Cuban Missile Crisis Part 2

The reason why the Soviets were in Cuba was because Castro wanted some defense to prevent another invasion, reminiscent of The Bay of Pigs invasion. Castro began receiving military aid from the Soviet Union. This came after Cuba became openly communist in 1960. At that time Cuba took millions of dollars of United States property located in Cuba. The United States subsequently ended diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961. Kennedy used the original Eisenhower administration plan to “dispatch Cuban exiles living in Nicaragua.” CIA officials poorly trained their soldiers and anti-Castro Cubans. On April 17, 1961 1400 troops got smashed by Castro. The CIA had poor planning on their part because the planes sent for backup arrived an hour late. The pilots forgot to set their clocks to Cuban time. This led to the loss of Bay of Pigs for the United States allowing Castro to gain more control over Cuba.

John F. Kennedy attempted to make the United States a safer place. He added 300,000 troops and 40,000 in Europe to try to protect the United States. Still, Kennedy agreed with Castro not to invade. Even though the Soviets felt threatened by the United States missiles in Turkey, the Soviet Union demanded the removal of the missiles. The United States then got the Soviet Union to remove their missiles only after Castro protested. As a result, in 1963 the Soviet Union and the United States, along with nearly one-hundred other nations “signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to end the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.” Americans now felt like they didn’t have to worry.

Due to a failed invasion and good negotiations, all nuclear powers are able to live in harmony with the creation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Before the Test Ban Treaty was established, nobody really knew what was going to happen next. Looking up in the sky and expecting a bomb to appear seemed probable. The United States once vigilant could now take a deep breath and stop worrying about a nuclear attack. Nuclear testing of atomic bombs was intolerable above ground. Luckily, there were no casualties from the Cuban missile crisis and it resulted in a learning moment for the entire world.

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