Avoiding the Final Conflict:

The Cuban Missile Crisis

By Jessica Mosher Senior Individual Website

I wanted a topic that was interesting and thoroughly demonstrated this yearss theme: Turning Points in History. After coming up with a list of possible topics of which I gathered from asking several adults including family members and close friends, I felt that the Cuban Missile Crisis effectively met both requirements. The idea that if President Kennedy had failed to avoid nuclear war with the Soviet Union that life on Earth could have ceased to exist was frightening, yet strongly appealed to my curiosity. Kennedy chose to disregard suggestions made by the EXCOMM and in doing so he risked appearing weak but ultimately avoided nuclear crisis and changed the course of history. Knowing this enabled me to really connect with the topic and develop a passion to learn more about U.S. Foreign Policy and the Cuban Missile Crisis impact on it. For me, putting myself in the shoes of President Kennedy during such an intense time period truly opened up my understanding of how greatly the Cuban Missile Crisis was a turning point in history and how it impacted, or could have impacted life as we know it today. I believed that focusing on how Kennedys decision to trade US Jupiter missiles in Turkey instead of an air strike and going against the EX-COMMs recommendations was a turning point in the Cold War, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the history of the world. First, I began researching the events leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I did this in order to more clearly understand the context that took place around the the crisis, how the relationship and tension between the U.S. and Russia was formed, and to gain information on

Khrushchevs motive as to why he initially imported nuclear missiles into Cuba. I collected secondary sources in order to gain information on Kennedys actions and reactions in response to major events during the crisis. My secondary sources consisted of online journal and newspaper articles, encyclopedias, and books from trips to multiple public as well as university libraries. My primary sources such as images, quotes, and documents including letters and telegrams from important figures or events during the Cuban Missile Crisis were used to enhance understanding of significant people who contributed to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Such sources were found online, in books, and at the John F. Kennedy Library located in Boston, Massachusetts. I created my website using valuable information and facts, further analyzing major events, and revealing how the Cuban Missile Crisis was a major turning point in history. I began the website process with a rough draft of the layout of the website to organize my thoughts and get an idea of how the photos and text would come together nicely when creating my final website. The benefit of using Weebly was that it allowed for multimedia, audio, and text to neatly amplify the theme supported throughout the website using my primary and secondary sources as well as thoughtful analysis. I downloaded relevant videos and interviews on the Cuban Missile Crisis from the Clouds Over Cuba and To the Brink websites. Clouds Over Cuba and To The Brink are websites created by the JFK Library and were excellent sources for my website because they contained countless primary source quotes, interviews, documents, videos, and critical information on the Cuban Missile Crisis. The 13 Days slideshow was created using photos that I found and analyzed online as well as from multiple primary and secondary sources which also included Clouds Over Cuba. This chronological slideshow provided the most effective way to map important events during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I also found and included a song called Russians written and sung by Sting that I included in my website which

helped the viewers understand the impact and seriousness of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis relates to the theme of being a turning point in history because it was a critical point in history which had long ranging effects on the Cold War, U.S. Foreign policy. Had Kennedy listened to his hawkish advisors, the world could have entered a WWIII. Kennedy went against the advice from his closest advisors in the EX-COMM and agreed with Khrushchev that he would not invade Cuba, call off the blockade, and secretly remove the U.S. Jupiter Missiles stationed in Turkey in exchange for the dismantlement and removal of the nuclear weapons in Cuba.