Cuban Missile Crisis Research Paper

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Pages: 6

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a key turning point of the Cold War. Then President John F. Kennedy discovered that the Soviet Union had nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. The United States had a serious issue with the Soviet Union having nuclear missiles in Cuba. President J.F.K. and Nikita Khrushchev confronted one another knowing that the other had the power to easily nuke them, which would have catastrophic repercussions millions would die from both sides. President J.F.K. assembled a group of advisors known as ExComm to help him handle the situation with the Soviets. He decided to create a naval blockade on further shipments of armaments to Cuba. The President was stuck between a rock and a hard place with only two options available, either …show more content…
The CIA had HUMINT sources in the Soviet’s Communist regime that found evidence of intercontinental ballistic missiles that were on mobile transport platforms. The U.S. used it’s HUMINT resources in Cuba to focus on state security, using covert operations to collapse Castro’s regime, and regaining regime stability. Before January 1962 the U.S. intelligence was said to have received more than 200 HUMINT reports on atomic weapons and ballistic missiles in Cuba before Khrushchev even started operation ANADYR. By using the U.S. using IMINT and SIGINT they were able to see the large build-up of the …show more content…
The U.S. should have done their homework by using better INTs to track the USSR missiles before entering unchartered territory like Cuba. “The CIA should have done a better job with stressing the findings of their four NIE’s, that had stated Castro’s support the USSR and vice versa.”9 Implications for future intelligence collection, overall agencies need to learn how to work better together. Having pieces of a puzzle isn’t enough to see the full picture. The NSA, DIA, and CIA had information on the true intentions of Castro and Khrushchev. Instead of using the information to prevent the USSR from even as much influence that they did, the U.S. allowed for them to continue to grow in size. Overall, becoming a big problem for the U.S. and almost starting World War