The U.S. Attempts to Contain Cuba

1. Why was Cuba so important to the United States?

Because America had owned most of its businesses on the island and they had a huge naval base there.

2. Why do you think the Americans chose to equip Cuban exiles rather than invading themselves?

Because teh US was no longer prepared to tolerate a Soviet satellite in the heart of its own 'sphere of influence'.

3. Why did the invasion fail?

Because Castro captured or killed all of the American troops within days when JFK was no willing to send many troops over.

4. Compare Source 17 on page 345 (in the Arms Race.pdf reading) with Source 24 on page 348. Describe how the Soviet Union missiles on Cuba changed the Cold War balance of power.

The balance of power during the Cold War was very much swayed judging by the two sources because in Source 17 we can see and read about how it took the long range missiles about half an hour to get to the USSR from America and it took only about a few mins with the shorter range missiles. This shows how it was changed because since the USSR had control over the missiles in Cuba they could set them to go off very quickly and they could have the upper hand since it would only take about a few minutes for the missiles to reach America. However it would still take America about a half an hour to get their missiles into the USSR.