The Cuban Missile Crisis

Question 1

What were the events leading up to the Cuban Missile crisis?

Answer 1

• U2 spy plane incident humiliating the US and the West’s lack of resistance to the Berlin Wall led USSR to believe they were in a strong position
• Fidel Castro
• Bay of Pigs
• Discovery of missile sites on Cuba 14th October 1962

Question 2

What was the Bay of Pigs Incident?

Answer 2

• April 1961 USA sent 1400 exiled Cuban rebels to overthrow Fidel Castro - they were crushed
• Humiliating for USA
• Castro turned to USSR for protection
• USSR started shipping weapons and equipment to Cuba

Question 3

Who was Fidel Castro and what on earth does he have to do with the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Answer 3

• Socialist, overthrown American backed leader of Cuba in 1959
• USA didn’t like him
• Cuba is only 90 miles out from the US - didn’t want a socialist in their backyard
• Tried to ruin Cuba by refusing to buy their main export sugar - drove Castro to the USSR

Question 4

What actually happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Answer 4

• Kennedy ordered a naval blockade - to stop the nuclear missile warheads from reaching Cuba and threatened mass retaliation should an attack be made
• On the brink of nuclear war for days
• Kennedy promised to remove US missiles from Turkey in return for the dismantling of bases in Cuba
• 28th October Khrushchev complied

Question 5

What were the outcomes of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Answer 5

• Khrushchev seemed to have failed - public did not know about the USA’s side of the agreement
• Kennedy became the hero of the Western World
• Telephone ‘hotline’ set up between Moscow and Washington - defuse future crises before things became too serious
• realised the danger - began Arms talks and signed Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 1963