Causes Of The Cuban Missile Crisis

786 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Cuban missile crisis modern history notes

Fifty years ago, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the not just the U.S but the world to the brink of nuclear warfare.In October 1962, a U.S. spy plane caught the Soviet Union trying to sneak nuclear missiles into Cuba, 90 miles off the U.S coast.Kennedy determined at that action could not stand.The crisis is generally considered as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict. For fourteen days during October 1962, the world held its breath as John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev,the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, tried to reach an agreement and avoid nuclear war.
In 1959 Fidel Castro took power in Cuba.One year after Castro takes Cuba, Cuba allies itself with the Soviet Union and their policies. Cuba becomes a communist country. The U.S were not very content with that so they ended any relation with Cuba. President Kennedy announces that the U.S will not try to overthrow Castro. In April 1961 a group of Cuban exiles ,that were backed up by the U.S, attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay Of Pigs. The invasion fails and more than one thousand rebels are captured by Castro’s forces. Months after the invasion fails, Russian leader Khrushchev and President Kennedy hold a meeting in Vienna, Italy. The two superpower country leaders discuss many issues in the relationship between their countries. One year later Castro announces that would take measures that would make any direct U.S attack on Cuba the equivalent of a world war. Castro claims the Soviet Union would defend his country. In August 1962, CIA director John McCone sent a memo to President Kennedy expressing his belief the Soviet ballistic missile were being deployed in Cuba. Days later Senator Keating tells the senate that t...

... middle of paper ...

...nt any action that would lead to killing a Russian. Khrushchev had in all {probability|most likely} determined to drop his demand for quid pro quo removals from Turkey as a results of learning that a Soviet anti-aircraft missile in Cuba had shot down a United States U-2 plane, killing the pilot. Kennedy and Khrushchev each recognised that, once blood had been spilled, it'd be terribly onerous to stay any crisis in restraint. Khrushchev, faced with the armed might of the U.S and its allies, had very little selection however to search out how out of the tough state of affairs during which he had placed himself and his country. John Fitzgerald Kennedy didn't press the advantage that the strength of U.S. and allied service and military forces gave him. Thus, the Soviet leader was ready to peacefully disengage his nation from this most serious of conflict confrontations.

Show More
Related

  • Thirteen Days Fallacies Analysis

    708 Words  | 2 Pages

    General Taylor remarks Russians are doing whatever they want when they want (Thirteen Days), he also makes reference to the Bay of Pigs. A false analogy fallacy (Fujishin 112), trying to put two events that are different from each other together. And so begins the cat and mouse game deciding what to do and how to react to this discovery. Many of JFK’s military advisors were in favor of striking now before weapons were active. JFK and his closest of advisors knew that if they reacted with force it could start a chain reaction beginning WWIII (a nuclear war of mass destruction). JFK decided against his advisement to wait and look for alternative

    Read More

  • Containment Dbq Essay

    498 Words  | 1 Pages

    In January of 1959 , Communist dicator Fidel Castro took over Cuba. The United States in 1961 tried to overthrow Fidel by arming rebels and attempting to support them. This was the failure known as the Bay of Pigs. In October of 1962 , The US finds evidence that medium range nuclear sites had been installed in Cuba. They annonce that on the twenty-third that a quatntine was being Cuba and that any ship carrying offensive weapons to Cuba wasn’t allowed. Five days later , the crisis was averted when the Soviets began to remove the

    Read More

  • Essay on Rfk's 13 Days

    631 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...roposed that if the U.S. removed its missiles from Turkey then Russia would remove its missiles from Cuba. Robert Kennedy wanted Soviet missiles and offensive weapons removed from Cuba under UN inspection. Later that same day, a U.S. U-2 was shot down over Cuba. Bombardment of Cuba was the initial reaction, but JFK calmed everyone down. The next day on October 28, Russia agreed to withdraw their missiles from Cuba. If they had not, war may have begun.

    Read More

  • BAY OF PIGS

    2847 Words  | 6 Pages

    It seems that the United States has been one of the most dominant, if not the most dominant, countries in the world, since the Declaration of Independence. Yet, on Monday, April 17, 1961, our government experienced incredible criticism and extreme embarrassment when Fidel Castro, dictator of Cuba, instantly stopped an invasion on the Cuban beach known as the Bay of Pigs. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, his advisors, and many Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials, made the largest error of their political careers. Once the decision was made to invade Cuba, to end Castro and his Communist government, Kennedy and his administration were never looked at in the same light nor trusted again. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev was affiliated with Castro, and the two countries made many military decisions together. As Kennedy and the United States tried to stop Cuba and Russia from becoming a threat to the world, an invasion was planned out and executed. The results were a disaster. The Bay of Pigs invasion was the largest military mistake ever made by the United States government and the CIA in the 20th century and brought America to the brink of war with Cuba and Russia. The Bay of Pigs invasion was not a quick decision, many hours of meetings and conferences occurred before President Kennedy gave permission for the attack. President Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20, 1961, and immediately wanted to take the initiative with the Soviet and Cuban governments (Pearson 12). Russia was already under Communist control, and Fidel Castro took over the Cuban government with heavily armed troops and policeman. Castro’s policemen filled the streets, and he ran the newspapers, as well as many assembly buildings (Frankel 60). At the beginning, Castro did not run a Communist government, but once he began to meet with Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, Castro started a Communist government (Crassweller 23). Max Frankel, writer for the New York Times, summarizes the situation in Cuba by saying, “Little by little, the vise tightened. Little by little the free people of Cuba came to realize it could happen there. The grim facts of life on an island that became a police state” (Frankel 59). Every day, Castro came closer to controlling every aspect in life in Cuba. Fidel Castro even took control of the schools in Cuba, throwing out any teacher who he thought...

    Read More

  • Kennedy's Fixation with Cuba by Thomas G. Paterson

    1377 Words  | 3 Pages

    Thomas G. Paterson's essay, "Kennedy's Fixation with Cuba," is an essay primarily based on the controversy and times of President Kennedy's foreign relations with Cuba. Throughout President Kennedy's short term, he devoted the majority of his time to the foreign relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union. After the struggle of WW II, John F. Kennedy tried to keep a tight strong hold over Cuba as to not let Cuba turn to the Communist Soviet Union. Kennedy seen Cuba and the Soviet Union as a major threat to the United States. As Castro fell farther and farther into the Communist party, he inched his way closer and closer to becoming a close ally with the Soviet's, As Kennedy seen this happen before his eyes, he was astonished. Kennedy, a newly formed president, did not want to seem like the kind to just sit back and roll with the punches, he wanted immediate action taken for these measures. "As someone said, Cuba was one of the four-letter words of the 1960s" (268). Cuba was not viewed as a very potential power before Fidel Castro took office. It was viewed more as a neutral country that we sent aide and military supplies to in exchange for sugar and other products. When Castro took office, things drastically changed. He started taking back land that we had set aside for military bases, he wanted the American forces no more than what they had in Washington, and he openly defied orders from America. Unknown to Kennedy Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, was also watching everything that played out between Cuba and the United States. President Kennedy, later realizing, would make a few decisions for the worst. These decisions would haunt him for the re...

    Read More

  • Kennedy Assassination Cause And Effect

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    After thirteen days of conflict, both superpowers agreed to withdraw their missiles. Although it was a stalemate, in the US this was presented as a major victory. Nuclear war was avoided without any loss of life or destruction. Just as in the Berlin Crisis, Kennedy used diplomacy to resolve conflicts with the Soviet Union. For Kennedy, “his readiness to offer negotiations was in part based on a politician’s belief

    Read More

  • The Miracle on Ice: The US Hockey Team

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Soviet Union and the United States were very distant during three decades of a nuclear arms race. Even though the two nations never directly had a battle, the Cuban Missile Crisis, amongst other things, was a result of the tension. The missile crisis began in October of 1962, when an American spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union in Cuba. JFK did not want the Soviet Union and Cuba to know that he had discovered the missiles, so he made his decisions very secretly. Eventually, Kennedy decided to place a ring of ships around Cuba and place missiles in Turkey. Eventually, both leaders superpowers realized the possibility of a nuclear war and agreed to a deal in which the Soviets would remove the missiles from Cuba if the US didn't invade Cuba. Even though the Soviets removed took their missiles out of Cuba and the US eventually taking their missiles out of Turkey, they (the Soviets) continued to build a more advanced military; the missile crisis was over, but the arms race was not.

    Read More

  • Thirteen Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    Robert F. Kennedy's chilling account of his experiences with his brother, President John F. Kennedy over thirteen days in October of 1962 give an idea to the reader of just how alarmingly close our country came to nuclear war. Kennedy sums up the Cuban Missile Crisis as "a confrontation between two atomic nations...which brought the world to the abyss of nuclear destruction and the end of mankind."1 The author's purpose for writing this memoir seems to be to give readers an idea of the danger confronted during the Cuban Missile Crisis and to reflect on the lessons we should learn from it as a country, and for future members of government.

    Read More

  • The Cuban Missle Crisis

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Cuban Missile Crisis most definitively is known for how it halted nuclear attack on the brink of a hot war. With missiles in Cuba and Turkey pointing at each other, a stalemate was created between the Soviet Union and the United States. A policy of Mutually Assured Destruction was followed in order to prevent either side from attacking the other in fear of mass amounts of death and environmental consequences that would be caused by a nuclear war between the two most powerful countries in the world. The United States had always had weapons in Turkey within the region of the Soviet Union, being threatened by this the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev order for missiles to be sent to the communist ally in the caribbean which was Cuba led by former revolutionary Fidel Castro. After this event had occurred President Kennedy addressed the nation and the world on how the U.S. would respond to such threats. “ This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base--by the presence of these large, long range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction--co...

    Read More

  • John F Kennedy Ethos Appeal In Jfk Speech

    628 Words  | 2 Pages

    On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy reached out to America and the Cubans with his Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation. During this time, the Cold War had occupied several countries of world. This war resulted from tensions, military and political, between Russia and its allies and America, its allies, and the Western Hemisphere. When President Kennedy gave his speech, Russia had occupied Cuba and began building military bases that contained nuclear warheads and other deadly missiles. People of America saw this as a threat to the freedom of the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere. In a time of great tension and fear, President Kennedy delivered his spectacular and reassuring speech that appealed to the citizens of American in several ways.

    Read More

  • Fidel Castro's Role in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

    1817 Words  | 4 Pages

    The tropical island of Cuba had been an object of empire for the United States. Before the Missile Crisis, the relationship between Castro and the US were strained by the Bay of Pigs occurrence in 1961. This was where counterrevolutionary Cubans were American funded and tried to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. However, the counterrevolutionaries failed. Castro then found an alliance with the Soviet Union and an increase of distrust that Castro had on the US. On January 18, 1962, the United States’ Operation Mongoose was learned. The objective would be “to help the Cubans overthrow the Communist regime” so that the US could live in peace. Consequently, Castro informed the Soviet Union that they were worried about a direct invasion on Cuba, thus longed for protection against th...

    Read More

  • The Cuban Missile Crisis

    1916 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major event in U.S History that almost led to nuclear destruction. It was over a period of thirteen days in which diplomats from the U.S and the Soviet Union were trying to reach a peaceful resolution so that they wouldn’t have to engage in physical warfare. The crisis was the hallmark of the Cold War era which lasted from the 1950’s to the late 1980’s. The Cold War was a power struggle between the U.S and Soviet Union in which the two nations had a massive arms race to become the strongest military force. The U.S considered Communism to be an opposing political entity, and therefore branded them as enemies. Khrushchev’s antagonistic view of Americans also played a big role in the conflict. The Cold War tensions, coupled with a political shift in Cuba eventually lead to the military struggle known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the point of most tension and near collapse causing the Cold War to almost shift from a passive and underground struggle to a violent and catastrophic one.

    Read More

  • The Cuban Missile Crisis

    1174 Words  | 3 Pages

    Evidence: On October 1962, a U.S. spy plane caught Soviet Union moving nuclear missiles into Cuba. After a week of careful discussion with his advisers, President Kennedy then forced a naval blockade which prevented materials from coming in but it did not work for soviets from operating the missiles that were already there. That is where President Kennedy was really worried about, so the second week came by. That is also where when Kennedy and soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev stood, just eye balling each other to where both of them was not even backing down. On October 27, it was the day of the decision and thanks to Kennedy’s secret tapes and careful discussions. Khrushchev did a final pledge not to invade Cuba in exchange for the withdraw of soviet missiles. Although it is just a distant memory ...

    Read More

  • Cuban Missile Crisis Analysis

    1445 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kennedy warned that if Khrushchev fired missiles from Cuba, the result would be “a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union. ”(Goldman, 4). If it wasn’t for the smart, rational decision making by President Kennedy and his staff, the world would have gone to World War III and possibly would never have been the same again. This analysis explains the Cuban rebels in the Bay of Pigs invasion, the importance of the great leaders of the United States, the important decision making by the U.S. leaders, and the crazy leaders of the Soviet Union and Cuba.

    Read More

  • The Cuban Missile Crisis

    1304 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1962 nuclear war seemed inevitable to the world, it was the first time nuclear war was hanging on a thread. The Cuban Missile Crisis presented a threat to the world, in which the USSR planted nuclear missiles on Cuba. America’s response was to threaten launching nuclear missiles at the Russians. This incident launched the world into a new time, which presented nuclear weapons as a source of power.

    Read More

More about Causes Of The Cuban Missile Crisis

Open Document