The Kennedy-Castro Years
The Kennedy-Castro Years
David A. Welch argues that the Cuban Missile Crisis was a microcosm of U.S.-Cuban relations during the Kennedy years. In 1962, Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev's attempt to sneak strategic nuclear missiles into Cuba caught U.S. president John Fitzgerald Kennedy off guard and precipitated the most serious international crisis in human history. During this period, leaders managed to learn a number of useful and important lessons that could have been turned to mutual advantage, and indeed were turned to mutual advantage for at least some time. But they missed other lessons, and the limited, positive lessons that they did learn had tragically limited traction. Politics, personality, and happenstance conspired to prevent much in the way of progress, with the result that the Kennedy years ended more or less as they began: with the United States and Cuba neither willing nor able to reach a modus vivendi based on mutual respect. The story of U.S.-Cuban relations during the Kennedy years, in short, is largely a story of missed opportunity.
Keywords: Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet Union, Khrushchev, Kennedy, international crisis, missed opportunity, lessons, politics, U.S.-Cuban relations, relations
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