Cuban Missile Crisis

Bay of Pigs Invasion

• Cuba has fell to Communism and Castro is allied with the USSR because of the trade embargo.

• Kennedy could not have a communist ally 50 miles off the coast of Florida.

• Many people who did not agree with Castro and Communism fled the country and became exiles.

Bay of Pigs 1961

• Kennedy decided to get the CIA to train the exiles and plan an invasion of Cuba.

• Exiles taking country back sounds a lot better than a US invasion.

• The invasion was a great failure and Castro captured and jailed many of the exiles.

Results of Bay of Pigs 1961

• Because of this Castro felt threatened and allied closure with the USSR.

• He needed them for protection.

• Allowed Russia to install military bases.

• Russia began shipping weapons into Cuba.

Missile Sites Detected

• On Oct 16 1962, a U2 spy plane took aerial photographs over Cuba.

• Detected Missile silos and bases.

• These contained IRBMs (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles)

• Capable of carrying a nuclear warhead

• Capable of hitting Washington D.C.

U2 Spy PlaneMissile Site in Cuba

IRBM in USSR

Range of Missiles

Missile Sites Detected

• Oct 17 U.S. estimates 16 to 32 missiles with the ability to kill 80 million amercans.

• Missiles would take 17 minutes to reach U.S.

• Also detected 20 Soviet ships carrying missile crates.

• October 25th - Missile sites would be operational before the end of October

• October 27th – U2 spy plane shot down.

Kennedy’s OptionsOption 1 Do Nothing

• He could do nothing and ignore the missiles.

• This would have been political suicide and if the Russians had seen this as weakness on his part, they could have taken advantage of it.

• Lose public support and be seen as a weak president.

Option 2 Invasion

• He could order a full scale military invasion of Cuba.

• This would escalate the problem as there were 22000 Soviet troops there.

• Heavy casualties would look bad on the presidency.

• Did not know where all the sites were or if any were operational and would be fired before they were captured.

Option 3 - Air Strike

• He could order an air strike against the missile bases only.

• The problem again would be Russian casualties.

• Air Force was not sure it could deliver pin-point bombing raids on what were relatively small targets.

Option 4 - Diplomacy

• He could call on the Russians to remove the missiles explaining the damage their presence was doing to Russian/American relations.

• However, the Russians were highly unlikely to listen to a ‘polite’ request especially as they even refused to recognise the existence of the missiles at the United Nations emergency meeting on the matter.

Option 5 - Blockade

• He could put a naval blockade around the island - quarantine it - and not allow any more Russian ships to enter Cuba.

• This would still leave missiles on Cuba but the negotiations would continue in the background while publically Kennedy would be seen to be doing something specific.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Negotiations 2 letters from Khruschev

• Kennedy received two letters from Khruschev.

• One least threatening stated he would remove missiles if U.S. promised not to invade Cuba and end the blockade.

Letter Two

• The other was more threatening claiming that as USA had bases actually in Turkey, why should not the USSR have bases in Cuba especially as the people of Cuba wanted them ?

• Khruschev said that if USA removed her missiles from Turkey then USSR would remove them from Cuba.

Kennedy’s Response

• Kennedy decides to reply to the first non threatening letter.

• Agrees to lift blockade and not invade Cuba if USSR removes missiles.

• If Khrushchev did not reply by the 29th, U.S. would invade.

• Khrushchev agrees. Missiles are removed within two months.

• Was seen as a huge success for Kennedy but the downfall of Khrushchev in Russia.

• A direct line of communication was created between the US and USSR called the Hotline.

• MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction means that if one nation used a Nuclear weapon the other would retaliate which would result in both countries being destroyed.