Negotiations of the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. What was at stake in the crisis, and how do you assess President Kennedy’s response to Khrushchev’s provocation? Was Kennedy prudent or rash, suitably tough or needlessly belligerent?

Kennedy had given a speech to the American people where he has said “We have unmistakable evidence that a series of offensive missile sites is now being built on that island … Cuba has been made into an important strategic base by the presence of these long-range offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction… Our objective must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country. We must secure their withdrawal from the Western Hemisphere” (Doc 6). President Kennedy was trying to calm the society by explaining they will be prevent the use of the missiles by withdrawing the Western Hemisphere. During the year of 1962, October 27 Premier Khrushchev stated in a message “Mr. President, the Soviet government decided to help Cuba with means of defense against outside attack. These weapons were only meant for defensive purposes. We have supplied them to prevent aggression against Cuba … With respect and confidence I accept the statement you set forth in your message of October 27, 1962. You said then that Cuba will not be attacked or invaded by any country of the Western Hemisphere … We have given the order to discontinue building the installations. We shall dismantle them and withdraw them to the Soviet Union” (Doc 8). This message was sent to the U.S after ordering a blockade of all offensive military equipment being sent into

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).”

To discuss about the conclusion of the Dodge’s case study, I think I should explain the concept of brinkmanship first. As we know, Brinkmanship is deliberately put crisis to the brink of disaster. At some point of using brinkmanship, will be able to increase the players ' negotiating leverage - -participants. For example, the struggle between National political and military, if a long-term military confrontation between the two countries, both sides have nuclear weapons, the weaker side in order to avoid a conventional war can be used to launch nuclear weapons to threat another one which side is stronger. However, this threat may be considered to be incredibly for strong side. The question is coming that how it can threaten by one of the weak side becomes confidence and let stronger side believe in weak side? Perhaps the country 's leader can devolve control of nuclear weapons - nuclear weapons are arranged at the border, targeting the enemy and by a general to grasp the nuclear button. This seems to be more dangerous, but in fact may produce a real strong deterrent. Once the outbreaks of war in the border, despite the weak leaders do not want to start nuclear button, finally the general who faced death may also start nuclear button to meet them death together. This is most famous case in history happened in the Cold War of Cuban Missile Crisis. I will pay attention to this case in the following paragraph.

This was a problem for Kennedy because Cuba was within a 90 mile radius from the United States, easy sticking distance. The United States had missiles in Turkey, which were in striking distance from the Soviet Union, which Khrushchev used as a weighing option when deciding to place missiles in Cuba. Kennedy saw the missiles that were being held in Cuba as almost an act of war from the Soviet Union. Khrushchev assured President Kennedy that the missiles were not an act of war, but yet only a defense for Cuba, who was feeling Having Soviet Union missiles this close to the mainland was a problem for the United States. Kennedy decided that the only way to stop the Soviet Union from fully equipping Cuba with enough missiles to destroy the United States, was to stop the missiles from getting to Cuba. To stop them Kennedy dispatched U.S. warships into the Atlantic, which was able to prevent the Soviet missile fleet from reaching Cuba. Unfortunately there were already missiles in Cuba from earlier fleets and they were

In his article, “The Influence of Nuclear Weapons in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Marc Trachtenberg considers three historical approaches to the role that nuclear arms played during the 1962 conflict: first, the view that nuclear arms played no role at all, with U.S. and Soviet weapons cancelling each other out, second, the interpretation that the risk involved with nuclear warfare heavily influenced policy making, and finally the view that the strategic imbalance of nuclear force, characterized by a substantial American advantage, significantly impacted the outcome of the crisis. In weighing the three interpretations, Trachtenberg dismisses the first in supporting the existence of the second, using a variety of primary sources to identify instances when decision-makers were influenced by the risk of nuclear warfare. The focus of the article, however, is on advancing and complicating the third approach, which Trachtenberg claims is congruous with the second. In this third section, Trachtenberg advances the approach that the imbalance of nuclear capabilities impacted Soviet strategy but not American decision making. Accordingly, Trachtenberg’s article is characterized by two central claims: that risk of nuclear war influenced policy during the Cuban Missile Crisis and that American nuclear superiority disproportionately affected Soviet decision-making.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the US and the USSR engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba. Disaster was avoided when the US. agreed to Khrushchev’s offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the US promising not to invade Cuba; Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. There has been considerable debate amongst historians about Kennedy's handling the Cuban Missile Crisis. The orthodox view maintains that Kennedy conducted himself skilfully from the beginning of the crisis, and all the way through it until its resolution; Kennedy was very calm and controlled during the thirteen days of crisis. However, revisionist historians claim that Kennedy and his advisors almost turned a negotiable Cold War into a nuclear WW3. The result of the crisis is of a high complexity as Cuba was still on the way to become a communist country but the end to the crisis was a success because the risk of direct confrontation between two superpowers was

Without the precise and cautious actions of President Kennedy the World as we know it today may not exist. One of the many ironies of the crisis is how uninformed the public was of the boiling situation, until the President addressed the nation on the night of October 22nd. America watched as President Kennedy spoke sternly yet eloquently about the possible days ahead, publicly warning the Soviet and Cuban leaders of the retaliations that would inevitably follow if not resolved properly. United States Foreign Policy thrived at that very moment because of the monumental effect the President’s words had on the entire

The event of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. Fifteen years into the cold war, the two superpowers continued the fierce competition to increase their military strength. In 1962, the Soviet Union was desperately behind the United States in the nuclear arms race. Soviet missiles were only powerful enough to be launched against Europe, whereas the US missiles were capable of striking the entire Soviet Union. In late April 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba which would double the Soviet strategic arsenal and provide a real deterrent to a potential U.S. attack against the Soviet Union. The fate of millions

Cuba is the country best known for being at the center of the Cold War conflict between the U.S. and Russia because of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union’s strategy, and the anticipated U.S. response to the Russian strategy, is described in an October 19, 1962 telegram from Andrei Gromyko, Russia’s Foreign Minister, to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [Virtual Archive]. The Central Committee was the highest organization within communist Russia. Gromyko seems to have written the telegram to inform the Central Committee that the Russian strategy in aligning itself with Cuba seemed to be working. In the telegram Gromyko expressed his belief that “a USA military adventure against Cuba is almost impossible to imagine” because of “assurances given to us that the USA has no plans for in Cuba (which undeniably commits them in many respects)” (Gromyko). Instead, Gromyko believed that the U.S. efforts would be to try weakening Cuba by obstructing its economy, thinking that over the long term Russia would not be able to continue supporting Cuba with foreign aid in order to offset U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba (Gromyko).

Khrushchev and Kennedy¡¦s policies conflicted first when Khrushchev threatened to sign a treaty with East Germany that would cut off the city of Berlin from the United States and then built a massive wall separating West Berlin from East Berlin, which increased tensions between America and Russia. Tensions further increased in what is known as the Cuban missile crisis, where in 1962, the Soviet Union were desperately behind the United States in the arms race, and therefore felt threatened.

of the superpowers of the world, to talk to each other in a one to one

which he proposed that if the United States agreed not to attack Cuba, “the necessity for

Castro intended on helping Cuba’s high poverty, but Castro did not turn Cuba into a democracy like he said he would (“Cuban missile Crisis”2). In 1960 the soviet premier attempted to convince Castro to become communist, soon after this castro became communist, probably influenced by the soviet premier (“Cuban missile Crisis”3). A new american president, that could probably change the war, was coming into office around this time, President Kennedy. The new president would take on the problem of this new cuban leader (International Encyclopedia of the… 1). Before him, Eisenhower trained about 1,500 Cuban Exiles in secret to try to take over Cuba, Kennedy allowed this to go on. On april 17, the exils attempted to invade Cuba(“Cuban missile Crisis”3). Since Castro had found out about the invasion, he was ready and defeated the the incoming force easily(“Cuban missile Crisis”3-4). The failed invasion seemed to help the Cuban opinion of Castro. He was now an obvious threat and so the U.S. decided to start operation Mongoose. Operation Mongoose was a secret operation to get rid of Castro, it was an operation where the U.S. would try to sabotage Cuba, but Operation Mongoose never ended up happening. The U.S.S.R. did not want to lose Cuba so they decided to secretly send weapons into Cuba, including nuclear weapons (“Cuban missile Crisis”4). These arm shipments would lead to one of the

On April 15, 1961 the Bay of Pigs invasion began to invade Cuba and remove Castro from the leadership. The unsuccessful invasion was stopped two days later. Now Castro needed the strong arm of the Soviets even more. With the Cold War arms race in effect, Castro knew that the Soviets could protect him from future invasions from the United States.