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Social Unrest and Westgate
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Social Unrest and Westgate
Source Chosen: Kennedy, R. F. (1969). 13 Days: TheCuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Springer.
Context
The name of the document is the “Cuban Missile Crisis Speech” by John F. Kennedy in1962. It is taken from original the speeches of Kennedy written by his speechwriter Theodore Chaikin Sorensen. Kennedy was the 35th president of the US, form the era of (1961-1963). He faced numerous scandals, controversies, and crises, such as the ones in Berlin and Cuba. During his presidency, a potential nuclear war with the Soviet Union almost started in the form of the Cuban Missile Crises. This document was created in 1962 as Kennedy delivered his speech on the eve of the 22nd October 1962. He gave it on television and radio.
Summary
In an emotional broadcast to the American people, President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation and gave a speech in which he stated that the Soviet Union haddeployed nuclear missiles in Cuba. He spoke about the ways through which the US government will enforce a blockade around the island nation from keeping other hostile weapons from entering into the state of Castro (Kennedy, 1969). Additionally, Kennedy warned and cautioned the government of Soviet Union that any nuclear assault from inside theCuba would be taken as a measure towards war. Kennedy also accused the Soviet Union in his speech, of instigating the misdirectionand deceptions, to what he referredclearly to as a "clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace” in his speech (Kennedy, 1969).He also spoke about the counter attack thatwould be done by the United States and it would not hesitate in retaliating even for once. Referring back to the hostility and endeavors during the historic war era of Italian, Japanese, and German in 1930, Kennedy contended that the behaviors of the country’s leading towards war, whenever permitted under unchallenged and unchecked circumstances, has prompted war. He rejected the case of Foreign Minister of Soviet Union, Andrei Gromyko, that the ammunition and weapons present in Cuba were simply for the sake of defense regarded as "false."
Furthermore, in his speech, Kennedy outlined a plan of actionthat required a quarantinefor executing a serious set apart on the entire antagonistic armed forces and ammunitions under the shipment towards Cuba (Kennedy, 1969). Furthermore, Kennedy alarmed the Soviets by stating that if there was a nuclear war-trap from Cuba, they should consider the US as a biggest threat to them, and he set the U.S. military towards the Western Hemisphere on a highly alert state. Khrushchev, he communicated, "has an open entryway at present to shift the world back again from the void of devastation" (Kennedy, 1969). Kennedy also addressed the other organizations of the United States and the United Nations to help in settling the issue. This discourse was an assertion of activity plans set by Kennedy in light of the atomic war, the threatening circumstances occurred between the two superpowers. Hence, this speech gave a detailed overview of the circumstances prevailing between the Soviet Union and the US at the time of the Crisis of Cuban Missile.
Connections
This course addresses the topic of Cold War and Cuban Missile Crises which was covered earlier in the course. We learned from the lecture material from the ‘Modern American History: 1950 to 21st century’ about the Cold War era and the confrontation between the two big nuclear Powers; the United States and the Soviet Union. Also, they came close to the nuclear conflict among them and bombarded each other with bombs, missiles, and the crisis, i.e., Cuban Missiles occurred in that era. Nonetheless, this topic is broadly covered in the course and various aspects of the modern historical war era of the 21st century.
Moreover, this primary source gave a detailed description of the Cuban Missile matter through the speech of President Kennedy himself (Powaski, 2017). This speech gave a detailed overview of the circumstances prevailing between the US and the Soviet Union at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy informed the public very thoroughly about the matter through his speech and the initiatives he took by marking his words in a stern tone of voice delivered the message to the ears of the US citizens as well as the Soviet Union (Heller, 2016). He outlined an action plan for enforcing the blockade on quarantine and issued warnings to the Soviet Union about retaliation.
This speech is very much declarative in its own stance as they are the direct words of the president Kennedy and he emphasized all the situations which were leading to a nuclear war in a very unsympathetic tone and way. It wholly covers all the aspects of the course studied and it further intrigues the listener or reader about the circumstances from the president point of view, as he is the leader of the country. This speech was a declaration of action plans set by Kennedy in response to the nuclear war started between the two superpowers. However, the course material is much extensively detailed on the topic as it covers the situations and scenarios of the pre-Cold War era and the post-Cold War era. The other topics which relate to the Cuban Missile Crisis are also mentioned in the course book, such that they are all connected to the era of the Cold War and its repercussions. The responses shared by fellow students are somewhat alike due to the reason that all the topics in the course are interrelated to the history of America and the Cold War.
References
Heller, J. (2016). Kennedy, Israel, and the Cold War before the Cuban Missile Crisis (1961–62). In The United States, the Soviet Union and the Arab–Israeli conflict, 1948–67. Manchester University Press.
Kennedy, R. F. (1969). 13 Days: TheCuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Springer.
Powaski, R. E. (2017). John F. Kennedy, the Hawks, the Doves, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. In American Presidential Statecraft (pp. 11-65). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
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