Cuban Missile Crisis
The Events Leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis
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Cuba’s Proximity to the U.S. , Cuba’s Revolution (1959), Bay of Pigs Invasion
(1961), Operation Mongoose (1961), The Berlin Crisis (1961), Cuban Missile
Crisis (1962)
How close is Cuba to the U.S.? Roughly 100 miles
Revolution in Cuba
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In 1959 there is a revolution in Cuba
Fidel Castro comes into power
Chooses Russia as Cuba’s ally (not the U.S.)
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Event:
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April 1961
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Failed attempt by JFK and the U.S. to support Cuban revolutionaries
overthrowing Fidel Castro
Consequences:
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Strengthens Castro’s alliance with Russia
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Strengthens Castro’s position as leader of Cuba
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A foreign policy embarrassment for U.S.
Operation Mongoose
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November 1961
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Goal: Overthrow the Communist Regime in Cuba
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Plan: A riot to occur in October of 1962 in Cuba.
After heavy amounts of funding and failed plans the operation is eventually
scrapped.
Berlin Wall Crisis
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Germany, November 1961
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Threatens to sign a treaty with East Germany that will have East Germany
close all access roads to West Germany
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Instead, wall built of concrete (barbed wire on top)
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Separates East Berlin (Russian Controlled) from West Berlin ( G.B., France,
U.S.)
What is the current issue with the Cuba?
What are the problems the U.S. faces?
The Events Leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis
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*Operation Mongoose (1961),
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Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
* Is a secret operation
How close is Cuba to the U.S.? ______________________________________________
Revolution in Cuba
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In ________________ there is a ______________________________________________
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Chooses Russia as Cuba’s ally (not the U.S.)
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Event:
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______________________________________________
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______________________________________________and the U.S. to support Cuban
revolutionaries ______________________________________________
Consequences:
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_________________________________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________ position as ___________________________________
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A foreign _______________________________________________
Operation Mongoose
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November 1961
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Goal: ___________________________________________________
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Plan: A riot to occur in October of 1962 in Cuba.
After heavy amounts of funding and failed plans the operation is eventually
scrapped.
Berlin Wall Crisis
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Germany, November 1961
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_________________________________________________________________________________________
that will have East Germany close all access roads to West Germany
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Instead, wall built of concrete (barbed wire on top)
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______________________________________________ (Russian Controlled)
______________________________________________ ( G.B., France, U.S.)
Second Video:
What is the current issue with the Cuba?
What are the potential problems the U.S. faces?
Take 10 minutes to complete the first two sections (Background information, and
the key players) with your group members.
Read the Background information sheet. In 4-5 sentences describe the situation
leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis below.
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Who are the key players and why are each of them important? What is their role in
the Cuban Missile Crisis?
1: ______________________________________________
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2: ______________________________________________
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3: _______________________________________________
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This should take 10 minutes
You now know the situation leading into the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Come up with three types of action JFK can take with your group members.
- What are the potential consequences taken by the Soviets in response?
- Which do you think is the best option to take and why?
1.
2.
3.
Watch the video . Write down JFK’s actual action. How does his action compare with
yours?
Explain the resolution to the crisis below after reading the “Resolution”
Homework:
Read the excerpt below of a speech JFK gave at as a commencement
address at American University in 1963. Keep in mind this is roughly
8 months after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
What does JFK appear to learn from his foreign policy experiences?
Relate specific examples in the text to the events we covered in 28.1
Be specific. This should be 2 paragraphs, (6 sentences each).
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a
Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not
the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about
genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the
kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a
better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for
all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no
sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively
invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those
forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon
contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air
forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the
deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind
and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to
generations yet unborn.
Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons
acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is
essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle
stockpiles--which can only destroy and never create--is not the only, much
less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.
I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men.
I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war-and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no
more urgent task.
Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world
disarmament--and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet
Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can
help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own
attitude--as individuals and as a Nation--for our attitude is as essential as
theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who
despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking
inward--by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace,
toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward
freedom and peace here at home.
First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think
it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist
belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind is
doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. …
Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace-- based
not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in
human institutions--on a series of concrete actions and effective
agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single,
simple key to this peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one
or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the
sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the
challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process--a way of
solving problems.
With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as
there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace,
does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they
live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and
peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations,
as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and
dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising
changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.
So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not
be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more
manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw
hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.
Second: Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is
discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their
propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet
text on Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and
incredible claims--such as the allegation that "American imperialist circles
are preparing to unleash different types of wars . . . that there is a very real
threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists
against the Soviet Union . . . [and that] the political aims of the American
imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and
other capitalist countries . . . [and] to achieve world domination . . . by
means of aggressive wars."