Code Red -On the Edge of a Nuclear War

Nov 23, 1962

The tension in the conflict between America and the Soviet Union have increased drastically after Soviet nuclear missiles were found on Cuba seven nights ago. America is in chaos, and people are hoarding food and building safe houses. Everyone are preparing themselves for what may seem to be the beginning of a nuclear war. The question is, is this a legitimate threat or are the Soviets just flashing muscles?

On the 22nd of October John F. Kennedy announced on worldwide television that what seemed to be harmless defense missiles on Cuba, actually are Soviet intermediate distance missiles with nuclear war heads. Six days before a US Air Force plane provided clear photographic evidence of nuclear missiles. Cuba is only 2500 kilometers away from the United States, and placing these missiles on Cuba gives the Soviet Union an ascendancy they did not have before. As a response to setting up the missiles, Kennedy has started a blockade of the island, to prevent other Soviet ships from entering Cuban waters.

Background for the crisis

After the Cuban revolution and the fall of the old Cuban regime, a new leadership have taken place on Cuba with Fidel Castro as the head of state. Cuba got a closer bond to the Soviet Union as they share the same ideologies. This bond was what allowed the Soviets to put up the missiles on Cuba. Americans where superior when it came to weapons, but these missiles evens out the weapon balance. The US invasion in the Bay of Pigs in April last year, is also one of the reasons for the developing tension between the two superpowers, and it is also assumed to be why Cuba has formed a closer bond to the Soviets. In the earlier regime Americans also traded with Cuba, but this changed after the revolution.

US response to Soviet missiles

The photographs of the missiles were taken 16th of October, and Kennedy and his advisors started preparing a response as soon as they heard. What they decided was a blockade of Cuba. This is to prevent the Soviets from sending more weapons or missiles to the island. If the Soviets try to break the blockade, the USA will invade Cuba.

Now both of the two biggest superpowers in the world are threatening each other and the people of America are scared to death. People have started hoarding tinned food, and buying and building safe houses to have in their back yard. Never, in the years after the second world war, have people been this scared of a possible nuclear war, and we have never been this close to one neither.

We have gotten in touch with Harold Griffith from Florida, to get an answer to how the American people are reacting regarding the situation:

“Almost all of my friends are hoarding food, myself included. We do not want to take any chances, and the threat has not felt this real before. We see it all over the news, and have also seen pictures of the missiles. The Cubans and Soviets can exterminate parts of America any time they want, and we are preparing ourselves for the worst. I also know some people who have traveled up north, outside of what they say is the radius of these missiles.”

This is not the case only for people in Florida, but all across the USA supermarkets are running out of food. Even in Jordan in the Middle East the prices on food have been forced up 30 percent over night, due to this.

Now the whole world is waiting for an answer to this crisis. The top leaders of the two countries are in constant discussion and no one knows what is going to happen. Will it end in disaster or will diplomacy win?

Tvedt, Knut Are og Knudsen, Olav Fagelund, «Cubakrisen» 20.01.2014, https://snl.no/Cubakrisen Downloaded: 10.11.2015

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, The world on the brink: John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, http://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/oct22/ Downloaded: 11.11.2015

History.com, “Cuban Missile Crisis”, http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cuban-missile-crisis Downloaded: 12.11.2015

http://www.thenation.com/article/kennedy-week-jfk-nuclear-savior-and-liberal-icon/ Downloaded: 12.11.2015

#Cuba #ColdWar