Kennedy's Response To The Cuban Missile Crisis Case Study

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Explain and Critique the Kennedy administrations response to the Cuban missile crisis? Was there a preferable course of action that could have been pursued by the Americans?
The Cuban missile crisis was an unprecedented and extremely tense instance in history. Due to a build up through the cold war; the arms race; and the Bay of Pigs; those arguably unnecessary thirteen days retained the potential to dramatically change the entire fate of the world. However, an in-depth understanding of the events that took place is crucial to our study of foreign policy. Why did Khrushchev place the missiles in Cuba? Why did the US respond in that manner? There are many different scenarios that could have resulted in the potential annihilation of the world. …show more content…

It focuses on the politics within a government and suggests the product to be a result of bargaining games amongst these power players. There are many things to consider such as the weight of each player’s interests as well as what shapes their perceptions. This includes their relative power and their skills in bargaining. For Example, Robert Kennedy despite being attorney general often involved himself in other departmental affairs. He had more influence than vice president LBJ and state secretary Dean Rusk. No major issue of national security was determined without bringing Robert Kennedy into the procedure. Kennedy even used Robert to monitor executive committee meetings, and to meet with the soviet ambassador at the end - a critical moment in the Cuban missile crisis. This model suggests that outcomes are formed by interaction and competing preferences. This is true about the process of discovery over the Cuban missile crisis. Many times CIA Director McCone requested more aerial surveillance over Cuba. However he was constantly met with concern and opposition by state secretary Dean Rusk. This is an indication that had there not been a ‘tug of war’(p338,zelkow) between McCone and Rusk, discovery of the missiles would have come sooner and significantly impacted the outcome of the

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