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Background: The Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose
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Cold War – The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
In this course, Professor Mark White (Queen Mary, University of London) explores one of the most crucial events of the Cold War - the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. We begin by thinking about the background to the Cuban Missile Crisis, including Kennedy’s policies towards Cuba in 1961 and early 1962 – and especially the Bay of Pigs Invasion. In the second module, we examine Nikita Khrushchev’s decision to install medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba. In the third module, we think about events from late summer through to early autumn, by which point the situation in Cuba has become a major talking-point in US politics. In the fourth module, we think about the ‘private’ phase of the crisis between 14-22 October, before turning in the fifth module to the ‘public’ phase of the crisis between 22-28 October.
Background: The Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose
In this module, we think about the background to the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, focusing in particular: (i) John F. Kennedy’s comments on Communism during the 1960 presidential election; (ii) the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion; (iii) the various activities aimed at destabilising the Castro regime as part of ‘Operation Mongoose’; and (iv) Kennedy’s huge military build-up in the early years of his presidency.
Hello. My name is Mark White.
00:00:06I'm professor of American history at Queen Mary University of London,
00:00:07and I'm going to be talking about the Cuban missile crisis.
00:00:12There's a way in which historians understanding of the
00:00:16Cuban missile crisis has changed over the years.
00:00:18If you look at the early books that were published on the Cuban missile crisis,
00:00:21they tended to focus on those 13 days in October 1962
00:00:24when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war.
00:00:28So the period from the 16th of October to the 28th of October 1962.
00:00:30But I say over the last 25 30 years, historians have become as interested
00:00:35in the causes of the Cuban missile crisis, the background,
00:00:40the Cuban missile crisis,
00:00:42the question of why it happened,
00:00:44as well as the question of how it was diffused, how it was ended.
00:00:46So I'm going to talk about
00:00:49John Kennedy and his policies towards Cuba in 61 in early 62.
00:00:52I'm also going to talk about Nikita Khrushchev
00:00:57and his decision to put missiles in Cuba.
00:00:59It's a decision he made in the spring of 62.
00:01:02Um,
00:01:04so let me start by talking about John Kennedy and his early policies towards Cuba.
00:01:05Now this is important because what some historians feel is that
00:01:10those policies influence crushed jobs decision to put missiles in Cuba.
00:01:13So, in other words,
00:01:17without Kennedy's policies towards Cuba in 61 early 62
00:01:18Castro may well have not put missiles in Cuba,
00:01:22and therefore there would have been no Cuban missile crisis.
00:01:24The hallmark of Kennedy's policy towards Cuba,
00:01:27which was led by the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, uh, was one of hostility
00:01:30and an important
00:01:36issue. Here is the 1960 presidential election.
00:01:38John Kennedy was running against his Republican opponent,
00:01:41Richard Nixon was known as a hardline anti Communist,
00:01:43and Kennedy was determined that Nixon wouldn't be able
00:01:47to accuse him Kennedy of being soft on communism.
00:01:50So during the campaign, Kennedy accused Nixon
00:01:52of failing to prevent
00:01:57the advent of Castro to power in Cuba. Castro had come to power in 1959
00:01:59at the time, which Nixon was vice president of the United States,
00:02:04and Kennedy made the argument that Nixon had been soft on Castro.
00:02:07Elect me, President Kennedy suggested,
00:02:11and I'll take a much more hard line approach,
00:02:13and Kennedy wins the 1960 election by a very narrow margin in the popular vote.
00:02:16And when he becomes president,
00:02:22he the 1st 15 months or so he carries out a policy of unremitting hostility.
00:02:24The first thing he does is to try to topple Fidel Castro via an invasion,
00:02:29the Bay of Pigs invasion.
00:02:34Now this was a C. I A plan,
00:02:35and the idea was to take Cuban exiles.
00:02:38Cuban emigres train them, equip them and send them back in Cuba
00:02:40to launch a coup d eight r two to overthrow Fidel Castro.
00:02:46Kennedy gave the go ahead for an invasion at the Bay of Pigs UH,
00:02:50which takes place in the middle of April 1961.
00:02:54And it's a total disaster.
00:02:57Castro's army militia soon round up the invading Cuban emigres,
00:03:00so Kennedy's attempt, made three months into his presidency to overthrow Castro,
00:03:05had failed.
00:03:10The question for Kennedy then was What do I do about Castro now?
00:03:12Some of his liberal advisers, like Adlai Stevenson,
00:03:17who was his ambassador to the United Nations,
00:03:20encouraged him to adopt a more patient approach diplomacy, for example, Um,
00:03:21but Kennedy made the decision, uh,
00:03:27which was ratified at the National Security Council meeting on the fifth of May
00:03:30that he would continue to work for the overthrow of Castro.
00:03:34The decision he made on the fifth of May was to do everything in his power
00:03:37to overthrow Castro.
00:03:40Um, apart from a direct invasion by US forces,
00:03:42although even that was to be retained as a policy option.
00:03:47Six months later, in November 61 Operation Mongoose was launched,
00:03:51and this was the centrepiece of Kennedy's effort to get rid of Fidel Castro.
00:03:56It was the largest CIA operation in history
00:04:00up to that point in time,
00:04:02and the aim of the operation
00:04:05was ultimately to trigger
00:04:07an uprising, an anti Castro uprising in Cuba,
00:04:09Um, and then sending US forces to make sure that uprising succeeded
00:04:13and that Castro was overthrown.
00:04:18Bobby Kennedy, JFK's brother John Kennedy's brother closest adviser,
00:04:20who was attorney general that's head of the Justice Department,
00:04:25came to play a major role in Operation Mongoose.
00:04:27He was determined to exact revenge on Castro for what he regarded
00:04:30as the humiliation inflicted on his brother at the Bay of Pigs.
00:04:34Operation Mongoose has launched in November 61
00:04:38Um, and it involves things like acts of sabotage,
00:04:41improving intelligence collection to find out what was happening in Cuba.
00:04:46But the ultimate aim, as I say, was to trigger an anti Castro uprising.
00:04:49In addition, in early 1962 in February,
00:04:5260 to the United States arranged for Cuba to be ejected
00:04:55from the Organisation of American States to isolate Cuba diplomatically,
00:04:59uh, within the Western Hemisphere.
00:05:03Also, Kennedy imposed strict economic sanctions on Cuba
00:05:05in February 62.
00:05:10At the same time, secretly,
00:05:12he is updating contingency military plans for an air
00:05:14strike on Cuba or an invasion of Cuba,
00:05:18Um, so that if he did decide to attack Cuba, those plans were ready to ready to go.
00:05:21So as as of the spring of 1960
00:05:27to Kennedy had carried out a multi faceted, multi faceted anti Castro policy.
00:05:31And there's one other thing
00:05:39that is assassination.
00:05:40During the final year of Dwight Eisenhower's presidency in 1960 the C. I. A.
00:05:42Developed plans to assassinate Fidel Castro, uh, the phrase that that was used and,
00:05:46uh, executive action executive what it meant.
00:05:54Assassination.
00:05:56And the way in which it worked was the CIA hired an ex
00:05:58FBI agent who in turn hired mobsters
00:06:03to carry out the assassination. Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago Mafia,
00:06:07and Johnny Rosselli, Las Vegas mobster uh, one there,
00:06:11obviously very good at killing people.
00:06:15And secondly, uh, they had extensive interests in pre Castro Havana.
00:06:16Kennedy inherited those assassination plans as president.
00:06:21Years later, in 1975 the U.
00:06:26S Senate carried out an investigation into
00:06:28alleged assassination attempts made against foreign leaders,
00:06:30including Castro.
00:06:34And what that
00:06:35a Senate report in the mid 19 seventies established was that at
00:06:36least eight assassination plots had been devised by the CIA against Castro,
00:06:39a number of them during the Kennedy years.
00:06:45We know that at least one,
00:06:47maybe two assassination plots were scheduled around the time of the Bay of Pigs.
00:06:49That might well explain why Kennedy gave the go ahead for the Bay of Pigs invasion.
00:06:53If you assume he knew about the assassination attempts,
00:06:57he thought Kennedy would be Castro be assassinated.
00:07:00That would create a political vacuum in Cuba, and in that context,
00:07:04the Bay of Pigs invasion could be successful.
00:07:08So this was another element in Kennedy's effort to get rid of Castro.
00:07:10Um, in the early part of his presidency.
00:07:16The one other thing he did, which is significant
00:07:18in terms of the whole question of Cuba and the Cold War
00:07:21and this is one of the little known facts about Kennedy is he carried out
00:07:25the largest peacetime increase in military spending in U. S.
00:07:29History, up to that point in time to be exceeded later in the Reagan years.
00:07:32As a student, as the Harvard student,
00:07:37Kennedy had studied the British appeasement of Nazi Germany,
00:07:39and it was published. His first book, in 1940 called Why England Slept.
00:07:43You can still learn a lot about John Kennedy's foreign
00:07:47policy by reading that first book Why England Slept.
00:07:49And what he argued was that the mistake that the British made in dealing
00:07:52with Hitler was was that they did not prepare militarily to confront him.
00:07:55And from that point on,
00:08:02that's always the basis of Kennedy's approach to foreign policy,
00:08:03the importance of military preparation.
00:08:05So it's no surprise that when he became president,
00:08:07he carried out this huge military build up.
00:08:10So by early 62 Kennedys carried out that huge build up,
00:08:13and it's also made a sustained effort to get without Fidel Castro.
00:08:17In the spring of 1962 Nikita Krushchev would respond to those two things
00:08:22
Cite this Lecture
APA style
White, M. (2019, November 28). Cold War – The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 - Background: The Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/the-cuban-missile-crisis/autumn-1962-soviet-action-and-us-reaction
MLA style
White, M. "Cold War – The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 – Background: The Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 28 Nov 2019, https://massolit.io/courses/the-cuban-missile-crisis/autumn-1962-soviet-action-and-us-reaction