Cuban Missile Crisis - Essay Example

Cuban Missile Crisis Cuban missile crisis is a series of events that occurred to dismantle the secret missile base in Cuba formed by the Soviet Unionduring 1962. The diplomatic efforts of President John F Kennedy led to the termination of this missile base that could have caused tremendous destruction to the U.S.It was during the breakfast on October 16th that President Kennedy acquired information from the Intelligence bureau about Soviet Unions secret missile base in Cuba. Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko met the President Kennedy and he denied any kind of threat caused by the missile base to the U.S. After this meeting President Kenney called in for a meeting with his executive committee to discuss the various options to resolve this issue.

After the meeting, President Kennedy was left with two options either an air strike and invasion or a naval quarantine with the threat of further military action. Leaving his cabinet to decide on this issue, President Kennedy left on a scheduled campaign to Ohio and Illinois . After his return to Washington and a meeting for about 5 hours, President Kennedy resorted to the second option since an air strike could have caused massive destruction to the mass and could not guarantee the complete devastation of the missile.

There were strategies made on deploying naval quarantine and President Kennedy delivered a speech to the Americans. Naval quarantine was established around Cuba with the consent of The Organizations of American States and the U.N Security Council was informed about this issue. He also formed an Executive Committee of the National Security Council, which met on a daily basis during the crisis as per the instructions from President Kennedy. Soviet submarine threatened naval quarantine from moving into the Caribbean Sea and Soviet cargo stopped the transport of weapons to Cuba however, the oil tanker named Bucharest continued to move towards Cuba.

Before addressing the mass, President Kennedy wrote a letter to the Premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev about the kind of destruction that a war could cause in the nuclear age. He also stated that it can cause complete devastation to the world including the opponent. Khrushchev considered the letter to be a threaten and ultimatum released by the U.S and observed only the negative aspect of the President' appeal. The Soviet cargo returned back to Europe however Bucharest carrying petroleum products moved towards quarantine.

After this event, U.N asked President Kennedy to call for a cooling off period however, he did not agree with it because Soviet Union did not dismantle the missile base in Cuba. A debate was held at the U.N were U.S revealed photographic images of the missile base in Cuba. Based on these discussion when one of the Soviet cargo was stopped at quarantine line and checked at random, there was no evidence of any kind of weapons in it however U.S had lot of photographic evidences depicting the construction of missile base at a fast pace in Cuba.

Fidel Castro requested Soviet Union to wage a nuclear war in case of its invasion by the U.S. Finally, Soviet embassy approached United States to seek a proposal of solution for this crisis followed by a letter from Khrushchev stating the removal of missile base in exchange to the lifting of quarantine and a promise from U.S that it will not invade into Cuba. The next day another letter was send to the U.S with more difficult terms followed by an attack of the U-2 plane. In spite of stress on taking a military action by the Executive committee, Kennedy accepted the first proposed solution.

Finally, Soviet Union moved the missile base under the supervision of the U.N and America pledged the non-invasion of Cuba.The diplomatic effort by President John F Kennedy is a classic example of avoiding mass destruction by his administration. The entire humanity owes its credit to President Kennedy for this exemplary act of peace and non-violence.ReferenceThe World On the Brink: John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. 22nd Sept 2002. John F Kennedy library and museum. Retrieved on 27th December 2005 from http://www.

jfklibrary.org/cmc_exhibit_2002.html