President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis Literature Essay (Essay Sample)

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President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, variously cited as one of the well-documented historical events in modern history, has persistently sparked controversy among critics and historians alike. The unfolding of events leading up to the truce that saw Soviet and United States governments reach a consensus were collated in a thirteen-day series of meetings which, then President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was part of (Stern 20). The meetings, held by the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, alias ExComm, were the center stage for decision making in what was arguably the most disquieting reality at the time: the presence of Soviet nuclear warheads on Cuban soil not far from the United States border (Lebow 1). Instead of commissioning an airstrike to destroy these missile sites in Cuba, President Kennedy settled on establishing a blockade on the Cuban missile site to stop Soviets from supplying any more missile warheads there as well as calling for peace talks to end the crisis (Stern 21). President Kennedy had never been a partisan of war, and choosing a blockade instead of airstrikes not only satiated his innate nature, but also affirmed his rationalism in avoiding the catastrophic aftermath of nuclear war for the wellbeing of his country.