Cuban Missile Crisis
In a sugar nutshell
The Cuban Missile Crisis happened after the Bay of Pigs invasion, in which the Americans were
defeated quite quickly. John F. Kennedy, like the previous president before him didn’t want to show
Americans weakness. Therefore, he went ahead with the Bay of Pigs invasion. And also reacted to
the USSR when they decided shipping ICBM to Cuba.
If the U-2 spy plane piloted by Major Richard Heyser did not spot the Soviet SS-4 medium range
ballistic missile, the Cuban Missle Crisis would might have looked something different. But he did.
Kennedy was alerted, and he set up a team to due with this situation called ExComm. And for weeks
to come, the president and his team discussed with the Soviet government about the crisis that was
enfolding.
Nikita Khrushchev wanted to deliver the ICBM to Cuba as:
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Was a communist country in Latin America.
Close to the US, therefore imposing a threat to the US
Wants to make the US feel as threatened as the USSR feels as there were nuclear weapons
capable of hitting the USSR from Western Europe and also Turkey.
Wants US to stop playing an aggressor.
Kennedy and his team came out with ideas to stop the USSR plans with Cuba. Of all the plans there
were, one involved bombing Cuba and invading them again. Kennedy didn’t let the plan go through.
He would block Soviet ships from passing into Cuba and also sending an ultimatum demanding the
missiles be removed.
On 24. Oct 1962, a Soviet ship was blocked by the American blockade heading for Cuba. If the Soviet
ship had spearheaded into Cuba or fired shots at the American ships, it might have led to a major
conflict. It didn’t happen. On 27. Oct 1962 however, a reconnaissance plane ridden by Major Rudolf
Anderson was shot down over Cuba, almost sparking a conflict.
Both leaders didn’t want to have a conflict that involved both countries. On the 26th and 27th Oct.
1962, the Soviet leader Khrushchev sent 2 letters to the American leader, Kennedy. The first letter
stated that he would remove the missiles from Cuba if the US promise not to invade Cuba. The
second later was that the USSR would remove their missiles if the US removed their missiles from
Turkey. The Americans agreed with the first letter, officially. They promised not to invade Cuba in
exchange for USSR removing their missiles. However, they didn’t reply to the second letter, but did
remove their missiles from Turkey without the USSR knowledge. This was to trick the USSR in
thinking that the US was still powerful. This is considered power play.
The result of this crisis was that a “hot line” was established between the USSR and US so that if any
similar events happens, they would not need to send each other mails. They could call each other
instead to defuse the situation. Both super powers signed 2 treaties that delt with nuclear weapons.
One of them called the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
However, a dark side of this missile crisis was that it boosted USSR need for more ICBM that could be
launched from Soviet ground to the USA.