The Cuban Missile Crisis
Website created by: Alex Hein, Bailey Core, and Juliano Avolio
Group Website
Website created by: Alex Hein, Bailey Core, and Juliano Avolio
Group Website
The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 15. The crisis started then because this was when pictures of offensive missile sites were first shown to the Kennedy administration. For the next fourteen days the Soviet Union and the United States of America were in an intense battle of diplomacy trying to get one another to give in to their demands. During this time, security protocols were raised to the highest in history: DEFCON 2. ExComm (Executive Committee) and Kennedy debated what they should do to handle the Soviets. A couple of their choices were to blockade Cuba, call in an airstrike to destroy the missile sites, or to launch a full out invasion of Cuba. Their highest priority was a blockade so no more missiles or weapons could get into Cuba. A few days later Kennedy addressed the nation about the quarantine. In his speech he told the nation about the blockade being placed on Cuba due to its offensive missiles. He also urged Khrushchev to reconsider his plans and to remove the missiles. One day after his speech, Kennedy received a letter from the Soviet's saying that the quarantine was a violation of international law. The next morning when Soviet ships reached the the blockade, ExComm got the news that the Soviet ships had turned around. Two days after the first encounter, Kennedy received a letter from Khrushchev saying that if the Soviets got rid of their missiles, then the U.S. would remove the blockade and agree not to invade Cuba. The U.S. accepted their requests and also promised to remove the missiles from Turkey at a later date. All the actions took place and everything ended peacefully.