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Week 5 – The Cuban Missile Crisis
Week 5 – Study Guide
Terms: Cuban Missile Crisis Mutually Assured Destruction John F. Kennedy Technocrat Nikita Khrushchev Limited Test Ban Treaty Fidel Castro Poltava Che Guevara U- Robert S. McNamara Robert Kennedy William Castle Guantanamo Bay Monroe Doctrine Bay of Pigs Operation Mongoose Missile Gap Jupiter Missiles Adlai Stevenson
Questions to Consider:
- Why would Khrushchev want to have Soviet Missiles in Cuba? (there are many rationales)
- John Goodman’s character in Matinee resembles William Castle. Who is William Castle and why is he important in U.S. Atomic Culture?
- Who were the “Best and the Brightest”?
- Amundson and Zeman make a clear distinction between a period of HIGH ATOMIC CULTURE and LATE ATOMIC CULTURE. When is this break? Why did they choose this year?
XTC – Living Through Another Cuba
Week 5 – The Cuban Missile Crisis
I. From Ike to Kennedy
Kennedy wins over VP Nixon, in part, from a
platform touting a “Missile Gap”
Kennedy must deal with Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
- Soviet Premier from 1953 to 1964,
- **A bold contrast to Joseph Stalin, Khrushchev initiated a series of steps towards DE-STALINZATION
- Wants more (not total) freedom of the arts; Alexander Solzhenitsyn is perhaps the best example
- Khrushchev had many domestic failures, but he aimed to improve the Soviet standard of living with more missiles and less conventional forces**
Some of the Best and the Brightest
Robert Kennedy
Attorney General
Robert S.
McNamara
Sec. of Defense
McGeorge Bundy
National Security
Adviser
Members of JFKs cabinet would remain well into
LBJs presidency
Two Events Shaped Kennedy’s Cold War agenda
The first is the BERLIN CRISIS
II. THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS - Background
U.S.-Cuban Relations: a Brief History
John Quincy Adams, author of the Monroe Doctrine
Americans have long held that the Western Hemisphere was their sphere of domination.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE (1823):
- Europe had no place in foreign affairs in this hemisphere.
- America had right to police this hemisphere
In particular, Cuba was in American imperial designs;
JQ Adams: Cuba is “an object of transcendent importance to the political and commercial interests of our Union.”
Fidel Castro
Castro and Che Guevara
Castro is born in 1926;
A Lawyer by training
In 1955, he and his brother RAUL travel to Mexico; they are looking for support to begin a Guerrilla war for independence in Cuba
They meet the Argentine freelance revolutionary ERNESTO GUEVARA, or “Che Guevara”
JFK and Robert Kennedy attempt to assassinate Castro with no luck
- They attempt a total coup
- Bay of Pigs invasion
- Train & equip Cuban exiles in Central America; Cuba
- drop men into southern coast; they are surrounded; JFK refuses to offer American air-support
THE BAY OF PIGS is a total failure
William Castle
William Castle is the inspiration for John Goodman’s character
Castle used gimmicks to bring in bigger crowds -1958s Macabe: audience members had a life insurance policy taken out
- 1969 House on Haunted Hill : skeletons dropped from the ceiling
- 1960 Thirteen Ghosts : In 3-D
- These latter two films have recently been remade
III. The Cuban Missile Crisis, Detection and Blockade
Week 5 – Study Guide
Terms: Cuban Missile Crisis Mutually Assured Destruction John F. Kennedy Technocrat Nikita Khrushchev Limited Test Ban Treaty Fidel Castro Poltava Che Guevara U- Robert S. McNamara Robert Kennedy William Castle Guantanamo Bay Monroe Doctrine Bay of Pigs Operation Mongoose Missile Gap Jupiter Missiles Adlai Stevenson
Questions to Consider:
- Why would Khrushchev want to have Soviet Missiles in Cuba? (there are many rationales)
- John Goodman’s character in Matinee resembles William Castle. Who is William Castle and why is he important in U.S. Atomic Culture?
- Who were the “Best and the Brightest”?
- Amundson and Zeman make a clear distinction between a period of HIGH ATOMIC CULTURE and LATE ATOMIC CULTURE. When is this break? Why did they choose this year?
Elvis Costello – Waiting on the End of the World
III. The Cuban Missile Crisis, Detection and Blockade
America’s most valuable source of Photo
Reconnaissance, the U-
The U
- could fly over 60,000 feet
- Immune to most Soviet anti- aircraft guns and Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs)
- U-2 could take photographs of high resolution
- U2 is responsible for detecting nuclear missile deployments in Cuba, but not until October 15th
The U2 receives notorious “bad press” When Francis Gary Powers (left) is shot down over Russian Airspace May 1st, 1960; refuses suicide
Jupiter Missiles in Turkey
Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko meets Kennedy
in the White House
Kennedy’s Speech to the American People
