Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis

1. Bay of Pigs

   • Cuban exiles invading Cuba under American help
   • Everyone involved was killed or captured
   • Cuba knew they were coming and a radio station on the beach broadcast the invasion to all of Cuba
   • The exiles were trained by American forces

2. Missiles

   • The crisis started when a U-2 spy plane took photo of missiles on cuba that had been placed by Russia
   • Why did Krushchev Put Missiles in Cuba
     • Kruschev felt it was ony fair they have missiles near America
     • Placing missiles on Cuba would give him a better negotiating position.
   • America had missiles placed in Turkey at the time

3. Cuban Revolution

   • After the Cuban Revoultion, Cuban become communists under their new dicttor Fidel Castro
   • Cuba fully supported krushchev's desicions
   • The Cuban Revolution was the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista’s regime by the 26th of July Movement and the establishment of a new Cuban government led by Fidel Castro in 1959.

4. USA's Reaction

   • In 1961 the US had backed a failed attempt to overthrow the Cuban government
   • They placed a blockade around Cuba to stop anymore missiles getting in, this failed. They let in one oil tanker that happened to be carrying the missiles
   • They think about launching an air strike on the missiles to destroy them
   • Cut all trade links with Cuba

5. Key Points

   • Khruschev announces on Radio Moscow that the missiles are being withdrawn. Secretly, Kennedy agrees to withdraw US missiles from Turkey.
   • A new letter from Khrushchev arrives, proposing a public trade of Soviet missiles in Cuba for U.S. missile in Turkey. A U2 spy plane is shot down over Cuba, showing an attempt at an act of war
   • The world appeared to be on the edge of a nuclear abyss that that threatened to engulf the two superpowers.