Question

how does the united states involvement in the Vietnam war put how Kennedy handled the Cuban missile crisis into context?

Answer 1

A USU-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built on the island of Cuba by the Soviet Union in October 1962. President Kennedy did not want to know that the Soviet Union and Cuba had located the warheads. He met his advisors in secret for several days to discuss the issue. Kennedy decided to place a naval blockade or a ring of ships around Cuba after many long and demanding meetings. The object of this "quarantine," as he called it, was to prevent further military supplies from being brought in by the Soviets. He requested that the missiles be withdrawn and that the sites be demolished.

No one was sure how Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, would respond to the naval blockade and US demands. But both superpower leaders acknowledged the catastrophic prospect of a nuclear war and openly committed to an arrangement in which the Soviets would dismantle the missile sites in return for a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba. The U.S. also agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey in a separate deal, which remained secret for more than twenty-five years. Even though the Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba, the construction of their military arsenal was escalated; the missile crisis was over, there was no arms race.

There were signs of a decrease in tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States in 1963. President Kennedy encouraged Americansto re-examine Cold War assumptions and misconceptions in his opening address at American University and called for a peace policy that would make the world safe for diversity. Two actions also signaled a warming of the superpower relationships: the establishment of a "Hotline" teletype between the Kremlin and the White House and the signing on July 25, 1963 of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

The origins of the Cuban Missile Crisis lie in the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs, during which the Cuban armed forces overpowered Cuban exiles who hoped to foment an uprising against Castro. Castro turned to the Soviets after the invasion to defend himself from potential U.S. violence. On the condition that the deal would remain secret until the missiles were fully operational, the Soviets provided Cuba with nuclear weapons.

While Khrushchev initially refused to recognize the existence of missiles in Cuba and proclaimed the U.S. naval blockade to be an act of war, he ordered the cessation of all shipments of weapons currently in transit. Kennedy and Khrushchev negotiated a peaceful outcome to the missile crisis over the course of about two weeks. The Soviets compared their delivery of nuclear weapons to Cuba with the stationing in Turkey of Jupiter missiles in a range of Soviet territory. Kennedy agreed to remove the missiles from Turkey and also vowed that no further occupation of Cuba would be carried out by the U.S. government.