Cuban Missile Crisis The Events Leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis • 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 • 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: • April 1961 • Failed attempt by JFK and the U.S. to support Cuban revolutionaries overthrowing Fidel Castro Consequences: • Strengthens Castro’s alliance with Russia • Strengthens Castro’s position as leader of Cuba • A foreign policy embarrassment for U.S. Operation Mongoose • November 1961 • Goal: Overthrow the Communist Regime in Cuba • 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 • Germany, November 1961 • Threatens to sign a treaty with East Germany that will have East Germany close all access roads to West Germany • Instead, wall built of concrete (barbed wire on top) • 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 • ______________________________________________ • ______________________________________________ • ______________________________________________ • *Operation Mongoose (1961), • ______________________________________________ • Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) * Is a secret operation How close is Cuba to the U.S.? ______________________________________________ Revolution in Cuba • In ________________ there is a ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Chooses Russia as Cuba’s ally (not the U.S.) Bay of Pigs Invasion Event: • ______________________________________________ • ______________________________________________and the U.S. to support Cuban revolutionaries ______________________________________________ Consequences: • _________________________________________________________________________________________ • ________________________________________ position as ___________________________________ • A foreign _______________________________________________ Operation Mongoose • November 1961 • Goal: ___________________________________________________ • 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 • Germany, November 1961 • _________________________________________________________________________________________ that will have East Germany close all access roads to West Germany • Instead, wall built of concrete (barbed wire on top) • ______________________________________________ (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. _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ Who are the key players and why are each of them important? What is their role in the Cuban Missile Crisis? 1: ______________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 2: ______________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 3: _______________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 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."