Superpowers: The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13 day military and political standoff between the two superpowers of the 20th century. Starting on the 14th of October 1962 the United States of America (US) discovered nuclear missile launch sites belonging to the Soviet Union in Cuba. For 13 days the US fought to remove these missiles, while the world was as close as it ever has been to global nuclear war and fallout.

The Batistan dictatorship came to power in 1933. The dictatorship held great relations with the US. However the dictatorship exploited the Cuban population causing unrest. A Cuban lawyer Fidel Castro fought a guerrilla war against Batista for two years. When Batista was removed Castro established a new government in 1959. At first they remained

The war was fought by proxy. Each country sought out allies and spread their ideologies around the world. For New Zealand we were the democratic capitalist ally of the US. We had a security treaty with the US called ANZUS. For the allies this would protect the Pacific from communism. The Cold War was also fought with the threat of nuclear missiles. For the US they had made an agreement in 1961 with Turkey to construct their nuclear missile stations here. This is why the Soviets wanted to have nuclear missiles in Cuba, to balance out the power, where the US had missiles not far from Soviet

Khrushchev proposed to Castro to have Soviet nuclear missile launch sites in Cuba. Castro eventually agreed to this and so the construction began.

On the 14th of October 1962, start of the Cuban Missile Crisis the US discovered these launch sites in construction. The US took this as an immediate aggressive threat needing urgent action. At first General LeMay proposed a secret invasion to remove these sites, but was quickly dismissed as there were fears it could provoke nuclear missile launches or repercussions inn Berlin, where the Allies controlled the East, and the Soviets the West from 1945, the end of World War II.

Another proposal was a naval blockade or as the White House worded it a quarantine. This would require every ship inbound for Cuba to be stopped and searched. The only problem was if a Soviet ship did not stop the US Navy may be forced to fire at it. Also during this time the US switched to DEFCON 2, which put the military on high alert and prepared their nuclear missiles for launching.

The Soviet response to the escalating US was to prepare Cuba for an invasion. They authorised any invasion force in Cuba to be attacked. They also raised their military to high