Primary Sources:
Heritage Press, Inc., 1995.
Secondary Sources:
Brugioni, Dino. Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
New York: Random House, Inc., 1990.
Precis:
Kennedy came much too close to Nuclear War in Cuba due to an unfortunate combination of* (I) poor presidential decision making, (II) *bad intelligence, (III) poor advising, and * (IV) *a hearty helping of “western arrogance”.
I. Poor presidential decision making.
A. Eisenhower’s late-term blunders:
October 28, 1959-Turkey and the U.S. reach an agreement for the deployment of 15 nuclear-tipped short-range Jupiter missiles aimed at various targets in the Eastern USSR including Moscow. a. Target date of install: 6/1/61
b. Actual date of install: 10/22/62
Prior to Eisenhower’s exit from office, he and CIA director Allen Dulles devise a plan to oust Castro from Cuba. (Castro had just recently assumed power on 1/1/59after a successful coup of general Batista.) B. John F. Kennedy’s decisive mistakes.
Tactical changes to the Dulles plan lead to disaster. a. The original plan called for the training of Cuban exiles (Batista loyalists) to be trained in various Central American locations by the U.S.military, under the direction of the CIA. U.S. planes and military equipment were to be used in the operation, but they were disguised as stolen Cuban equipment.
b. No Americans were to be “directly involved” in the carrying out of the mission. It was to appear as though it was “totally Cuban”.
c. Weeksprior to the execution of the plan, intelligence leaks lead to fears within the Joint Chiefs, the National Security Council, and the CIA. President Kennedy decides to continue the operation.
d. Rather than canceling operations, Kennedy cripples the mission by calling off one of the air strikes and limiting the execution of the plan to the cover of night.
f. The Bay of Pigs disaster leads to grumbling amongst the...