The Cuban Missile Crisis took place in the 1960’s not long after President John F. Kennedy’s failure in the Bay of Pigs. In October of 62’ photographs of Soviet missiles were taken from planes flying over Cuban soil. This put Americans on the edge of their seat, not prepared for another war. Kennedy already looking like a “soft president” states to the public he must take action. In his speech he states seven steps that will be taken. Any of which are not followed peacefully, will be consider an attack on the United States.…
President Kennedy was an instrumental person in decision-making, who took a stance against the U.S. intervention in the Cuban invasion to protect his presidential reputation and position. Personal values are individual beliefs that are highly influential in the decision-making process because they want to “protect or promote [their] own physical or financial well-being, reputation, or historical position.” Kennedy made a critical decision to not have an U.S. intervention in the Bay of Pigs invasion because he did not want to stand a chance of a political fallout (Wyden, 1979). Kennedy’s personal values and determined mindset provided limitations on analyzing the best choices for success to overthrow the Castro regime. When the mission called for the need of U.S. military invention, President Kennedy refused because he was persistent on protecting his personal values and presidential image.…
On the Cuban Missile Crisis, “The situation would be even graver if there were any LeMay counterparts on the Soviet side. Each side might increase its alert levels to protect its forces, but the other side would see it as preparation for war and be increasingly tempted to launch a preemptive strike (page 5)”…
First of all, the decisions to setup a quarantine to prevent any offensive weapons reaching cuba did not the problem but byed time to come up wit a better solution. Kennedy was given many options that would further protect his country but choose with option 3 that could possibly makhsoom into World…
The period of 1950 to 1979 saw the Cold War extending beyond its traditional borders in Europe and finally tore the world into a North-South polarization with each major powers supporting and sponsoring a faction in their chosen client states. This could be seen in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although Castro had genuine security reasons, his actions leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis were aggressive to a limited extent. This essay aims to examine the actions and motivations of Castro in leading to the outbreak of the Cuban Missile Crisis in order to determine the extent to which were provocative, taking examples from 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion to 1962 the outbreak of…
In the film Thirteen Days, the controversy of the historic Cuban Missile Crisis is depicted as one of America’s most trying time because for the first time the U.S and Soviet Union were eye to eye in tension. The key players were President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet Premier Khrushchev. Soviet nuclear missiles were deployed to Cuba in October 1962. The Soviet Union deployments of missiles were for defensive purposes, but the fact that the missiles were deployed close to U.S borders made this an uneasy situation. It was during this time that the president had to be prudent and make some extenuating decisions for America, while facing options of military and diplomatic solutions which included…
In October of 1962, John F. Kennedy was faced with the first crisis of his administration. The Soviets were building nuclear missile sites on Cuba, and one of JFK’s first actions was to give his famous Cuban Missile Crisis speech on October 22, 1962. JFK uses repetition, ethos, and pathos to discredit the USSR’s international standing in the world. JFK give his speech to show the people that the government has their best interests at heart. He tells the citizens about what the government has learned and what they intend to do about it. To reassure the people of the US, he describes what he has done so far, and what he plans to do in the future. In the main part of the speech, JFK turns to what the Soviets have done and the implications of this. He does this to unify the country against the Soviets. To unify them he explains how the Soviets have endangered everyone who lives in the western hemisphere, and how this has never been done before. He reinforces this by repeatedly stating that what the Soviets have said are lies. To further discredit the Soviets he shows their disregard for international agreements and for the people living in the western hemisphere.…
President Kennedy proposed a Naval Blockade despite the advice from his cabinet to order an air strike (Bojczuk 1). After five tense days, Khrushchev agreed to remove soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for the assurance that America would not invade Cuba (Bojczuk 1). Furthermore, Kennedy enacted policies supplying political, economic and military needs to the southern region of Vietnam. Support in Vietnam gradually increased to the point where troops were actually fighting against the Northern Vietnamese (Bojczuk 1). Both these examples show how Kennedy strengthened the military without using…
United States President John F. Kennedy reacted by making a naval blockade around Cuba, and promised not to invade Cuba if the Soviet Union removed the nuclear weapons from the country (“Cuban Missile Crisis”). The United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink of war, until the Premiere of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, agreed to remove the missiles (“Cuban Missile Crisis”). A possible nuclear war was averted, and there is no doubt that a nuclear war would have destroyed not only the United States and the USSR, but possibly the world. On October 28th, the missiles were removed, and the conflict concluded. (“Cuban Missile Crisis”).…
John F. Kennedy's foreign policy contributed immensely to the conflicts with the Soviet Union in Cuba. The Bay of Pigs invasion was a result of Kennedy's implementation of a foreign policy that wasn’t effective with resolving problems between the opposing nations in the middle of the Cold War (Bay of Pigs happened in 1961). The Cold War represents a time of distress for the United States, as the population faced a growing threat of communism. The president realized that his tactics were inoperative while carrying out the invasion - the invasion that had been fabricated by the former president, Eisenhower. The invasion would go on to increase tensions between the two powers, rather than resolve them. The Bay of Pigs invasion supports the belief…
As Premier of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev’s communist values were polar opposite to that of President Kennedy, “do you think when two opposing views get together and shake hands, the contradictions between our systems will simply melt away? What kind of daydream is that?” Similarly to Kennedy however, Khrushchev wanted to expand his chosen political system globaly. Therefore, when the oppourtunity arose, Khrushchev chose to support Cuba against the United States following the 1962 Bay of Pigs Invasion. Taking both deffensive and offensive actions, nuclear weapsons were developed in Cuba, as well as 40,000 Soviet workers being sent and a public backing from the Soviet Union, “long live the eternal, indestructable friendship and cooperation between the Soviet and Cuban peoples.” Whilst the nuclear missiles did protect Cuba theoretically, the oppourtunity was most benefical to the Soviet Union. Reciporacy was one way in which this was achieved. In 1961 the United States military deployed intermediate range “Jupiter” nuclear missilies in Italy and Turkey, adjacent to Russia. From there the missiles could reach all of the Western Soviet Union, including Moscow and Leningrad. Therefore, by developing nuclear missiles in Cuba it reciprocated for the existing threats against the Soviet Union. Khrushchev also saw the crisis as an oppourtunity to “close the missile gap,” with the United States…
Faced with the evidence of Soviet nuclear-capable weapons in Cuba, Kennedy found his available methods of response limited. There were several factors that likely weighed heavily on Kennedy’s mind as he debated what action to take. First, the humiliation of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion attempt still resonated in the President’s mind. Kennedy believed he could not risk another disaster in Cuba without crippling U.S. prestige as well as his own. Second, during the 1960 Presidential election, John F. Kennedy made the “missile gap” between the U.S. and USSR as a major topic of his campaigning rhetoric. If the Soviets successfully established nuclear missile silos, he would appear to have failed to uphold his commitments to the American people. Third, the Joint Chief of Staff put severe pressure on President Kennedy not only to react militarily to the Soviet’s missile deployment in Cuba, but suggested that the president authorize an airstrike on the Soviet missile bases. Lastly, and perhaps the important factor that kept President Kennedy from escalating the crisis into a direct conflict, was his fear of Soviet retaliation for an American attack on Soviet or Cuban military assets or personnel. Instead of authorizing military intervention, President Kennedy sought to resolve the…
Characterizing the First World War as an epidemic of miscalculation, President John F. Kennedy pondered, “they somehow seemed to tumble into war … through stupidity, individual idiosyncrasies, misunderstandings, and personal complexes of inferiority and grandeur” (49). Reflecting upon these miscalculations, Robert F. Kennedy’s Thirteen Days documents the Cuban Missile Crisis and catalogues the President’s contemplative action amidst potential disaster. Considering the misjudgment that drove conflict in the early twentieth century, and the socio-technological paradigm shift of war, President Kennedy found remedy in the maintenance of open channels of external communication, while regarding the international domino effect of each action, and exhibiting constant skepticism in pursuit of a peaceful resolution.…
In President Kennedy’s University of Washington Speech, Kennedy said that his main goal was to work for peace, but he was willing to defend freedom with military use. So even though he wants to work peacefully there is always a military option he isn’t afraid to use. One of Kennedy’s main tactics to work towards stopping communism peacefully was Alliance for Progress. Billions of dollars were spent on this to build schools, hospitals, and roads in Latin America (Ayers 886). Kennedy did this to gain a better relationship with countries in Latin America because many of the relationships had been earlier destroyed. Another way Kennedy helped poorer nations gain stability was through the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps sent volunteers to help countries have more experienced workers (Ayers 886). The end goal of this was to get countries functioning on their own again. Even though Kennedy liked stopping communism peacefully, he did have to use military tactics. He was willing to send arms to any countries that needed help, but he can’t send them the will to use those arms (Kennedy). Kennedy thought it was important to help all countries resist communism. Flexible Response was one of his main military tactics, and this was used to make American Forces stronger so that there would be more options other than nuclear weapons (Ayers 886). This was a negotiation so that the US could get what they want. The bay of Pigs Invasion started on April 15, 1961. The invasion was a group of unmarked US bombers flown from Nicaragua by cuban exiles in attempt to destroy Cuba’s air force, but it ended up failing (Ayers 881). As a result the U.S. agreed to leave Cuba alone and get rid of the missiles in Turkey if the Soviets would remove missiles from Cuba (Ayers 881). The Bay of Pigs Invasion is an example of flexible…
>Mixed-actor model- while not ignoring roles of state and national govn., int. politics shape broader range of interest.…