Soviet Missile Sites example essay topic
The paper also introduces the fact that television was coming to be a great power in the 1960's. Not only did people get to watch news, but they saw candidates. The Kennedy-Nixon debate was telegraphed for the first time. It effected not only the outcome of the election, but by the time of Kennedy's assassination people felt that they had lost someone close and very dear to them. After Kennedy's election, the situation between the U. S and the Soviets had gotten worse. Many people felt like they were caught in the middle.
While the U. S represented capitalism and the Soviet represented a communist state, many were reluctant to endorse one or the other. And now there was also a divisions between the rich and the poor to worry about. Kennedy and Khrushchev also had a fascination with James bond figures. Both men recruiting and making new special opts forces.
Kennedy starting the Green Berets. By this time intelligence had let the U. S know of Soviet missile sites. Khrushchev was aware of being on the verge of this nuclear balance and was a afraid of Kennedy and the Pentagon advisors. There was even a book made by the American Kahn stating that the idea of such a war was thinkable, and could be survived by people. On September 8th, the Soviet cargo ships unloaded a variety of missiles onto the island of Cuba. From their Cuban bases they could launch bombs at Washington D.C. This was not discovered by the U. S until October 14th by a U. S spy plane.
The next 13 days were the most dangerous days of the cold war. For 6 of the 13 days only a small group of top officials knew of the crisis. They came up with 3 solutions. The 1st was to bomb the sites completely and destroy them, the 2nd was to appeal to the U. N for help, the 3rd was to have a full scale invasion, and final option was to surround the island with a navel blockade and demand that they disband the weapons. On Oct 26th, the most tense of the 13 days, the U. S received two messages.
One was made by civilians scared of the thought of nuclear war, and one was drafted with Soviet generals present. Kennedy chose to ignore the more warlike and demanding of the two drafts and dealt with the more conciliatory note. While both leader came into agreement for disarmament, each leaders staff was furious. Each side agreed on site inspections and verifications, and to ban testing above ground. Three months after Kennedy avoided the Cuban Missile Crisis he was assassinated.