The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most significant single events in Cold War history. It started with installing Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba supported by the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, which was discovered on October 14, 1962, by an American spy plane. The reason for this measure was the desire of the Soviets to increase the country’s nuclear strike capability. This occasion evoked the concerns of President John F. Kennedy regarding national security, and he called together the executive committee to “orchestrate their removal without initiating a wider conflict–and possibly a nuclear war” (History.com Editors). In this way, the principal participants in the matter were President John F. Kennedy with his advisors, Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, and the Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin. Their successful attempts to negotiate the problem allowed overcoming it and preventing the emergence of similar issues in the future.
The events of this crisis represented a series of communications between the Soviets and the American officials. They began with the discovery of missiles by the United States and the public warning to the Soviet Union, which was ignored. In response, President Kennedy discussed the options with his advisors and made a decision to order what he called a quarantine, which was, in fact, a blockade. The following search for “any remaining diplomatic resolutions” led to a compromise between the two leaders, according to which the missiles were dismantled (Office of the Historian). In turn, the United States also removed their missiles from Turkey but secretly, whereas the publicly known decision was to end quarantine. The consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis were establishing a direct telephone link between the Soviet Union and the United States and signing a nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In this way, it can be viewed as an example of a peaceful resolution of similar conflicts.
Works Cited
History.com Editors. “Cuban Missile Crisis.” History, 2019, Web.
Office of the Historian. “The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962.” Foreign Service Institute, Web.