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Analytical Essay: The Cuban Missile Crisis

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The Cuban Missile crisis is a historic event that lasted a total of thirteen days. It was the Soviet and Cuban response to the United States Bay of Pig invasion in 1961. After the United States invaded Cuba the USSR decided to give more support to its communist ally. The true incident started after U.S intelligence agencies found nuclear Soviet warheads in Cuba during a surveillance mission of the island. Over the thirteen days, the United States considered 6 different options. “Do nothing: American vulnerability to Soviet missiles was not new. Diplomacy: Use diplomatic pressure to get the Soviet Union to remove the missiles. Secret approach: Offer Castro the choice of splitting with the Russians or being invaded. Invasion: Full force invasion of Cuba and overthrow of Castro. Airstrike: Use the U.S. Air Force to attack all known missile sites. Blockade: Use the U.S. Navy to block any missiles from arriving in Cuba” (Allison, Graham). The United States chose to use a blockade to stop any imports going into Cuba. Kennedy also stated that any missile launched from Cuba would be followed by a retaliatory attack by the United States. Kennedy’s response only made situations more tense between the U.S and the USSR. After many days of the blockade going nowhere, the diplomatic route was the next option. An agreement was finally …show more content…

To better understand how the individual level of analysis impacted the Cuban Missile Crisis, the criteria used will be John F Kennedy, as well as his National Security Council and how their decisions have impacted the outcome of the crisis. The leaders of the USSR and Cuba, as well as the Cubans that rebelled against their own country in the Bay of Pigs invasion, also affected the outcome of the

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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The tension escalated at alarming rates, and the world was on the brink of nuclear war. So, through Kennedy’s narrative, he provides us with insight into other key figures like Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and his brother. This ultimately allows this to be a very educational book and shows Robert F. Kennedy had a goal of collecting first-hand witnesses to provide compelling and insightful information on this pivotal moment in history. Shows the high-level decisions the government and Kennedy had to make and how it is important to stay level-headed and smart when making these world-changing decisions. Robert F. Kennedy was the United States Attorney General during the Cuban missile crisis and his brother John F. Kennedy’s presidency.

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(-- removed HTML --) This article, related to the Cuban Missile Crisis, provided us with a secondhand perspective. Additionally, it told us about the U.S.S.R. and Kennedy’s quarantine. More in depth, the U.S.S.R.’s actions after the crisis. Furthermore, this article answered frequently asked questions with compelling and thorough

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None the less Khrushchev, felt victorious as he had forced Kennedy to make concessions – by removing the Jupiter’s from Turkey and the promise from Kennedy not to invade Cuba delighted Khrushchev. Khrushchev's scheme of introducing missiles in Cuba paid off as this action constrained Kennedy into making concessions that under normal circumstances he would not have considered let alone made. It was at this point that Khrushchev had figured out how to maintain a strategic distance from direct meeting with the USA, he did this by declaring that the Cuban missiles served as prevention to US intrusion, which we now know that it was actually a feign. Defending Cuba was not critical to the USSR Khrushchev did not believe that it was worth sacrificing the USSR for Cuba. He was also very aware that they had a huge disadvantage in that the USSR’s military strength was considerably inferior to the USA.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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