The Cold War: The Cuban Missile Crisis

There have been two World Wars that caused massive damage and many casualties between the strongest and most powerful nations of the world. Between October 14th to October 28th of 1962, the two countries at the time almost started World War III over missiles that were secretly placed in Cuba by the Soviet Union. The nuclear war could have started just seventeen years after the end of World War II, and with ten times more firepower than any other conflict because there were many advancements with nuclear missiles. Luckily, an agreement was later made and the missiles were taken out of Cuba with no harm done. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a thirteen day period where the people of the United States, Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the rest of the world
almost experienced what could have been World War III. The Cuban Missile Crisis could have started a war because of the nuclear missiles placed in Cuba, President John F. Kennedy's response to the crisis, and the tough decisions that were made to end it all.
For one thing, the Cuban Missile Crisis faced a conflict, which was the making of nuclear missiles and the rise of Fidel Castro.
In the beginning, Fidel Castro rose to power by overthrowing Fulgencio Batista, the ruler who supported the United States, which started the Cuban Revolution. Castro progressed in Cuba to diminish the “American grip” the United States had on the country at the time and as a result, his popularity grew more and more everyday (Swift). The United States’ government felt threatened by what Castro was doing and decided to try two different events in order to stop him. The first thing the United States President, John F. Kennedy, tried to achieve was the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The invasion was an event that had American-trained Cubans, that were against Castro's rise of power, fight in order to remove Fidel Castro from power and keep him from gaining more authority over Cuba. The troops were completely outnumbered when they were ordered to attack and there was less than twenty-four hours of fighting before they surrendered. That being the case, the Bay of Pigs Invasion ended as a complete failure in performing what needed to be done and actually led to a disaster on America's side (Staff, “Bay of Pigs Invasion”). Kennedy was not going to give up and let Cuba fall into the communist power, however, he did not want to try another U.S. invasion because of the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. As a result, Kennedy decided to prepare Operation Mongoose. Operation Mongoose was a plan set forth in order to scare Fidel Castro and make him believe that messing with the United States would not be tolerated. Providing that, the United States created an emergency drill on an unnamed island that consisted of doing a series of raids and a quick invasion that practiced overthrowing a dictator that was named Ortsac, which is Castro spelled backwards. This invasion of the unnamed island was also followed by a series of attacks on Cuba in order to kill the
people who supported Castro (Swift). Operation Mongoose ended with not only scaring Castro, but catching the attention of the Soviet Union leader.