Kitchen Debates And Americanization

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An Analysis of the Kitchen Debates and Americanization

The Cold War was the struggle for dominance between the USSR and the US. During the Cold War, there were multiple incidents in which the USSR and the US directly clashed. However, these incidents weren’t combat between the nations; instead, they were through propaganda and debates, especially the kitchen debates. The kitchen debates were direct clashes between the US and the USSR, in which they argued about the superiority of one’s nation. These debates were between Richard Nixon, the Vice President of the United States, and Nikita Khrushchev, who was the premier of Russia. Although it is generally accepted that Khrushchev started the incident, the forced Americanization is prominent throughout the debate. Therefore, the Kitchen Debates were direct acts of Americanization. …show more content…

The Exhibitions were a series of cultural events held in New York and Moscow that were designed to bring cultural understanding to another’s culture. How successful they were at bringing cultural understanding is up for debate, but the fact that Americanization at the Exhibition in Moscow was evident. For example, the entire Exhibition was modeled after a typical American House. Nixon even says that the average American could afford it for around $14,000. Although Khrushchev does try to counter this by saying that they had peasants and steel workers that could afford to pay $14,000 for a house, it is clear that Nixon is trying to indirectly say that the US was richer, and that its citizens could afford luxuries such as having their own