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... ack of the missiles, which had been camouflaged and moved soon after Kennedys speech. Low flying spy planes encountered heavy fire and on October 27 Cubans shot down a U- 2 plane, killing its pilot. After this the Kennedy administration debated the question of an air strike on Cuba, but retaliation ran the risk of killing some Soviets, which could escalate the crisis. Kennedy knew that the American public would support the decision of removing the missiles in Turkey, but he did not want to be seen as capitulating to Khrushchev's demands. Finally Kennedy decided that he would only react to the first offer of Khrushchev, which was that the Soviets would remove missiles from Cuba in exchange for a U.
S. pledge not to invade the island. Kennedy also planned to secretly ensure that once the missiles were removed from Cuba, the United States would remove missiles from Turkey. The Attorney General, Robert Kennedy paid a secret visit to the Soviet Ambassador to convey the presidents pledge and its terms.
In addition he warned the Soviet Ambassador that time was running out and the president would soon feel compelled to attack Cuba. However, even before Khrushchev received the ambassadors message he had already decided to remove the missiles because the risk of nuclear war was too great. Cuban leader Fidel Castro sent Khrushchev a message saying that the United States would attack Cuba anytime and the Soviets should be ready to launch. Khrushchev thought that Kennedy was serious about an air attack and an invasion was at hand. Khrushchev told his ministers to remove the missiles and only demand a non invasion pledge. On October 28 the tension began to settle and the crisis ended.
Khrushchev declared on worldwide radio that he would remove all the missiles and other offensive weapons from Cuba and expressed the trust that the United States would not invade Cuba. He also included the United States demand that Soviet light bombers be removed from Cuba. Khrushchev also invited the United Nations to come over and inspect the shipment of the missiles back to the Soviet Union. However the Cuban leader did not allow the United Nations inspectors to come in, so U. S planes did the inspection. There are many causes to why the Soviet Union decided to deploy the missiles in Cuba, however there are two main reasons for why the Soviets decided to deploy the missiles Firstly the Soviet insecurity and secondly, the fear of losing Cuba in an invasion.
The main reason was that the Soviets feared the American missiles in Turkey and wanted to take action to be secure against the missiles. The United States had spent millions of dollars in the arms race and had the advantage of having more missiles than the Soviet Union. However, Kennedy and his government had always tried to make Khrushchev believe that there was no missile gap. Kennedy made Khrushchev unaware of the missile gap because he wanted to avoid a crisis. He also wanted to make the relation between the two countries safer and better and wanted to keep the Soviet Union unaware of the missile gap in case of attack. However, this secret did not last for long.
Soon after the Berlin crisis Khrushchev knew that Soviet missiles were only powerful enough to be launched from Europe, U. S missiles, however, were capable of striking the entire Soviet Union. Khrushchev believed that United States had the advantage because there were missiles in Turkey only hundred fifty miles away. Most of all Khrushchev feared that the United States would attack first and if the Soviet Union lost the arms race badly, it would invite a first- strike nuclear attack from the Unites States. The second of the two major causes was the Cuban fear invasion of from the United States.
Since the Cuban premier Fidel Castro came to power he was aware of many of several United States attempts to oust him. Some examples were the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA backed Cuban exiles. There was also a U. S military exercise in 1962 and it was clear that the Unites States was about to invade Cuba.
Cuba knew that it could not handle the mighty United States alone; it needed help so it extended its hand to the fellow communist nation of the Soviet Union. Now when the Soviet Union saw help from Cuba, it became pleased to have found a way to counter the U. S. lead in the arms race. The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most significant and major events in the Cold War. The end of the Cuban Missile crisis was the point at which the big Cold War began to thaw.
Both sides retreated from the missile crisis. Khrushchev eventually accepted the status quo in West Berlin and the predicted conflict never took place. The end of the crisis led to the signing of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. This treaty was by Britain, the United States of America, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The treaty outlawed nuclear test explosions in the atmosphere or underwater, but allowed them underground. There were many facts the United States was unaware of.
The Soviet forces in Cuba had been equipped with nuclear weapons for battlefield use. The United States had also incorrectly estimated the number of troops in Cuba. There were more than forty thousand Soviet troops in addition to the Cuban troops. Any U. S invasion could have faced tough resistance. After the crisis the Americans criticized Kennedy for such policies as the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
The Cuban Missile Crisis finally ended after a brief and fearful period. The situation had got really bad between the two nations. Both of the nations realized that the risk of nuclear war was too high. Both leaders could not risk millions of lives in a nuclear war and they both wanted to have a peaceful way out of the crisis. Overall, it was Kennedys good judgment and the patience of Khrushchev that eventually led to the end of the crisis. Crisis led to a temporary strain in relations between the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Castro felt he had been unfairly excluded from negotiations over the fate of the missiles, which he thought Cuba needed to discourage invasion from the United States. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the worlds closest approach to a nuclear war. As we saw, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev were the two people who made good decisions to avoid such a crisis. The two leaders came to a situation where they both stopped and realized that what they were doing could lead to a very dreadful conflict.
Realizing how dreadful it could be both of them carefully and wisely backed off. Works Cited The Cuban Missile Crisis < web 761579929 0 /Cuban Missile Crisis. html> The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 18 - 29, 1962 < web > The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 < web mis cri / declass . htm> An Overview of the Crisis < web >
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Research essay sample on Cuban Missile Crisis At The Brink Of Abyss
