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.
Examine the role of the United States in the outcome of the Cuban revolution= The ties and tensions between Cuba and America are historic; with America’s aid Cuba was able to assert its independence from the Spanish colonies. Yet the United States were eyeing Cuba carefully, they saw not only economic and commercial opportunities but they saw their manifested destiny of expansion. As explained by future President John Quincy in 1823, Cuba is a natural appendage of the North American continent . There are many ways in which the United States affected the outcome of the Cuban revolution but the main three is the economic and political influence the United states had over Cuba since the 1700s, the use of containment and other cold war policies implemented by the united states which forced Cuba into the arms of the Soviet union dramatically influencing the outcome of the revolution and Americas actions in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. Cuba is located only 90 miles off Florida with harbours in strategic position for enemies to threaten war or conversely for America to use as a first line of defence.
It focuses on the diplomatic and legal efforts of the Kennedy brothers in resolving the issue of Soviet nuclear missiles inside Cuba. They strived to get some type of legal approval for any actions they took. This was done through the United Nations and the Organization of American States, or OAS. This memoir highlights the access and influence that Robert Kennedy had in the Kennedy administration. Thirteen Days takes a rational actor approach1 to the problem and tends to give less weight to organizational pressures2.
After the Guerrillia campaign that lasted three years, in 1959 Fidel Castro overthrew Batista who had many Americans supporting him. Americans were also very worried due to the invention of ICBMs (Intercontinental ballistic missiles). These Missiles had a shorter range in comparison so any country that occupied Cuba would put them in Missile range of the USA. What was the relationship between America and Cuba before 1959? The USA played a big role in Cuba’s economy after 1875.
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.
One of President Reagan’s biggest achievements was the end of the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987. The Treaty agreed to eliminate all intermediate and short-range ground-based missiles and launchers from Europe. This Treaty came after a summit meeting that Pres. Reagan and Gorbachev had in the fall of 1986, in which each country was considering what type of missiles they would maintain in Europe.
How Did Bay of Pigs Lead To Cuban Missile Crisis Riham Attalla Professor Tsung Soo Hoo Seminar on National Security New Jersey City University Abstract During the first and the Second World War both the USSR and US, Union of Soviet Socialist Republic were on the same side of alliance, the Triple Entente France and Britain also forming part of the alliance. The alliance was opposed to the Triple alliance, which constituted Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany as the de-facto leader. Immediately after the Second World War, two countries emerged super powers; the US and USSR (Jones, 2008). US apparently had used atomic bomb in two of the Japanese cities the Hiroshima and Nagasaki and USSR was determined to develop atomic bomb. The situation that followed the Second World War was the period of Cold war that lasted up to early 1990s and when the Soviet republic disintegrated.
I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly process.” The policy the President spoke of would later become known as the Truman Doctrine and would become a turning point in U.S. foreign strategy. The policy was in response to the “Communist guerrilla movement which had begun in Greece in 1946” as well as the “Soviet diplomatic pressures on Turkey.” Although the original intentions of the doctrine were simply to aid Greece and Turkey in their efforts to resist the threat of communism, the perhaps more important and long lasting effect was the implementation of a defined policy with an overarching theme of containment of Soviet Union and its Communist allies. Credit for the policy of containment against the Soviet spread of communism belongs in part to George
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