The aim of this "quarantine," as he called it was to prevent the Soviets from bringing in more military supplies. He demanded the removal of the missiles already there and the destruction of the sites. On October 22, President Kennedy spoke to the nation about the crisis in a televised address. No one was sure how Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev would respond to the naval blockade and U.S. demands. But the leaders of both superpowers recognized the devastating possibility of a nuclear war and publicly agreed to a deal in which the Soviets would dismantle the weapon sites in exchange for a pledge from the United States not to invade Cuba.
Q.4. “the Cuban Missile Crisis was never likely to develop into full-scale nuclear war” Do you agree with this statement? In 1959, a rebel of America named Fidel Castro took power in Cuba. The Americans stopped any business with Cuba because of their corrupt and right-wing military dictatorship. Castro was forced to look to the USSR for help.
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.
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
Jordan Sell Mr. Hebert Modern American History 23 April 2012 Thirteen Days Assignment The United States and Russia had been locked in a bold stalemate until the Soviets decided that they would very much enjoy the first-strike capabilities that their satellite ally Cuba presented them. So, they shipped over some intermediate missiles and technicians over on some of their freighters and begun construction. The missiles would give the Soviets capability to destroy many American population centers that were key in running the nation. So if the Soviet leaders decided to put all of the major cities that they had the capability of hitting with their missiles on a dartboard and lets say, hit New York with a population of 7,781,984.
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
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”). Faced with the armed might of the US Navy, Khrushchev was forced to abort his plans to place missiles in Cuba but not before the world came within five minutes of total nuclear war (Mr. Gibson). An event such as this one could only happen because of the breakthroughs of the Manhattan Project, and wouldn’t have happened without
Kennedy on the verge of accepting the terms received a second letter the next day stating the United States must remove its missiles from Turkey for the removal of all nuclear missiles in Cuba. Eventfully through private meeting, the agreement was met and so ending the crisis. Being left with limited choices, Kennedy did make the right choice; not letting the Soviets completely manipulating us but not also leading us in to a nuclear war. Although many disagreed with what he was grounded on he did eliminate the problem without many deaths and confrontations. His decision on quarantining Cuba without using the tactic of blockade was brilliant and wise, knowing that Soviets would take the simple “blockade” as an act of war.
The division of Germany into four regions of interest and also the division of Berlin resulted in an attempt by Stalin to make the Western Allies relinquish control of their sectors. This materialized in the form of the Berlin Blockade in 1848 that resulted in the Allied Berlin Airlift which supplied West Berlin for an amazing ten months solely by plane. Although Stalin relented, he felt resentment toward the Westerners. This accelerated the formation of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in 1949 which resulted in a Soviet counterpart called the Warsaw Pact. The promises on the part of reunification of Germany and free elections in Poland had not materialized by the time of his death in
Containment may have of failed and been made evident with the Cuban missile crisis however it led to a growing awareness of the need to create some control over the nuclear arms race by placing restrictions on nuclear tests. The assessment is valid in saying that the missile crisis was complete evidence containment failed as more countries in Eastern Europe were becoming communist. Containment was a failure before the crisis because in 1948 Czechoslovakia was forced to accept communism. Even though in 1947 they were not fully communist there were still some communist-dominated coalition governments. Until the Czech coup, the emphasis in Washington had been on economic containment of Communism, primarily through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and a heavy reliance on atomic power as a shield to support it.