A Minute Towards Countdown
This Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the biggest events in American history. After World War II, much of Europe was left in ruins. Europe had been divided into two sections: eastern and western by the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union and many new governments in Eastern Europe were communists, controlling everything from businesses to schools and people. As a result, the Cold War began with the Soviet Union and the United States became rivals competing to recruit other countries to their side. In 1949, the western nations formed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While communism spread throughout Europe it spread to Cuba, a little island in the Caribbean approximately 90 miles from Florida ( The World Book,
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People on both sides wondered if this would cause World War III. On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy appeared on national television to speak about the crisis; the people need to know what was going on directly (Edwards, 9). President Kennedy said the missiles stationed in Cuba could strike Washington, DC, or the Panama Canal. They could also strike Cape Canaveral, Florida, or Mexico City; nowhere in the US was safe. He explicated that he warned Cuba not to strike any American cities; this meant cities in Central American and South America, too (Edwards, 9). President Kennedy also shared with the American people his plan of surrounding Cuba with the US Navy. Now, it was just a matter a …show more content…
Some experts believe that U.S. foreign policy used greater toughness and more threats of force after the Cuban Missile Crisis (The World Book, 1180).
Max Frankel, an article writer for the Smithsonian Magazine, has done a lot of research on the Cuban Missile Crisis and has concluded that Khrushchev incited America not from a position of strength, but from a sense of weakness and frustration. Frankel also concluded that historically, the Soviets and the United States were never as close to nuclear war as it appeared to the public. The world was so close to a nuclear war, many countries were willing to limit their nuclear power if other countries did the same. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a warning to all the countries in the world. The US and the Soviet Union both knew the world had come too close to a nuclear war; both super powers knew there had to be better communication. After eight months, a hotline was installed. The phoneline linked the Soviet government, the Kremlin, and the White House. As a backup, a teletypewriter linked Washington, DC to Moscow. In addition, in 1963, the US, the Soviet Unions, and other countries signed the Limited Test Ban
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.
The reasons why McNamara and Kennedy and other U.S. politicians were so fearful of a nuclear was because according to U.S. analysts at the time, the 24 MRBM’s (Medium range-ballistic missiles) and sixteen IRBM’s (intermediate-range ballistic missiles) that were found in Cuba had significantly increased the number of U.S. targets that the Soviet’s could lethally attack by forty percent.[8] Furthermore, having missiles within Cuba allowed the Soviets to bypass the U.S. warning radars, especially the Ballistics Missile Early Warning system, which was stationed in the North Pole.[9] By bypassing the U.S. warning radars, it certainly amplified the risk of a surprise strike upon certain American air bases and important command posts.[10] To address this risk, the U.S. army went from “Defence Condition Five” (peacetime alert) to “Defcon 3” (war alert) which further illustrated the high levels of precautions the U.S. government were taking in order to protect itself from an offensive attack from the Soviet.[11] It was quite clear from these precautions that the impending nuclear threat in Cuba threatened the lives of American civilians, troops, and government officials. In the event that the situation escalated out of control, the two world superpowers could have engaged in a third World War that, with nuclear technology had the potential to kill hundreds of millions of civilians and soldiers.[12] Fortunately, the Cuban Mission Crisis never escalated this
The Cuban Missile Crisis is one of the most impactful events in the Cold War due to the effect that it had after it happened. The effect of the Cuban Missile Crisis created many changes on the direct and indirect relations between the United States and Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis spanned 13 days in October 1962 that almost brought the world into a nuclear war. This all began when a United States U-2 spy plane Cuba took photos of Soviet SS-4 medium range ballistic missiles getting setup for the ability to launch.This caused the U.S leaders to be thrown into a panic because the Cuban Government had very strong ties with the Soviet Union who are the United States biggest enemies at the time. Another reason the United States was very fearful is because the coast of Cuba is only 90 miles of the coast of Florida. When President John F Kennedy was told of the missile threat in Cuba he immediately called a meeting with his closest advisors on how to react. There were many ideas on how to react to the missiles, some of Kennedy’s advisors wanted to invade Cuba, others wanted to send a warning to the Soviet Union. JFK finally decided to send a naval blockade to cuba for the purpose of stopping more supplies reaching the Cuban military from Russia. The blockade even though the blockade did not include attacking anyone, it was still seen as an act of aggression by the Soviet Union. The U.S was
What was the Cuban Missile Crisis? Many people have heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and may have learned about it during school, but they do not know the nitty gritty details of the whole fiasco. The CMC was the first threat of a nuclear world war. The real “crisis” was between the United States and the Soviet Union and not Cuba. Cuba played a relatively small role in the grand scheme of it all and was basically the field on which the two powerhouses played on. The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most tense 13 days that the world has ever known and had the possibility of completely disintegrating the world we know today. In this paper we will learn exactly what happened.
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.
Thirteen days in October of 1962 changed the course of the World in the nuclear age forever. The Cuban Missile Crisis represents the closest brink of mutual nuclear destruction the World has ever been close to reaching. The leadership in place throughout the crisis is critical to the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Three men dominated the nations involved in the crisis and captivated citizens of all corners of the world. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy of the United States, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro dominated the airwaves and news circuits leading up to the infamous crisis, which put the three leaders and nations in a cold silence of misperceptions, miscommunications, and unprecedented
The Cuban Missile Crisis began October 16, 1962. It was at the height of the Cold War that this potentially lethal confrontation arose between the United States and the Soviet Union. A United States reconnaissance plane discovered a military stockpile of Soviet nuclear missiles and bombers in Cuba. Some historians point out that Khrushchev's real intention in deploying the missiles into Cuba was to control West Berlin. They would be used in this context as a sufficient reason for the Western powers (The USA, UK, and France) to allow him to achieve his plan. However, The government of Washington, along with President John F. Kennedy at its head, believed this to be a threat and was not willing to tolerate such a threat so close to home.
In 1962 the cuban missile crisis was a confrontation between america and the soviet union. In 1962 the cuban missile crisis was a confrontation between america and the soviet union. This was the closest we have came to nuclear war which scared people all around the world.This resulted in a agreement to end nuclear testing in the sea and above ground.This resulted in a agreement to end nuclear testing in the sea and above ground.This made people feel safe and also protected the environment from the testing of nuclear bombs.
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
There was no way for Americans to know and, at that point, no Kennedy could bring himself to inform them that Cuban protestations of a purely defensive purpose for the missiles were genuine. We did not know what Castro knew that thousands of [CIA] agents were plotting his death, the destruction of his government’s economy, the sabotaging of his mines and mills, the crippling of his sugar and copper industries. We had invaded Cuba once; officials high in Congress and the executive department thought we should have followed up with overwhelming support for that invasion; by our timetable of a year to bring Castro down, the pressure to supply that kind of support in a new “rebellion” was growing.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis, the Caribbean Crisis or the Missile Scare was a battle between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning the deployment in Italy and Turkey. The Soviet Union had secretly positioned nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba. As soon as the U.S government found out what the Soviets we doing, they immediately demanded their withdrawal there would be major consequences . As a results the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a strained 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installment of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba only 90 miles away from the U.S shores. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the United States and the Soviet
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. The crisis was a major confrontation between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The confrontation was caused by the Soviets putting missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of the United States of America. The world was in the hands of President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khruchchev. These two men would have to reach a compromise or else the results would be fatal.
When speaking about the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy said, "It is insane that two men, sitting on opposite sides of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization” (“Nuclear Test Ban Treaty” 1). the Cuban Missile Crisis was a time where these two men, Kennedy and Khrushchev, had the power in their hands to end civilization. In order to understand the importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis one must understand, the Cold war drama; the dangerous crisis; and its importance today.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a frightening moment for the entire world. It started October 14th, 1962 after the Soviet Union planted nuclear missiles inn Cuba. The U.S. found out that these missiles were being planted without their knowledge, but the Soviet Union continued the construction of these nuclear missile sites, even after President Kennedy, the president of the U.S., sent out a warning against these weapons in Cuba. Even after this warning, Kennedy once again found out that the construction was still happening. Following the discovery of the ongoing construction, Kennedy wanted to meet with people at the White House to solve the problem that they were encountering. There were multiple sides during their talk about the missiles. Some of the people at the meeting wanted to take a more aggressive approach and destroy these missiles and then follow up with an attack. Kennedy eventually decided to quarantine Cuba. After Kennedy quarantined Cuba, there were many messages sent between the White House and the Kremlin to try and solve the problem. The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted for thirteen extremely tense days. At the end of these thirteen days, the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with an agreement between the United States and Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis greatly impacted history. It strengthened the bond between the United States and Soviet Union, showed people how to come to a
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.