Cuban Missile Crisis

1. Why was Cuba so important to the United States?
The United States was very strongly opposed to the spread of communism (Containment/Truman Doctrine)
Cuba was extremely close to the US geographically and posed a huge threat to the national security. Particularly after it was known that Cuba and the Soviet Union were allies.

2. Why do you think the Americans chose to equip Cuban exiles rather than invading themselves?
Kennedy was extremely skeptical of the entire operation and was unwilling to implicate himself or the US in general in a crime that could if word got out be damaging to his image. The invasion was a failure and his image was in fact hurt.

3. Why did the invasion fail?
Due to Kennedy's reluctance to be involved the US did not send a sufficient amount of air reinforcement and the land invasion was not nearly enough to over throw Castro's regime.

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.
Up till this point in the cold war the US had had the upper hand as far as the positioning of its missiles. Many long range missiles were located in the continental states and a few short range missiles were in allied european countries with a close proximity to the USSR. But when Cuba became an ally of the soviets The USSR was now able to place short range missiles that could impact US soil within minutes of launching. This was very worrying for americans.