Download cuban missile crisis

On October 14, a U-2 spy plane over western Cuba
discovered the missile sites. President Kennedy demanded
that Khruschev remove them, but he refused.
Kennedy had already tried unsuccessfully
to invade Cuba to overthrow the
communist government of Fidel Castro.
Khrushchev assured President Kennedy
that he would not put offensive weapons
in Cuba but he began to do so in August
of 1962.
On October 14, 1962, American U-2s
photographed a Launchpad under
The Kennedy administration increased the size construction that, when completed,
of the army and quadrupled its nuclear arsenal. could fire nuclear missiles with a range
Unable to compete with America’s military
of 1,000 miles.
superiority, the Soviet leader Khrushchev
At the risk of nuclear war, the Kennedy
began to look for some way to save face. He administration wanted those nuclear
found it in Cuba.
weapons out of Cuba.
How America should respond to the missile crisis became the focus of 12 days of
intense activity within the Kennedy administration. The President formed an emergency
Executive Committee, led by his brother Robert Kennedy, to advise him on the crisis..
John Hughes briefs SecDef McNamara on Soviet missile sites in
President Kennedy’s goals:
Cuba in 1962. DoD photo.
• Get missiles out of Cuba
• Avoid nuclear exchange
• Prepare for Russian moves
elsewhere
• DO NOT lose face
A heated debate produced options:
• Launch a nuclear strike against the
missile sites
• Launch a conventional air strike,
followed by an invasion
• Initiate a naval blockade to prevent
the Soviets from sending further
material to Cuba
President Kennedy chose the naval blockade as the initial American response.
European allies were notified, and on October 22 he went on television to break the
news to the American people. He announced that the United States was imposing “a
strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment” being shipped into Cuba.
He warned the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) that America would consider any nuclear
missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an
attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a military response.
Khrushchev wrote a letter to
Kennedy on October 23rd that
warned the U.S.S.R. would NOT
observe the illegal blockade.
Soviet ships would refuse to be
stopped by the blockade.
Work on missile sites continued
without interruption, and would
soon be operational.
American ships stopped and boarded a Panamanian vessel headed for Cuba
carrying Russian goods but it contained no military material.
A Soviet surface-to-air missile shot down an American U-2 spy plane flying over
Cuba.
Confidant that the blockade had failed to stop the
Soviets, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended an
immediate airstrike on the missile sites.
The world was now on the
brink of nuclear war.
Finally, Khrushchev sent a letter to
President Kennedy proposing that
the Soviet Union would withdraw its
missiles from Cuba if:
• The U.S. withdrew the blockade
• The U.S. promised never to
invade Cuba again and
• The U.S. withdrew American
missiles from Turkey
President Kennedy was willing to
agree to two demands. Publicly the
President refused to back down on
the missiles in Turkey.
Robert Kennedy met secretly with
the Soviet ambassador and told
him that the missiles in Turkey
would also be removed.
The next day, the Soviets
announced that their missiles would
be removed. The crisis was over.