Do you think we handled the cuban missle criss nicely??

Also does the fact that russians had Nuclear capible subs in the area change you opionon??

Originally posted by #1 Person
Do you think we handled the cuban missle criss nicely??

Also does the fact that russians had Nuclear capible subs in the area change you opionon??

there was little actually chance of war unless some naval captain or pilot lost his cool. khrushchev knew the u.s. had a 18,638-3100 advantages in nuclear warheads in 1962 and was bluffing. he saw kennedy give in at the berlin war and the bay of pigs and thought he was weak. as long as kennedy didn't blink, the soviets would.

on a side note, if the u.s. would of invaded cuba we would of had a big suprise, we thought there were only 4000 soviet combat troops there--declassified soviet files show there 43,000!

Had the invasion actually occured, the missiles would have flown. Period. As it was, there appears to have been an actual launch order given, but never carried out. Interviews given later make it clear that CIA had badly underestimated the number and preparedness of the missiles. The Military underestimated Cuba's willingness to use them. Kennedy pretty much ignored everything til the spy plane photos arrived. Only the Soviet intervention prevented a nuclear exchange. This was a bungled situation even worse than Bay of Pigs.

J

Originally posted by onejayhawk
The Military underestimated Cuba's willingness to use them.

AFAIK, the Cubans had no choice in the matter of how and when the weapons were to be used: the 'Cuban' missiles remained firmly under the USSR's control (much like the nuclear weapons issued to NATO countries by the US remained firmly under American control).

It was a missed opportunity to remove the Red menace from the planet. With extreme prejudice.

The Russians had over 100 nuclear warheads in Cuba. Castro told the Russians to launch them if invaded. The order to launch was apparently given as a Soviet sub was being depth charged by the Americans and 2 out of 3 subofficers wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo at the Americans. 1 Soviet officer stopped a nuclear war and the Soviet backdown.

Yes, I think we handeled it quite nicely here in Finland.

Attacking would of been incredibly stupid. As that would most likely start a nuclear war.

Having lived through the crisis my vote is definitely that Kennedy handled it well...no, brilliantly!

Had he listened to his military advisors, as he did with the Bay of Pigs, the result would have been catastrophic...simply, we wouldn't be here today doing what we are doing.

It's one thing to read about it and form an opinion, but live through something like that and it's something else. Practice diving under your desk at school sometime. I don't think that most of you guys realize how close the world was to Armageddon.