Cuban Revolution and the Missile Crisis - Infographic

THE Cuban Revolution and the missile crisis

by Valeria palma

CUBAN REVOLUTION

Everything began with the overthrow of the pro-USA Cuban government of General Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro in 1959

FIDEL castro & THE USA

Kennedy's response

the missile crisis

• The USA still hoped to control events in Cuba
• Castro initially insisted that he was not a communist
• April 1959 - Castro visited the U.S. in the hope of getting economic assistance

The Bay of Pigs

Nuclear missiles in Cuba

Cuba expelled from the OAS

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pt. 1/2

In 1961, the U.S. unsuccessfully tried to overthrow Cuba's new communist government. This convinced Cuba to seek help from the U.S.S.R.

In 1962, Cuba was expelled from the Organization of American States (OAS)

• Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev secretly deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba, not only to protect the island, but to counteract the threat from U.S. missiles in Italy and Turkey
• By the time U.S. intelligence discovered the plan, the materials to create the missiles were already in place

U.S. reconnaissance photograph of soviet missile sites on Cuba, taken from a Lockheed U-2 spy plane following the Cuban missile crisis

• On October 16, 1962, military advisors urged an airstrike on missile sites and invasion of the island. But President John F. Kennedy chose a more careful approach
• On October 22, he announced that the the U.S. Navy would intercept all shipments to Cuba
• Naval blockade was considered an act of war. Although the President called it a quarantine that did not block basic necessities
• Khrushchev wrote, "The violation of freedom to use international waters and international airspace is an act of aggression which pushes mankind toward the abyss of world nuclear missile war"

Map of the U.S. naval blockade or quarentine

• Castro's revolutionary reforms involved nationalization of U.S. economic interests
• Most pro-U.s. Cubans chose to move to the United States rather than to stay and resist
• The Organization of American States (OAS) refused to give Castro financial aid for economic development
• February 1960 - Castro turned to the Soviet Union, which offered economic aid
• This direct involvement of the Soviet Union with a Caribbean state was an immediate challenge to the USA

Fidel Castro during a visit to Washington in April 1959

• The USA considered Cuba to be within its sphere of influence, and it was determined that any government in Cuba should reflect and protect U.S. interests
• The U.S. companies controlled most of the financial, railway, electricity, telegraph and sugar industries
• The Platt Agreement signed between Cuba and the United States in 1902 had given the USA the right to establish a naval base at Guantanamo Bay. And it also showed the U.S. intentions to decide what constituted Cuban independence and when a government was or was not "adequate"
• On 7 January 1959, the United States recognized the new government of Fidel Castro, which had taken power after fighting a guerrilla war campaign for seven years

Platt Agreement cartoon

• It happened during the 45-year period after World War II, now known as the Cold War
• As the United States and Soviet Union faced off across the globe, each knew that the other had nuclear weapons capable of destroying it
• Destruction never loomed closer than during the 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro, and John F. Kennedy

DIPLOMACY applied

In Washington, D.C., Attorney General Robert Kennedy secretly met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. After intense negotiation, they reached a proposal

the END of the war

The U.S. would remove their missiles from Turkey and Italy and promise to never invade Cuba in exchange for the Soviet withdrawal from Cuba under U.N. inspection

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DEFCON 2

the missile crisis

The Missiles

Soviet submarine

Spy Plane

pt. 2/2

Robert Kennedy

• At 9 a.m. the next day, a message arrived from Khrushchev announcing the Soviet missiles would be removed from Cuba
• The crisis was finally over
• The Cuban Missile Crisis revealed just how fragile human politics are compared to the terrifying power they can unleash

• While the U.S. demanded the removal of the missiles, Cuba and the U.S.S.R insisted they were only defensive
• And as the weapons continued to be armed, the U.S. prepared for a possible invasion

On October 27, a spy plane piloted by Major Rudolph Anderson was shot down by a Soviet missile

• On October 27, a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine was hit by a small-depth charge from a U.S. Navy vessel trying to signal it to come up
• The commanders on the sub, too deep to communicate with the surface, thought war had begun and prepared to launch a nuclear torpedo
• That decision had to be made unanimously by three officers. The captain and political officer both authorized the launch, but Vasili Arkhipov, second in command, refused. His decision saved the day perhaps the world from a nuclear war

Vasili Arkhipov

For the first time in history, the U.S. Military set itself to DEFCON 2, the defense readiness one step away from nuclear war

Anatoly Dobrynin