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Cubas role in the Cuban missile crisis
Americas role with cuba history
Americas role with cuba history
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The Cuban Missile Crisis: JFK’s Second Shot at Cuba
Although some historians have blamed Soviet aggression as the root cause of the Cuban Missile Crisis, they have neglected to account for the disruption in U.S.-Cuba relations caused by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion which President John F. Kennedy had directed. The failure of the Bay of Pigs can be attributed to Kennedy’s overconfidence in the military even though the CIA knew American forces would be devastatingly outnumbered. So when Kennedy had received news of the Soviet missiles build up in Cuba during the October of 1962, the crisis was just a continuation of unresolved conflict. Fearing a nuclear war, the Kennedy Administration cautiously deliberated about possible approaches. The U.S. considered an air strike, an invasion, or a naval quarantine as an appropriate response to this crisis. Although the members of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm) initially considered decisive military action, Kennedy, reflecting upon his executive decisions in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, decided against military aggression. Even if the invasion had sparked U.S.-Cuba hostility, it was critical in convincing Kennedy that relying on the military and top CIA officials were not always effective ways to deal with conflicts. The lessons learned from the Bay of Pigs Invasion saved the U.S. from crisis by influencing President Kennedy to consider military combat, aggression that would have escalated to nuclear war, as the last resort in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Even if the Bay of Pigs was a disaster because Kennedy didn’t account for the possibility of failure, the aftermaths heavily influenced his administration to utilize military combat as a last resort in...
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...e learned from the Bay of Pigs disaster. Unfortunately, Kennedy was pressured by top CIA officials into approving of a plan that was doomed to fail from the start. And to make matters worse, Kennedy’s lack of planning for the possibility of failure further doomed the exiles when he didn’t provide any backup aid. After losing foreign credibility among Latin America, the Kennedy Administration continued secret operations in hopes of justifying itself. So when Soviet missiles were discovered on October 16, Kennedy was by far more experienced then he had been a year ago. He realized the importance of preventing a nuclear war and made executive decision to negotiate rather than initiate military conflict. Ironically, the Cuban Missile Crisis would never have happened if Kennedy hadn’t executed the Bay of Pigs Invasion. But Kennedy did get a second shot at Cuba after all.
On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy reached out to America and the Cubans with his Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation. During this time, the Cold War had occupied several countries of world. This war resulted from tensions, military and political, between Russia and its allies and America, its allies, and the Western Hemisphere. When President Kennedy gave his speech, Russia had occupied Cuba and began building military bases that contained nuclear warheads and other deadly missiles. People of America saw this as a threat to the freedom of the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere. In a time of great tension and fear, President Kennedy delivered his spectacular and reassuring speech that appealed to the citizens of American in several ways.
"Kennedy's Cuban Crisis Is Risky as a Precedent." - Harvard. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2014.
This investigation will be an evaluation of President Kennedy’s Executive Committee and the repercussions of the decisions made during the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tape recordings and files had been deemed classified, but these files are now released and the decisions made by the government can be assessed to the fullest extent. This can produce major implications regarding the relationship between what was then the Soviet Union and the United States. The public was kept in the dark about several courses of action, including the removal of American missiles and many other surprising judgment calls that may be a cause of international security between the two country’s today.
The story of the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs , located on the southern coast of Cuba about 97 miles southeast of Havana, was one of mismanagement, poor judgment , and stupidity ( " Bay Pigs " 378). The blame for the failed invasion falls directly on the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and a young man by the name of President John F. Kennedy. The whole purpose of the invasion was a communist assault Cuba and Fidel Castro ended . Ironically , thirty nine years after the Bay of Pigs , Fidel Castro remains in power . First, we need to analyze why the invasion happened and then why it did not work .
The account is told from Robert F. Kennedy's point of view. Kennedy was a key player in the decisions made during the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy believed that the United States should try and resolve The Cuban Missile Crisis peacefully and that the United States needed to try and avoid resolving to violent measures. Kennedy took over for his brother, the President on many occasions. He led important meetings and tried to negotiate an understanding with the other cabinet members who were involved. At first he believed that a blockade around Cuba would be the right maneuver and his proposal was supported by the majority of the other members. Soon he realized though that the Russians were not planning on negotiating or dealing with this matter in any peaceful manner. Though apposed to it Kennedy moved for an air strike. He was very uncomfortable with the idea and he showed this with his remark to the president of "I now know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor.
...ity of the blame went onto Kennedy's record as not being the one that had planned it out and not giving the go ahead for the second air raid. It was later proven that no matter what the outcome of the second air raid would have been, it would not have mattered. The CIA also released a document taking the full responsibility and blame for the incident at the Bay of Pigs. The Cuban Missile Crisis not only worried the U.S. but also worried the rest of the world as to how it would turn out. The Soviet's backed Cuba as an ally and fed them missiles and the supplies to build the missile silos in Cuba. The Soviet's said they did this as a counter measure incase we did in fact invade Cuba. Between these two major conflicts of the time, it can be said that the two countries were not battling over Cuba in itself, but more or less battling over the belief of Communism.
In the Early Years: 1961-1963, Kennedy administration and Vietnam take flight. Assumptions behind the administration's decisions to increase U.S involvement in Vietnam strains two very important aspects that would gainsay obligation; one, the fall of South Vietnam to Communist control and the U.S military role and support. Discussion of knowledgeable ties to Southeast Asia emerged. Lack of governmental experts created obstacles. When the Berlin crisis occurred in 1961and during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, President Kennedy was able to turn to senior people like Llewellyn Thompson, Charles Bohlen and George Keenan, who knew the Soviets intimately. There were no senior officials in the Pentagon or State Department with comparable knowledge of Southeast Asia. Ultimately, the administration failed to critically analyze their assumptions and the foundations of their decisions, which inevitable ended in disaster.
Kennedy took full public responsibility for the Bay of Pigs disaster though secretly he blamed the CIA. Kennedy fired three of the CIA?s top men whom were responsible for the operation: Director Allen Dulles, who was later a member of the Warren Commission (Lifton 176), General Cabell, and Richard Bissel. (Morrissey) After the CIA lost time, effort, and people in the attempt to secure Cuba, the CIA became hostile and wanted to get rid of Kennedy to prevent him from losing more ground, especially in Vietnam.Adding to the fire were Kennedy?s secret commitments to pulling out of Vietnam and his threat to?Smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them in the wind? (Belzer 79)
May, Ernest R. “John F Kennedy and the Cuban MIssile Crisis.” BBC News. BBC., 18 Nov. 2013.
The docudrama ‘13 Days’ depicts the conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union which nearly ended in a cataclysmic crisis widely known as the Cuban Missile crisis. The course of events and the escalation of the crisis during the intense 13-day period in October 1962 are conveyed to the audience through the perspective of US political leaders. The crisis begins as U-2 spy planes evidence that Soviet leader, Khrushchev, had intermediate-range missiles deployed to Cuba in secrecy and is in the process of activating them. The movie surfaces the conundrums faced by President Kennedy in deciding appropriate actions to be undertaken, such that the missiles in Cuba are removed without resorting to war. Audiences are acquainted with the various complexities involved in the decision making processes, as President Kennedy not only had to deal with the antagonistic Soviet Union, but also disagreements within his own administration.
The Cuban Missile Crisis began with a set of photographs taken over Cuba by an American pilot.2 These photographs showed that Russians were building missile bases in Cuba and placing missiles and atomic weapons there that were easily within range of the United States. President JFK and Robert Kennedy were both stunned. From this point a board of advisors was created and called the Ex Comm, who met every day during those thirteen days and debated the various courses of actions, and consequences of each, that the president could take. Kennedy emphasizes the making of this board as a lesson for future government officials because he believes that it "proved conclusively how important it is that the President have the recommendations and opinions of more than one...point of view."3
He was also a Gulf War veteran who commanded an armored cavalry. His desire in writing this book was to examine, through the recently declassified documents, manuscript collections, and the Joint Chief of Staff official histories, where the responsibility for the Vietnam foreign policy disaster lay, but also examine the decisions made that involved the United States in a war they could not win. This book details the discussion of government policy in the stages of the Vietnam crisis from 1961-July 1965. It examines the main characters of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara, in addition to the military, which included the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It began in the Kennedy era amidst the Bay of Pigs incident and how that led to mistrust of the military planning by advisors and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The first point that made John F. Kennedy responsible for handling the Cuban Missile Crisis, well, was his way of managing the public. In every crisis, a leader must always keep in mind of the reactions of the people because if it is ill dealt with, disastrous and chaotic consequences could ensue. Thus, even though nuclear warfare was prevented; credit should also be given to how the public of the United States did not end up in turmoil. To access how the public did not end up in chaos, one has to look into the genesis of when the majority of the American citizens received the news of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the first place. This leaves with only one source, which was the public address from President John F. Kennedy on October 22, 1962.1
With the Cold War in full swing when he stepped into office, President Kennedy had no choice but to turn to Cold War ideology when determining the country’s foreign policy. For example, the Peace Corps, which “…sent young Americans abroad to aid in the economic and educational progress of developing countries” (Foner 969) was spawned out of the desperation to improve the global image of America. When President Kennedy took office in 1961, the United States’ image was still subpar to that of other nations. The Cold War ideology obsessed over making the United States the image of freedom and conveyer of lifestyle ideals, and Kennedy’s Peace Corps aimed to show the rest of the world that Americans cared deeply about the success of other countries. Through the Kennedy Administration, the United States also showed that they cared for other countries, in an effort to improve their global image and spread their ideals of freedom, through the Alliance for Progress. Much like the Marshall Plan, the Alliance for Progress provided sums of money to economically support Latin American countries. Kennedy claimed that the program would promote “…‘political’ and ‘material freedom’” (Foner 970), with the hopes of diminishing the appeal communism could have on the countries. In addition to aiming to improve the United States’ image, some of Kennedy’s foreign policy had roots in the Cold War ideology of containment. As tensions with Cuba began to rise after Fidel Castro took over the government, Kennedy sought for ways to eliminate Castro’s control in order to contain his revolution’s influence. Most notorious, the Bay of Pigs disaster was a U.S.-planned...
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major event in U.S History that almost led to nuclear destruction. It was over a period of thirteen days in which diplomats from the U.S and the Soviet Union were trying to reach a peaceful resolution so that they wouldn’t have to engage in physical warfare. The crisis was the hallmark of the Cold War era which lasted from the 1950’s to the late 1980’s. The Cold War was a power struggle between the U.S and Soviet Union in which the two nations had a massive arms race to become the strongest military force. The U.S considered Communism to be an opposing political entity, and therefore branded them as enemies. Khrushchev’s antagonistic view of Americans also played a big role in the conflict. The Cold War tensions, coupled with a political shift in Cuba eventually lead to the military struggle known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the point of most tension and near collapse causing the Cold War to almost shift from a passive and underground struggle to a violent and catastrophic one.