Tyler Benton Dr. Brax History 112 October 3, 2012 Kennedy Presidency In the few years that John F. Kennedy was president he faced two huge crises in the world. The first and most important at the time was the Cuban Missile Crisis; the other event that was taking place was the involvement in Vietnam. During Kennedy’s presidency he was faced with many difficult decisions that forever changed history. Did Kennedy make the right decisions? In the next several pages, documents written by Kennedy and many other government officials at the time will be summarized and analyzed.
How damaging was the Bay of Pigs for Kennedy’s presidency? First of all one should know what the Bay of Pigs was. The Bay of Pigs was an action the United States took; they invaded Cuba willing to overthrow Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro and his government. The attack was made 3 months after Kennedy became President. Cuba defeated the US in 3 days, they knew that the US was going to invade them and they got ready for it.
CIA Beach Party: The Bay of Pigs By: Lee Mcginnis [pic] The United States Central Intelligence Agency spent its first two decades dealing with Communist incursions into western spheres of power in the same way: over throwing foreign governments from within. This response was the US golden standard until the CIA decided to try this against the great white whale of Communism in the western hemisphere: Castro’s Cuba. This doomed to fail from the start plan was executed in a series of errors that led several hundred Cuban exiles to slaughter against Cuba’s Military and bring the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon and signal a falling out of favor of the CIA among American government for the next twenty years until the Soviet
Instead, what happens is categorized as outcomes of various overlapping bargaining games among players arranged hierarchically in the national government.” P.690 The test will be to apply these models to the Cuban missile crisis and see how well they explain things. MODEL I – Rational Policy At the time we have the USSR seemingly pursuing a policy of increasing détente. Yet now
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was an event that had the world contemplating the future of the planet as both the USSR and United States prepared for possible nuclear war. The clash between the two Superpowers created a large amount of tension and fear, with both countries willing to go to war with each other as soon as the other pulled the initial trigger. During the thirteen day confrontation there was a notable amount of incidents that occurred that could possibly have sparked a Third World War and even changed the modern world as we know it. In this essay I will be evaluating the enormity of the effect the crisis had on International affairs and determining whether it was the significant turning point of the world. Tensions between the USSR and the United States rocketed after it came to the American Government’s knowledge that the USSR were setting up weapons in Cuba, a communist state in the Americas.
John F. Kennedy was increasingly worried disclosures detailing his much-rumored womanizing. Almost everyone in the media dealing with un-relative things in relation with society. Prior to Kennedy’s election to the presidency, the Eisenhower Administration created a plan to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba. Central to such a plan, which was structured and detailed y the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with minimal input from the United States Department of State, was the arming of a counter-revolutionary insurgency composed of anti-Castro Cubans. U.S. trained Cuban insurgents were to invade Cuba and instigate an uprising among the Cuban people in hopes of removing Castro from power.
Is the United States at War with Cuba? Before the embargo, the United States and Cuba had a tremendous trade relationship. The US purchase millions of pound of sugar from Cuba and they purchase good by the tons. But this all change when Fidel Castro and his rebels began to wage war against the Batista government, who was later forced into exile in 1959. After the Batista government fled the country, Castro and his government aligned with the Soviet Union.
In order to understand the reasons for the invasion we must look at the fear and loathing the U.S. had for Communism. The “Red Scare” and the “Domino Theory” were dominating American Culture and America had an extreme paranoia against the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism. Cuba was a country that sat about 90 miles off the shores of Florida and had a fierce dictator in charge, Fulgencio Batista. Fidel Castro had overthrown the government of Batista and established a new government. A few weeks after the ousting of Batista, Castro is appointed premier.
The arms race began in 1945 when the US dropped their atomic bomb on Japan. Not only did this demonstrate the power of the USA but was the catalyst for an age of rapid weapon development, the arms race. This ended with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, an event that bought the superpowers dangerously close nuclear war. A number of factors other than the accumulating advancements in weaponry lead to the Cuban missile crisis, the personalities of the leaders and the national interests of each country all effected how the arms race developed, leading to the inevitable situation where the USA and USSR were left hovering over the trigger. The main aspect that lead to the Cuban missile crisis was the arms development between 1945-1963.
Article Analysis – Globalizing World Politics Student: Koen Hendrickx Article: Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis Authors: Graham T. Allison 1969. Summary of the main thought of the article. * The author wants to investigate the different perspectives with which researchers look at military and governmental problems. * He states that analysts use conceptual models of huge impact to analyze foreign and military policy. * Most analysts use the Rational Policy Model (Model 1) to describe and predict governments’ behavior.