Groupthink

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

The Cuban Missile Crisis all started in October, 1962, when an American spy plane spotted and secretly photographed missile sites being built on the island of Cuba by the Soviet Union. President Kennedy did not tell the Soviet Union right away that we had found their nuclear missile site. But days later, President Kennedy meet secretly with his advisors to discuss the situation. President Kennedy and his advisors though long and hard about what to do and the finally came up with an idea. Kennedy decided to put a naval blockade around the island of Cuba. The purpose of this was so Cuba could not get anymore military supplies for the Soviet Union. President Kennedy demanded that the missiles that were already there be disabled and that the sit be destroyed. Later on, Kennedy told America what was happening on a televised address. Everyone was anxious about what the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, would say about the naval blockade. But both President Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev recognized that the devastation that a nuclear war will bring is too much.

During the cold war John F. Kennedy and the Soviet premier met to discuss the was between the east and west but they resolved nothing and Khrushchev left thinking that Kennedy was a weak leader. The Soviets

meetings to debate issues before making a final decision. In handling routine tasks, he was

some of the leaders met to discuss their demands. The leaders came up with four demands:

John Dallek’s authorship has intensively inquired about many presidents, evaluating their entire lives, personal and political. With his work comprising of many presidential biographies, Dallek has payed tribute to one man who consistently tops the charts of America’s Favorite President on frequent; the dearly beloved President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Serving from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963, Kennedy had a large impact on a multitude of people around the world, making numerous bold changes in the United States’ domestic living whilst trying to prevent Communism and nuclear weapons

John F. Kennedy was born into a wealthy family in Boston. His father was a successful man who made a lot of money from the stock market. Kennedy 's father managed to take all of his stock out before the stock market crash. So while everyone else was struggling through the great depression Kennedy was having no problems at all. The United States went into world war II right after Kennedy graduated from Harvard. Kennedy tried to join the navy but, they weren 't interested because he was always ill. But thanks to his wealthy father he was assigned to serve in the south pacific. In the south pacific kennedy commanded a motor torpedo boat. In August 1943

Their different bases of knowledge give group members various types of power and influence.  Three interaction techniques that are frequently utilized are unilateral decisions, adversarial proceedings, and negotiations. (G. Larry Mays (n.d), para. 3)

On October 15, 1962, a photograph proved the existence of the missile being constructed on Cuba, and for the U.S., the nightmare began. After a week of intense debating with his closest advisors, President Kennedy made a decision. He decided to impose quarantine, of sorts, around Cuba to ensure there were no more missiles arriving. The Soviet Union demanded the

Traditionalists such as Stone argue that President Kennedy did not have time for protracted negotiation and needed to take action that would likely compel President Khrushchev to remove the missiles from Cuba. Steel held a similar view with an acknowledgement that President Kennedy needed the missiles removed prior to the upcoming mid-term elections.

The discussion is an open-process, meaning that the decision making is done amongst the group members, not just the leader. Unlike an authoritative leader, the leader of this group allows the members to be a part of his or her final say. By doing this, it helps to keep everyone on the same page and moving forward in the same direction.

1. What type of decision was the group instructed to reach (e.g. majority, consensus, authoritarian, etc.)

Also, we would have made all decisions by consensus in order to diminish dissent amongst the group. Although debate was encouraged among team members, some decisions were inputted by a majority rule due to time

He accomplished the major groundwork for establishing the order, rules, and procedures of meetings before he died in 1923. He identified the types of motions of Main, Subsidiary, Privileged, and Incidental explaining their order of importance. Also, wrote Rules of Chairmanship with what is or is not debatable, which motions require a second and which do not determine what sort of majority is needed (simple or 2/3), defined a quorum, created guidelines for proper meeting conduct, and wanted standard Parliamentary Rules from every group, organization, city, and

Nearly all of the meetings of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council were recorded, as well as many private conversations between President Kennedy and his staff. The tapes used in this investigation were tapes 36.1 and 36.2, which recorded a discussion between President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy after an Executive Committee meeting on October 23, 1962. These tapes provide a direct look inside the White House and portray the real dilemmas during the crisis. These two tapes specifically provide a glimpse into the relationship between John F. Kennedy and his brother. Because the two brothers speak alone for nearly all of the conversation, it is possible to analyze how Robert Kennedy impacted President Kennedy, who was the ultimate decision maker as Commander-in-Chief.