Term Paper-Use of Nuclear Weapons in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
We simply do not want to believe that it is the desire, the ambition of the United States to appear before the whole world as an aggressor. We would like to tell them to stop that noise with your weapons, stop the rattling, and wait until we have reasonable negotiations on equal terms.1.
What reasonable human being wants war? For Walter Ulbricht to suggest above that the United States is merely a volatile hegemony with an itchy trigger finger seems remarkably lacking in insight and understanding of the precarious factors of the Cold War. Obviously, neither the United States nor the Soviet Union felt war to be necessary; John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev considered themselves and each other to be men of reason. In documentation to be later presented in this paper, it is clear that neither administration felt that the other was prepared to be the aggressor of a nuclear war. However, concurrent with the ubiquitous mistrust characterizing the time period was the understanding that the enemy's moves were an enigma. In times of such uncertainty, it was best to be prepared. To evaluate the danger in a situation such as the Berlin crisis, one must look beyond the statistics and military buildup and into the mindset of the heads of the powers involved to determine whether war was an viable possibility, or simply a political device.
Although allied in World War II, US-Soviet relations deteriorated rapidly in the scramble to divvy up the territory rescinded by Germany. Clearly, there was a clash in ideologies. Communism and Democracy, rather than merely different forms of government, became direct rivals. One of the most prominent sources of contention was the city of Berlin. In November 1958, Nikita Khrushchev proclaimed to a Moscow audience that he had instituted a six-month deadline for the other three powers to sign a treaty recognizing the GDR.