Cuban Missile Crisis

Introduction

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban missile crisis has traditionally been taught in American universities as a shining example of crisis management. It demonstrates how the national security really works, how bureaucrats clash and maneuver, how politicians react to the pressure of narrowing options and how important decisions are made.

January 1, 1959 in Cuba after a long civil war, communist guerrillas led by Fidel Castro overthrew the government of President Batista. The U.S. was alarmed by the prospect to get in their backyard communist state. In early 1960 the administration of Eisenhower instructed the CIA to establish, equip and prepare secretly in Central America, a brigade of 1,400 Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro's regime, Administration of Kennedy having inherited the plan to continue preparations for the invasion. The brigade landed at the bay of pigs, on the southwestern shore of Cuba, 17 April 1961, but was defeated on the same day. (Stiles, 81)

Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy proposed to promise not to invade Cuba. Then the Soviet Union was able to remove from the island of their weapons. President of the United States replied that the U.S. is ready to assume the gentleman's commitment not to invade Cuba if the Soviet Union will take its offensive weapons. Thus, the first steps towards peace were made.

According to Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs, in May 1962 he believed the idea of placing intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba as a means of anticipating an emerging conduct of the United States in formulating and spreading strategic missiles. He also demonstrated the scheme as a means of defending Cuba from another United States-sponsored invasion, such as the failed effort at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

After obtaining Fidel Castro's approval, the Soviet Union worked quickly and secretly to build missile installations in Cuba. On October 16, President John Kennedy was shown reconnaissance photographs of Soviet missile installations under construction in Cuba. After seven days of guarded and intense debate in the United States administration, during which Soviet diplomats denied that installations for offensive missiles were being built in Cuba, President Kennedy, in a televised address on October 22, announced the discovery of the installations and proclaimed that any nuclear missile attack from Cuba would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union and would be responded to accordingly. He also imposed a military quarantine on Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of offensive military weapons from arriving there. (Stiles, 81-82)

Discussion and Analysis

The Cuban intelligence agents managed to infiltrate the ranks of the brigade, so the plan of operation was previously known to the Government of Cuba which made it possible to pull off the landing area a significant number of troops. Where the remaining landed fighters were finished, "the hand of Washington was immediately recognized, prompting worldwide outrage. The Soviet Union had brought from Cuba, its missiles and bombers. On 20 November, the U.S. lifted the military blockade of the island. Cuban (also known as Caribbean), the crisis ended peacefully, but it gave ...