Why Did Khrushchev Install Missiles in Cuba in 1962?

Paper Summary:

A variety of reasons influenced Khrushchev's decision to install missiles into Cuba, including pressures from home, the U.S., Europe, China, and Cuba itself. This essay examines the importance of the different factors, and in doing so challenges the often held theory that Kennedy won, and Khrushchev lost.

From the Paper:

"In international opinion, the Soviet Union was largely held to have been defeated in the Cuban Missile Crisis, having been 'successfully rebuffed' by John F. Kennedy, who had displayed 'cool nerve during an extraordinarily dangerous situation' . Such was the nature of the Soviet Union's perceived defeat that it influenced a break in Sino-Soviet relations; the Chinese viewing the Soviet Union's withdrawal of nuclear missiles in response to a U.S. quarantine as a sign of their weak resolve in the face of U.S. strength; thus, the Soviet Union did not warrant her status as the protector of world communism. In the West, the Soviet Union was widely regarded as having been the aggressor, and her placing of missiles in Cuba was an aggressive policy which could have resulted in nuclear war. Khrushchev defended himself, claiming that his sole purpose had been in 'protecting the freedom-loving people of Cuba' , a purpose in which he had been entirely successful as he had stalled imminent U.S. military action against Cuba, and had extracted a promise from the U.S. not to support action against Cuba in the future. However, none of these viewpoints reflected the full picture. Khrushchev had never intended nuclear war, neither had he solely sought to protect Cuba from U.S. aggression. Indeed, Khrushchev can be shown to have had a wide range of aims and objectives, some realized, some failed, but which question the plausibility of his perceived 'defeat'."

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