President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name Instructor Course Date 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. The thirteen days following October 16th of 1962 were not the easiest for the fifteen-man panel chaired by President Kennedy. The issue about the nuclear sites in Cuba was crowded with uncertainty. For one, none of the officials in ExComm could say with certainty when these warhead could become operational. Unnerving tension also engulfed this 13-day decision making period; the Soviets, led by Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, the General Secretary, remained vigilant in case the United States decided to wage war against the Soviet Union (Lebow 1). Conversely, President Kennedy expressed perplexity by the Soviets’ agenda in Cuba – in fact, the ExComm was so preoccupied with the gravity of the issue that it did not stop to think that perhaps the warheads might have been a defensive measure in protection of Cuba as a Soviet ally (Stern 21). The opening ExComm proceeding tabled three courses of action to address the looming crisis: launch airstrikes, establish a blockade at sea denying entry of weapons into Cuba, or unveil a full-scale assault (Stern 21). President Kennedy was at the brink of deciding in favor of launching an airstrike to destroy the warheads – perhaps his advocacy for antiwar compelled him to think long and hard about this decision. About a day into the ExComm meetings, new photographic evidence surfaced revealing the presence of an even more potent warhead, a realization which prompted the ExComm to express the need for immediate military action. The committee unanimously agreed on a surprise assault with everyone, except the president, appearing convinced towards acting in this direction. The president, again rather conscientiously, dissuaded the committee against taking this action. He cited that people world over would view this resolution as “a mad act by the United States” (Stern 22). To this end, President Kennedy might have been driving at two principal allusions: that he acknowledged the position of the United States as a global superpower, and that the face of war as America had known it would take an entirely different course were the Soviets to start a nuclear war. President Kennedy appeared more inclined to the trope of peace, rather than war, in remedying the prevailing crisis. After the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously settled on taking immediate military action, the president needed the solution to be more of a call to antiwar than an offensive move which may have incited a more devastating cross-border conflict (Stern 43). It was a balance of action and belief on the president’s side, and being a man of morality, no action may have been taken that could have successfully operated in direct opposition of his beliefs. President Kennedy received the right motivational energy from the likes of Robert McNamara, to push forth the agenda for setting up blockades on U.S.-Cuba waters. Then Attorney General of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy, believed “this [decision to set up a blockade] was not from a deep conviction that it would be a successful course of action, but a feeling it had more flexibilit...