The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

2. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • The Cold War • USA (capitalism) vs the Soviet Union (communism) • Cuba • Fidel Castro & Communism

3. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • Nuclear weapons • ICBM – InterContinental Ballistic Missile

4. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • U2 – American spyplane, which is able to take pictures from the air.

5. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • Russian ICBMs on Cuba discovered by American spyplane.

6. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • Panic amongst Kennedy-administration, now possible for the Soviet Unioins to attack from Cuba. • Assembled EXCOMM, which was a group of important people working around the President. What to do?

7. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • Four options what to do: • Some of Kennedy’s generals and military officers wanted to bomb Cuba. • Some called for an invasion of Cuba. • Some wanted a naval blockade. • Some wanted to use diplomatic pressure to get the Soviet Union to remove the missiles.

8. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • Kennedy didn’t want to bomb or invade Cuba in fear of a full-out nuclear war.

9. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • Kennedy chose the option of quarantine, which is very close to a naval blockade. • The difference lies in the fact that only weapons would be prevented from reaching Cuba, with a quarantine in effect. • Announces this through a speech on TV.

10. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • The world holds its breath… • Secret negotiations between USA and the Soviet Union, where the Soviet Union refuses to admit that there are Russian ICBMs on Cuba.

11. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • Kennedy orders pilots of U2 to fly lower and take better pictures, so the evidence would be overwhelming, when taking the case to the UN.

12. The Cuban Misslie Crisis 1962 • The U.S. takes the case to the UN, where the Soviet Union still refuses to admit and says that USA is lying. • Then the diplomat Adlai Stevenson shows the overwhelming evidence with the newly taken photographs. • The world now believes the U.S., and world opinion is now in favour of the U.S.

13. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • The Soviet Union and the U.S. now secretly negotiate again. • The Soviet Union agrees to withdraw all ICBMs from Cuba. • U.S. agrees to withdraw ICBMs from Turkey where they have had ICBMs for some time.

14. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • The crisis is finally solved and considered to be a victory for the U.S. • It is also seen as the finest moment of President Kennedy, who solved the crisis in a good way, avoiding a nuclear war

15. The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 • The closest ever the world has been to a nuclear war, the cold war almost got way too hot…