Conformity and Challenges in the Eisenhower and Kennedy Years 389struction in mid-October of 1962, the U.S. responded with alarm and thus
began the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile
Crisis.
One could go into great detail about the crisis, which lasted 13 days, but
it is sufficient to say that JFK was committed to confront the Soviet Union
and Cuba and take out the missiles. Certain elements in Kennedy’s advisory
group–the “Ex Com” or Executive Committee–wanted to take immediate
military action, but Kennedy chose to wait. He did go on national television
to tell the country of the crisis, thus setting off a national bout of anxiety
unlike any in the era, but stayed in contact with the Soviet ambassador in the
U.S. and with Krushchev. Finally, the Soviets relented, turning one of their
ships headed toward Cuba around when faced with a U.S. naval blockade, and
took out the missiles. In return, and quietly, the U.S. agreed not to invade
Cuba and essentially made a trade by removing its Jupiter Missiles from
Turkey, where they posed a threat to Eastern Europe. As one of the most
important historians who has studied the issue wrote, “had there been no exile
expedition at the Bay of Pigs, no destructive covert activities, no assassination
plots, no military maneuvers and plans, and no economic and diplomatic steps
to harass, isolate, and destroy the Castro government in Havana, there would
not have been a Cuban missile crisis. The origins of the October 1962 crisis
derived largely from the concerted US campaign to quash the Cuban
Revolution and from the Soviet-Cuban effort to save it by deterring the
United States through missile deployment.” Even with the crisis ended, JFK
continued his efforts to remove Castro and on November 22d, 1963, as the
president was headed for Dallas to give a speech, an anti-Castro Cuban agent
was meeting with a CIA official in Paris to get a pen rigged with a poison
hypodermic needle to be used to kill Fidel Castro....
“The Testicles of the West”
While Cuba was the most critical issue facing JFK, the conflict in Europe had
to remain a priority too. And no area, still, was as vital as Germany, and Berlin
in particular. Beginning in 1958 and lasting into the early years of the Kennedy
presidency, the Soviet Union again brought the issue of East Germany [the
GDR] to the forefront of world politics, eventually leading to the creation of
a wall to separate East from West Berlin. By 1958, the West had still refused