Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in October 1962 when the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Premier Nikita Khrushchev, began placing offensive ballistic missiles in Cuba, just miles off the U.S. coast. Traditionally, historians have contended that Khrushchev began placing the missiles in Cuba from a position of strength intended to defy a weak foe, President John F. Kennedy. They emphasized the apparent resolve Kennedy showed in dealing with Khrushchev, essentially portraying Kennedy as a man who finally became presidential during a military crisis that brought his country the closest it had ever been to nuclear war. More recently, however, historians have revisited their ideas about the nature of the crisis as well as the particular skill-set on which Kennedy relied to diffuse the crisis. Today, historians are far more likely to categorize the missile crisis as a political crisis and to praise Kennedy's political shrewdness and strategy for creating a space in which both countries could step back from the brink of a terrible misunderstanding.

On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy announced that the United States was placing a "quarantine" on Soviet ships carrying weapons heading for Cuba (Pious, 2002, p. 81). Six days later, on October 28, the Soviet Union announced it would remove ballistic missiles it had placed in Cuba in return for the United States' pledge that it would not invade Cuba or undermine its communist regime (Pious

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ly, historians have concluded that Kennedy forced Khrushchev to back down because Kennedy understood Khrushchev's psychology and the Executive Committee understood how to manage the Soviets (Pious, 2002, p. 83). There was, in fact, significant disagreement between Kennedy and the Committee on how to approach the crisis. In particular, former ambassador to the U.S.S.R. and Executive Committee member Llewellyn "Tommy" Thompson urged Kennedy to take a hard line with the Soviets. Thompson believed that any negotiation showed weakness and any compromise would be a defeat (Pious, 2002, p. 83). He even believed that it might have been necessary to "kill[] some Russians" to establish the rigidity of the American position on the issue. Thus, Kennedy and the Executive Committee clashed on Kennedy's willingness to agree to Khrushchev's demand that Kennedy remove the Turkey missiles in return for Khrushchev's agreement to remove the Cuba missiles (Pious, 2002, p. 85). Earlier that year, the U.S. had placed ballistic missiles in Turkey. These missiles were aimed at the Soviet Union. Even before the Cuban crisis, in August 1962, Kennedy had been aware of Khrushchev's desire that the U.S. remove its missiles from Turkey. Kennedy had even told
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Approximate Word count = 1356
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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