Cuban Missile CrisisWas it a turning point?
...ered Cuba, it made US suspicious, because they never liked Soviets, Cuba would also fall into communist sphere. This caused the US agency (CIA) to train the exiles from Cuba, which would enter their homeland and overthrow Castro. This operation was unsuccessful, because all of the exiles were actually caught or killed. This kind of step from US side actually started worrying Castro, he asked the USSR for help. This was actually the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thus USSR placed medium and intermediate- range ballistic missiles in Cuba. Forty two (MRBM) and twenty four (IRBMs) were sent to Cuba. Some 22,000 Soviet soldiers and technicians escorted these missiles to Cuba. It was the 14th October when US spotted missiles on the launching site. The US government became very suspicious about them. On the 22nd October Kennedy declared that Cuba was under Quarantine. This was actually the easiest and the safest choice. The other choices were actually very dangerous and difficult, for example attacking the missile sites from air. This wasn’t really safe because the pilots could have missed the target, so the Quarantine idea was the safest. From now on all of the Soviet ships that entered the Quarantine zone would have to be checked. This caused USSR to call back all of their ships which were carrying the dangerous cargo. Later Khrushchev sent an ultimatum saying that he would only withdraw the rest of his missiles if the US promised not to invade Cuba. Later Khrushchev sent another letter saying that US should also withdraw their missiles from Turkey, Britain and Italy. This missile sites caused the USSR government a lot of discomfort. Kennedy refused to do so. He changed his view, when a U2 spy plane was shot down over USSR. He immediately understood what could happen in the future. So he agreed with the first letter, which talked about the invasion of Cuba. After the thirteen day crisis, Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba and the US government demobilized the invasion forces gathered in Florida. There are a lot of reasons for this crisis. The main reason is the defense of Cuba. If we take another view at it, we can understand that for a defense situation you don’t need high range missiles, the missiles placed on Cuba could reach quite far. So actually USSR could have done this to scare US. The other reason is the nuclear balance, because US had a missile site in Turkey which caused a lot worries for Soviets. So they placed there missiles near US, to balance the situation. If US would launch their missiles then they could quickly react with their own. So each of the sides sat and watched the start button. Turkey was involved in the crisis, because it was a launching site for the US government. (1) This is what the former Turkish ambassador said. He says that Turkey didn’t actually know what was going on between USSR and US. He said that if there would be a battle, Turkey would be unprepared and it would actually loose it. Actually what he meant was that, if Soviets were going to bomb Turkish missile site then, US would bomb Cuban missile sites. He says that Kennedy had twice ordered for the missiles to be removed from Turkey before the crisis, but they never were. He said so, because the missiles were worthless, but Turkish wanted them to remain in Turkey, so Kennedy didn’t care much about it. Kennedy gave them the missile as a present. What might have happened if US invade Cuba? (2) “We can predict the result with certainty,” “No one should believe that US troops could have been attacked by tactical nuclear warheads without the US responding with nuclear warheads.” The main result of the crisis was the unhappiness of the three sides. Fidel Castro was angry at the way Soviets have retreated. One of the main reasons why Khrushchev fell from power in October 1964 is this crisis. The Soviets started their military expansion which actually caused the economy to cripple. The main result of crisis was the creation of the hot line between Kremlin and the Whi...