The Background to the Cuban
Missile Crisis
With the Cuban Missile Crisis 60th anniversary on the horizon, it is
inevitable that discussion of the events will increase again. Historians have
spent the last six decades analysing the event in great detail to determine how
the crisis developed initially and how it was resolved. In hindsight we can
clearly see the escalating tensions between the Soviet Union, the United States
and Cuba was bound to spill over into a form of conflict or crisis, despite
attempts by some world leaders to bring the Cold War to an end. Kennedy took a
strong stance against Cuba, aiming to end tensions, but his bold and somewhat
aggressive attitude instead had the opposite effect.
John
F Kennedy was born on 29th May 1917 in Boston,
Massachusetts.[1]
No less than forty three years later he would become president on the United
States. Kennedy was known as a charismatic president, younger than most and
someone that brought ‘style, vigor and purpose to the White House’.[2] After
winning an election based on promises that he would take a much firmer stance
on Cuba than his predecessors, he launched a presidential term filled with
tensions with the Soviet Union and focused on removing any perceived communist
threats.[3] Therefore,
this meant that the Cold War reached a period of escalation, not reduction, in terms
of the potential risk of nuclear war under JFK. 
While the Cuban Missile Crisis represents the closest that we came ‘to the brink’,
there are previous events to consider.[4] Castro
had been receiving aid from the Soviet Union since 1960, which to America was a
signal of their communist alliance.[5]
Eisenhower was highly critical of Castro and had initiated covert plans to
overthrow him, called The Bay of Pigs Operation.[6] The Bay of Pigs scandal in April 1961 was highly damaging to Kennedy’s reputation and many
consider him to have generated a vendetta against Castro as a result. The
unsuccessful operation where Cuban exiles were trained by the US to launch an
invasion and insight civil unrest, eventually leading to Castro’s regime being
overthrown, failed drastically and publicly for the president, with him taking
responsibility for it during the aftermath.[7] He
had put his faith in the CIA,
inheriting a weak operation from the Eisenhower administration and choosing to
continue with the plans. The humiliation pushed JFK to launch Operation
Mongoose, a covert operation designed to find anyway to discredit and remove
Castro from his position of power in Cuba.[8]
Involving the CIA,
they conducted covert sabotage operations in Cuba, some even aimed at
assassinating Castro himself.[9]
Thus,
when October 1962 arrived, tensions were already high between Cuba and the
United States. The US were yet to rule out a further invasion of Cuba, leaving
Cuba viewing The Bay of Pigs as a requisite to a full-scale land invasion in the near future. When
Kennedy was informed of the missile sites of Cuba, it started the beginning of
two weeks of meetings, plans and negotiations to try and resolve the situation
while keeping America’s prestige intact. Ultimately, Kennedy’s pride had a large
influence on his actions as he had publicly committed himself to a Cuban
solution during his presidency, publicly failed during The Bay of Pigs Operation and had let the build-up of Soviet Missile bases on Cuba go
unnoticed.[10] Without his continued
attacks and aggressive attitude towards Cuba, the Cold War may never had needed
to escalate to the extent that it did in October 1962, as he pushed Castro
towards the USSR through their continued suspicions and policy of sabotage.
By Fyona Cunningham
[1]
Thomas C. Reeves, John F. Kennedy The
Man, The Politician, The President (Florida: Robert E. Krieger Publishing
Co., 1990), p. 7.
[2]
Ibid., p. i.
[3]
James N. Giglio, The Presidency of John
F. Kennedy (Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2006), p. 51.
[4] Jim
Rasenberger, The Brilliant Disaster JFK,
Castro, and America’s Doomed Invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs (New York:
Scribner, 2011), p. 363.
[5] Ibid.,
p. 52.
[6] Giglio,
p. 50.
[7]
Ibid., pp. 58-59.
[8]
Ibid., p. 65.
[9]
Ibid.
[10] Ibid.,
p. 58
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