To try and combat the problem of the nuclear missiles on Cuba President Kennedy had several choices. He could appeal to the United Nations; however, Russia had the power to veto any action. He could also set up a blockade around Cuba and search any incoming Russian ships. Lastly, he could invade Cuba and destroy the soviet missiles. Each of these solutions had disadvantages and advantages, with the first he would look weak in the eyes of the American public; however, on the plus side there would be no loss of life. With the second option there was a possibility of a nuclear war breaking out which would be the worst thing there could be; however, if a nuclear war didn’t break out and the missiles were no delivered Kennedy would look strong, powerful and decisive. The third option would result in loss of life and would most likely end up in nuclear war; this was not the wisest option to take.
Kennedy decided to set up a blockade around Cuba and search all incoming Russian ships. This wasn’t as dangerous as invading Cuba but it could have still resulted in nuclear war if the Russian ships had tried to break through the blockade and had been sunk by American ships. Russia and America eventually came to a deal, the Russians would remove the nuclear missiles from Cuba, which America did not know were already there, if America promised not to try to invade Cuba and removed their missiles from Turkey. America did this and the missiles were removed from Cuba. However, the deal that was made public was that all America had to do was promise not to invade Cuba and that the missiles were then removed. This made Kennedy look much more powerful and it made his popularity rise.
Berlin was also a trouble spot during the Cold War, half was controlled by Russia and the other half was controlled by the US, Britain and France. The East side was communist and the West side was Capitalist. The Eastern Berliners were jealous of the prosperous life of West Berliners; they had freedom of speech, could go out to a variety of American shops and were able to watch Western television. Russia decided that they wanted to control all of Berlin as it was essentially in East Germany which they were in control of. Kennedy refused to give them all of Berlin saying that “all Europe is at stake in West Berlin”. Late in 1961 Russia set up a large wall dividing East and West Berlin, this stopped people fleeing the communist East Berlin in search of a more prosperous life in the West. Russia continued to argue that they should have full control of Berlin; sometimes it looked like they may have invaded West Berlin which may have resulted in a full scale nuclear war. Eventually Russia realised that Kennedy was not going to budge and gave up any hopes of seizing control of West Berlin, this made Kennedy look like he had scored an important and decisive victory over the communist Russians.
The US strongly believed in a theory named the domino theory – that as one country fell to communism then the countries surrounding it would also become communist. This theory was seen to be correct as China and Korea had both become communist. The country that would be coming next was Vietnam. Kennedy first began by sending money to the South Vietnamese so that they could buy weapons to try and combat the North Vietnamese who were communist. After this began failing Kennedy decided to send American ‘advisors’ to Vietnam to fight along side the South Vietnamese. It was originally 9000 troops in 1962; however by 1963 this number had rose to 150000. Images of the soldiers dieing in Vietnam were being sent to America and support for the war in Vietnam and support for President Kennedy began to fall. Kennedy had plans to remove the troops from Vietnam but did not have time to fulfil his plans as several months later he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
By the beginning of the 1960s, the segregation in the South was beginning to be questioned; however, it had still not been removed. The black people did have rights in theory; however, nothing was done to enforce these rights. The events that took place in the 1950s led to the Black Civil Rights Movement that Kennedy had to deal with.
In Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 Martin Luther King led a non-violent protest against racial inequality. The Chief of Police, Bull Connor, ordered hi men to attack the protesters. Front page pictures showed blacks being attacked by dogs and being knocked to the ground by fire hoses. This created more support for the Black Civil Rights Movement. This was a problem for Kennedy as there was another election coming up and he had only just won the last one. If he made sure the anti-segregation laws were enforced then he would lose support from the South, however if the laws weren’t enforced it was likely that the black people would try and get rights by force and violence.
To try and combat this Kennedy decided to create new laws which helped minorities such as blacks and the elderly. He named this set of laws the New Frontier. However, because Kennedy was not very good at handling congress some of his bills were not approved, such as the medical help for the elderly and a Bill to provide greater funding for schools in deprived areas. He did manage to get some bills passed such as an increased social security bill, training schemes for the unemployed and housing programmes. As Kennedy was trying to help the minorities he did gain some support, although he was not making very much progress at all, this once again highlighted his inexperience. It was not entirely his fault that some of the bills wee rejected, quite a lot of the members of congress were Southern racists who were also anti-catholic, which was bad for Kennedy as he was a Catholic. This meant that any bill that may have helped blacks in some way was voted against by all of the southern racist politicians; this was because they still believed that blacks were inferior to whites and should not have equal rights. So Kennedy was gaining support for trying to improve things for minorities he was not actually getting much done, however, he did pave the way for the presidents that came after him to continue his work and to eventually get blacks equal rights and rights in practice. He was also unsuccessful in finding a way to stop poverty in America.
In conclusion, President Kennedy had to face many problems during his time as president, he had to deal with the Clod War and the Black Civil Rights Movement all while being criticised for being inexperienced, which several of his decisions showed he clearly was.
