Cuban Missile Crisis

Such a blockade might be expanded to cover all types of goods and air transport. Admiral George Anderson, Chief of Naval Operations wrote a position paper that helped Kennedy to differentiate between what they termed a “quarantine” of offensive weapons and a blockade of all materials, claiming that a classic blockade was not the original intention. The term “blockade” was problematic – according to international law, a blockade is an act of war, but the Kennedy administration did not think that the Soviets would be provoked to attack by a mere blockade. OPLAN 312, primarily an Air Force and Navy carrier operation, was designed with enough flexibility to do anything from engaging individual missile sites to providing air support for OPLAN 316′s ground forces. Not wanting to expose what he already knew and to avoid panicking the American public, Kennedy did not reveal that he was already aware of the missile buildup. On 18 October 1962, Kennedy met Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko, who claimed that the weapons were for defensive purposes only.

• During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores.
• Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead – months in which both our patience and our will will be tested – months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers.
• According to Naftali, Soviet foreign policy planners were concerned that Castro’s break with Escalante foreshadowed a Cuban drift toward China, and they sought to solidify the Soviet-Cuban relationship through the missile basing program.
• Starting in late 1961, using the military and the CIA, the US government engaged in an extensive campaign of terrorism against civilian and military targets on the island.
• EXCOMM considered the effect on the strategic balance of power, both political and military.
• The Soviets had long felt uneasy about the number of nuclear weapons that were targeted at them from sites in Western Europe and Turkey, and they saw the deployment of missiles in Cuba as a way to level the playing field.

The Cuban people did not give their support to the invasion either. The invasion would begin at the Bay of Pigs, on the southern coast of Cuba. He refused to pay America any compensationclosecompensationSomething awarded to someone in recognition of loss., meaning that America lost out on products and profits from these businesses. He seized many American-owned businesses in Cuba and nationalisedclosenationalisedAn industry or business being taken over by the government.