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Impact of the Cuban missile crisis
Events leading up to the Cuban missile crisis
Events leading up to the Cuban missile crisis
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" We were eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked" (Shmoop). This is one of the most famous quotes American History, and it described the Cuban Missile Crisis
perfectly. This was the time when the United States plunged into a state of tension and silent pain
with The Soviet Union. Both sides were ready to fire their nuclear weapons, and Cuba was in the
middle of it. The Cuban Missile Crisis was caused by uproars started by Fidel Castor; because of
those conflicts, it was the closest the world's ever been to nuclear war.
This is how it all started; on January 1959, Fulgencio Batista, an American backed
Cuban Dictator was overthrown by Fidel Castor. The main problem was that the United States
had a navel based, Guantanamo, was a vital asset to Cuba. Then when Castor came into power,
everything of the Americans was shut down and the economy dropped. So Castor planned a
widespread revulsion against this humiliating position. As an outcome of this, Americans were
deeply detested on the island. Castor's fame grew all over the island, but to the United States he
was a threat. So President Eisenhower assumed that Castor was a communist, so there was
attempts to kill Castor or destroy his end game, but all attempts failed. This made him very
bitter toward the U.S and made him close to the Soviet Union (Swift) .
Then on January 1960, when President John F. Kennedy was elected, Castor thought that
these threats would stop but he thought wrong. President Kennedy still attempted to destroy
Castor but after many fail attempts like the Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose, the Kennedy
administration was humiliated. Things got heated on April 1962, the Soviet Union began to
station...
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...he Cuban missiles in exchange for a promise by U.S. leaders not to invade Cuba. The
following day, the Soviet leader sent a letter proposing that the USSR would dismantle its
missiles in Cuba if the Americans removed their missile installations in Turkey." Few says later
the Americans agreed to those terms and conditions. With that this chapter of the Cold War came
to a close on October 28th ( The Cuban Missile Crises ) .
" We were eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked " ( JFK ) , this
quote will always resonate with all Americans will lived through those horrifying years and
months. This will always be the biggest standoff by the biggest superpowers in the world. Many
people say that you will never know how close we came to a nuclear war. It was started by a
nation seeking revenge but ended with two nations being mature.
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
"JFK Announces a Blockade of Cuba." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
One mission by Che Guevara was he, “strove to create a proper industrial base and to diminish the economy’s dependence on sugar,” (515). To improve the milk and meat production in Cuba efforts were made to breed a new kind of cattle. This effort failed which resulted in a famine because of this and with the U. S trade embargo the Cuban government began to give rations of daily necessities to citizens, (The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its People). Guevara efforts were too expensive for Cuba causing a crisis. The government, “decided to resolve its crisis by means of a “revolutionary offensive”: first, the nationalization of all services, restaurants, shops, and petty commercial iinstallations... witha production goal of 10 million tons of sugar (516). That goal did not work causing Fidel Castro to offer to resign. Cuba started to become a communist society. In terms of who was in charge and their role in, The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its People state, “Castro was the visible head, the spokesman, and the international strategists while his brother Raul would become more and more the chief of personnel, the head of the armed forces and secret services,”
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).
1 The missiles were being brought to Cuba by Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, who guaranteed President Kennedy that the missiles would never be used as a weapon against the United States. This is a lie. Khrushchev fully intended to use the missiles as a mechanism of defense against the United States and as a way to further pursue a relationship with Fidel Castro, who was the President of Cuba at the time. The United States needed to find a way to stop the development of missile sites without causing a break out of violent warfare.
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.
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.
This buildup of weapons by the two countries started The Cuban Missile Crisis (The Cuban). Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet leader of the time, was nervous about the buildup of nuclear weapons in Western Europe and Turkey by the United States. He felt a build-up of missiles in Cuba would level the playing field.... ... middle of paper ...
The Cuban missile crisis was a major turning point in American history. It sparked conflict between two of the most powerful countries and almost led to possibly the most horrific war ever. This point in American history also caused long lasting tension between the United States and Cuba and posed as the most terrifying 13 days in United States history.
In many ways John F. Kennedy’s decision to have this speech as well as the contents itself, reflected how he was instrumental to success in keeping the public calm. The president could hav...
On January 1, 1959, Cuban dictator Fulgencio was overthrown.(Goode, Stephen 75). Fidel Castro overthrew the old government and took over as Cuba’s ruler. During the weeks ahead, Castro found a new government and on February 16, he was officially declared ruler of Cuba (Finkelstein, Norman H. 127). The United States did not mind this new regime because the old ruler was running an unfair, corrupt, and unpopular government. Soon after everything was set, Castro and his men made a quick move to change their political course. These events worried the United States and there were concerns about Castro becoming too powerful. One reason was the friendship Castro had with the Soviet Union. Cuba was receiving armed forces to expand and improve its army. Cuba received 30,000 tons of arms a year, which included Soviet JS-2 51-ton tanks, SU-100 assault guns, T-34 35-ton tanks, 76-mm field guns, 85-mm field guns, and 122-...
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 exhibits the struggle for power between the two dominant powers of the time. The realist theory believes that world politics is a repetitive struggle for power and or influence. Power, in politics is largely perceived as influence and military capability. Power in mass amounts are located in objects such as nuclear missiles that have an immense influence on others. (Schmidt, 2007; Sterling-Folker & Shinko, 2007). This is clearly depicted through the actions taken by both leaders, as the simple placement of a missile had such a tremendous effect.
The main causes of the revolution were the corrupt way in which the country was run, the large role the US played in the running of Cuba and the poor treatment & conditions the lower class Cubans lived with. The leader before the revolution was a man named Fulgencio Batista, who came into power via a coup. He suspended the Constitution, effectively establishing a dictatorship, and increased the Cuban dependency on the US. Batista allowed the US to build casinos, reaping the profits from the casinos and from the growing drug trade. He ignored crimes, allowing many drug dealers to continue under the condition that he got a share of the profits. He, a select group of friends, and businessmen from the US, grew richer and richer while the lower class of Cuba were poor and suffering. The people of Cuba saw this corruption and resented it, causing a gaping rift between leader and people.
Roger Donaldson’s film, Thirteen Days dramatizes the Kennedy administration reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film discusses a time when the United States had come close to a nuclear war with other nations. The film mainly focuses on showing the audience the United States perspective of the crisis. The Cuban Missile crisis was a thirteen-day long confrontation between the United States, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. This crisis started out when both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to be seen as the most superior nation in the world. Therefore, both nations decided to use the technology they had in order to produce nuclear missiles and other weapons to show the globe how powerful they were as nations. The United States and