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... attack. After the failed Bay of Pigs on Cuba of 1961, by the United States, Castro believed that a second attack was certain. To provide some protection for his country, he approved Khrushchev's plan to place missiles in Cuba.
By the summer of 1962, the Soviet Union was working quickly and secretly to build the missile installations on the island. For the United States the crisis began on October 15, 1962 when reconnaissance photographs were taken of Soviet missile installations under construction in Cuba. The next morning, President John F. Kennedy was made aware of the situation in Cuba and quickly assembled a group of twelve advisors, called EX-COMM, to help him throughout the crisis.
After seven days of intense discussion with government officials, he ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba to prevent any more weapons form arriving at the island. On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy made the events public and tensions rose throughout the world. Kennedy demanded that all Russian arms be removed from Cuba immediately. During the crisis Kennedy ordered low-level missions over Cuba every two hours to keep watch over the progress. On the twenty-fifth Kennedy moved the quarantine line back and raised the military readiness level.
Then on the twenty-sixth the United States' government received a letter from Soviet Premier Khrushchev promising that the Soviets would retreat form Cuba under the condition that the American government would not plan another attack on Cuba, but the next day was worse. A plane was shot down over Cuba and another letter arrived from Khrushchev. This time the Soviet Premier asked for more in return for the removal of arms from Cuba. Khrushchev now asked that the United States remove all missiles from Turkey in return for the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy suggested that the government ignore the new letter and agree only to the first. On the twenty-eighth tensions began to ease when Khrushchev agreed to remove the missile installations in Cuba confiding in the United States' assurance that they would not attack Cuba.
The tensions during the crisis were extremely high and Soviet General and Army Chief of Operations Anatoly Gribkov described it best - "Nuclear catastrophe was hanging by a thread... and we weren't counting days or hours, but minutes. " As the tension from the missile crisis subdued, the Cold War continued and the fear of a nuclear holocaust lingered while the United States and the Soviet Union were still engaged in the Cold War with one another. The two countries still tried to find ways to get closer to the other with their nuclear arms. Now the countries tried to launch missiles from submarines near the coast of the opposing country, but the plan did not work because of closeness to the country.
The submarines would get detected too easily, so the plans continued. The "Space Race" also began to take place. The Russians launched "Sputnik": he first man-made satellite to space, but it was not only a satellite, but a spy camera as well. It could take pictures of license plates on cars and it was illegal to shoot down anything outside the atmosphere. So the Soviets were able to see what the Americans were doing without violating any law. In Russia, after the death of Russian General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko in 1985, a great change was going to occur for Russia and for the world.
One of the great reformers of the time, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, would slowly rise to the power in Russia. Between 1985 and 1990, Russia progressed dramatically. By 1990, Communism had died in Russia and General Secretary Gorbachev was now President Gorbachev. The Cold War had been going on since 1945 and the tension between the United States and Russia escalated more each day. No one knew what to expect from either country at any given time. The nuclear arms build-up and lack of negotiating caused for the Cold War to reach the heights that it did, but Russian President Gorbachev and United States President Reagan were set to compromise and allow the fear of the world to be suppressed.
Reagan, at the beginning of his presidency, changed America's view on the arms race. The country was trying to produce less nuclear arms during the Nixon era and after, but Reagan started to buildup arms once again. He believed that this way he would scare the Soviets into "Westernizing." The arms race that Reagan started was much like that which occurred in the period of time between the end of World War II (1945) until Stalin's death in 1953. He began building MX missiles and started B- 1 bomber programs once again, and started the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as the "Star Wars" defense program. People now began to fear a "Nuclear Winter" after the renewed arms race of the early Reagan administration. People believed that the sky would turn gray from ashes remaining from the bombs and no sunlight would get through.
The sky would remain dark for a very long time and the earth would slowly become lifeless and desolate. Reagan's administration began its early years with an ardent objective to produce more arms quickly to scare the Russians, but towards the later years of his command, his ideas changed, much to the disarray of his loyal supporters. For the preceding thirty years the United States and Russia were at competition trying to manufacture the most nuclear arms possible, but Reagan and the world were aware at the end of the 1980 's that the arms race was not only between the two countries anymore. More than twenty nations had now entered the arms race and they posed a threat to international security. Many people believe that Reagan was responsible for the end of the Cold War, but others disagree and say that Russian President Gorbachev was the one that put more towards the end of the Cold War and helped end the fear of war between the United States and Russia. Some believe that the United States "won" this war not because of Reagan's military buildup and the fear imposed on the Soviets and Gorbachev, but because the Soviet President knew the situation in which the Soviet Union was economically.
He had no other choice but to act upon it correctly. Then it can be said that Gorbachev "won' the war, but a true winner for the Cold War cannot be named. In all wars there are decisive battles fought and at the end one party will emerge victorious, but the Cold War was distinct and a winner cannot be determined clearly. Many people say that the true "victor was democracy." Since the end of the Second World War and the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States and the Soviet Union have been rivals at everything. Their battle was most evident through the Cold War and the most important aspect of it - the arms race. Both countries built missiles, spied on each other and advanced themselves hoping for the other to give in.
But no one really knew what reason the war had for carrying on so many years except the fact that both countries were struggling to be the most powerful in the world. A nuclear war could not be won by anyone. The aftermath of a nuclear war would leave nothing and no one to retell the story. The events that occurred during the Cold War taught the world of the effects of a possible nuclear war and made people afraid enough to help elude nuclear war at all costs. "Any nuclear war would have inevitably caused death, disease, and suffering of pandemic proportions and without the possibility of effective medical intervention. The only hope for humanity is prevention of any form of nuclear war"
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Research essay sample on United States And Russia Missiles In Cuba
