IndexInvestigationReflectionWorks CitedThis investigation will explore the question: How responsible was John F. Kennedy for causing the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963? The years 1962 and 1963 will be the focus of this investigation, as will any post-crisis or pre-crisis evidence that can be used in this investigation to better answer the research question. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The primary source shows President John F. Kennedy speaking to members of congress about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Its origins come from a station called "Universal-International News" which can be seen in the title card at the beginning of the film. An advantage of this source is that it comes directly from John F. Kennedy, who was president of the United States at the time and as such knew a lot about the conflict. Since the Cuban Missile Crisis we have repeatedly wondered whether members of the US government intentionally withheld information that they feared might fall into Soviet hands, and we must therefore assume that what President John F. Kennedy is saying in his speech may or may not be the whole truth of the story. Therefore it could be argued that this is also a limitation of the source. The purpose of the source is to inform the people of the United States firsthand about the conflict that has erupted in Cuba and how the United States will respond. One limitation of the scope is that, since the speech is addressed to the American people, President John F. Kennedy may have found it necessary to omit some information that he felt should not be known by the public. The content of this speech indicates that John F. Kennedy did not want a nuclear war, and at the end of the speech he asked Khrushchev to end this race for dominance and maintain friendly relations between the two countries. One value of what you see right away is that Kennedy did not want the two countries to go to war with each other, much less a nuclear war, but he also saw the situation as dangerous and was forced to act against it. , before further offensive thrusts were detected. The secondary source is an opinion article from The Guardian explaining how the Cuban Missile Crisis happened and how the US government, and specifically John F. Kennedy, handled the situation. The origin of this source is an online article published by a reputable news agency. This is a source value, as we can be fairly certain that most if not all of the information in the article is true and based on factual evidence. However, a limitation of the origin is that it is an opinion piece, which means that the author can include his own biases in the story that may not be useful for analytical purposes and can introduce an outlier in the information. The purpose of the article is primarily to educate and provide people with an introductory explanation of what caused the Cuban Missile Crisis and how it was avoided. An advantage of this is that there are not many difficult terminologies understood only by educated and professional historians. The limitation of this, however, is that the terminology may be too simple to obtain satisfactory information at this level of education. Finally, the content shows many images and diagrams related to the article. This is yet another value as the reader can connect texts to images and diagrams and get better understanding with the help of visual pointers. Investigation The Cuban Missile Crisis can be described as one of the defining moments in human history. The crisisCuban missile warfare was part of the Cold War between the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which were the two greatest superpowers of their time. World War II ended abruptly and violently with the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the USA with the use of atomic bombs. These bombs were the most violent bombs ever created, and the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are to this day the only nuclear-capable weapons that have been deployed in war; with very good reason. After the end of World War II, both the USA and the USSR created nuclear-capable missiles, which could be deployed in overseas territories close to the enemy and hit them with relative accuracy. Both the political leaders of the USA and the USSR continued to threaten each other with these missiles, until June 1961, when everything came to a head. On June 1, 1961, the United States signed an agreement with Turkey for the deployment of 15 nuclear missiles in their territory, which would give the United States the advantage of being able to use them against the USSR with minimal delay. Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet prime minister at the time, did not want to be threatened by Turkey and needed a place where he could place nuclear-capable missiles on America's doorstep, thus giving him an advantage in negotiations for territories such as Berlin. The most logical choice for this was Cuba. It was close to the USA and had a communist leader; Fidel Castro. Regarding Castro Anastas Mikoyan said: “Yes, he is a real revolutionary. Completely like us. I felt like I was back in my childhood!” On an unknown date, Fidel Castro met with the head of the Soviet special forces in Havana. The head of the Special Forces drew up the plan and framed it in such a way that it was effectively a plan to protect against the American invasion of Cuba. Castro conferred with his advisors and agreed. This development abroad is something that was completely out of John F. Kennedy's hands and that he could not have stopped or delayed in time with the information he had. Because the deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba was needed secret until they were ready, the missiles along with 42,000 Soviet soldiers were secretly shipped to Cuba on large lumber freighters. The soldiers were disguised as Cuban civilians or Cuban soldiers so as not to arouse suspicion of any American spy who may or may not be stationed in Cuba. They (the United States) saw the missile deployment in Cuba, which they only half learned about October 1962. Kennedy was in a bad position, because the Soviet escalation in Cuba had long been known and his political rivals had been exploiting the fact that Kennedy was not taking any action against this, even though Soviet weapons and 42,000 soldiers were at only 90 miles from Florida. The reason for this was that Kruschev and Kennedy had been in contact with each other privately, and Kruschev told Kennedy that the buildup was only defensive and that he would not deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba. Knowing this, Kennedy said that the defensive buildup was fine , however, would have acted if he had found nuclear missiles in Cuba. He said this thinking that Khrushchev would never have put nuclear missiles in Cuba. This is a key factor when analyzing Kennedy's responsibility. He relied too much on his trust in a Soviet leader, which in hindsight was obviously misplaced. When Kennedy realized the deception, not only did he have to worry about the Soviet Union launching missiles at the United States, but he was also convinced that he would be impeached if he did not act. Government leaders met at the White House to discuss possible retaliation plans. Kennedy had told Khrushchev thatwould have taken action if he wanted to place nuclear missiles in Cuba, and not keeping his promise would have been a sign of weakness, giving Khrushchev the freedom to place nuclear missiles in other strategic locations under the false defense of their deployment and strengthening of plans for Kennedy's impeachment. The three options Kennedy had available were diplomacy, naval blockade and air attack. Diplomacy was, of course, the option with the lowest risk of casualties, both military and civilian; however, it had little chance of working and it would take too long to reach any kind of compromise. Therefore the Naval Block seemed to be the one with the greatest chance of success. Block access to Cuba, but still leave room for possible negotiations. On October 22 at 1 am Moscow time, Kennedy and Khrushchev communicated, 1 hour before Kennedy's public press release at 2 am. Kennedy issues ultimatum; knows that 14 Soviet merchant ships are headed to Cuba and one is carrying the world's most powerful medium-range nuclear missiles. In the Caribbean, the US Navy has created a “quarantine” around Cuba and Kennedy threatens that he will use warships to prevent merchant ships from reaching Cuba. Kennedy and Khrushchev reached agreement on a solution that led to the removal of the missiles and ensured that Kennedy had resolved the Cuban missile crisis. All in all, we can draw the conclusion that John F. Kennedy was not entirely responsible for starting the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he compounded the issue with the constant threat of impeachment if he did nothing. We can, therefore, say that the decisions Kennedy made ultimately saved the world from mutually assured destruction, but they might have been better if he had not been under so much pressure from all the American people pushing for impeachment. if it did not solve the problem in question. For all intents and purposes, one could also argue that Eisenhower had a role in starting the Cuban Missile Crisis, as he was the president before Kennedy who stationed nuclear-capable missiles in Turkey. It is very likely that the Soviets saw this as a threat from the Americans, and therefore wanted to retaliate by conveniently placing their own nuclear-capable missiles in Cuba. Keep in mind: this is just one example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom EssayReflectionIn my investigation, I wanted to highlight the differences in reliability for different sources, especially in an investigation into a topic that by its very nature was full of lies, truths, cover-ups, and espionage. Finding the right material for the investigation proved to be quite difficult, but due to the more open nature of the US government compared to the Soviet one at the time, I chose John F. Kennedy's speech as the main source. There are certainly primary sources from the Soviet perspective, but considering the history of the Soviets hiding the truth and trying to present themselves as a superior state, the limitations of such sources would have been substantial. Furthermore, Soviet sources on this topic have a high probability of being written in Russian, which for many students studying history is a language they do not speak. Even if translations existed, they would present another limitation and that is that, due to translation, some deeper meanings of the text may have been lost in the process. Many historians would classify the Cuban Missile Crisis as a major historical event. It certainly came close to a major conflict, however, a historical event should not be judged by how destructive or even potentially destructive it was,, 1999.