Fidel And Nikita Khrushchev During The Cold War

On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy “informed the world” that the Soviets were building secretive missile bases in Cuba, very close to Florida. President Kennedy decided to take the peaceful route in handling is major crisis. As

“Do everything in such a way that the U.S. public opinion will not be aware of this until November 4th or after November 4th…The Americans are going to have to swallow this the same way we have had to swallow the pill of missiles in Turkey,” stated Premier Nikita Khrushchev. He wanted to keep this a secret until the missiles would be operational. The Soviet Union eventually brought 45,000 troops, 80 missiles, some bombers, and several SAM sites to Cuba by sea, which were meant to shoot down U-2 planes that routinely flew over Cuba, so they would not discover the offensive missiles (Eubank 20-24). On October 15, a U-2 plane discovered offensive missiles and this was reported to President Kennedy the next morning at 9:00 AM. Kennedy didn’t seem too shocked. He simply discussed plans with his advisors, also known as the ExComm, about solutions including an invasion, air strikes, withdrawing missiles from Turkey, and blockades (Eubank 36-41). Kennedy finally came to a decision and decided to reveal it to the public through a speech on television. Kennedy’s speech on October 22, 1962 addressed the fact that he wanted Khrushchev to remove the missiles from Cuba and that Khrushchev claimed that there were no offensive missiles in Cuba. Kennedy further explained the fact that there was evidence from photographs that U-2 spy planes took over the island of Cuba. Additionally, Kennedy announced that a naval quarantine or blockade would take place on Cuba to stop ships from bringing in any offensive weapons (“Presidents Grave”). Everyone rushed to the supermarkets and stocked up on food in panic (Cullough). Soviet ships continued towards Cuba even after the speech. One of the members in the ExComm, McCone, stated, “Mr. President, we have a preliminary report which seems to indicate that some of the

The relationship between Castro and Khrushchev was cemented between 1959-1962 as the Soviets gained Castro’s trust by buying Cuban sugar crops two years in advance, as well as accepting trade and economic assistance (Nathan 38). The Soviet surface to air missiles (SAMs) began being shipped to Cuba in the spring of 1962, in response to the U.S. Jupiter missiles placed in Turkey (Nathan 75). Eventually, the two nations would sign the Russia-Cuba Pact in August, 1962, and the shipment of Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) began (Nathan xxiv). “Fidel Castro accepted the Russian arguments that Cuba needed to accept missiles for its self-defense. Castro did not accept the logic but, as a member of the Soviet Bloc, felt Cuba had a duty to sustain socialism….(Nathan 76).”

Following World War II, Cuba experienced a communist revolution with the takeover of Fidel Castro. To make matters worse, America discovered the soviets had been supplying cuba with missiles. This meant that the USSR could bomb the US with nuclear power at any given moment. Document D illustrates the danger as it shows that the missiles range all the way from New York and Washington D.C. to Houston and Miami. The US proceeded cautiously by initiating a quarantine which stopped the flow of soviet ships to Cuba. This hindered the process and allowed the U.S. to eliminate a chance of communistic

Presidents of the Cold War “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” This was a line from president Kennedy during the time of the Cold War. What this sentence does is that it explains how during the Cold War times everyone must work together in order to repel communism not only for yourself but for America as a whole. In the years of president Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy a lot happened to the United States and our democracy. The main threat to the U.S. during this period is communism.

As a result, when it was discovered the Soviet Union was building a missile inventory on the island of Cuba, the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded October 16 to 28, 1962. In response to this discovery, “the United States took forceful military steps for a potential invasion of Cuba” by staging troops off the coast of Florida and using vessels to to form a blockade around Cuba (Kross). The Soviet Union placed “over 42,000 troops on the

Most missile sites consisted of SA-2 SAMs and MRBMs; most of which were in North Cuba close to the U.S. Kennedy saw this as a threatening act and called in for a naval "quarantine" line of ships to block shipments of missiles. Kennedy did not call it a blockade as that sounded more or less like a term used in war. Kennedy then ordered for Krushchev to dismantle the sites and return all offense weapons. Krushchev did not stop but most ships either turned back or had nothing dangerous. On October 26, close to the missile sites being operational, Krushchev finally considered a deal with Kennedy to dismantle the sites, for he too feared nuclear confrontation. The deal was that if the U.S. did not invade Cuba and that they took their Jupiter missiles in Turkey back, the Soviets would take their missiles(Office of the Historian). A few days later the deal was made and nuclear war was averted. Through the whole solution, however, Castro was never regared and left as a pawn. Nevertheless, the world changing events of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis brought three nations into conflict that ultimately Castro would see to wage war on one and ally with the

She is scared to go outside. She is afraid of the whole city exploding. She has hope, though. She is hoping that one president will figure out how to end the Cold War. There were three presidents during the Cold War. They were President Truman, President Eisenhower, and President Kennedy. Both President Eisenhower and Truman believed strongly in the Policy of Containment, while President Kennedy believed in Flexible Response (Ayers 819). Containment was a policy made in the 1940’s to stop communism from going to more countries/cultures(Ayers 819). All of the presidents used economic aid, but each used it differently. Economic aid is help from a developed country to a less developed country (Ayers 886). They also used foreign

The Cold War was a war of ideas, about the government and the economy, between powers from the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War was a period between 1947/1991 (History). President Ronald Reagan met with the Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail and requested a meeting to occur in Russia with the heads of the government. President Reagan had ditched the original plan, made by Presidents Ford, Carter, and Nixon that would eliminate political conflict. Reagan created a giant army and pointed many weapons at the Soviet Union. Their army had no comparison to the United States Army, and Mikhail’s policy was to increase the freedom for his Soviet citizens, which helped get rid of the communism throughout Russia. Ronald Reagan stood

The year is 1962 and American surveillance planes discover that the USSR is in the process of placing nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba. The missiles have a said capability to reach 80 million Americans

Stalin and Truman are two of the most important figures of World War II and the Cold War. At the end of the Second World War, the two world powers that emerged were the US and the USSR. Because of this, the only competition was between these two men, and this led to growing conflicts between the two nations. The major differences between these two begin with their origins, and stem through their ideologies, and the ideologies they fear. Although these differences are drastic, these men share several similarities in reference to their occupational and leadership skills and tactics.

With President Kennedy’s advisers, he opted on a naval blockade to stop Russian ships from conveying the missiles for the sites in Cuba. Khrushchev cautioned that Russia would view the blockade as an act of war. The Russian militaries were put on vigilant and the US bombers were placed in the air sustaining nuclear bombs (Blight., et al 24). The arrangements were made to attack Cuba. There was enormous tension in both Moscow and Washington. The US secretly proposed an exchange of missile bases that is the Russian bases in Cuba and the US bases in

There was a suspicious report that there was a nuclear threat from Soviet that might've been based on Cuba with missiles aiming to bomb America. On 29 August President John F. Kennedy ordered periodic flights over to Cuba by high-speed, high-altitude U-2 spy planes. A quote that relates and explains more about this is "Although U-2 flights through 7 October showed Soviet antiaircraft missile (SAM) sites under construction and the introduction of Soviet-built patrol boats, they turned up no hard evidence of offensive missile sites or introduction of such missiles" (The Cold War Continued: The Cuban Missile Crisis). The evidence shows that the prior statement confirms Kennedy's swift action to protect the safety of the American people. This led Kennedy to send forces to examine if Cuba actually had missiles; which they didn't. He always made sure that this country was protected. His priorities was straight and he knew exactly what had to be

In January 1959, Cuba became Communist under Fidel Castro. 2 years later in April, the Bay of Pigs invasion on Cuba by America, which planned to overthrow Castro by training Cuban exiles to attack their country, failed when most of them got captured or killed. Castro remained in power. In May, 1962, Soviets secretly began to ship 40,000 troops, 60 missiles and 158 nuclear warheads to Cuba. A year later in May, US spy planes found evidence of nuclear missile sites being installed in Cuba and the US announced a quarantine, a blockade to restrict the transportation of goods, against Soviet ships carrying offensive weapons to Cuba. Because of this, the Soviet transport ships stopped in the water outside of the quarantine line. The Soviet Union then made an agreement with Cuba to place Soviet missiles there so that the United States would be hesitant to invade again. America demanded that the missiles placed in Cuba be dismantled and the Soviet Union agreed. Secretly, they also agreed that the Soviets would only dismantle them if America would do the same to their missiles in Turkey and avoid invading Cuba, as they had tried to do (Document D). This shows that America tried to contain Communism in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs

In the spring of 1962, Khrushchev saw this prime opportunity to advance on the United States. He began forming a plan to move nuclear missiles to Cuba and set have them operational. The United States would not allow this to take place if they had known of the plans, but the Soviets had the means to conceal their true intentions. Soviets also were masters of denial and deception. They would use a technique called maskirovka, it was highly successful for years, and it would prove to be a great asset. Instead of just trying to mislead their enemies, the Soviets mislead everyone but a few need to know personnel. Their civilians and even members of their military forces were not aware of their governments plan to move the missiles to Cuba. The Soviets executed their plan all but seamlessly. The United States were not as sharp with their techniques to detect an operation such as this. Before notice of the missiles the CIA’s estimates office produced a total of four National Intelligence Estimates (nies) and Special National Intelligence Estimates (snies) about Castro’s communist regime, its relationship with the Soviet Bloc, its activities in spreading communism throughout Latin America, and potential threats to the United States (Zegart, 2012). General Gribkov stated that “US intelligence discovered neither the true significance of the surge in Soviet shipping to Cuba nor the mission of our troops on the island until nearly all the men had come ashore and , still moving in large numbers only by night, had been deployed to their assigned positions” (Hansen, 2007). US intelligence officials discovered the missiles in Cuba days before they became operational. Furthermore, Cuba is 145 kilometers from the closest US shore. The Soviet’s capabilities of just their medium-range missile had a range of up to 2500 kilometers. It is safe to say that this would have changed the world as we know