The Cuban Missile Crisis

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Thirteen days in October of 1962 changed the course of the World in the nuclear age forever. The Cuban Missile Crisis represents the closest brink of mutual nuclear destruction the World has ever been close to reaching. The leadership in place throughout the crisis is critical to the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Three men dominated the nations involved in the crisis and captivated citizens of all corners of the world. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy of the United States, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro dominated the airwaves and news circuits leading up to the infamous crisis, which put the three leaders and nations in a cold silence of misperceptions, miscommunications, and unprecedented intentions.
Comparable to no other moment in history, the Cuban Missile Crisis shaped a generation entering the nuclear age with unease and tension. Decisions ultimately were made by the leaders of the nations which were undoubtedly shaped and influenced from voices far exceeding the three men’s own ideologies. The opinions and beliefs of those closest to the leaders with large vested interest in the Crisis dictated monumental moments throughout the thirteen-day standoff. The issue arouse on the morning of October 16th when National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy awoke President Kennedy with startling photographs taken by U-2 aircraft over Cuba’s mainland. The photos proved that there were Soviet Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles on the island, which is only 90 miles from American shoreline. Long before the Cuban Missile Crisis, as noted by the JFK Presidential Library, “Kennedy warned of the Soviet's growing arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles and pledged to revitalize American nuclear forces.”...

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...re rational members like Robert F. Kennedy urged the President to consider all parts of the impending debacle along with waiting for a reaction from Khrushchev before any defensive retaliation began. Khrushchev denied that Soviet or Cuban forces were commanded to shoot down US unarmed flights. President Kennedy counting on his conscious believed in the sincerity of Khrushchev’s words.

Works Cited

Houghton, D. (2013). The Decision Point. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Kennedy. (1962). Retrieved from http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/sUVmCh- sB0moLfrBcaHaSg.aspx May, Ernest R., and Philip Zelikow. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the
Cuban Missile Crisis. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap of Harvard UP, 1997. Print

Putnam, T. (1979). Retrieved from http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-
Cold-War.aspx?p=2

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