During President Kennedy’s rule, his foreign policy included military and diplomatic initiative. Kennedy aimed to reduce the possibility of war through miscalculations. In 1962, the US and the Soviet Union almost went to war because of the Cuban missile crisis (Beschloss, 1991). Kennedy decided to end the conflict in non-violent hence he decided to hold negotiation talks with Nikita Kruschev the Soviet union’s premier. After 19 days of Kennedy’s inauguration, he got noticed on the plan to attack Cuba. Moreover, the CIA was confident on how they thought the Cuban invasion would occur.
The ultimate goal of the CIA was that Fidel Castro, the Cuban president would be overthrown (HERSHBERG, 1990). However, Kennedy decided to execute the plan later on. Kennedy tried eliminating Castro from Cuba using many methods including: economic embargo, exile raids and sabotage, operation Mongoose, assassination plots, and ouster from the OAS. The installation of the missiles into Cuba were largely motivated by Kennedy’s policies and Castro’s perception. Kennedy wanted to save face and to give the Soviets a way to back down, therefore, he decided on the naval quarantine as the best approach to the Cuban crisis (Giglio & Thompson, 1993).
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As a result of the crisis, both American and Soviet Union leaders realized that a change in policy was the only way to deal with and evade nuclear war. The American Monroe doctrine would be violated by the Cuban missiles (RABE, 2000). In an effort to control arms, testing was limited to underground by the Limited Test Ban Treaty. The crisis resulted in a relationship between the two countries with promises of never engage in any nuclear threats (White, 1962).
References
Beschloss, Michael R. (1991) The Crisis Years Kennedy and Krushchev 19601963. New York:
HarperCollins Publishers,
Giglio, J., & Thompson, R. (1993). The Missiles of October: The Declassified Story of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The American Historical Review , 98 (4), 1350. https://doi.org/10.2307/2166818
HERSHBERG, J. (1990). Before "The Missies of October": Did Kennedy Plan a Military Strike against Cuba? Diplomatic History , 14 (2), 163-198. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7709.1990.tb00083.x
RABE, S. (2000). After the Missiles of October: John F. Kennedy and Cuba, November 1962 to November 1963. Presidential Studies Quarterly , 30 (4), 714-726. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0360-4918.2000.00140.x
White, Mark J. (1962) Missiles in Cuba Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro and the Crisis.
