Summary: The Cuban Missile Crisis

Superior Essays
One of the most intense parts of the Cold War was the Cuban Missile Crisis. The conflict of the Cuban Missile Crisis happened when Fidel Castro overthrew the previous leader, Fulgencio Batista. The book “John F. Kennedy Vs. Nikita Khrushchev” by Ellis Roxburgh states, "In 1959, Fidel Castro led a rebellion on the island to overthrow the corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista. The United States had supported Batista and had many business interests in Cuba.” The U.S. approved of the previous leader, Fulgencio Batista, but disapproved of Fidel Castro. Castro struck up a friendship with the Soviet Union, that made the U.S. even angrier. In the database article “Cuba Signs a Commercial Agreement with the Soviet Union, February 11, 1966” it says, “On …show more content…
Most of the flights were U-2 planes, and their job was to take pictures of Cuba and Cuba’s missiles. The U.S. thought that the height the U-2 planes flew was too high for the Cuban’s anti-aircraft guns and their missiles. A U-2 plane flying over Cuba was shot down by one of Cuba’s missiles by orders from Castro. That was disastrous for the U.S. and Khrushchev. The order from Khrushchev was not to fire at U-2 planes, but Castro told all of his soldiers the opposite. In the database article “The Cuban Missile Crisis” it expresses, "The crisis peaked on October 27, when an American U-2 surveillance plane was shot down over Cuba by a surface-to-air missile.” In the database article “Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962” it indicates, "A U.S. U-2 flight over Cuba was shot down that day by Soviet SAMs, which had just become operational.” The U.S.S.R. also sent some soldiers and mechanics to Cuba along with the nuclear missiles. In the database "UXL Encyclopedia: Cuban Missile Crisis” it says, “On October 27, 1962, a Soviet missile shot down a U.S. U2 plane, and its pilot was killed. All totaled, the Soviet Union had sent sixty-six missiles to Cuba along with twenty-two thousand troops and technicians.” The soldier who shot the missile didn’t know whose order to follow, Khrushchev’s or Castro’s. After that, the tensions were even higher than before. Cuba and the U.S. were on the brink of a nuclear war. The …show more content…
sent two letters to John F. Kennedy. The first one was a friendly offer, an offer that if the Americans moved the naval blockade then he would remove the missiles out of Cuba. The second one was a demand ordering that the U.S. President to remove the missiles from Turkey. After this they sent some telegrams, arguing with each other over what they were to do. In the database article “Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, October 26, 1962” it says, "Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev (1894-1971) sent this letter to President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), via a telegram from the U.S. embassy in Moscow, in the midst of the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy had responded aggressively four days later in a televised speech, demanding that newly placed Soviet nuclear missiles be pulled out of Cuba and ordering a naval blockade, which he called a ‘quarantine’ to try to avoid making it an overt act of war, around the island.” Sending telegrams made it possible to send and receive messages faster, and it also allowed them to communicate without as many other people knowing. Nevertheless the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. used the

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Castro still rules over Cuba to this day. Little did the United States know the a year later the soviets would be quietly storing nuclear war heads in Cuba. October 15, 1962 is the day they find out what been really going on in Cuba. Eight days later Cuba is quarantined, meaning that any ships carrying weaponry to Cuba will not be allowed to pass. The Soviets dare not to cross in to the quarantined area.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On January 1959, Fidel Castro became the communist leader of Cuba. As a result of this inauguration, Soviet’s ship hundreds of thousands of warheads to Cuba. A map created from various sources state, “US announces a quarantine against ships carrying offensive weapons to Cuba.” The United States, once again, interferes to prevent the Soviet Union from installing weapons in Cuba that are in range of U.S land. As a result of this quarantine, the Soviets began to remove their missiles, five days later.…

    • 615 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Former President JFK spoke on the Cuban Missile Crisis, making it known that Cuba have harmful weapons that were threatening to the US “Cuba has been made into an important strategic base by the presence of these long-range offense weapons of sudden mass destruction”(Doc 19). JFK implied that Cuba was taking military measures against the US and there would be something done to stop the missiles before potential attacks. In an interview, Genoveva Hernandez, a teen daughter of a Cuban Revolutionary refers to communism in Cuba as revolution “Before the Revolution women didn’t have nearly as many opportunities they do now” (Doc 16).…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Containment Dbq Analysis

    • 606 Words
    • 3 Pages

    What Events Portray Containment America fights communism by containing European countries and attempting to pull them away from a troublesome future. During WWⅡ Adolf Hitler brought communism to Germany. At the same time, Joseph Stalin was doing the same. But Hitler was killing more lives with communism than America could save with capitalism. So Truman and Stalin joined forces to try and save lives.…

    • 606 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Finally, after a little over two weeks the Soviet Union removed their missiles from Cuba in exchange for the U.S word to not invade…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One significant Cold War event of the 1960s included the Cuban Missile Crisis. Broadly, this crisis was a thirteen day conflict in 1962 involving the United States and the Soviet Union regarding the installment of Soviet airstrike missiles in Cuba. This situation was globally televised and was the nearest the Cold War had ever come to a nuclear war. Tension between superpowers, Fidel Castro, and the Bay of Pigs Invasion led this event to unfold as it did and the event took the Western bloc in an entirely new direction. Leading up to the crisis, the tension between the United States and Russia heightened because each superpower was in constant competition over the space race and the arms race in terms of nuclear testing.…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    According to Smith (2003), “[on] September 4, President Kennedy revealed the presence of ground-to-air antiaircraft missiles in Cuba and warned the Soviet Union not to install offensive weapons in Cuba,” in which the Soviets did not listen too (266). The Kennedy administration went into a state of crisis management that took them in many different directions. Most of the administration was torn between invading Cuba…

    • 1345 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dbq Arms Race

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Whilst the arms race helped to deter leaders from conflict. Kennedy faced massive military pressure from Generals such as Curtis LeMay, Walter Sweeney and Marshall Carter to attack Cuba during the Cuban Missile crisis. This was a de-stabilising factor because they almost convinced Kennedy to authorise an airstrike on Cuba as a form of retaliation. The Cuban missile crisis took place as a retaliation of Khrushchev due to the ICBM's in Turkey. It was also speculated that Khrushchev could see the missiles from Russia.…

    • 1199 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Section A: Identification and Evaluation of Sources One of the sources that I used is a book titled In the Name of Democracy by Thomas Carothers. It is an examination of U.S. policy in Latin America during the Reagan era. Carothers provides information on U.S. involvement using interviews with United States officials and his own perspective as a former State Department lawyer. Also, the book provides information on the effects of removing the communist influence. This source is created so the information about the effects of the U.S policy in Latin America could be shared to the public.…

    • 2055 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The same day a U-2 was shot down over Cuba and another one was strayed over the Soviet territory. The U-2 was shot not by the orders of Moscow, in fact, it was initiated not even by the Soviet commanders. Kennedy was not sure how to react to such moves and the head of the Air Force have proposed an immediate bombing of the island. Luckely so, JFK has called for a pause for a couple of days before the planes left the runway. Kennedy first wanted to communicate Khrushchev, and due to the lak of a telephone line, the communication was taking up to several hours in a situation where every minute was so important.…

    • 1530 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    On the final few days of the crisis, Cuba didn’t feel like they were going to have a say in what was going to happen in the end. Castro did not like being abandoned by the Soviet Union because they wanted to save their own interests. According to Belkin and Blight (1991), on the “final weekend of the crisis a communication from Castro warning of an American attack and proposing that the Soviets launch their missiles preemptively” because they didn’t feel like the compromise would be fulfilled on the United States side (734). Given this information the Soviet Union and the United States knew that the actions of both of them would have an effect on the other and they needed to come to a middle ground fast. As Belkin and Blight (1991) put it “the…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To what extent did the Cuban Missile Crisis impact the USA 's foreign policy? As a key event within the Cold War 'conflicts ' between the USSR and the US, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 has held a significant role in impacting the evolution of the US 's foreign policy and its international interactions. The most noticeable change in the US 's foreign policy is most arguably the shift from military responses to diplomatic responses. There are also noticeable changes in the US 's use of international military forces, priorities, and use of diplomatic power.…

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cuba played a large role in the Cold War between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Bay of Pigs, occurring in 1961, was prompted after Fidel Castro overtook a American supported president of Havana. The invasion was poorly planned and due to the small numbers, the troops fighting for America were defeated after twenty-four hours. America had initially gotten into this predicament because while they did not believe that Fidel Castro was a real threat, they believed that they could prove to Russia, China and other others that the American officials were serious about winning the Cold War. The invasion was initially kept a secret but, when it was was finally let out of the bag – due to the radio – from there the plan began to fall apart.…

    • 391 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The facts that came forth were that a US invasion would have met more opposition than was thought. Also the Soviets obtained arsenal intended for war which U.S. intelligence were not aware of. The U.S. had also assumed that there were a few thousand troops in Cuba, but in fact 40,000 soldiers were there (Cuban.com). The Cuban missile crisis was a very risky situation, bringing the world 's major military powers to the brink of nuclear war.…

    • 1056 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Brilliant Essays

    Although the US claimed there was no missile gap between the two, the USSR was clearly behind in the race. This was particularly fearful for the Soviet Union who did not want the US to launch a first strike from Turkey which was merely 150 miles away. The decision made by Khrushchev to build launch sites in Cuba is likely because “Khrushchev was attracted by the idea of appearing to gain greater military strength relative to US”(IBID, 168). This came from domestic issues brewing in the USSR, where it is was essential to appear strong and convince both the citizens of the Soviet Union and the rest of the world that socialism was equally if not stronger than the US and their democracy. Therefore, all weaknesses, in this case military, needed to be concealed and so the idea the USSR were now on par with the US in nuclear missiles arguably encouraged Khrushchev to continue gaining greater military strength.…

    • 1482 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Brilliant Essays