![]() ![]() How did the public understand the crisis at the time, and how did memoirist-historians and others present it for a number of years afterward? What of significance was covered up or not addressed in those published treatments? In particular, what were the limitations and failures of U.S. The missile crisis raises many important and often interrelated questions that are considered in this article. In fact, the crisis continued, although behind the scenes and in greatly reduced form, for some weeks in the fall of 1962 while the two great powers argued about the removal of Soviet bombers from Cuba and whether there would be on-site inspection of the removal of the Soviet missiles. ![]() They publicly promised to withdraw their missiles from Cuba, and the United States seemed to promise not to invade Cuba in the future. The near-deadly week of dramatic public confrontation, with the U.S.-imposed quarantine and the dangers of a shoot-out at sea or far worse, seemed to end when the Soviets backed down on October 28. quarantine or if they did not soon agree to withdraw their missiles from Cuba. government was what would happen if the Soviets militarily challenged the U.S. Left unspoken in public by Kennedy on October 22 and throughout the week by the U.S. Kennedy also implied that first trying secret diplomacy would have been inadequate and that a public confrontation, the quarantine, was both essential and prudent. government statements was that the Soviet deployment in Cuba was overturning the strategic nuclear balance and that unless the Soviet missiles in Cuba were removed, they would place the United States in imminent military peril. ![]() The implication of Kennedy’s October 22 speech and various other U.S. To do nothing in the face of the Soviet act would be unacceptable, he indicated. He declared that the weapons must be withdrawn and that he was establishing a naval quarantine. #3 minutes to midnight cuban missile crisis tv#To the world, the week of the Cuban missile crisis began publicly on October 22, with Kennedy’s dramatic TV and radio announcement of what he termed Soviet “offensive” missiles in Cuba. In seeking to determine policy in October 1962, President John Kennedy met in secret from October 16 to 22 with his chosen high-level advisers in the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or ExComm. peoples, but much if not all of humankind. ![]() Such use of nuclear weapons in 1962 would have imperiled not only the Soviet and U.S. The total megatonnage in that initial exchange would probably have been approximately 50,000 to 100,000 times greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb. In a first salvo of a nuclear exchange with its intercontinental adversary, the United States could have launched about 3,000 nuclear weapons and the Soviets about 250. In October 1962, the United States had about 27,000 nuclear weapons, and the Soviets had about 3,000. It could have escalated too easily into an all-out nuclear exchange. President John Kennedy, in the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, Octoįifty years ago during the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet Union and the United States came dangerously close to war. But when we said we’re not going to, and they go ahead and do it, and then we do nothing, then I think our risks increase. Last month I should have said we don’t care. ![]()
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