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Fidel Castro and the Cuban missile crisis
Fidel Castro and the Cuban missile crisis
Americas role with cuba history
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In October 1962, when the world came extremely close to the beginning of a World War 3, any hope of achieving peace was almost destroyed at the hands of Kennedy, Khrushchev, and to a lesser degree, Castro. After the end of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba in early 1961, the Soviets gained the perfect opportunity to develop an alliance with Cuba (Falk 145). Subsequently, in 1961 the Soviets decided to place missiles in Cuba threatening the Americans which became the basis of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The fact of the matter was that both the Soviet Union and the U.S.A. had enough military power to absolutely destroy the world and the only way to successfully impede this was for Kennedy and Khrushchev to come to a mutual agreement. Unfortunately, both sides could not afford to displease their people or appear weak, so reaching an agreement seemed very unlikely for quite some time. Yet surprisingly enough, over the years historians and the general public mostly learned of the American version of how the situation unfolded and concluded that Kennedy was the best example of how to deal with a crisis until recently when new evidence suggests there was more to the story. The world came to the verge of downright destruction during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when president Kennedy and Khrushchev almost failed to settle their differences regarding the missiles in Cuba and Turkey.
John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev were both powerful political figures but yet their fear of appearing weak in front of the world kept them from compromising for quite some time. Time and time again, the Kennedy administration had attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro and his government to take over Cuba once again. According to Len Scot...
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...h.Hesitation, desire for dominance, and misleading information are not only some of the reasons for the outcome of this crisis but also some of the many factors that played a key role in shaping the history we very closely study now. The only thing that the two countries could have been equally certain about was found within the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine between the United States and the Soviet Union. Dreading over people’s judgement complexes matters to a greater degree. Nevertheless, Kennedy was taken into regard as a celebrated exemplar for others to follow.
For all we know, if the documents and information that were previously used for learning about the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, perhaps researchers and historians would not get to see how the other people involved saw it and even today we would learn only the American version of the story.
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
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...
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...
Made from contingencies and correlations, everything in history happens because of something else. Kennedy’s skepticism towards his advisors stems from the failures of the Bay of Pigs. The Bay of Pigs was a CIA operation in the early 1960’s. It involved Americans training Cuban exiles in Nicaragua before sending them to invade Cuba in the hopes of overthrowing Castro. Kennedy largely inherited the Bay of Pigs from the Eisenhower administration as “The decision to overthrow Castro’s regime had been taken by the Eisenhower administration in January 1960, and by March of that year the CIA had developed a program of action”.
May, Ernest R. “John F Kennedy and the Cuban MIssile Crisis.” BBC News. BBC., 18 Nov. 2013.
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.
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.
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.
This historical investigation aims to address the question: How significant was Fidel Castro’s role in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962?
The stakes were high, there was so much to lose. On October 16th 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis began. The 13 day confrontation was possibly one the most intense conflicts in United States history. In response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961, and the presence of American Jupiter ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided to agree to Cuba's request to place nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter future harassment of Cuba. The U.S caught wind of what was happening and felt threatened under the new threat of missiles in Cuba. The best way to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis was by using a form of “Back-Channel” or “Back-Door” Diplomacy
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.
The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted two weeks in the midst of the Cold War, and brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever before. In October of 1962 multiple nuclear missiles of the Soviet Union’ s were discovered in Cuba, a mere 90 miles south of the United States. Given the communist ties between Cuba and the USSR, this poised a considerable threat to our national security. Throughout the 14 days the two leaders, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev struggled to clearly understand each others‘ genuine intentions. Actions taken by each state during this crisis demonstrates the realist point of view, in a variety of ways. The fundamentals of Realism will be explored and explained along with actions taken during this crisis from a realist point of view.
Thesis – President John F. Kennedy’s leadership and management of the Cuban Missile Crisis will be held up against criticism as a model of diplomacy and humanity.
Stern, Sheldon M. The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ., 2012. Print.