Analytical Essay: The Cuban Missile Crisis

Sheldon M. Stern’s book The Week the World Stood Still gave eye opening information into the secrets of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the ‘inner sanctum of the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis, arguing convincingly that Kennedy acted with great caution during one of the great showdowns of the cold war.’ Sheldon strongly believed that JFK had made the correct decisions while he was in the risky situation including Cuba and their missiles. Writing the book was easy for Sheldon, as he was a historian at the John F. Kennedy library. He had access to the recordings that Kennedy had taken many years ago.

The Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated the United States’ use of the policy of containment because the United States issued a quarantine of Cuba and also entered in diplomatic talks with the Soviet Union to try to halt the conflict. However the Cuban Missile Crisis also demonstrated how containment was not successful because despite how friendly the two leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States became Cuba still became a communist

One option during the Cuban Missile Crisis was to go into an all out nuclear war. None of the countries wanted this option, but it was still possible. This is true because in Document C it says, “The most important thing for us is to get an agreement as soon as possible.” This proves that both the USSR and the US wanted to come to a quick

This is due to the different political ideologies between the superpowers (Source D). The different political ideologies were that the United States was a capitalist state while the USSR was a communist state. The different political ideologies are the cause of the Cuban Missile Crisis as both superpowers will do anything and everything in order to spread their political ideologies to other countries. This created tension and led up to the Cuban Missile Crisis because USSR and USA were not on the same terms with each other as they both wanted to spread their ideology to the same countries thus the tension grew. While the USSR stated that everything should be owned by the government and then divided up equally among the people differed from the USA stating that their needed to be a democracy and people could own land, businesses and compete for themselves thus increasing the tensions and the cause of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After several tense days of negotiation, the Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba and to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. Significance: The Cuban Missile Crisis was significant because it brought the world close to nuclear war and highlighted the dangers of the arms race. The resolution of the crisis demonstrated the importance of diplomacy and negotiation in preventing conflict between nuclear

McNamara states that although President Kennedy wanted to keep the nation out of war, there was a clear division between the cabinet on whether we should have invaded Cuba or not. McNamara also reveals that he later found out that we had attempted to assassinate Castro under a number of occasions, under the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administration. Nations were tense and on the verge of chaos, and McNamara reveals that the only reason we escaped nuclear war was because we were lucky. Also, McNamara later found out that in January 1962, there were 162 nuclear warheads in Cuba at the time of the crisis, and not only was President Kennedy fully aware of it, but he was willing to accept that Cuba would have been obliterated if anything were to have happened to any of those missiles. In the end we got missiles out without war, but McNamara states that the human race needs to think more about killing and conflict and realize the repercussions of it.

Cuban Missile Crisis DBQ The Cold War happened just after WWII ended. The two main countries involved in the Cold War were the United States which believed in a capitalist society and the Soviet Union which believed in a communist society. After WWII all countries involved in it were having economic and political problems, European countries were also having few resources and were open to accepting new ideologists and that was the tension between the Americans and the Soviets started rising because they both thought their system was better and they both wanted Europeans and countries around the world to support either capitalism (Americans ideology) or communism (Soviets

was leading the race in all 8 years in the building of submarine-launched ICBMs and Long-range bombers. In the building of Land-launched ICBMs though, the U.S.S.R. took a lead starting in the year 1968 and stayed there for the rest of the 6 years. The fear of weapons being used spread panic across the world and caused countries like Cuba to as kids today say “flip out”. This “flip out” led to President John F. Kennedy giving a speech about the Cuban Missile Crisis to the American People, explaining the U.S. position. He clearly stated that the missiles that were present in Cuba were “an open threat to the peace and security of all of the Americas.”

The United States has had an ongoing embargo with Cuba. An embargo is when there is a ban against a trade from a particular country. The United States has imposed it upon Cuba. This happened on October 19th, 1960, signed by John F. Kennedy. The US placed an embargo on Cuba except for food and medicine.

The Cuban Missile Address is delivered October 22nd, 1962 in the Presidential office through a major radio and television address (Podell, Anzovin, and States United 705). Historically, it is worth mentioning that United States had attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro, who was at the time Prime Minister of the Republic of Cuba, in at least two occasions known as the Bay of Pigs Operation and Operation Mongoose, because of his communist regime and close relationship with the Soviet Union (Pious). Then, after the Bay of Pigs incident, Fidel Castro urged Nikita Khrushchev, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to send support and weapons to Cuba, because of the fear of another attack to his person/regime, Nikita did by sending missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction, hence, this major crisis that lasted 14 days ending October 28, 1962 (Deinema and Leydesdorff). In addition, the target audience for this speech is the American people as President starts his speech with the phrase, “Good evening, my fellow citizens” (Kennedy); however, the secondary audience would be the Cuban people, whom he describes as captive people, the Soviet Union leaders, whom he directly addresses and even quotes, and Fidel Castro of course (Kennedy). As noted above, the cultural, socio-political context is important to understand the seriousness of this crisis and

An invasion of Cuba would place the U.S in the position of the aggressor, and a bigger, more developed country, attacking a much smaller country would not look good on the world stage. As Robert Kennedy stated, “The strongest argument against the all-out military attack, and one no one could answer to his satisfaction, was that a surprise attack would erode if not destroy the moral position of the United States throughout the world (pg. 49).” This course of action was brought up multiple times as well. First in the initial findings of the weapons, and again after the U-2 was shot down. Both times though, President Kennedy took time to understand all the risks and prepare as necessary.

Late president Nikita Khrushchev (from USSR), agreed to assist Castro and took immediate action. He installed missiles in Cuba, which the US thought was a threat to the security of their nation. In summary, I think that this was a defensive move by the Cubans. I most definitely agree with

The Bay of Pigs ‘damaged US relations with foreign nations enormously” and “encouraged Khrushchev’s adventurism” resulting in increased Cold War tensions that demanded the President’s full

In an effort to overthrow the Castro government, the United States attempted the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. In response, the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, started secretly deploying nuclear weapons in Cuba, close to major American cities. Throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy led with pride. He handled the crisis with a swift balancing act of negotiation and determination, making sure that it did not turn into a full-blown nuclear conflict.

In 1959 there was a revaluation that over through the Cuban government. The Cubans then turned to the Soviet Union for help. The Soviet Union then put Fidel Castro in charge as a dictator. The CIA then developed a secret plan to help the anti-Castro exiles; this plan would train them to invade Cuba. The CIA asked Kennedy to approve.