Information Paper - Cold War

Many young Americans today may not fully understand the fear that the Cold War brought about; the feeling that at any moment, life as we know it could cease to exist. Young Americans today would probably have a completely different idea of a “Duck and Cover” drill that many early Cold War school-aged children practiced (http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org). The fear of nuclear holocaust was the fear of the Cold War, and the fear of a holocaust was nearly a reality in October of 1962, with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It could be said that the Cuban Missile Crisis was the product of two under lying issues: 1) The Soviet Union losing the battle in the missile arms race with the United States, and 2) Fidel Castro’s fear of losing Cuba due to invasion (http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/days). However, I believe that a third issue and as an American, the most important issue was the fear of a Communist takeover and the threat of a first-strike attack by the Soviets on the United States. Ultimately, the American handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis would be crucial to the future of mankind, and would reflect positively upon the United States and the Kennedy Administration.

By means of using civilian vessels instead of military vessels, and having their troops pose as tourists on a cruise ship, the Soviets employed deceptive means to secretly place intermediate-range missiles 90 miles off the U.S. coast of Florida. Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier believed that the Soviets should have the right to do the same as the Americans. After all, the U.S. had missiles in Turkey only 150 miles from the Soviet Union. Further, President Kennedy had finally announced that America was winning the arms race even though Khrushchev was already aware of the missile gap. In 1961, President Kennedy believed that this disclosure was necessary for all to know, in response to the construction of the Berlin Wall (http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/days).