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The Cuban Missle Crisis- John F. Kennedy
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The Cuban Missle Crisis- John F. Kennedy

by b.lee

Historical
2013

Web Site

(based on 3 ratings)
1 review

About the Story

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. The United States armed forces were at their highest state of readiness ever and Soviet field commanders in Cuba were prepared to use battlefield nuclear weapons to defend the island if it was invaded. Luckily, thanks to the bravery of two men, President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, war was averted.

In 1962, the Soviet Union was desperately behind the United States in the arms race. Soviet missiles were only powerful enough to be launched against Europe but U.S. missiles were capable of striking the entire Soviet Union. In late April 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba. A deployment in Cuba would double the Soviet strategic arsenal and provide a real deterrent to a potential U.S. attack against the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, Fidel Castro was looking for a way to defend his island nation from an attack by the U.S. Ever since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Castro felt a second attack was inevitable. Consequently, he approved of Khrushchev's plan to place missiles on the island. In the summer of 1962 the Soviet Union worked quickly and secretly to build its missile installations in Cuba.

Missile Map For the United States, the crisis began on October 15, 1962 whenreconnaissance photographs revealed Soviet missiles under construction in Cuba. Early the next day, President John Kennedy was informed of the missile installations. Kennedy immediately organized the EX-COMM, a group of his twelve most important advisors to handle the crisis. After seven days of guarded and intense debate within the upper echelons of government, Kennedy concluded to impose a naval quarantine around Cuba. He wished to prevent the arrival of more Soviet offensive weapons on the island. On October 22, Kennedy announced the discovery of the missile installations to the public and his decision to quarantine the island. He also proclaimed that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba would be regarded as an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union and demanded that the Soviets remove all of their offensive weapons from Cuba.

During the public phase of the Crisis, tensions began to build on both sides. Kennedy eventually ordered low-level reconnaissance missions once every two hours. On the 25th Kennedy pulled the quarantine line back and raised military readiness to DEFCON 2. Then on the 26th EX-COMM heard from Khrushchev in an impassioned letter. He proposed removing Soviet missiles and personnel if the U.S. would guarantee not to invade Cuba. October 27 was the worst day of the crisis. A U-2 was shot down over Cuba and EX-COMM received a second letter from Khrushchev demanding the removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey in exchange for Soviet missiles in Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy suggested ignoring the second letter and contacted Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to tell him of the U.S. agreement with the first.

Tensions finally began to ease on October 28 when Khrushchev announced that he would dismantle the installations and return the missiles to the Soviet Union, expressing his trust that the United States would not invade Cuba. Further negotiations were held to implement the October 28 agreement, including a United States demand that Soviet light bombers be removed from Cuba, and specifying the exact form and conditions of United States assurances not to invade Cuba.


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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Solving the Cuban Missile Crisis in One Click, November 2, 2013
by Hanon Ondricek (United States)

This sounds as if it's going to be a lofty and important game. The description on the website is a good column-foot long (see above), and reads as if it were lifted directly from a world history textbook. Sounds like the author did a lot of research. I'm not into historical games, but this sounded like too crazy of a concept not to at least see what it is. There's no way I'll have time to play this kind of deep historical "what if" scenario.

I needn't have worried. I'm presented with the situation of possible nukes in Cuba, and a menu of about five choices. "Nuke Russia" is one of them. I choose "Blockade Cuba". Game ends, and I'm berated for picking the most boring option. "Do Nothing" ends the game also, the nukes are never launched. The other aggressive options aren't much deeper than two clicks, and are pretty much "You get nuked back" with various US regions flattened and different countries emerging victorious…"Break out the tea and crumpets" is displayed when England remains as the only superpower. Is this meant as a joke game?

One of the pictures has a sideways page number on the edge, so I get the feeling this might have been a class assignment where someone lifted pictures and text from a book. None of the outcomes (or any of the original text in the game for that matter) goes into anything like thoughtful speculation or extensive detail about what might have really happened if history played out differently. It's just "CLICK Russia nukes you". This doesn't seem at all like it was meant as parody, unless you take an additional meta-step back and look at it as a humorous example of a highschooler's last minute "what do I submit for this history assignment due tomorrow that I have not done any work on yet??" type of thing.

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