Cuba

Kennedy’s multifaceted approach to national defense is exemplified by his careful handling of the Communist government of Fidel Castro in Cuba. In January 1959, following the overthrow of the corrupt and dictatorial regime of Fulgencio Batista, Castro assumed leadership. The new Cuban government soon instituted leftist economic policies centered on agrarian reform, land redistribution, and the nationalization of private enterprises. Cuba’s wealthy and middle-class citizens fled the island in droves. Many settled in Miami, Florida, and other American cities.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion

Castro, wary of decades of U.S. interference in Cuba’s affairs, took a pro-Soviet line in foreign policy, which frightened the American public, knowing a communist-friendly country was less than 100 miles from American shores. The Eisenhower administration asked the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to find a way to remove him from power. Rather than have the U.S. military invade the small island nation and risk the world’s criticism, the CIA instead trained a small force of Cuban “émigrés” for the job. After landing at the Bay of Pigs on the Cuban coast, these insurgents, the CIA believed, would inspire their countrymen to rise up and topple Castro’s regime. The United States also promised air support for the invasion.

Kennedy agreed to support the previous administration’s plans, and on April 17, 1961, approximately fourteen hundred Cuban exiles stormed ashore at the designated spot. However, Kennedy feared domestic criticism and worried about Soviet retaliation elsewhere in the world, such as in Berlin. He canceled the anticipated air support, which enabled the Cuban army to easily defeat the insurgents. The hoped-for uprising of the Cuban people also failed to occur. The surviving members of the exile army were taken into custody.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Bay of Pigs invasion was a major foreign policy disaster for President Kennedy and highlighted the strategic and symbolic importance of Cuba to the U.S. The following year, the Soviet Union sent troops and technicians to Cuba to strengthen its new ally against further U.S. military plots. In response to the United States’ long-time maintenance of a nuclear arsenal in Turkey, and at the invitation of the Cuban government, the Soviet Union also deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba. Then, on October 14, 1962, U.S. spy planes took aerial photographs that confirmed the presence of medium-range ballistic missile sites in Cuba. Much of the eastern United States, including Washington, D.C., and New York City, was now within easy reach of Soviet nuclear warheads.

Figure 1. This low-level U.S. Navy photograph of San Cristobal, Cuba, clearly shows one of the sites built to launch intermediate-range missiles at the United States (a). As the date indicates, it was taken on the last day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Following the crisis, Kennedy met with the reconnaissance pilots who flew the Cuban missions (b). credit a: modification of work by National Archives and Records Administration; credit b: modification of work by Central Intelligence Agency)

On October 22, Kennedy demanded that Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev remove the missiles. He also ordered a naval quarantine placed around Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from approaching. Despite his use of the word “quarantine” instead of “blockade,” for a blockade was considered an act of war, a potential military conflict with the Soviet Union was nevertheless on the president’s mind. As U.S. ships headed for Cuba, the army was told to prepare for war, and Kennedy appeared on national television to declare his intention to defend the Western Hemisphere from Soviet aggression.

The world held its breath awaiting the Soviet reply. Realizing how serious the United States was, Khrushchev sought a peaceful solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis, overruling those in his government who urged a harder stance. Behind the scenes, Robert Kennedy and Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin worked toward a compromise that would allow both superpowers to back down without either side seeming intimidated by the other. On October 26, Khrushchev agreed to remove the Russian missiles in exchange for Kennedy’s promise not to invade Cuba. On October 27, Kennedy’s agreement was made public, and the crisis ended. Not made public, but nevertheless part of the agreement was Kennedy’s promise to remove U.S. warheads from Turkey, as close to Soviet targets as the Cuban missiles had been to American ones.

The showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union over Cuba’s missiles put the world on the brink of a nuclear war. Both sides already had long-range bombers with nuclear weapons airborne or ready for launch and were only hours away from the first strike. In the long run, this nearly catastrophic example of nuclear brinksmanship ended up making the world safer. A telephone “hot line” was installed, linking Washington and Moscow to avert future crises, and in 1963, Kennedy and Khrushchev signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting tests of nuclear weapons in Earth’s atmosphere.