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Kennedy’s Administration

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Kennedy’s Administration

The United States, its allies, the Soviet Union and its satellite countries started after the

Second World War a decades-long battle for dominance known as the Cold War (Masur, 2021).

The the two superpowers continuously confronted one another through military alliances,

propaganda, political maneuvers, the buildup of weapons, proxy conflicts amongst other

countries and economic assistance.

A U-2 spy aircraft covertly observed nuclear missile sites being constructed by the Soviet

Union in Cuba in October 1962. President Kennedy did not want to know that the Soviet Union

and Cuba had found the rockets. He met his advisers secretly for many days to talk about the

issue.

Kennedy chose to establish a naval blockade, or a ring of ships around Cuba after many

lengthy and contentious discussions. The objective of this "quarantine," as he termed it, was to

prevent additional military supplies from being supplied by the Soviets (Hopmann, & King,

2019). He requested that the missiles be removed and the locations destroyed. On 22 October,

President Kennedy addressed on TV to the country about the situation.

Before its opening, John F. Kennedy was informed about a plan devised by the Central

Intelligence Agency (CIA), under the administration of Eisenhower, to train Cuban exiles to

invade their country. The ultimate objective was to remove Castro and to create a non-

communist US-friendly administration. Shortly after his inauguration, President Kennedy

approved the invasion plan in February 1961. But he was determined to cover up the assistance

of the United States (Snyder, 2021). The arrival in the Bay of Pigs was part of the

disappointment. The location was a secluded marsh zone on the south coast of Cuba where a

night landing might lead a force on the beach to conceal minimal opposition and any U.S.
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participation. Sadly, the landing place also left the invading army, if something went wrong,

more than 80 miles away from shelter in Cuba's Escambray Mountains.

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Reference

Masur, M. (2021). David P. Hadley. The Rising Clamor: The American Press, the Central

Intelligence Agency, and the Cold War.

Hopmann, P. T., & King, T. D. (2019). From Cold War to détente: The role of the Cuban missile

crisis and the partial nuclear test ban treaty. In Change in the international system (pp.

163-188). Routledge.

Snyder, S. B. (2021). Human Rights Rhetoric and Policy in the Kennedy Administration. The

International History Review, 43(3), 638-656.