Kennedy decided to the blockade. Khrushchev backed down, saying that he would remove the nuclear weapons from Cuba in exchange for a pledge from the U.S to lift the blockade and renounce plans to invade Cuba. Kennedy agreed to remove the missiles in Turkey, but that this part of the agreement was to be kept secret. In 1991 internal problems split the Soviet Union leaving the U.S as the world’s superpower. It ended to cold war.
On October 16, 1962, the US received photos of Cuba taken from planes that showed soviets working with nuclear missiles in Cuba. Those photographs were the proof that the soviets, more specifically Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviets premier minister who had promised many time that they would stop sending arms, had been lying and betrayed the trust between the US and USSR. From this point, the US qualified this as a serious issue and John Kennedy set up a private brain trust called the executive committee of the national security council. Their role was to help Kennedy on the decision taking of the Cuban Missile Crisis. ‘‘Thus, placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba beginning in the spring of 1962 not only challenged the perception of Soviet missile inferiority but also provided the Soviets with a counterbalance to U.S. missiles situated in Western Europe.’’ ("Cuban missile crisis."
One reason Eisenhower shouldn’t be blamed for America’s involvement in Vietnam is that his advisors were too focused on how to win the war in Vietnam rather than if winning the war in Vietnam would actually be beneficial at all. So if his advisors only spoke of strategies to win in Vietnam, this may have lead Eisenhower to believe there weren’t any other options and that continued involvement in Vietnam was the wisest choice. Therefore it could have been the fault of Eisenhower’s advisors and not Eisenhower’s fault himself that America continued its involvement in Vietnam. A second reason that means Eisenhower shouldn’t be blamed was because of the Quagmire theory. By the point of Eisenhower’s presidency, President Truman had already gotten America deeply involved in Vietnam, therefore it would have been difficult for Eisenhower to become uninvolved and it also would appear wasteful of resources, so the only
Truman made some decisions that ultimately had a huge effect in the build up to the cold war. When plans were made for the division of power after WWII, Truman originally opposed America ganging up against Russia and said he would keep the agreements that were made with them. But Truman wanted to appear decisive and tough and he was not prepared to accept any deal if he could not get the majority of it his way. When Truman went to the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, he went there only to advance American Interest and he believed that the atomic bomb was the way to do this. Though this treat he was able to have his way at the Yalta conference.
Following the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, Fidel Castro sought even more support from the USSR to prevent any further attempts to overthrow him. This security came in the form of Soviet nuclear missiles. From an orthodox point of view this has been viewed as an act of aggression by the USSR as it brought Soviet missiles in range of continental America, however from a revisionist perspective this can be seen as a reaction to the USA's deployment of nuclear weapons throughout Europe, particularly of Jupiter missile installations based in Turkey1. Soviet aims in Cuba were defined as bridging the missile gap between the USA and USSR, defending socialism were it was threatened and to use the missiles as a bargaining tool in international politics2. On October 15th 1962 American U-2 planes obtained photographic evidence of Soviet medium range missiles on Cuban territory.
, highlighting that he believed without the use of atomic weapons, the Cold War was not an inevitability. Despite the pre-existing tensions between East and West, the use of atomic weaponry amplified the Soviet’s paranoia causing Stalin to authorise ‘a crash Soviet program to catch up’ , signifying the start of the Cold War which would shape the course of the twentieth century. A key significance of the use of atomic weapons in 1945 was the ethical implications that using such weaponry held. As Stalin stated ‘war is barbaric, but using the A-bomb is superbarbarity’ . Stalin’s view is supported by Admiral D Leahy, who in his memoirs writes ‘we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages’ This quote holds a substantial amount of weight to my argument due to Admiral D Leahy’s position as Roosevelt and Truman’s chief of staff, it would be expected for a man of such status to hold a view in support of America’s actions.
It focuses on the diplomatic and legal efforts of the Kennedy brothers in resolving the issue of Soviet nuclear missiles inside Cuba. They strived to get some type of legal approval for any actions they took. This was done through the United Nations and the Organization of American States, or OAS. This memoir highlights the access and influence that Robert Kennedy had in the Kennedy administration. Thirteen Days takes a rational actor approach1 to the problem and tends to give less weight to organizational pressures2.
In this essay it will be argued that indeed the Cuban Missile Crisis was the point of highest tension during the Cold War and also that Kennedy benefited the most from the outcome as opposed to Khrushchev who was the leader of the USSR. Firstly the Cuban Missile Crisis began on the 16th October 1962 when an American U2 spy plane photographed Soviet missiles sites in Cuba. The fact that the USSR had responded to appeals for help from Cuba following the Bay of Pigs invasion was a large problem for the USA and straight away increased the tensions of the Cold War. It was an issue because Cuba was lead by Castro, a communist who had already overthrown the pro- American government in 1961 and so he was motivated to possibly harm the United States of America and working with Khrushchev gave him the means to do so. Furthermore Cuba was only 90 miles off the coast of America, which meant these missiles, particularly the long-ranged weapons could reach major American cities.
Throughout the better part of the 1950′s, Eisenhower’s national security strategy insured that there was no military superpower confrontation. Because Eisenhower had doubts that a “limited war” would remain such, his over-all national security policy, called the “New Look,” was based on the unstoppable nuclear striking power of Strategic Air Command. During this period of relative peace, Democrat political opponents and social-science civilian theorists were in constant chorus that the New Look Massive Retaliation was simply too risky for the country and the world. In spite of the Massive Retaliation doctrine’s success in preventing conflict between the U.S. and Soviet Union, in 1961 President Kennedy and his civilian social-science theorists rewrote the rules of war, conceiving and implementing a replacement doctrine they dubbed “Flexible Response” to counter client proxy warfare. It was at this point that we completely departed from the strategic thinking that had won World War II.
McNamara’s advice to withdraw military personnel prior the coup was no longer an option as instability in Vietnam posed a threat to national security. Although McNamara concedes the conflict was a civil war, he presses the importance of understanding the conflict as an element of the Cold War. Out of fear for further spread of communist interest, the US began to unilaterally support South Vietnam militarily. McNamara however argues that had the US been more able to empathize with and to better understand the Vietnamese, large-scale military intervention could have been avoided. America’s duty to act where others can not or will not stems from McNamara’s belief that there’s something beyond oneself.