Cuban Missile Crisis and Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Essay

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The assassination of American president John Kennedy has shocked the world, and especially the United States of America. Spencer (2002, p. 1928) states: “The assassination also marked major cultural and technological shifts in the United States.” So, what has really happened in one of the largest cities of the state of Texas on November, 22nd 1963? Let’s begin from the moment of John Kennedy’s introduction into the post of president. In January 1961, the thirty-fifth president of the USA, John F. Kennedy, started execution of his duties.

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He was a very bright political figure who has been descended from the very influential and rich clan of Kennedy. His victory in the presidential elections of 1960 in many respects was promoted by the powerful financial support of his clan, though and not the last role has played the image of the young and vigorous politician of new generation, who has declared Americans his intention to clear the new way for the USA.

Kennedy’s pre-election internal political program planned a number of social and economic reforms, such as a decrease in taxation, the introduction of legislation on the civil rights of color population, medical insurance for aged people, increase of a minimum of wages and so forth. However, these promises have been completely managed to realize by his receiver L. Johnson. The novelty of diplomacy of the new president consists in updating and expansion of a range of both peaceful and military methods of protection of interests of the USA in global antagonism with the USSR.

Special attention was given to third-world countries. In March 1961, the United States Peace Corps was created for the work of the American volunteers in developing countries. After a failure of prepared by CIA intrusion of anti-Castro forces to Cuba (April 1961), the program of social and economic development of the countries of Latin America “Alliance for Progress” has been stopped.

The military aspect of the policy of the new management for the USA was the doctrine of flexible reaction, providing alongside with the prosecution of total nuclear war, local and anti-guerrilla wars with the application of nuclear and conventional armaments. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, Arthur Krock (1963) wrote that a policy of “news management not only exists but in the form of direct and deliberate action has been enforced more cynically and boldly than by any previous administration in a period when the US was not at war.”

However, soon the government of Kennedy had to collide with the greater trails, which called into big question the efficiency of his policy: the Berlin crisis (August 1961) and especially the Cuban Missile Crisis. According to Stern (2005, p. 17). “Americans called this episode the “Cuban missile crisis”; the Soviets dubbed it the “Caribbean crisis”; but the Cubans labeled it the “October crisis” because it represented only one incident in more than a year of unremitting US threats to Cuba.”

In October 1962, there was the largest aggravation in relations between the USSR and the USA in all post-war periods, which put the world in danger of nuclear and thermonuclear war between super states. Later it has been named the Cuban Missile Crisis. This crisis has arisen in conditions of confrontation because of the construction of the Berlin wall. The direct reason for the crisis was the secret accommodation of Soviet rockets with nuclear warheads on Cuba. This operation was conducted secretly, under the personal instruction of Soviet leader Khrushchev and has got the approval of Cuban dictator Castro.

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By the beginning of the 1960 years, the USSR has been taken in a ring by the American military bases, on which nuclear and conventional armaments of the USA have been placed. The especial threat has been represented by American bombers with the nuclear weapon on board, constantly being in fighting trim, and also American intermediate-range ballistic missile with the thermonuclear warheads, placed quite near of vitally important centers of the USSR – in Turkey. America greatly surpassed the USSR on nuclear potential.

Khrushchev considered such a state of affairs unfair and has taken advantage of the continuous attempts of Americans to throw Castro’s government in Cuba. He has offered the Cuban dictator absolute protection from American aggression in the form of accommodation of conventional and nuclear forces on the island. The decision on the accommodation of rockets was accepted in the summer of 1962 during the visit of the Soviet delegation to Cuba.

The administration of the USA has sounded the alarm – the safety of America is under the big threat, the Soviet rockets are placed on Cuba. However, the presence of these rockets was categorically denied by Khrushchev in the September personal message to President Kennedy and by the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs at an audience in the White House on October 18th, 1962.

Meanwhile, the given data have been confirmed by the data of the American air photography of the territory of Cuba. On October, 22nd Kennedy has appeared on television and has declared the beginning of the naval blockade of Cuba. In Security Council of the United Nations, to which the USSR, Cuba, and the USA have addressed, have been conducted hearings.

On October 23rd, 1962, the Soviet government made a statement, condemning the actions of the USA as aggressive ones. Both parties discussed variants of an attack on the island, and accordingly, the variants of defense. The American ships blocked all ways to Cuba, and the USSR could expose only some cruising submarines, which by a miracle have managed to break to a place of the conflict. However, it has made a strong enough impression upon American forces; they have been again much surprised, as well as in case of the fact of detection on the island of the Soviet nuclear rockets.

At the last moment, President Kennedy has not followed the tastes of militarians and has taken upon himself the initiative in personal negotiations with Khrushchev. Already on October 28th, 1962, Khrushchev, in the message to Kennedy, in order to calm American people, has declared the dismantling of rockets, but in rather veiled form. However, and the USA had to make concessions. As a result of private personal negotiations between Soviet and American leaders, the United States has agreed on the dismantling of the rocket complexes in Turkey and also have refused officially from any attempts to change the regime of F. Castro by an armed way.

Summing up all the above-stated, it is possible to draw a conclusion that Khrushchev played very dangerous games and frankly bluffed. Thus, but he has achieved great success. America, which more than dozen times surpassed the USSR on nuclear potential, practically for the first time has crawfished. The USSR has gained a great moral victory, has achieved dismantling of the American rockets in Turkey, and has shown to the third world countries that the USA is far not all-powerful.

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Since the spring of 1963, Kennedy more and more often declared peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union. At the same time, the signing of the Moscow agreement about the prohibition of test of the nuclear weapon (1963), added by the agreement on refusal from the nuclear weapon and other means of mass destruction in orbit of the Earth (October, 1963), has also given rise to critic and dissatisfaction of president Kennedy by supporters Cold War. “The experience of the missile crisis, in addition to stimulating these three agreements in 1963, also contributed to the resolve of both sides to agree on the Treaty the on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), even though the agreement was not reached until 1969”. (Garthoff, 1989, p. 135).

In the heated internal political conditions, which become ever more complicated by an aggravation of race conflicts, Kennedy has left to Dallas, where he has been shot during his travel on the city in the open car. The Warren Commission, which has been created for the investigation of the murder of the president, has come to the conclusion that the murderer was Lee Harvey Oswald. The conclusions of the commission almost at once have been called in question, and many hypotheses of the reasons for the murder of President Kennedy since then have been put forward.

There are some basic versions about the one who killed the president, among the main candidates for the role of the murderer of Kennedy name: Lee Harvey Oswald, the CIA, mafia, Cubans, the USSR. Among all set of above-mentioned versions at once is evident a strange message of these reasonings: the thirty-fourth president of the USA have been prevented. It does not matter important who did it – the single-murderer, the CIA, mafia, the offended Cubans, or the KGB. But, long time, it is noticed that political murders are very seldom made with a feeling of revenge but are very frequent for the prevention of some undesirable events.

Therefore from all these versions, it is possible to allocate one more version, which, by the way, was also supported but has remained in a shadow. The matter is that president Kennedy has given the order on careful inspection of the Israeli nuclear center in Dimon (Israel’s Negev Desert). The White House has got to know about the successfully developing nuclear program of the state of Israel, which can soon lead to the occurrence of one more nuclear state – Israel. From the point of view of more than the ambiguous position of Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis, an obvious turn of the thirty-fourth president of the USA to restriction of tests of the nuclear weapon, and an approaching resolute collision of Israel with the Arabian states, probably the ruling circles the state have decided to organize the plot with the purpose of the murder of Kennedy.

As it is known, the Israeli special services are one of the best in the world, and the Jewish organizations of the USA have many own people in the CIA. Especially, in this case, the purpose of political murder was not just trivial revenge but the prevention of heavy consequences for interested persons. The inspection in the nuclear center in Dimon could lead to the closing of the Israeli nuclear program, and the Jewish state has not been assured yet of that absolute superiority over Arabs, which it received after The Six-Day War.

References

  1. Garthoff, Raymond. (1989) Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Brookings Institution Press
  2. Krock, Arthur. (1963) ‘Mr. Kennedy’s Management of the News.’ Fortune, 1963, pp. 82, 199—202.
  3. Spencer, Lauren (2002) The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. The Rosen Publishing Group.
  4. Stern, Sheldon. (2005) The Week The World Stood Still: inside the secret Cuban missile crisis. Stanford University Press.
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IvyPanda. 2021. "Cuban Missile Crisis and Robert F. Kennedy Assassination." September 16, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cuban-missile-crisis-and-robert-f-kennedy-assassination/.

1. IvyPanda. "Cuban Missile Crisis and Robert F. Kennedy Assassination." September 16, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cuban-missile-crisis-and-robert-f-kennedy-assassination/.


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