Time Line

January 1,1959 - Fidel Castro assumes power after the Cuban revolution.

December 9,1960 - Cuba openly alings it self with the soviet union and their policies.

January 3,1961 - The U.S. terminates diplomatic relations.

April 17,1961 - Bay of Pigs, a group of Cuban exiles backed by the U.S. invades Cuba but as resulted in a failure attempt to tiger an anti Castro rebellion.

June 3-4,1961 - Khrushchev and President Kennedy hold summit talks in vienna regarding the cuban missile installation.

August 31,1962 - Senator Kenneth Keating tells the senate that there is evidence of soviet missile installation in Cuba.

September 11,1962 - The minister of the soviet foreign Andrei Gromyco warns that if America attack on Cuba it means war with the soviet union.

October 14,1962 - U-2 spying plane flying over Western Cuba obtain photographs of missile sites.

October 22,1962 - U.S military forces go to defcon.

October 27,1962 - An American U-2 is shot down over Cuba cause the Cubians killed an American pilot his name was major Rudolf Anderson.

October 27,1962 - President Kennedy sends Khrushchev a letter saying that the United State will never invade Cuba unless Khrushchev removes the missiles from Cuba.

October 28,1962 - Khrushchev announced over the radio of moscow that he will take out the missiles of Cuba.

Profile of Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro was born in 1929, he graduated from law school, he had he's mind set to rule Cuba, with the mission to free Cuba from the U.S. As Batista was on the power, it was hard for Castro to take over the island as Batista put an end to democratic elections Castro took the hills and for 6 years waged a guerrilla with Batista. Batiste's government collapsed in 1959 leaving Castro in control of the island. Milkoya the premiere of soviet union visit la Havama as Cuba knew that the island was in danger after the revolution so Fidel Castro was aware Of the U.S. He knew that having soviet union by it's side would saved them from a disaster. Fidel Castro wanted to exchange sugar by oil with the soviet union, plan in which the soviet union agree on, this made Cub and soviet union even stronger. The U.S. Had a plant to take Fidel Castro out of the power named bay of pigs, but it didn't work.

Profile of JFK

   JFK, a president who prefer peace instead of war. In October 1962, a American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear in Cuba, that were brought from the soviet union. President JFK didn't wanted neither Cuba or the soviet union to know that he already knew. He had severals meetings with he's advisor discussing how to deal with this problem. They came out with this plan to place a naval blockade, or a ring of ships, around Cuba. The aim of this plant which was named "quarantine", was to prevent the soviet union from bringing in more military supplies. President JFK demanded the removal of the missiles and the destruction of the sites. Nobody was sure of how the soviet union would respond to the naval blockade and the U.S. Demands. But both leaders JFK and Nikita Khrushchev recognized the devastation if they decided of nuclear weapons if they decided to go for a war, so they both agreed to deal in which soviet union would take out the weapons sites in exchange of the pledge for the U.S. Not to invade Cuba, also the U.S. Agree to remove it's nuclear missile from Turkey. 

Impact on the United States

Well, Cuban Missile Crisis made much impact to remember it. The relations of U.S. and Soviet needed to improved so their wouldn't be any Cuban Missile Crisis anymore. So they created a telephone line known as "hot line" between White House, Washington DC and Kremlin in Moscow. This way they could send messages to each other easily instead of sending letters which took more time.

They also started signing treating such as Non-Proliferation Treaty which stopped the countries from sharing nuclear information. The United States had their missiles all around Russia so they were forced to think that United States was going to attack. The United States learned that it was their fear which made Russia place their missiles in Cuba. Cuban Missile Crisis ended up as a major success of U.S. strategy of containment.

Vocabularies

Cold War: often cold war a state of political tension and military rivalrybetween nations that stops short of full-scale war, especially that which existed between the United States and Soviet Union following World War II.

• A permanent state of cold war was impossible to sustain.

Communism: a theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.

• Communism is based on Marxism.

Arsenal: a government establishment for the storing, development, manufacturing, testing, or repairing of arms, ammunition, and other war materiel.

• The enemy's arsenal had been uncovered by that time.

Cause: the producer an effect, result, or consequence. the one, such as a person, event, or condition, that is responible for an action or result.

• To start any war, we need to have a strong cause.

Crisis - an unsuitable situation of an extreme danger

• The United States went through many Crisis but always recover from it and start over again.

Blockade - preventing a way through of something

• The United States blockade the Soviet ships from entering Cuba.

Citations

Fleming, Fergus. The Cuban Missile Crisis: to the Brink of World War III. Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2001. Print

Taylor, David. The Cold War. Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2001. 26-27. Print.

"The Cuban Missile Crisis." 123HelpMe.com. 06 May 2011 

    <http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=23315>.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cold War stated in 1945, it was not a regular war. This war was an armed race between the west and the Soviet Union. The west was afraid that the Soviet Union wanted to spread communism and the Soviet Union feared that the west wanted to destroy it. So both sides put huge amount of money in making weapons to secure themselves. The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was a major part of Cold war. It brought the United States and the Soviet Union closer to nuclear war. 

Since 1898, most of the Cuba's economy was under U.S. control but when Fidel Castro took over in 1959, he upsets the United States because his new government took control of all the industry and businesses which were mostly owned by Americans. The United States decided to overthrow Castro. To achieve this goal, the U.S. got Cuban exiles, their plan was to march inland and gathering support as they make their way inland but surprisingly nobody joined them or supported them so it was a disaster and this plan was known as "Bay of Pigs". Castro made friend with the Khrushchev (Soviet Union), the enemy of the United States. To the communist party in Cuba, Castro was irresponsible, furious and stubborn. When Castro came in power, his first action was to reduce the rent on the island, and in 1960 he pushed the Cuba to the left forced Cubans to left. 

Basically, this crisis began on October 14, 1962, when United States U-2 spy planes flew over Cuba and photographed Soviet nuclear missiles being build.

Cuba was just 93 miles away from Florida's coast so it was obvious that the United States felt threatened. So President Kennedy called out executive meeting which included 13 advisers. After concluding that they had to take an action, they had 3 options: One was to air strike to destroy the missile bases even before they are held out to attack. The second proposal was to invade Cuba; And the last proposal was to "Put a naval blockade around Cuba to stop Soviet ships from delivering missiles" which seemed like the best option because it was not guaranteed that all the missiles will be destroyed by the air strike and invading Cuba didn't seemed like the best option because of Soviet Union.  Some committee members thought that Kennedy was being soft and it was a weak response. 

On October 24, U.S. blocked the soviet ships from entering Cuba and to their surprise the soviet ships went back without questioning. On October 26, Khrushchev (Soviet leader) wrote letter to Kennedy saying that he was willing to remove the missiles from Cuba if he guaranteed that the United States would not invade Cuba. Before Kennedy could answer the first letter he received the second which was asking to remove the U.S. missiles from turkey but Kennedy ignored that letter and responded to the first one. Kennedy agreed to not invade Cuba and on October 28, Khrushchev announced that he would be removing the missiles from Cuba. This ended the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thanked to Khrushchev for backing down because it save the world from having another nuclear war.

 

Following year, President Kennedy negotiate/compromised with Soviet for nuclear arm reduction. They signed Nuclear Test Ban Treaty on July 25, 1963, which ended the nuclear tests underwater or in the air.