The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile

The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Bay of Pigs

The Bay of Pigs • In March, 1960, President Eisenhower gave the CIA permission to secretly train Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow the Communistic government of Fidel Castro. • President Kennedy learned about this plan nine days after he became president. Although he had doubts about the plan, he approved it because it had been worked on for so long by Eisenhower and the CIA. • 1500 Cubans and U. S. military landed on the island of Cuba at an area called Bahia de Cochinos or Bay of Pigs. • It was a disaster. Nothing that the CIA planned happened like it was supposed to and the Cuban exiles were either killed or imprisoned by Castro. • Even though Kennedy wasn’t part of the planning, he was blamed because he was the current president.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis • Communist Cuba was promised protection from Russia. In the summer of 1962, the flow of Russian weapons, including nuclear weapons, greatly increased. • Because Cuba is so close to the United States, President Kennedy warned that the United States would not tolerate offensive nuclear weapons in Cuba. • Photographs were taken of nuclear weapons in Cuba that were ready to launch. This caused the United States to go into a panic. • Kennedy told Russia that any missile attack from Cuba would trigger an attack on Russia from the United States. • For the next 6 days, the world waited in fear of a nuclear war. Finally, the Soviets offered to removed the missiles if the U. S. would promise not to invade Cuba. • This crisis causes the U. S. and Russia to install a direct telephone line between the President of the United States and the leader of Russia in case they needed to discuss things before things got close to a nuclear war again.