Cuban Missile Crisis Sources Questions

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George Maund

Cuban Missile Crisis - History Coursework Assignment Two

Question One

Source A shows that the President must have felt a great sense of urgency in order for him to telephone his brother, the American Attorney General, at the start of the working day. The Source also indicates that President Kennedy went straight to the point, stating that America faced great trouble, and that he was now sure of Soviet placing of missiles on Cuban land.

President Kennedy would have felt very threatened upon seeing the U2 spy plane photographs. His initial reaction would have been deep shock at the proof of ballistic missiles so close to America. Source B contains the geographical implications of the placement of missiles. These missiles were so close to American shores that they would bypass the early warning system located in the Arctic, which was designed to detect missiles approaching from Russia, east of America. If Kennedy had looked closely at the geographical implications of inter-continental ballistic missiles on Cuban soil, he would have seen the vast array of threatened American cities. Miami, New Orleans and Dallas fell inside the 1000-mile radius of short-range ICBMs, and New York, Chicago and