Kennedy and the Cold War
The purpose of this essay is to highlight several pivotal and historic events that occurred in President John F. Kennedy’s short term in office (1961-1963). The events to be discussed will be the Bay of Pigs invasion, The Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Berlin Crisis. Anyone of these events had the potential capability to catapult the free world into a war with the Soviet Union.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion
The first discussion and planning for the Bay of Pig 's invasion were formally initiated during the Eisenhower administration and put into motion. The operation that Eisenhower had put into motion was unstoppable even after Kennedy had taken office. The purpose of the military style invasion was to kill Fidel Castro, the …show more content…
After a thorough investigation by Kennedy’s National Security Council to verify the existences of the weapons, President Kennedy informed the nation and Russia on October 22, 1962, that ballistic missiles had been discovered in Cuba. Kennedy immediately announced a naval blockade of Cuba, to respond to any aggression toward the United States. The President made it very clear that an attack from Cuba would be considered a Soviet attack, requiring America to respond. The standoff lasted two weeks before Khrushchev finally agreed to dismantle the missile 's sites, and remove them from Cuba. However, Khrushchev wanted Kennedy to promise not to invade Cuba and remove American missiles from Turkey, which were a deadly threat to the Soviet Union. Kennedy’s diplomatic skills in dealing with this dangerous situation made up for the Bay of Pig 's blunder (Stern, 2005). Another issue that Kennedy had to deal with was something that was created after World War Two, and plagued the two previous …show more content…
In 1958 Khrushchev demanded that the United States, France, and Great Britain pull their military forces out of West Berlin. That demand created a three year quagmire that climaxed in 1961, with the construction of the Berlin Wall. The wall divided East and West Germany. In the summer of 1961 the Soviet Premier again gave the United States six months to withdraw from West Germany. President Kennedy responded by activating 150,000 reservists to defend West Germany if the need arose. What culminated was a faceoff of American tanks and troops in the west and Russian tanks and troops in the east. Kennedy eventually through great diplomacy convinced Khrushchev to remove his troops and armament and he would remove his. Therefore, the standoff ended without bloodshed. The Berlin Wall stayed in place until 1989 (Freedman,
The purpose of this essay is to highlight several pivotal and historic events that occurred in President John F. Kennedy’s short term in office (1961-1963). The events to be discussed will be the Bay of Pigs invasion, The Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Berlin Crisis. Anyone of these events had the potential capability to catapult the free world into a war with the Soviet Union.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion
The first discussion and planning for the Bay of Pig 's invasion were formally initiated during the Eisenhower administration and put into motion. The operation that Eisenhower had put into motion was unstoppable even after Kennedy had taken office. The purpose of the military style invasion was to kill Fidel Castro, the …show more content…
After a thorough investigation by Kennedy’s National Security Council to verify the existences of the weapons, President Kennedy informed the nation and Russia on October 22, 1962, that ballistic missiles had been discovered in Cuba. Kennedy immediately announced a naval blockade of Cuba, to respond to any aggression toward the United States. The President made it very clear that an attack from Cuba would be considered a Soviet attack, requiring America to respond. The standoff lasted two weeks before Khrushchev finally agreed to dismantle the missile 's sites, and remove them from Cuba. However, Khrushchev wanted Kennedy to promise not to invade Cuba and remove American missiles from Turkey, which were a deadly threat to the Soviet Union. Kennedy’s diplomatic skills in dealing with this dangerous situation made up for the Bay of Pig 's blunder (Stern, 2005). Another issue that Kennedy had to deal with was something that was created after World War Two, and plagued the two previous …show more content…
In 1958 Khrushchev demanded that the United States, France, and Great Britain pull their military forces out of West Berlin. That demand created a three year quagmire that climaxed in 1961, with the construction of the Berlin Wall. The wall divided East and West Germany. In the summer of 1961 the Soviet Premier again gave the United States six months to withdraw from West Germany. President Kennedy responded by activating 150,000 reservists to defend West Germany if the need arose. What culminated was a faceoff of American tanks and troops in the west and Russian tanks and troops in the east. Kennedy eventually through great diplomacy convinced Khrushchev to remove his troops and armament and he would remove his. Therefore, the standoff ended without bloodshed. The Berlin Wall stayed in place until 1989 (Freedman,