Kennedy Came Out of the Cuban Missile Crisis Better Than Khrushchev

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Kennedy Came Out of the Cuban Missile Crisis Better Than Khrushchev

The Cuban Missile Crisis is regarded as the most serious/ tense time

during the Cold War. It was in the period of the thirteen days that

the world came close to experiencing the first war, in which nuclear

capabilities would possibly be used.

In 1959, Fidel Castro a capitalist overthrew, the American backed

government of Cuba, lead by Flugencio Batista. This was a considerable

blow for the US as they had invested a great deal of money into Cuban

business and were on uncertain with Castro.

In 1959 - 60 Castro called for aid from the US (Marshall Aid) in order

to rebuild Cuba for the average Cuban man. Ike turned him down, and in

effect this opened the way for Cuba to become a Communist country.

Castro now turned to Russia and COMECON for aid. Khrushchev and Castro

decided on an agreement that would see the USSR buy 1,000,000 tones of

Cuban sugar a year. This brought the two countries closer together.

Now the CIA focused their efforts on assassinating Castro, to stop the

rot of Communism. Including various attempts such as an exploding

cigar, poison and an attempt to overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs,

however Castro evaded all American efforts to kill him.

In December 1961, Castro announced that he was going to set up a

Communist government in Cuba. This was yet again another blow for the

US, to have a Communist country only 90 miles away from nearest US

soil made America even tenser. There was now a Communist presence in

the Western hemisphere.

This meant;

· America's Early Warning Defense System, in the Arctic was now

virtually useless

· Kh...

... middle of paper ...

...overthrow Castro, in 1961.

Having weighed up both cases my initial impressions were that

Khrushchev came out of the crisis better than Kennedy because, it was

he who realized that they had nearly pushed each other too far. It was

Khrushchev who sent the two letters to Kennedy. Khrushchev managed to

stop a US invasion of Cuba and at the same time agree on NATO missiles

being removed from Turkey and Italy.

However Kennedy succeeded in making it look like he had won the

battle. Kennedy used Khrushchev's 'Quid Pro Quo' to make it look like

Khrushchev had backed down to the might of America, 'I think the other

man just blinked,' after all Kennedy knew that he had to win this

battle. To add to Kennedy's case Khrushchev was removed from office in

1964 due to what the Polit Bureau saw inadequate handling of the

crisis.

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