Individual Discussion Postings #5: The Kennedy Administration and the Cuban Missile Crisis

In your opinion and based on the assigned sources, how successful was the Kennedy administration in handling the Cuban missile crisis? Why? Whose interpretation of this topic – Dallek’s or Paterson’s (based on the arguments advanced in their essays) do you agree with and why?

The Cuban Crisis of October 1962 was a critical event in the Cold War. The U.S. had planned to assassinate Castro and attack Cuba, but Castro got wind of the plans. The director of Operation Mongoose, Brigadier General Edward Lansdale planned a revolution in Cuba and wanted to use U.S. forces. Following the events of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Soviets had shipped weapons, including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and jet fighters to Cuba. The Crisis would have been avoided had there been no Bay of Pigs invasion, no destructive covert activities, no assassination attempts, no military maneuvers and plots, and no economic and diplomatic measures to bully, isolate, and ruin the Castro government (Textbook, p.357).The strategic and diplomatic maneuvers adopted by the Kennedy administration during the crisis helped stop the conflict from escalating into a full-blown nuclear war. President Kennedy imposed a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent the delivery of more missiles to Cuba from the Soviet. The blockade couple with numerous diplomatic negotiations, finally resulted in the Soviet Union removing missiles from Cuba in exchange a U.S. commitment not to invade Cuba and secret removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey (Textbook, p.361).Robert Dallek argues that Kennedy’s administration was successful in how it handled the crisis. Kennedy initially preferred military action, but later prioritized a blockade and negotiations. A military action would have triggered a nuclear exchange, but his restraint in resisting the option presented him as a model of prudent statesmanship in a critical situation. The period was Kennedy’s best at White House, and it serves as an example of a single person prevented a catastrophe that may have immersed the world in another conflict (Dallek, p.392). On the contrary, Paterson believes that the U.S. “fixation” with Cuba was responsible for the crisis, and the administration failed in how it handled the whole situation. Kennedy’s approach to the crisis was was a near miss, guesswork, and close calls with his scared officials. There was a lot of misinformation, miscalculation, misjudgment, and human fallibility, as the crisis was “so near to spinning out of control.” Even after the crisis, the pre-crisis “fixation” with Cuba reasserted itself (Paterson, p.402). Based on the readings, I believe Kennedy’s administration was largely successful in how they handled the crisis. They managed to navigate the intense pressure associated with the situation, employed a strategic naval blockade, and engaged in successful diplomatic negotiations with the Soviet Union despite Paterson’s argument that they bullied Cuba. Kennedy’s restraint and insistence on peaceful resolution even when those around him were ready for the attack are testimonies of effectively leadership at the most critical period in the Cold War (Dallek, p.392). Paterson has valid points on why Kennedy’s pre-crisis policies towards Cuba were to blame, but the real issue is on how the conflict was resolved than how it escalated, and that is where Kennedy wins.

References

Dallek, R. (2005). Patient diplomacy and measured pressure: JFK’s finest hour. In Major problems in American foreign relations, volume II: Since 1914 (7th ed., pp. 382-392). Wordsworth, Cengage Learning.

(Textbook) Paterson, T. G., Clifford, J. G., Brigham, R., Donoghue, M., Hagan, K. J., Kisatsky, D., & Maddock, S. J. (2015). American foreign relations: A history, Volume 2, Since 1895 (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Paterson, T. G. (2005). Spinning out of control: Kennedy’s war against Cuba and the Missile Crisis. In Major problems in American foreign relations, volume II: Since 1914 (7th ed., pp. 393-404). Wordsworth, Cengage Learning.