Friday, October 11, 2013

The Cuban Missile Crisis and Kennedy's Flexibility



After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States faced its first real threat of imminent nuclear war with the Soviet Union.  Besides Castro's communist revolution, why was Cuba such a target for American hostility?  How does Kennedy correct his previous failures in dealing with Cuba by resolving the missile crisis?  Why did the United States continue to avoid contact with Cuba after the crisis was over?

9 comments:

  1. Seeing as how at the time of JFK's election during the cold war, Capitalism was at war with communism, perhaps just as much as with the Vietnam war. There were plenty of reasons the US saw as justification for its belligerence toward cuba. Castro thwarted the US and dissimilated any capitalism he could find. For instance: "Castro implemented three reforms that foreshadowed a move to the left, as a staunch cuban nationalist, he took over management of the US-owned telephone company and cut rates; he ordered the forced sale of vacant urban lots at reoduced prices to end speculation and slashed urban rents by 50%. this was just the start." As you can see Not only was Cuba's ever dwindling relationship with the US and developing alliance with the soviet union a concern for Kennedy but Castro in of himself proved to be a liability if not a threat if allied with the wrong(or right) country(s).

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  2. Cuba was such a hot-spot at the time mainly due to its revolutionary tendencies. Rising leaders including Castro, along with recruited Che Guevera, believed that the only way to improve the lives of the Cuban people was to revolt through a communist revolution. Of course the US does no like communism, and with Cuba in such close proximity, it was soon a large target on America's radar. At first, JFK tried to implement economic an social change in hopes that it would combat rising communist ideas. However, this often just "strengthened and perpetuated these regimes." Therefore, in the Cuban missile crisis, JFK took a more CIA backed and "hard on communism" approach to combat with a physical invasion.

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  3. Well, besides Castro's communist regime economic factors could have been another reason for American involvement in the missile crisis. Cane sugar was was selling to most of the world from Cuba and American companies and secured quite a bit of the profits in the early 20th century. So like the banana republic we saw in Guatemala America might have been using communism as an excuse for going in and fighting the redistribution of land that comes with a communist revolution.

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  4. In the years before, the US had dealt with a lot of countries that were turning communistic. Although they had tried to interfere, in the end, communism often took over in the country (Western Europe, Vietnam). Those were of course countries far far away. But Cuba was a direct neighbor, even more, it had been once controlled by the US. Their communistic revolution must have make the US government panic. This drove them to inconsiderate actions like the bay of pigs invasion. I think that the most effective think that JFK did to defeat to cuban communists was cutting of trade, because the US had been one of Cubas biggest buissnes associate in sugar cane. A lot of their economy was depending on the US.

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  5. Cuba was such a big threat to america because it was so close to america that at anytime it could of hit Florida or any other gulf coast country with nuclear weapons and we wouldn't have had time to react and stop them. The failure of the bay of pigs was completely kennedy's fault and the administrations fault. after promising to the world that america wouldn't interfere and then interfering was a huge mistake. making sure that the cuban missile crisis was handled correctly and the whole situation was "disarmed" was the right course of action for kennedy to make. we avoided Cuban contact due to the hostile feelings and the looming fear that any interaction might lead to another close call to nuclear war.

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  6. I think that Cuba was such a big threat at the time because of its proximity to the US. They could so easily hit one of the states along the gulf coast and we wouldn't be able to do much about it. As for the bay of pigs, the blame is entirely on Kennedy's shoulders. Taking back the promis he made about how he wouldn't interfere is also a important thing to note. However, he guided himself towards the right track after wanting the Cuban missle crisis to be solved. This showed himself and everyone else how good of a leader Kennedy can be. I think that even after the crisis was over we kept our space just because of the slim possibility of all this happening again.

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  7. Cuba was a threat because it is so close to the US geographically. People were worried about Russia which is thousands of miles away, but Cuba is a whole different story. The failure of the pig of bays was down to JFK, but he was able to rectify this mistake through his action against Cuba during the crisis.

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  8. Cuba was a "target for American hostility" given that 1. it is so geographically close and 2. it is the wealthiest of the Latin American countries. Because of this, the US controlled much of Cuba, including its famous sugar cane industry (until many negotiations were made further down the road). So when Cuba began to become a "modern day Robin Hood" under Castro, the US, as Sydney mentioned, basically began to panic. Regarding Kennedy, since he resolved the missile crisis, he made up for his prior failures; he didn't exactly correct them, but he was commended for taking authority in the right way when the crisis happened. After the crisis was over, it seems to me that the US avoided contact with Cuba since Cuba had such strong economic and political ties with the Soviet Union. Maybe they learned their lesson to not get involved in foreign affairs unless it is truly needed.

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  9. Cuba was so close the United States that it posed a huge threat against the US if another country were to make an agreement with the Communist government to use Cuba as a firing place, trade route, storage, etc. Simply Cuba's location made it a huge threat and the US did not want to make Cuba a complete enemy because of the uncertainty in the government and the people. JFK was afraid of Communism being at the doorstep of America, and enacted a trade embargo. This was his way of dealing with Cuba, to cripple the Cuban economy because of the Cuban relations with the Soviet Union.

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