Truman made some decisions that ultimately had a huge effect in the build up to the cold war. When plans were made for the division of power after WWII, Truman originally opposed America ganging up against Russia and said he would keep the agreements that were made with them. But Truman wanted to appear decisive and tough and he was not prepared to accept any deal if he could not get the majority of it his way. When Truman went to the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, he went there only to advance American Interest and he believed that the atomic bomb was the way to do this. Though this treat he was able to have his way at the Yalta conference.
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."
Kennedy decided to the blockade. Khrushchev backed down, saying that he would remove the nuclear weapons from Cuba in exchange for a pledge from the U.S to lift the blockade and renounce plans to invade Cuba. Kennedy agreed to remove the missiles in Turkey, but that this part of the agreement was to be kept secret. In 1991 internal problems split the Soviet Union leaving the U.S as the world’s superpower. It ended to cold war.
Later that year in Potsdam, many open disagreements took place because Germany had lost the war so Russia had promised to fulfil, Churchill had lost the 1945 election and Roosevelt died so Truman, who replaced him was angered by the large scale reparations imposed on Germany and the setting up of a communist government in Poland. He did not trust Russia, so kept him in the dark about him having the atomic bomb in 1945 before he dropped it on Japan to get them to surrender. By America using the atomic bomb, Stalin knew that it was possible for it to be used against them. Russia was therefore tricked by America preventing the Red Army from going to Japan. This threatened Russia and warned them that America was wary of them and could act on it.
Cuban leader, Fidel Castro agreed to have the missiles stationed there. The US had no plan in place because they believed that the Soviets would never install nuclear missiles in Cuba. The EXCOMM quickly discussed several possible courses of action, over the period of thirteen days. One of the options was, military invasion: to take full force over Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro. The second option was, an air strike: use the US Air Force to finish off all the nuclear missile locations.
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.
In this essay it will be argued that indeed the Cuban Missile Crisis was the point of highest tension during the Cold War and also that Kennedy benefited the most from the outcome as opposed to Khrushchev who was the leader of the USSR. Firstly the Cuban Missile Crisis began on the 16th October 1962 when an American U2 spy plane photographed Soviet missiles sites in Cuba. The fact that the USSR had responded to appeals for help from Cuba following the Bay of Pigs invasion was a large problem for the USA and straight away increased the tensions of the Cold War. It was an issue because Cuba was lead by Castro, a communist who had already overthrown the pro- American government in 1961 and so he was motivated to possibly harm the United States of America and working with Khrushchev gave him the means to do so. 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.
He has to make assumptions why all this happened, what should be done to stop Group Six from accomplishing their mission, and if the bombers will not be stopped and the bombs will be dropped what should be done to even the situation. All of these were very essential to the problem, but the first thing that President had to do is to assure Soviet Union that the created situation was just a “mechanical failure” and US did not try to provoke the war. The first decision that President made was ordering to destroy the Group Six before they enter Russian border. President tried to order the bombers to turn back and cancel the bombing of Moscow; however, General Grady did not fulfill the order. It was a hard decision to order to destroy the American bombers but President did not have any choice.
The West hesitated to stop this because the people of Britain and America did not want to consider another war. The Truman Doctrine in March 1947 allowed America to send money, weapons, and advisors to any country that felt threatened by Communism. By June 1947 the Marshal Plan was devised to offer American aid to all countries. When East Berlin was cut off from the West on the 23rd of June 1948, with only enough food and fuel for six weeks, Britain and America decided to airlift supplies, known as the Berlin Airlift. They were not shot down, as Stalin feared US’s nuclear weapons.
By mid October, a U-2 photoreconnaissance plane retrieved pictures of missile sites in Cuba, giving Kennedy hard evidence that they existed. The public was eagerly trying to anticipate the difficult decision Kennedy had ahead of him: whether to listen to his military advisors who wanted him to command an air strike followed by ground invasion to remove Castro, or to “quarantine” Cuba. With global tensions extremely high, Kennedy understood invading Cuba might aggravate a third World War, so instead of “blockading” Cuba, which would have been an act of war, he cleverly decided to place ships around Cuba so the missiles could not get through. The conflict is resolved later that month under the agreement to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey and publicly state to never declare war on Cuba in exchange for the withdrawal of the Soviet missiles. While a peaceful solution was eventually reached, the amount of panic in the US caused by the soviets was enormous for those few months in