On April 17, 1961 one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes of the Cold War was made, the attempted invasion of the Bay of Pigs, Cuba. The failed invasion happened under the administration of John F. Kennedy and caused the deaths and imprisonment of over 1500 Cuban exiles fighting to over throw the rule of Fidel Castro. The aftermath caused much larger impacts towards United States foreign policy. The invasion made the United States look imperialistic to the rest of the world and allowed the Soviet Union to portray America as an aggressive and hostile country to its neighbors, which in turn allowed the Soviet Union to aid Cuba even more for future affairs. The Bay of Pigs also caused President Kennedy to distrust many of his advisers from the CIA for misinforming him. The CIA led him to believe the invasion would be over quickly and successfully after Kennedy had only been in office for three months. This distrust of his advisers certainly affected how Kennedy acted in future crises involving both Cuba and the USSR. This of course leads the question did the Kennedy Administration act appropriately for the Bay of Pigs invasion and how did the outcome affect United States foreign policy with Cuba and USSR?
Fidel Castro was a growing issue towards the US. Castro was the communist prime minister of Cuba. He rose to power through the Cuban Revolution in 1953 and ruled Cuba under communist philosophies. Fidel Castro was also threat to the United States national security because of his affiliation with the Soviet Union and his alliance with Nikita Khrushchev. There was rising tensions between the US and Castro's government because American owned oil companies which were operating in Cuban territory refused to produce crude oil for t...
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Walsh, Daniel C. "An Air War With Cuba; The United States Radio Campaign Against Castro." Reference & Research Book News, October 7, 2012. Accessed March 15, 2014. Academic OneFile /Gale (A304010214).
Wood, Jeff. "Cuba Missile Crisis." In Disasters, Accidents, and Crises in American History. Accessed February 11, 2014. American History Online (DACH0151).
Prados, John. "The Perfect Failure." MHQ: The Quarterly Journal 19, no. 3 (Spring 2007): 82-92.
Endnotes
"Cuban Missile Crisis," in Encyclopedia of American Foreign
"Fidel Castro,"
Hastedt, "Political Aspects of the Bay of Pigs,"
Kreiser, "JFK: Trials, Triumph and Tragedy,"
The New York Times
"Overview John F. Kennedy,"
Rasenberger, Brilliant Disaster
Walsh, "An Air War With,"
Wood, "Cuba Missile Crisis," in Disasters, Accidents, and Crises
Prados, "The Perfect Failure," [Page #].
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
"Cuban Missile Crisis." - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Along with the above mention things, the U.S. disrupted trade with Europe and outright requested that Europe not trade with Cuba. Also during this period, the CIA began to plan assassination operations against Cuban Leaders, and have eight separate plots to assassination Castro (Perez 252).
May, Ernest R. "John F Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis." BBC News. BBC, 18 Nov. 2013.
...ity of the blame went onto Kennedy's record as not being the one that had planned it out and not giving the go ahead for the second air raid. It was later proven that no matter what the outcome of the second air raid would have been, it would not have mattered. The CIA also released a document taking the full responsibility and blame for the incident at the Bay of Pigs. The Cuban Missile Crisis not only worried the U.S. but also worried the rest of the world as to how it would turn out. The Soviet's backed Cuba as an ally and fed them missiles and the supplies to build the missile silos in Cuba. The Soviet's said they did this as a counter measure incase we did in fact invade Cuba. Between these two major conflicts of the time, it can be said that the two countries were not battling over Cuba in itself, but more or less battling over the belief of Communism.
Kennedy took full public responsibility for the Bay of Pigs disaster though secretly he blamed the CIA. Kennedy fired three of the CIA?s top men whom were responsible for the operation: Director Allen Dulles, who was later a member of the Warren Commission (Lifton 176), General Cabell, and Richard Bissel. (Morrissey) After the CIA lost time, effort, and people in the attempt to secure Cuba, the CIA became hostile and wanted to get rid of Kennedy to prevent him from losing more ground, especially in Vietnam.Adding to the fire were Kennedy?s secret commitments to pulling out of Vietnam and his threat to?Smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them in the wind? (Belzer 79)
May, Ernest R. “John F Kennedy and the Cuban MIssile Crisis.” BBC News. BBC., 18 Nov. 2013.
Excitement was high for Cuba, when Fidel Castro overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in January 1959. With a heady mixture of nationalism and left - wing ideologies US became very cautious for its southern comrades Central and Southern America and perhaps herself. When Castro took over Cuba, the US lost valuable investments in the sugar and tobacco crops of Cuba.
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.
Perhaps the most critical moment that had occurred to the United States and the world of the last century is the Cuban Missile Crisis. The significance of this event was that it had brought the world to the closest it could ever be to a nuclear war. Millions of lives, cultures and infrastructure would have been lost if it was not splendidly dealt with. Yet, a man was able to prevent this devastation, and he was none other than President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) of the United States. How was he significant to the event? This research paper will discuss it with the points that are based on JFK’s characteristics. Hence, to provide an overview of this paper; the outbreak of nuclear warfare was prevented in the Cuban Missile Crisis specifically by John F. Kennedy’s many distinguished characteristics.
The scope of this investigation is to discover the involvement of Fidel Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. First to be analyzed is the relationship of Castro with the Soviet Union and the United States as to identify the significance of Castro’s role in the stages of the Crisis. Castro’s role will then be deduced referring to the early days of the Crisis, the period when a US U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba, and the resolution of the Crisis.
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.
By the early 1960’s the U.S. had cut off ties with Cuba and was engaging to overthrow the Castro regime. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a fumbled CIA attempt to crush the government, inflamed
"The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962." U.S. Dept. of State Office of the Historian. Office of the Historian, 31 Oct. 2013. Web. 24 Mar. 2014. .
Stern, Sheldon M. The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ., 2012. Print.