and who were backed by the army, and leftist Liberals who were supported by a number of Colombian socialist groups. Castro, along with his fellow Cuban visitors, joined in in support of the Liberal cause by stealing guns from a police station, but subsequent police investigations came to the conclusion that neither Castro nor any of the other Cubans had been involved in the killings.

Marriage and Marxism: 1948–1950

Returning to Cuba, Castro became a prominent figure in the widespread protests going on at the government's attempts to raise bus fares, with buses being the only form of transport available to most students and workers, many of whom would have had difficulty affording the higher fees. It was also in 1948 that Castro married Mirta Díaz Balart, a student from a wealthy Cuban family through whom he was exposed to the lifestyle of the Cuban elite. The relationship was a love match and was disapproved of by both of their families. Mirta's father gave them tens of thousands of dollars to spend in a three-month honeymoon in New York City, and the couple also received a U.S. $1,000 wedding gift from the military general and former president Fulgencio Batista, a friend of Mirta's family.

That same year, Grau decided not to stand for re-election, and his party instead nominated Carlos Prío Socarrás as their presidential candidate. Prío would go on to win the election, becoming President of Cuba. However, he faced widespread protests when members of the MSR, which by this time was allied to the police force, assassinated Justo Fuentes, a "self-taught black man" and prominent member of the UIR who was a friend and ally of Castro's. In response, Prío agreed to try to quell the gangs, but found them to be too powerful to control.

Castro had begun to move further to the left in his political views, being influenced by the writings of prominent Marxists like Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. In doing so, he came to see the problems facing Cuba as being an integral part of capitalist society, or the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", rather than as simply the failings of corrupt politicians. Coming to believe the Marxist idea that true political change could only be brought about by a revolution led by the working class, Castro set about visiting Havana's poorest neighbourhoods, witnessing the nation's huge social and racial inequalities, and became active in the University Committee for the Struggle against Racial Discrimination.

In September 1949, Mirta gave birth to a son, Fidelito, and so the couple moved to a larger flat in Havana. Despite the fact that he had a new family to take care of, Castro continued to put himself at risk, staying active in the city's political arena and joining a new organisation, the September 30 Movement, which contained within it both communists and members of the Partido Ortodoxo. The purpose of the group was to oppose the influence of the violent gangs within the university, which President Prío had failed to control, instead offering many of their senior members jobs in government ministries. Castro volunteered to deliver a speech for the Movement on November 13, in which he exposed the government's secret deals with the gangs and identified many of their key members. Attracting the attention of the national press, the speech angered the gangs, and Castro was forced to go into hiding, first in various rural areas and then in the U.S. Returning to Havana several weeks later, Castro layed low and focused on his university studies, graduating from university as a Doctor of Law in September 1950.

Career in law and politics: 1950–1952

Now a Doctor of Law, Castro became a professional lawyer, founding his own legal partnership with two of his fellow leftist students, Jorge Azpiazu and Rafael Resende. Castro intended for their partnership to focus on helping poor Cubans to assert their rights, and as such it earned little money, with its main client being a timber merchant who paid them in timber to furnish their office. Castro himself cared little for money or material goods, something that his wife found difficult, particularly when their furniture was reposessed and their electricity cut off, in both instances because Castro had failed to pay his bills.

Castro remained active in politics, taking part in a high-school protest in Cienfuegos in November 1950 that involved students fighting a four-hour battle with police in protest at the Education Ministry's ban on the founding of student associations in schools. He was arrested and charged with using violence against police officers, but the magistrate later dismissed the charges. He also became an active member of the Cuban Peace Committee, a part of the international campaign led by British intellectual Betrand Russell to oppose western involvement in the Korean War. His hopes for Cuba still largely centred around Eduardo Chibás and his left wing Partido Ortodoxo; however Chibás had made a mistake when he accused Education Minister Aureliano Sánchez of purchasing a Guatamalan ranch with misappropriated funds, but was unable to substantiate his allegations. The government used this as an opportunity to go on the offensive against Chibás, accusing him of being a liar and a troublemaker. In 1951, while running for president again, Chibás shot himself in the stomach during a radio broadcast in an attempt to issue a "last wake-up call" to the Cuban people. Castro was present and accompanied him to the hospital where he died of his injuries.

Although his political views were further left than the Partido Ortodoxo, Castro believed that those parties on the far left, namely the PSP, were too unpopular to achieve a revolutionary leftist movement in Cuba, and for this reason stuck with the Ortodoxo. Seeing himself as the heir to Chibás, Castro wanted to run for Congress in the June 1952 elections, but senior party members feared his radical reputation and refused to nominate him. Instead he gained the support of enough Ortodoxo members in Havana's poorest districts to be nominated as a candidate for the House of Representatives, and put all his energies into campaigning. It was at the time that Castro held a meeting with General Fulgencio Batista, the former president who had recently returned to politics by winning a seat in the Senate and founding the Unitary Action Party; although they both opposed the Prío administration, their meeting never got beyond "polite generalities" with no indication that they would later become bitter enemies.

The Ortodoxo had gained a considerable level of support, and there was a "fair chance that the ''Ortodoxos'' and Castro would both have succeeded in the election." However, this was quashed in March 1952 when General Batista seized power in a military coup, removing the widely discredited President Prío from office, who then fled to Mexico. Subsequently declaring himself president, Batista cancelled the planned presidential elections, describing his new system as "disciplined democracy": however Castro, like many others, instead saw it as the establishment of a one-man dictatorship which would not benefit the Cuban populace. Although in his earlier democratic terms as president Batista had taken a centre-left stance, he now moved to the right and went on to solidify his ties with the United States, severing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, suppressing trade unions and persecuting socialist groups in Cuba. Intent on opposing the Batista administration, Castro brought several legal cases against them, arguing that Batista had committed sufficient criminal acts to warrant at least 100 years imprisonment and accusing various of his ministers of breaching labour laws, but these came to nothing, leading Castro to begin thinking of alternative ways to oust the new government.

Cuban Revolution

The Movement and the Moncada Barracks attack: 1952–1953

Finally becoming dissatisfied with the Ortodoxo and their policy of non-violent opposition to Batista's regime, Castro decided to form a group simply known as 'The Movement' that consisted of both a civil and a military committee; the former of these would conduct political agitation through an underground newspaper, ''El Acusador'' (''The Accuser''), whilst the latter would arm and train recruits to take violent action in order to bring down Batista. With Castro himself as the Movement's head, the organisation was based upon a clandestine cell system, with each cell containing ten members, none of whom knew the whereabouts or activities of the other cells. A dozen individuals formed the nucleus of the movement, many of whom were also dissatisfied Ortodoxo members, although from July 1952 the Movement went on a recruitment drive, and within a year it had around 1,200 members, organised into over a hundred cells, with the majority of members coming from the poorer districts of Havana. Although Castro's political ideology was that of revolutionary socialism, he avoided an alliance with the communist PSP, fearing that this would frighten away the social moderates who were members of the Movement, but did keep in contact with some of the PSP's members, who included his brother and fellow conspirator Raúl. He would later relate that the members of the Movement were on the whole simply anti-Batista, and few had strong socialist or anti-imperialist views, something which Castro attributed to "the overwhelming weight of the Yankees' ideological and advertising machinery" which he felt had suppressed class consciousness amongst Cuba's working class.

Castro's Movement was not the only militant group that wanted to oust Batista, for one of the Orthodoxo's founding members, the Professor of Philosophy Rafael García Bárcena, had also founded his own group, the National Revolutionary Movement (''Movimiento Nacional Revolucionaria'' – MNR), which consisted largely of middle-class members devoted to the cause, something in contrast to Castro's predominantly working class support base. In March 1953, the MNR had planned to attack and seize control of the barracks at Camp Colombia, but police had been alerted to the plot, with the conspirators being rounded up and tortured. In all, fourteen people were sentenced to imprisonment for the attack. Meanwhile, Castro had been having similar ideas, stockpiling weapons in order to lead the armed wing of the Movement in an attack on the Moncada Barracks, a military garrison just outside Santiago de Cuba in Oriente. The plan was for Castro's members to dress in army uniforms and arrive at the base in cars on July 25, the festival of St James, when many of the officers would be on leave or celebrating in the nearby town. The rebels would then seize control of the barracks before the alarm could be raised, raid the armoury and then escape before the army could bring in reinforcements. Supplied with a wealth of new weaponry, Castro believed that the Movement could arm local supporters and spark a revolution in Oriente, which was dominated by a population of impoverished cane-cutters. The plan was to then seize control of a radio station in Santiago, from which the Movement could broadcast their manifesto and promote widespread uprisings against Batista. In doing so, Castro's plan was directly emulating those of the 19th century Cuban independence fighters who had raided Spanish barracks, and in keeping with this Castro saw himself as the heir to independence leader and national hero José Martí, both leading national liberation struggles against foreign dominance.

Castro had gathered together 165 members of the Movement to take part in the mission, 138 of which were stationed in Santiago, with the other 27 instead positioned in Bayamo; the majority of these were young men from Havana and Pinar del Río, and he ensured that, with the exception of himself, none of the volunteers had children. The plan had been carefully orchestrated, and Castro ordered his troops not to cause bloodshed unless they met armed resistance.

The attack took place on July 26, 1953, but before it had even begun it ran into trouble; of the sixteen cars that had set out from Santiago, one broke down on the way and two others got separated from the main convoy. When they eventually reached the barracks, further problems arose and soon the alarm was raised by the guards, with most of the rebels being pinned down outside of the base by machine gun fire. Those that managed to get inside faced heavy resistance, and four of them were killed by gunfire before Castro, realising that he was heavily outnumbered, ordered his men to retreat. In the attack, the rebels had suffered 6 fatalities and 15 other casualties, whilst the government forces had faced a heavier toll, with 19 dead and 27 wounded. Meanwhile, some of the other rebels had taken over a civilian hospital, but as the main attack on the barracks failed, government soldiers stormed the hospital, rounding up the rebels, before torturing them for information and finally summarily executing 22 of them without trial. Those rebels that had been able to escape, and who included both Fidel and his brother Raúl, had assembled at their base, the Siboney Farm, where some debated surrender, whilst others wished to flee to Havana. Castro however, accompanied by 19 comrades, decided to set out for the rugged Gran Piedra mountains several miles to the north, where they could establish a guerrilla base and continue their revolutionary activities.

In response to the Moncada attack, Batista's government ordered a violent crackdown on all dissent (orchestrated by both the army and the SIM police), declaring martial law and imposing strict censorship on the media. Government propaganda began broadcasting falsities about the event, claiming that the rebels had murdered patients in the civilian hospital and asserting that the Movement was a communist group financed by the exiled President Prío (ignoring the fact that the latter was a fierce anti-communist). Despite this censorship, news and photographs soon spread of the army's use of torture and summary executions in Oriente, causing widespread public and even some governmental disapproval.

Arrest and trial: 1953

Over the next few days all of the rebels hiding in the mountains were rounded up by government forces and transported to a prison north of Santiago, although Castro was not executed on the spot as many of his comrades had been. Believing that Castro had been incapable of planning the attack by himself, the government accused politicians from the Ortodoxo and communist PSP of being involved in masterminding the attack, and in all 122 defendents, amongst them Castro, were put on trial on September 21 at the Palace of Justice in Santiago. Although they were censored from reporting on it, journalists were permitted to attend the proceedings, which proved an embarrassment for the Batista administration; acting as his own defence council, Castro convinced the three presiding judges to overrule the army's decision to keep all defendents handcuffed in court, before proceeding to argue that the charge with which they were all accused – of 'organising an uprising of armed persons against the Constitutional Powers of the State' – was incorrect, for they had risen up not against the Constitutional Powers of the State but against Batista, who had seized power in an unconstitutional manner. When asked who was the intellectual author of the attack, Castro claimed that it was the long deceased national icon José Martí, before quoting some of Martí's works that justified uprisings against tyrannical regimes.

As the trial went on, knowledge of the torture that army officers inflicted on some of those captured emerged, which included castration using a razor and the gouging out of eyes with bayonets; the judges agreed that full investigations into these crimes would have to be undertaken. These revelations proved to be a great embarrassment to the army, who tried unsuccessfully to prevent Castro from testifying any further by claiming that he was too ill to leave his cell. The trial came to an end on October 5, with all of the politicians and many of the rebels being acquitted, although fifty-five were sentenced to prison terms of between 7 months and 13 years. Castro was sentenced separately, on October 16, during which he proceeded to deliver a speech that would later be printed under the title of ''History Will Absolve Me'', in which he proclaimed that:

:I warn you, I am just beginning! If there is in your hearts a vestige of love for your country, love for humanity, love for justice, listen carefully... I know that the regime will try to suppress the truth by all possible means; I know that there will be a conspiracy to bury me in oblivion. But my voice will not be stifled – it will rise from my breast even when I feel most alone, and my heart will give it all the fire that callous cowards deny it... Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me.

Although the maximum penalty for leading such an uprising was a 20 year prison sentence, Castro was ultimately sentenced to only 15 years, being imprisoned in the hospital wing of the Model Prison (''Presidio Modelo'') on the Isla de Pinos, sixty miles off of Cuba's southwest coast.

Imprisonment and the July 26 Movement: 1953–1955

Whilst imprisoned in the ''Presidio Modelo'' along with 25 of his fellow conspirators, Castro devoted himself to politics once more, changing the name of the Movement to the "July 26 Movement", in memory of the date of the failed Moncada attack. Forming a school for the prisoners, the Abel Santamaría Ideological Academy, Castro organised five hours a day of teaching, with himself and other Movement members lecturing on such subjects as ancient and modern history, philosophy and the English language. Making use of the prison library and gifts from friends outside of prison, he himself continued reading widely, enjoying the works of Marx, Lenin, and Martí but also reading books by Sigmund Freud, Immanuel Kant, William Shakespeare, Axel Munthe, Somerset Maugham and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, analysing most of them within a Marxist framework. He also corresponded with those outside of prison, trying to maintain control over his Movement without giving too much away to the prison censors, who read all of his letters, and also organised the publication and distribution of his ''History Will Absolve Me'' lecture. Although at first he had a fair amount of freedom within the prison, this came to an end after prison inmates embarrassed the guards by singing anti-Batista songs on a visit by the president in February 1954. In retaliation, the prison authorities removed most of the privileges that Castro and other prisoners were allowed, locking Castro himself up in solitary confinement indefinitely.

Meanwhile, Castro's wife Mirta, who did not share his obsession with political activism, had gained employment in the Ministry of the Interior, thereby working for Batista's government, something that she had been encouraged to do by her brother, who had been a friend and ally of Batista for many years. This had been kept a secret from Castro, who eventually found out about it on a radio announcement, and was appalled; he raged that he would rather die "a thousand times" than "suffer impotently from such an insult". Both Fidel and Mirta subsequently initiated divorce proceedings, with Mirta taking custody of their son Fidelito, something that angered Castro, who did not want his son growing up in a bourgeois environment.

In 1954, Batista's government finally went ahead with their earlier promises and held presidential elections, but no politicians had risked standing against Batista lest they face violent reprisals, and he won comfortably, with the election being widely recognised as fraudulent. The election had however allowed some political opposition to be openly voiced, and supporters of Castro and his Movement had begun agitating for an amnesty for all those imprisoned over the Moncada incident. Some politicians in the government suggested that such an amnesty would provide good publicity, and the Congress and Batista eventually agreed. Backed by the U.S. government and major corporations, and with a thriving economy, Batista believed that Castro would be no political threat to his regime, and on May 15, 1955 the prisoners were released.

Returning to Havana, Castro was met by his supporters, being carried along on the shoulders of students, and set about giving various radio interviews and press conferences. Now a single man again, Castro had sexual affairs with a number of women, including one of his devout supporters, Naty Revuelta, who conceived him a child named Alina, and another of his supporters, Maria Laborde, who conceived another child, Jorge Angel Castro. He also set about to strengthen his anti-Batista revolutionary Movement, welcoming members of the now defunct MNR into it, and establishing an eleven-person National Directorate of the 26 July Revolutionary Movement (or MR-26-7). However, despite these changes to its structure there was still dissent, with some members questioning the leadership of the MR-26-7, which was entirely under the control of Castro. When the dissenters presented to him a proposal that it be run by a democratic board rather than just himself, Castro dismissed it, arguing that a successful revolution could not be run by a committee; some of them subsequently abandoned the MR-26-7, labeling Castro a ''caudillo'' (dictator), although the majority accepted his reasoning and remained loyal to him.

Mexico and guerrilla training: 1955–1956

In 1955, a series of bomb attacks and violent demonstrations against Batista's administration led to a crackdown on dissent in Cuba, with Castro being placed under armed guard by his supporters to protect him from possible assasination attempts. His brother Raúl was accused of one such bomb attack and had to flee the county, with Fidel deciding to follow on July 7. Those members of the MR-26-7 that remained in Cuba were left with orders to prepare cells for revolutionary action in all of the country's main towns and cities, and await Castro's return, when he would bring with him an armed revolutionary army to topple Batista. He sent a letter to the country's political leaders and the press, declaring that "I am leaving Cuba because all doors of peaceful struggle have been closed to me. Six weeks after being released from prison I am convinced more than ever of the dictatorship's intention, masked in many ways, to remain in power for twenty years, ruling as now by the use of terror and crime and ignoring the patience of the Cuban people, which has its limits. As a follower of Martí, I believe the hour has come to take our rights and not beg for them, to fight instead of pleading for them."

The Castro brothers and a number of other MR-26-7 members travelled to Mexico, a country with a long history of offering asylum to left-wing exiles, where they felt that they would be welcomed by this exiled socialist community and a relatively tolerant government. Raul had befriended one of these socialists, an Argentine doctor and convinced Marxist-Leninist named Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928–1967), who was a proponent of guerrilla warfare and who was keen to join the Cuban Revolution as a part of his deeply held belief in overthrowing U.S. imperialism in Latin America. Upon meeting Guevara, Fidel took a liking to him, later describing him as being "a more advanced revolutionary than I was." Another socialist revolutionary whom Castro began associating with was the Cuban-born Spaniard Colonel Alberto Bayo (1892–1967), who had fought for the leftist Republican side in the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s, before being exiled upon the victory of the fascist General Francisco Franco and his Falange. Bayo agreed to teach Fidel's rebels the skills in guerrilla warfare that they would need if they were to return to Cuba to battle Batista, clandestinely meeting them at various hired premises.

In desperate need of money to finance his activities, Castro went on a tour of the United States in search of wealthy sympathizers, including the exiled former President Prío (who contributed the considerable sum of $100,000), during which time he was monitored by agents of Batista's government who at one point allegedly orchestrated a failed plot to kill him. These agents also bribed Mexican police to arrest Castro and other MR-26-7 members in the country, but ultimately the revolutionaries were all released, particularly as several members of the Mexican government sympathized with their cause. Meanwhile, Castro had also kept in contact with the MR-26-7 agents who had remained in Cuba, where they had succeeded in getting a large clandestine support base in several towns in Oriente. Other militant groups had also sprung up to oppose Batista within the country, primarily from the ranks of the student movement; most notable of these was the Revolutionary Directorate (DR), which had been founded by the Federation of University Students (FEU) President José Antonio Echevarría, who traveled to Mexico City to meet with Castro, but the two disagreed widely on tactics, with Castro disagreeing with the young student's policy of support for indiscriminate assassinations of government figures.

Purchasing a decrepid old yacht, the ''Granma'', it was on the 25 November 1956 that Castro set sail from Tuxpan in Veracruz, Mexico with a group of 81 revolutionaries, armed with 90 rifles, 3 machine guns, around 40 pistols and 2 hand-held anti-tank guns. The 1,200 mile crossing to Cuba was harsh, and in the overcrowded conditions of the ship (which was designed to hold around 20 passengers), many of the men suffered from seasickness, and food supplies began to run low. At some points they had to bail water caused by a leak, and at another a man fell overboard, delaying their journey. The plan had been for the journey to take five days, and on the ''Granma'''s scheduled day of arrival, 30 November, members of the MR-26-7 in Cuba under the leadership of Frank Pais led an armed uprising against government buildings in Santiago, Manzanillo and several other towns. However, the crossing in the ''Granma'' ultimately lasted for seven days, and with Castro and his men unable to provide immediate back-up, Pais and those MR-26-7 members under his leadership dispersed to their homes after two days of intermittent attacks, having "suffered very few casualties and arrests".

Guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra: 1956–1958

The ''Granma'' landed in Cuba on 2 December 1956, crashing in a mangrove swamp at Playa Las Coloradas, close to Los Cayuelos. Batista's forces had been expecting them, and within several hours of their arrival they were bombarded from a naval vessel, forcing them to flee inland, where they began heading for the Sierra Maestra in Oriente, a large forested mountain range from where they could lead a guerrilla war against Batista. At daybreak on 5 December they were unexpectantly attacked by a detachment of Batista's Rural Guard; in the confusion, the rebels scattering into different groups which continued making their journey to the Sierra Maestra independently. With only two comrades, Castro made it to the mountains, along the way meeting up with others who had survived the attack, but ultimately it was discovered that of the 82 rebels who had arrived on the ''Granma'', only 19 had made it to the Sierra Maestra, the rest being killed or captured by Batista's forces.

Setting up an encampment in the thick jungle of the Sierra Maestra, the survivors, who included Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raúl Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos, began launching attacks on small army posts in the region in order to steal weaponry; in January 1957 they attacked the outpost near to the beach at La Plata, defeating the soldiers stationed there (who Guevara, being a doctor, subsequently treated for any injuries), but executing the local ''mayoral'' (land company overseer) Chicho Osorio, who was despised by the local peasants and who had boasted of killing one of the MR-26-7 rebels several weeks previously. The execution of Osorio aided the rebels in gaining the trust of local people in the mountains, who typically hated the ''mayorals'' as enforcers of the much-despised wealthy landowners. Nonetheless, although the majority of the locals hated the army and the gentry, they were initially not particularly enthusiastic in their support for the guerrillas, viewing them with suspicion as outsiders. As trust grew between the two communities, some locals subsequently joined the rebels, although the majority of new recruits actually came from urban areas, travelling to the Sierra Maestra in order to aid the revolutionary effort.

With rising levels of support and more and more volunteers joining the rebel army, which now numbered over 200, in July 1957 Castro eventually divided his men into three columns, keeping charge of one and giving control of the others to his brother and Che Guevara. The MR-26-7 members operating in urban areas also continued agitating against the government, sending supplies to the Sierra Maestra rebels and on 16 February 1957 Castro met with other leading members of the group to discuss tactics, and it was here that he met Celia Sánchez, who would become a close friend and comrade of Castro's. The Cuban Revolution was not however simply contained to the MR-26-7, and across Cuba militant groups were beginning to rise up against Batista. Most notably, Echevarría and his DR had been carrying out bombings and acts of sabotage, leading the police to respond with mass arrests, the torture of suspects and extra-judicial killings. In March 1957 the DR launched an attack on the presidential palace, with Batista himself narrowly surviving, but the rebels were eventually defeated, and Echevarría was shot dead by police in the street as he attempted to issue a radio broadcast to the Cuban people. His death would prove beneficial for Castro, removing a charismatic rival to his leadership of the anti-Batista movement.

Although he was already a convinced Marxist-Leninist, Castro kept his beliefs a secret from many of the MR-26-7, something in contrast to Guevara and Raúl, whose beliefs were well known. In this way he hoped to gain a wider support base amongst those of other political persuasions, and in 1957 he met with leading members of the ''Partido Ortodoxo''. Castro and the ''Ortodoxo'' leaders Raúl Chibás and Felipe Pazos drafted and signed a document called the Sierra Maestra Manifesto in which they laid out their plans for a post-Batista Cuba. Rejecting the idea that Cuba should be run by a provisional military junta following Batista's demise, it demanded that a provisional civilian government be set up that was "supported by all" and which must implement agrarian reform, industrialisation and a campaign to wipe out illiteracy before introducing "truly fair, democratic, impartial, elections".

Batista's government censored the Cuban media, and so Castro felt it would be beneficial to reach out and contact foreign media sources in order to spread his message. Subsequently, a U.S. journalist from the ''New York Times'' named Herbert Matthews came to interview Castro in the Sierra Maestra, attracting interest to the rebel's cause in the United States and other parts of the world, turning him into something of a celebrity. The ''New York Times'' front page story presented Castro as a romantic and appealing revolutionary, and had exaggerated the number of troops and resources that he had at his command (an impression that Castro had deliberately given to Matthews), with Matthews even declaring that "Batista cannot possibly hope to suppress the Castro revolt". Soon, other reporters followed in Matthews' footsteps by travelling to the Sierra Maestra to interview Castro, sent by such news agencies as CBS, whilst a reporter from ''Paris Match'' actually stayed with the rebels for around four months, documenting their daily routine.

With the increasing number of attacks that Castro's guerrillas were making against army outposts in and around the Sierra Maestra, Batista's government decided to withdraw from all such posts in the region, and by the spring of 1958 the rebels controlled all of the mountainous areas in Oriente province, thereby having control over a hospital, schools, a printing press, slaughterhouse, land-mine factory and a cigar-making factory.

Countering Operation Verano: 1958

President Batista was coming under increasing pressure by 1958. His army's military failures in Oriente, coupled with his censorship of the media and the repressive techniques of torture and extra-judicial killings employed by the police and armed forces were being increasingly criticised both at home and abroad. Influenced by a wave of anti-Batista sentiment amongst their citizens, the U.S. government made the decision to stop supplying him with weaponry, which he had been using against the rebels, leading him to instead begin buying arms from the United Kingdom. The opposition movement used this as an opportunity to rise up across the country, with Castro being a supporter of the proposition of a general strike which would be accompanied by armed attacks by the MR-26-7. The strike began on 9 April, and whilst it received strong support in the centre and east of Cuba, in Havana and other urbanised western parts of the country most workers continued working as usual.

Batista's response was to launch an all-out-attack on Castro's guerrilla forces, known as ''Operation Verano''. The army began aerial bombardment of forested areas and villages that were suspected of aiding and hiding the militants, whilst 10,000 soldiers under the command of General Eulogio Cantillo surrounded the Sierra Maestra, driving north to the areas where the rebels were camped. However, despite their massive superiority of numbers and weaponry, the army were at a disadvantage, having no experience with guerrilla warfare or the mountainous region. Castro, who by this time had around 300 men at his command, avoided open confrontation, instead using land mines and ambushes to halt the enemy offensive. The army suffered heavy losses and a number of embarrassments; in June 1958 a battalion was trapped in a valley by the rebels and forced to surrender. Their weapons were confiscated, and they were handed over to the Red Cross. In the summer, the MR-26-7 went on the offensive, pushing the governmental forces back, out of the mountain range and into the lowlands, with Castro using his columns in a pincer movement to surround the main army concentration in Santiago. By November, Castro's forces had most of the provinces of Oriente and Las Villas under his control, and although the capitals of Santiago and Santa Clara remained in government hands, their grip on them was slipping.

Batista's fall and Cantillo's military junta: 1958–1959

The U.S. government had come to realise that Batista would probably lose the war, and fearing that Castro, under the influence of known Marxist-Leninists like Che Guevara, would displace U.S. interests with socialist reforms, they decided to support Batista's removal in support of a military junta led by centrist or right wing officers, believing that General Cantillo, who then commanded most of the country's armed forces, would be best placed to lead it. After being approached with this proposal, Cantillo decided to secretly meet with Castro to see if they could bring an end to the fighting, and ultimately it was agreed that the two would call a ceasefire, following which Batista would be apprehended and tried as a war criminal. However, Cantillo still had some loyalty to Batista, and warned him of Castro's intentions. Wishing to avoid a war crimes tribunal, Batista subsequently resigned on 31 December 1958, informing the armed forces that they were now under the control of Cantillo. With his family and closest advisers, Batista then fled into exile, taking with him an amassed fortune of more than US$ 300,000,000. The following morning Cantillo entered the presidential palace in Havana, proclaimed the Supreme Court judge Carlos Piedra to be the new President, and began appointing new members of the government.

Still in Oriente, Castro was furious at Cantillo's actions, recognising it as the establishment of a military junta and told his troops to end the ceasefire and continue on the offensive against government forces. The MR-26-7 put together a plan to oust the Cantillo-Piedra junta, freeing the high ranking military officer Colonel Barquin from the Isle of Pines prison (where he had been held captive for plotting to overthrow Batista), and commanding him to fly to Havana to place Cantillo under house arrest. Meanwhile, whilst there was widespread celebrations as news of Batista's downfall spread across Cuba on 1 January 1959, Castro gave an order to MR-26-7 members to take on the responsibility of policing the country, in order to prevent the widespread looting and vandalism that he had witnessed in the Bogotazo.

Whilst Cienfuegos and Guevara led their columns of soldiers into Havana onto 2 January, Castro entered Santiago, where he accepted the surrender of the Moncada Barracks, before giving a speech to the assembled crowds in which he invoked the 19th century wars of independence against the Spanish Empire. He proceeded to speak out against Cantillo's junta but highlighted that the majority of soldiers in the armed forces were honourable, and that only the few who had committed human rights abuses would be brought to justice. He also praised the role that women had played in the MR-26-7, and proclaimed that they would have equal rights in the new Cuba. Castro immediately became a heroic figure to the Cuban people, striking a "Christ-like figure" and wearing a medallion of the Virgin Mary, with cheering crowds meeting him at every town on his way to Havana, in most of which he would stay to give speeches, press conferences and interviews. U.S. and other foreign reporters noted that the public adulation of Castro was on an unprecedented scale.

Provisional government: 1959

Whilst still in the Sierra Maestra, Castro had made it clear that the lawyer Manuel Urrutia Lleó (1901–1981) should be the new Cuban president and leader of the provisional government. An established figure, Urrutia had defended several revolutionaries, including members of the MR-26-7, in court during the Batista administration, and it was for this reason that Castro believed he would make a good leader, being both connected to the Cuban establishment and favourable to the revolutionary cause. Following the house arrest of Cantillo and the ensuing collapse of the junta, Urrutia proclaimed himself to be provisional president, based purely on the support of Castro and his rebels rather than on any democratic consensus.

Law professor José Miró Cardona created a new government with himself as prime minister and Manuel Urrutia Lleó as president on January 5. The United States officially recognized the new government two days later. Castro himself arrived in Havana to cheering crowds and assumed the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces on January 8.

On January 8, 1959, Castro's army rolled victoriously into Havana and would shortly thereafter declare that "power does not interest me, and I will not take it."

Fidel Castro sought to oust liberals and democrats, such as José Miró Cardona and Manuel Urrutia Lleó. In February professor José Miró Cardona had to resign because of Castro's attacks. On February 16, 1959, Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba. Professor Miró soon went into exile in the United States, and would later participate in the Bay of Pigs Invasion against Castro's form of government. President Manuel Urrutia Lleó wanted to restore elections, but Castro opposed free elections. Castro's slogan was "Revolution first, elections later".

During this period Castro repeatedly denied being a communist. For example in New York on April 25 he said, "...[communist] influence is nothing. I don't agree with communism. We are democracy. We are against all kinds of dictators... That is why we oppose communism."

Between April 15 and April 26, Castro and a delegation of industrial and international representatives visited the U.S. as guests of the Press Club. Castro hired one of the best public relations firms in the United States for a charm offensive visit by Castro and his recently initiated government. Castro answered impertinent questions jokingly and ate hot dogs and hamburgers. His rumpled fatigues and scruffy beard cut a popular figure easily promoted as an authentic hero. He was refused a meeting with President Eisenhower. After his visit to the United States, he would go on to join forces with the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev.

Castro started to organize attacks on President Manuel Urrutia Lleó. Castro himself resigned as Prime Minister of Cuba and later that day appeared on television to deliver a lengthy denouncement of Urrutia, claiming that Urrutia "complicated" government, and that his "fevered anti-Communism" was having a detrimental effect. Castro's sentiments received widespread support as organized crowds surrounded the presidential palace demanding Urrutia's resignation, which was duly received. On July 23, Castro resumed his position as premier and appointed Osvaldo Dorticós as the new president.

Premiership

As early as July 1959, Castro's intelligence chief Ramiro Valdés contacted the KGB in Mexico City. Subsequently, the USSR sent over one hundred mostly Spanish-speaking advisors, including Enrique Líster Forján, to organize the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.

In February 1960, Cuba signed an agreement to buy oil from the USSR. When the U.S.-owned refineries in Cuba refused to process the oil, they were expropriated, and the United States broke off diplomatic relations with the Castro government soon afterward. To the concern of the Eisenhower administration, Cuba began to establish closer ties with the Soviet Union. A variety of pacts were signed between Castro and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, allowing Cuba to receive large amounts of economic and military aid from the USSR.

In June 1960, Eisenhower reduced Cuba's sugar import quota by 7,000,000 tons, and in response, Cuba nationalized some US$850 million worth of U.S. property and businesses. Health care was socialized. The new government took control of the country by nationalizing industry, redistributing property, collectivizing agriculture and creating policies that would benefit the poor. While popular among the poor, these policies alienated many former supporters of the revolution among the Cuban middle and upper-classes.

By the early autumn of 1960, the U.S. government was engaged in a semi-secret campaign to remove Castro from power.

In September 1960, Castro created Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which implemented neighborhood spying in an effort to weed out "counter-revolutionary" activities.

By the end of 1960, all opposition newspapers had been closed down and all radio and television stations were in state control, run under the Leninist principle of Democratic Centralism. Moderates, teachers and professors were purged. He was accused of keeping about 20,000 dissidents held captive and tortured under inhuman prison conditions every year.

Groups such as homosexuals were locked up in concentration camps in the 1960s, where they were subject to medical-political "re-education". Castro's admiring description of rural life in Cuba ("in the country, there are no homosexuals") reflected the idea of homosexuality as bourgeois decadence, and he denounced "maricones" (faggots) as "agents of imperialism". Castro stated that "homosexuals should not be allowed in positions where they are able to exert influence upon young people". However, in August 2010, Castro called the sending of openly gay men to labor camps without charge or trial "moments of great injustice, great injustice!" saying that "if someone is responsible, it's me."

Loyalty to Castro became the primary criteria for all appointments on the island. The Communist Party strengthened its one-party rule, with Castro as the Prime Minister.

In the 1961 New Year's Day parade, Castro exhibited Soviet tanks and other weapons. The Soviet Union awarded him the Lenin Peace Prize later that year.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs Invasion (known as La Batalla de Girón, or Playa Girón in Cuba), was an unsuccessful attempt by a US-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba with support from US government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

The plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile combatants in three days.

Reaction: the socialist state

On May 1, 1961, Castro declared Cuba a socialist state and officially abolished multiparty elections. Critics noted that Castro feared elections would eject him from power. On the same day Castro announced to the hundreds of thousands in his audience that: }}

In a nationally broadcast speech on December 2, 1961, Castro declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was adopting Communism. On February 7, 1962, the US imposed an embargo against Cuba. This embargo was broadened during 1962 and 1963, including a general travel ban for American tourists.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Tensions between Cuba and the U.S. heightened during the 1962 missile crisis, which nearly brought the U.S. and the USSR into nuclear conflict. Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing missiles in Cuba as a deterrent to a possible U.S. invasion and justified the move in response to U.S. missile deployment in Turkey. After consultations with his military advisors, he met with a Cuban delegation led by Raúl Castro in July in order to work out the specifics. It was agreed to deploy Soviet R-12 MRBMs on Cuban soil; however, American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance discovered the construction of the missile installations on October 15, 1962 before the weapons had actually been deployed.

The U.S. government viewed the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons south of Key West as an aggressive act and a threat to U.S. security. As a result, the U.S. publicly announced its discovery on October 22, 1962, and implemented a quarantine around Cuba that would actively intercept and search any vessels heading for the island. Nikolai Sergevich Leonov, who would become a General in the KGB Intelligence Directorate and the Soviet KGB deputy station chief in Warsaw, was the translator Castro used for contact with Russians during this period.

In a personal letter to Khrushchev dated October 27, 1962, Castro urged him to launch a nuclear first strike against the United States if Cuba were invaded, but Khrushchev rejected any first strike response. Soviet field commanders in Cuba were, however, authorized to use tactical nuclear weapons if attacked by the United States. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. commitment not to invade Cuba and an understanding that the US would secretly remove American MRBMs targeting the Soviet Union from Turkey and Italy, a measure that the U.S. implemented a few months later.

Assassination attempts

Fabian Escalante, who was long tasked with protecting the life of Castro, estimated the number of assassination schemes or attempts by the CIA to be 638. Some such attempts allegedly included an exploding cigar, a fungal-infected scuba-diving suit, and a mafia-style shooting. Some of these plots are depicted in a documentary entitled ''638 Ways to Kill Castro''. One of these attempts was by his ex-lover Marita Lorenz whom he met in 1959. She allegedly agreed to aid the CIA and attempted to smuggle a jar of cold cream containing poison pills into his room. When Castro realized, he reportedly gave her a gun and told her to kill him but her nerve failed. Castro once said, in regards to the numerous attempts on his life he believes have been made, "If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal."

According to the Family Jewels documents declassified by the CIA in 2007, one such assassination attempt before the Bay of Pigs invasion involved Johnny Roselli and Al Capone's successor in the Chicago Outfit, Salvatore Giancana and his right-hand man Santos Trafficante. It was personally authorized by the then US attorney general Robert Kennedy.

Giancana and Miami Syndicate leader Santos Trafficante were contacted in September 1960 about the possibility of an assassination attempt by a go-between from the CIA, Robert Maheu, after Maheu had contacted Johnny Roselli, a member of the Las Vegas Syndicate and Giancana's number-two man. Maheu had presented himself as a representative of numerous international business firms in Cuba that were being expropriated by Castro. He offered US$150,000 for the "removal" of Castro through this operation (the documents suggest that neither Roselli nor Giancana and Trafficante accepted any sort of payments for the job). According to the files, it was Giancana who suggested using a series of poison pills that could be used to doctor Castro's food and drink. These pills were given by the CIA to Giancana's nominee Juan Orta, whom Giancana presented as being an official in the Cuban government who was also in the pay of gambling interests, and who did have access to Castro.

After a series of six attempts to introduce the poison into Castro's food, Orta abruptly demanded to be let out of the mission, handing over the job to another, unnamed participant. Later, a second attempt was mounted through Giancana and Trafficante using Dr. Anthony Verona, the leader of the Cuban Exile Junta, who had, according to Trafficante, become "disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta". Verona requested US$10,000 in expenses and US$1,000 worth of communications equipment. However, it is unknown how far the second attempt went, as the entire program was cancelled shortly thereafter due to the launching of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

United States embargo

José María Aznar, former Spanish Prime Minister, wrote that the embargo was Castro's greatest ally, and that Castro would lose his presidency within three months if the embargo was lifted. Castro retained control after Cuba became bankrupt and isolated following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The synergic contraction of Cuban economy resulted in eighty-five percent of its markets disappearing, along with subsidies and trade agreements that had supported it, causing extended gas and water outages, severe power shortages, and dwindling food supplies.

In 1994, the island's economy plunged into what was called the "Special Period"; teetering on the brink of collapse. Cuba legalized the US dollar, turned to tourism, and encouraged the transfer of remittances in US dollars from Cubans living in the USA to their relatives on the Island. After massive damage caused by Hurricane Michelle in 2001, Castro proposed a one-time cash purchase of food from the U.S. while declining a U.S. offer of humanitarian aid.

The U.S. authorized the shipment of food in 2001, the first since the embargo was imposed. During 2004, Castro shut down 118 factories, including steel plants, sugar mills and paper processors to compensate for the crisis due to fuel shortages, and in 2005 directed thousands of Cuban doctors to Venezuela in exchange for oil imports.

Foreign relations

Soviet Union

Following the establishment of diplomatic ties to the Soviet Union, and after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cuba became increasingly dependent on Soviet markets and military and economic aid. Castro was able to build a formidable military force with the help of Soviet equipment and military advisors. The KGB kept in close touch with Havana, and Castro tightened Communist Party control over all levels of government, the media, and the educational system, while developing a Soviet-style internal police force. Castro's alliance with the Soviet Union caused something of a split between him and Guevara. In 1966, Guevara left for Bolivia in an ill-fated attempt to stir up revolution against the country's government.

Cuba's relations with the Soviet Union became strained when Cuba continued to recognise Israel as an independent state; the Soviet Union and its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc (with the exception of the Socialist Republic of Romania) had broken of diplomatic ties with Israel the earlier year. Relations became even more sour when Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, visited Cuba in the aftermath of the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference. During the visit Kosygin pressured Castro to end diplomatic relations with Israel, Castro responded by demanding that the Soviet Union end diplomatic relations with the United States.

On August 23, 1968, Castro made a public gesture to the USSR that caused the Soviet leadership to reaffirm their support for him. Two days after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to repress the Prague Spring, Castro took to the airwaves and publicly denounced the Czech rebellion. Castro warned the Cuban people about the Czechoslovakian 'counterrevolutionaries', who "were moving Czechoslovakia towards capitalism and into the arms of imperialists". He called the leaders of the rebellion "the agents of West Germany and fascist reactionary rabble." In return for his public backing of the invasion, at a time when many Soviet allies were deeming the invasion an infringement of Czechoslovakia's sovereignty, the Soviets bailed out the Cuban economy with extra loans and an immediate increase in oil exports.

In 1971, despite an Organization of American States convention that no nation in the Western Hemisphere would have a relationship with Cuba (the only exception being Mexico, which had refused to adopt that convention), Castro took a month-long visit to Chile, following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba. The visit, in which Castro participated actively in the internal politics of the country, holding massive rallies and giving public advice to Salvador Allende, was seen by those on the political right as proof to support their view that "The Chilean Way to Socialism" was an effort to put Chile on the same path as Cuba.

When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Cuba in 1989, the camaraderie between Havana and Moscow was strained by Gorbachev's implementation of economic and political reforms in the USSR. "We are witnessing sad things in other socialist countries, very sad things", lamented Castro in November 1989, in reference to the changes that were sweeping such communist allies as the Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. The subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 had an immediate and devastating effect on Cuba.

Other countries

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On November 4, 1975, Castro ordered the deployment of Cuban troops to Angola in order to aid the Marxist MPLA-ruled government against the South African-backed UNITA opposition forces. Moscow aided the Cuban initiative with the USSR engaging in a massive airlift of Cuban forces into Angola. On Cuba's role in Angola, Nelson Mandela is said to have remarked "Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom, and justice."

Cuban troops were also sent to Marxist Ethiopia to assist Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden War with Somalia in 1977. In addition, Castro extended support to Marxist Revolutionary movements throughout Latin America, such as aiding the Sandinistas in overthrowing the Somoza government in Nicaragua in 1979. It has been claimed by the Carthage Foundation-funded Center for a Free Cuba that an estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Cuban military actions abroad. Castro never disclosed the amount of casualties in Soviet African wars, but one estimate is 14,000, a high number for the small country.

Juan Antonio Rodríguez Mernier, a former Cuban Intelligence Major who defected in 1987, says the regime made large amounts of money from drug trafficking operations in the 1970s. The cash was to be deposited in Fidel's Swiss bank accounts "in order to finance liberation movements". Norberto Fuentes, a defected member of the Castro brothers' inner circle, has provided details about these operations. According to him, an operation conducted in cooperation with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine helped Cuban intelligence to steal one billion by robbing banks in Lebanon during the 1975–76 civil war. Gold bars, jewelry, gems, and museum pieces were carried in diplomatic pouches via air route Beirut-Moscow-Havana. Castro personally greeted the robbers as heroes.

Cuba and Panama restored diplomatic ties in 2005 after breaking them off a year prior when Panama's former president pardoned four Cuban exiles accused of attempting to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro in 2000. The foreign minister of each country re-established official diplomatic relations in Havana by signing a document describing a spirit of fraternity that has long linked both nations. Cuba, once shunned by many of its Latin American neighbours, now has full diplomatic relations with all but Costa Rica and El Salvador.

Although the relationship between Cuba and Mexico remains strained, each side appears to make attempts to improve it. In 1998, Fidel Castro apologized for remarks he made about Mickey Mouse which led Mexico to recall its ambassador from Havana. He said he intended no offense when he said earlier that Mexican children would find it easier to name Disney characters than to recount key figures in Mexican history. Rather, he said, his words were meant to underscore the cultural dominance of the US. Mexican president Vicente Fox apologized to Fidel Castro in 2002 over statements by Castro, who had taped their telephone conversation, to the effect that Fox forced him to leave a United Nations summit in Mexico so that he would not be in the presence of President Bush, who also attended.

At a summit meeting of sixteen Caribbean countries in 1998, Castro called for regional unity, saying that only strengthened cooperation between Caribbean countries would prevent their domination by rich nations in a global economy. Caribbean nations have embraced Cuba's Fidel Castro while accusing the US of breaking trade promises. Castro, until recently a regional outcast, has been increasing grants and scholarships to the Caribbean countries, while US aid has dropped 25% over the past five years. Cuba has opened four additional embassies in the Caribbean Community including: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Suriname, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. This development makes Cuba the only country to have embassies in all independent countries of the Caribbean Community.

Castro was known to be a friend of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and was an honorary pall bearer at Trudeau's funeral in October 2000. They had continued their friendship after Trudeau left office until his death. Canada became one of the first American allies openly to trade with Cuba. Cuba still has a good relationship with Canada. In 1998, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien arrived in Cuba to meet President Castro and highlight their close ties. He is the first Canadian government leader to visit the island since Pierre Trudeau was in Havana in 1976.

The European Union accuses the Castro regime of "continuing flagrant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms". In December 2001, European Union representatives described their political dialogue with Cuba as back on track after a weekend of talks in Havana. The EU praised Cuba's willingness to discuss questions of human rights. Cuba is the only Latin American country without an economic co-operation agreement with the EU. However, trade with individual European countries remains strong since the US trade embargo on Cuba leaves the market free from American rivals.

In 2005, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel ended his visit to Cuba optimistic that relations with the communist state will become stronger. The EU is Cuba's largest trading partner. Cuba's imprisonment of 75 dissidents and the execution of three hijackers have strained diplomatic relations. However, the EU commissioner was impressed with Fidel Castro's willingness to discuss these concerns, although he received no commitments from Castro. Cuba does not admit to holding political prisoners, seeing them rather as mercenaries in the pay of the United States.

Castro is seen as an icon by leaders of recent socialist governments in Latin America. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is a long-time admirer and reached agreements with Cuba to provide subsidized petroleum in exchange for Cuban medical assistance. Evo Morales of Bolivia has described him as "the grandfather of all Latin American revolutionaries".

Succession issues

According to Article 94 of the Cuban Constitution, the First Vice President of the Council of State assumes presidential duties upon the illness or death of the president. Raúl Castro was the person in that position for the last 32 years of Fidel Castro's presidency.

Speculation on illness: 1998–2005

Due to the issue of presidential succession and Castro's longevity, there have long been rumors, speculation and hoaxing about Castro's health and demise. In 1998 there were reports that he had a serious brain disease, later discredited. In June 2001, he apparently fainted during a seven-hour speech under the Caribbean sun. Later that day he finished the speech, walking buoyantly into the television studios in his military fatigues, joking with journalists.

In January 2004, Luis Eduardo Garzón, the mayor of Bogotá, said that Castro "seemed very sick to me" following a meeting with him during a vacation in Cuba. In May 2004, Castro's physician denied that his health was failing, and speculated that he would live to be 140 years old. Dr. Eugenio Selman Housein said that the "press is always speculating about something, that he had a heart attack once, that he had cancer, some neurological problem", but maintained that Castro was in good health.

On October 20, 2004, Castro tripped and fell following a speech he gave at a rally, breaking his kneecap and fracturing his right arm. He was able to recover his ability to walk and publicly demonstrated this two months later.

In 2005, the CIA said it thought Castro had Parkinson's disease. Castro denied such allegations, while also citing the example of Pope John Paul II in saying that he would not fear the disease.

Transfer of duties, speculation on illness 2006–2007

On July 31, 2006, Castro delegated his duties as President of the Council of state, President of the Council of Ministers, First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party and the post of commander in chief of the armed forces to his brother Raúl Castro. This transfer of duties was described at the time as temporary while Fidel recovered from surgery he underwent due to an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding". Fidel Castro was too ill to attend the nationwide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Granma boat landing on December 2, 2006, which also became his belated 80th birthday celebrations. Castro's non-appearance fueled reports that he had terminal pancreatic cancer and was refusing treatment, but on December 17, 2006 Cuban officials stated that Castro had no terminal illness and would eventually return to his public duties. However, on December 24, 2006, Spanish newspaper ''El Periódico de Catalunya'' reported that Spanish surgeon José Luis García Sabrido had been flown to Cuba on a plane chartered by the Cuban government. Dr. García Sabrido is an intestinal expert who further specializes in the treatment of cancer. The plane that Dr. García Sabrido's traveled in also was reported to be carrying a large quantity of advanced medical equipment. On December 26, 2006, shortly after returning to Madrid, Dr. García Sabrido held a news conference in which he answered questions about Castro's health. He stated that "He does not have cancer, he has a problem with his digestive system", and added, "His condition is stable. He is recovering from a very serious operation. It is not planned that he will undergo another operation for the moment." Although most Cubans acknowledge that they are aware Castro is seriously ill, most also seem worried about a future without Castro.

On January 16, 2007, the Spanish newspaper, ''El País'', citing two unnamed sources from the Gregorio Marañón hospital —who employs Dr. García Sabrido— in Madrid, reported Castro was in "very grave" condition, having trouble wound healing, after three failed operations and complications from an intestinal infection caused by a severe case of diverticulitis. However, Dr. García Sibrido told CNN that he was not the source of the report and that "any statement that doesn't come directly from [Castro's] medical team is without foundation." Also, a Cuban diplomat in Madrid said the reports were lies and declined to comment, while White House press secretary Tony Snow said the report appeared to be "just sort of a roundup of previous health reports. We've got nothing new." On January 30, 2007, Cuban television and the paper ''Juventud Rebelde'' showed fresh video and photos from a meeting between Castro and Hugo Chávez said to have taken place the previous day.

In mid-February 2007, it was reported by the Associated Press that Acting President Raúl Castro had said that Fidel Castro's health was improving and he was taking part in all important issues facing the government. "He's consulted on the most important questions", Raúl Castro said of Fidel. "He doesn't interfere, but he knows about everything." On February 27, 2007, Reuters reported that Fidel Castro had called into ''Aló Presidente'', a live radio talk show hosted by Hugo Chávez, and chatted with him for thirty minutes during which time he sounded "much healthier and more lucid" than he had on any of the audio and video tapes released since his surgery in July. Castro reportedly told Chávez, "I am gaining ground. I feel I have more energy, more strength, more time to study", adding with a chuckle, "I have become a student again." Later in the conversation (transcript in Spanish; audio) , he made reference to the fall of the world stock markets that had occurred earlier in the day and remarked that it was proof of his contention that the world capitalist system is in crisis.

Reports of improvements in his condition continued to circulate throughout March and early April. On April 13, 2007, Chávez was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that Castro has "almost totally recovered" from his illness. That same day, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Roque confirmed during a press conference in Vietnam that Castro had improved steadily and had resumed some of his leadership responsibilities. On April 21, 2007, the official newspaper ''Granma'' reported that Castro had met for over an hour with Wu Guanzheng, a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party who was visiting Havana. Photographs of their meeting showed the Cuban president looking healthier than he had in any previously released since his surgery.

As a comment on Castro's recovery, U.S. President George W. Bush said: "One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away", Hearing about this, Castro, who is thought to be atheist, ironically replied: "Now I understand why I survived Bush's plans and the plans of other presidents who ordered my assassination: the good Lord protected me."

In January 2009 Castro asked Cubans not to worry about his lack of recent news columns, his failing health, and not to be disturbed by his future death. At the same time pictures were released of Castro's meeting with the Argentine president Cristina Fernández on January 21, 2009.

Later years

Retirement: 2008-present

In a letter dated February 18, 2008, Castro announced that he would not accept the positions of president and commander in chief at the February 24, 2008 National Assembly meetings, saying "I will not aspire to nor accept—I repeat I will not aspire to or accept—the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief," effectively announcing his retirement from official public life. The letter was published online by the official Communist Party newspaper ''Granma''. In it, Castro stated that his health was a primary reason for his decision, stating that "It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total devotion, that I am not in a physical condition to offer".

On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly of People's Power unanimously chose his brother, Raúl Castro, as Fidel's successor as President of Cuba. In his first speech as Fidel's successor, he proposed to the National Assembly of People's Power that Fidel continue to be consulted on matters of great importance, such as defence, foreign policy and "the socioeconomic development of the country". The proposal was immediately and unanimously approved by the 597 members of the National Assembly. Raúl described his brother as "not substitutable". Castro had already given up the post of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba on July 31, 2006.

Since his retirement, Castro has written a regular column in ''Granma'' called "Reflections", in which he writes on world affairs, and has occasionally made pre-taped appearances on television greeting visitors such as Hugo Chávez in his room. In July 2010, he made his first public appearance greeting workers at a science centre and gave his most prominent television interview since falling ill, on the Cuban program ''Mesa Redonda'' speaking for an extended period about tensions between the United States, Iran and North Korea.

On August 7, 2010, Castro gave his first speech to the Cuban National Assembly in four years. He addressed the body for ten minutes on international affairs and then remained to listen and respond to questions for a further 70 minutes. In his comments he urged the United States not to go to war with Iran or North Korea and warning about the dangers of a nuclear holocaust. When asked whether Castro may be re-entering government, Culture minister Abel Prieto told the BBC, "I think that he has always been in Cuba's political life but he is not in the government...He has been very careful about that. His big battle is international affairs."

On April 19, 2011, Castro resigned from the Communist Party central committee, thus stepping down as leader of the party. Raúl Castro was selected as his successor.

Politics

Political thought

Castro has proclaimed himself to be "a Socialist, a Marxist, and a Leninist". As a socialist, Castro believes strongly in converting Cuba, and the wider world, from a capitalist system in which business and industry is owned by private individuals and organisations, into a socialist system in which all business and industry are owned by the state on behalf of the populace. In the former, there is a class divide between the wealthy classes who control the means of production (i.e. the factories, farms, media etc) and the poorer working classes who labour on them, whilst in the latter, socialists argue, this class divide would be obliterated as society becomes more egalitarian.

Marxism is the socio-political theory developed by German sociologists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. It holds as its foundation the idea of class struggle; that society mainly changes and progresses as one socio-economic class takes power from another. Thus Marxists believe that capitalism replaced feudalism in the Early Modern period as the wealthy industrial class, or bourgeoisie, took political and economic power from the traditional land-owning class, the aristocracy and monarchy. In the same process, Marxists predict that socialism will replace capitalism as the industrial working class, or proletariat, seize power from the bourgeoisie through revolutionary action. In this way, Marxism is believed by its supporters to provide a scientific explanation for why socialism should, and will, replace capitalism in human society.

Leninism refers to the theories put forward by Russian revolutionary, political theorist and politician Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Party who was a leading figure in the October Revolution that overthrew the Russian capitalist government and replaced it with a socialist alternative in 1917. Taking Marxism as its basis, Leninism revolves around putting forward ideas for how to convert a capitalist state into a socialist one. Castro used Leninist thought as a model upon which to convert the Cuban state and society into a socialist form.

Influences

Castro has described two historical figures as being particular influences on his political viewpoints; the Cuban anti-imperialist revolutionary José Martí (1853–1895) and the German sociologist and theorist Karl Marx (1818–1883). Commenting on the influence of Martí he related that "above all", he adopted his sense of ethics because:

:When he spoke that phrase I'll never be able to forget – 'All the glory in the world fits into a grain of corn' – it seemed extraordinarily beautiful to me, in the face of all the vanity and ambition that one saw everywhere, and against which we revolutionaries must be on constant guard. I seized upon that ethics. Ethics, as a mode of behaviour, is essential, a fabulous treasure.

The influence which Castro took from Marx on the other hand was his "concept of what human society is", without which, Castro argued, "you can't formulate any argument that leads to a reasonable interpretation of historical events."

Public image

By wearing military-style uniforms and leading mass demonstrations, Castro projected an image of a perpetual revolutionary. He was mostly seen in military attire, but his personal tailor, Merel Van 't Wout, convinced him to occasionally change to a business suit. Castro is often referred to as "Comandante", but is also nicknamed "''El Caballo''", meaning "The Horse", a label that was first attributed to Cuban entertainer Benny Moré, who on hearing Castro passing in the Havana night with his entourage, shouted out "Here comes the horse!"

During the revolutionary campaign, fellow rebels knew Castro as "The Giant". Large throngs of people gathered to cheer at Castro's fiery speeches, which typically lasted for hours. Many details of Castro's private life, particularly involving his family members, are scarce as the media is forbidden to mention them. Castro's image appears frequently in Cuban stores, classrooms, taxicabs, and national television. Despite this, Castro has stated that he does not promote a cult of personality.

Personal life

In his biography of the Cuban leader, entitled ''The Real Fidel Castro'' (2003), the Briton Leycester Coltman described the Cuban as being "fiercely hard-working, dedicated[,] loyal... generous and magnanimous" but also noted that he could be "vindictive and unforgiving" at times. He went on to note that Castro "always had a keen sense of humour and could laugh at himself" but could equally be "a bad loser" who would act with "ferocious rage if he thought that he was being humiliated." In her book, ''Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean'' (2011), the British historian Alex Von Tunzelmann commented that "though ruthless, [Castro] was a patriot, a man with a profound sense that it was his mission to save the Cuban people", contrasting him strongly to his Haitian contemporary François Duvalier.

Family

By his first wife Mirta Díaz-Balart, whom he married on October 11, 1948, Castro has a son named Fidel Ángel "Fidelito" Castro Díaz-Balart, born on September 1, 1949. Díaz-Balart and Castro were divorced in 1955, and she remarried Emilio Núñez Blanco. After a spell in Madrid, Díaz-Balart reportedly returned to Havana to live with Fidelito and his family. Fidelito grew up in Cuba; for a time, he ran Cuba's atomic-energy commission before being removed from the post by his father. Díaz-Balart's nephews are Republican U.S. Congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, vocal critics of the Castro government.

Fidel has five other sons by his second wife, Dalia Soto del Valle: Antonio, Alejandro, Alexis, Alexander "Alex" and Ángel Castro Soto del Valle.

While Fidel was married to Mirta, he had an affair with Natalia "Naty" Revuelta Clews, born in Havana in 1925 and married to Orlando Fernández, resulting in a daughter named Alina Fernández-Revuelta. Alina left Cuba in 1993, disguised as a Spanish tourist, and sought asylum in the United States. She has been a vocal critic of her father's policies. Alina was assisted by Elena Diaz-Verson Amos, wife of AFLAC founder John Amos. Alina lived with Elena in Columbus, Georgia, for several years.

By an unnamed woman he had another son, Jorge Ángel Castro. Fidel has another daughter, Francisca Pupo (born 1953) the result of a one night affair. Pupo and her husband now live in Miami.

His sister Juanita Castro has been living in the United States since the early 1960s. When she went into exile, she said "I cannot longer remain indifferent to what is happening in my country. My brothers Fidel and Raúl have made it an enormous prison surrounded by water. The people are nailed to a cross of torment imposed by international Communism."

Religious beliefs

According to ''Washington Post'', Fidel Castro's letters from prison suggest that he " was a man of unusual spiritual depth – and a fervent believer in God. Addressing the father of a fallen comrade, he writes: " I will not speak of him as if he were absent, he has not been and he will never be. These are not mere words of consolation. Only those of us who feel it truly and permanently in the depths of our souls can comprehend this. Physical life is ephemeral, it passes inexorably. . . . This truth should be taught to every human being – that the immortal values of the spirit are above physical life. What sense does life have without these values? What then is it to live? Those who understand this and generously sacrifice their physical life for the sake of good and justice – how can they die? God is the supreme idea of goodness and justice.""

Castro was baptized and raised a Roman Catholic as a child but did not practice as one. In Oliver Stone's documentary ''Comandante'', Castro states "I have never been a believer", and has total conviction that there is only one life. Pope John XXIII excommunicated Castro in 1962 after Castro suppressed Catholic institutions in Cuba. Castro has publicly criticized what he sees as elements of the Bible that have been used to justify the oppression of both women and people of African descent throughout history.

In 1992, Castro agreed to loosen restrictions on religion and even permitted church-going Catholics to join the Cuban Communist Party. He began describing his country as "secular" rather than "atheist". Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, the first visit by a reigning pontiff to the island. Castro and the Pope appeared side by side in public on several occasions during the visit. Castro wore a dark blue business suit rather than fatigues in his public meetings with the Pope and treated him with reverence and respect. In December 1998, Castro formally re-instated Christmas Day as the official celebration for the first time since its abolition by the Communist Party in 1969. Cubans were again allowed to mark Christmas as a holiday and to openly hold religious processions. The Pope sent a telegram to Castro thanking him for restoring Christmas as a public holiday.

Castro attended a Roman Catholic convent blessing in 2003. The purpose of this unprecedented event was to help bless the newly restored convent in Old Havana and to mark the fifth anniversary of the Pope's visit to Cuba. The senior spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christian faith arrived in Cuba in 2004, the first time any Orthodox Patriarch has visited Latin America in the Church's history: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I consecrated a cathedral in Havana and bestowed an honor on Fidel Castro. His aides said that he was responding to the decision of the Cuban Government to build and donate to the Orthodox Christians a tiny Orthodox cathedral in the heart of old Havana. After Pope John Paul II's death in April 2005, an emotional Castro attended a mass in his honor in Havana's cathedral and signed the Pope's condolence book at the Vatican Embassy. He had last visited the cathedral in 1959, 46 years earlier, for the wedding of one of his sisters. Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino led the mass and welcomed Castro, who was dressed in a black suit, expressing his gratitude for the "heartfelt way the death of our Holy Father John Paul II was received (in Cuba)."

In his 2009 spoken autobiography, Castro said that that Christianity exhibited "a group of very humane precepts" which gave the world "ethical values" and a "sense of social justice", before relating that "If people call me Christian, not from the standpoint of religion but from the standpoint of social vision, I declare that I am a Christian."

Recognition and legacy

Various leftist governments across the world have granted Castro awards for his work in promoting socialism and providing international humanitarian aid. The Juche government of North Korea for instance awarded him "the Golden Medal (Hammer and Sickle) and the First Class Order of the National Flag", whilst Muammar Gaddafi's Arab socialist government of Libya bestowed upon him a "Libyan human rights award". On a visit to South Africa in 1998 he was warmly received by President Nelson Mandela. President Mandela gave Castro South Africa's highest civilian award for foreigners, the Order of Good Hope. Last December Castro fulfilled his promise of sending 100 medical aid workers to Botswana, according to the Botswana presidency. These workers play an important role in Botswana's war against HIV/AIDS. According to Anna Vallejera, Cuba's first-ever Ambassador to Botswana, the health workers are part of her country's ongoing commitment to proactively assist in the global war against HIV/AIDS,

In Harlem, Castro is seen as an icon because of his historic visit with Malcolm X in 1960 at the Hotel Theresa.

After the fall of apartheid and the independence of Namibia, the country's capital, the city of Windhoek, renamed many streets, including one that now bears the name of Fidel Castro Street

Honours and awards

Hero of the Soviet Union

Order of Lenin, three times; (Soviet Union) 1963, "for their successful struggle for freedom and independence of heroic Cuban people, who has made a worthy contribution to the great cause of peace and socialism and his great role in strengthening and development of the fraternal Soviet-Cuban"; 1972 and 1986 "for his contribution to the promotion of fraternal relations between the USSR and Cuba"

Lenin Peace Prize for Strengthening International Peace Among Peoples (Soviet Union, 1961)

Commemorative Medal for the 30th Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 (Soviet Union, 1975)

Order of the October Revolution (Soviet Union, 1976)

Star of the Republic of Indonesia, Fourth Class

Guerrilla Star (Indonesia, 1960)

Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, First Class (1972; "for special merits in the revolutionary struggle for national liberation and social development of Cuba, for the defense of national independence and sovereignty of the motherland socialism against imperialism, for the special contribution made to the expansion of multilateral relations of cooperation, international friendship and solidarity between the Communist Party of Cuba and the Romanian Communist Party, between the Republic of Cuba and the Socialist Republic of Romania, between Cuba and the Romanian people "

Order of the White Lion, First Class (Czechoslovakia, 1972)

Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria, 1972)

Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1973)

Order of Courage (Libya) (1977)

Somali Order, First Class (1977)

Order of Jamaica (1977)

Order of Merit of Jamaica

Great Order of the Star Honor of Socialist Ethiopia (1978), for Cuban aid to victory in the Ogaden War

Jorge Dimitrov Prize for Peace (Bulgaria, 1980)

Order of the Gold Star (Vietnam, 1982)

Hero of the People's Republic of Korea

Order of National Flag, First Class (North Korea, 1986)

Order of Karl Marx (German Democratic Republic)

Collar of the Order of the Aztec Eagle (Mexico, 1987)

Gold Medal of the Senate of Spain (1988)

Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia, 1989) "for outstanding personal merits for the expansion of fraternal and friendly partnership and cooperation between Cuban and Czechoslovak Communist parties, the two countries and their peoples"

Order Agostinho Neto (Angola, 1992)

Order of Merit of Duarte, Sanchez and Mella, Grand Cross Gold Plate (Dominican Republic, 1998)

Order of Good Hope, First Degree (South Africa, 1998)

Grand Cross of the Order Mali National (July 1998)

Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise (Ukraine, 2000), for medical assistance to victims of the Chernobyl disaster

Independence Medal of Qatar (15 September 2000)

Order of the Republic of Yemen (2000)

Grand Collar of the Order of the Liberator (Venezuela, October 2000)

Grand Collar of the Order Agostura Congress (Venezuela, 2001)

Honorary Medal of the Algerian Liberation Army (May 6, 2001)

Order of the Crown of the Realm (Malaysia, 11/05/2001)

Medal of the City of Buenos Aires (2003)

Hero of Working with its Gold Medal for Hammer and Sickle (North Korea, 2006)

Order of National Flag First Class (North Korea, 2006) to "promote the reunification of the Korean peninsula and build socialism"

Amilcar Cabral Medal (Guinea Bissau, 2007) for "having contributed to the establishment and strengthening of Guinea Bissau"

Sports Merit Medal (Ministry of Sports of Ecuador, 2007)

Order of the ancient Welwitschia Mirabilis (Namibia, March 2008) "for his support of African liberation struggles"

Ubuntu Award (National Heritage Council of South Africa, 2008) "a life dedicated to solidarity and ethics, highlighting the importance of human values ​​and dedication to humanity"

Medal of Honor of Dominica (November 2008) for "the support provided by Cuba and its leader since independence in Dominica"

General Order of Omar Torrijos Herrera Division of Great Extraordinary Cross (Panama, January 2009)

Grand Collar of the Order of the Quetzal (February 2009) "in appreciation for the more than 17 million consultations and more than 40,000 operations of the Operation Miracle Eye, made by Cuban doctors for the benefit of the Guatemalan people"

Order of Oliver Reginald Tambo, Fellow in Grade Gold South Africa "for his contribution to the eradication of racism, colonialism, apartheid and inequality in human society"

Order of Honour and Glory (Russian Orthodox Church, October 19, 2008) - for his contribution to strengthening inter-religious cooperation in connection with the consecration of the church of Our Lady of Kazan in Havana

Order of the Eagle of Zambia, First Degree (Zambia, September 2009) "for having inspired many to fight for dignity and equality"

Order of Merit, first grade (Ukraine, March 2010) "for his important contribution to restoring the health of the children of Chernobyl, after an accident in 1986 in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic"

General Eloy Alfaro Award (Ecuador, May 2010) for its "exceptional merit and dignity"

East Timor Order, Great Collar (November 2010) "for Cuban support in health and education"

Controversy and criticism

Dictatorship

Many observers refer to Castro as a dictator and his rule was the longest to-date in modern Latin American history.

Human rights abuses

The Human Rights Watch organization has suggested that Castro constructed a "repressive machinery" which "continues to deprive Cubans of their basic rights".

Castro's 49-year regime remains one of the most controversial in the history of Latin America. Scholar R. J. Rummel estimates the casualties of his regime to 73,000, with one study estimating over 119,000 and several others suggesting significantly lower figures.

Allegations of mismanagement

In their book, ''Corruption in Cuba'', Sergio Diaz-Briquets and Jorge F. Pérez-López Servando state that Castro "institutionalized" corruption and that "Castro's state-run monopolies, cronyism, and lack of accountability have made Cuba one of the world's most corrupt states". Servando Gonzalez, in ''The Secret Fidel Castro'', calls Castro a "corrupt tyrant".

In 1959, according to Gonzalez, Castro established "Fidel's checking account", from which he could draw funds as he pleased. The "Comandante's reserves" were created in 1970, from which Castro allegedly "provided gifts to many of his cronies, both home and abroad". Gonzalez asserts that Comandante's reserves have been linked to counterfeiting business empires and money laundering.

As early as 1968, a once-close friend of Castro's wrote that Castro had huge accounts in Swiss banks. Castro's secretary was allegedly seen using Zürich banks. Gonzalez wrote that Cuba's paucity of trade with Switzerland contrasts oddly with the National Office of Cuba's relatively large office in Zurich. Castro has denied having a bank account abroad with even a dollar in it.

Allegations of wealth

A KGB officer, Alexei Novikov, stated that Castro's personal life, like the lives of the rest of the Communist elite, is "shrouded under an impenetrable veil of secrecy". Among other things, he asserted that Castro has a personal guard of more than 9,700 men and three luxurious yachts.

In 2005, American business and financial magazine ''Forbes'' listed Castro among the world's richest people, with an estimated net worth of US$550 million. The estimates, which the magazine admitted were "more art than science", claimed that the Cuban leader's personal wealth was nearly double that of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, despite anecdotal evidence from diplomats and businessmen that the Cuban leader's personal life was notably austere. This assessment was drawn by making economic estimates of the net worth of Cuba's state-owned companies, and used the assumption that Castro had personal economic control. ''Forbes'' later increased the estimates to US$900 million, adding rumors of large cash stashes in Switzerland. The magazine offered no proof of this information, and according to CBS News, Castro's entry on the rich list was notably brief compared to the amount of information provided on other figures. Castro, who had considered suing the magazine, responded that the claims were "lies and slander", and that they were part of a US campaign to discredit him. He declared: "If they can prove that I have a bank account abroad, with US$900m, with US$1m, US$500,000, US$100,000 or US$1 in it, I will resign." President of Cuba's Central Bank, Francisco Soberón, called the claims a "grotesque slander", asserting that money made from various state owned companies is pumped back into the island's economy, "in sectors including health, education, science, internal security, national defense and solidarity projects with other countries."

Authored works

Fully or partially by Fidel Castro

''Capitalism in Crisis: Globalization and World Politics Today'', Ocean Press, 2000, ISBN 1876175184

''Che: A Memoir'', Ocean Press, 2005, ISBN 192088825X

''Cuba at the Crossroads'', Ocean Press, 1997, ISBN 187528494X

''Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography'', Scribner, 2008, ISBN 1416553282

''Fidel Castro Reader'', Ocean Press, 2007, ISBN 1920888888

''Fidel My Early Years'', Ocean Press, 2004, ISBN 1920888098

''Fidel & Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism & Liberation Theology'', Ocean Press, 2006, ISBN 1920888454

''How Far We Slaves Have Come! South Africa and Cuba in Today's World'', by Nelson Mandela & Fidel Castro, Pathfinder Press, 1991, ISBN 087348729X

''Playa Giron: Bay of Pigs : Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas'', Pathfinder Press, 2001, ISBN 087348925X

''Political Portraits: Fidel Castro reflects on famous figures in history'', Ocean Press, 2008, ISBN 1920888942

''The Declarations of Havana'', Verso, 2008, ISBN 1844671569

''The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro'', Nation Books, 2007, ISBN 1560259833

''War, Racism and Economic Justice: The Global Ravages of Capitalism'', Ocean Press, 2002, ISBN 1876175478

See also

2006–2008 Cuban transfer of presidential duties

Cuban dissident movement

July 26 Movement

Left-wing nationalism

Politics of Cuba

In other media:

''638 Ways to Kill Castro''

''Comandante''

''Fidel (2001 documentary)''

''Fidel (film)''

''My Life (Fidel Castro autobiography)''

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

;By Fidel Castro

Archive of Fidel Castro's speeches in 6 languages

Fidel Castro History Archive at Marxists Internet Archive.

Collection of Castro's speeches

"We Don't Hope for Favors from the Worst of Empires"

"Where Have All the Bees Gone?"

"In Spite of Everything: Reflections on the Pan-American Games"

"Time for an Alliance of Civlizations Against Empire"

Fidel Castro in His Own Words

;Images

Castro: Early Years (1953–1961) – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Fidel Castro: A Revolutionary Life – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Fidel Castro: A Life in Pictures – slideshow by ''BBC News''

Fidel Castro's Five Decades in Power – slideshow by ''The Washington Post''

Fidel Castro Resigns as President – slideshow by ''New York Times''

;About Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro: From Rebel to El Presidente – timeline by ''NPR''

Arthur Miller: A Visit With Castro by ''The Nation'', December 24, 2003

BBC Video: Fidel Castro Visits Boyhood Home of Che Guevara

''New York Times'' –- Interactive Feature: Three Days With Fidel

PBS American Experience Interactive site on Fidel Castro with a teacher's guide

Guide to the Cuban Revolution Collection, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library

Deena Stryker Photographs of Cuba, 1963–1964, Duke University Libraries Digital Collections

NPR Audio: Cuba's Castro an Inspiration, Not a Role Model by Tom Gjelten, September 15, 2006

''The Guardian:'' "The Fidel I Think I Know" by Gabriel García Márquez, August 12, 2006

''Washington Post:'' Fidel Castro Will Always Lead Cuba, Locals Say February 22, 2008

|- |- |- |- |- |-

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Coordinates	35°27′″N139°38′″N
Name	Richard Nixon
Office	37th President of the United States
Vicepresident	Spiro AgnewGerald Ford
Term start	January 20, 1969
Term end	August 9, 1974
Predecessor	Lyndon Johnson
Successor	Gerald Ford
Office2	36th Vice President of the United States
President2	Dwight Eisenhower
Term start2	January 20, 1953
Term end2	January 20, 1961
Predecessor2	Alben Barkley
Successor2	Lyndon Johnson
Jr/sr3	United States Senator
State3	California
Term start3	December 4, 1950
Term end3	January 1, 1953
Predecessor3	Sheridan Downey
Successor3	Thomas Kuchel
State4	California
District4	12th
Term start4	January 3, 1947
Term end4	December 1, 1950
Predecessor4	Jerry Voorhis
Successor4	Patrick Hillings
Birth date	January 09, 1913
Birth place	Yorba Linda, California, US
Death date	April 22, 1994
Death place	New York City, New York, US
Party	Republican Party
Spouse	Pat Ryan (1940–93)
Children	TriciaJulie
Alma mater	Whittier CollegeDuke University
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Quaker
Signature	Richard Nixon Signature.svg
Signature alt	Cursive signature in ink
Branch	United States Navy
Serviceyears	1942–46
Rank	Lieutenant commander
Battles	World War IIPacific War
Awards	American Campaign MedalAsiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (2 service stars)World War II Victory Medal }}

Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing his undergraduate work at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife, Pat Nixon, moved to Washington to work for the federal government in 1942. He subsequently joined the United States Navy, serving in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election, the first of five national nominations he received from his party, a record he shares with Franklin Roosevelt. Nixon served for eight years as vice president, traveling extensively and undertaking major assignments from Eisenhower. Nixon waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California in 1962. Following these defeats, he announced his withdrawal from political life. However, in 1968 he ran again for the presidency and was elected.

American involvement in Vietnam was widely unpopular; although Nixon initially escalated the war there, he subsequently moved to end US involvement, completely withdrawing American forces by 1973. Nixon's ground-breaking visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972 opened diplomatic relations between the two nations, and he initiated détente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union the same year. In domestic policy, his administration generally sought to transfer power from Washington to the states. In an attempt to slow inflation, Nixon imposed wage and price controls. He enforced desegregation of Southern schools and established the Environmental Protection Agency. Though he presided over Apollo 11, the culmination of the project to land a person on the moon, he scaled back manned space exploration. He was reelected by a landslide in 1972.

Nixon's second term was marked by crisis: 1973 saw an Arab oil embargo as a result of U.S. support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War and a continuing series of revelations about the Watergate scandal, which began as a break-in at a Washington office. The scandal escalated despite efforts by the Nixon administration to cover it up, costing Nixon much of his political support, and on August 9, 1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was controversially issued a pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. In retirement, Nixon's work as an elder statesman—authoring several books and undertaking many foreign trips—helped to rehabilitate his image. He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81. Nixon remains a source of considerable interest among historians, as they struggle to resolve the enigma of a president of great ability who left office in disgrace yet subsequently reinvented himself as an elder statesman.

Early life

Nixon was born to Francis A. Nixon and Hannah Milhous Nixon on January 9, 1913, in a house his father built in Yorba Linda, California. His mother was a Quaker (his father converted from Methodism after his marriage), and his upbringing was marked by conservative Quaker observances of the time, such as refraining from alcohol, dancing, and swearing. Nixon had four brothers: Harold (1909–33), Donald (1914–87), Arthur (1918–25), and Edward (born 1930). Four of the five Nixon boys were named after kings who had ruled in historical or legendary England; Richard, for example, was named after Richard the Lionheart.

Nixon's early life was marked by hardship, and he later quoted a saying of Eisenhower to describe his boyhood: "We were poor, but the glory of it was, we didn't know it." The Nixon family ranch failed in 1922, and the family moved to Whittier, California. In an area with many Quakers, Frank Nixon opened a grocery store and gas station. Richard's younger brother Arthur died in 1925 after a short illness. At the age of twelve, Richard was found to have a spot on his lung, and with a family history of tuberculosis, he was forbidden to play sports. Eventually, the spot was found to be scar tissue from an early bout of pneumonia. Young Richard attended East Whittier Elementary School, where he was president of his eighth-grade class.

Frank and Hannah Nixon believed that attendance at Whittier High School had caused Richard's older brother Harold to live a dissolute lifestyle before the older boy fell ill of tuberculosis (he died of the disease in 1933). Instead, they sent Richard to the larger Fullerton High School. He received excellent grades, even though he had to ride a school bus for an hour each way during his freshman year—later, he lived with an aunt in Fullerton during the week. He played junior varsity football, and rarely missed a practice, even though he was rarely used in games. He had greater success as a debater, winning a number of championships and taking his only formal tutelage in public speaking from Fullerton's Head of English, H. Lynn Sheller. Nixon later remembered Sheller's words, "Remember, speaking is conversation ... don't shout at people. Talk to them. Converse with them." Nixon stated that he tried to use the conversational tone as much as possible.

Nixon's parents permitted him to transfer to Whittier High School for his junior year, beginning in September 1928. At Whittier High, Nixon suffered his first electoral defeat, for student body president. He generally rose at 4 a.m., to drive the family truck into Los Angeles and purchase vegetables at the market. He then drove to the store to wash and display them, before going to school. Harold had been diagnosed with tuberculosis the previous year; when Hannah Nixon took him to Arizona in the hopes of improving his health, the demands on Richard increased, causing him to give up football. Nevertheless Nixon graduated from Whittier High third in his class of 207 students.

Nixon was offered a tuition grant to attend Harvard University, but Harold's continued illness and the need for Hannah Nixon to care for him meant Richard was needed at the store. He remained in his hometown and attended Whittier College, his expenses there covered by a bequest from his maternal grandfather. Instead of fraternities and sororities, Whittier had literary societies. Nixon was snubbed by the only one for men, the Franklins; many members of the Franklins were from prominent families but Nixon was not. He responded by helping to found a new society, the Orthogonians. In addition to the society, schoolwork, and work at the store, Nixon found time for a large number of extracurricular activities, becoming a champion debater and gaining a reputation as a hard worker. In 1933, he became engaged to Ola Florence Welch, daughter of the Whittier police chief; the two broke up in 1935.

After his graduation from Whittier in 1934, Nixon received a full scholarship to attend Duke University School of Law. The school was new and sought to attract top students by offering scholarships. It paid high salaries to its professors, many of whom had national or international reputations. The number of scholarships was greatly reduced for second and third year students, forcing recipients into intense competition. Nixon not only kept his scholarship but was elected president of the Duke Bar Association and graduated third in his class in June 1937. He later wrote of his alma mater: "I always remember that whatever I have done in the past or may do in the future, Duke University is responsible in one way or another."

Early career, marriage and war service

After graduating from Duke, Nixon initially hoped to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He received no response to his letter of application and only learned years later that he had been hired, but his appointment had been canceled at the last minute due to budget cuts. Instead, he returned to California and was admitted to the bar in 1937. He began practicing with the law firm Wingert and Bewley in Whittier, working on commercial litigation for local petroleum companies and other corporate matters, as well as on wills. In later years, Nixon proudly stated that he was the only modern president to work as a practicing attorney. Nixon was reluctant to work on divorce cases, disliking frank sexual talk from women. In 1938, he opened up his own branch of Wingert and Bewley in La Habra, California, and became a full partner in the firm the following year.

In January 1938, Nixon was cast in the Whittier Community Players production of ''The Dark Tower''. There he played opposite a high school teacher named Thelma "Pat" Ryan. Nixon described it in his memoirs as "a case of love at first sight"—for Nixon only, as Pat Ryan turned down the young lawyer several times before agreeing to date him. Once they began their courtship, Ryan was reluctant to marry Nixon; the relationship dragged on two years before she assented to his proposal. They wed at a small ceremony on June 21, 1940. After a honeymoon in Mexico, the Nixons began their married life in Whittier. They had two children, Tricia (born 1946) and Julie (born 1948).

In January 1942, the couple moved to Washington, D.C., where Nixon took a job at the Office of Price Administration. In his political campaigns, Nixon would suggest that this was his response to Pearl Harbor, but he had sought the position throughout the latter part of 1941. Both Nixon and his wife believed he was limiting his prospects by remaining in Whittier. He was assigned to the tire rationing division, where he was tasked with replying to correspondence. He did not enjoy the role, and four months later, applied to join the United States Navy. As a birthright Quaker, he could have claimed exemption from the draft, and deferments were routinely granted for those in government service. His application was successful, and he was inducted into the Navy in August 1942.

Nixon completed Officers Candidate School and was commissioned as an ensign in October 1942. His first post was as aide to the commander of the Ottumwa Naval Air Station in Iowa. Seeking more excitement, he requested sea duty and was reassigned as the naval passenger control officer for the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command, supporting the logistics of operations in the South West Pacific theater. After requesting more challenging duties, he was given command of cargo handling units. Nixon earned two service stars and a citation of commendation, although he saw no actual combat. Upon his return to the US, Nixon was appointed the administrative officer of the Alameda Naval Air Station in California. In January 1945, he was transferred to the Bureau of Aeronautics office in Philadelphia to help negotiate the termination of war contracts, and he received another letter of commendation for his work there. Later, Nixon was transferred to other offices to work on contracts and finally to Baltimore. In October 1945, he was promoted to lieutenant commander. He resigned his commission on New Year's Day 1946.

Rising politician

Congressional career

In 1945, Republicans in California's 12th congressional district, frustrated by their inability to defeat Democratic Congressman Jerry Voorhis, sought a consensus candidate who would run a strong campaign against him. They formed a "Committee of 100" to decide on a candidate, hoping to avoid internal dissensions which had led to Voorhis victories. After the committee failed to attract higher-profile candidates, Herman Perry, Whittier's Bank of America branch manager, suggested Nixon, a family friend with whom he had served on the Whittier College Board of Trustees before the war. Perry wrote to Nixon in Baltimore. After a night of excited talk between the Nixons, the naval officer responded to Perry with enthusiasm. Nixon flew to California and was selected by the committee. When he left the Navy at the start of 1946, Nixon and his wife returned to Whittier, where Nixon began a year of intensive campaigning. He contended that Voorhis had been ineffective as a congressman and suggested that Voorhis's endorsement by a group linked to communists meant that Voorhis must have radical views. Nixon won the election, receiving 65,586 votes to Voorhis' 49,994.

In Congress, Nixon supported the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947 and served on the Education and Labor Committee. He was part of the Herter Committee, which went to Europe to report on the need for US foreign aid. Nixon was the youngest member of the committee, and the only Westerner. Advocacy by Herter Committee members, including Nixon, led to congressional passage of the Marshall Plan.

Nixon first gained national attention in 1948 when his investigation, as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), broke the Alger Hiss spy case. While many doubted Whittaker Chambers' allegations that Hiss, a former State Department official, had been a Soviet spy, Nixon believed them to be true. He discovered that Chambers saved microfilm reproductions of incriminating documents by hiding the film in a pumpkin. Hiss was convicted of perjury in 1950 for denying under oath he had passed documents to Chambers. In 1948, Nixon successfully cross-filed as a candidate in his district, winning both major party primaries, and was comfortably reelected.

In 1949, Nixon began to consider running for the United States Senate against the Democratic incumbent, Sheridan Downey, and entered the race in November of that year. Downey, faced with a bitter primary battle with Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, announced his retirement in March 1950. Nixon and Douglas won the primary elections and engaged in a contentious campaign in which the ongoing Korean War was a major issue. Nixon tried to focus attention on Douglas' liberal voting record. As part of that effort, a "Pink Sheet" was distributed by the Nixon campaign suggesting that, as Douglas' voting record was similar to that of New York Congressman Vito Marcantonio (believed by some to be a communist), their political views must be nearly identical. Nixon won the election by almost twenty percentage points.

In the Senate, Nixon took a prominent position in opposing global communism, traveling frequently and speaking out against "the threat". He maintained friendly relations with his fellow anti-communist, the controversial Wisconsin senator, Joseph McCarthy, but was careful to keep some distance between himself and McCarthy's allegations. Nixon also criticized President Harry S. Truman's handling of the Korean War. He supported statehood for Alaska and Hawaii, voted in favor of civil rights for minorities, and supported federal disaster relief for India and Yugoslavia. He voted against price controls and other monetary restrictions, benefits for illegal immigrants, and public power.

1952 campaign; vice president

thumb|right|A piece of literature for the Eisenhower–Nixon campaign, 1952 General Dwight D. Eisenhower was nominated for president by the Republicans in 1952. He had no strong preference for a vice presidential candidate, and Republican officeholders and party officials met in a "smoke-filled room" and recommended Nixon to the general, who agreed to the senator's selection. Nixon's youth (he was then 39), stance against communism, and his political base in California—one of the largest states—were all seen as vote-winners by the leaders. Among the candidates considered along with Nixon were Ohio Senator Robert Taft, New Jersey Governor Alfred Driscoll and Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen. On the campaign trail, Eisenhower spoke to his plans for the country, leaving the negative campaigning to his running mate.

In mid-September, the media reported that Nixon had a political fund, maintained by his backers, which reimbursed him for political expenses. Such a fund was not illegal, but it exposed Nixon to allegations of possible conflict of interest. With pressure building for Eisenhower to demand Nixon's resignation from the ticket, the senator went on television to deliver an address to the nation on September 23, 1952. The address, later termed the Checkers speech, was heard by about 60 million Americans—including the largest television audience up to that point. Nixon emotionally defended himself, stating that the fund was not secret, nor had donors received special favors. He painted himself as a man of modest means (his wife had no mink coat; instead she wore a "respectable Republican cloth coat") and a patriot. The speech would be remembered for the gift which Nixon had received, but which he would not give back: "a little cocker spaniel dog ... sent all the way from Texas. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers." The speech was a masterpiece of rhetoric and prompted a huge public outpouring of support for candidate Nixon. Eisenhower decided to retain him on the ticket, which proved victorious in the November election.

Eisenhower had pledged to give Nixon responsibilities during his term as vice president that would enable him to be effective from the start as a successor. Nixon attended Cabinet and National Security Council meetings and chaired them when Eisenhower was absent. A 1953 tour of the Far East succeeded in increasing local goodwill toward the United States and prompted Nixon to appreciate the potential of the region as an industrial center. He visited Saigon and Hanoi in French Indochina. On his return to the United States at the end of 1953, Nixon increased the amount of time he devoted to foreign relations.

Biographer Irwin Gellman, who chronicled Nixon's congressional years, said of his vice presidency:

Eisenhower radically altered the role of his running mate by presenting him with critical assignments in both foreign and domestic affairs once he assumed his office. The vice president welcomed the president's initiatives and worked energetically to accomplish White House objectives. Because of the collaboration between these two leaders, Nixon deserves the title, "the first modern vice president".

Despite intense campaigning by Nixon, who reprised his strong attacks on the Democrats, the Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress in the 1954 elections. These losses caused Nixon to contemplate leaving politics once he had served out his term. On September 24, 1955, President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack; his condition was initially believed to be life-threatening. Eisenhower was unable to perform his duties for six weeks. The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution had not yet been proposed, and the Vice President had no formal power to act. During this time, however, Nixon acted in Eisenhower's stead, presiding over Cabinet meetings and ensuring that aides and Cabinet officers did not seek power. According to Nixon biographer Stephen Ambrose, Nixon had "earned the high praise he received for his conduct during the crisis ... he made no attempt to seize power".

His spirits buoyed, Nixon sought a second term, but some of Eisenhower's aides aimed to displace him. In a December 1955 meeting, Eisenhower proposed that Nixon not run for reelection in order to give him administrative experience before a 1960 presidential run and instead become a Cabinet officer in a second Eisenhower administration. Nixon, however, believed such an action would destroy his political career. When Eisenhower announced his reelection bid in February 1956, he hedged on the choice of his running mate, stating that it was improper to address that question until he had been renominated. Although no Republican was opposing Eisenhower, Nixon received a substantial number of write-in votes against the President in the 1956 New Hampshire primary election. In late April, the President announced that Nixon would again be his running mate. Eisenhower and Nixon were reelected by a comfortable margin in the November 1956 election.

In the spring of 1957, Nixon undertook another major foreign trip, this time to Africa. On his return, he helped shepherd the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through Congress. The bill was weakened in the Senate, and civil rights leaders were divided over whether Eisenhower should sign it. Nixon advised the President to sign the bill, which he did. Eisenhower suffered a mild stroke in November 1957, and Nixon gave a press conference, assuring the nation that the Cabinet was functioning well as a team during Eisenhower's brief illness.

On April 27, 1958, Richard and Pat Nixon embarked on a goodwill tour of South America. In Montevideo, Uruguay, Nixon made an impromptu visit to a college campus, where he fielded questions from students on US foreign policy. The trip was uneventful until the Nixon party reached Lima, Peru, where he was met with student demonstrations. Nixon went to the campus, got out of his car to confront the students, and stayed until forced back into the car by a volley of thrown objects. At his hotel, Nixon faced another mob, and one demonstrator spat on him. In Caracas, Nixon and his wife were spat on by anti-American demonstrators and their limousine was attacked by a pipe-wielding mob. According to Ambrose, Nixon's courageous conduct "caused even some of his bitterest enemies to give him some grudging respect".

In July 1959, President Eisenhower sent Nixon to the Soviet Union for the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow. On July 24, while touring the exhibits with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, the two stopped at a model of an American kitchen and engaged in an impromptu exchange about the merits of capitalism versus communism that became known as the "Kitchen Debate".

1960 and 1962 elections; wilderness years

In 1960, Nixon launched his first campaign for President of the United States. He faced little opposition in the Republican primaries and chose former Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. as his running mate. His Democratic opponent was John F. Kennedy, and the race remained close for the duration. Nixon campaigned on his experience, but Kennedy called for new blood and claimed the Eisenhower–Nixon administration had allowed the Soviet Union to overtake the US in ballistic missiles (the "missile gap"). A new political medium was introduced in the campaign: televised presidential debates. In the first of four such debates, Nixon appeared pale, with a five o'clock shadow, in contrast to the photogenic Kennedy. Nixon's performance in the debate was perceived to be mediocre in the visual medium of television, though many people listening on the radio thought that Nixon had won. Nixon lost the election narrowly, with Kennedy ahead by only 120,000 votes (0.2 percent) in the popular vote.

There were charges of vote fraud in Texas and Illinois, both states won by Kennedy; Nixon refused however to consider contesting the election, feeling a lengthy election contest would diminish the United States in the eyes of the world, and the uncertainty would hurt US interests. At the end of his term of office as vice president in January 1961, Nixon and his family returned to California, where he practiced law and wrote a bestselling book, ''Six Crises'', which included coverage of the Hiss case, Eisenhower's heart attack, and the Fund Crisis, which had been resolved by the Checkers speech.

Local and national Republican leaders encouraged Nixon to challenge incumbent Pat Brown for Governor of California in the 1962 election. Despite initial reluctance, Nixon entered the race. The campaign was clouded by public suspicion that Nixon viewed the office as a stepping-stone for another presidential run, some opposition from the far-right of the party, and his own lack of interest in being California's governor. Nixon hoped that a successful run would confirm him in his status as the nation's leading Republican, and ensure he remained a major player in national politics. Instead, he lost to Brown by nearly 300,000 votes, and the defeat was widely believed to be the end of his political career. In an impromptu concession speech the morning after the election, Nixon blamed the media for favoring his opponent, saying, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference". The California defeat was highlighted in the November 11, 1962, episode of ABC's ''Howard K. Smith: News and Comment'' entitled "The Political Obituary of Richard M. Nixon". Alger Hiss appeared on the program, and many members of the public complained that it was unseemly to allow a convicted felon air time to attack a former vice president. The furor drove Smith and his program from the air, and public sympathy for Nixon grew.

The Nixon family traveled to Europe in 1963, where Nixon gave press conferences and met with leaders of the countries he visited. The family moved to New York City, where Nixon became a senior partner in the leading law firm Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander. Nixon had pledged, when announcing his California campaign, not to run for president in 1964; even if he had not, he believed it would be difficult to defeat Kennedy, or after his assassination, Kennedy's successor Lyndon Johnson. In 1964, he supported Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater for the Republican nomination for president; when Goldwater was successful in gaining the nomination, Nixon was selected to introduce the candidate to the convention. Although he thought Goldwater unlikely to win, Nixon campaigned for him loyally. The election was a disaster for the Republicans; Goldwater's landslide loss to Johnson was matched by heavy losses for the party in Congress and among state governors.

Nixon was one of the few leading Republicans not blamed for the disastrous results, and he sought to build on that in the 1966 congressional elections. He campaigned for many Republicans seeking to regain seats lost in the Johnson landslide and received credit for helping the Republicans make major gains in the midterm election.

1968 presidential election

At the end of 1967, Nixon told his family he planned to run for president a second time. Although Pat Nixon did not always enjoy public life (for example, she had been embarrassed by the need to reveal how little the family owned in the Checkers speech), she was supportive of her husband's ambitions. Nixon believed that with the Democrats torn over the issue of the Vietnam War, a Republican had a good chance of winning, although he expected the election to be as close as in 1960.

One of the most tumultuous primary election seasons ever began as the Tet Offensive was launched, followed by the withdrawal of President Johnson as a candidate after doing unexpectedly poorly in the New Hampshire primary; it concluded with the assassination of one of the Democratic candidates, Senator Robert F. Kennedy just moments after his victory in the California primary. On the Republican side, Nixon's main opposition was Michigan Governor George Romney, though New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and California Governor Ronald Reagan each hoped to be nominated in a brokered convention. Nixon secured the nomination on the first ballot. He selected Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew as his running mate, a choice which Nixon believed would unite the party, appealing to both Northern moderates and Southerners disaffected with the Democrats.

Nixon's Democratic opponent in the general election was Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who was nominated at a convention marked by violent protests. Throughout the campaign, Nixon portrayed himself as a figure of stability during a period of national unrest and upheaval. He appealed to what he later called the "silent majority" of socially conservative Americans who disliked the hippie counterculture and the anti-war demonstrators. Agnew became an increasingly vocal critic of these groups, solidifying Nixon's position with the right.

Nixon waged a prominent television advertising campaign, meeting with supporters in front of cameras. He stressed that the crime rate was too high, and attacked what he perceived as a surrender by the Democrats of the United States' nuclear superiority. Nixon promised "peace with honor" in the Vietnam War and proclaimed that "new leadership will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific". He did not release specifics of how he hoped to end the war, resulting in media intimations that he must have a "secret plan". His slogan of "Nixon's the One" proved to be effective.

In a three-way race between Nixon, Humphrey, and independent candidate Alabama Governor George Wallace, Nixon defeated Humphrey by nearly 500,000 votes (seven-tenths of a percentage point), with 301 electoral votes to 191 for Humphrey and 46 for Wallace. In his victory speech, Nixon pledged that his administration would try to bring the divided nation together. Nixon said: "I have received a very gracious message from the Vice President, congratulating me for winning the election. I congratulated him for his gallant and courageous fight against great odds. I also told him that I know exactly how he felt. I know how it feels to lose a close one."

Presidency (1969–74)

Nixon was inaugurated as president on January 20, 1969, sworn in by his onetime political rival, Chief Justice Earl Warren. Pat Nixon held the family Bibles open at Isaiah 2:4, which reads, "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks." In his inaugural address, which received almost uniformly positive reviews, Nixon remarked that "the greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker"—a phrase that would later be placed on his gravestone. He spoke about turning partisan politics into a new age of unity:

In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading. We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another, until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

Foreign policy

thumb|center|470px|upright|Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toast during Nixon's 1972 visit to China.

China

Nixon laid the groundwork for his overture to China even before he became president, writing in ''Foreign Affairs'' a year before his election: "There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation." Assisting him in this venture was his National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, with whom the President worked closely, bypassing Cabinet officials. With relations between the Soviet Union and China at a nadir—border clashes between the two took place during Nixon's first year in office—Nixon sent private word to the Chinese that he desired closer relations. A breakthrough came in early 1971, when Chairman Mao invited a team of American table tennis players to visit China and play against top Chinese players. Nixon followed up by sending Kissinger to China for clandestine meetings with Chinese officials. On July 15, 1971, it was simultaneously announced by Beijing and by Nixon (on television and radio) that the President would visit China the following February. The announcements astounded the world. The secrecy allowed both sets of leaders time to prepare the political climate in their countries for the contact.

In February 1972, Nixon and his wife traveled to China. Kissinger briefed Nixon for over 40 hours in preparation. Upon touching down, the President and First Lady emerged from Air Force One and greeted Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. Nixon made a point of shaking Zhou's hand, something which then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had refused to do in 1954 when the two met in Geneva. Over 100 television journalists accompanied the president. On Nixon's orders, television was strongly favored over printed publications, as Nixon felt that the medium would capture the visit much better than print. It also gave him the opportunity to snub the print journalists he despised.

Nixon and Kissinger met for an hour with Mao and Zhou at Mao's official private residence, where they discussed a range of issues. Mao later told his doctor that he had been impressed by Nixon, whom he considered forthright, unlike the leftists and the Soviets. He also said he was suspicious of Kissinger, though the National Security Advisor referred to their meeting as his "encounter with history". A formal banquet welcoming the presidential party was given that evening in the Great Hall of the People. The following day, Nixon met with Zhou; the joint communique following this meeting recognized Taiwan as a part of China, and looked forward to a peaceful solution to the problem of reunification. When not in meetings, Nixon toured architectural wonders including the Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, and the Great Wall. Americans received their first glimpse into Chinese life through the cameras which accompanied Pat Nixon, who toured the city of Beijing and visited communes, schools, factories, and hospitals.

The visit ushered in a new era of Sino-American relations. Fearing the possibility of a Sino-American alliance, the Soviet Union yielded to pressure for détente with the United States.

Vietnam War

When Nixon took office, about 300 American soldiers were dying each week in Vietnam, and the war was broadly unpopular in the United States, with violent protests against the war ongoing. The Johnson administration had agreed to suspend bombing in exchange for negotiations without preconditions, but this agreement never fully took force. Nixon sought some arrangement which would permit American forces to withdraw, while leaving South Vietnam secure against attack.

Nixon approved a secret bombing campaign of North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia in March 1969 (code-named ''Operation Menu'') to destroy what was believed to be the headquarters of the Viet Cong. In mid-1969, Nixon began efforts to negotiate peace with the North Vietnamese, sending a personal letter to North Vietnamese leaders, and peace talks began in Paris. Initial talks, however, did not result in an agreement. In July 1969, Nixon visited South Vietnam, where he met with his US military commanders and President Nguyen Van Thieu. Amid protests at home demanding an immediate pullout, he implemented a strategy of replacing American troops with Vietnamese troops, known as "Vietnamization". He soon instituted phased US troop withdrawals but authorized incursions into Laos, in part to interrupt the Ho Chi Minh trail, used to supply North Vietnamese forces, that passed through Laos and Cambodia. Nixon's campaign promise to curb the war, contrasted with the escalated bombing, led to claims that Nixon had a "credibility gap" on the issue.

In 1971, excerpts from the "Pentagon Papers", which had been leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, were published by ''The New York Times'' and ''The Washington Post''. When news of the leak first appeared, Nixon was inclined to do nothing; the Papers, a history of United States' involvement in Vietnam, mostly concerned the lies of prior administrations and contained few real revelations. He was persuaded by Kissinger that the papers were more harmful than they appeared, and the President tried to prevent publication. The Supreme Court eventually ruled for the newspapers.

As US troop withdrawals continued, conscription was reduced and in 1973 ended; the armed forces became all-volunteer. After years of fighting, the Paris Peace Accords were signed at the beginning of 1973. The agreement implemented a cease fire and allowed for the withdrawal of remaining American troops; however, it did not require the 160,000 North Vietnam Army regulars located in the South to withdraw. Once American combat support ended, there was a brief truce, before fighting broke out again, this time without American combat involvement. North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam in 1975.

Latin American policy

Nixon had been a firm supporter of Kennedy in the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion and 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis; on taking office he stepped up covert operations against Cuba and its president, Fidel Castro. He maintained close relations with the Cuban-American exile community through his friend, Bebe Rebozo, who often suggested ways of irritating Castro. These activities concerned the Soviets and Cubans, who feared Nixon might attack Cuba in violation of the understanding between Kennedy and Khrushchev which had ended the missile crisis. In August 1970, the Soviets asked Nixon to reaffirm the agreement. Despite his hard line against Castro, Nixon agreed. The process—which began in secret, but quickly leaked—had not been completed when the US deduced that the Soviets were expanding their base at the Cuban port of Cienfuegos in October 1970. A minor confrontation ensued, which was concluded with an understanding that the Soviets would not use Cienfuegos for submarines bearing ballistic missiles. The final round of diplomatic notes, reaffirming the 1962 accord, were exchanged in November.

The election of Marxist candidate Salvador Allende as President of Chile in September 1970 led Nixon to order that Allende not be allowed to take office. Edward Korry, US Ambassador to Chile, told Nixon that he saw no alternative to Allende, and Nixon ruled out American intervention, though he remained willing to assist opponents of Allende who might come forward. With the Chilean armed forces in disarray following the assassination of the Army leader, General René Schneider, Allende took office. The military regrouped under General Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Allende in 1973. During the coup, the deposed president died under disputed circumstances, concerning which there have been allegations of American involvement.

Soviet Union

Nixon used the improving international environment to address the topic of nuclear peace. Following the announcement of his visit to China, the Nixon administration concluded negotiations for the president to visit the Soviet Union. The president and first lady arrived in Moscow on May 22, 1972 and met with Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party; Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers; and Nikolai Podgorny, the head of state, among other leading Soviet officials.

Nixon engaged in intense negotiations with Brezhnev. Out of the summit came agreements for increased trade and two landmark arms control treaties: SALT I, the first comprehensive limitation pact signed by the two superpowers, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which banned the development of systems designed to intercept incoming missiles. Nixon and Brezhnev proclaimed a new era of "peaceful coexistence A banquet was held that evening at the Kremlin.

Seeking to foster better relations with the United States, both China and the Soviet Union cut back on their diplomatic support for North Vietnam and advised Hanoi to come to terms militarily. Nixon later described his strategy:

I had long believed that an indispensable element of any successful peace initiative in Vietnam was to enlist, if possible, the help of the Soviets and the Chinese. Though rapprochement with China and détente with the Soviet Union were ends in themselves, I also considered them possible means to hasten the end of the war. At worst, Hanoi was bound to feel less confident if Washington was dealing with Moscow and Beijing. At best, if the two major Communist powers decided that they had bigger fish to fry, Hanoi would be pressured into negotiating a settlement we could accept.

Having made considerable progress over the previous two years in US-Soviet relations, Nixon embarked on a second trip to the Soviet Union in 1974. He arrived in Moscow on June 27 to a welcome ceremony, cheering crowds, and a state dinner at the Grand Kremlin Palace that evening. Nixon and Brezhnev met in Yalta, where they discussed a proposed mutual defense pact, détente, and MIRVs. While he considered proposing a comprehensive test-ban treaty, Nixon felt he would not have time as president to complete it. There were no significant breakthroughs in these negotiations.

Middle Eastern policy

thumb|240px|Nixon meets with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, June 1974.As part of the Nixon Doctrine that the US would avoid direct combat assistance to allies where possible, instead giving them assistance to defend themselves, the US greatly increased arms sales to the Middle East—particularly Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia—during the Nixon administration. The Nixon administration strongly supported Israel, an American ally in the Middle East but the support was not unconditional. Nixon believed that Israel should make peace with its Arab neighbors and that the United States should encourage it. The president believed that—except during the Suez Crisis—the US had failed to intervene with Israel, and should use the leverage of the large US military aid to Israel to urge the parties to the negotiating table. However, the Arab-Israeli conflict was not a major focus of Nixon's attention during his first term—for one thing, he felt that no matter what he did, American Jews would oppose his reelection.

When an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria attacked in October 1973, beginning the Yom Kippur War, Israel suffered initial losses. The US took no action for several days, until Nixon ordered an airlift to Israel, taking personal responsibility for any response by Arab nations. Nixon cut through inter-departmental squabbles and bureaucracy to initiate an airlift of American arms. By the time the US and Soviet Union negotiated a truce, Israel had penetrated deep into enemy territory. The war resulted in the 1973 oil crisis, in which Arab nations refused to sell crude oil to the US in retaliation for its support of Israel. The embargo caused gasoline shortages and rationing in the United States in late 1973, and was eventually ended by the oil-producing nations as peace took hold. Kissinger played a major role in the settlement, and was also able to reestablish US relations with Egypt for the first time since 1967; Nixon made one of his final international visits as president there in June 1974.

Domestic policy

Economy

At the time Nixon took office in 1969, inflation was at 4.7 percent—its highest rate since the Korean War. The Great Society had been enacted under Johnson, which, together with the Vietnam War costs, was causing large budget deficits. There was little unemployment, but interest rates were at their highest in a century. Nixon's major economic goal was to reduce inflation; the most obvious means of doing so was to end the war. This could not be accomplished overnight, and the US economy continued to struggle through 1970, contributing to a lackluster Republican performance in the midterm congressional elections (Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress throughout Nixon's presidency). According to political economist Nigel Bowles in his 2011 study of Nixon's economic policies, the new president did little to alter Johnson's policies through the first year of his presidency.

Nixon was far more interested in foreign affairs than domestic policies, but believed that voters tend to focus on their own financial condition, and that economic conditions were a threat to his reelection. As part of his "New Federalism" views, he proposed grants to the states, but these proposals were for the most part lost in the congressional budget process. However, Nixon gained political credit for advocating them. In 1970, Congress had granted the President the power to impose wage and price freezes, though the Democratic majorities, knowing Nixon had opposed such controls through his career, did not expect Nixon to actually use the authority. With inflation unresolved by August 1971, and an election year looming, Nixon convened a summit of his economic advisers at Camp David. He then announced temporary wage and price controls, allowed the dollar to float against other currencies, and ended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. Bowles points out, "by identifying himself with a policy whose purpose was inflation's defeat, Nixon made it difficult for Democratic opponents ... to criticize him. His opponents could offer no alternative policy that was either plausible or believable since the one they favored was one they had designed but which the president had appropriated for himself." Nixon's policies dampened inflation through 1972, although their aftereffects contributed to inflation during his second term and into the Ford administration.

After he won reelection, Nixon found inflation returning. He reimposed price controls in June 1973. The price controls became unpopular with the public and businesspeople, who saw powerful labor unions as preferable to the price board bureaucracy. The controls produced food shortages, as meat disappeared from grocery stores and farmers drowned chickens rather than sell them at a loss. Despite the failure to control inflation, controls were slowly ended, and on April 30, 1974, their statutory authorization lapsed.

Governmental initiatives and organization

Nixon advocated a "New Federalism", which would devolve power to state and local elected officials, though Congress was hostile to these ideas and enacted few of them. He eliminated the Cabinet-level United States Post Office Department, which in 1971 became the government-run United States Postal Service.

Nixon was a late convert to the conservation movement. Environmental policy had not been a significant issue in the 1968 election; the candidates were rarely asked for their views on the subject. He saw that the first Earth Day in April 1970 presaged a wave of voter interest on the subject, and sought to use that to his benefit; in June he announced the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nixon broke new ground by discussing environment policy in his State of the Union speech; other initiatives supported by Nixon included the Clean Air Act of 1970 and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); the National Environmental Policy Act required environmental impact statements for many Federal projects. Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act of 1972—objecting not to the policy goals of the legislation but to the amount of money to be spent on them, which he deemed excessive. After Congress overrode his veto, Nixon impounded the funds he deemed unjustifiable.

In 1971, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts proposed a plan for universal federally run health insurance, partly motivated by dramatic rises in public and private health care expenditures. In response, Nixon proposed a health care plan which would provide insurance for low-income families, and require that all employees be provided with health care. As this still would have left some forty million people uncovered, Kennedy and the other Democrats declined to support it, and the measure failed, though a Nixon proposal for increased use of health maintenance organizations passed Congress in 1973.

US space program

After a nearly decade-long national effort, the United States won the race to land astronauts on the moon on July 20, 1969, with the flight of Apollo 11. Nixon spoke with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during their moonwalk. He called the conversation "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House". Nixon, however, was unwilling to keep funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the high level seen through the 1960s as NASA prepared to send men to the moon. NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine drew up ambitious plans for the establishment of a permanent base on the moon by the end of the 1970s and the launch of a manned expedition to Mars as early as 1981. Nixon, however, rejected both proposals.

On May 24, 1972, Nixon approved a five-year cooperative program between NASA and the Soviet space program, culminating in the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, a joint mission of an American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in 1975.

Civil rights

The Nixon years witnessed the first large-scale integration of public schools in the South. Nixon sought a middle way between the segregationist Wallace and liberal Democrats, whose support of integration was alienating some Southern whites. Hopeful of doing well in the South in 1972, he sought to dispose of desegregation as a political issue before then. Soon after his inauguration, he appointed Vice President Agnew to lead a task force, which worked with local leaders—both white and black—to determine how to integrate local schools. Agnew had little interest in the work, and most of it was done by Labor Secretary George Shultz. Federal aid was available, and a meeting with President Nixon was a possible reward for compliant committees. By September 1970, fewer than ten percent of black children were attending segregated schools. By 1971, however, tensions over desegregation surfaced in Northern cities, with angry protests over the busing of children to schools outside their neighborhood to achieve racial balance. Nixon opposed busing personally but did not subvert court orders requiring its use.

In addition to desegregating public schools, Nixon implemented the Philadelphia Plan in 1970—the first significant federal affirmative action program. He also endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment after it passed both houses of Congress in 1972 and went to the states for ratification. Nixon had campaigned as an ERA supporter in 1968, though feminists criticized him for doing little to help the ERA or their cause after his election, though he appointed more women to administration positions than Lyndon Johnson had.

Reelection, Watergate scandal, and resignation

1972 presidential campaign

Nixon believed his rise to power had peaked at a moment of political realignment. The Democratic "Solid South" had long been a frustration to Republican ambitions. Goldwater had won several Southern states by opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but had alienated more moderate Southerners. Nixon's efforts to gain Southern support in 1968 were diluted by Wallace's candidacy. Through his first term, he pursued a Southern Strategy with policies, such as his desegregation plans, that would be broadly acceptable among Southern whites, encouraging them to realign with the Republicans in the aftermath of the Civil Rights era. He nominated two Southern conservatives, Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court, but neither was confirmed by the Senate.

Nixon entered his name on the New Hampshire primary ballot on January 5, 1972, effectively announcing his candidacy for reelection. Virtually assured the Republican nomination, the President had initially expected his Democratic opponent to be Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy (brother of the late president), but he was largely removed from contention after the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident. Instead, Maine Senator Edmund Muskie became the front runner, with South Dakota Senator George McGovern in a close second place.

On June 10, McGovern won the California primary and secured the Democratic nomination. The following month, Nixon was renominated at the 1972 Republican National Convention. He dismissed the Democratic platform as cowardly and divisive. McGovern intended to sharply reduce defense spending and supported amnesty for draft evaders as well as abortion rights. With some of his supporters believed to be in favor of drug legalization, McGovern was perceived as standing for "amnesty, abortion and acid". McGovern was also damaged by his vacillating support for his original running mate, Senator Thomas Eagleton, dumped from the ticket following revelations that he had received treatment for depression. Nixon was ahead in most polls for the entire election cycle, and was reelected on November 7, 1972 in one of the largest landslide election victories in American history. He defeated McGovern with over 60 percent of the popular vote, losing only in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Watergate

The term ''Watergate'' has come to encompass an array of clandestine and often illegal activities undertaken by members of the Nixon administration. Those activities included "dirty tricks" such as bugging the offices of political opponents and people of whom Nixon or his officials were suspicious. Nixon and his close aides ordered harassment of activist groups and political figures, using the FBI, CIA, and the Internal Revenue Service. The activities became known after five men were caught breaking into Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. ''The Washington Post'' picked up on the story; reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward relied on an informant known as "Deep Throat"—later revealed to be Mark Felt, associate director at the FBI—to link the men to the Nixon administration. Nixon downplayed the scandal as mere politics, calling news articles biased and misleading. As a series of revelations made it clear that Nixon aides had committed crimes in attempts to sabotage the Democrats and others, senior aides such as White House Counsel John Dean and Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman faced prosecution.

In July 1973, White House aide Alexander Butterfield testified that Nixon had a secret taping system that recorded his conversations and phone calls in the Oval Office. These tapes were subpoenaed by Watergate Special Counsel Archibald Cox. Nixon refused to release them, citing executive privilege. With the White House and Cox at loggerheads, Nixon had Cox fired in October in the "Saturday Night Massacre"; he was replaced by Leon Jaworski. In November, Nixon's lawyers revealed that an audio tape of conversations, held in the White House on June 20, 1972, featured an unexplained 18½ minute gap. Rose Mary Woods, the President's personal secretary, claimed responsibility for the gap, alleging that she had accidentally wiped the section while transcribing the tape, though her tale was widely mocked. The gap, while not conclusive proof of wrongdoing by the President, cast doubt on Nixon's statement that he had been unaware of the cover-up.

Though Nixon lost much popular support, even from his own party, he rejected accusations of wrongdoing and vowed to stay in office. He insisted that he had made mistakes, but had no prior knowledge of the burglary, did not break any laws, and did not learn of the cover-up until early 1973. On October 10, 1973, Vice President Agnew resigned amid allegations—unrelated to Watergate—of bribery, tax evasion and money laundering from his tenure as Maryland's governor. Nixon chose Gerald Ford, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, to replace Agnew.

On November 17, 1973, during a televised question and answer session with the press, Nixon said,

The legal battle over the tapes continued through early 1974, and in April 1974 Nixon announced the release of 1,200 pages of transcripts of White House conversations between him and his aides. The House Judiciary Committee, opened impeachment hearings against the President on May 9, 1974, which were televised on the major networks. These hearings culminated in votes for articles of impeachment, the first being 27–11 in favor on July 27, 1974 on obstruction of justice. Other charges leveled against Nixon were: Abuse of power and contempt of Congress(for providing only the edited transcripts of the tapes and not the tapes themselves). On July 24, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the full tapes, not just selected transcripts must be released.

Even with support diminished by the continuing series of revelations, Nixon hoped to win through. However, one of the new tapes, recorded soon after the break-in, demonstrated that Nixon had been told of the White House connection to the Watergate burglaries soon after they took place, and had approved plans to thwart the investigation. In a statement accompanying the release of the "Smoking Gun Tape" on August 5, 1974, Nixon accepted blame for misleading the country about when he had been told of the truth behind the Watergate break-in, stating that he had a lapse of memory. He met with Republican congressional leaders soon after, and was told he faced certain impeachment in the House and had, at most, 15 senators prepared to vote for his acquittal—far fewer than the 34 he needed to avoid removal from office.

Resignation

In light of his loss of political support and the near certainty of impeachment, Nixon resigned the office of the presidency on August 9, 1974, after addressing the nation on television the previous evening. The resignation speech was delivered from the Oval Office and was carried live on radio and television. Nixon stated that he was resigning for the good of the country and asked the nation to support the new president, Gerald Ford. Nixon went on to review the accomplishments of his presidency, especially in foreign policy. He defended his record as president, and stated:

Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly".

Nixon's speech contained no admission of wrongdoing, and was termed "a masterpiece" by Conrad Black, one of his biographers. Black opined that "What was intended to be an unprecedented humiliation for any American president, Nixon converted into a virtual parliamentary acknowledgement of almost blameless insufficiency of legislative support to continue. He left while devoting half his address to a recitation of his accomplishments in office." The initial response from network commentators was generally favorable, with only Roger Mudd of CBS stating that Nixon had evaded the issue, and had not admitted his role in the cover-up.

Later years and death

Pardon and illness

Following his resignation, the Nixons returned to their home La Casa Pacifica in San Clemente, California. According to Aitken, after his resignation, "Nixon was a soul in torment". Congress had funded Nixon's transition costs, including some salary expenses, though reducing the appropriation from $850,000 to $200,000. With some of his staff still with him, Nixon was at his desk by 7 a.m.—with little to do. His former press secretary, Ron Ziegler, sat with him alone for hours each day.

Nixon's resignation had not put an end to the desire among many to see him punished. The Ford White House considered a pardon of Nixon, though it would be unpopular in the country. Nixon, contacted by Ford emissaries, was initially reluctant to accept the pardon, but then agreed to do so. Ford, however, insisted on a statement of contrition; Nixon felt he had not committed any crimes and should not have to issue such a document. The former president eventually agreed, and on September 8, 1974, Ford granted him a "full, free, and absolute pardon". This ended any possibility of an indictment. Nixon then released a statement:

I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy. No words can describe the depth of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency, a nation I so deeply love, and an institution I so greatly respect.

In October 1974, Nixon fell ill with phlebitis. Told by his doctors that he could either be operated on or die, a reluctant Nixon chose surgery and, while hospitalized, was visited by President Ford. Nixon was under subpoena for the trial of three of his former aides—Dean, Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman—and ''The Washington Post'', disbelieving his illness, printed a cartoon showing Nixon with a cast on the "wrong foot". Judge John Sirica excused Nixon's presence despite the defendants' objections. Congress instructed Ford to retain Nixon's presidential papers—beginning a legal battle over the documents which would last three decades, and would eventually be won by the former president and his estate. While Nixon was in hospital, the 1974 midterm elections took place, in which Watergate and the pardon were factors which contributed to the Republican loss of 43 seats in the House and three in the Senate.

Return to public life

In December 1974, Nixon began planning his comeback despite the considerable ill-will against him in the country. He wrote in his diary, referring to himself and Pat,

So be it. We will see it through. We've had tough times before and we can take the tougher ones that we will have to go through now. That is perhaps what we were made for—to be able to take punishment beyond what anyone in this office has had before particularly after leaving office. This is a test of character and we must not fail the test.

By early 1975, Nixon's health was improving. He maintained an office in a Coast Guard station 300 yards from his home, at first taking a golf cart and later walking the route each day; he mainly worked on his memoirs. He had hoped to wait before writing his memoirs; the fact that his assets were being eaten away by expenses and lawyer fees compelled him to begin work quickly. He was handicapped in this work by the end of his transition allowance in February, which compelled him to part with much of his staff, including Ziegler. In August of that year, he met with British talk-show host and producer David Frost, who paid him $600,000 for a series of sit-down interviews, filmed and aired in 1977. They began on the topic of foreign policy, recounting the leaders he had known, but the most remembered section of the interviews was that on Watergate. Nixon admitted that he had "let down the country" and that "I brought myself down. I gave them a sword and they stuck it in. And they twisted it with relish. And, I guess, if I'd been in their position, I'd have done the same thing." The interviews garnered 45–50 million viewers—becoming the most-watched program of their kind in television history.

The interviews helped improve Nixon's financial position—at one point in early 1975 he had only $500 in the bank—as did the sale of his Key Biscayne property to a trust set up by wealthy Nixon friends such as Bebe Rebozo. In February 1976, Nixon visited China at the personal invitation of Mao. Nixon had wanted to return to China, but chose to wait until after Ford's own visit in 1975. Nixon remained neutral in the 1976 primary battle between Ford and Reagan—won by Ford in a close fight at the convention in Kansas City, at which Nixon (who had been nominated by five of the previous six conventions) was not mentioned once. Ford lost narrowly in the general election to Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, which led to suggestions that Ford would have been elected had he not pardoned Nixon. Nixon biographer Black points out that had no pardon been issued, Nixon would likely have been on trial in November 1976, causing a GOP loss by a much greater margin. The Carter administration had little use for Nixon and blocked his planned trip to Australia, causing the government of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser to withhold from him an official invitation.

In early 1978, Nixon went to the United Kingdom. He was shunned by American diplomats and by most ministers of the James Callaghan government. He was welcomed, however, by the Leader of the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher, as well as by former prime ministers Lord Home and Sir Harold Wilson, though two other former prime ministers, Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath declined to meet with him. Nixon addressed the Oxford Union regarding Watergate:

Some people say I didn't handle it properly and they're right. I screwed it up. ''Mea culpa''. But let's get on to my achievements. You'll be here in the year 2000 and we'll see how I'm regarded then.

Author and elder statesman

In 1978, Nixon published his memoirs, ''RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon'', the first of ten books he was to author in his retirement. The book was a bestseller and attracted a generally positive critical response. Nixon journeyed to the White House in 1979, invited by Carter for the state dinner for Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping. Carter had not wanted to invite Nixon, but Deng had stated he would visit Nixon in California if the former president was not invited. Nixon had a private meeting with Deng and visited Beijing again in mid-1979.

In early 1980, the Nixons purchased a New York City townhouse after being rejected by two Manhattan co-ops. When the former Shah of Iran died in Egypt in July 1980, Nixon defied the State Department, which intended to send no US representative, by attending the funeral. Though Nixon had no official credentials, as a former president he was seen as the American presence at its former ally's funeral. Nixon supported Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, making television appearances portraying himself as, in biographer Stephen Ambrose's words, "the senior statesman above the fray". He wrote guest articles for many publications both during the campaign and after Reagan's victory. After eighteen months in the New York City townhouse, Nixon and his wife moved in 1981 to Saddle River, New Jersey.

Throughout the 1980s, Nixon maintained an ambitious schedule of speaking engagements and writing, traveled, and met with many foreign leaders, especially those of Third World countries. He joined former Presidents Ford and Carter as representatives of the United States at the funeral of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. On a trip to the Middle East, Nixon made his views known regarding Saudi Arabia and Libya, which attracted significant US media attention; ''The Washington Post'' ran stories on Nixon's "rehabilitation". Nixon journeyed to the Soviet Union in 1986 and on his return sent President Reagan a lengthy memorandum containing foreign policy suggestions and his personal impressions of Mikhail Gorbachev. Following this trip, Nixon was ranked in a Gallup poll as one of the ten most admired men in the world.

thumb|left|240px|Nixon visits President Bill Clinton in the White House family quarters, March 1993. In 1986, Nixon addressed a convention of newspaper publishers, impressing his audience with his ''tour d'horizon'' of the world. At the time, political pundit Elizabeth Drew wrote, "Even when he was wrong, Nixon still showed that he knew a great deal and had a capacious memory, as well as the capacity to speak with apparent authority, enough to impress people who had little regard for him in earlier times." ''Newsweek'' ran a story on "Nixon's comeback" with the headline "He's back".

On July 19, 1990, the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California opened as a private institution with the Nixons in attendance. They were joined by a large crowd of people, including Presidents Ford, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, as well as their wives, Betty, Nancy, and Barbara. In January 1991, the former president founded the Nixon Center, a Washington policy think tank and conference center.

Pat Nixon died on June 22, 1993, of emphysema and lung cancer. Her funeral services were held on the grounds of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace. Former President Nixon was distraught throughout the interment. Inside the building, he delivered a moving tribute to her.

Death and funeral

Nixon suffered a severe stroke on April 18, 1994, while preparing to eat dinner in his Park Ridge, New Jersey home. A blood clot resulting from his heart condition had formed in his upper heart, broken off, and traveled to his brain. He was taken to New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, initially alert but unable to speak or to move his right arm or leg. Damage to the brain caused swelling (cerebral edema), and Nixon slipped into a deep coma. He died at 9:08 p.m. on April 22, 1994, with his daughters at his bedside. He was 81 years old.

Nixon's funeral took place on April 27, 1994—the first for an American president since Lyndon B. Johnson's in 1973, over which Nixon had presided. Eulogists at the Nixon Library ceremony included then-President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, California Governor Pete Wilson, and the Reverend Billy Graham. Also in attendance were former Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and their wives.

Richard Nixon rests beside his wife Pat on the grounds of the Nixon Library. He was survived by his two daughters, Tricia and Julie, and four grandchildren. In keeping with his wishes, his funeral was not a full state funeral, though his body did lie in repose in the Nixon Library lobby from April 26 to the morning of the funeral services. Mourners waited in line up to eight hours in chilly, wet weather to pay their respects. At its peak, the line to pass by Nixon's casket was three miles long with an estimated 42,000 people waiting to pay their respects.

John F. Stacks of ''Time'' magazine said of Nixon shortly after his death, "An outsize energy and determination drove him on to recover and rebuild after every self-created disaster that he faced. To reclaim a respected place in American public life after his resignation, he kept traveling and thinking and talking to the world's leaders ... and by the time Bill Clinton came to the White House [in 1993], Nixon had virtually cemented his role as an elder statesman. Clinton, whose wife served on the staff of the committee that voted to impeach Nixon, met openly with him and regularly sought his advice." Tom Wicker of ''The New York Times'' noted that Nixon had been equalled only by Franklin Roosevelt in being five times nominated on a major party ticket and, quoting Nixon's 1962 farewell speech, wrote, "Richard Nixon's jowly, beard-shadowed face, the ski-jump nose and the widow's peak, the arms upstretched in the V-sign, had been so often pictured and caricatured, his presence had become such a familiar one in the land, he had been so often in the heat of controversy, that it was hard to realize the nation really would not 'have Nixon to kick around anymore'." Ambrose said of the reaction to Nixon's death, "To everyone's amazement, except his, he's our beloved elder statesman."

Upon Nixon's death, almost all of the news coverage mentioned Watergate, but for the most part, the coverage was favorable to the former president. ''The Dallas Morning News'' stated, "History ultimately should show that despite his flaws, he was one of our most farsighted chief executives." This offended some; columnist Russell Baker complained of "a group conspiracy to grant him absolution". Cartoonist Jeff Koterba of the ''Omaha World-Herald'' depicted History before a blank canvas, his subject Nixon, as America looks on eagerly. The artist urges his audience to sit down; the work will take some time to complete, as "this portrait is a little more complicated than most".

Legacy

James MacGregor Burns observed of Nixon, "How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking?" Nixon's biographers disagree on how he will be perceived by history. According to Ambrose, "Nixon wanted to be judged by what he accomplished. What he will be remembered for is the nightmare he put the country through in his second term and for his resignation." Irwin Gellman, who chronicled Nixon's congressional career, suggests that "he was remarkable among his congressional peers, a success story in a troubled era, one who steered a sensible anti-Communist course against the excess of McCarthy". Aitken feels that "Nixon, both as a man and as a statesman, has been excessively maligned for his faults and inadequately recognised for his virtues. Yet even in a spirit of historical revisionism, no simple verdict is possible."

Nixon's Southern Strategy is credited by some historians as causing the South to become a Republican stronghold, though others deem economic factors more important to the change. Throughout his career, he was instrumental in moving his party away from the control of isolationists, and as a congressman was a persuasive advocate of containing Soviet communism. According to his biographer, Herbert Parmet, "Nixon's role was to steer the Republican party along a middle course, somewhere between the competitive impulses of the Rockefellers, the Goldwaters, and the Reagans."

Nixon is given credit for his stance on domestic affairs, which resulted in the passage and enforcement of environmental and regulatory legislation. Historian Paul Charles Milazzo in his 2011 paper on Nixon and the environment, points to Nixon's creation of the EPA and his enforcement of legislation such as the 1973 Endangered Species Act, stating that "though unsought and unacknowledged, Richard Nixon's environmental legacy is secure."

Nixon saw his policies regarding Vietnam, China, and the Soviets as key to his place in history. George McGovern, Nixon's onetime opponent, commented in 1983, "President Nixon probably had a more practical approach to the two superpowers, China and the Soviet Union, than any other president since World War II ... With the exception of his inexcusable continuation of the war in Vietnam, Nixon really will get high marks in history." Political scientist Jussi M. Hanhimäki disagrees, saying Nixon's diplomacy was merely a continuation of the Cold War policy of containment, using diplomatic rather than military means.

Historian Keith W. Olson has written that Nixon mainly left a negative legacy: fundamental mistrust of government with its roots in Vietnam and Watergate. During the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998, both sides tried to use Nixon and Watergate to their advantage: Republicans suggested that Clinton's misconduct had been comparable to Nixon's, while Democrats contended that Nixon's actions had been far more serious than those of the incumbent. Another legacy, for a time, was a decrease in the power of the presidency as Congress passed restrictive legislation in the wake of Watergate. Olson, however suggests that grants of power to George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks restored the president's power.

Personality and public image

Nixon's career was frequently dogged by his persona and the public's perception of it. Editorial cartoonists and comedians often exaggerated his appearance and mannerisms, to the point where the line between the human and the caricature became increasingly blurred. He was often portrayed with unshaven jowls, slumped shoulders, and a furrowed, sweaty brow.

Nixon had a complex personality, both very secretive and awkward, yet strikingly reflective about himself. He was inclined to distance himself from people and was formal in all aspects, wearing a coat and tie even when home alone. Nixon biographer Conrad Black described him as being "driven" though also "uneasy with himself in some ways". According to Black, Nixon "thought that he was doomed to be traduced, double-crossed, unjustly harassed, misunderstood, underappreciated, and subjected to the trials of Job, but that by the application of his mighty will, tenacity, and diligence, he would ultimately prevail". Biographer Elizabeth Drew summarized Nixon as a "smart, talented man, but most peculiar and haunted of presidents". In his account of the Nixon presidency, author Richard Reeves described Nixon as "a strange man of uncomfortable shyness who functioned best, alone with his thoughts". Nixon's presidency was doomed by his personality, Reeves argues: "He assumed the worst in people and he brought out the worst in them ... He clung to the idea of being 'tough'. He thought that was what had brought him to the edge of greatness. But that was what betrayed him. He could not open himself to other men and he could not open himself to greatness."

In October 1999, a volume of 1971 White House audio tapes was released that contained multiple statements by Nixon deemed derogatory toward Jews. In one conversation with H. R. Haldeman, Nixon said that Washington was "full of Jews" and that "most Jews are disloyal," making exceptions for some of his top aides. He then added, "But, Bob, generally speaking, you can't trust the bastards. They turn on you. Am I wrong or right?" Elsewhere in the 1971 recordings, Nixon denies being anti-Semitic, saying, "If anybody who's been in this chair ever had reason to be anti-Semitic, I did ... And I'm not, you know what I mean?"

Nixon believed that putting distance between himself and other people was necessary for him as he advanced in his political career and became president. Even Bebe Rebozo, by some accounts his closest friend, did not call him by his first name. Nixon said of this belief, "That's just the way I am. Some people are different. Some people think it's good therapy to sit with a close friend and, you know, just spill your guts ... [to] reveal their inner psyche—whether they were breast-fed or bottle-fed. Not me. No way." When told that most Americans, even at the end of his career, did not feel they knew him, Nixon replied, "Yeah, it's true. And it's not necessary for them to know."

See also

Murray Chotiner, Nixon's campaign manager and aide.

''Nixon in China'', 1987 opera by John Adams.

Notes

;Bibliography

External links

Richard Nixon Foundation

The Nixon Center, Washington, D.C.

Richard Nixon Presidential Library

White House biography

Richard Nixon: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress

The Watergate Tapes

Nixon's will

The Nixon–Presley Meeting at The National Security Archive

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Coordinates	35°27′″N139°38′″N
Name	Nikita KhrushchevНикита Хрущёв
Nationality	Soviet
Ethnicity	Russian
Religion	None (atheist)
Order	First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Term start	September 14, 1953
Term end	October 14, 1964
Premier	Georgy MalenkovNikolai BulganinHimself
President	Kliment VoroshilovLeonid BrezhnevAnastas Mikoyan
Predecessor	Joseph Stalin
Successor	Leonid Brezhnev
Birth date	April 15, 1894
Birth place	Kalinovka, Dmitriyevsky Uyezd, Kursk Governorate, Russian Empire
Death date	September 11, 1971
Death place	Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Spouse	Yefrosinia Khrushcheva (1916–1919, died)Marusia Khrushcheva (1922, separated)Nina Khrushcheva (1923–1971, survived as widow)
Party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Order2	Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union
1blankname2	First Deputies
1namedata2	Frol KozlovAlexei KosyginDmitriy UstinovLazar KaganovichAnastas Mikoyan
Term start2	March 27, 1958
Term end2	October 14, 1964
Predecessor2	Nikolai Bulganin
Successor2	Alexei Kosygin
Order3	Chairman of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian SFSR
Term start3	February 27, 1956
Term end3	November 16, 1964
Predecessor3	Position created
Successor3	Leonid Brezhnev
Deputy3	Andrei Kirilenko
Signature	Nikita Khrushchev Signature2.svg
Signature alt	A scrawled "Н Хрущёв" }}

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (September 11, 1971) led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.

Khrushchev was born in the Russian village of Kalinovka in 1894, close to the present-day border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metalworker in his youth, and during the Russian Civil War was a political commissar. With the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalin's purges, and approved thousands of arrests. In 1939, Stalin sent him to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front of World War II), Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers.

In the power struggle triggered by Stalin's death in 1953, Khrushchev, after several years, emerged victorious. On February 25, 1956, at the Twentieth Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", denouncing Stalin's purges and ushering in a less repressive era in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). His domestic policies, aimed at bettering the lives of ordinary citizens, were often ineffective, especially in the area of agriculture. Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchev's rule saw the tensest years of the Cold War, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Some of Khrushchev's policies were seen as erratic, particularly by his emerging rivals, who quietly rose in strength and deposed him in October 1964. However, he did not suffer the deadly fate of some previous losers of Soviet power struggles, and was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow and a ''dacha'' in the countryside. His lengthy memoirs were smuggled to the West and published in part in 1970. Khrushchev died in 1971 of heart disease.

Early years

Khrushchev was born April 15, 1894, in Kalinovka, a village in what is now Russia's Kursk Oblast, close to what is now the Ukrainian border. His parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Ksenia Khrushcheva, were poor peasants of Russian origin and had a daughter two years Nikita's junior, Irina. Sergei Khrushchev was employed in a number of positions in the Donbas area of far eastern Ukraine, working as a railwayman, as a miner, and laboring in a brick factory. Wages were much higher in the Donbas than in the Kursk region, and Sergei Khrushchev generally left his family in Kalinovka, returning there when he had enough money.

Kalinovka was a peasant village; Khrushchev's teacher, Lydia Shevchenko later stated that she had never seen a village as poor as Kalinovka had been. Nikita worked as a herdsboy from an early age. He was schooled for a total of four years, part in the village parochial school and part under Shevchenko's tutelage in Kalinovka's state school. According to Khrushchev in his memoirs, Shevchenko was a freethinker who upset the villagers by not attending church, and when her brother visited, he gave the boy books which had been banned by the Imperial Government. She urged Nikita to seek further education, but family finances did not permit this.

In 1908, Sergei Khrushchev moved to the Donbas city of Yuzovka; fourteen-year-old Nikita followed later that year, while Ksenia Khrushcheva and her daughter came after. Yuzovka, which was renamed Stalino in 1924 and Donetsk in 1961, was at the heart of one of the most industrialized areas of the Russian Empire. After the boy worked briefly in other fields, Nikita's parents found him a place as a metal fitter's apprentice. Upon completing that apprenticeship, the teenage Khrushchev was hired by a factory. He lost that job when he collected money for the families of the victims of the Lena Goldfields Massacre, and was hired to mend underground equipment by a mine in nearby Rutchenkovo, where he helped distribute copies and organize public readings of ''Pravda''. He later stated that he considered emigrating to the United States for better wages, but did not do so.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Khrushchev, as a skilled metal worker, was exempt from conscription. Employed by a workshop which serviced ten mines, Khrushchev was involved in several strikes demanding higher pay, better working conditions, and an end to the war. In 1914, he married Yefrosinia Pisareva, daughter of the elevator operator at the Rutchenkovo mine. In 1915, they had a daughter, Yulia, and in 1917, a son, Leonid.

After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917, the new Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd had little influence over Ukraine. Khrushchev was elected to the worker's council (or ''soviet'') in Rutchenkovo, and in May he became its chairman. He did not join the Bolsheviks until 1918, a year in which the Russian Civil War, between the Bolsheviks and a coalition of opponents known as the White Army, began in earnest. His biographer, William Taubman, suggests that Khrushchev's delay in affiliating himself with the Bolsheviks was because he felt closer to the Mensheviks who prioritized economic progress, whereas the Bolsheviks sought political power. In his memoirs, Khrushchev indicated that he waited because there were many groups, and it was difficult to keep them all straight.

In March 1918, as the Bolshevik government concluded a separate peace with the Central Powers, the Germans occupied the Donbas and Khrushchev fled to Kalinovka. In late 1918 or early 1919 he was mobilized into the Red Army as a political commissar. The post of political commissar had recently been introduced as the Bolsheviks came to rely less on worker activists and more on military recruits; its functions included indoctrination of recruits in the tenets of Bolshevism, and promoting troop morale and battle readiness. Beginning as commissar to a construction platoon, Khrushchev rose to become commissar to a construction battalion and was sent from the front for a two-month political course. The young commissar came under fire many times, though many of the war stories he would tell in later life dealt more with his (and his troops') cultural awkwardness, rather than with combat. In 1921, the civil war ended, and Khrushchev was demobilized and assigned as commissar to a labor brigade in the Donbas, where he and his men lived in poor conditions.

The wars had caused widespread devastation and famine, and one of the victims of the hunger and disease was Khrushchev's wife, Yefrosinia, who died of typhus in Kalinovka while Khrushchev was in the army. The commissar returned for the funeral and, loyal to his Bolshevik principles, refused to allow his wife's coffin to enter the local church. With the only way into the churchyard through the church, he had the coffin lifted and passed over the fence into the burial ground, shocking the village.

Party official

Donbas years

Through the intervention of a friend, Khrushchev was assigned in 1921 as assistant director for political affairs for the Rutchenkovo mine in the Donbas region, where he had previously worked. There were as yet few Bolsheviks in the area. At that time, the movement was split by Lenin's New Economic Policy, which allowed for some measure of private enterprise and was seen as an ideological retreat by some Bolsheviks. While Khrushchev's responsibility lay in political affairs, he involved himself in the practicalities of resuming full production at the mine after the chaos of the war years. He helped restart the machines (key parts and papers had been removed by the pre-Soviet mineowners) and he wore his old mine outfit for inspection tours.

Khrushchev was highly successful at the Rutchenkovo mine, and in mid-1922 he was offered the directorship of the nearby Pastukhov mine. However, he refused the offer, seeking to be assigned to the newly established technical college (''tekhnikum'') in Yuzovka, though his superiors were reluctant to let him go. As he had only four years of formal schooling, he applied to the training program (''rabfak'') attached to the ''tekhnikum'' that was designed to bring undereducated students to high-school level, a prerequisite for entry into the ''tekhnikum''. While enrolled in the ''rabfak'', Khrushchev continued his work at the Rutchenkovo mine. One of his teachers later described him as a poor student. He was more successful in advancing in the Communist Party; soon after his admission to the ''rabfak'' in August 1922, he was appointed party secretary of the entire ''tekhnikum'', and became a member of the bureau – the governing council – of the party committee for the town of Yuzovka (renamed Stalino in 1924). He briefly joined supporters of Leon Trotsky against those of Joseph Stalin over the question of party democracy. All of these activities left him with little time for his studies, and while he later claimed to have finished his ''rabfak'' studies, it is unclear whether this was true.

In 1922, Khrushchev met and married his second wife, Marusia, whose maiden name is unknown. The two soon separated, though Khrushchev helped Marusia in later years, especially when Marusia's daughter by a previous relationship suffered a fatal illness. Soon after the abortive marriage, Khrushchev met Nina Petrovna Kukharchuk, a well-educated Party organizer and daughter of well-to-do Ukrainian peasants. The two lived together as husband and wife for the rest of Khrushchev's life, though they did not register their marriage until 1965. They had two children together: son Sergei was born in 1935 and daughter Elena in 1937.

In mid-1925, Khrushchev was appointed Party secretary of the Petrovo-Marinsky ''raikom'', or district, near Stalino. The ''raikom'' was about in area, and Khrushchev was constantly on the move throughout his domain, taking an interest in even minor matters. In late 1925, Khrushchev was elected a non-voting delegate to the 14th Congress of the USSR Communist Party in Moscow.

Kaganovich protégé

Khrushchev met Lazar Kaganovich as early as 1917. In 1925, Kaganovich became Party head in Ukraine and Khrushchev, falling under his patronage, was rapidly promoted. He was appointed second in command of the Stalino party apparatus in late 1926. Within nine months his superior, Konstantin Moiseyenko, was ousted, which, according to Taubman, was due to Khrushchev's instigation. Kaganovich transferred Khrushchev to Kharkov, then the capital of Ukraine, as head of the Organizational Department of the Ukrainian Party's Central Committee. In 1928, Khrushchev was transferred to Kiev, where he served as second-in-command of the Party organization there.

In 1929, Khrushchev again sought to further his education, following Kaganovich (now in the Kremlin as a close associate of Stalin) to Moscow and enrolling in the Stalin Industrial Academy. Khrushchev never completed his studies there, but his career in the Party flourished. When the school's Party cell elected a number of rightists to an upcoming district Party conference, the cell was attacked in ''Pravda''. Khrushchev emerged victorious in the ensuing power struggle, becoming Party secretary of the school, arranging for the delegates to be withdrawn, and afterward purging the cell of the rightists. Khrushchev rose rapidly through the Party ranks, first becoming Party leader for the Bauman district, site of the Academy, before taking the same position in the Krasnopresnensky district, the capital's largest and most important. By 1932, Khrushchev had become second in command, behind Kaganovich, of the Moscow city Party organization, and in 1934, he became Party leader for the city and a member of the Party's Central Committee. Khrushchev attributed his rapid rise to his acquaintance with fellow Academy student Nadezhda Alliluyeva, Stalin's wife. In his memoirs, Khrushchev stated that Alliluyeva spoke well of him to her husband. His biographer, William Tompson, downplays the possibility, stating that Khrushchev was too low in the Party hierarchy to enjoy Stalin's patronage, and that if influence was brought to bear on Khrushchev's career at this stage, it was by Kaganovich.

While head of the Moscow city organization, Khrushchev superintended construction of the Moscow Metro, a highly expensive undertaking, with Kaganovich in overall charge. Faced with an already-announced opening date of November 7, 1934, Khrushchev took considerable risks in the construction and spent much of his time down in the tunnels. When the inevitable accidents did occur, they were depicted as heroic sacrifices in a great cause. The Metro did not open until May 1, 1935, but Khrushchev received the Order of Lenin for his role in its construction. Later that year, he was selected as Party leader for Moscow ''oblast'', a province with a population of 11 million.

Involvement in purges

Stalin's office records show meetings at which Khrushchev was present as early as 1932. The two increasingly built a good relationship. Khrushchev greatly admired the dictator and treasured informal meetings with him and invitations to Stalin's ''dacha'', while Stalin felt warm affection for his young subordinate.

Beginning in 1934, Stalin began murderous purges of the Party through a series of show trials. In 1936, as the trials proceeded, Khrushchev expressed his vehement support:

Everyone who rejoices in the successes achieved in our country, the victories of our party led by the great Stalin, will find only one word suitable for the mercenary, fascist dogs of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite gang. That word is execution.

Khrushchev assisted in the purge of many friends and colleagues in Moscow ''oblast''. Of 38 top Party officials in Moscow city and province, 35 were killed—the three survivors were transferred to other parts of the USSR. Of the 146 Party secretaries of cities and districts outside Moscow city in the province, only 10 survived the purges. In his memoirs, Khrushchev noted that almost everyone who worked with him was arrested. By Party protocol, Khrushchev was required to approve these arrests, and did little or nothing to save his friends and colleagues.

Party leaders were given numerical quotas of "enemies" to be turned in and arrested. In June 1937, the Politburo set a quota of 35,000 enemies to be arrested in Moscow province; 5,000 of these were to be executed. In reply, Khrushchev asked that 2,000 wealthy peasants, or ''kulaks'' living in Moscow be killed in part fulfillment of the quota. In any event, only two weeks after receiving the Politburo order, Khrushchev was able to report to Stalin that 41,305 "criminal and ''kulak'' elements" had been arrested. Of the arrestees, according to Khrushchev, 8,500 deserved execution.

Khrushchev had no reason to think himself immune from the purges, and in 1937, confessed his own 1923 dalliance with Trotskyism to Kaganovich, who, according to Khrushchev, "blanched" (for his protégé's sins could affect his own standing) and advised him to tell Stalin. The dictator took the confession in his stride, and, after initially advising Khrushchev to keep it quiet, suggested that Khrushchev tell his tale to the Moscow party conference. Khrushchev did so, to applause, and was immediately reelected to his post. Khrushchev related in his memoirs that he was also denounced by an arrested colleague. Stalin told Khrushchev of the accusation personally, looking him in the eye and awaiting his response. Khrushchev speculated in his memoirs that had Stalin doubted his reaction, he would have been categorized as an enemy of the people then and there. Nonetheless, Khrushchev became a candidate member of the Politburo in January 1938 and a full member in March 1939.

In late 1937, Stalin appointed Khrushchev as head of the Communist Party in Ukraine, and Khrushchev duly left Moscow for Kiev, again the Ukrainian capital, in January 1938. Ukraine had been the site of extensive purges, with the murdered including professors in Stalino whom Khrushchev greatly respected. The high ranks of the Party were not immune; the Central Committee of Ukraine was so decimated that it could not convene a quorum. After Khrushchev's arrival, the pace of arrests accelerated. All but one member of the Ukrainian Politburo Organizational Bureau, and Secretariat were arrested. Almost all government officials and Red Army commanders were replaced. During the first few months after Khrushchev's arrival, almost everyone arrested received the death penalty.

Biographer William Taubman suggests that, since Khrushchev was again unsuccessfully denounced while in Kiev, he must have known that some of the denunciations were not true and that innocent people were suffering. In 1939, Khrushchev addressed the Fourteenth Ukrainian Party Congress:

Comrades, we must unmask and relentlessly destroy all enemies of the people. But we must not allow a single honest Bolshevik to be harmed. We must conduct a struggle against slanderers.

Great Patriotic War

Occupation of Polish territory

When Soviet troops, pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, invaded the eastern portion of Poland on September 17, 1939, Khrushchev accompanied the troops at Stalin's direction. A large number of ethnically Ukrainians lived in the invaded area much of which today forms the western portion of Ukraine. Many inhabitants therefore initially welcomed the invasion, though they hoped that they would eventually become independent. Khrushchev's role was to ensure that the occupied areas voted for union with the USSR. Through a combination of propaganda, deception as to what was being voted for, and outright fraud, the Soviets ensured that their new territories would elect assemblies which would unanimously petition for union with the USSR. When the new assemblies did so, their petitions were granted by the USSR Supreme Soviet, and Western Ukraine became a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) on November 1, 1939. Clumsy actions by the Soviets, such as staffing Western Ukrainian organizations with Eastern Ukrainians, and giving confiscated land to collective farms (''kolkhozes'') rather than to peasants soon alienated Western Ukrainians, despite Khrushchev's efforts to achieve unity.

War against Germany

When the Germans invaded the USSR, in June 1941, Khrushchev was still at his post in Kiev. Stalin appointed him a political commissar, and Khrushchev served on a number of fronts as an intermediary between the local military commanders and the political rulers in Moscow. Stalin used Khrushchev to keep commanders on a tight leash, while the commanders sought to have him influence Stalin. As the Germans advanced, Khrushchev worked with the military in an attempt to defend and save the city. Handicapped by orders from Stalin that under no circumstances should the city be abandoned, the Red Army was soon encircled by the Germans. While the Germans stated they took 655,000 prisoners, according to the Soviets, 150,541 men out of 677,085 escaped the trap. Primary sources differ on Khrushchev's involvement at this point. According to Marshal Georgi Zhukov, writing some years after Khrushchev fired and disgraced him in 1957, Khrushchev persuaded Stalin not to evacuate troops from Kiev. However, Khrushchev noted in his memoirs that he and Marshal Semyon Budyonny proposed redeploying Soviet forces to avoid the encirclement until Marshal Semyon Timoshenko arrived from Moscow with orders for the troops to hold their positions. Early Khrushchev biographer Mark Frankland suggested that Khrushchev's faith in his leader was first shaken by the Red Army's setbacks. Khrushchev stated in his memoirs,

But let me return to the enemy breakthrough in the Kiev area, the encirclement of our group, and the destruction of the 37th Army. Later, the Fifth Army also perished ... All of this was senseless, and from the military point of view, a display of ignorance, incompetence, and illiteracy. ... There you have the result of not taking a step backward. We were unable to save these troops because we didn't withdraw them, and as a result we simply lost them. ... And yet it was possible to allow this not to happen.

In 1942, Khrushchev was on the Southwest Front, and he and Timoshenko proposed a massive counteroffensive in the Kharkov area. Stalin approved only part of the plan, but 640,000 Red Army soldiers would still become involved in the offensive. The Germans, however, had deduced that the Soviets were likely to attack at Kharkov, and set a trap. Beginning on May 12, 1942, the Soviet offensive initially appeared successful, but within five days the Germans had driven deep into the Soviet flanks, and the Red Army troops were in danger of being cut off. Stalin refused to halt the offensive, and the Red Army divisions were soon encircled by the Germans. The USSR lost about 267,000 soldiers, including more than 200,000 men captured, and Stalin demoted Timoshenko and recalled Khrushchev to Moscow. While Stalin hinted at arresting and executing Khrushchev, he allowed the commissar to return to the front by sending him to Stalingrad.

Khrushchev reached the Stalingrad Front in August 1942, soon after the start of the battle for the city. His role in the Stalingrad defense was not major—General Vasily Chuikov, who led the city's defense, mentions Khrushchev only briefly in a memoir published while Khrushchev was premier—but to the end of his life, he was proud of his role. Though he visited Stalin in Moscow on occasion, he remained in Stalingrad for much of the battle, and was nearly killed at least once. He proposed a counterattack, only to find that Zhukov and other generals had already planned Operation ''Uranus'', a plan to break out from Soviet positions and encircle and destroy the Germans; it was being kept secret. Before ''Uranus'' was launched, Khrushchev spent much time checking on troop readiness and morale, interrogating Nazi prisoners, and recruiting some for propaganda reasons.

Soon after Stalingrad, Khrushchev met with personal tragedy, as his son Leonid, a fighter pilot, was apparently shot down and killed in action on March 11, 1943. The circumstances of Leonid's death remain obscure and controversial, as none of his fellow fliers stated that they witnessed him being shot down, nor was his plane found or body recovered. As a result, Leonid's fate has been the subject of considerable speculation. One theory has Leonid surviving the crash and collaborating with the Germans, and when he was recaptured by the Soviets, Stalin ordering him shot despite Nikita Khrushchev pleading for his life. This supposed killing is used to explain why Khrushchev later denounced Stalin in the Secret Speech. While there is no supporting evidence for this account in Soviet files, some historians allege that Leonid Khrushchev's file was tampered with after the war. In later years, Leonid Khrushchev's wingmate stated that he saw his plane disintegrate, but did not report it. Khrushchev biographer Taubman speculates that this omission was most likely to avoid the possibility of being seen as complicit in the death of the son of a Politburo member. In mid-1943, Leonid's wife, Liuba Khrushcheva, was arrested on accusations of spying and sentenced to five years in a labor camp, and her son (by another relationship), Tolya, was placed in a series of orphanages. Leonid's daughter, Yulia, was raised by Nikita Khrushchev and his wife.

After ''Uranus'' forced the Germans into retreat, Khrushchev served in other fronts of the war. He was attached to Soviet troops at the Battle of Kursk, in July 1943, which turned back the last major German offensive on Soviet soil. Khrushchev related that he interrogated an SS defector, learning that the Germans intended an attack—a claim dismissed by his biographer, Taubman, as "almost certainly exaggerated". He accompanied Soviet troops as they took Kiev in November 1943, entering the shattered city as Soviet forces drove out German troops. As Soviet forces met with greater success, driving the Nazis westwards towards Germany, Nikita Khrushchev became increasingly involved in reconstruction work in Ukraine. He was appointed Premier of the Ukrainian SSR in addition to his earlier party post, one of the rare instances in which the Ukrainian party and civil leader posts were held by one person.

According to Khrushchev biographer William Tompson, it is difficult to assess Khrushchev's war record, since he most often acted as part of a military council, and it is not possible to know the extent to which he influenced decisions, rather than signing off on the decisions of military officers. However, Tompson points to the fact that the few mentions of Khrushchev in military memoirs published during the Brezhnev era were generally favorable, at a time when it was "barely possible to mention Khrushchev in print in any context". Tompson suggests that these favorable mentions indicate that military officers held Khrushchev in high regard.

Rise to power

Return to Ukraine

Almost all of Ukraine had been occupied by the Germans, and Khrushchev returned to his domain in late 1943 to find devastation. Ukraine's industry had been destroyed, and agriculture faced critical shortages. Even though millions of Ukrainians had been taken to Germany as workers or prisoners of war, there was insufficient housing for those who remained. One of every six Ukrainians was killed in World War II.

Khrushchev sought to reconstruct Ukraine, but also desired to complete the interrupted work of imposing the Soviet system on it, though he hoped that the purges of the 1930s would not recur. As Ukraine was recovered, conscription was imposed, and 750,000 men aged between nineteen and fifty were given minimal military training and sent to join the Red Army. Other Ukrainians joined partisan forces, seeking an independent Ukraine. Khrushchev rushed from district to district through Ukraine, urging the depleted labor force to greater efforts. He made a short visit to his birthplace of Kalinovka, finding a starving population, with only a third of the men who had joined the Red Army having returned. Khrushchev did what he could to assist his hometown. Despite Khrushchev's efforts, in 1945, Ukrainian industry was at only a quarter of pre-war levels, and the harvest actually dropped from that of 1944, when the entire territory of Ukraine had not yet been retaken.

In an effort to increase agricultural production, the ''kolkhozes'' (collective farms) were empowered to expel residents who were not pulling their weight. ''Kolkhoz'' leaders used this as an excuse to expel their personal enemies, invalids, and the elderly, and nearly 12,000 people were sent to the eastern parts of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev viewed this policy as very effective, and recommended its adoption elsewhere to Stalin. He also worked to impose collectivization on Western Ukraine. While Khrushchev hoped to accomplish this by 1947, lack of resources and armed resistance by partisans slowed the process. The partisans, many of whom fought as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA), were gradually defeated, as Soviet police and military reported killing 110,825 "bandits" and capturing a quarter million more between 1944 and 1946. About 600,000 Western Ukrainians were arrested between 1944 and 1952, with one-third executed and the remainder imprisoned or exiled to the east.

The war years of 1944 and 1945 had seen poor harvests, and 1946 saw intense drought strike Ukraine and Western Russia. Despite this, collective and state farms were required to turn over 52% of the harvest to the government. The Soviet government sought to collect as much grain as possible in order to supply communist allies in Eastern Europe. Khrushchev set the quotas at a high level, leading Stalin to expect an unrealistically large quantity of grain from Ukraine. Food was rationed—but non-agricultural rural workers throughout the USSR were given no ration cards. The inevitable starvation was largely confined to remote rural regions, and was little noticed outside the USSR. Khrushchev, realizing the desperate situation in late 1946, repeatedly appealed to Stalin for aid, to be met with anger and resistance on the part of the leader. When letters to Stalin had no effect, Khrushchev flew to Moscow and made his case in person. Stalin finally gave Ukraine limited food aid, and money to set up free soup kitchens. However, Khrushchev's political standing had been damaged, and in February 1947, Stalin suggested that Lazar Kaganovich be sent to Ukraine to "help" Khrushchev. The following month, the Ukrainian Central Committee removed Khrushchev as party leader in favor of Kaganovich, while retaining him as premier.

Soon after Kaganovich arrived in Kiev, Khrushchev fell ill, and was barely seen until September 1947. In his memoirs, Khrushchev indicates he had pneumonia; some biographers have theorized that Khrushchev's illness was entirely political, out of fear that his loss of position was the first step towards downfall and demise. However, Khrushchev's children remembered their father as having been seriously ill. Once Khrushchev was able to get out of bed, he and his family took their first vacation since before the war, to a beachfront resort in Latvia. Khrushchev, though, soon broke the beach routine with duck-hunting trips, and a visit to newly Soviet Kaliningrad, where he toured factories and quarries. By the end of 1947, Kaganovich had been recalled to Moscow and the recovered Khrushchev had been restored to the First Secretaryship. He then resigned the Ukrainian premiership in favor of Demyan Korotchenko, Khrushchev's protégé.

Khrushchev's final years in Ukraine were generally peaceful, with industry recovering, Soviet forces overcoming the partisans, and 1947 and 1948 seeing better-than-expected harvests. Collectivization advanced in Western Ukraine, and Khrushchev implemented more policies that encouraged collectivization and discouraged private farms. These sometimes backfired, however: a tax on private livestock holdings led to peasants slaughtering their stock. With the idea of eliminating differences in attitude between town and countryside and transforming the peasantry into a "rural proletariat", Khrushchev conceived the idea of the "agro-town". Rather than agricultural workers living in villages close to farms, they would live further away in larger towns which would offer municipal services such as utilities and libraries, which were not present in villages. He completed only one such town before his December 1949 return to Moscow; he dedicated it to Stalin as a 70th birthday present.

In his memoirs, Khrushchev spoke highly of Ukraine, where he governed for over a decade:

I'll say that the Ukrainian people treated me well. I recall warmly the years I spent there. This was a period full of responsibilities, but pleasant because it brought satisfaction ... But far be it from me to inflate my significance. The entire Ukrainian people was exerting great efforts ... I attribute Ukraine's successes to the Ukrainian people as a whole. I won't elaborate further on this theme, but in principle it's very easy to demonstrate. I'm Russian myself, and I don't want to offend the Russians.

Stalin's final years

Khrushchev attributed his recall to Moscow to mental disorder on the part of Stalin, who feared conspiracies in Moscow matching those which the ruler believed to have occurred in the fabricated Leningrad case, in which many of that city's Party officials had been falsely accused of treason. Khrushchev again served as head of the Party in Moscow city and province. Khrushchev biographer Taubman suggests that Stalin most likely recalled Khrushchev to Moscow to balance the influence of Georgy Malenkov and security chief Lavrentiy Beria, who were widely seen as Stalin's heirs.

At this time, the aging dictator rarely called Party meetings. Instead, much of the high-level work of government took place at dinners hosted by Stalin. These sessions, which Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, Kaganovich, Kliment Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Nikolai Bulganin, who comprised Stalin's inner circle, attended, began with showings of cowboy movies favored by Stalin. Stolen from the West, they lacked subtitles. The dictator had the meal served at around 1 a.m., and insisted that his subordinates stay with him and drink until dawn. On one occasion, Stalin had Khrushchev, then aged almost sixty, dance a traditional Ukrainian dance. Khrushchev did so, later stating, "When Stalin says dance, a wise man dances." Khrushchev attempted to nap at lunch so that he would not fall asleep in the dictator's presence; he noted in his memoirs, "Things went badly for those who dozed off at Stalin's table."

In 1950, Khrushchev began a large-scale housing program for Moscow. A large part of the housing was in the form of five- or six-story apartment buildings, which became ubiquitous throughout the Soviet Union; many remain in use today. Khrushchev had prefabricated reinforced concrete used, greatly speeding up construction. These structures were completed at triple the construction rate of Moscow housing from 1946–50, lacked elevators or balconies, and were nicknamed ''Khrushcheby'' by the public, a pun on the Russian word for slums, ''trushcheby''. Almost 60,000,000 residents of the former Soviet republics still live in these buildings.

In his new positions, Khrushchev continued his ''kolkhoz'' consolidation scheme, decreasing the number of collective farms in Moscow province by about 70%. This resulted in farms which were too large for one chairman to manage effectively. Khrushchev also sought to implement his agro-town proposal, but when his lengthy speech on the subject was published in ''Pravda'' in March 1951, Stalin disapproved of it. The periodical quickly published a note stating that Khrushchev's speech was merely a proposal, not policy. In April, the Politburo disavowed the agro-town proposal. Khrushchev feared that Stalin would remove him from office, but the leader mocked Khrushchev, then allowed the episode to pass.

On March 1, 1953, Stalin suffered a massive stroke, apparently on rising after sleep. Stalin had left orders not to be disturbed, and it was twelve hours until his condition was discovered. Even as terrified doctors attempted treatment, Khrushchev and his colleagues engaged in intense discussion as to the new government. On March 5, Stalin died. As Khrushchev and other high officials stood weeping by Stalin's bedside, Beria raced from the room, shouting for his car.

Khrushchev reflected on Stalin in his memoirs:

Stalin called everyone who didn't agree with him an "enemy of the people." He said that they wanted to restore the old order, and for this purpose, "the enemies of the people" had linked up with the forces of reaction internationally. As a result, several hundred thousand honest people perished. Everyone lived in fear in those days. Everyone expected that at any moment there would be a knock on the door in the middle of the night and that knock on the door would prove fatal ... [P]eople not to Stalin's liking were annihilated, honest party members, irreproachable people, loyal and hard workers for our cause who had gone through the school of revolutionary struggle under Lenin's leadership. This was utter and complete arbitrariness. And now is all this to be forgiven and forgotten? Never! 

Struggle for control

On March 6, 1953, Stalin's death was announced, as was the new leadership. Malenkov was the new Chairman of the Council of Ministers, with Beria (who consolidated his hold over the security agencies), Kaganovich, Bulganin and former Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov as first vice-chairmen. Those members of the Presidium of the Central Committee who had been recently promoted by Stalin were demoted. Khrushchev was relieved of his duties as Party head for Moscow to concentrate on unspecified duties in the Party's Central Committee. ''The New York Times'' listed Malenkov and Beria first and second among the ten-man Presidium—and Khrushchev last. On March 14, Malenkov resigned from the secretariat of the Central Committee. In September, Khrushchev was elected by the Central Committee as First Secretary of the Party.

Even before Stalin had been laid to rest, Beria launched a lengthy series of reforms which rivalled those of Khrushchev during his period of power and even those of Mikhail Gorbachev a third of a century later. Beria's proposals were designed to denigrate Stalin and pass the blame for Beria's own crimes to the late leader. One proposal, which was adopted, was an amnesty which eventually led to the freeing of over a million prisoners. Another, which was not, was to release East Germany into a united, neutral Germany in exchange for compensation from the West—a proposal considered by Khrushchev to be anti-communist. Khrushchev allied with Malenkov to block many of Beria's proposals, while the two slowly picked up support from other Presidium members. Their campaign against Beria was aided by fears that Beria was planning a military coup, and, according to Khrushchev in his memoirs, by the conviction that "Beria is getting his knives ready for us."

On June 26, 1953 Beria was arrested at a Presidium meeting, following extensive military preparations by Khrushchev and his allies. Beria was tried in secret, and executed in December 1953 with five of his close associates. The execution of Beria proved to be the last time the loser of a top-level power struggle in the USSR paid with his life.

The power struggle in the Presidium was not resolved by the elimination of Beria. Malenkov's power was in the central state apparatus, which he sought to extend through reorganizing the government, giving it additional power at the expense of the Party. He also sought public support by lowering retail prices and lowering the level of bond sales to citizens, which had long been effectively obligatory. Khrushchev, on the other hand, with his power base in the Party, sought to both strengthen the Party and his position within it. While, under the Soviet system, the Party was to be preeminent, it had been greatly drained of power by Stalin, who had given much of that power to himself and to the Politburo (later, to the Presidium). Khrushchev saw that with the Presidium in conflict, the Party and its Central Committee might again become powerful. Khrushchev carefully cultivated high Party officials, and was able to appoint supporters as local Party bosses, who then took seats on the Central Committee.

Khrushchev presented himself as a down-to-earth activist prepared to take up any challenge, contrasting with Malenkov who, though sophisticated, came across as colorless. Khrushchev arranged for the Kremlin grounds to be opened to the public, an act with "great public resonance". While both Malenkov and Khrushchev sought reforms to agriculture, Khrushchev's proposals were broader, and included the Virgin Lands Campaign, under which hundreds of thousands of young volunteers would settle and farm areas of Western Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan. While the scheme eventually became a tremendous disaster for Soviet agriculture, it was initially successful. In addition, Khrushchev possessed incriminating information on Malenkov, taken from Beria's secret files. As Soviet prosecutors investigated the atrocities of Stalin's last years, including the Leningrad case, they came across evidence of Malenkov's involvement. Beginning in February 1954, Khrushchev replaced Malenkov in the seat of honor at Presidium meetings; in June, Malenkov ceased to head the list of Presidium members, which was thereafter organized in alphabetical order. Khrushchev's influence continued to increase, winning the allegiance of local party heads, and with his nominee heading the KGB.

At a Central Committee meeting in January 1955, Malenkov was accused of involvement in atrocities, and the committee passed a resolution accusing him of involvement in the Leningrad case, and of facilitating Beria's climb to power. At a meeting of the mostly ceremonial Supreme Soviet the following month, Malenkov was demoted in favor of Bulganin, to the surprise of Western observers. Malenkov remained in the Presidium as Minister of Electric Power Stations. According to Khrushchev biographer William Tompson, "Khrushchev's position as first among the members of the collective leadership was now beyond any reasonable doubt."

Leader (1955–1964)

Domestic policies

Consolidation of power; Secret Speech

After the demotion of Malenkov, Khrushchev and Molotov initially worked together well, and the longtime foreign minister even proposed that Khrushchev, not Bulganin, replace Malenkov as premier. However, Khrushchev and Molotov increasingly differed on policy. Molotov opposed the Virgin Lands policy, proposing heavy investment to increase yields in developed agricultural areas, which Khrushchev felt was not feasible due to a lack of resources and a lack of a sophisticated farm labor force. The two differed on foreign policy as well; soon after Khrushchev took power, he sought a peace treaty with Austria, which would allow Soviet troops then in occupation of part of the country to leave. Molotov was resistant, but Khrushchev arranged for an Austrian delegation to come to Moscow and negotiate the treaty. Although Khrushchev and other Presidium members attacked Molotov at a Central Committee meeting in mid-1955, accusing him of conducting a foreign policy which turned the world against the USSR, Molotov remained in his position.

By the end of 1955, thousands of political prisoners had returned home, and told their experiences of the gulag labor camps. Continuing investigation into the abuses brought home the full breadth of Stalin's crimes to his successors. Khrushchev believed that once the stain of Stalinism was removed, the Party would inspire loyalty among the people. Beginning in October 1955, Khrushchev fought to tell the delegates to the upcoming 20th Party Congress about Stalin's crimes. Some of his colleagues, including Molotov and Malenkov, opposed the disclosure, and managed to persuade him to make his remarks in a closed session.

The 20th Party Congress opened on February 14, 1956. In his opening words in his initial address, Khrushchev denigrated Stalin by asking delegates to rise in honor of the communist leaders who had died since the last congress, whom he named, equating Stalin with the drunken Klement Gottwald and the little-known Kyuichi Tokuda. In the early morning hours of February 25, Khrushchev delivered what became known as the "Secret Speech" to a closed session of the Congress limited to Soviet delegates. In four hours, he demolished Stalin's reputation. Khrushchev later noted in his memoirs that the "congress listened to me in silence. As the saying goes, you could have heard a pin drop. It was all so sudden and unexpected." Khrushchev told the delegates,

It is here that Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality, and his abuse of power ... he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party or the Soviet Government.

The Secret Speech, while it did not fundamentally change Soviet society, had wide-ranging effects. The speech was a factor in unrest in Poland and revolution in Hungary later in 1956, and Stalin defenders led four days of rioting in his native Georgia in June, calling for Khrushchev to resign and Molotov to take over. In meetings where the Secret Speech was read, communists would make even more severe condemnations of Stalin (and of Khrushchev), and even call for multi-party elections. However, Stalin was not publicly denounced, and his portrait remained widespread through the USSR, from airports to Khrushchev's Kremlin office. Mikhail Gorbachev, then a Komsomol official, recalled that though young and well-educated Soviets in his district were excited by the speech, many others decried it, either defending Stalin or seeing little point in digging up the past. Forty years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev applauded Khrushchev for his courage in taking a huge political risk and showing himself to be "a moral man after all".

The term "Secret Speech" proved to be an utter misnomer. While the attendees at the Speech were all Soviet, Eastern European delegates were allowed to hear it the following night, read slowly to allow them to take notes. By March 5, copies were being mailed throughout the Soviet Union, marked "not for the press" rather than "top secret". An official translation appeared within a month in Poland; the Poles printed 12,000 extra copies, one of which soon reached the West.

The anti-Khrushchev minority in the Presidium was augmented by those opposed to Khrushchev's proposals to decentralize authority over industry, which struck at the heart of Malenkov's power base. During the first half of 1957, Malenkov, Molotov, and Kaganovich worked to quietly build support to dismiss Khrushchev. At a June 18 Presidium meeting at which two Khrushchev supporters were absent, the plotters moved that Bulganin, who had joined the scheme, take the chair, and proposed other moves which would effectively demote Khrushchev and put themselves in control. Khrushchev objected on the grounds that not all Presidium members had been notified, an objection which would have been quickly dismissed had Khrushchev not held firm control over the military, through Minister of Defense Marshal Zhukov, and the security departments. Lengthy Presidium meetings took place, continuing over several days. As word leaked of the power struggle, members of the Central Committee, which Khrushchev controlled, streamed to Moscow, many flown there aboard military planes, and demanded to be admitted to the meeting. While they were not admitted, there were soon enough Central Committee members in Moscow to call an emergency Party Congress, which effectively forced the leadership to allow a session of the Central Committee. At that meeting, the three main conspirators were dubbed the Anti-Party Group, accused of factionalism and complicity in Stalin's crimes. The three were expelled from the Central Committee and Presidium, as was former Foreign Minister and Khrushchev client Dmitri Shepilov who joined them in the plot. Molotov was sent as Ambassador to Mongolia; the others were sent to head industrial facilities and institutes far from Moscow.

Marshal Zhukov was rewarded for his support with full membership in the Presidium, but Khrushchev feared his popularity and power. In October, the defense minister was sent on a tour of the Balkans, as Khrushchev arranged a Presidium meeting to dismiss him. Zhukov learned what was happening, and hurried back to Moscow, only to be formally notified of his dismissal. At a Central Committee meeting several weeks later, not a word was said in Zhukov's defense. Khrushchev completed the consolidation of power by arranging for Bulganin's dismissal as premier in favor of himself (Bulganin was appointed to head the ''Gosbank'') and by establishing a USSR Defense Council, led by himself, effectively making him commander in chief. Though Khrushchev was now preeminent, he did not enjoy Stalin's absolute power.

Liberalization and the arts

After assuming power, Khrushchev allowed a modest amount of freedom in the arts. Vladimir Dudintsev's ''Not by Bread Alone'', about an idealistic engineer opposed by rigid bureaucrats, was allowed to be published in 1956, though Khrushchev called the novel "false at its base". In 1958, however, Khrushchev ordered a fierce attack on Boris Pasternak after his novel, ''Doctor Zhivago'' was published abroad (he was denied permission to publish it in the Soviet Union). ''Pravda'' described the novel as "low-grade reactionary hackwork", and the author was expelled from the Writer's Union. To make things worse (from Khrushchev's perspective), Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, which, under heavy pressure, he declined. Once he did so, Khrushchev ordered a halt to the attacks on Pasternak. In his memoirs, Khrushchev stated that he agonized over the novel, very nearly allowed it to be published, and later regretted not doing so. After his fall from power, Khrushchev obtained a copy of the novel and read it (he had earlier read only excerpts) and stated, "We shouldn't have banned it. I should have read it myself. There's nothing anti-Soviet in it."

Khrushchev believed that the USSR could match the West's living standards, and was not afraid to allow Soviet citizens to see Western achievements. Stalin had permitted few tourists to the Soviet Union, and had allowed few Soviets to travel. Khrushchev let Soviets travel (over 700,000 Soviet citizens travelled abroad in 1957) and allowed foreigners to visit the Soviet Union, where tourists became subjects of immense curiosity. In 1957, Khrushchev authorized the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students to be held in Moscow that summer. He instructed Komsomol officials to "smother foreign guests in our embrace". The resulting "socialist carnival" involved over three million Moscovites, who joined with 30,000 young foreign visitors in events that ranged from discussion groups throughout the city to events at the Kremlin itself. According to historian Vladislav Zubok, the festival "shattered propagandist clichés" about Westerners by allowing Moscovites to see for themselves.

In 1962, Khrushchev, impressed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's ''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'', persuaded the Presidium to allow publication. That renewed thaw ended on December 1, 1962, when Khrushchev was taken to the Manezh Gallery to view an exhibit which included a number of avant-garde works. On seeing them, Khrushchev exploded with anger, describing the artwork as "dog shit", and proclaiming that "a donkey could smear better art with its tail". A week later, ''Pravda'' issued a call for artistic purity. When writers and filmmakers defended the painters, Khrushchev extended his anger to them. However, despite the premier's rage, none of the artists were arrested or exiled. The Manezh Gallery exhibit remained open for some time after Khrushchev's visit, and experienced a considerable rise in attendance after the article in ''Pravda''.

Political reform

Under Khrushchev, the special tribunals operated by security agencies were abolished. These tribunals (known as ''troikas''), had often ignored laws and procedures. Under the reforms, no prosecution for a political crime could be brought even in the regular courts unless approved by the local Party committee. This rarely happened; there were no major political trials under Khrushchev, and at most several hundred political prosecutions overall. Instead, other sanctions were imposed on dissidents, including loss of job or university place, or expulsion from the Party. During Khrushchev's rule, forced hospitalization for the "socially dangerous" was introduced. According to author Roy Medvedev, who wrote an early analysis of Khrushchev's years in power, "political terror as an everyday method of government was replaced under Khrushchev by administrative means of repression".

In 1958, Khrushchev opened a Central Committee meeting to hundreds of Soviet officials; some were even allowed to address the meeting. For the first time, the proceedings of the Committee were made public in book form; a practice which was continued at subsequent meetings. This openness, however, actually allowed Khrushchev greater control over the Committee, since any dissenters would have to make their case in front of a large, disapproving crowd.

In 1962, Khrushchev divided ''oblast'' (province) level Party committees into two parallel structures, one for industry and one for agriculture. This was unpopular among Party ''apparatchiks'', and led to confusions in the chain of command, as neither committee secretary had precedence over the other. As there were limited numbers of Central Committee seats from each ''oblast'', the division set up the possibility of rivalry for office between factions, and, according to Medvedev, had the potential for beginning a two-party system. Khrushchev also ordered that one-third of the membership of each committee, from low-level councils to the Central Committee itself, be replaced at each election. This decree created tension between Khrushchev and the Central Committee and upset the party leaders upon whose support Khrushchev had risen to power.

Agricultural policy

Since the 1940s, Khrushchev had advocated the cultivation of corn in the Soviet Union. He established a corn institute in Ukraine and ordered thousands of acres to be planted with corn in the Virgin Lands. In February 1955, Khrushchev gave a speech in which he advocated an Iowa-style corn belt in the Soviet Union, and a Soviet delegation visited the US state that summer. While their intent was to visit only small farms, the delegation chief was approached by farmer and corn salesman Roswell Garst, who persuaded him to insist on visiting Garst's large farm. The Iowan visited the Soviet Union in September, where he became great friends with Khrushchev, and Garst sold the USSR of seed corn. Garst warned the Soviets to grow the corn in the southern part of the country, and to ensure there were sufficient stocks of fertilizer, insecticides, and herbicides. This, however, was not done, as Khrushchev sought to plant corn even in Siberia, and without the necessary chemicals. While Khrushchev warned against those who "would have us plant the whole planet with corn", he displayed a great passion for corn, so much so that when he visited a Latvian ''kolkhoz'', he stated that some in his audience were probably wondering, "Will Khrushchev say something about corn or won't he?" He did, rebuking the farmers for not planting more corn. The corn experiment was not a great success, and he later wrote that overenthusiastic officials, wanting to please him, had overplanted without laying the proper groundwork, and "as a result corn was discredited as a silage crop—and so was I".

Khrushchev sought to abolish the Machine-Tractor Stations (MTS) which not only owned most large agricultural machines such as combines and tractors, but also provided services such as plowing, and transfer their equipment and functions to the ''kolkhozes'' and ''sovkhozes'' (state farms). After a successful test involving MTS which served one large ''kolkhoz'' each, Khrushchev ordered a gradual transition—but then ordered that the change take place with great speed. Within three months, over half of the MTS facilities had been closed, and ''kolkhozes'' were being required to buy the equipment, with no discount given for older or dilapidated machines. MTS employees, unwilling to bind themselves to ''kolkhozes'' and lose their state employee benefits and the right to change their jobs, fled to the cities, creating a shortage of skilled operators. The costs of the machinery, plus the costs of building storage sheds and fuel tanks for the equipment, impoverished many ''kolkhozes''. Inadequate provisions were made for repair stations. Without the MTS, the market for Soviet agricultural equipment fell apart, as the ''kolkhozes'' now had neither the money nor skilled buyers to purchase new equipment.

One adviser to Khrushchev was Trofim Lysenko, who promised greatly increased production with minimal investment. Such schemes were attractive to Khrushchev, who ordered them implemented. Lysenko managed to maintain his influence under Khrushchev despite repeated failures; as each proposal failed, he advocated another. Lysenko's influence greatly retarded the development of genetic science in the Soviet Union. In 1959, Khrushchev announced a goal of overtaking the United States in production of milk, meat, and butter. Local officials, with Khrushchev's encouragement, made unrealistic pledges of production. These goals were met by forcing farmers to slaughter their breeding herds and by purchasing meat at state stores, then reselling it back to the government, artificially increasing recorded production.

In June 1962, food prices were raised, particularly on meat and butter (by 25-30%). This caused public discontent. In the southern Russian city of Novocherkassk (Rostov Region) this discontent escalated to a strike and a revolt against the authorities. The revolt was put down by the military who opened fire on unarmed demonstrators. According to Soviet official accounts, 22 people were killed and 87 wounded. In addition, 116 demonstrators were convicted of involvement and seven of them executed. Information about the revolt and the massacre was completely suppressed in the USSR, but spread through Samizdat and damaged Khrushchev's reputation in the West.

Drought struck the Soviet Union in 1963; the harvest of of grain was down from a peak of in 1958. The shortages resulted in bread lines, a fact at first kept from Khrushchev. Reluctant to purchase food in the West, but faced with the alternative of widespread hunger, Khrushchev exhausted the nation's hard currency reserves and expended part of its gold stockpile in the purchase of grain and other foodstuffs.

Education

While visiting the United States in 1959, Khrushchev was greatly impressed by the agricultural education program at Iowa State University, and sought to imitate it in the Soviet Union. At the time, the main agricultural college in the USSR was in Moscow, and students did not do the manual labor of farming. Khrushchev proposed to move the programs to rural areas. He was unsuccessful, due to resistance from professors and students, who never actually disagreed with the premier, but who did not carry out his proposals. Khrushchev recalled in his memoirs, "It's nice to live in Moscow and work at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. It's a venerable old institution, a large economic unit, with skilled instructors, but it's in the city! Its students aren't yearning to work on the collective farms because to do that they'd have to go out in the provinces and live in the sticks."

Khrushchev founded several academic towns, such as Akademgorodok. The premier believed that Western science flourished because many scientists lived in university towns such as Oxford, isolated from big city distractions, and had pleasant living conditions and good pay. He sought to duplicate those conditions in the Soviet Union. Khrushchev's attempt was generally successful, though his new towns and scientific centers tended to attract younger scientists, with older ones unwilling to leave Moscow or Leningrad.

Khrushchev also proposed to restructure Soviet high schools. While the high schools provided a college preparatory curriculum, in fact few Soviet youths went on to university. Khrushchev wanted to shift the focus of secondary schools to vocational training: students would spend much of their time at factory jobs or in apprenticeships and only a small part at the schools. In practice, what occurred is that schools developed links with nearby enterprises, and students went to work for only one or two days a week; the factories and other works disliked having to teach, while students and their families complained that they had little choice in what trade to learn.

While the vocational proposal would not survive Khrushchev's downfall, a longer-lasting change was a related establishment of specialized high schools for gifted students or those wishing to study a specific subject. These schools were modeled after the foreign-language schools that had been established in Moscow and Leningrad beginning in 1949. In 1962, a special summer school was established in Novosibirsk to prepare students for a Siberian math and science Olympiad. The following year, the Novosibirsk Maths and Science Boarding-School became the first permanent residential school specializing in math and science. Other such schools were soon established in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev. By the early 1970s, over 100 specialized schools had been established, in mathematics, the sciences, art, music, and sport. Preschool education was increased as part of Khrushchev's reforms, and by the time he left office, about 22% of Soviet children attended preschool—about half of urban children, but only about 12% of rural children.

Foreign and defense policies

When Khrushchev took control, the outside world still knew little of him, and initially was not impressed by him. Short, heavyset, and wearing ill-fitting suits, he "radiated energy but not intellect", and was dismissed by many as a buffoon who would not last long. British Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan wondered, "How can this fat, vulgar man with his pig eyes and ceaseless flow of talk be the head—the aspirant Tsar for all those millions of people?"

Khrushchev biographer Tompson described the mercurial leader:

He could be charming or vulgar, ebullient or sullen, he was given to public displays of rage (often contrived) and to soaring hyperbole in his rhetoric. But whatever he was, however he came across, he was more human than his predecessor or even than most of his foreign counterparts, and for much of the world that was enough to make the USSR seem less mysterious or menacing.

United States and allies

Early relations and US visit (1957–1960)

Khrushchev sought to find a lasting solution to the problem of a divided Germany and of the enclave of West Berlin deep within East German territory. In November 1958, calling West Berlin a "malignant tumor", he gave the United States, United Kingdom and France six months to conclude a peace treaty with both German states and the Soviet Union. If one was not signed, Khrushchev stated, the Soviet Union would conclude a peace treaty with East Germany. This would leave East Germany, which was not a party to treaties giving the Western Powers access to Berlin, in control of the routes to the city. This ultimatum caused dissent among the Western Allies, who were reluctant to go to war over the issue. Khrushchev, however, repeatedly extended the deadline.

Khrushchev sought to eliminate many conventional weapons, and defend the Soviet Union with missiles. He believed that unless this occurred, the huge Soviet military would continue to eat up resources, making Khrushchev's goals of improving Soviet life difficult to achieve. In 1955, Khrushchev abandoned Stalin's plans for a large navy, believing that the new ships would be too vulnerable to either conventional or nuclear attack. In January 1960, Khrushchev took advantage of improved relations with the US to order a reduction of one-third in the size of Soviet armed forces, alleging that advanced weapons would make up for the lost troops. While conscription of Soviet youth remained in force, exemptions from military service became more and more common, especially for students.

The Soviets had few operable ICBMs; in spite of this Khrushchev publicly boasted of the Soviets' missile programs, stating that Soviet weapons were varied and numerous. The First Secretary hoped that public perception that the Soviets were ahead would result in psychological pressure on the West and political concessions. The Soviet space program, which Khrushchev firmly supported, appeared to confirm his claims when the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 into orbit, a launch many westerners, including United States Vice President Richard Nixon were convinced was a hoax. When it became clear that the launch was real, and Sputnik 1 was in orbit, Western governments concluded that the Soviet ICBM program was further along than it actually was. Khrushchev added to this misapprehension by stating in an October 1957 interview that the USSR had all the rockets, of whatever capacity, that it needed. For years, Khrushchev would make a point of preceding a major foreign trip with a rocket launch, to the discomfiture of his hosts. The United States learned of the primitive state of the Soviet missile program from overflights in the late 1950s, but only high US officials knew of the deception. In January 1960, Khrushchev told the Presidium that Soviet ICBMs made an agreement with the US possible because "main-street Americans have begun to shake from fear for the first times in their lives". The perceived "missile gap" led to a considerable defense buildup on the part of the United States.

In 1959, during Nixon's visit to the Soviet Union, Khrushchev took part in what later became known as the Kitchen Debate, as Nixon and Khrushchev had an impassioned argument in a model kitchen at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, with each defending the economic system of his country. Khrushchev was invited to visit the United States, and did so that September, spending thirteen days. Khrushchev arrived in Washington, DC on his first visit to the United States on September 15, 1959. The first visit by a Soviet premier to the United States resulted in an extended media circus. Khrushchev brought his wife, Nina Petrovna, and adult children with him, though it was not usual for Soviet officials to travel with their families. The peripatetic premier visited New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco (visiting a supermarket), Iowa (visiting Roswell Garst's farm), Pittsburgh, and Washington, concluding with a meeting with US President Eisenhower at Camp David. Khrushchev was supposed to visit Disneyland, but the visit was canceled for security reasons, much to his disgruntlement. He did, however, visit Eleanor Roosevelt at her home in Hyde Park, New York. While visiting Thomas J. Watson, Jr's IBM headquarters, Khrushchev expressed little interest in the computers, but greatly admired the self-service cafeteria, and, on his return, introduced self-service in the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev's US visit resulted in an informal agreement with US president Dwight Eisenhower that there would be no firm deadline over Berlin, but that there would be a four-power summit to try to resolve the issue, and the premier left the US to general good feelings. Khrushchev returned from the US convinced that he had achieved a strong personal relationship with Eisenhower (who in fact was unimpressed by the Soviet leader) and that he could achieve détente with the Americans. He pushed for an immediate summit, but was frustrated by French President Charles de Gaulle, who postponed it until 1960, a year in which Eisenhower was scheduled to pay a return visit to the Soviet Union.

U-2 and Berlin crisis (1960–1961)

A constant irritant in Soviet–US relations was the overflight of the Soviet Union by American U-2 spy aircraft. On April 9, 1960, the US resumed such flights after a lengthy break. The Soviets had protested the flights in the past, but had been ignored by Washington. Content in what he thought was a strong personal relationship with Eisenhower, Khrushchev was confused and angered by the flights' resumption, and concluded that they had been ordered by CIA Director Allen Dulles without the US President's knowledge. On May 1, a U-2 was shot down; its pilot, Francis Gary Powers captured alive. Believing Powers to have been killed, the US announced that a weather plane had been lost near the Turkish-Soviet border. Khrushchev risked destroying the summit, due to start on May 16 in Paris, if he announced the shootdown, but would look weak in the eyes of his military and security forces if he did nothing. Finally, on May 5, Khrushchev announced the shootdown and Powers' capture, blaming the overflight on "imperialist circles and militarists, whose stronghold is the Pentagon", and suggesting the plane had been sent without Eisenhower's knowledge. Eisenhower could not have thought that there were rogue elements in the Pentagon operating without his knowledge, and admitted that he had ordered the flights, calling them "a distasteful necessity". The admission stunned Khrushchev, and turned the U-2 affair from a possible triumph to a disaster for him, and he even appealed to US Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson for help.

Khrushchev was undecided what to do at the summit even as he boarded his flight to Paris. He finally decided, in consultation with his advisers on the plane and Presidium members in Moscow, to demand an apology from Eisenhower and a promise that there would be no further U-2 flights in Soviet airspace. Neither Eisenhower nor Khrushchev communicated with the other in the days before the summit, and at the summit, Khrushchev made his demands and stated that there was no purpose in the summit, which should be postponed for six to eight months, that is until after the 1960 United States presidential election. The US President offered no apology, but stated that the flights had been suspended and would not resume, and renewed his Open Skies proposal for mutual overflight rights. This was not enough for Khrushchev, who left the summit. Eisenhower accused Khrushchev "of sabotaging this meeting, on which so much of the hopes of the world have rested". Eisenhower's visit to the Soviet Union, for which the premier had even built a golf course so the US President could enjoy his favorite sport, was canceled by Khrushchev.

Khrushchev made his second and final visit to the United States in September 1960. He had no invitation, but had appointed himself as head of the USSR's UN delegation. He spent much of his time wooing the new Third World states which had recently become independent. The US restricted him to the island of Manhattan, with visits to an estate owned by the USSR on Long Island. The notorious shoe-banging incident occurred during a debate on October 12 over a Soviet resolution decrying colonialism. Infuriated by a statement of the Filipino delegate Lorenzo Sumulong which charged the Soviets with employing a double standard by decrying colonialism while dominating Eastern Europe, Khrushchev demanded the right to reply immediately, and accused Sumulong of being "a fawning lackey of the American imperialists". Sumulong resumed his speech, and accused the Soviets of hypocrisy. Khrushchev yanked off his shoe and began banging it on his desk, joined (less loudly) by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. This behavior by Khrushchev scandalized his delegation.

Khrushchev considered US Vice President Nixon a hardliner, and was delighted by his defeat in the 1960 presidential election. He considered the victor, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy, as a far more likely partner for détente, but was taken aback by the newly inaugurated US President's tough talk and actions in the early days of his administration. Khrushchev achieved a propaganda victory in April 1961 with the first manned spaceflight and Kennedy a defeat with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. While Khrushchev had threatened to defend Cuba with Soviet missiles, the premier contented himself with after-the-fact aggressive remarks. The failure in Cuba led to Kennedy's determination to make no concessions at the Vienna summit scheduled for June 3, 1961. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev took a hard line, with Khrushchev demanding a treaty that would recognize the two German states and refusing to yield on the remaining issues obstructing a test-ban treaty. Kennedy on the other hand had been led to believe that the test-ban treaty could be concluded at the summit, and felt that a deal on Berlin had to await easing of East–West tensions. Kennedy described negotiating with Khrushchev to his brother Robert as "like dealing with Dad. All give and no take."

An indefinite postponement of action over Berlin was unacceptable to Khrushchev if for no other reason that East Germany was suffering a continuous "brain drain" as highly educated East Germans fled west through Berlin. While the boundary between the two German states had elsewhere been fortified, Berlin, administered by the four Allied powers, remained open. Emboldened by statements from former US Ambassador to Moscow Charles E. Bohlen and United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman J. William Fulbright that East Germany had every right to close its borders, which were not disavowed by the Kennedy Administration, Khrushchev authorized East German leader Walter Ulbricht to begin construction of what became known as the Berlin Wall, which would surround West Berlin. Construction preparations were made in great secrecy, and the border was sealed off in the early hours of Sunday, August 13, 1961, when most East German workers who earned hard currency by working in West Berlin would be at their homes. The wall was a propaganda disaster, and marked the end of Khrushchev's attempts to conclude a peace treaty among the Four Powers and the two German states. That treaty would not be signed until September 1990, as an immediate prelude to German reunification.

Caribbean crisis and test ban treaty (1962–1964)

Superpower tensions culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis (in the USSR, the "Caribbean crisis") of October 1962, as the Soviet Union sought to install medium range nuclear missiles in Cuba, about from the US coast. Cuban President Fidel Castro was reluctant to accept the missiles, and, once he was persuaded, warned Khrushchev against transporting the missiles in secret. Castro stated, thirty years later, "We had a sovereign right to accept the missiles. We were not violating international law. Why do it secretly—as if we had no right to do it? I warned Nikita that secrecy would give the imperialists the advantage."

On October 16, Kennedy was informed that U-2 flights over Cuba had discovered what were most likely medium-range missile sites, and though he and his advisors considered approaching Khrushchev through diplomatic channels, could come up with no way of doing this that would not appear weak. On October 22, Kennedy addressed his nation by television, revealing the missiles' presence and announcing a blockade of Cuba. Informed in advance of the speech but not (until one hour before) the content, Khrushchev and his advisors feared an invasion of Cuba. Even before Kennedy's speech, they ordered Soviet commanders in Cuba that they could use all weapons against an attack—except atomic weapons.

As the crisis unfolded, tensions were high in the US; less so in the Soviet Union, where Khrushchev made several public appearances, and went to the Bolshoi Theatre to hear American opera singer Jerome Hines, who was then performing in Moscow. By October 25, with the Soviets unclear about Kennedy's full intentions, Khrushchev decided that the missiles would have to be withdrawn from Cuba. Two days later, he offered Kennedy terms for the withdrawal. Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a US promise not to invade Cuba and a promise that the US would withdraw missiles from Turkey, near the Soviet heartland. As the last term was not publicly announced at the request of the US, and was not known until just before Khrushchev's death in 1971, the resolution was seen as a great defeat for the Soviets, and contributed to Khrushchev's fall less than two years later. Castro had urged Khrushchev to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the US in the event of any invasion of Cuba, and was angered by the outcome, referring to Khrushchev in profane terms; Khrushchev invited him to Moscow later, and was able to restore good relations.

After the crisis, superpower relations improved, as Kennedy gave a conciliatory speech at American University on June 10, 1963, recognizing the Soviet people's suffering during World War II, and paying tribute to their achievements. Khrushchev called the speech the best by a US president since Franklin Roosevelt, and, in July, negotiated a test ban treaty with US negotiator Averill Harriman and with Lord Hailsham of the United Kingdom. Plans for a second Khrushchev-Kennedy summit were dashed by the US President's assassination in November 1963. The new US President, Lyndon Johnson, hoped for continued improved relations but was distracted by other issues and had little opportunity to develop a relationship with Khrushchev before the premier's ouster.

Eastern Europe

The Secret Speech, combined with the death of Polish communist leader Boleslaw Bierut, who suffered a heart attack while reading the Speech, sparked considerable liberalization in Poland and Hungary. In Poland, a worker's strike in Poznan developed into disturbances which left more than 50 dead in October 1956. When Moscow blamed the disturbances on Western agitators, Polish leaders ignored the claim, and instead made concessions to the workers. With anti-Soviet displays becoming more common in Poland, and crucial Polish leadership elections upcoming, Khrushchev and other Presidium members flew to Warsaw. While the Soviets were refused entry to the Polish Central Committee plenum where the election was taking place, they met with the Polish Presidium. The Soviets agreed to allow the new Polish leadership to take office, on the assurance there would be no change to the Soviet-Polish relationship.

The Polish settlement emboldened the Hungarians, who decided that Moscow could be defied. A mass demonstration in Budapest on October 23 turned into a popular uprising. In response to the uprising, Hungarian Party leaders installed reformist Premier Imre Nagy. Soviet forces in the city clashed with Hungarians and even fired on demonstrators, with hundreds of both Hungarians and Soviets killed. Nagy called for a cease-fire and a withdrawal of Soviet troops, which a Khrushchev-led majority in the Presidium decided to obey, choosing to give the new Hungarian government a chance. Khrushchev assumed that if Moscow announced liberalization in how it dealt with its allies, Nagy would adhere to the alliance with the Soviet Union. However, on October 30 Nagy announced multiparty elections, and the next morning that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact. On November 3, two members of the Nagy government appeared in Ukraine as the self-proclaimed heads of a provisional government and demanded Soviet intervention, which was forthcoming. The next day, Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian uprising, with a death toll of 4,000 Hungarians and several hundred Soviet troops. Nagy was arrested, and was later executed. Despite the international outrage over the intervention, Khrushchev defended his actions for the rest of his life. Damage to Soviet foreign relations was severe, and would have been greater were it not for the fortuitous timing of the Suez crisis, which distracted world attention.

In the aftermath of these crises, Khrushchev made the statement for which he became well-remembered, "We will bury you" (in Russian, "Мы вас похороним!" (''My vas pokhoronim!'')). While many in the West took this statement as a literal threat, Khrushchev made the statement in a speech on peaceful coexistence with the West. When questioned about the statement during his 1959 US visit, Khrushchev stated that he was not referring to a literal burial, but that, through inexorable historical development, communism would replace capitalism and "bury" it.

Khrushchev greatly improved relations with Yugoslavia, which had been entirely sundered in 1948 when Stalin realized he could not control Yugoslav leader Josip Tito. Khrushchev led a Soviet delegation to Belgrade in 1955. Though a hostile Tito did everything he could to make the Soviets look foolish (including getting them drunk in public), Khrushchev was successful in warming relations, ending the Informbiro period in Soviet-Yugoslav relations. During the Hungarian crisis, Tito initially supported Nagy, but Khrushchev persuaded him of the need for intervention. Still, the intervention in Hungary damaged Moscow's relationship with Belgrade, which Khrushchev spent several years trying to repair. He was hampered by the fact that China disapproved of Yugoslavia's liberal version of communism, and attempts to conciliate Belgrade resulted in an angry Beijing.

China

thumb|right|alt=A balding man and a younger Chinese man sit and smile, the balding man holding a fan|Khrushchev with Mao, 1958After completing his takeover of mainland China in 1949, Mao Zedong sought material assistance from the USSR, and also called for the return to China of territories taken from it under the Czars. As Khrushchev took control of the USSR, he increased aid to China, even sending a small corps of experts to help develop the newly communist country. This assistance was described by historian William Kirby as "the greatest transfer of technology in world history". The Soviet Union spent 7% of its national income between 1954 and 1959 on aid to China. On his 1954 visit to China, Khrushchev agreed to return Port Arthur and Dalian to China, though Khrushchev was annoyed by Mao's insistence that the Soviets leave their artillery as they departed.

Mao bitterly opposed Khrushchev's attempts to reach a ''rapprochement'' with more liberal Eastern European states such as Yugoslavia. Khrushchev's government, on the other hand, was reluctant to endorse Mao's desires for an assertive worldwide revolutionary movement, preferring to conquer capitalism through raising the standard of living in communist-bloc countries.

Relations between the two nations began to cool in 1956, with Mao angered both by the Secret Speech and by the fact that the Chinese had not been consulted in advance about it. Mao believed that de-Stalinization was a mistake, and a possible threat to his own authority. When Khrushchev visited Beijing in 1958, Mao refused proposals for military cooperation. Hoping to torpedo Khrushchev's efforts at détente with the US, Mao soon thereafter provoked the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, describing the Taiwanese islands shelled in the crisis as "batons that keep Eisenhower and Khrushchev dancing, scurrying this way and that. Don't you see how wonderful they are?"

The Soviets had planned to provide China with an atomic bomb complete with full documentation, but in 1959, amid cooler relations, the Soviets destroyed the device and papers instead. When Khrushchev paid a visit to China in September, shortly after his successful US visit, he met a chilly reception, and Khrushchev left the country on the third day of a planned seven-day visit. Relations continued to deteriorate in 1960, as both the USSR and China used a Romanian Communist Party congress as an opportunity to attack the other. After Khrushchev attacked China in his speech to the congress, Chinese leader Peng Zhen mocked Khrushchev, stating that the premier's foreign policy was to blow hot and cold towards the West. Khrushchev responded by pulling Soviet experts out of China.

==Removal== Beginning in March 1964, Supreme Soviet head Leonid Brezhnev began discussing Khrushchev's removal with his colleagues. While Brezhnev considered having Khrushchev arrested as he returned from a trip to Scandinavia in June, he instead spent time persuading members of the Central Committee to support an ouster of Khrushchev, remembering how crucial the Committee's support had been to Khrushchev in defeating the Anti-Party Group plot. Brezhnev was given ample time for his conspiracy; Khrushchev was absent from Moscow for a total of five months between January and September 1964.

The conspirators, led by Brezhnev, Aleksandr Shelepin, and KGB Chairman Vladimir Semichastny, struck in October 1964, while Khrushchev was on vacation at Pitsunda, Abkhazia. On October 12, Brezhnev called Khrushchev to notify him of a special Presidium meeting to be held the following day, ostensibly on the subject of agriculture. Even though Khrushchev suspected the real reason for the meeting, he flew to Moscow to be attacked by Brezhnev and other Presidium members for his policy failures and what his colleagues deemed to be erratic behavior. Khrushchev put up little resistance, and that night called his friend and Presidium colleague Anastas Mikoyan, and told him,

I'm old and tired. Let them cope by themselves. I've done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he didn't suit us anymore and suggesting he retire? Not even a wet spot would have remained where we had been standing. Now everything is different. The fear is gone, and we can talk as equals. That's my contribution. I won't put up a fight.

On October 14, 1964, the Presidium and the Central Committee each voted to accept Khrushchev's "voluntary" retirement from his offices. Brezhnev was elected First Secretary (later General Secretary), while Alexei Kosygin succeeded Khrushchev as premier.

Life in retirement

Khrushchev was granted a pension of 500 rubles per month, and was assured that his house and ''dacha'' were his for life. Following his removal from power, Khrushchev fell into deep depression. He received few visitors, especially since Khrushchev's security guards kept track of all guests and reported their comings and goings. In the fall of 1965, he and his wife were ordered to leave their house and ''dacha'' to move to an apartment and to a smaller ''dacha''. His pension was reduced to 400 rubles per month, though his retirement remained comfortable by Soviet standards. The depression continued. His doctor prescribed sleeping pills and tranquilizers, but even so, when one of his grandsons was asked what the ex-premier was doing in retirement, the boy replied, "Grandfather cries." He was made a nonperson to such an extent that the thirty-volume ''Soviet Encyclopedia'' omitted his name from the list of prominent political commissars during the Great Patriotic War.

As the new rulers made their conservatism in artistic matters known, Khrushchev came to be more favorably viewed by artists and writers, some of whom visited him. One visitor whom Khrushchev regretted not seeing was former US Vice President Nixon, then in his "wilderness years" before his election to the presidency, who came to Khrushchev's Moscow apartment while the former premier was at his ''dacha''.

Beginning in 1966, Khrushchev began his memoirs. He dictated them into a tape recorder, and, after attempts to record outdoors failed due to background noise, recorded indoors, knowing that every word would be heard by the KGB. However, the security agency made no attempt to interfere until 1968, when Khrushchev was ordered to turn over his tapes, which he refused to do. However, while Khrushchev was hospitalized with heart ailments his son, Sergei, was approached by the KGB and told that there was a plot afoot by foreign agents to steal the memoirs. Since copies had been made, some of which had been transmitted to a Western publisher, and since the KGB could steal the originals anyway, Sergei Khrushchev turned over the materials to the KGB, but also instructed that the smuggled memoirs be published, which they were in 1970 under the title ''Khrushchev Remembers''. Under some pressure, Nikita Khrushchev signed a statement that he had not given the materials to any publisher, and his son was transferred to a less desirable job. Upon publication of the memoirs in the West, ''Izvestia'' denounced them as a fraud. When Soviet state radio carried the announcement of Khrushchev's statement, it was the first time in six years he had been mentioned in that medium.

In his final days, Khrushchev visited his son-in-law and former aide, Alexei Adzubei, and told him, "[n]ever regret that you lived in stormy times and worked with me in the Central Committee. We will yet be remembered!"

Khrushchev died of a heart attack in a hospital near his home in Moscow on September 11, 1971, and is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, having been denied a state funeral, and interment in the Kremlin Wall. Fearing demonstrations, the authorities did not announce Khrushchev's death until the hour of his wake, and surrounded the cemetery with troops. Even so, some artists and writers joined the family at the graveside for the interment.

''Pravda'' ran a one-sentence announcement of the former premier's death; Western newspapers contained considerable coverage. Veteran ''New York Times'' Moscow correspondent Harry Schwartz wrote of Khrushchev, "Mr. Khrushchev opened the doors and windows of a petrified structure. He let in fresh air and fresh ideas, producing changes which time already has shown are irreversible and fundamental."

Legacy

Many of Khrushchev's innovations were reversed after his fall. The requirement that one-third of officials be replaced at each election was overturned, as was the division in the Party structure between industrial and agricultural sectors. His vocational education program for high school students was also dropped, and his plan for sending existing agricultural institutions out to the land was ended. However, new agricultural or vocational institutions thereafter were located outside major cities. When new housing was built, much of it was in the form of high rises rather than Khrushchev's low-rise structures, which lacked elevators or balconies.

Some of Khrushchev's agricultural projects were also easily overturned. Corn became so unpopular in 1965 that its planting fell to the lowest level in the postwar period, as even ''kolkhozes'' which had been successful with it in Ukraine and other southern portions of the USSR refused to plant it. Lysenko was stripped of his policy-making positions. However, the MTS stations remained closed, and the basic agricultural problems, which Khrushchev had tried to address, remained. While the Soviet standard of living increased greatly in the ten years after Khrushchev's fall, much of the increase was due to industrial progress; agriculture continued to lag far behind, resulting in regular agricultural crises, especially in 1972 and 1975. Brezhnev and his successors continued Khrushchev's precedent of buying grain from the West rather than suffer shortfalls and starvation. Neither Brezhnev nor his colleagues were personally popular, and the new government relied on authoritarian power to assure its continuation. The KGB and Red Army were given increasing powers. The government's conservative tendencies would lead to the crushing of the "Prague Spring" of 1968.

Though Khrushchev's strategy failed to achieve the major goals he sought, Aleksandr Fursenko, who wrote a book analyzing Khrushchev's foreign and military policies, argued that the strategy did coerce the West in a limited manner. The agreement that the United States would not invade Cuba has been adhered to. The refusal of the western world to acknowledge East Germany was gradually eroded, and, in 1975, the United States and other NATO members signed the Helsinki Agreement with the USSR and Warsaw Pact nations, including East Germany, setting human rights standards in Europe.

The Russian public's view of Khrushchev remains mixed. According to a major Russian pollster, the only eras of the 20th century that Russians evaluate positively are those under Nicholas II, and under Khrushchev. A poll of young Russians found that they felt Nicholas II had done more good than harm, and all other 20th century Russian leaders more harm than good—except Khrushchev, about whom they were evenly divided. Khrushchev biographer William Tompson related the former premier's reforms to those which occurred later:

Throughout the Brezhnev years and the lengthy interregnum that followed, the generation which had come of age during the 'first Russian spring' of the 1950s awaited its turn in power. As Brezhnev and his colleagues died or were pensioned off, they were replaced by men and women for whom the Secret Speech and the first wave of de-Stalinization had been a formative experience, and these 'Children of Twentieth Congress' took up the reins of power under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev and his colleagues. The Khrushchev era provided this second generation of reformers with both an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

See also

History of the Soviet Union (1953–1964)

Notes

References

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External links

Nikita Khrushchev Archive at marxists.org

The CWIHP at the Wilson Center for Scholars: The Nikita Khrushchev Papers

Obituary, ''The New York Times'', September 12, 1971, ''Khrushchev's Human Dimensions Brought Him to Power and to His Downfall''

The Case of Khrushchev's Shoe, by Nina Khrushcheva (Nikita's great-granddaughter), ''New Statesman'', Oct. 2, 2000

Modern History Sourcebook: Nikita S. Khrushchev: The Secret Speech—On the Cult of Personality, 1956

"Tumultuous, prolonged applause ending in ovation. All rise." Khrushchev's "Secret Report" & Poland

''Thaw in the Cold War: Eisenhower and Khrushchev at Gettysburg,'' a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan

Khrushchev photo collection

Category:1894 births Category:1971 deaths Category:Bolsheviks Category:Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in the Soviet Union Category:Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Category:Cold War leaders Category:De-Stalinization Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Heads of government of the Soviet Union Category:Heroes of Socialist Labour Category:Heroes of the Soviet Union Category:Heads of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Category:Lenin Peace Prize recipients Category:People from Kursk Oblast Category:Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Category:Politicians of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin Category:Russian atheists Category:Russians in Ukraine Category:Soviet military personnel of World War II Category:Soviet politicians Category:Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Category:Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine politicians

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Coordinates	35°27′″N139°38′″N
Name	Nur Muhammad Tarakiنور محمد ترکۍ
Order	Chairman of the Revolutionary Council
Primeminister	Hafizullah Amin
Term start	30 April 1978
Term end	14 September 1979
Predecessor	Abdul Qadir Dagarwal
Successor	Hafizullah Amin
Order2	Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
Term start2	1 May 1978
Term end2	27 March 1979
Predecessor2	Mohammad Musa Shafiq
Successor2	Hafizullah Amin
Order3	General Secretary of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
Term start3	1 January 1965
Term end3	14 September 1979
Predecessor3	Post established
Successor3	Hafizullah Amin
Birth date	July 15, 1917
Birth place	Ghazni, Afghanistan
Death date	September 14, 1979
Death place	Kabul, Afghanistan
Party	People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
Religion	''None'' (Atheist) }}

Nur Muhammad Taraki (15 July 1917, or 1913 – 14 September 1979) was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Taraki was born near Kabul and educated at Kabul University, after which he started his political career as a journalist. He later became one of the founding members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and was elected as the party's General Secretary at its first congress. He ran as a candidate in the 1965 Afghan parliamentary election but failed to secure himself a seat. In 1966 he published the first issue of ''Khalq'', a party newspaper, but it was closed down shortly afterwards by the Afghan Government. The assassination of Mir Akbar Khyber led Taraki, along with Hafizullah Amin and Babrak Karmal, to initiate the Saur Revolution and establish the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

The presidency of Taraki, albeit short-lived, was marked by controversies from beginning to end. Taraki launched a land reform on 1 January 1978 which proved to be highly unpopular and, along with his government's other reforms, led to a popular backlash which initiated the Afghan civil war. Despite repeated attempts throughout his reign, Taraki proved unable to persuade the Soviet Union to intervene in support of the restoration of civil order.

At the beginning of his rule, the Government was divided between two PDPA factions: Khalqs (which Taraki was the leader of), the majority, and the Parchams, the minority. In 1978, shortly after his rule began, Taraki started a purge of the government and party which led to several high-ranking Parcham members being sent into de-facto exile by being assigned to serve overseas as ambassadors. His reign was marked by a cult of personality centered around himself that had been cultivated by Amin. His relationship with Amin turned sour during his rule, ultimately resulting in Taraki's murder on 14 September 1979, upon Amin's orders.

Early life and career

Taraki was born to a rural Ghilzai Pashtun peasant family in Naawa district, Ghazni Provence on 15 July 1917 or 1913. He was the oldest of three children and attended a village school in Nawa before leaving in 1932, at the age of 15, to work in the port city of Bombay, India. There he met a Kandahari merchant family who employed him as a clerk for the Pashtun Trading Company. Taraki's first encounter with communism was during his night courses, were he met several Communist Party of India members who impressed him with their discussions on social justice and communist values. Another important event was his encounter with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Pashtun nationalist and leader of the Red Shirt Movement in neighboring India, who was an admirer of the works of Vladimir Lenin.

In 1937 he started working for Abdul Majid Zabuli, the Minister of Economics, who introduced Taraki to several Russians. Later Taraki became Deputy Head of the Bakhtrar News Agency and became known throughout the country as an author and poet. His best known book, the ''De Bang Mosaferi'', highlights the socio-economic difficulties facing Afghan workers and peasants. His works were translated into Russian; in the Soviet Union, where his work was viewed as embodying scientific socialist themes, Taraki was hailed by the government as "Afghanistan's Maxim Gorky". During a visit to the Soviet Union Taraki was greeted by Boris Ponomarev, the Head of the International Department of the Central Committee, and other Communist Party of the Soviet Union members. Under Mohammad Daoud Khan's prime ministership, suppression of radicals was common. However, because of his language skills, Taraki was sent to the Afghan embassy in the United States in 1952. Within several months Taraki began denouncing the Afghan regime and accused it of being autocratic and dictatorial. His denunciation of the Afghan Government earned him much publicity in the United States. It also attracted unfavorable attention from authorities back home, who relieved him of his post and ordered him repatriated but stopped short of placing him under arrest. After a short period of unemployment Taraki started working for the United States Overseas Mission in Kabul as a translator. He quit his job in 1958 and established his own translation company, the Noor Translation Bureau. Four years later. Taraki started working for the American Embassy in Kabul, but quit in 1963 to focus on the establishment of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a communist political party.

At the founding congress of the PDPA, held in Taraki's own home, Taraki won a competitive election against Babrak Karmal to the post of general secretary on 1 January 1965. Karmal became second secretary. Taraki ran as a candidate for the PDPA during the September 1965 parliamentary election but did not win a seat. Shortly after the election, Taraki launched ''Khalq'', the first major left-wing newspaper in Afghanistan. The paper was banned within one month of its first printing. In 1967, less than two years after its founding, the PDPA split into several factions. The largest of these included Khalq () led by Taraki, and Parcham () led by Karmal. The main differences between the factions were ideological, with Taraki supporting the creation of a Leninist-like state, while Karmal wanted to establish a "broad democratic front".

On 19 April 1978 a prominent leftist named Mir Akbar Khyber was assassinated and the murder was blamed on Mohammed Daoud Khan's Government. His death served as a rallying point for the Afghan communists. Fearing a communist coup d'etat, Daoud ordered the arrest of certain PDPA leaders, including Taraki and Karmal, while placing others such as Hafizullah Amin under house arrest. On 27 April 1978 the Saur Revolution was initiated, reportedly by Amin while still under house arrest. Khan was killed the next day along with most of his family. The PDPA rapidly gained control and on 1 May Taraki became Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, a role which subsumed the responsibilities of both president and prime minister. The country was then renamed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), installing a regime that would last until April 1992.

Presidency

Establishment and purge

Taraki was appointed Revolutionary Council chairman and prime minister of Afghanistan, while he retained his post as general secretary of the PDPA. Taraki initially formed a government which consisted of both Khalqists and Parchamists; Karmal became deputy prime minister of Afghanistan while Amin became both deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs. Internal problems soon arose and several prominent Khalqists accused the Parcham faction of conspiring against the Taraki government. A Khalqi purge of the Parcham then began with the faction's most prominent members being sent out of the country: Karmal became the Afghan ambassador to Czechoslovakia and Mohammad Najibullah became the Afghan ambassador to Iran. Internal struggle was not only to be found between the Khalqist and Parchamists; tense rivalry between Taraki and Amin had begun in the Khalq faction with both vying for control.

Karmal was recalled from Czechoslovakia but rather than return to Afghanistan he went into hiding with Anahita Ratebzad, his friend and former Afghan ambassador to Yugoslavia, as he feared execution if he returned. Muhammad Najibullah followed them. Taraki consequently stripped them of all official titles and political authority.

Socio-economic changes

Land reform

Taraki's Government initiated a land reform on 1 January 1979 which attempted to limit the amount of land a family could own. Those whose landholdings exceeded the limit saw their property requisitioned by the government without compensation. The Afghan leadership believed the reform would meet with popular approval among the rural population while weakening the power of the bourgeoisie. The reform was declared complete in mid-1979 and the government proclaimed that 665,000 hectares (approximately 1,632,500 acres) had been redistributed. The government also declared that only 40,000 families, or 4 percent of the population, had been negatively affected by the land reform.

Contrary to government expectations the reform was neither popular nor productive. Agricultural harvests plummeted and the reform itself led to rising discontent amongst Afghans. When Taraki realized the degree of popular dissatisfaction with the reform he quickly abandoned the policy. However, the land reform was gradually implemented under the later Karmal administration, although the proportion of land area impacted by the reform is unclear.

Other reforms

In the months following the coup, Taraki and other party leaders initiated other radical Marxist policies that challenged both traditional Afghan values and well-established traditional power structures in rural areas. Taraki introduced women to political life and legislated an end to forced marriage. However, Taraki ruled over a nation with a deep Islamic religious culture and a long history of resistance to any type of strong centralized governmental control, and consequently many of these reforms were not actually implemented nationwide. Popular resentment of Taraki's drastic policy changes triggered surging unrest throughout the country, reducing government control to only a limited area. The strength of this anti-reform backlash would ultimately lead to the Afghan civil war.

Under the previous administration of Mohammad Daoud Khan, a literacy program created by UNESCO had been launched with the objective of eliminating illiteracy within 20 years. The government of Taraki attempted to reduce this time frame from 20 to four years, an unrealistic goal in light of the shortage of teachers and limited government capacity to oversee such an initiative. The duration of the project was later lengthened to seven years by the Soviets in the aftermath of the Soviet intervention. The cultural focus of the UNESCO programme was declared "rubbish" by Taraki, who instead chose to introduce a political orientation by utilizing PDPA leaflets and left-wing pamphlets as basic reading material.

Soviet–Afghan relations

|}} Taraki signed a Twenty-Year Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union on 5 December 1978 which greatly expanded Soviet aid to his regime. Following the Herat uprising, Taraki contacted Alexei Kosygin, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, and asked for "practical and technical assistance with men and armament". Kosygin was unfavorable to the proposal on the basis of the negative political repercussions such an action would have for his country, and he rejected all further attempts by Taraki to solicit Soviet military aid in Afghanistan. Following Kosygin's rejection Taraki requested aid from Leonid Brezhnev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Soviet head of state, who warned Taraki that full Soviet intervention "would only play into the hands of our enemies – both yours and ours". Brezhnev also advised Taraki to ease up on the drastic social reforms and to seek broader support for his regime.

In 1979, Taraki attended a conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana, Cuba. On his way back he stopped in Moscow on 20 March and met with Brezhnev, foreign minister Andrei Gromyko and other Soviet officials. It was rumoured that Karmal was present at the meeting in an attempt to reconcile Taraki's Khalq faction and the Parcham against Amin and his followers. At the meeting, Taraki was successful in negotiating some Soviet support, including the redeployment of two Soviet armed divisions at the Soviet-Afghan border, the sending of 500 military and civilian advisers and specialists and the immediate delivery of Soviet armed equipment sold at 25 percent below the original price. However the Soviets were not pleased about the developments in Afghanistan and Brezhnev impressed upon Taraki the need for party unity. Despite reaching this agreement with Taraki, the Soviets continued to be reluctant to intervene further in Afghanistan and repeatedly refused Soviet military intervention within Afghan borders during Taraki's rule as well as later during Amin's short rule.

Taraki–Amin break

In the first months after the revolution, Hafizullah Amin and Nur Muhammad Taraki had a very close relationship. Taraki reportedly remarked, "Amin and I are like nail and flesh, not separable". Amin set about constructing a personality cult centered on Taraki. In party and government meetings Amin always referred to Taraki as "The Great Leader", "The Star of the East" or "The Great Thinker" among other titles, while Amin was given such titles as "The True Disciple and Student". Amin would later come to realize he had created a monster when the Kim Il Sung-like personality cult he had created inspired Taraki to become overly confident in his own brilliance. Taraki began discounting Amin's suggestions, fostering in Amin a deep sense of resentment. As their relationship turned increasingly sour, a power struggle developed between them for control over the Afghan Army. Their relations came to a head later that year when Taraki accused Amin of nepotism after Amin had appointed several family members to high-ranking positions.

Taraki could count on the support of four prominent army officers in his struggle against Amin: Aslam Watanjar, Sayed Muhammad Gulabzoy, Sherjan Mazdoryar and Assadullah Sarwari. These men had joined the PDPA not because of ideological reasons, but instead due to their lofty political ambitions. They also had developed a close relationship with Alexander Puzanov, the Soviet ambassador in Afghanistan, who was eager to use them against Amin. After the Herat city uprising on 17 March 1979, the PDPA Politburo and the Revolutionary Council established the Homeland Higher Defence Council, to which Taraki was elected its chairman while Amin became its deputy. At around the same time, Taraki left his post as prime minister and Amin was elected his successor. Amin's new position offered him little real influence, however; as prime minister, Amin had the power to elect every member of the cabinet, but all of them had to be approved by the head of state, Taraki. In reality, through this maneuver Taraki had effectively reduced Amin's power base by forcing him to relinquish his hold on the Afghan army in order to take on the supposedly heavy responsibilities of his new but ultimately powerless post.

During Taraki's foreign visit to the non-aligned conference in Havana, his Gang of Four had received an intelligence report that Amin was planning to arrest or kill them. This report, it turned out, was incorrect. Nonetheless, the Gang of Four were ordered to assassinate Amin, its leader Sarwari selecting his nephew Aziz Akbari to conduct the assassination. However, Akbari was not informed that he was the chosen assassin or that it was a secret mission, and he confided the information to contacts in the Soviet embassy. The Soviet embassy responded by warning Amin of the assassination attempt, thereby saving him from certain death.

Fall from power

Taraki was greeted by Amin at the airport on his return to Kabul. The flight was scheduled to land at 2:30 but Amin forced the delay of the landing by an hour as a demonstration to Taraki of his control over the government. Shortly afterward, Taraki sought to neutralize Amin's power and influence by requesting that he serve overseas as an ambassador. Amin turned down the proposal, shouting "You are the one who should quit! Because of drink and old age you have taken leave of your senses." The following day Taraki invited Amin to the presidential palace for lunch with him and the Gang of Four. Amin turned down the offer, stating he would rather prefer their resignation than lunching with them. Soviet ambassador Puzanov managed to persuade Amin to make the visit to the Presidential Palace along with Sayed Daoud Tarun, the Chief of Police and Nawab Ali (an intelligence officer). Upon arriving at the palace, unknown individuals within the building opened fire on the visitors. Tarun was killed, while Ali sustained an injury and escaped with an unharmed Amin. Shortly afterward, Amin returned to the palace with a contigent of Army officers and placed Taraki under arrest. The Gang of Four, however, had "disappeared" and their whereabouts would remain unknown for the duration of Amin's 104-day rule.

After Taraki's arrest, Amin reportedly discussed the incident with Leonid Brezhnev in which he said, "Taraki is still around. What should I do with him?" Brezhnev replied that it was his choice. Amin, who now believed he had the full support of the Soviets, ordered the death of Taraki. Taraki was subsequently suffocated with pillows. The Afghan media would report that the ailing Taraki had died, omitting any mention of his murder.

References

External links

History of the brief period of Communist-controlled Government in Afghanistan

Biography of President Taraki at Afghanland.com

Telephone Conversation Between Kosygin and Taraki

Category:1917 births Category:1979 deaths Category:People from Kabul Province Category:Afghan communists Category:Pashtun people Category:Heads of state of Afghanistan Category:Leaders who took power by coup Category:People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan politicians Category:Prime Ministers of Afghanistan

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