Thirteen Days Study Guide? Cuban Missile Crisis?

1. Give some background. Tell about Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs Invasion that happened in 1961. The Berlin Wall built in 1961. American missiles in Turkey and Italy. The Cold War and how all of these were contributors to the Missile Crisis.

That’s a lot of questions, but it’s an important fairly short topic.
1. Castro was a revolution leader who led a popular revolution (most people wanted it), that finally overthrew the evil/ hated Baptista dictatorship in Cuba. Taking over Jan. 1959 Castro closed the American mafia casinos, drug dens, human trafficking, prostitution operations there, seized the property of rich American businesses and kicked them all out of the country. He then took property away from the few ‘Cuban Families’ (the descendants of aristocrats who had swiped all the land in Cuba) and passed it out to the Cuban peasants who had none. Fearing he would be overthrown by the US mafia, US rich people, Cuban rich people, the US government, he turned Communist 1960 and put Cuba 1961 under the protection of America’s enemy the Soviet Union (many think he would’ve turned Communist anyway). At the time (1959-1963) the ‘Cold War’ was peaking, nuclear/ military tensions between the US and Soviets were at a all time high. The building of the cruel barrier (Berlin Wall) by the Soviets murdering 100′s of Europeans seeking freedom and locking them in Soviet slavery had made things much worse. US nuke missiles in Italy and Turkey were not very important (as the US could hit Russia from a lot farther away than that), but the Soviets saw it as a ‘provocation’ and worked themselves up on it.
The US ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion was an attempt to overthrow Castro hatched back in 1959 like Castro feared using Cuban mercenaries, gangsters, CIA goons. It wasn’t ready till 1961, Kennedy having just took over as President a few months before let it go on as scheduled but was reluctant. It was a total disaster and embarrassment but it made Castro feel more threatened and the Soviets think the US wasn’t taking them seriously.
2. Bomb the Russian missile sites, and blow up the Russian soldiers in Cuba in a surprise attack. Then invade with the whole military and take the island. History has known after/ since, if he did that, the Russians would have launched their nuclear missiles on the US killing millions, starting WW III and the destruction of the world.
3. Kennedy decided on a firm ‘middle course’…to go public with what the Russians had been doing, get the US public behind him, the US allies and the UN behind him, since Cuba is an island far from Russia and next to the US use the US Navy to shut it off from the Russians and give them a deadline and chance to back down. He reasoned a sneak attack was cowardly, and if the US bombed and killed the several 1000 Russian troops then in Cuba Russia would have no choice but all out nuclear war and earth destruction.
4. History now knows since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990′s and release of records, the missiles were already deployed with orders to automatically fire if attacked and start WW III. If the ships did not turn around the Navy would have stopped them with minor force if possible, but if the ships were sunk the Russians had orders to let the missiles fly.
5. As President you can’t always trust the advice you get.
The military point of view is often limited and dangerous.
Consider all your options, use all your tools.
Don’t jump to conclusions, think of the big responsibility.
Unless he’s a total lunatic your enemy doesn’t really want to blow up his country, kill himself and destroy the world, he might be looking for a way out.

The Great Deception