Another example of tension during the Cold War was the Cuban Missile Crisis. This crisis involved both Western superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, and ofcourse Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a crisis were the Soviet Union were trying to influence Cuba to the communist lifestyle. So the Cubans and Soviets decided to make and launch missiles in Cuba. And also, this confrontation between them was the closest we had ever come as a nation to a nuclear war. The Soviets goal was to luer the United States in. This all started in late April of 1962 when the Soviet leader, Khruschev, conceived a plan to place and launch missiles in Cuba. In the summer of 1962, the Soviets put this plan into action and quickly but as secretly as they could to build their missiles in Cuba. But not secretly enough because on October 15, 1962, the United States found out about the missiles by reconnaissance photos taken by U-2 planes that flew over Cuba. These photos confirmed our suspicions and also confirmed that there was infact something going on, on the "down low." During this time, everyone was tense because no one had no idea what was going to happen next with the Soviets. But when they found out about what the Soviets were up to, they were a little suprised but mostly afraid of what might happen and they also were wondering.. why? Well, little did any of us know that during this time, the Soviets were very far behind the United States in the Arms Race and that the Soviets were ultimatly weaker than that of the United States. This is because the Soviets were only powerful enough to be launched at Europe when the United States missiles were capable of wiping out all the Soviets with their missiles. So with all these facts we knew that something bad was going to be coming our way. All we really wanted was for someone to tell us what was going on and that if everything was under control.
When our president of the United States at the time, Mr. John F. Kennedy, first heard of what was going on and that we were all scared, he realized that he had to let the public know about what was going on. But first, he had to create a game plan which was to, immediately, put together a group of twelve of his best and most important advisors to handle the crisis, which was what Kennedy called the EX-COMM. After seven days of a heated, political debate within the up most highest level of government, Kennedy finally came up with a solution. At 7 p.m. on Monday, October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy appeared on television, which at this time was the newly found love of americans all over the nation. He did this to inform American citizens of the newly discovered Soviet military build-up in Cuba, including the installations of Russian missiles. One of the solutions that he imposed was that the island of Cuba should be in fact "quarantined." By doing this he wished to prevent the arrival of more Soviet offensive weapons on the island. He also proclaimed that if any guns were fired upon us or missiles were launched towards us that we would take it as a sign of war. He lastly, demanded for the Soviets to remove all their offensive weapons from Cuba. Two days later, the President talked with the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko, who claimed that the nuclear weapons in Cuba were strictly for defensive purposes. So during this time of a very public crisis, tensions were, very rapidly were building among both sides. Anyone and everyone could feel it building. But on the 25th, Kennedy pulled the quarantine back and raised military readiness on DEFCON 2. After all of this, the Soviet's decided to write the president a letter that we had been waiting for. Khruschev's letter to the president said that he would remove the missiles from Cuba and have his people leave if and only if the United States would promise them that they would not invade Cuba under any circumstances. We later found out that that letter was in fact not written by Khruschev and that why would they give up that easily. So on October 27th we sent a U-2 plane over Cuba to take pictures, to see what the Soviets were up to. But the worst was yet to come.. On that day, the Soviet's disregarded all of what we had said earlier and shot down the U-2 plane we had sent. After this, the president received a second letter from Khruschev demanding that the U.S. remove their missiles from Turkey in exchange for the removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's brother, thought to ignore the second letter and comply with the first. So he himself went to confer with the Soviet Ambassator, Anatoly Dobrynin, letting him know of their decision. With this in place and when tensions finally began to ease, on October 28 we had heard what we have been waiting for. Khruschev announced that he would have his men dismantle the installations and leave Cuba. This gave us a sense of security because they finally trusted us NOT to invade Cuba. All that need to be done was that light bombers be removed from Cuba. After the United States, the Soviet Union and Cuba had reached an agreement, we knew something else was bound to happen, but wee just wanted to get through the task at hand and we did. There you have it for the Cuban Missile Crisis. See you soon.(:
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