Topic: Cuban Missile Crisis – Memo to National Security Council
Order Description
For this project, you should imagine that it is October 1962, and you are a member of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. The chairman, Robert Kennedy, asked you to write a memo justifying a course of action to be taken by President John F. Kennedy to get the Soviets to remove their offensive missiles from Cuba.
The USSR placed nuclear missiles in Cuba, and the Soviet government, lied to President Kennedy about putting offensive weapons on the island. The Soviet Union assured the United States that it was only sending military aid to Fidel Castro to protect against an invasion, like the failed Bay of Pigs operation of April 1961. The placement of missiles with nuclear warheads was seen as changing the strategic balance. American military and political leaders agreed on the need to have the missiles removed. The president agonized over how to accomplish this objective, which had military, diplomatic and domestic political consequences. He was haunted by the Munich analogy of appeasement of aggressive dictators and the Guns of August analogy of military actions leading to world war, as occurred in 1914. The president decided to call the top officials in his administration, as well as some former officials from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, together to advise him on what course of action to pursue. The 4 options below emerged as the most feasible responses by the United States to the perceived threat of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Advocate for 1 of the following options, point out the reasons why your choice achieves American objectives, and highlight the weaknesses of the other options.
You should choose to advocate for 1 of the following options:
Blockade/Quarantine
Airstrike
Invasion
Negotiations
You have already selected a topic, submitted an Outline, prepared a preliminary Bibliography, and written an Abstract. This is a research paper, and you must use a combination of sources, including the Internet, books, and articles, to build a case. You must include footnotes or endnotes and a bibliography of sources in APA or Chicago/Turabian format. The paper should be a minimum of 1,500 (6 pages) words.