The Cuban Missile Crisis: The Bay Of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs invasion has come to be known as the perfect failure in American history. The invasion only lasted two days but the effects of the invasion lasted for decades. One of the most significant consequences of the Bay of Pigs was the thirteen day standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States over the installation of nuclear armed Soviet missiles on Cuba a year after the Bay of Pigs. The standoff, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, is the closest the world has come to nuclear war. The causes and the responsibility for the Cuban Missile Crisis are many. Was the Bay of Pigs just another event in a timeline that was destined for the Cuban Missile Crisis or did the Bay of Pigs cause the Cuban Missile Crisis? A historical analysis of the events leading up to the Bay of Pigs as well as the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs will substantiate the fact that the Bay of Pigs was a substantial critical event causing the Cuban Missile Crisis.

To begin, it is important to know about the history of Cuba to fully comprehend how things came to be as they are today. Since the Conquest and Colonization Era (1492-1898), many of the prominent European countries and the powerful neighbor to the north of Cuba, the United States of America, have attempted to take control of the land. It first began with the Spanish conquistadors, specifically Diego Velázquez, who was the first to explore and settle the land. Up until the end of the 19th century, the Spanish monarch was the authoritative figure overseeing the land and

History: The Bay of the Pigs was a Cuban government attack to overthrow Fidel Castro, the Prime Minister at the time. It was a CIA backed and was executed under the administration of John F. Kennedy. With Castro being a communist, the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations tried their best to remove him. Their opportunity to overthrow Castro came in the form of the Cuban exiles, who under Castro’s rule, fled from the island ultimately losing their investments and properties. This fact made it easier to convince the Cuban exiles to participate in the invasion against Castro’s government. US ships sailed on the 13th of April and chose to land on “Bahía de los Cochinos” which became the attacks downfall. The area was barely

Although many Cubans refused to accept any offers, the wars for independence still broke out in 1895. The U.S. declared war on Spain on April 25,1898. The U.S. defeated Spain and Cuba was officially granted independence and lived as an independent republic on January 1st, 1898. Although the taste of freedom might be sweet to many native Cubans, there is no doubt that all Cuban government in

The United States has had a long history with Cuba. Within that long history came many arguments and accusations, such as the demand that Castro request that the U.S. embassy staff be reduced. Following that request came an outrageous accusation stating that the embassy was being used as a foundation for spies. This made U.S. officials think that Castro’s government was too anti-American to be trusted. Castro started nationalizing foreign property and companies as a response to the U.S., so the United States decided to cutback trades with Cuba. America tried to resolve the differences with Castro’s government through diplomacy. Seeing that they could not come to an agreement the united states decide to embargo trade with Cuba. Two months later, President John F. Kennedy unleashed the Cuban exile force which caused Castro’s military to kill or capture the exile troops.

Similar to other Caribbean islands during the 20th century Cuba was undergoing a significant nationalist and labor union movement clamoring for the improvement of the lives of wage-earning laborers and independence from their colonial powers. Cuba had served as a colony of Spain, however the first Cuban War of Independence in 1895 and subsequent Spanish-American War in 1898 finally forced Spain to relinquish all sovereignty of Cuba and instead give it to the United States where Cuba would serve as a colony of the United States. Under the new form of 20th century colonialism under the rule of the United States which had wage-earning workers laboring for large United States based corporations that would continue to exploit the workers and keep

Operation Zapata, or as it is more commonly known, the Bay of Pigs, was the failed invasion of Cuba by U.S. supported Cuban exiles. This was in response to military dictator, Fidel Castro’s military coup of Cuba in 1959. As Castro began to rapidly align his regime with the Soviet Union, the U.S. government felt compelled to interdict.

The conditions for the Bay of Pigs invasion were set by a political power shift in Cuba. In 1959 a Cuban revolution led to the overthrow of President Fulgencia Batista, who was replaced by leftist Fidel Castro ("The Bay of Pigs”). Castro quickly reorganized and rebuilt the Cuban government. Much to the dismay of the United States, this new government severed the ties between Cuba and the United States, expropriated any “U.S. economic assets in Cuba,” and began building a strong relationship with the Soviet Union ("The Bay of Pigs”). Due to Cuba’s close geographic location, the United States saw revolutionized Cuba as a threat to national security.

The history of Cuba started back in 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived. Cuba is known as “the largest island of the West Indies group” (Fact Monster). The island of Cuba is filled with mountains in the southeast followed by flat lands in the remaining areas. Since 2008, the president of Cuba has been Raul Castro. The population of Cuba “has always increased from one census to the next” (Demographics of Cuba), with the population in 2014 being right about eleven million. Cuba is well known for many different things which include its culture roots, music, beautiful beaches, Cuban rum, and also friendly locals you can find just about anywhere. I chose Cuba as my country for this paper because I have always wanted to visit Cuba and go to the beautiful beaches. I also chose Cuba because I was curious as

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a crucial moment in American history. As tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union rose, so did the risk of nuclear war. The Soviets, under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, were in a position to strike the United States with nuclear missiles based in Cuba. This uncertain time caused much concern for the citizens of the United States and its President, John F. Kennedy (Brubaker, 2001).

I had forgotten about the Bay of Pigs Invasion probably because it was a failed mission they probably would have like to have it “swept under the rug” so to speak. The July movement in which they severed ties with the United States and in doing so severed their economic ties with us. The US wanted to overthrow the communist government because we were against communism. What surprised me was how much money was given to the CIA to overthrow Fidel the sum of 13.1 Million. What an expensive war? With Kennedy withdrawing air cover for the war this made it only half of what was needed for the war. This failed mission only help Fidel Castro to become more powerful. This strengthened the relationship that Cuba had with the Soviet Union. This led to

During 1939-1945, the United States and Soviet Union were involved in the Cold War. When Cuba accepted communism, the United States tried to drive out Cuba’s leader, Castro, during the Bay of Pigs, but it failed (Kauffman). The U.S. were concerned even more when they discovered Soviet Missiles in Cuba. Kennedy had established a quarantine to try and stop weapons coming to Cuba, but it was still a mystery when it came to what Kennedy’s response would be. Many Americans were in favor of using military action to remove the missiles, while critics of military action wanted to negotiate with the Soviets instead. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F. Kennedy chose the best course of action to end the crisis because he was able to prevent war, get the Soviet’s to remove their missiles from Cuba, and avoid alienating the United State’s allies.

The purpose of the Bay of Pigs Invasion was to overthrow Fidel Castro as leader of Cuba and help stabilize the Cuban government. Fidel Castro started the MR-26-7, an anti-Batista group. At the time, Batista was the so called president and he claimed to be running a disciplined democracy.The people saw this as a dictatorship takeover. Castro ran the group as a clandestine cell system with ten members in each cell and they did not know the whereabouts or activities of the other cells. He was building his army to take Batista down. Between 1956 and 1959, Castro lead his Guerrilla army against Batista’s forces. Batista became unpopular and by 1958 they were sent in a retreat. By December 31, 1958 he resigned. In addition, he fled Cuba, taking with him roughly $300,000,000. Therefore, the presidency fell to Castro’s candidate, Manuel Urrutia Lleo, while most of the cabinet was made up of MR-26-7 members. Castro took the role of Prime Minister on February 16, 1959. His first order of business was to get rid of presidential elections, the same as the man he took down. This was the start of Fidel Castro 's reign. The United States wanted to make Cuba into a democratic country and stated that Castro was going to lead the nation into a communist or dictatorship country. America needs to cut the communists off and have a country that had the same political views, a democracy, and one that we would not have to fight in order to keep the country safe.

The bay of pigs invasion was in cuba and started on april,17,1961 and ended in april, 19, 1961, it started because a ruthless gang associated leader named fidel castro. But he was did not appreciate the fact that america was taking interest in cuba. So america backed of cuba and tension started to rise so what happened is america started taking cubans from florida and any cubans in the us they could find and the cia started training the cubans so they could take on cuba and the president of the united states was dwight D eisenhower. Cuba also had a strong relationship with russia after the cuban revolution in 1959. Also the united states did not help the cubans during the invasion and 3 days into the invasion the trained

In order to understand the importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis in American history one must first understand the Cold War drama, Castro’s rise to power, and the American operations that set up the crisis. “The term Cold War refers