General Background Information: Read this!!!!!

HSC 2010: The Cuban Missile Crisis
Rachel Rickles

General Overview of the Cold War and the Events Leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in the midst of a conflict known as the Cold War. The Cold War did not consist of military battles and physical fighting – rather, it was the overarching rivalry and lack of communication between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) that lasted from approximately 1945 thru 1991. The conflict was largely due to the different political systems – the democratic US and the communist USSR – of the two superpowers left standing following WWII. Both superpowers wanted to dominate the post-war world, and the struggle divided nations into two groups: democratic governments in support of the US, and communist countries in support of the USSR (Churchill called this the “Iron Curtain” in Europe). In part, the Cold War was possible due to innovations in mass media which allowed governments to shape public ideology.
In November 1917, in the midst of WWI, a Communist revolution occurred in Russia, and Vladimir Lenin and the Communist Party assumed power. However, the US and the USSR had little contact until WWII, when they created an alliance and fought against Hitler’s Third Reich and defeated Germany in 1945. Following WWII, they were faced with the challenges of postwar diplomacy and rebuilding; the US’s and USSR’s ideological differences began to manifest themselves at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. At the Conference, US President Roosevelt wanted to create a warmer feeling between his country and Stalin’s USSR. However, Roosevelt and British PM Churchill were physically and politically in poor conditions, and thus Stalin, the USSR’s Communist leader, had an advantage. A main point of contention between the two was Germany - the USSR did not want Germany to regain its former power due to the USSR’s massive citizenry losses and proximity to the country. However, the US lost far fewer soldiers and was much farther away from Germany, and thus favored rebuilding Germany. (Note: Mao Zedong, a Communist, took control of China in 1949.)
The other main aspect of the Cold War (and which underpinned the Cuban Missile Crisis) was the nuclear arms race. (The end of WWII was the beginning of the nuclear age, when nuclear bombs dropped by the U.S. landed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State Marshall announced the Marshall Plan to aid Europe for two reasons: first, the U.S. wanted Europe to be capable of conducting valuable trade and, second, the threat of a Communist takeover was more prevalent in economically depressed countries. In 1949, the western allies (in favor of democracy) created the Federal Republic of Germany (in western Germany) while East Germany remained under Stalin’s control. In August 1949, the USSR tested its first nuclear bomb. In the 1950s, West Germany, Britain and France all experimented with nuclear weaponry.
Several alliances were formed following WWII. The Baghdad Pact was created as an alliance against the USSR; members of the Baghdad Pact included Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. Partly in response to atomic bomb testing by the USSR, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created by the Western allies to deter the Soviet Union and strengthen nations to resist Soviet infiltration. NATO’s main goal was to protect the freedom and security of member nations by political and military means. Member states of NATO were led by the U.S. and included Britain, Canada and Italy. In 1955, NATO was countered by the Warsaw Pact between several Central and Eastern European Communist states, including Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. The USSR controlled those member states, and was able to impose its military and political agenda on countries in the Pact using whatever means necessary.
Beginning in 1956, Khrushchev gained power in the USSR by attacking Stalin’s legacy (following Stalin’s death). Under Khrushchev, the USSR announced a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West which led to Chinese challenge of the Soviets’ ideology and break with the Soviets. In 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik, the first manmade satellite, into space. This was significant because it indicated that the USSR was a world leader in science and it fueled the “space race” between the US and the USSR. Fidel Castro seized control in Cuba in 1959, and soon after turned it into a socialist state allied with the USSR. Communist governments also existed in Indonesia, Vietnam, China, and Congo. More importantly, in 1959, the U.S. stationed missiles in Turkey, which posed a threat to the USSR due to close proximity to Turkey.
In 1960, the USSR revealed that a US spy plane had been shot down in Soviet territory. This “U-2” incident intensified Cold War tensions. In May 1960, France, the USSR, the US, and Britain met at the Paris Summit. They discussed a possible reduction of nuclear arms, but the Summit was overshadowed by the U-2 incident, for which President Eisenhower took responsibility but refused to apologize to Khrushchev. In November of that year, President John F. Kennedy was elected President.
In April 1961, Castro announced his conversion to Marxism-Leninism; soon after, the US broke all diplomatic ties with Havana, Cuba. Following the break, the US launched the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was when the US helped several hundred Cuban exiles launch bombs on Cuban soil. The intention was to gain locals’ support for a revolution against Castro’s Communist government. However, most locals supported Castro, and the invasion failed, despite sponsorship from the CIA. In August 1961, Berlin Wall construction began in Germany, which further encouraged the divide between USSR-influenced East Germany and US-influenced West Germany.
Following the alliance between Cuba and the USSR, the USSR placed nuclear weapons in Cuba in the fall of 1962, to counter the threat of US missiles stationed in Turkey. The Cuban Missile Crisis followed in October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a series of negotiations between US President Kennedy and the USSR’s Khrushchev, with the intervention of the United Nations, to resist a full-scale nuclear war. Nuclear weapons were in Cuba’s territory under Soviet control, and Kennedy ordered a blockade to be established, but eventually Khrushchev backed down. Many believed that a full scale nuclear war would have broken out had Khrushchev not backed down.
But the Cuban Missile Crisis did not end the Cold War. The Vietnam War followed in the late 1960s as a result of the tensions. In 1987, Gorbachev gained control of the USSR and oversaw the collapse of the Soviet Union. Between 1989 and 1991, the world’s other communist regimes disintegrated and Germany reunited. In this respect, it is said that the United States (and its Western allies) won the Cold War.

Sources:
“Bay of Pigs Invasion.” NWtravel Magazine Online. U-S-history.com. 10 Apr. 2009 .
Berg, Timothy. “Cold War.” Bowling, Beatniks, and Bell-Bottoms: Pop Culture of 20th-Century America. Ed. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. Vols. 3:1940s-1950s. Detroit, 2002. 621-624.
“Berlin Wall.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Detriot: Macmillian Reference USA, 2008. 289.
Campbell, Charles S. “Yalta Conference.” Dictionary of American History. Ed. Stanley I. Kutler. 3rd ed. Vol. 8. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003. 573-574.
“Cold War.” Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction. Ed. Jay Winter and John Merriman. Vol. 2. Detriot: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2006. 620-628.
“The Cold War, 1945-1991.” World History: Modern Era. 2009. ABC-CLIO. 10 Apr. 2009 .
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Josephson, Paul R. “Sputnik.” Encyclopedia of Russian History. Ed. James R. Millar. Vol. 4. New York: Macmillian Reference USA, 2004. 1452.
“Marshall Plan.” West’s Encyclopedia of American Law. Ed. Shirelle Phelps and Jeffrey Lehman. 2nd ed. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 442.
“North Atlantic Treaty Organization.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 5. Detriot: Macmillian Reference USA, 2008. 544-546.
“Timeline of the Cold War.” Thinkquest. Oracle Education Foundation. 10 Apr. 2009 .
“Warsaw Pact.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 9. Detroit: Macmillian Reference USA, 2008. 34-36.
“What is NATO?” North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 9 Apr. 2009. NATO. 14 Apr. 2009 .


John Pope
Build up to the Crisis
1959 Castro comes to power in Cuba
Castro and his 26th of July movement overthrows the dictators Batista who was supported by US business interests
Castro takes over and nationalizes Cuba’s oil refineries which are controlled by US businessmen. US businessmen then stopped buying Cuban sugar, a crippling blow to the economy. So Castro nationalizes all US businesses in the country.
Upon assuming power Castro’s Communist government moved to closely ally itself with the Soviet Union and to help continue the global spread of Communism.
1960 Kennedy runs for President on “The Missile Gap”
In 1957 the Gaither Committee made a ruckus about the US losing the edge in the arms race. The US Air Force continued to support theses claims disputing the CIA over how many intercontinental ballistic missiles the Soviets actually had, with the CIA estimating at around a dozen tops and the Air Force saying their could be hundreds. This spilled over to the campaign where coupled with Sputnik and the feared “Intelligence Gap” the news increased peoples fears that the US was losing the Cold War. Kennedy incorporated the Missile Gap into his campaign saying that Eisenhower was not spending enough on the military and the arms race. Ultimately once Kennedy got into office he realized that the Missile Gap was perceived and the opposite was true, the US actually had far greater amounts of missiles than the Soviet Union.
April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion
Planned by the CIA in the Eisenhower Administration, the invasion was part of the larger “Operation Mongoose.” The goal of the operation was to overthrow Castro’s Communist regime and place a US friendly government in power. To maintain legitimacy it was not suppose to look like the US was involved so the CIA recruited Cuban refugees for the counter-revolution
Actual invasion was a horrible failure. 1300 Cuban exiles landed at the “Bay of Pigs” in southeastern Cuba. There plan was to rally the natives throughout the countryside and let the revolution quickly spread to Havana. The local support was not there and Castro’s Army more than out matched them. At one point the exiles asked for US air support but Kennedy refused, wanting to avoid making US involvement obvious.
The failure of the invasion greatly embarrassed the Kennedy administration which was attacked from both sides either for not providing the air support or for launching the invasion in the first place.
August 12- 13th 1961 Berlin Wall goes up
After World War II the Allied powers divided up Germany into separate sections. The United States, France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union each occupied a zone of the country and a zone of Berlin. When US-Soviet relations became strained Germany divided into two countries with the US, French and British zones becoming West Germany and the Soviet area becoming East Germany. Berlin was smack dab in the middle of East Germany but the Allied powers maintained control of their section of the city which was outside of East Germany. The division between Eastern and Western Germany became part of the large division between Eastern and Western Europe which would become the “Iron Curtain.”
In 1948 the Soviets blockaded West Berlin in hopes of forcing the Allies into giving it up to East Germany. Instead they started the Berlin Airlift.
West Berlin accepted some 2.5 million East German refugees trying to escape Communism between 1949 and 1961.
To stop the stream of refugees Soviet and East German forces installed a 15 foot tall concrete and barbed wire wall around West Berlin to keep the East Germans out. The wall would continue to grow in strength and complexity until its destruction in 1989.
February 7th 1962 US initiates embargo against Cuba
A “commercial, economic, and financial embargo”
First issued as an Executive Order. It would grown by Acts of Congress and further Executive Orders to eventual cover travel and be even stricter on commercial activities.
April 1962 Khrushchev proposes placing intermediate range missiles in Cuba
This move would effectively double the Soviet nuclear deterrent.
Castro readily accepted hoping it would offer him a defense against US invasion.
Mid-July 1962 Soviet Union and Cuba begin build up
For fear of being discovered civilian ships were used. Soldiers and specialists going to Cuba would pretend to be tourists. Around 60 missiles were sent in total
August 10th 1962 CIA director sends President a memo on his fear that the Soviets are placing nuclear missiles in Cuba
Specifically says that they may be sending medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs)
August 29th 1962 US spy plane spots a SA-2 SAMs(Surface to Air Missile)
The SAMs are purely defensive but indicated an increased level of Soviet involvement in Cuba.
September 4th 1962 Kennedy announces that the Soviets have defensive missiles in Cuba
This move is to reassure public and Congress who had been receiving bits and pieces of information regarding the buildup, some true some false. Kennedy’s main point was to reassure that no offensive missiles were in place. Kennedy was sure of this due to back channel and formal assurances he had been getting from Moscow that there were no offensive missiles. That very same day the Soviet Ambassador again reassured Robert Kennedy that there were no offensive missiles.
September 15th 1962 First shipment of MRBMs (medium range ballistic missiles) arrive in Cuba
MRBMs are offensive missiles.
September 26th 1962 Congress passes joint resolution allowing use of force in Cuba
Basically hands over the right to the President in the case of emergency action.
October 8th 1962 Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós issues address to the United Nations saying Cuba is able to defend itself and alludes to nuclear capabilities
October 9th 1962 Kennedy orders spy planes over Cuba
Forced to by increasing pressure from Congress and members of the Defense organization. Unfortunately the flight is delayed due to inclement weather.
October 15th 1962 US spy planes confirm the existence of Cuban missile sites
SS-4 missiles which carry a nuclear payload could be seen in the spy plane footage. The missiles had not yet been equipped with a nuclear payload. The missiles had a range of 1100 miles which means they could hit Houston, Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York.
October 16th 1962 Kennedy forms ExComm and the Crisis is fully under way
ExComm would advise the President throughout the Crisis.
Statutory members included:
Vice President Lyndon Johnson
Secretary of State Dean Rusk
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara;
Chairman of the JCS General Maxwell Taylor
Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy
Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon
CIA Director John McCone
Attorney General Robert Kennedy
Undersecretary of State George Ball
Special Counsel Theodore Sorensen
Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric
Soviet Specialist Llewellyn Thompson
In addition, the EX-COMM unofficially included:
Deputy Under Secretary of State U. Alexis Johnson
Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze
former Secretary of State Dean Acheson
private advisers John McCloy and Robert Lovett
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Adlai Stevenson
Deputy Director of the USIA Donald Wilson
Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Edwin Martin
Former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Charles Bohlen

Soviet Motives
In 1962 despite Kennedy’s election sloganeering about the “Missile Gap” the Soviet Union was losing the arms race badly. The Soviets lacked any ability to attack US soil with nuclear missiles, with their nuclear missiles only able to reach into Europe. The US on the other hand could launch missiles anywhere into the Soviet Union, specifically from a nuclear missile base in Turkey. Intermediate range missiles in Cuba would have set up a foothold for nuclear attack and would have brought about a more effective deterrence from the Soviet point of view. Castro, who feared another more effective US invasion ever since the Bay of Pigs, welcomed the missiles as a way for Cuba to defend itself.

Sources:
http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/days/index.htmlhttp://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/

Alexa Gaul
US Motives

Throughout the Cold War there was tension between the United States and the Soviet Union due to their very different economic and political structures. The United State’s capitalism was almost opposite to the Soviet’s communism, and neither country liked the other nation’s way of running things. Therefore, throughout the cold war the United States tried to prevent the spread of communism outside of where it already existed (primarily China and the USSR). So any time there was a chance of a new country becoming communist, the United States soon were involved behind the scenes and/or sometimes blatantly like during the Korean War. Another example of US intervention was Cuba.
Even before Cuba became a communist nation the US monitored carefully, and tried to prevent the country from become communist. However, they were unsuccessful and Cuba became a communist nation under Castro. But the US didn’t give up. Instead they continued trying to rid of the communist regime in Cuba, including ridding of Castro, especially because Castro had relations with Khrushchev. The result: The Bay of Pigs invasion. The CIA had already planned to train Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro during Eisenhower’s presidency, but it was not followed out until Kennedy’s presidency. However, when the invasion was followed out, it failed, leaving an embarrassing mark on Kennedy’s presidency.
After The Bay of Pigs failure Kennedy did not want to seem weak in the eyes of the international community. In order to redeem themselves Kennedy and the administration decided to establish Operation Mongoose: a plan to destabilize the Cuban economy and government, including possibly assassinating Castro. However, this desire for redemption also rolled over into the Cuban Missile Crisis.
As much as Kennedy wanted to stop the Soviet Union when they began shipping “mysterious” packages to Cuba and building up military bases there, he could not because of the international community. The international community saw no reason for action because the Soviets claimed the actions were only for defensive purposes, and there was no evidence otherwise. So until the US had proof that the Soviet buildup was offensive, they could do nothing.
Then, the United discovered missiles. Missiles are offensive weapons, so six days after their discovery Kennedy informed the citizens of the United States of his response to the missiles in Cuba. Again, he wanted to redeem himself for his past mistakes both to regain the confidence of his citizens, to reestablish respect towards the United States in the international community, and demonstrate that the United States remains a dominant super power. To achieve all these goals he publicly informed his citizens that he would not tolerate the Soviet Union’s deception and that the US would respond by blockading Cuba, retaliating in the case of an attack, survey military buildup, and asking the UN to become involved. After this speech Kennedy chose to blockade Cuba and demanded that Khrushchev remove the missiles. After a long thirteen days Kennedy succeeded, reestablishing foreign respect towards the United States, and showing the Soviet Union and the world that the United States was not a country to mess with.

Sources:
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/JFK+in+History/JFK+and+the+Bay+of+Pigs.htm
http://www.hpol.org/jfk/cuban/
Hilsman, Roger. “The Cuban Missile Crisis: The Struggle Over Policy.” Wesport, Connecticut:
Roger Hilsman, 1996.
Medina, Loreta (ed.). “At Issue in History: The Cuban Missile Crisis.” New York: Greenhaven
Press, 2002.
Finkelstein, Norman. “Thirteen Days/ Ninety Miles: The Cuban Missile Crisis.” New York:
Norman H. Finkelstein, 1994.

Stephen Keil

Overview of current US economy, domestic events and concerns,
foreign concerns, and military potential

The U.S. economy throughout the 1950’s leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis was marked by the emergence of modern Republicanism, the rise of consumer demand, and booming production. The Economy was coming out of production for the Korean War in 1953 which was follow by a period of inflation in 1953-54 and another period of inflation in 1957-58. Eisenhower (1953-61) wanted to remove New Deal programs and begin to lessen government regulation of the economy which was heightened by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation. Between the periods of inflation there was growth in the business sector where the housing supply increased by 27% and the Gross National Product (GNP) was growing at a rate of 7.6%. In the second period of inflation in 1958 industrial production fell, corporate profits plummeted, and unemployment spiked. Eisenhower did little for the economy to uphold his plans to lessen government regulation and his fear of inflation over unemployment. During the period of the 1950’s leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis in the midst of the two periods of inflation, the U.S. economy was still a global powerhouse. The GNP increased by 51% in the 1950’s and consumed 1/3 of the goods services with only 6% of the global population. The government spent immense amounts of the budget on infrastructure and defense wh1ich took up over half of the government budget. The U.S. economy was in a “race” with the Soviet Union to produce arms stockpile nuclear weaponry in the middle of the Cold War which aided greatly to $12 B deficit the government experienced in 1959. During the presidential election in 1960, the recession of 1960-61 began. Kennedy planned to “get America moving again” by tax cuts, federal funding for home building, and expanded benefits for the unemployed.
The Domestic concerns up to the Cuban Missile Crisis were dominated by Civil Rights movement. Brown versus the Board of Education in 1954 created social integration and removed the “separate but equal” ruling by Plessy versus Ferguson which layed the foundation for the Montgomery bus boycotts and Martin Luther King in 1955. There was a build-up of Civil Rights issues in the late 1950’s, including the Little Rock Crisis in 1957, the development of those violent or non-violent, and the creation of organizations such as the Black Panthers and the NAACP. However, the Civil Rights issues did not climax until after the Cuban Missile Crisis with the March on Washington in 1963and the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. With the economic expansion, about one in five Americans lived in poverty with the turn into the 1960’s and the south (mainly east of Texas) had half of the country’s poor families. Poverty in the northern cities began to increase, mainly due to the migration of African Americans from the south to the north for economic and social reasons. The Social category of the American teenager came into existence and began to hold new social and economic leverage. They were a main reason for the consumer boom and spent $22 B alone in 1960 on consumer items; the same as the GNP of the entire country of Austria.
The main foreign concerns for the U.S. were mainly due to the Cold War and the containment of Communism which was instituted by the Truman Doctrine. This can be seen in the proxy war in Korea which ended in 1953 and the Lebanon Crisis in 1958 where the U.S. sent marines to aid the Pro-Western Lebanese Government. A Communist China had become a threat wit their close relations with the Soviet Union. The Berlin wall was constructed in 1961 by the Soviet Union to prevent the fleeing to East German citizens from emigrating westward which the Kennedy Administration failed to prevent. The U.S. was also continuing to reconstruct aid Western Europe by the means of the Marshall Plan and display Capitalism against Communism. The containment of Communism came again in 1961 with the CIA Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government in Cuba which failed miserably. Main “battlegrounds” against communism became Indo-China, Latin America, and the Middle East. The U.S. has excellent military potential with a government that was spending heavily to build up its arms against the Soviet Union and had a deficit mainly due to defense spending despite the recession of 1960-61.

Sources:
http://elcoushistory.tripod.com/economics1950.html and links on side
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/contentiousyears/
http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture24.html
http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/eisenhower/essays/biography/4
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2005/0709/stat/staten_reality.html#note4

Julianne Toia

Role of the Security Council

The United Nations Security Council played a crucial role in the Cuban Missile Crisis. As with all international affairs, the approval of the UN was imperative for both Russia and America in order to assure continued support and national security. Mediation of the situation provided by the Security Council also gave other nations peace of mind concerning the looming possibility of nuclear war between Soviet Russia and the United States.
The Security Council had two major issues to deal with when they were first notified of the crisis occurring in the Caribbean. First, it would be necessary to determine who is the true agitator in the situation. Before Adlai Stevenson provided adequate proof of the nuclear missiles present in Cuba, the Security Council was torn between the Russians and Americans. It was a “he said, she said” situation, in which the Russian representative, Valerian Zorin, would immediately refute incriminating claims made by Stevenson, and would even go as far as to accusing the United States of military action against a nonexistent threat. The Security Council’s second challenge was to mediate the resolution of the situation. Pressure brought about by the influential opinion of the council had kept both the USSR and America in line since the beginning of the cold war, and this situation was no different.
The Security Council’s reaction to the crisis was guided by fear of nuclear war. The goal was to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. In the end its main role was to pressure the feuding nations into a safer action and overseeing that both nations upheld their agreements by checking the removal of missiles and preparing to chastise either party if they broke their agreement.

Sources:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1962-cuba-un1.html
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba113.asp
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba259.asp
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/msc_cuba258.asp
http://www.answers.com/topic/cuban-missile-crisis