Cuba

Question 1

What was the background of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Answer 1

• -Missile gap
• -Military-industrial complex encouraged greater defence spending and therefore talk of the missile gap
• -Increased anti-Communism
• -Castro’s take-over of Cuba
• -90 miles from US coast
• -Cuba: playground for rich Americans
• -Time, Newsweek, JFK’s inauguration speech (power of the media)

Question 2

What was Kennedy’s foreign policy?

Answer 2

• -Flexible response; training counter-insurgency forces
• Increased defence spending
• -Believed in decisive action
• -Trade embargo on Cuba 1960 after collectivisation began
• -Supported containment
• -Thought the US was too reliant on nuclear weapons
• -Confused nationalism with communism
• -“The enemy is the Communist system itself.”

Question 3

What were the USSR’s views at the time?

Answer 3

• -Krushchev pledged USSR aid to ‘wars of national liberation’
• -Saw Kennedy as young and inexperienced
• -Increased military spending
• -Built Berlin Wall
• -Gave support to Cuba, including missiles

Question 4

What did Castro do in Cuba prior to the Missile Crisis?

Answer 4

• -Not fully Communist yet
• -Began collectivisation of US-owned business
• -Driven to arms of Krushchev by ‘economics and politics’
• -Fought US imperialism
• -Starts health service, educates 6 million
• -Esso and Texaco left Cuba
• -Bay of Pigs gave him a sense of invincibility
• -Built missile bases with Russian missiles (said they were building football stadiums)

Question 5

What was the Missile Crisis?

Answer 5

• -1962: American U-2 spy planes see that missile bases are ready to hit
• -JFK sets up Executive Committee
• -Advisers say:
  
  • -invade Cuba
  • -air strikes on missile bases
  • -demilitarise Cuba, withdraw from Guantanamo, remove missiles from Turkey
• -Kennedy decides to blockade Cuba to stop Soviet equipment from reaching the island

Question 6

What happened after Kennedy set up the Blockade?

Answer 6

• -13 days: world held its breath
• -Cold war could have become hot war
• -22nd October 1962: JFK calls press conference to tell the world about the blockade
• -Some Soviet ships turn around
• -Those without weapons agree to be searched

Question 7

What were Kennedy’s terms for ending the blockade?

Answer 7

–Dismantling of missile bases on Cuba

Question 8

What were Krushchev’s terms for ending the blockade?

Answer 8

• -End of blockade
• -No US invasion of Cuba
• -Dismantling of US missile sites in Turkey

Question 9

How did the Blockade end?

Answer 9

• -Kennedy publicly lifted the blockade and called off the invasion
• -Privately he agreed to dismantle Turkish bases
• -Krushchev agreed to dismantle Soviet bases on Cuba

Question 10

What was the effect on US foreign policy?

Answer 10

• -Set up hotline between Washington and Moscow
• -Drive to improve further communications and lessen dangers of nuclear war
• -Attempt to slow arms race
• -Beginning of talks to prevent nuclear expanionism
• -Test Ban Treaty: no testing in space or underwater
• -Victory for containment

Question 11

What was the Bay of Pigs?

Answer 11

• -1500 US soldiers and exiled Cubans land at the Bay of Pigs 1961
• -Huge failure and embarrassment for JFK