President John F. Kennedy is today celebrated as much for his steady leadership during tumultuous times as he is lauded for his eloquence and ability to inspire. At no time during his presidency, and perhaps during his life, would JFK be asked to handle an event more challengingùand more potentially combustibleùthan the Cuban Missile Crisis. Taken together, the famed thirteen days in October of 1962 encapsulated the Cuban Missile Crisis and also defined a presidency and signified what history reveals as being arguably the hottest moment of the Cold War era. JFKÆs performance during the Cuban Missile Crisis exemplified a leadership style that was inclusive yet decisive, flexible yet strong. For his efforts, the world was spared a nuclear catastrophe.
By 1962, the Cold War had been creating tension for more than 15 years. Since 1945, advancements in nuclear weapons technology had made the threat of war between superpowers an unimaginably dangerous concept. The advent of hydrogen bombs, intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) inflated the Cold War to truly global proportions. In 1962, a world war that pitted the USSR against the United States would spell disaster not merely for millions, but for hundreds of millions (Thorpe & Staerck 28).
Revolution in Cuba in 1959 brought Fidel Castro to power. The US did not appreciate Castro and his communist policies, and grew particularly hostile to the Cuban State once it began receiving backing from the USSR. Acting on these mounting fears and suspicions, in 1961 the US trained and equipped 1,500 Cuban exiles in the hope that this force could invade and overthrow Castro; a spectacular failure, the Bay of Pigs invasion that resulted was a humiliation for the Kennedy administration and the US, and exacerbated tensions between the US, Cuba, and the USSR. Fearing future attacks by the US, CastroÆs reliance on his Soviet b...