cuban missile crisis vid

• The Cuban Missile Crisis


  October, 1962
• The Cuban Missile Crisis


  The moment during the Cold War when the two superpowers The United States and the Soviet Union came close to Nuclear War
• Secret communications and miscommunications which played out between the white house and the Kremlin made the crisis a unique event
• The failed Bay of Pigs Invasion


  1961
• After the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 by the Kennedy Administration


  Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev reached a secret agreement with Cuban Premier Fidel Castro to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter any further US aggression
• For some time the Soviets had been sending surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles to Cuba, but president John F Kennedy did not protest
• However he warned that if offensive weapons were sent to Cuba

  The greatest issues would arise
• US U-2 spy planes took several photos showing sites from medium-range and Intermediate-Range ballistic Nuclear Missiles under construction in Cuba


  October 14th, 1962
• Nikita Khrushchev, who had promised not to send offensive weapons to Cuba had been lying to help him deal with the crisis
• The Executive Committee of the National Security Council or XCOM

  The team Kennedy assembled to deal with the crisis
• The response to the crisis

  1. Favored bombing Cuba with debate over the scale of the attack

  2. The President decided upon a middle course and on October 22nd ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba

  3. Kennedy sent a letter to Khrushchev stating that the United States would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba

  4. Kennedy went on national television to inform the public of the crisis
• On October 24th, Khrushchev responded to Kennedy


  Describing the U.S blockade as an act of aggression, and the Soviet ships sent to Cuba would be ordered to keep going
• Some Soviet ships turned back and others proceeded. They were stopped by the U.S Naval Forces But were discovered to contain no offensive weapons
• Nevertheless US reconnaissance flights over Cuba indicated the Soviet missile sites were nearing operational readiness
• With no clear solution to the crisis the US Forces were put at DEFCON 2
• Resolution to the crisis

  1. On 26th through 27th of October, Khrushchev sent Kennedy a message stating that the USSR would remove missiles from Cuba in return for a promise from the United States not to invade the island

  2. Later a second letter was sent by Khrushchev which provoked debate again as it demanded that the deal would also require the removal of U.S Jupiter Missiles from Turkey

  3. Kennedy ignored Khrushchevs second message and proposed to the Soviet Union steps for the removal of Soviet Missiles from Cuba under supervision of the United Nations and a guarantee that the United States would not attack Cuba

  4. Attorney General Robert Kennedy was sent to meet secretly with the Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and Indicated that the United States were planning to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey anyway and within six months
• Khrushchev issued a public statement that soviet missiles would be dismantled and removed from Cuba


  October 28th
• The crisis was over. The world escaped nuclear war in October 1962 largely because of the cautious natures of Kennedy and Khrushchev
• A telephone hotline was set up to give instant contact between the two leaders

  1963
• The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed meaning the superpowers promise not to supply Nuclear technology to other countries


  1968