Cuban Misile Crisis

18 Pages 4527 Words

The world came close to nuclear war during the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. President John F. Kennedy learned from satellite images that Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of the United States. The president was so concerned because he knew this could result into a nuclear war. If the Russians or Cubans got involved in a confrontation with the Americans they could use the missiles to attack America, which would cause millions of deaths. The president had to be very cautious in his decision. He gathered some of his best men and came up with three plans. Some advisors thought it wasn’t a big deal and that no action was necessary. Others thought a confrontation with Premier Khrushchev would be good, others thought an air attack on the missiles would stop the problem. Most of the men thought a blockade of all the nuclear weapons entering Cuba was the smartest thing to do.
On September 11, 1962 Premier Nikita Khrushchev stated that under no circumstances would missiles be sent to Cuba. On Tuesday, October 16, the American government realized that it had all been lies, one gigantic fabric of lies. The CIA had produced detailed photo showing Soviet nuclear missile installations under construction on the island of Cuba, ninety miles off the Florida coast. One photograph showed missiles pointing at American cities. If these were fired within a few minutes eighty million people would be dead. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev hoped to make his generals happy by placing missiles in Cuba. It was a cheaper way to provide some deterrent against a feared U.S. attack than to build many new intercontinental ballistic missiles that could be launched from the Soviet Union. The Soviets were putting these missals in Cuba because they planned for an attack from the US. In 1962, the Soviet had less than fifty missiles that could hit the United States. We had more than five...