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March 1960
In March of 1960, President Eisenhower wanted to invade Cuba so he gave the CIA permission to secretly train Cuban exiles to prepare for the invasion. Both the CIA and the Cuban exiles hoped that in result, it would cause a mass uprising that would overthrow Castro. Nine days after his election, Kennedy found out about Eisenhower’s plan. He had his doubts, but ended up approving it anyway. -
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Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis
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Found missile Bases
On October 14, 1960, American planes had revealed the pictures they took of the Soviet missile bases in Cuba. The pictures showed that some of them were already prepared to launch missiles. Kennedy told the nation about these missile bases and his plans to get rid of them. He said that if they fired the missiles at us, then that would automatically mean war. The nation was terrified of a nuclear war for the next week. -
Bay of Pigs
1300 to 1500 exiles landed on the southern coast of Cuba at Bahia de Cochinos, The Bay of Pigs, on the night of April 17, 1961. Nothing ended up happening the way it was supposed to. They planned to knock out the Cuban air force with an air strike, but it failed. The main unit landed, lacking American air support, and ended up facing 25,000 Cuban troops backed up by Soviet tanks and jets. Some of the exiles were killed, and others were sent to prison. -
Nuclear Weapons
In the summer of 1962, more and more weapons were being sent to Cuba- including nuclear missiles. President Kennedy didn’t tolerate offensive nuclear weapons in Cuba, so he responded with a letter saying so. Which led to October 14, pictures of Soviet missile bases in Cuba were taken. Some of them had missiles ready to launch. -
Adressing the Nation
Kennedy addressed the nation that intelligence had found Soviet missiles in Cuba. He then told the nation that he planned to eliminate them. If the Soviets decided to set off their bombs, we’d be forced into a nuclear war. The entire United States was waiting for nuclear war to break out. -
Quarantine
At this time, the US Navy was trying to quarantine Cuba so that no missiles or ships carrying more missiles could leave or come into Cuban territory. 100,000 troops awaited the signal that told them nuclear war was upon them. No invasion force had ever been as large as this force assembled to attack the Soviet Union. This led the United States to not trust the Soviets and what they were about to do. -
The Standstill
The tension started to ease when the Soviet ships stopped to avoid confrontation. The Soviet Union and the United States were at a stalemate for a few days, not sure what was going to happen. Kennedy wrote a letter to Khrushchev asking him to change his mind on his plan. Khrushchev wrote back to Kennedy saying that the United States still didn’t understand why the Soviet Union needed to take action this way. This led to the United States at a standstill not sure if they should attack, or to keep -
The Agreement
An agreement was made to remove the missiles from Cuba. In turn, the United States would agree to not invade Cuba. The United States also agreed in secrecy to take out the missiles that they were hiding in Turkey. This patched the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States by easing the tension between the two about Nuclear War.
