Who's to blame for the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Well, take it far back enough and you can answer Adam and Eve. If we limit the possible people at fault from 1960 forward - I'd have to say Khruschev followed by Castro.

However, one problem I've always had with the American reaction is that it reacted very strongly at a time when:

i) intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were trained on the U.S. from underground concrete silos in a number of places in the USSR - they took fifteen minutes to obliterate American cities. So if those were already in existence, why was America so upset at new medium range missiles in Cuba? There was no doubt by this time about the accuracy or range of the Soviet ICBMs.

ii) within 3-5 years, submarine launched nuclear missiles would be carried on an increasing number of Soviet submarines - including those just three miles off the American coast (and of course vice versa). So if America didn't react to those, why did it have to react so strongly a few years earlier to those FARTHER away in Cuba?

All's well that ends well - but for this crisis to be held up repeatedly (and in two separate films) as some ideal of reaction is odd to me. Would the U.S. tell the story the same way if the missiles were all removed from Cuba as agreed - and then three weeks later, New York was destroyed by ICBMs?

The US was the first to develop nuclear bombs and the first to use them. Truman then refused to negotiate a world wide control on the development of nuclear arms because he wanted to build up the US arsenal to scare the Soviets. In actually worked, like when the Soviets were forced out of northern Iran right after WWII. But once the Soviets started building their own nukes, the race was on. In other words, the US started the arms race and therefore the fact that the Soviets put missiles in Cuba was a direct result of that.

Kennedy and Khruschev were on the way to a nuclear disarmament treaty when Kennedy got shot. Some say this is one reason he got shot, because there was so much at steak (money and power). The Joint Chiefs wanted to bomb the hell out of Russia right then because at the US had a sizable advantage in the number of nukes, but we all would have been dead anyway.

In 1959, Castro came to the US and wanted to meet with Eisenhower or even Nixon to discuss detente. Nixon snubbed him and that was the end of any diplomacy between Cuba and the US. CAstro was thereby forced into the arms of the Soviets.

Blame? Truman, Nixon, and Eisenhower and their administrations.

I blame the owner of the run-away cart that collided with General George S Patton's car and ultimately killing him. If Patton lived on he would have, in his own quiet and diplomatic way, persuaded the allies to go to war with Russia like he said he wanted to and should do, therefore finishing the cold war before it even started.

If I could go back in time........

The people on this thread are repulsive animals, by the way. Ugh. I've never seen so much stupidity on one thread before. Primitive barbarians.

Read "The Best and Brightest" by David Halberstam and you'll figure it out. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a direct response to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. The Soviets were testing JFK, which in turn led to the escalation of Vietnam.

Effectively, both sides were to blame under a "Guns of August" scenario.

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