The Gun Of August By Barbara Tuchman

Imagine that you are John F. Kennedy in 1962, and you find out that your ally, Cuba, has your enemy, Soviet Union, has ICBMS (intermediate- range ballistic missiles) & Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers, that could reach the United States and aimed toward the United States. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a thirteen-day confrontation between the United States, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. Cuba had the missiles there for like three months before one of the U.S had a spy plane that figured out that Cuba had the Soviets Missiles. For a while, the U.S had Intel that Cuba had the missiles but JFK did not believe that Cuba was betraying them. These missiles were only ninety miles away from Florida the U.S. issued a military blockade to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba. When all the offensive missiles and light bombers were taken from Cuba the blockade was initially ended on November 21, 1962. Although the Cuban Missile Crisis ruined relations with the United States of America and Cuba, it impacted the blockade between the United States of America and Cuba, the respect for the United States of America, and the Bay of the Pigs.

Scott describes how this was a critical time for the Cold War and certainly “the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War” - culminating in the Cuban missile crisis (1999, p. 24).

The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 was the thirteen-day political standoff between the Soviet Union and the United states. To my knowledge, the crisis took place over whether nuclear weapons placed inside of Cuba were a threat to the United States. Under tremendous pressure, we see the crisis play out in the hands of John F. Kennedy. Handled very strategically and meticulously, President Kennedy very well saved the world from a human catastrophe. What president Kennedy was able to do at such a critical moment in time, gives the reader a great view into how the policymakers of yesterday, today, and the future should handle critical events.

During an infamous thirteen-day stretch of October 1962, America faced the prospect of imminent nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Two things saved humanity: the strategic wisdom of John F. Kennedy, and the U-2 aerial spy program. Above and Beyond tells the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis through the eyes of the pilots that launched out of McCoy Air Force Base in

In October of 1962 a pressing matter arose during John F. Kennedy’s presidential term. It was made apparent that the Soviet Union was holding and building missiles in Cuba, it was named the Cuban missile crisis. Being a dangerously close country to the United States, JFK knew he needed to make a smart and safe decision, and fast. Kennedy had suspicions that this option would cause a third World War and end in a nuclear fallout. Kennedy’s determination to be a participative leader was effective in the fact that he met with many people before making any decision on how to act next and the country was aware about the ongoing dilemma. He acted in a modest way that would prevent any country or individual to claim “victory” throughout the entirety of his time in office especially in the Bay of Pigs.

After World War II, the United States and the USSR established themselves as the two most dominant nations in the world. Though they were tentative allies throughout the war, they came to distrust each other as direct rivals. Throughout the Cold War, the United States attempted to contain the spread of Communism, endorsing democratic regimes in Asian, Latin American, and African countries. The conflict reached its peak in October of 1962 in the Cuban Missile Crisis which was triggered by the Soviet deployment in Cuba of intermediate and medium-range ballistic nuclear-armed missiles with nuclear warheads. Although deeply challenging Americans’ tactical interventions, the Cuban Missile Crisis revealed the sophistication of the U.S. intelligence community, especially in its capability to collect and analyze information. Indeed, the American intelligence discovered the Soviet Union’s missiles through diverse intelligence gathering methods, such as aerial photoreconnaissance, human intelligence and advanced signal interceptions. This intelligence not only revealed critical information about the Soviet’s missiles, military units and weapons present in Cuba but also prevented an imminent nuclear war, hence demonstrating the power and war strategies deployed through espionage while questioning the right balance between its morality and necessity.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worry and Love the Bomb” and the Cuban Missile Crisis compare in different ways but also contrast each other in certain ways. The film by Stanley Kubrick was filmed in 1964 and was an older comedy film that almost mocks the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the USSR and the United States. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the confrontation in October of 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union established as a classic foreign policy crisis. Both the article and the film was all done in the 1960’s with the film being produced just in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis that was in the years of 1961-1963. Peoples thoughts today are all over the board on whether or not countries should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and if they can be trusted with them. Information about this all will be included in this paper.

The Kennedy Tapes puts together real history and actual conversations directly from the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The book remains true to history and exemplifies how close the U.S. was to a nuclear war. The book brings awareness to millions who may of not known of the Cuban Missile Crisis or those who lived through it without ever really knowing what almost happened. The Cuban Missile Crisis completely changed society during and after the 13 days of fear. Ernest R. May broke the barrier between government and citizens by giving the world the actual tapes that held the truth about the Cuban Missile Crisis. The author didn’t make an impact on the book. The story is mainly passages and transcripts from real recordings from

These missiles were capable of dropping atomic bombs on U.S. cities, and, suddenly, the world was on the verge of nuclear war. Fortunately, after a scary 13-day confrontation between the countries, Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, negotiated with the U.S. and removed nuclear-armed Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for U.S. withdrawal of its current missiles in Turkey and Italy, and to no longer attempt to overthrow Castro (“Fidel Castro”). The crisis not only impacted the 1960s era by provoking fear among people all over the world, but it also forever changed the testing of nuclear warfare in the years to come. Through its friendly yet

The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of those events that held people’s breaths as the possibility of a nuclear war became more probable with every passing second. The whole Western Hemisphere (along with the rest of the world) was to be impacted by such events which made the United States’ commander in chief’s address all that more important. Had John Fitzgerald Kennedy not addressed the people, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and all other countries in an effective manner, the fears of World War III with nuclear weapons would have become a reality. Through his impeccable skills as an orator, John F. Kennedy successfully delivered a speech that informed the country about the current crisis, described the uncertainty of these events, and warned the Soviet Union that any attack will not proceed without consequences.

On October 16th, 1962, President Kennedy was informed about the presence of nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba (White), a direct threat to national security situated 90 miles south of the United States. In context, the event was a domestic challenge for Kennedy, as he had taken a hard stance against Fidel Castro and the presence of a Communist nation in the Western Hemisphere. In his 1960 presidential campaign, Kennedy had attacked Richard Nixon, Vice President and the Republican nominee for President, and the Eisenhower administration for allowing Fidel Castro to overthrow the American-favored dictator Fulgencio Batista in the 1959 Cuban Revolution (Fursenko and Naftali, 65). This factored into the events of Kennedy’s administration,

Over the course of this paper, we will take a comprehensive look at information regarding the United States' and Russia's traumatic Cuban Missile Crisis. First, we will review the actions the United States and Russia took that enable the Cuban Missile Crisis to come to fruition. Second, we will highlight the actions that each nation took during the heighten alert state to protect each country's interest. Next, the international negotiations that ultimately led to the movement of each country's missiles and de-escalation of the situation. Now, the Cuban Missile Crisis is an event that showcases how superpower nations that maintain a prideful nationalistic idea can bring the world to the brink of destruction due to their consistent political

“We’re eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked” (Dean Rusk). The Cuban Missile Crisis put the world on the edge of its seat, and was the closest humanity has ever gotten to full-scale nuclear war. Even though the event lasted a mere two weeks (from October 14-24, 1962), it played a significant role in international politics, and its effects can still be seen today. The Cuban Missile Crisis is significant to current international relations because it proved the importance of the need for information, and the importance of taking risks.

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

“The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National Security Archive Documents Reader” edited by Laurence Chang and