Cuban Missile Crisis

ABSTRACT

In October of 1962, two super powers came to heads, flexing their nuclear fused muscles and playing a very carefully calculated game of foreign policy chess on a real time global scale. In studying the Cuban Missile Crisis it is apparent to this author that there is virtually limitless volumes and accounts of the individual events that linked this crisis together. It is the intention of this paper to not list each event but provide a brief picture of insight into one of the most dangerous events that could have been in human history, and perhaps, the end of that history all together.

The Set Up

High above the small island nation of Cuba a U-2 spy plane gracefully skims the atmosphere as it photographs the topography of the land below. Unknown to the pilot, he’s stumbled upon the beginning of one of the most imminent threats to the United States and humanity. The destructive power of nuclear weapons is widely known, as the images of Nagasaki and Hiroshima aren’t even 20 years old. The United States and the Soviet Union are deeply locked within an arms race, continually building more powerful and far-reaching weapons of mass destruction, and there now exist weapons that can destroy magnitudes more than the likes of Fat Man and Little Boy. Frequent practice drills are held at public schools to prepare children for the threat of nuclear war, a fear that is shared by many citizens within the United States. It’s October of 1962 and the Cold War just became hot.

BACKGROUND

By 1962 the Cold War was in its 17th year. The Yalta Conference had been long since finished and post war Germany was well divided, served now by gates and blockades. The spread of communism was going global, and the United States was determined to stop it. At first the attempts were based on building a contrast from the Soviets, by implementing such actions as the Marshall Plan in 1947, where the United States would support European countries recovering from...