Man on the Moon

Last Saturday, Neil Armstrong passed away at the age of eighty-two. He needs no introduction – having become a household name since he became the first human in the history of our species to place his foot on an extra-terrestrial object, back in 1969. As he said laconically when he stepped off the moon-lander: “That’s one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.” But behind those now iconic words, there is a story that summarises the history of our planet in the second half of the last century.
At the end of WWII in 1945, the Cold War rivalry between the US and the USSR became the driving force behind global politics. German technological competence, emanating from their solid scientific heritage, had been the source of their amazing success in the early stages of the war. It was not coincidental that German scientists, spirited away by both the US and the USSR, became the backbone of the two superpowers’ rivalry for technological superiority in weaponry. In the wake of the atomic bomb and the “need” for its intercontinental delivery, was born the space programmes of the two nations.
The world was amazed, and the US shocked, when on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite. The US tried to play catch-up under President Eisenhower, who had been Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during WWII. But they were further embarrassed when on April 12, 1961, USSR’s Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. A month later, new US President, John F. Kennedy declared that before the end of the decade, the US would land a man on the moon.
We were now in a ‘space race’. But it is important to appreciate that this was but a subset of the Cold War to leave only one superpower standing. In fact, after WWII, practically almost all scientific activity at its most fundamental level was driven by the competition between the US and the USSR. Science was now but war by other means. Of course, the “major means” had not been abandoned but was now carried on by proxies recruited by both sides. And it was this aspect that gave the Caribbean its fifteen minutes of fame as a major player in the Cold War.
A week after Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space, Kennedy gave the green light to a CIA planned and financed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, by Cuban exiles. Cuba had declared its sympathy for Marxism and the USSR the year before. The humiliating defeat of the invaders further boosted the image of the USSR’s ‘side’ and this played a crucial role in Kennedy’s decision on the man-on-the-moon declaration the following month. The US could not stand to ‘lose face’.
In what has become not even a footnote in world history, Kennedy made another decision to stem the USSR’s ‘rise”. In August 1961, the PPP under Cheddi Jagan won the British Guiana elections. After a visit by Jagan to Washington in October 1961, Kennedy decided that the former would establish a Soviet satellite in Guyana, if allowed to rule. He decided the US could not ‘afford another Cuba in the Western Hemisphere”.
On Feb 16th a wide swath of Georgetown was torched during riots incited by the CIA. On Feb 20, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. Guyana had entered a new era of political competition – one characterised by violent ethnic conflicts and arson. The US had entered into the era that saw Neil Armstrong walking on the moon by 1969.
While the US still talks desultorily of “man walking on Mars”, its headlines and spending are now targeted more towards Drone flights. In the meantime, Cuba struggles on under its US embargo and Guyana continues to be enmeshed in its political morass.