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-Overview what happened in the decisión

"Historians recognize that the Cuban missile crisis was the most dangerous moment in the
history of humanity"

-Victor Arrogant

In October 1962, a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union was about
to take place in Cuba.

In the fall of 1962, the United States demanded that the Soviets stop the construction of
newly discovered missile bases in communist Cuba, just 90 miles off the U.S. coast. Soviet
Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev had pledged in 1960 to defend Cuba and had assumed
that the United States would not attempt to prevent the installation of medium- and
intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the communist Caribbean country. But the weapons
could potentially reach much of the United States.

An American U-2 spy plane piloted by Major Richard Heyser takes hundreds of photos of
newly built facilities in the Cuban countryside.

Kennedy rejects the attack and favors a quarantine to gain time to negotiate the withdrawal
of the missiles. JFK and his advisors are careful to call it a quarantine because a blockade is
considered an act of war.

-JFK: "Dean, please explain to me how the whole process would work.
-AD: "Your first step, sir, will be to give the Soviets 12 to 24 hours to
remove the missiles. They will obviously refuse. Then you will order the
attacks, followed by the invasion. They will resist and be defeated.
-JFK: "Plans that require nuclear weapons... [Silence] And what would be
the next step?
-DA: "Let's hope that sanity prevails... before we get to the next step.

Extract from the conversation between John F. Kennedy, President of the

United States and Dean Acheson,

-That is, indicate what the problema was tha your leader and their political unit faced,

On October 14, 1962, a US spy plane discovered that the USSR had secretly installed its P-
12 medium-range ballistic missiles on the island. This led to a conflict between the two
superpowers. World peace was seriously endangered, on the verge of World War III.

he U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Foy Kohler, delivers a letter from JFK to
Khrushchev. Kennedy writes: "The only thing that has concerned me most has been the
possibility that your government might misunderstand the will and determination of the
United States in a given situation, since I have not assumed that you or any other man in his
right mind would understand, in this nuclear age, deliberately plunging the world into a war
that clearly no country could win and that could only have catastrophic consequences for
everyone, including the aggressor.

Khrushchev writes to JFK , rejecting his demand that the Soviets withdraw the missiles,
which the Soviet leader insists "are intended for defensive purposes only. Kennedy
responds, reminding Khrushchev bluntly that he initiated the crisis by secretly sending
missiles to Cuba.

-Who was involved in making the decision with your leader

U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev and a handful of their top advisors did all
the negotiating, with little involvement of the foreign policy bureaucracies of the two
countries. The crisis was plagued by miscommunications, threats and miscalculations, but
eventually it faded.

On October 16, President John F. Kennedy meets with a team of advisors known as the Ex-
Comm to discuss how to respond to the threat of missiles. Defense Secretary Robert
McNamara presents JFK with three options: diplomacy with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and
Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev, a Cuban naval quarantine, and an air strike to
destroy the missile sites, which could kill thousands of Soviet personnel and trigger a
Soviet counterattack on a target such as Berlin.

-Whom your leader consulted with

Kennedy and a working group of advisors and experts, mostly National Security Council
officials, discussed how to end the delicate situation.

-the kinds of options those involved in the process believed they had

Some of his advisors, including the military, pressured Kennedy to launch an immediate
invasion of the island, but the President opted for a naval blockade so that no more
shipments could arrive, which was announced on the night of October 22.

Some Soviet ships were already heading for the island. The question was whether they
would break the blockade. If they did, the risk was that a conflict would be unleashed that
could become a nuclear war.

-What thay chose to do

 In his inaugural speech, Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for
your country.

Commander Rudolf Anderson, an American U-2 pilot, is shot and killed over Cuba. War
seems imminent. Undersecretary of Defense Paul Nitze says, "They've made the first shot,"
and President John F. Kennedy comments, "We're in a whole new ball game now.

However, JFK correctly concludes that Khrushchev had not given the order to shoot down
Anderson's plane. The incident makes both leaders realize that the situation is getting
dangerously out of control.

For this moment they decide to make an agreement where each one would carry out the
request of the other in order to leave aside the existing problems and thus manage to stop
this problem

-and what happened after they acted

The same day, Khrushchev sends another letter to Kennedy, demanding that the United
States withdraw the missiles from Turkey as part of the agreement. JFK responds by
offering to promise not to attack Cuba after the Russians withdraw.

That night, JFK's brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, meets with Soviet
Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, and says the U.S. was already planning to withdraw its
missiles from Turkey, but could not say so publicly. Stallard-Blanchette sees this as the
moment when both nations stepped back from the brink of war.

Bibliography

Victor Arrogante (2018), October 1962 The missile crisis that shocked the world,
nuevatribuna.es, available in: https://www.nuevatribuna.es/articulo/mundo/crisis-misiles-
conmociono-mundo/20181014081403156491.html
October 2012, In the Missile Crisis, Washington had nowhere to hide, NEWS WORLD,
available in:
https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2012/10/121011_eeuu_cuba_cisis_misiles_50_aniver
sario_washington_wbm

Kiger Patrick (2019), Key moments in the Cuban missile crisis, History, available in:
https://www.history.com/news/cuban-missile-crisis-timeline-jfk-khrushchev