The Causes Of The Cuban Missile Crisis

In 1962, Cuba was convinced that the USA was planning to attack them and asked the Soviet Union for military assistance. The USSR sent Cuba materials to build missile bases and launch sites. When President Kennedy realized that Cuba could launch missiles into America, he demanded that the USSR remove its weapons and troops. The Americans formed a naval blockade as the world stood nervously on the edge of a nuclear war. The USSR removed its weapons despite protests from Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

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 in 1962 lasted thirteen days and was one of the major events during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union were brink of a nuclear world war. Fidel Castro had become leader of Cuba and had turned the country into a communist state, similar to the Soviet Union. The USSR was given permission to place nuclear missiles in Cuba to target major cities in the United States, the reason was because the Soviet Union was threatened by the missiles placed in Italy and Turkey by the Americans. However, neither of the nation's fired their weapons; and an agreement between Nikita Khrushchev (leader of the USSR) and President John F.

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

The Cuban Missile Crisis began in October of 1962. During a dismaying 13 day standoff, people were on the tip of their toes not knowing if they would see their children again as they dropped them off for school. They wandered when they laid down at night to go to sleep, if they would wake up to see another day. They did not know if they would wake to see a country obliterated by an atomic bomb. As the United States was on the brink of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union and Cuba, nobody was certain what laid around the corner, in five minutes the world could be devastated and millions of people could be dead.

He revealed the evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba and how he called for their removal. During Kennedy’s speech he “imposed a naval blockade on Cuba and declared that any missile launched from Cuba would warrant a full-scale retaliatory attack by the United States against the Soviet Union” (Cuban Missile Crisis). Until the Soviet Union agreed to dismantle the missile sites, there should be no additional missiles shipped to Cuba. On day eight the ships of the naval quarantine fleet move into place around Cuba. Soviet submarines threaten the quarantine by moving into the Caribbean area. In the evening Robert Kennedy meets with Ambassador Dobrynin at the Soviet Embassy. After the quarantine is endorsed, President Kennedy asks Khrushchev to halt any Russian ships heading toward Cuba. On day nine Chairman Khrushchev replies to President Kennedy's October 23 letter and states that he thinks Kennedy is trying to threaten him or Kennedy will use force. Day ten Kennedy knows that some missiles in Cuba are now operational and this pushes JFK to personally draft a letter to Khrushchev again urging him to change the course of events. Day eleven more photographic evidence is found showing accelerated construction of the missile sites. In a private letter, Fidel Castro urges Nikita Khrushchev to initiate a nuclear first strike against the United States in the event of an American invasion

The photographs were shown to Kennedy two days later on October 16, and a general consensus was reached by the president and his committee that the missile sites being built in Cuba by the U.S.S.R were offensive in nature and therefore posed an immediate nuclear threat to the United States and its Allies. President John F. Kennedy faced a major dilemma: if he gave the authorization for the United States to attack the sites, it may have lead to a global nuclear conflict with the U.S.S.R., but if he did nothing then the United states would be confronted with the greatly increased threat from the medium range nuclear missiles, as well as the United states would appear to the rest of the world to be less committed to the defence of the western hemisphere. In late October 1962, president Kennedy authorized a quarantine of all offencive weapon imports bound for Cuba, which lead to the U.S.S.R. backing down and removing the missile sites from Cuba. The implementation of the blockade effectively blocked the installment of the medium range missiles, and eventually helped lead to the the Nuclear test ban treaty, and resulted in one of JFK’s many great achievements as

In Early October of 1962, United States spy planes identified Soviet missile sites under construction on the island of Cuba. President Kennedy met with his advisors over the next few days to solidify numerous offensive, and contingency plans. In the end he chose to place an embargo around Cuba to prevent further missile supplies being delivered by Soviet ships. Shortly after enacting the embargo, President Kennedy publicly demanded the Soviet government remove all nuclear missiles from Cuba, while this brought international and domestic attention to the situation, it left the Soviets with few political options. While the president was enforcing the Monroe doctrine of containment that was America’s policy toward the Soviet Union, advisors were still unsure how the Russian leader Khrushchev would respond, this coupled with American’s

The world was at the edge of a third world war. This was the result of a variety of things: the Cuban Revolution, the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, US anti-communism, insecurity of the Soviet Union, and Cuba's fear of invasion all made causes for war. However, war was not the result due to great cooperation from both President Kennedy and President Khrushchev and each of the decisions made by the leaders was crucial in the outcome of The Crisis. Kennedy's choice to take action by means of quarantine instead of air-strike and Khrushchev's decision to abide by the quarantines were perhaps the two most significant decisions made by the leaders in order to prevent war. The Cuban Missile Crisis showed the

The US and Moscow were taking place in nuclear discussions but ended up making a deal where if Russia took the missiles out of Cuba in exchange for the US taking missiles out of Turkey on October of 1962. The Soviet missiles were taken out of Cuba and the American missiles were taken out of Turkey lower the scare of a global thermonuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis affected John F. Kennedy and the United States’s long-term legacy by making them seem like a heroic and strong while preventing global thermonuclear war and stopping the total destruction of the

Not only was the Soviet Union viewed as a threat with their space program being more advance, but they also had nuclear missile sites being built. An American spy plane secretly photographed evidence that both Cuba and the Soviet Union were building nuclear missile sites. President Kennedy remained collected and directed that a naval blockade was placed around Cuba which would prevent the Soviets from obtaining more military supplies. On the brink of what could have been a nuclear war, there was an agreement made, the Soviets agreed to dismantle their weapons sites in exchange for a pledge from the United States not to invade Cuba. Tension slowly began to lessen as time passed and the agreement remained respected.

On October of 1962 there was a big misunderstanding between the dictator of the Union Soviet and the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. People all around the world was terrified as it could’ve turn into a nuclear war, this event was known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. It all began after the outcome during the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 which resulted in a total failure of the United States trying to take over the Cuban dictator (history.state.gov). At this point the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, was concerned about another attack from the United States and decided to make a pact with the Union Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev. They held a secret meeting where Fidel Castro offered Nikita Khrushchev locations inside his territory, allowing the Russian leader to build launching facilities and place nuclear missiles inside Cuban soil. Nikita Khrushchev accepted this proposition, he believed that President Kennedy wasn’t capable of making the right decision judging him by the outcomes of the already mention event, the Bay of Pigs, as well as the Mongoose Covert

Kennedy informed the soviets to remove their missiles or he would take action, later Kennedy went into action to form a blockade using the U.S naval as soviet ships moved towards Cuba. Tension started to rise between both leaders until an agreement was made. Nikita Khrushchev transported missiles into Cuba territory to be closer to the United States to seem stronger and powerful, he also placed them there to bolster, in efforts

On January of 1959, a young guerilla leader named Fidel Castro initiated a coup to overthrow the American-backed head of Cuba and start his own military dictatorship. From that day forward for the next two years, U.S. officials tried to oust Castro out of power. Eventually, in April of 1961, the United States launched a full-scale invasion of Cuba that ultimately failed. The Cuban government was absolutely certain that the U.S. would launch another attack towards them. Plus, the United States had caches of Jupiter missiles in both Italy and Turkey. As a result, Castro obtained a meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. The two forces agreed, and by 1962, the USSR secretly delivered three MRBM and two IRBM regiments to Cuba – a total of about 80 missiles in all. The U.S. soon found out the presence of the missiles in August from aerial pictures taken from a U-2 Spy Plane. The missiles posed a huge threat to the country, as they could easily wipe out a large portion of North America and easily kill tens of millions of people. John F. Kennedy, the U.S. president at the time, had to act swiftly, for

The Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban missile crisis was the most dangerous of the Cold War, but