Cuban Missile Crisis - 2

missile crisisBat Agaoglu
IR 376
Professor Kinzer
4 December, 2012
The Cuban Missile Crisis was perhaps the closest that humankind had ever become to experiencing a thermonuclear war. In October 1962, the world watched perilously, as U.S. president John F. Kennedy warned his people of the amalgamation of Soviet arms in Cuba. John F. Kennedy refused to accept “offensive” Soviet artillery in such close proximity to the U.S., but Soviet chairman Nikita Khrushchev had already planned a stealthily build-up. Kennedy henceforth demanded Khrushchev to disassemble offensive artillery and employed a strict naval quarantine, an action that Khrushchev initially refused and deemed “illegal”. For several days, as two of the world’s superpower’s refused to meet an agreement, the world faced the daunting and horrifying prospect of a nuclear war. Eventually, Khrushchev had accepted a peaceful resolution, as he withdrew Soviet offensive arms in return for a promise that the U.S. would not invade Cuba. With the Soviet exodus from Cuba, President Kennedy’s popularity had risen sharply as journalists labeled him the “architect of a great diplomatic victory.”[1] Kennedy’s ability to remain calm under the pressure of a potential nuclear war had won praise from his colleagues and the American public, who rewarded him with re-election. In a diametrically opposed view, conservatives assert his actions which were not decisive enough in securing America’s national security. This essay will seek to analyze both the praise and the criticism in evaluating John F. Kennedy’s actions through the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

For many Americans, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and in particular the build-up of Soviet arms within Cuba represented a time in which their national security and safety was at stake. This build-up of Soviet missiles in Cuba was deemed by the media as “an action aimed to inflicting an almost mortal wound on us”.[2] This impending threat was dealt with...