The Cuban Missile Crisis had begun at October 1962. The threat of nuclear war became increasingly apparent. It was vital that Kennedy and Khrushchev came to some sort of agreement - the future of the world depended on it. Source A: A diagram illustrating the crisis, courtesy of the BBC Cuba became the Soviet missile site of USSR which shows at source A. The missile had been set at an appropriate location where it could brought every major city in the US within range of Soviet nuclear missiles either by the short range or long range missile.
Explain why relations between the USA and Soviet Union changed in the years 1963-1979. Relations between the two Superpowers had improved since the crisis months of the Berlin Blockade in 1948-49 and a process of détente or ‘peaceful co-existence’ had been underway since the death of Stalin in 1953. However, all this came to a dramatic halt in 1962. The Cuban Missiles Crisis marked the point in the Cold War when relations between the USA and the USSR came closest to bringing about a nuclear war. In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba.
“The building of missile sites triggered the Cuban Missile Crises in October of 1962.” (Harper pg. 25) John knew he couldn’t allow nuclear weapons in Cuba, but getting rid of them presented a huge problem. If the U.S. entered Cuba or bombed missile sites, the Soviet Union would declare war. An ordinary battle could turn into nuclear warfare. Such a war could destroy the U.S. and Soviet Union along with other parts of the world.
The Soviets packed ships that appear “normal” with nuclear missiles to Cuba where they would be in closer range to America. Nikita Khrushchev, the dictator of the Soviet Union in the mid 1950s, wanted to have missiles aimed to the US as the US had in Turkey towards Russia. “The neat symmetry – we Russians will do in Cuba what you Americans are doing in Turkey – made the idea especially appealing” (P. 8). Khrushchev became more upset because of the hypocritical standards of the United States since we had bases in Turkey and we would not allow bases in the Western hemisphere. He felt the Monroe Doctrine only benefited America and thought the Doctrine should work both ways or not at all.
After the US discovered the presence of the missiles the US issued a naval quarantine of Cuba. This brought the world to the brink of nuclear war as Soviet ships approached the quarantine line, but at the last minute the ships turned back as part of the US/Soviet agreement to withdraw their missiles from Cuba and the US’ from Turkey and secret clause of agreement that the US would not invade Cuba
During the summer of 1962, the flow of Soviet weapons to Cuba, including nuclear missiles, increased greatly. President Kennedy responded at first with a warning that the US would not tolerate the presence of offensive nuclear weapons on Cuba. On October 14, American U-2 planes took pictures as evidence for the president that the Soviets were secretly building missile bases on Cuba, and that some missiles were ready to launch and could reach US cities in minutes. The Soviet offered to remove the missiles in return asked America not to invade Cuba. President Kennedy agreed and the crisis
In the fall of 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union were the closest out of anyone ever to a global nuclear war. Hoping to solve a strategic disadvantage brought up by the United States placing Nuclear Missiles in Europe pointed at the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union decided to send missiles of its own to Fidel Castro’s Cuba and point them at the United States. Once operational these nuclear missiles could be pointed at major cities and military targets across most of the continental United States. Before this happened, however, US intelligence discovered Nikita Khrushchev’s plans. The US’s solution was to form a blockade all around the island of Cuba and stop all soviet ships from entering the island (“The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962”).
Along with fears of the past came the difference of politics as the Soviet Union, also known as the USSR was a communist country and the United States was a capitalist society. These two nations became very dominant over each other and chose to start a nuclear arms race that would make both countries continue to fight in a form of competition. Unlike other countries, America made a decision to remain allies with the Soviet Union. This decision is one that haunted them for the next 46 years. David Halberstam, in “The Fifties” speaks strongly about the drastic changes that our society dealt with as a result of these hard times, and the ways in which the average individual worked with struggles in society.
Cuba had fallen to the Soviet Union in 1959, and the U.S. provided training, equipment, and logical support. When they tried to invade, it failed miserably, and as result, Cuba turned to the Soviet Union. Not long after the Bay of Pigs invasion, in October 1962, a U-2 spy plane spotted that the U.S.S.R was building a missile launch site on the island of Cuba. In response to this finding, Kennedy decided to quarantine the island because if they decided to blockade the island, it would have been considered an act of war. JFK was into brinksmanship, or pushing to the edge of war, and hoping that the enemy backs down.
Another figure, Osama bin Laden also began his rise to power. Although he disliked Americans in the Soviet war effort, bin Laden was considered to be an ally to the United States. After the war, he would then orchestrate attacks against the western world, and would be the mastermind of the September 11th attacks in America, which caused the U.S to invade