Chiefs of Staff and CIA’s stance: to use coercion (launch of pre-emptive airstrikes) and implement a threat strategy against the Russians. Challenging the legitimate power of a suspected-lukewarm President, they tried to influence him, by using negative framing effects and implicit threat: Kennedy would be made accountable for the death of million US citizens if he implemented a naval blockade that would cause annihilation of strategic surprise and first nuclear strikes by cornered Russians. However, having read “the guns of August” book, Kennedy was aware of the escalation risks of a threat strategy with low probabilities that: a. the airstrikes would remain “surgical” b. all USSR missiles could be 100% destroyed making the consequent retaliation risk insufferable. 2. Tusk and McNamara’s position: the implementation of quarantine.
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."
There were many reasons for the Bay of Pigs invasion. The main reason was to stop communism from reaching our country. After World War 2, the United States was practicing containment. Cuba is located 90 miles off the coast of Florida, and Americans feared a country that close falling to communism. Another reason
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. This greatly worried the USA and suggests the Cuban Missile Crisis was the point of highest tension during the Cold War as the threat to America was now so physically close and for the first time Cuba and the USSR were working well as one. Moreover placing missiles in Cuba was a power move from Khrushchev as he looked to test the USA and get an upper hand in arms race, which in turn increased tensions as it provoked a quick response from Kennedy. Within four days of learning about the missiles, on the 20th October Kennedy decided on a blockade of Cuba. Khrushchev placed missiles in Cuba to see if Kennedy would back off or face up to aggression and the blockade was certainly an aggressive move.
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.
I will be comparing the surprise attacks of Pearl Harbor and 9/11. These two attacks caused major damage to America’s home lands. The attacks are similar because both happened without warning, but there somewhat different also. For example, 9/11 was to scare America and Pearl Harbor was a strategic attack. Both I think backfired somewhat because they caused America to come together and fight the enemy.
Possibly theory’s to the cover up have been: that the mafia black-mailed the government or in exchange for the cover up they would kill Castro. Castro’s Cuba Another popular theory is that Fidel Castro killed Kennedy by hiring Oswald. The motive for would have been that the CIA supported the mafia in their attempt to kill Castro and Castro said to JFK that his attempts would back fire on him. Faults in this theory is that as point out by Castro in 1991 is that ever since the Missile Crisis himself and John Kennedy had been improving relations and that if they had killed JFK Cuba would have suffered too much. The Soviets The motive for the soviets is that Khrushchev was humiliated in the missile crisis and could have easily instigated the assassination and people say that a soviet
General Buck Turgidson is the head of the SAC Commander and a rabid anti-communist. He is the individual who consulted the president on how to deal with the Russians and nuclear war. He is a realist; nuclear war to him is a game and he does not view it as something that will lead to world destruction. General Jack D. Ripper, also a realist, is an ultra paranoid nationalist. He believed that the fluoridation of drinking water was a communist conspiracy that it needed to be destroyed to stop the communist advance in America.
Later that night Kennedy got on television to tell the U.S that the Soviet Union had secret installed nuclear missiles in Cuba that were aimed at American cities. Kennedy didn’t know how to get the missiles removed without starting a nuclear was with the Soviets. If this were to happen tens of millions on both sides would be killed. Communism was a threat and it was coming to America in 1959 when Castro staged a revolution in Cuba and became allies with the Soviet Union. Khrushchev thought that by moving nuclear missiles to Cuba, he would not only help close the missile gay with the U.S but that it would also prevent another American invasion of Cuba.
attack on Cuba the equivalent of a world war, and claims to be receiving lots of aid from the USSR. But once the USSR and Cuban governments began building missile bases in Cuba, it became an immediate threat to the United States. The bases being built for these IRBM missiles were capable of launching them to practically any area of the continental United States. We responded by transporting 100 US missiles to Turkey and Italy, which were in striking distance of Moscow. By mid October, a U-2 photoreconnaissance plane retrieved pictures of missile sites in Cuba, giving Kennedy hard evidence that they existed.