Cuban Missile Crisis Essay

“If we listen to them and do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong.”(Sherwin) is what President John F. Kennedy argued to his Generals and Executives while amid a life or death situation, better known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. On the morning of October 16, 1962, Americans were alerted to the shocking and disturbing news that tensions with The Soviet Union had increased, and the United States was on the brink of war. The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted a tirelessly long thirteen days, while terror, secrets, and restlessness overcame American society. Despite all the chaos, The Cuban Missile Crisis was an extraordinary representation of strong diplomatic leadership, and the United States' ability

During the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon, a former vice president, who was known for his extreme anti-communist beliefs. Upon Nixon's opinions and character, many historians agree that if Nixon had been president at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, then his “first step would have been bombing runs to destroy Soviet anti-aircraft emplacements and then the missiles that were poised to destroy cities in the eastern United States. This would have been followed by a full-scale invasion to assure all the missiles had been destroyed and topple the Cuban government.”(Simon). Luckily, Nixon was not president during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and “American troops [ invading] the island [and encountering] four times the 10,000 Soviet troops the CIA estimated in Cuba, [all of which] would have been massacred by an array of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons that American intelligence had not discovered.” (S5) was all avoided. Unlike Nixon, Kennedy was more level-headed and thought out all possibilities rather than rushing into one. While meeting with his advisors, Kennedy was urged to take immediate action and invade or threaten nuclear warfare against Cuba and the Soviet Union, yet he knew that a rushed decision like that could end horribly and there was no

Many negotiations between the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union had been kept a secret from the public for a long time. It wasn’t until Robert F. Kennedy published Thirteen Days: A Memoir at the Cuban Missile Crisis, in 1969, that Kennedy’s secret suggestion to the Soviets that the United States would remove missiles from Turkey if the Soviets did the same for Cuba became public (Hershberg, Talbott). Additionally in Khrushchev Remembers, Nikita Khrushchev’s memoir of the crisis, he recalled R.F.K saying that President Kennedy “[did] not know how to get out of it.” and feared that if the situation continued much longer… the military [would] overthrow him and seize power.” (Hershberg, Strobe). However, it is not certain whether Khrustev’s report of the situation is true, especially because he failed to mention Fidel Castro’s call for help and acceptance of defeat when Castro wrote to him saying, “We anticipate our destruction…There is nothing we can do to stop the Americans from destroying Cuba, other than surrender… We are prepared to disappear beneath the Caribbean Sea. But Comrade Nikita, do not worry about us. We 7.5 million Cubans are doomed only in the physical sense. We are