Trepidation and the Cuban Missile Crisis

1920 Words8 Pages
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the United States had strong objections with communism and dictatorship. The reasons for these objections had to do with dictators around the world and America’s fear of totalitarianism. Examples over the last 70 years, included Germany’s Hitler and World War II, U.S.S.R.’s Stalin and the Berlin airlift of 1948 and the start of the Cold War, Korea’s dictator Kim Il Sing and the Korean War, Cuba’s Castro and the Bay of Pigs invasion, and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnam War. More recently, examples include the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and the 1986 Iran-Contra affair, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and the invasion of Kuwait precipitating the Gulf War, Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, which motivated the Afghanistan War in 2001, and Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein prompting the US invasion into Iraq in 2003. These instances show the world again and again, that America is anti totalitarian. America’s trepidation about totalitarian regimes is a common motivator for US military involvement. A turning point in American ideals that illustrates the power of the emotion of fear and its effect on government action came during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was a very controversial time for the USSR, Cuba, and the United States. This critical event set the stage for America’s on going high tension relationship with Cuba and the U.S.S.R, both less than 100 miles of the coast of our country, (parts of Alaska are near Russia). After this crisis the U.S. had made some unfortunate enemies. We are still feeling the impact today. Understanding how fear in Fidel Castro, Nikita S. Khrushchev, and John F. Kennedy, possibly effected the outcome and clouded their judgment during the Cuban Missile Crisis is imperative to understanding the outcome of this 13 day standoff and it’s impact on America’s ideals regarding
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