Essay On The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the turning point where the two most powerful country’s as well as the rest of the world realized the potential and fears of all out nuclear war.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13 day military and political standoff in October 1962 over the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba, 90 miles from U.S. coast. In a television broadcast on October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy spoke to the American public about the presence of the nuclear missiles. He told the public his decision to start a naval blockade around Cuba and spoke clearly that the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to stop this perceived threat to the national security of the United States. After hearing this news, many Americans feared the world was on the cusp of nuclear war. However, nuclear war was prevented when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. making a promise not to attack the country of Cuba. President John F. Kennedy also agreed to remove U.S. nuclear missiles that were stationed in Turkey.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a sobering event in history due to the fact

The Soviet Union had always disagreed with the number of nuclear weapons that were placed strategically from sites in Western Europe and Turkey by the U.S., and they see the missiles in Cuba as a way to deter the U.S. from further action towards them. Another important factor in the Soviet nuclear missile plan was the bad relationship between the U.S. and Cuba. The Kennedy administration had already launched one attack on the country of Cuba with the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Fidel Castro and Khrushchev saw the missiles as a means of preventing further attacks from the