Juliana Mittermeier
HSTR 101A
Peter Cook
Group B
In Schwarz and Bernstein’s articles, they describe the events that occurred in the 1960’s between the United States and the Soviet Union. Bernstein’s approach to the topic comes off as a detailing of the events and raises questions about the motives behind each decision. Schwarz doesn’t look at both perspectives of the incident, and mostly describes the United States mistakes and takes an almost offensive stance against the Kennedy administration.
Because the United States and the Soviet Union had emerged as major world powers after WWII, each country wanted their influence to spread; Capitalist regimes for American associated countries and communist regimes for Soviet associated countries. …show more content…
After ultimately severing ties with Cuba, the U.S. government began to prepare for an invasion. Although there was no immediate threat coming from Cuba, Kennedy wanted to prove to the Soviets that they would not tolerate such behavior.
An attack on Cuba was always the plan since Castro assumed control, but Kennedy wanted to avoid an outright attack, knowing that the Soviets would see this as an act of war, so all the plans were kept secret. Much to the embarrassment of president Kennedy and the CIA, the invasion was a failure, but Kennedy was determined to liberate the Cubans from a communist regime.
After discovering Soviet missiles in Cuba the urgency of the communist situation in Cuba increased, because now close range attacks could be made on the United States. However the fear of a close range attack was also shared by the Soviets, as the United States had long since made an agreement with Turkey and Italy to keep nuclear missiles pointed towards Moscow. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saw the deployment of missiles in Cuba as a strategic advantage and giving America “a taste of their own medicine.” Kennedy and his administration knew this was an offensive move by the Soviets, and decided to, after much careful consideration, establish a blockade around Cuba to prevent further
HSTR 101A
Peter Cook
Group B
In Schwarz and Bernstein’s articles, they describe the events that occurred in the 1960’s between the United States and the Soviet Union. Bernstein’s approach to the topic comes off as a detailing of the events and raises questions about the motives behind each decision. Schwarz doesn’t look at both perspectives of the incident, and mostly describes the United States mistakes and takes an almost offensive stance against the Kennedy administration.
Because the United States and the Soviet Union had emerged as major world powers after WWII, each country wanted their influence to spread; Capitalist regimes for American associated countries and communist regimes for Soviet associated countries. …show more content…
After ultimately severing ties with Cuba, the U.S. government began to prepare for an invasion. Although there was no immediate threat coming from Cuba, Kennedy wanted to prove to the Soviets that they would not tolerate such behavior.
An attack on Cuba was always the plan since Castro assumed control, but Kennedy wanted to avoid an outright attack, knowing that the Soviets would see this as an act of war, so all the plans were kept secret. Much to the embarrassment of president Kennedy and the CIA, the invasion was a failure, but Kennedy was determined to liberate the Cubans from a communist regime.
After discovering Soviet missiles in Cuba the urgency of the communist situation in Cuba increased, because now close range attacks could be made on the United States. However the fear of a close range attack was also shared by the Soviets, as the United States had long since made an agreement with Turkey and Italy to keep nuclear missiles pointed towards Moscow. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saw the deployment of missiles in Cuba as a strategic advantage and giving America “a taste of their own medicine.” Kennedy and his administration knew this was an offensive move by the Soviets, and decided to, after much careful consideration, establish a blockade around Cuba to prevent further