Cuban Missile Crisis

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“He was neither hasty nor hesitant; he was neither reckless or afraid. He demonstrated toughness, restraint, and determination. He always exercised wisdom, analysis, and a keen sense of strategy; he was not only a leader but also a hero,” recall members of Kennedy’s former Administration when asked how well the President performed during the intense Cuban Missile Crisis. According to the contributors, President Kennedy’s leadership during the national emergency helped reduce tensions of the Cold War. (source: Cuban Missile Crisis: Evolving Historical Perspectives) Perhaps it was President Kennedy’s well-composed attitude and clear direction that led the Cuban Missile Crisis to be so successful and avoid a nuclear war that could have ended the world. Throughout all of the events that occurred during the Cold War, the Cuban Missile had one of the most crucial roles in the war and also in determining the fate of two remaining superpowers.
There were many events that occurred during the Cold War along with increased tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that it seemed almost inevitable that these two nations would go to war with each other. Once enemies who fought against each other in World War II, the two remaining superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union, were now forced to work together to decide post-war Europe’s fate at the Yalta Conference in 1945. The Cold War, which began after the end of World War II until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, was the long period of conflict between the West and the East. Tensions were already initiated at the Yalta Conference, where Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt disputed over the issues of dividing up Germany, ...

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...he removal of Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, from office.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was not only the tensest confrontation between these two nations; it was also the most controversial. There have been many different theories as to why the Soviet Union set up nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba in the first place. One theory suggests that Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, placed these weapons in Cuba because he felt endangered by the United States’ nuclear missiles in Turkey, which were a threat to the Soviet Union. Another theory proposes that Castro feared for another US invasion in Cuba, thus enlisting the help of their communist allies. Since the unsuccessful attack at the Bay of Pigs, Castro feared for another invasion, perhaps a more successful one of Cuba. But nonetheless, the Cuban Missile Crisis proves to be successful in which we avoided a nuclear war.

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