Cuban Missile Crisis – Key Figures

Cuban Missile Crisis – Key Figures

John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963)

Time in Office: 1961 - 1963

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States of America. He was born on May 29 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts. His family was of Irish Catholic ancestry, and his father was a multimillionare and ambassador to the UK under Franklin Roosevelt. He attended Brookline's public Edward Devotion School from kindergarten through the beginning of 3rd grade, then Noble and Greenough Lower School and its successor, the Dexter School, through 4th grade. For 8th grade in September 1930, the 13-year old Kennedy was sent fifty miles away to Canterbury School, a lay Roman Catholic boarding school for boys in New Milford, Connecticut.

Kennedy entered Harvard University in 1936 and graduated four years later. He joined the US navy on September 1941, shortly before the US entered the Second World War. He participated in various commands in the Pacific theater and earned the rank of lieutenant, commanding a patrol torpedo (PT) boat. On August 2, 1943, his boat, the PT-109, was taking part in a nighttime patrol near New Georgia in the Solomon Islands when it was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. Kennedy performed heroically, saving many crewmembers in spite of an injured back. For these actions, Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. He contracted malaria, and was discharged in early 1945.

Up to then, Kennedy had grown up in the shadow of his older brother, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr, who was to be the Kennedy family’s political standard bearer. However, Joseph was killed in action during the war, so Kennedy decided to take up a career in politics.

In 1946 Kennedy ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives, beating his Republican opponent by a large margin. He was reelected in 1948 and 1950 but had a mixed voting record, often diverging from President Harry S. Truman and the rest of the Democratic Party. Examples include criticizing a perceived weak stand against communist China and advocating a hardline anti-communist stance. He ran for and won a seat in the Senate in 1952, defeating incumbent Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

Due to having to undergo several spinal operations, as well as other cases of illness, Kennedy was often absent from the Senate and hence relatively ineffectual. During his illness, Kennedy worked on the book Profiles in Courage, which described instances in which U.S. Senators risked their careers by standing by their personal beliefs. The book was pubished in 1956, and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957.

Kennedy ran for the Presidential Elections in 1960. Despite being Roman-Catholic in a staunchly Protestant country, he managed to pull off a victory with a well funded and organized presidential campaign. By promising progressive policies and the recovery of the nation from the current recession, as well as performing well against opponent Richard Nixon in television debates, Kennedy was able to win the support for the people.

Kennedy adopted a hardline stance when dealing with communism, refusing to concede to Khrushchev’s demands that Berlin be liberated from American control. This resulted in greater friction with Russia during his term.

On November 22 1963, Kennedy was shot to death by gunman while on a political trip to Texas. The identity of the perpetrator remains a hotly contested debate. Only 46, President Kennedy died younger than any U.S. president to date. His body is buried at a permanent burial plot and memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Nikita Khrushchev (1894 – 1971)

Time in Office: 1958 – 1964

Khrushchev was born in Kalinovka village, Russia, on April 15, 1894. His parents, Sergei Khrushchev and Ksenia Khrushcheva, were poor peasants like most of Russia’s population. He spent his early years working as a herdsboy. He was educated for four years, part in the village parochial school and part in Kalinovka's state school. In the state school, his outlook on life was significantly influenced by his teacher, Lydia Shevchenko, a freethinker who gave him books which had been banned by the Imperial Government.

Khrushchev was hired by a workshop and became a skilled metal worker. During the First World War, he participated in strikes demanding higher pay, better working conditions and an end to the war. He eventually joined the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War, and was mobilized into the Red Army as a political commissar. During the war, his wife, Yefrosinia, died of typhus. The commissar returned to Kalinovka for the funeral and, loyal to the Bolshevik ideology, did not allow his wife's coffin to enter the local church, instead having the coffin lifted and passed over the fence into the burial ground.

After the war, he became a party official, becoming among Stalin’s favored subordinates. He worked to advance the communist party, and managed to survive the political purges which had resulted in many of his friends and colleagues executed.

During the Second World War, he was appointed a political commissar by Stalin, and served on a number of fronts as an intermediary between the local military commanders and Moscow, keeping commanders on a tight leash, while the commanders sought to have him influence Stalin. After the war, he became one of Stalin’s closest advisors, and part of his inner circle.

After Stalin’s death, his political heirs fought to gain total control of the Party as Premier. Khrushchev eventually triumphed, arresting or exiling his opponents. He also gave The Secret Speech, in which he denounced Stalin’s policies.

“It is here that Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality, and his abuse of power ... he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party or the Soviet Government.”

His regime sought in raise the living standards of Soviet citizens and complete peacefully with the West. The policies implemented backfired, with the agriculture reform making food shortages worse. His rule also saw the tensest years of the Cold War, with confrontations with the US bordering on war.

During the Berlin Crisis, East Germany was suffering a continuous "brain drain" as highly educated East Germans fled west through Berlin. Khrushchev’s solution was to build the Berlin Wall in 1961, which turned into a propaganda disaster for the Soviet Union.

Concessions made to Warsaw-Pact countries emboldened Hungary to attempt defection to the West in 1956. Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian uprising, with a death toll of 4,000 Hungarians and several hundred Soviet troops.

Relations with China were also cut off, as Mao Zedong was staunchly pro-Stalinist, and believed Khrushchev to be corrupting the communist system.

Due to the various failed policies of his rule, including the perceived Soviet defeat in the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev’s popularity was eroded, and he was ousted by political rivals on October 1964.

Khrushchev was pensioned off with an apartment in Moscow and a house in the countryside, and died of a heart attack on September 1971.

Fidel Castro (1926 - )

Time in Office: 1959 - 2008

Castro was born in a wealthy family, his father an immigrant from Spain who had become rich through investment and work in Cuba’s thriving sugar industry. He was an illegitimate child, a product of his father’s relationship with a household servant. A gifted and successful student, he was educated in various Catholic and Jesuit boarding schools.

Castro entered law school at the University of Havana in 1945. There, he became involved in the violent student politics, a result of Cuba’s volatile state at the time. Various political action groups and gangs vied with each other for dominance, and organized violence was so significant a factor that many aspiring student leaders saw it as an essential ingredient to success. There was at least one attempt on the life of political rival Rolando Masferrer during this period, in which Castro was implicated.

At the time, Cuba was going through one of the most volatile periods in its history. The government was incredibly corrupt, and politicians frequently worked only for profit, accepting bribes and becoming involved in organized crime. Furthermore, a Cuban president effectively could not come into power unless backed by the United States. In 1947, he joined the newly formed Partido Ortodoxo political party founded by Eduardo Chibás, which aimed for a peaceful revolution of Cuba. However, Chibas died in 1952, shortly before the presidential elections, after shooting himself in the stomach during a radio broadcast for unknown reasons.

On March 10, 1952, Fulgencio Batista, backed by the military, overthrew the Cuban government in a coup and established himself as dictator, effectively ending democracy in Cuba. In response, Castro assembled a small force and, on July 26, attacked the Moncada Army Barracks in Santiago. All attackers were killed or captured, and Castro was sentenced to 15 years n prison. However, due to broad international pressure, he and other Cuban political prisoners, including all other survivors of the attack on the barracks, were released into exile in 1955.

Castro began the 26th of July Movement, and started to train a group of revolutionaries to liberate Cuba. On 2 December 1956, the yacht Granma, carrying the revolutionaries, landed in Cuba. They were attacked by the army, and their numbers reduced from 82 to less than 20, but the survivors managed to start a guerrilla movement which, by January 1959, had resulted in a complete revolution. The people were won over, the army was defeated and Batista was ousted from power, leaving the country on 1 January 1959.

The CIA admits to many attempts to shoot or poison Castro in hopes of eradicating socialism from Cuba. The number of assassination attempts on Castro has been claimed to be 638 by his bodyguard.

In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Castro regime has continued to rule over Cuba. After a period of severe illness, Fidel Castro handed power as President of Cuba over to his brother Raul Castro on 24 February 2008.