Cold War Crisis: Causes of the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Revolution (1959):

• The revolution brought Fidel Castro to power in Cuba.
• He ejected all US businesses from Cuba.
• In retalliation, the USA stopped buying Cuba's biggets export; sugar.

Castro's Conversion to Communism:

• After the USA stopped buying sugar, the USSR saw an opportunty to pose a communist threat much nearer to the US.
• They offered to buy Cuban sugar and provide machinery and technological assistance.
• Castro became closely linked with communism after this.
• Castro declared his conversion to communism in 1961. This concerned Kennedy.

Bay of Pigs Incident:

• The USA broke off diplomatic connections with Cuba in January 1961.
• Eisenhower made sure that Cuban refugees living in America would be trained to invade Cuba. Kennedy took over this scheme.
• The aim of the invasion was to create a national uprising against Castro.
• On the 15th April 1961, US bombed the Cuban air force and 1500 Cuban exiles ('La Brigada') landed at the Bay of Pigs.
• They were met by 20,000 of Castro's army - the invasion was a humiliating failure for the US.

USA Discovery of Soviet Nuclear Weapons:

• Khruschev claimed to be protecting Cuba from future attacks like the Bay of Pigs.
• He brought missiles to Cuba claiming that they were purely defensive unlike the missiles that the USA had in Italy and Turkey, when he was actually spreading communism to Latin America
• On the 14th October 1962, a U2 plane took photos of IBRM and MBRM (Intermediate/ Medium Range Ballistic Missiles) in Cuba that were an extreme threat to almost all US cities and US security.