HOW DID THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS CONTRIBUTE TO COLD WAR TENSIONS BETWEEN THE USSR AND THE USA IN THE 1960s?

Study Sources 1A, 1B, 1C and 1D to answer the following questions.

1. Refer to Source 1A: 1.1 According to the source which country was a threat to Castro’s government in Cuba? (1 x 1) (1)

1.2 Use evidence from the source to explain in the context of the Cold War why Khrushchev was so determined to assist Cuba. (2 x 1) (2)

1.3 Explain the concept Marxist-Leninism in your own words. (2 x 1) (2)

1.4 Comment on why Source 1A can be regarded as an unreliable source. Refer to the source to justify your arguments. (2 x 2) (4)

2. Study Source 1B: 2.1 With reference to the source and the Cuban Missile Crisis explain what Kennedy meant by the term "quarantine'. (2 x 2) (4)

2.2 Why do you think the USA kept a close surveillance on the Soviet Union's actions in Cuba? (2 x 2) (4)

2.3 Do you think that this is a biased source? Justify your arguments with evidence from the source. (2 x 2) (4)

3. Refer to Source 1B and Source 1C: 3.1 Using the visual evidence from Source 1C explain how the Americans were able to use this photograph to prove that ballistic missiles were being deployed in Cuba during 1962. (1 x 2) (2)

3.2 Does the evidence in Source 1C support what Kennedy says in Source 1B? Refer to both sources to justify your answer. (2 x 2) (4)

4. Refer to Source 1D: 4.1 According to Source 1D why did Robert Kennedy invite Dobrynin for a private, late night meeting on 27 October 1962? (2 x 2) (4)

4.2 Using the information in the source and your own knowledge, explain why Dobrynin raised the issue of Turkey. (2 x 2) (4)

4.3 The telegram has the heading "Top Secret". Find and explain TWO other pieces of evidence in the source that prove that this was a top-secret telegram. (2 x 1) (2)

4.4 Use evidence from this source to discuss how the Americans and the Soviets had very different attitudes to the American surveillance of Cuba. (2 x 2) (2)

4.5 Do you think that Source D is a useful source for historians studying the Cuban Missile Crisis? Justify your arguments by referring to the source. (3 x 1) (3)

5. Refer to Sources 1A, 1B, 1C and 1D: Using the information in the relevant sources and your own knowledge, write a paragraph of about EIGHT lines (about 80 words) explaining how superpower conflict over Cuba brought the world to the brink (edge) of a nuclear war in 1962. (8)

[50] SOURCE MATERIAL ON THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS PAGE 1

TOPIC FOCUS: HOW DID THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS CONTRIBUTE TO COLD WAR TENSIONS BETWEEN THE USSR AND THE USA IN THE 1960s?

SOURCE 1A: The following source is an extract from Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs (a collection of memories) called Khrushchev Remembers that was published in 1970:

We welcomed Castro's victory, of course, but at the time we were quite certain that the Bay of Pigs invasion was only the beginning and that the Americans would not let Cuba alone. One thought kept hammering away at my brain: what would happen if we lost Cuba? I knew it would be a terrible blow to Marxist-Leninism. It would gravely diminish (reduce) our stature throughout the world, but especially in Latin America*. If Cuba was to fall, other Latin American countries would reject us, claiming for all our might, the Soviet Union hadn't been able to do anything for Cuba but make empty protest to the United Nations. We had to think up some way of confronting America with more than words ...

The logical answer was missiles. I had the idea of installing nuclear missiles in Cuba without letting the United States find out they were there until it was too late to do anything about them. We had no desire to start a war. We sent the Americans a note saying that we agreed to remove our missiles on the condition that the president gave us his assurance that there would be no invasion of Cuba by the forces of the United States ... he gave in ... It was a great victory for us ... a success without having to fire a single shot.

*Latin America: A term applied to all of the Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking nations south of the USA

SOURCE 1B: This source is an extract from the speech that JF Kennedy delivered on 22 October 1962 in which he announced that the Soviet Union was setting up missile bases in Cuba and explained how the US government intended to deal with the crisis. This speech was broadcast to the American people on TV and radio.

... This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance (close watch) of the Soviet military build-up on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere*. These long-range weapons of sudden mass destruction constitute an explicit threat to our peace and security. I call upon the Soviet government to halt this offensive build-up.

I have instructed a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba. All ships bound for Cuba ..., if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, will be turned back. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in the Berlin Blockade of 1948. I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous (dangerous) arms race and to transform the history of man.

*hemisphere: half of the world

SOURCE MATERIAL ON THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS PAGE 2

SOURCE 1C: On 14 October 1962, an American U2 spy plane returned from a reconnaissance flight over Cuba with photographs of suspicious construction sites in Western Cuba. The photographs were analysed by military intelligence experts who immediately confirmed that the sites were bases for medium-range ballistic missiles. The following photograph is one of these photographs. (The labelling in the photograph was added by the American intelligence service.)

SOURCE MATERIAL ON THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS PAGE 3

SOURCE 1D: This is a telegram sent by the Soviet Ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, to the USSR Foreign Ministry in the Kremlin on 27 October 1962. A telegram was a message sent by telegraph and then delivered in printed form like a letter. It was used before the 21stcentury as a quick form of communication. This telegram was sent in a secret code (written in ciphers). In the following source the telegram has been deciphered, translated into English and shortened.

TOP SECRET

Making Copies Prohibited

Copy No. 1

CIPHERED TELEGRAM

Late tonight R. Kennedy invited me to come see him. We talked alone.

The Cuban crisis, R. Kennedy began, continues to quickly worsen. We have just received a report that an unarmed American plane was shot down while carrying out a reconnaissance flight over Cuba. The military is demanding that the President arm such planes and respond to fire with fire. The USA government will have to do this.

I interrupted R. Kennedy and asked him, what right American planes had to fly over Cuba at all, crudely violating its sovereignty and accepted international norms? How would the USA have reacted if foreign planes appeared over its territory?

R. Kennedy said that he realized that we had different approaches to these problems and it was not likely that we could convince each other. But now the matter is not in these differences, since time is of the essence. “I want,” R. Kennedy stressed, “to lay out the current alarming situation the way the president sees it. He wants N.S. Khrushchev to know this. This is the thrust (focus) of the situation now.”

“Because of the plane that was shot down, there is now strong pressure on the president to give an order to respond with fire if fired upon when American reconnaissance planes are flying over Cuba. The USA can’t stop these flights, because this is the only way we can quickly get information about the state of construction of the missile bases in Cuba, which we believe pose a very serious threat to our national security. But if we start to fire in response—a chain reaction will quickly start that will be very hard to stop. The same thing in regard to the essence (heart) of the issue of the missile bases in Cuba. The USA government is determined to get rid of those bases—up to, in the extreme case, of bombing them, since, I repeat, they pose a great threat to the security of the USA. But in response to the bombing of these bases, in the course of which Soviet specialists might suffer, the Soviet government will undoubtedly respond with the same against us, somewhere in Europe. A real war will begin, in which millions of Americans and Russians will die. We want to avoid that any way we can, I’m sure that the government of the USSR has the same wish.”

“The most important thing for us,” R. Kennedy stressed, “is to get as soon as possible the agreement of the Soviet government to halt further work on the construction of the missile bases in Cuba and take measures under international control that would make it impossible to use these weapons. In exchange the government of the USA is ready, in addition to repealing (lifting or cancelling) all measures enforcing the quarantine, to give the assurances that there will not be any invasion of Cuba.”

“And what about Turkey?” I asked R. Kennedy.

“If that is the only obstacle to achieving an agreement, then the president doesn’t see any insurmountable (unconquerable) difficulties in resolving this issue,” replied R. Kennedy. “The greatest difficulty for the president is the public discussion of the issue of Turkey… However, President Kennedy is ready to come to an agreement on that question with N.S. Khrushchev, too. I think that in order to withdraw these bases from Turkey,” R. Kennedy said, “we need 4 to 5 months.