Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
16 Oct – 28 Oct 1962 The Cuban Missile crisis (How the USA could respond…
16 Oct – 28 Oct 1962 The Cuban Missile crisis
The Cuban Revolution
In
1959
Fidel Castro overthrow Batista
in the Cuban revolution
When Castro did this he.....
Took over
many
US
owned
businesses
Took over
and
gave land
owned by the
US to farmers
Became
'friends'
with the
USSR
Kruschev
sent him
advisers and lots of aid
The Bay of Pigs
January 1961
, Kennedy supplied
1,500 exiles
with weapons and transport to get to Cuba
(along with some US troops)
When they
went to attack
they where
met by 20,000 Cuban troops
as the
exiles told their families
who in turn
told the military.
Kennedy
tried to
mask the attack
by
painting over the USA's ships
etc
After the
failed attack
they
became fully Communist
and began the missile crisis.
The beginning of the missile crisis
After the Bay of Pigs
Khrushchev gave Castro l
arge amounts of Soviet military equipment
to make sure that
Cuba stays free from the US
Why they put missiles in Cuba
They wanted to
close the missile gap between US
and Russia (The
United States had 203 ICBMs
whereas the
USSR had only 36
)
The
US had missiles in Turkey
close to Russia
The
Russians had lots of mid range missiles
that couldn't reach the US from Russia
Missiles in Cuba
would
strengthen Khruschevs barraging
point against Kennedy
Khrushchev wanted to keep hold of Cuba
as it was the
only Communist country in the west
He wanted to be
seen as more powerful
compared to the US
How the USA could respond
14th of October 1962
a U2 spy plane
photographed the construction of nuclear missile silos
Kennedy could have done
several things....
He could have done nothing
For this idea:
the USA had a much
larger nuclear missile force.
Against this idea:
The US would be
seen as weak
and
encourage the Russians to oppose them more
He could do surgical airstrikes:
For this idea:
Destroy the missiles
before they could be used
Against this idea:
They
might not destroy all the missiles
and then get attacked
He could do a full scale invasion of Cuba
For this idea:
Remove missile bases and Castro
from power
Against this idea:
The
USSR would respond with war
possibly nuclear war
He could press diplomatic pressure:
For this idea:
Involvement of
big countries may pressure him
into removing them
Against the idea:
This was very
unlikely to do anything
He could make a Blockade
For this idea:
This would be
firm action
not showing too much force and
allowed for other actions
if it doesn't work
Against this idea:
This wouldn't remove the
already existing weapons in Cuba
Day by day of the missile crisis
14 October 1962
The flight of a
U2 spy
plane Kennedy ordered took place
showing nuclear missile
silos
being made
16 October 1962
Kennedy forms a group called
EX-COMM
to discuss
what to do
18 October 1962
Kennedy and the Soviet foreign minister
(Gromyko) meet and he t
ells Kenady that there are no offensive missiles in Cuba
21 October 1962
Kennedy
decides
on the
blockade
as a reaction
24 October 1962
The
blockade
begins
27 October 1962
A
letter from Khrushchev
arrives saying
he will move the missiles out of Cuba if the US does theirs out of Turkey
Why did Kennedy react as he did
Kennedy was under
huge amounts of pressure
from the
US military leaders
to bomb Cuba and invade which would lead to a war
Instead he tried to give Himself and Khrushchev a
means of peacfully solving it
He used
Khruschevs letter
as a way of
seeing new ways out of it
and convincing the USSR
they where ready for war
The end of the crisis and its outcomes
Broadly
They had both decided that nuclear
war would end in MAD
They
set up a hotline
that was phone directly form the Kremlin to the Whitehouse to try to prevent wars like this
in
1963 the test ban treaty
was passed trying to stop large nukes bing produced
Who won?
The USA
For
:
Kennedy
was seen in the media and
over the world as the victor
as he stood up to them and they backed down
He also
stood up to some of his military advisers
showing how dangerous their ideas where
Against:
He
agreed to not invade
Cuba and move
missiles out of Turkey
Castro remained in power
He
made lots of enemies
in this and was distrusted by some of his
generals
as he
wasn't prepared to fight against the 'red scare'
The USSR
For:
Khrushchev
has
prevented a invasion
from the US and had been
told they would not invade again
In public he could say he
acted as a peace maker
removing the missiles from Cuba
The
US took the missiles out of Turkey
although this agreement was made in secret
Against:
The
USSR lied to the UN
about missiles in Cuba
Khrushchev had been forced to back down
in the face of US pressure
humiliating them
in
1964 Khrushchev was replaced
as a soviet leader
Cuba
For:
Castro remained in power
Cuba
was still
heavily armed
USA
promised
no longer invade
Against:
They where
isolated
as the
US didn't trade
with them and they where
heavily dependant on the USSR