Khrushchev’s time in power is especially known for being the period where the maximum level of tension was exerted between the two superpowers. Indeed, the two times world war III was the closest were the standoff at checkpoint Charlie in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis in 1952, which were conducted during his service as head of the USSR. During the Checkpoint Charlie standoff, several American and Soviet tanks stood 75m away on each side of the border, aiming at each other, for 16 hours, until they, one by one, left the zone. Such tension was repeated during the Cuban Missile crisis, which was due to the implantation of Soviet medium-length ballistic nuclear-warhead missiles in Cuba, within Striking range of the US. They led to the instauration of the Moscow – Washington hotline, often called “red telephone”, which was intended to be used as fast and reliable means for the two powers to share crucial information or to negotiate in the case of an emergency, to manage to avoid the accidental start of a nuclear war.
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.
The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in the month of October, 1962 when American-Soviet relations were tested by the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba by the Soviet Union. Many historians point to this moment in time as the closest the United States and the Soviets ever came to nuclear war. The tensions began to rise once the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, supported by the American government, failed to remove Fidel Castro from power in Cuba. As a result, Castro was open for the Soviet Premier Khrushchev to place troops and nuclear missiles to threaten the United States. Khrushchev considered this justifiable because of the American missiles positioned in Turkey.
A large component of the Cold War was the Cuban Missile Crisis; this started when the U.S. attempted to assist the rebel Cubans to defeat the Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro. The United States failed during the Bay of Pigs invasion by not properly taking out the Cuban Navy and solider as planned. After the attack, Fidel Castro gave a speech stating “Everybody, men and women, young and old, we are all one in this moment of danger. ”(Document H). This attacked caused the people of Cuba to fear what would happen if the U.S.—an omnipotent country of the time—attacked Cuba again.
was leading the race in all 8 years in the building of submarine-launched ICBMs and Long-range bombers. In the building of Land-launched ICBMs though, the U.S.S.R. took a lead starting in the year 1968 and stayed there for the rest of the 6 years. The fear of weapons being used spread panic across the world and caused countries like Cuba to as kids today say “flip out”. This “flip out” led to President John F. Kennedy giving a speech about the Cuban Missile Crisis to the American People, explaining the U.S. position. He clearly stated that the missiles that were present in Cuba were “an open threat to the peace and security of all of the Americas.”
Findings Analysis In 1962 nuclear war seemed inevitable to the world, it was the first time nuclear war was hanging on a thread. The Cuban Missile Crisis presented a threat to the world, in which the USSR planted nuclear missiles on Cuba. (Source B).America’s response was to threaten launching nuclear missiles at the Russians. Kennedy clearly stated that he is prioritising on the security of the United States and of the southern hemisphere.
The United States and the Soviet Union kept trying to out-produce each other in nuclear weapons. The competition between Americans and Soviets led to the U-2 spy plane incident. The U-2 spy plane, an American plane, was shot over Soviet territory. The Soviets accused America of spying and the incident caused “…a tremendous increase in international tension and placing peace on the brink of war” (Document 6). After the U-2 spy plane, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 began to take shape (Document 8).
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy faced a tense situation when U.S. intelligence discovered that the Soviet Union had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, which posed a significant threat to national security and could potentially lead to a nuclear war. 1. Diplomatic Negotiations: One possible course of action was for the U.S. to engage in diplomatic negotiations with the Soviet Union to remove the missiles from Cuba. The advantage of this approach was that it could avoid a direct military confrontation, but the disadvantage was that it might be seen as a sign of weakness and could embolden the Soviet Union to take further aggressive actions. 2.
In 1962, it led to a dangerous crisis that put much of the U.S in a state of fear, the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was caused when the United States discovered Soviet offensive missile sites in Cuba in October of 1962. The missiles were placed strategically so they would land on U.S soil when launched from Cuba. This was the closest the U.S and Soviet Union’s got to a nuclear war during the Cold
In 1962, Soviet missiles had been discovered in Cuba (Brownell, 52). Alongside the discovery of the Soviet missiles, multiple launch pads, fire control bunkers, and barricades were also discovered (Immell, 23) After the missiles had been found, more Soviet technicians arrived in Cuba with rocket launchers (Immell, 23). Each Cuban military base had seven missiles, four launchers, one hundred vehicles, and enough tents for five hundred men (Immell, 28). Several of the aforementioned missile sights had missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons in a range of at least 2,500 miles (Immell, 48). The Cuban Missile Crisis spread concern and fear throughout the Western hemisphere and making sure that the Soviets and Cubans did not have the resources to harm millions of innocents was an important task that the American government
Conclusion The Cuban Missile Crisis turned out to be nothing but a feud between some countries. It was an important part of the 1960’s still. One thing is that the United States knew better than to fight back because they knew it would lead to World War three.
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.
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
Before Castro came to power, Cuba was a close ally of the USA. The USA supported Batista even though he was a corrupt dictator. For precisely 13 days In October 1962, the Soviet Union and the USA teetered on the threshold of nuclear war. Resulting in Kennedy’s discovery of existing nuclear weapons in Cuba in October 1962 BODY
During the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis took place. It was when two superpowers were close to causing a nuclear war. Its main origin was when the United States invaded Cuba, on April 10, 1961; which is also known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. After the invasion, previous Prime Minister; Fidel Castro of Cuba, was ‘paranoid’ because he felt like America was planning another attack. So in order to protect his nation, he sought military and economic help from the Soviet Union.
