Cuban missel crisis - Essay Example

However the Soviet Union did not posses arms capable enough of striking targets in United States; the Soviet missiles could only reach targets in Europe. Considering this, the Soviet Leadership under Nikita Khrushchev decided to deploy nuclear arsenals in Cuba, a country where the Soviets had great influence and which was a major threat to the United States in the region. The idea behind the decision was to bring United States in striking range of Soviet missiles and it was conceived to act as a detterent against any potential attack by the United States on the Soviet territory.

Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator wanted the Soviet Union to help him out for saving his regime because ever since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Castro was feeling that a second attack was imminent. Threat from United States made Castro to approve and support the Soviet Union’s program of deploying the Soviet nuclear arms in Cuba. After the formal approvals from the Cuban government and authorities, the Soviet army took practical steps to deploy the missiles in Cuba and during the summer of 1962 the missile installations were built in Cuba (Schier).

The actual crisis began when reconnaissance photographs revealed that the Soviets were construction missile base in Cuba. President John Kennedy took immediate action and formed a committee of his twelve most important advisors for solving the crisis. After long deliberations and debates among the governmental departments and authorities, it was decided that a naval quarantine will be imposed around Cuba for preventing the Russian missiles from reaching Cuba (Hilsman). After the establishment of the quarantine, the President addressed the public and informed the nation about the missile installations.

He also warned the Soviet leadership about the possible consequences of any sort of armed aggression against the United States. He said that any attack launched from Cuba will be considered as an attack on the United States: “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Soviet Union… I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations.

I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in a historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction by returning to his government’s own words that it had no need to station missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba.” The tensions gradually built up as the Soviets showed little flexibility in their stance of deploying missiles in Cuba.

A letter was received from Khrushchev calling for a guarantee from US not to attack Cuba, later the Soviet leader demanded the removal of United States missiles from Turkey in return of removal of missiles from Cuba. After the US agreed to issue a guarantee that it will not invade Cuba the tensions began to ease out and the Soviet leade