Kennedy\'s Decision-Making During the Cuban Missile Crisis by Using a Utilitarian or Consequence-Based Approach

Cuban Missile Crisis

After the Second World War, the nations of the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republicans (USSR), who were allies during that conflict, became staunch enemies. For approximately fifty years the two counties faced off, each trying to achieve dominance over the other. Both nations were in possession of nuclear weapons and for a time, the end of the world was literally at the hands of a select group of political leaders. For years, people lived with the imposing specter of nuclear annihilations. Families built bomb shelters beneath their houses and children were taught how to hopefully survive a nuclear attack whether they were at home or at school. Decades of living in a hyper paranoid state where every day was potentially the last were ultimately rewarded by the end of the Cold War without a single shot ever having been fired. Perhaps the closest that the world came to nuclear war during this period was the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960s; a time when then-President John Kennedy had to act quickly and carefully to prevent war.

In the 1950s, things escalated on both sides of the issue. Spies funded and trained by the KGB, the Soviet's espionage and information office, were found to have infiltrated the American government and to have provided top secret data to Soviet officials. Among the information that was given to the U.S.S.R. By these agents were the secrets of the atomic bomb which the United States had used against Japan to end the Second World War.[footnoteRef:1] The Soviet government was able to utilize this data to create its own nuclear program, including development of nuclear weaponry. What had before been a political debate over governmental ideologies now became a very tense situation wherein it was literally possible for the two nations to obliterate one another and all of their citizens. [1: Sheldon Stern. Averting 'the Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2003, 1. ]

The Soviet Union allied itself with Cuba, another Communist nation.[footnoteRef:2] Fidel Castro of Cuba and Nikita Khrushchev of the U.S.S.R. made an alliance in 1962 which would allow the Cubans to place nuclear weapons on that island nation, dangerously close to the United States. Castro had been watched by the American government for several years before this alliance because of concern over his known Communist sympathies and the close proximity to the United States.[footnoteRef:3] Under the leadership of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the United States came very close to all out nuclear war with the Soviets. It was believed that a period of thirteen days of diplomacy and discourse between the leaders of the two countries was all that saved the world from an apocalypse, the Cuban Missile Crisis. At no time before or after this period in history was the world so close to destruction and it is highly likely that the reality of their nuclear holocaust humbled the warring nations. Kennedy, having served with distinction in the Second World War, considered it unpatriotic to engage in war if it were not completely necessary. This perspective shaped his policy with Cuba and remembering the pain of war supposedly helped him navigate in the situation with Cuba.[footnoteRef:4] [2: Lechuga, Carlos. The Cuban Missile Crisis. New York, NY: Ocean Press. 2001. ] [3: Sheldon Stern. 2003. 10. ] [4: Sheldon Stern. 2003. 40.]

Kennedy saw that with nuclear arms so close to American soil that the Soviet Union could launch an attack on the United States at any time and the U.S. would not be able to respond effectively until it was too late. There would be no strategic retaliation, just all out total war. It was President Kennedy's intention to avoid this at all costs. One of the ways in which he combated the Cold War was in keeping contact with Premier Khrushchev.[footnoteRef:5] The two men wrote one another which served to explain perceptions and political differences, and also allowed each leader to witness his opposition as a human being. This, Kennedy felt, was the key to avoiding war with the Soviet Union; to impart the message that human life was of paramount importance. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was no place for interactions between nations to go but to reach an eventual treaty and end of aggressions. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and neither President Kennedy nor Premier Khrushchev took action which would turn the Cold War into a hot one. Eventually, Khrushchev and Kennedy reached an agreement wherein the Soviet Union would remove their arms from Cuban soil and in exchange the United States pledged not to invade Cuba.[footnoteRef:6] [5: Smith, Joseph. The Cold War: Second Edition, 1945-1991. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 2000. ] [6: Sheldon Stern. 2003. 388. ]

In making his decision on how to handle the situation, President Kennedy took a utilitarian approach. Despite the fact that others were constantly pressuring Kennedy to act out against Cuba, he refused. He took many actions against escalation of aggressions with that country including:

Repeatedly acted to prevent, postpone, or at least question the advisability of potentially provocative measures -- such as mining international waters around Cuba; extending the quarantine to Soviet aircraft flying to Cuba; resisting Russian efforts to inspect U.S. truck convoys entering Berlin; [and] using needlessly belligerent language.[footnoteRef:7] [7: Sheldon Stern. 2003. 425.]

He understood that although the United States had means to defend them, there was no way to engage in war with the U.S.S.R. without American people being harmed. The consequences could be dire. American espionage revealed that in Cuba, the Soviet Union had enough arms to destroy huge populations of people. If the Soviets used their maximum capacity of weapons and the United States did likewise, it is possible that the entire population would have been effected. Those not killed directly in the blasts would be affected by radiation in the atmosphere. Countries not directly involved in the conflict would also be impacted and devastated. The impact would be on a global scale. People now accept the fact that had the Cold War become involved in active combat, the world would end.[footnoteRef:8] This has been why so many groups have been working on international disarmament. Enough countries are now armed with nuclear weaponry that it would likely descend into total war if nuclear armaments were employed against a country who also possessed the technology. [8: Allen, Richard V. "The Man who won the Cold War." Hoover Digest. Hoover Institution. 1. 2000.]