LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union
built 219 days ago
The roots of the Cuban missile crisis go back, in part, to an earlier crisis—the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban expatriates trained, supplied, and directed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The purpose of the failed invasion was to overthrow Fidel Castro's leftist rule of Cuba, but had two unintended effects. First, it frightened Castro, causing him to make concessions to the U.S.S.R, which wanted to place military bases on the island of Cuba, in exchange for protection against further U.S. invasion attempts. Second, it heightened tensions between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, read U.S. weakness in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and blustered publicly that he might retaliate by driving the U.S. out of West Berlin. U.S. President John Kennedy, in return, openly boasted that the U.S. possessed many more (and more accurate and deliverable) nuclear missiles and warheads than the U.S.S.R., and would consider striking first with them if it ever found itself at a military disadvantage.
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The Cuban Missile Crisis has long been remembered as a lesson in effective diplomacy and crisis management. Kennedy and his advisers responded cautiously but firmly to the Soviet emplacement of nuclear missiles in Cuba, opting for a flexible blockade rather than a potentially escalatory military alternative. While that characterization is accurate in many respects, evidence about near misses, accidents, and unauthorized actions recently has come to light suggesting that the crisis came dangerously close to spinning out of control. Given the tensions of October 1962, the downing of a U-2 over Cuba or the straying of a U.S. aircraft over Soviet airspace-- both of which actually happened--could have been interpreted by either side as a deliberate provocation requiring a military response.
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Philip M. Kaiser, a former ambassador to Austria, Hungary and Senegal who during the Cuban Missile Crisis acted to deny the Soviet Union landing rights at airports where its planes might refuel, died Thursday. He was 93.
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Although scholars differ in their assessment, some consider the Cuban Missile Crisis a classic case of prudent crisis management. Kennedy and Khrushchev prevented the conflict from escalating while they sought and found a mutually satisfactory solution. They did so by avoiding irreversible steps, curtailing unwarranted bluster, and avoiding backing each other into a corner. Other scholars have criticized the handling of the crisis as being too timid or too reckless. Kennedy's critics on the right lament his unwillingness to seize the opportunity to destroy Castro; his critics on the other side of the spectrum condemn his willingness to risk nuclear war merely to delay the inevitable—the vulnerability of the American homeland to Soviet nuclear weapons. Hardâ€liners in the Soviet military severely criticized Khrushchev for yielding to U.S. pressure.
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The teacher will provide many visual aids throughout the discussion of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The PowerPoint presentation includes the following visual aids: 1) Photographs of the Soviet military equipment and weapons on the island of Cuba, taken by United States surveillance planes; 2) pictures of the world leaders involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis: 3) a timeline of the 13-day events of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Map visuals include a world map, a regional map of Cuba and the Southeastern United States, a map of Cuba that accents missile locations. Handouts include a Cuba/United States map handout to label and a written copy of President Kennedy’s televised speech of October 22, 1962.
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On October 27 1962, US destroyer ship bombarded Soviet nuclear submarine with anti-submarine bombs in the area of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The captain of the Soviet submarine replied by using the deadly weapon. During the next two hours USA and USSR exchanged nuclear strikes.
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