Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 12.31.1969
Because the USSR was such a secretive and closed society, the United States feared a rising threat from a nation they knew was developing long-range nuclear missiles and bombers. Did they have the bomb? The United States needed to know in order to be prepared. Under the guise of weather reconnaissance missions, some WB-50s were fitted with high-altitude atmospheric samplers. These samplers......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 12.31.1969
Early in the Cold War, the United States needed aircraft that could fly over the Soviet Union and other potential adversary nations to take photos of military activities. This mission is known as reconnaissance. One reconnaissance concept was a modified F-84, called the RF-84K, to be carried toward a target as a “parasite” aircraft on a modified B-36. It would be let go to perform its......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 12.31.1969
While the Strategic Air Command perfected its techniques as the strategic nuclear deterrent of the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War, the country needed to protect our homeland. Aircraft, such as the Starfire, the first all-jet, all-weather interceptor for the Air Defense Command, was employed for the air defense of the continental United States. In 1957, the U.S.-Canadian North American Air......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 12.31.1969
At the beginning of the Cold War, the United States needed to deter and contain communist aggression and the U.S. Air Force needed something to keep the “bear” at bay. “Bear” was a term used to describe the Soviets. The Strategic Air Command, or SAC, was a major focus for the expanding Air Force. In order to surround a potential enemy, SAC acquired facilities around the world and by......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 12.31.1969
Just after World War II, America – and most of the world – entered a new phase in history. What came to be called the Cold War dominated the second half of the 20th century. This confrontation grew out of the ideological clash between the Western democracies - led by the United States - and communist nations - led by the Soviet Union. The threat of nuclear weapons made this period the most......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 12.31.1969
The peace agreement signed in Paris in 1973 ended U.S. combat operations in Vietnam. The cease-fire, initialed on January 23 by Henry Kissinger for the United States and Le Duc Tho for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, formerly North Vietnam, took effect five days later. The agreement specified troop withdrawal and the return of prisoners of war. American troops were to leave South Vietnam......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 12.31.1969
Although the U.S. Air Force began sending advisory personnel to South Vietnam in 1961, and carried out combat missions in South Vietnam shortly thereafter, U.S. forces did not initially strike North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Navy attack in the Tonkin Gulf in August 1964, however, led to retaliatory raids by U.S. Navy aircraft. The U.S. Air Force made its first strike against North Vietnam......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 12.31.1969
The confused situation caused by the civil war in Laos permitted North Vietnam to use southern Laos - known as the “Panhandle” - to move troops and supplies to South Vietnam. In 1959, the communists began traveling along the same network of paths through the Panhandle’s mountains and jungles used against the Japanese in World War II and the French afterward. In 1961, the communists......
