John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
How would you react?
What is Khrushchev stating in his first letter to Kennedy?
In the first letter, Khrushchev first appealed to Kennedy in a thankful tone. The letter is assumed to be a personal letter from Khrushchev attempting to convince Kennedy to not invade Cuba and end the blockade; in return, he would remove the missile sites in Cuba and the Russians would stop shipping weaponries to Cuba. Khrushchev also described communists as peaceful and hard-working people who wanted nothing more than a diplomatic relationship with USA. Robert McNamara once quoted a part of the letter from Khrushchev, “Everyone needs peace; both capitalists, if they have not lost their reason, and still more, communists. War is our enemy and a calamity for all people. If indeed war should break out, then it would not be in our power to stop it, for such is the logic of war. I have participated in two wars and I know that war ends only when it has rolled through cities and villages, everywhere sowing death and destruction. I should like you to agree that one cannot give way to pressures; it is necessary to control them. If people do not show wisdom, then in the final analysis they will come to a clash, like blind moles, and then reciprocal extermination will begin. If you have not lost your self-control, then Mr. President we and you ought not now to pull on the end of a rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter the knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it. And then it will be necessary to cut that knot. And what that will mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly what terrible forces our countries possess. Let us not only relax the forces pulling on the end of the rope; let us take means to untie the knot. We are ready for this.” This quote summarizes Khrushchev’s view on this whole situation.
What is Khrushchev stating in his first letter to Kennedy?
In the first letter, Khrushchev first appealed to Kennedy in a thankful tone. The letter is assumed to be a personal letter from Khrushchev attempting to convince Kennedy to not invade Cuba and end the blockade; in return, he would remove the missile sites in Cuba and the Russians would stop shipping weaponries to Cuba. Khrushchev also described communists as peaceful and hard-working people who wanted nothing more than a diplomatic relationship with USA. Robert McNamara once quoted a part of the letter from Khrushchev, “Everyone needs peace; both capitalists, if they have not lost their reason, and still more, communists. War is our enemy and a calamity for all people. If indeed war should break out, then it would not be in our power to stop it, for such is the logic of war. I have participated in two wars and I know that war ends only when it has rolled through cities and villages, everywhere sowing death and destruction. I should like you to agree that one cannot give way to pressures; it is necessary to control them. If people do not show wisdom, then in the final analysis they will come to a clash, like blind moles, and then reciprocal extermination will begin. If you have not lost your self-control, then Mr. President we and you ought not now to pull on the end of a rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of us pull, the tighter the knot will be tied. And a moment may come when that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have the strength to untie it. And then it will be necessary to cut that knot. And what that will mean is not for me to explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly what terrible forces our countries possess. Let us not only relax the forces pulling on the end of the rope; let us take means to untie the knot. We are ready for this.” This quote summarizes Khrushchev’s view on this whole situation.