Cuban Missile Crisis Essay -- essays research papers fc

During the administration of United States President John F. Kennedy, the Cold War reached its most dangerous state, when the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) came to the brink of nuclear war in what was known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. What was the Cold War? What started the tensions between the United States and the USSR? What actions were taken and how were the problems resolved? All of these questions and more shall be answered in this paper.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Cold War was a struggle between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union. Although direct military conflict never took place, diplomatic and economic struggles occurred. The Cold War began when Joseph Stalin, leader of the Communist Party, used the Red Army to take control of most of the countries of Eastern Europe. The United States as well as Western European countries were greatly concerned. In response to Stalin’s military movements, President Harry Truman issued the Truman Doctrine in 1947. In his address to Congress, President Truman decided that the United States would aid any country that asked for help in resisting communism. The Truman Doctrine became known as the basis for containment, the policy to keep communism from spreading to other countries. After the Truman Doctrine, George Catlett Marshall, Secretary of State, proposed the Marshall Plan, the European Recovery Program through which the United States provided aid to Wester n Europe after World War II, in June 1947. The Marshall Plan was offered to all European countries, but Stalin would not allow the countries his military was occupying take part. In April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed. The countries involved in this pact were the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal. The NATO agreement said that â€Å"an armed attack against one or more of its members in Europe and/or America shall be considered an attack against them all.† To ward off aggressors, American forces and nuclear weapons were to be kept in Western Europe. In response to NATO, the Soviet Union formed a similar pact between seven Eastern European countries called the Warsaw Treaty Organization, or Warsaw Pact. The countries involved along with the Soviet Union were Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslov... ... allow them. The inspections weren’t needed, however, as U.S. aerial reconnaissance planes revealed that the missile bases were being dismantled.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Cuban Missile Crisis had ended. Nuclear war had been averted, but the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t end the Cold War. The Cold War didn’t â€Å"end† until the early nineties, when Mikhail Gorbechev and George Bush stopped the superpower rivalry, at least for the time being. Possibly the most bitter and vicious rivalry in the modern era had spawned conflict after conflict; the Cuban missile crisis was perhaps the worst of these events, almost leading to nuclear disaster. With the brazen and quick thinking of world leaders, this calamity was averted and the earth remains unscathed from the nuclear scourge. Bibliography: Jared Wiener; Bay of Pigs http://members.aol.com/yo1460/byopr/contents.html Anonymous; John F. Kennedy http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/jk35.html Brinkley, American History; A Survey; Volume II; Since 1865, USA; McGraw-Hill College; 1999 Dilulio, John J. Jr, Wilson James Q., American government; The Essentials. Boston MA; Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.