Which event had the greater effect on the relationship

On 1 May 1960, two days before the summit was due to start Gary Power the pilot of the U2 spay plane set off from Peshawar in Pakistan. However over the town of Sverdlovsk the U2 Plane was shot down by a soviet SAM-2 missile. Powers escaped to be captured by the soviet forces on the ground. The plane was recovered so the soviet scientist could study it as well. The Americans tried to cover up what had happened by saying the U2 was a research plane and not a ‘spy in the sky’ plane. Some other excuses were that it was studying the weather conditions and not military bases and that it had disappeared over Turkey and not over the Soviet Union. However the Americans didn’t know that the plane had been recover, Gary powers had been captured and had admitted to being a spy and the soviet union had also captured thousands of pictures.

The Soviet Union demanded an apology on 7th May, however Eisenhower refused to apologise claiming he had to do whatever would stop his country suffering from a surprise attack. The Cold War carried on as Khrushchev stormed out of the meeting and cancelled an invitation to President Eisenhower allowing him to visit the Soviet Union. The relationship between USA and USSR had just become a lot worse as there was more conflict due to the u2 incident this had just made USA and USSR drift further apart and therefore destroy any near future chance of peace.

Another significant cause for the relationship was the building of the Berlin Wall. USSR found that Berlin was a big embarrassment. On 13th August 1961, the East Germans began to build’ The Berlin Wall’ .It was a 160-kilometer barrier between East and West Berlin. The families of West Berlin were able to buy luxuries of life due to USA and Economic aid after 1945.On the other hand people of East Berlin worked long hour and had to put up with food shortage .This was a fight between capitalism and Communism.

When the wall was first built it was a border of machine guns and barbed wire fence. However a concrete wall was soon built afterwards.86 people are known to have died trying to get across the wall and through the barbed wire. This triggered the Soviet Union as USA intimidated them with all of ‘their’ luxuries. USSR saw this as an attempt of causing trouble as it had become a too bigger rivalry between capitalism and communism.

Even though the U2 incident in 1960 had a big effect on the relationship between the USA and USSR, It was jut the beginning and had made the soviets more aware of USA and in General Capitalists. The Building of the Berlin Wall however finalised the bigger effect on the two countries. The Americans asked ‘If communism was so good why did they have to build a barrier to cage people in?’ President Kennedy visited West Berlin and showed how USA is committed to the people of West Berlin. The Soviet Union was furious and saw this as a deliberate attempt to cause trouble. Also USSR felt more embarrassed as up to 1961 over 2 million people left East Berlin for West Berlin .The message that was spread due to this was that communism wasn’t working. This was the event that had the greater effect on the relationship between USA and USSR as USSR wanted revenge and the relationship became more vulgar towards each other.