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Fidel Castro Gains Power
-Cuba's Prime Minister, Fidel Castro, used political and military power to begin Cuban Revolution and overthrow Cuban President Fulgencio Batista
-Castro announced revolution was socialist/communist
-US upset capitalistic democratic leader replaced by communist dictator
-Cuban relations with USSR were imminent -
Sputnik
-USSR launches the first man made satellite
-US sees just how behind it is technologically
-US vastly improves educational system, trying to advance further than the USSR
-The two countries begin competing to be more advanced, and thus the Space Race begins -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
-US sent 1400 Cuban exiles to invade Bay of Pigs
-US was worried about Castro's ties to the Soviet Union
-CIA set up training camps in Guatemala to secretly prepare exiles for invasion. Secrecy failed as nearly every exile in Miami knew of it, and Castro learned of the guerrilla training camps just 7 months after Eisenhower approved the program
-CIA bet on Cubans rallying behind the invaders and rebelling, but the opposite happened
-Embarrassing defeat for the US and the exile troops -
Vienna Summit
-JFK & Khrushchev met in Vienna, Austria, and discussed issues about the issues in the relationship between their two countries
-Plans to meet were made the previous year after JFK’s election. JFK advisers were concerned about meeting so soon, but they met a few months later
-Main concern was separate peace treaty for Berlin. USSR would render complete control to East Berlin to East German gov., and would threaten the established balance of power
-JFK tried to remedy the tension from Bay of pigs -
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U2 Flight Over Cuba
-CIA Director tells JFK he believes Soviets will deploy MRBMs in Cuba
-Senator Kenneth Keating tells Senate there is evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, urging JFK to take action
-Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko threatens they will go to war if US attacks Cuba
-U2 discovers missile sites in Cuba, taking photographs with irrefutable evidence that Soviet missiles were stationed there
-A readout team at NPIC identifies objects similar to missiles found in USSR -
Nuclear Weapons Discovered
-Second U2 flight launched during the night
-U2 discovers intermediate range (IRBMs) SS-5 nuclear missiles
-US worried of nuclear weapons so close to American soil
-If missiles were launched, there would be no time for US to respond, due to the extremely close vicinity of missiles to US
-JFK meets with Gromyko for two hours
-Gromyko assures JFK that Soviet aid is purely for Cuban defense
-US still wary of nuclear threat -
Cuban Quarantine
-JFK plans to install a temporary naval barrier around Cuba, as an air strike would not destroy all Soviet Cuban missiles
-JFK requests press does not report on barrier to give the element of surprise, afraid of Soviet response if they found out
-Another U2 flight finds even more missile sites being assembled, putting more pressure on US to make quarantine -
DEFCON 2
-Bucharest tanker refused to change course from US quarantine
-UN urged US & USSR to refrain from causing conflict and potentially starting war
-US calls DEFCON 2, the highest military alert reached in US history, despite UN request -
U2 Shot Over Cuba
-Agreement made that Soviets would publicly remove missiles from Cuba if US publicly announced not to invade Cuba. Secretly, US would remove Jupiter missiles in Turkey (maybe Italy as well, but it is unknown)
-JFK knew Jupiter missiles were useless and were likely to be removed anyway
-Tensions would be loosened, but rose again after a U2 was shot down over Cuba, killing Major Rudolf Anderson
-Negotiations became more difficult again -
Cuban Missile Crisis Ends
-Khrushchev accepts the agreement and announces over Radio Moscow that he will remove all Soviet missiles from Cuba
-The Cuban Missile Crisis ends and tensions finally loosen