Cuban Missile Crisis
The closest the world has come to nuclear war was the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. This was the tense cold war opposition between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of the United States
The Cold War was the result of a clash between communism and capitalism, two opposing world-views. Another cause of the build up to the Cold War was the intransigent attitude of both sides. The Soviet Union was extremely concerned about its security after having been invaded twice in the twentieth century. In 1945 America created and used the atomic bomb against Japan and the USSR was determined to create one of its own. Both the USSR and the USA built up huge arsenals of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). The United States tested a hydrogen bomb in 1952 and in November 1955, the USSR developed one too. After that the USA moved its bombers into Europe. In 1955 West Germany was allowed to re-arm and join NATO. Russia responded by forming the Warsaw Mutual Defense Pact with its buffer zone neighbors.
In 1957 the Soviets used a missile to launch Sputnik 1 into orbit around the earth. The arms race evolved into a space race as the United States rushed to launch its own satellites. The space race was an opportunity for the two nations to show their technological superiority. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first orbiting satellite, on October 4, 1957. On November 3, they launched Sputnik II with the first living creature, a dog, named Laika.
On January 31, 1958 the United States launched Explorer I, its first satellite. The U.S. began its Mercury program with an 18-minute flight on January 31, 1961 that carried a chimpanzee. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, had its Vostok program and on April 12, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space and completed one orbit aboard Vostok 1. In June 1963 Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. The United States started to catch up on February 20, 1962 when John Glenn orbited the earth three times. The US Apollo 11 mission launched on July 16, 1969 and Neil Armstrong became the first person to step on the moon.
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 and brought more tension to the Cold War. The open border between East and West Berlin had permitted thousands of East Europeans to ...
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... We were lucky, too, that Khrushchev was a statesman enough to recognize that his bold gamble had failed. And lucky, finally, that during the world?s first and only (I hope) nuclear confrontation, John F. Kennedy, whose cool, prudent, prodding leadership?, was President in October 1962. He had, after all, been elected in 1960 by only a tiny margin.
References
Goldman, J., Stein, G. (August 21 1997). The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 18-29, 1962 [On-line]. Available: http://www/hpol.org/jfk/cuban/
Reeves, Richard (October 8, 1997). 13 days in October. New York Times [On-line]. Available: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/reeves.htm
Sorenson, Theodore C. (October 18, 1997). The Leader Who Led. New York Times [On-line]. Available: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/sorenson.htm
Cuban Missile Crisis [On-line]. February 1, 2005 http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761579929/Cuban_Missile_Crisis.html#endads
Cuban Missile Crisis [On-line]. February 1, 2005 Available http://www.otr.com/missile_crisis.html
Cold War: Post Estrangement [On-line] printed February 1, 2005 Available http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/coldwar.html
The Cold War in 1945 to 1953 brought about a period of tension and hostility due to the feud between the United States and the Soviet Union. The period began with the end of the Second World War. The situation acquired the title for there was no physical active war between the two rivals. The probability of the tension got to be the fear of the then rise in nuclear ammunition. Things began to roll when a US based U2 sky plane got to take photos of some USSR intermediate ballistic missiles with the capability of transporting nuclear heads.
"Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)." - The New York Times. N.p., 19 Apr. 2014. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
May, Ernest R. “John F Kennedy and the Cuban MIssile Crisis.” BBC News. BBC., 18 Nov. 2013.
The event of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. Fifteen years into the Cold War, the two superpowers continued the fierce competition to increase their military strength. In 1962, the Soviet Union was desperately behind the United States in the nuclear arms race. Soviet missiles were only powerful enough to be launched against Europe, whereas the US missiles were capable of striking the entire Soviet Union. In late April 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba which would double the Soviet strategic arsenal and provide a real deterrent to a potential U.S. attack against the Soviet Union.
Robert F. Kennedy's chilling account of his experiences with his brother, President John F. Kennedy over thirteen days in October of 1962 give an idea to the reader of just how alarmingly close our country came to nuclear war. Kennedy sums up the Cuban Missile Crisis as "a confrontation between two atomic nations...which brought the world to the abyss of nuclear destruction and the end of mankind."1 The author's purpose for writing this memoir seems to be to give readers an idea of the danger confronted during the Cuban Missile Crisis and to reflect on the lessons we should learn from it as a country, and for future members of government.
The Soviets took a lead by launching the first successful satellite into space. On October 4, 1957 the Soviets launched the first successful satellite into orbit. It was called Sputnik I and it successfully entered Earth’s orbit. This first success started the Space Age. The Soviets successful launch shocked the whole world, giving the Soviet Union the respect for putting the first man-made object into outer space. The Americans successfully launched their first satellite four months after Sputnik I, called the Explorer I. The US would have had the first satellite in orbit if they were allowed to use military rockets from the beginning. But, Eisenhower was worried he would be called a warmonger if he used military rockets for launching a satellite into orbit. He told the sci...
The world was at the edge of a third world war. This was the result of a variety of things: the Cuban Revolution, the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, US anti-communism, insecurity of the Soviet Union, and Cuba's fear of invasion all made causes for war. However, war was not the result due to great cooperation from both President Kennedy and President Khrushchev and each of the decisions made by the leaders was crucial in the outcome of The Crisis. Kennedy's choice to take action by means of quarantine instead of air-strike and Khrushchev's decision to abide by the quarantines were perhaps the two most significant decisions made by the leaders in order to prevent war. The Cuban Missile Crisis showed the world that compromising and discussion can in-fact prevent war. As Khrushchev said in 1962, "They talk about who won and who lost. Human reason won. Mankind won." 1 The world had almost seen another world war, the effects of which would have been devastating because of the weapons involved. Humanity, indeed, was the prevention of the war.
Between 1961 and today, the Berlin Wall saw many changes, and so did the people that it entrapped. Prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall, borders between East and West Germany were closed in 1952 because of tension between Communists and Democratic superpowers and the only open crossing left in Berlin. West Germany was blockaded by the Soviets and only kept alive because of air drops made by the Western Allies (Time). The Soviets had to do something about the mass amount of people leaving Soviet East Berlin for West Berlin, and the non-communist world. The most visible aspect of the Cold War was the Berlin Wall. Before the wall was constructed, East and West Germans could travel freely between the two states.
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.
The "Thirteen Days" of the Cuban Missile Crisis were, at that point, the closest the superpowers came to war. How severe this would have been is impossible to know. That this is the case was due in a large part to serendipity and the patience and understanding of the leaders. The lessons of this stand-off were not lost on either side. There were several key after-effects of this confrontation:
The space race was the product of the Cold War. It was an effort to prove technological superiority but on the other hand, it was also feared on both sides that weapons of mass destruction will be placed in orbit. In 1957, the Soviet Union sent the 184 pound Sputnik 1 satellite into Earth’s orbit. It was the first artificial satellite and the first manmade object to be placed into Earth’s orbit. Following that, they also sent the first animal into space, Laika the dog. In 1958, the United Sates also launched their first satellite into orbit, dubbed Explorer 1. The Soviet space program advanced once again in 1959. The Soviet Union launched Luna 2, which was the first space probe to hit the moon. In April 1961, the Soviet Union had the ultimate success, sending the first human into space. The name of the Russian cosmonaut was Yuri Gagarin, who made a 108 minute suborbital flight in a Vostok 1 spacecraft. One month after that, Alan Shepard became the American in space aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft. Continuing from there, each nation step...
Today, there is a single event in history that which still has an effect on the entire world. It is one among many is still discussed and debated over of it’s beginnings. Source for many social and political going-ons in the world, the Cold War is that event. So what precisely was the Cold War? Since the country had won independence and started as it’s own, we have always fought for our freedoms and the natural rights of man. The war was an arms race and a battle for individual countries’ freedom from communism in the east, and so it was therefore our duty to protect those other countries from oppressive dictation. The common enemy that is spoken of in many pieces of literature regarding the war always point their fingers at us, and that enemy was Russia. Thanks to Stalin’s ongoing invasion back in those times, today many countries are still impacted economically and socially in the east; some countries still remaining split, such as Korea, divided north and south. As such, the Cold War originated between the conflict, between the US and the UN (Soviet Russia), the UN being at fault for the most part.
In 1957 the Soviets used a missile to launch a satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit around the earth. The arms race then became a space race as the United States rushed to launch its own satellites, some for military purposes.
Chang, Laurence and Peter Kornbluh. The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. New York: The New Press, 1992.
Stern, Sheldon M. The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ., 2012. Print.