- The document discusses the Cuban Missile Crisis, including the key players and events. It provides background on why Khrushchev placed Soviet missiles in Cuba, the five options Kennedy considered in response, and the lasting impacts of the crisis. - Key figures discussed are Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro, and how their decisions and tensions led to the crisis. - Students will analyze primary sources to understand causes and responses to the crisis, evaluate its consequences, and assess its lasting influence on the Cold War.

1. A picture is worth a thousand words
-Look at the following editorial cartoons.
-Identify the overall message/point/event in
history outlined in these cartoons
-How do these cartoons speak to this point?
-How are the five techniques of editorial
cartoons used to convey the message of this
cartoon?

4. Standards (MH):
1) Standard Number: 5.0 History
Standard: History involves people, events, and issues. Students will evaluate evidence to develop comparative and
causal analyses and to interpret primary sources. They will construct sound historical arguments and perspectives
on which informed decisions in contemporary life can be based.
Learning Expectations:
The student will
5.1 understand the nature and major events of the Cold War.
2) Standard Number: 6.0 Individuals, Groups, and Interactions
Standard: Personal development and identity are shaped by factors including culture, groups, and institutions.
Central to this development are exploration, identification, and analysis of how individuals and groups work
independently and cooperatively.
Learning Expectations:
The student will
6.1 understand the impact of individual and group decisions on citizens and communities.

5. Standards (CCSS):
1) CCSS.RH/11-12/1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources,
connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.
2) CCSS.RH/11-12/6: Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing
the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence.
3) CCSS.RH/11-12/8: Evaluate an author’s premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them
with other information.
4) CCSS.RH/11-12/9: Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent
understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.

6. Learning Objectives:
1) Students will formulate specific justifications for the Soviet Union’s placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba.
2) Students will distinguish five possible responses by John F. Kennedy to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Students will
also use textual primary source evidence to evaluate the pros and cons of each of the aforementioned possible
responses that John F. Kennedy could have pursued.
3) Students will use secondary source materials to conclude lasting outcomes of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
4) Students will use various primary and secondary sources to evaluate the impact that the Cuban Missile Crisis and
the decisions of individuals had on the daily lives of Americans during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

7. Essential Question
What were the causes,
consequences, and lasting
impacts of the Cuban
Missile Crisis?

9. Reasons for putting missiles in
Cuba
-Strategic nuclear balance
-To protect Cuba
-Strategic attempt to remove western influences from Berlin
-To bolster Soviet prestige
-To probe American intentions

14. Who is Who?
Meet the Key Players in the
Cuban Missile Crisis

15. U.S. President John F. Kennedy
In 1960, at the age of 43, John F. Kennedy
became the youngest elected President in
U.S. history, during a period of growing
tensions in the U.S.-Soviet Cold War rivalry.
Soon after taking office in 1961, he
authorized the “Bay of Pigs” invasion led by
the CIA and exiles from Cuba, whose
government had been overthrown by
communist rebels in 1959. This failed to
overthrow leader Fidel Castro, and was a
major embarrassment to Kennedy.
Tensions with the Soviet Union further
escalated during the 1961 Berlin Crisis.
These events set the stage for the Cuban
Missile Crisis.

16. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
Khrushchev became First Secretary of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union in
1953 after a power struggle following
Stalin’s death, and served as Premier from
1958 to 1964. Khrushchev began efforts to
“de-Stalinize” Soviet society. However, in
1961 tensions between the superpowers
escalated over the Berlin Crisis. In the
spring of 1962 Khrushchev made the
decision to place Soviet missiles in Cuba
secretly in order to give a quick boost to
Soviet missile power, and to strengthen the
USSR’s bargaining position regarding the
Berlin question.

17. Prime Minister of Cuba Fidel Castro
In January 1959 Fidel Castro’s revolutionary
forces seized power. While the Cuban
leader initially claimed this was not a
communist revolution, a year later Cuba
formally aligned itself with the Soviet Union.
Relations with the United States
deteriorated further in 1961when the U.S.
supported CIA-trained anti-Castro exiles in
the Bay of Pigs invasion – a failed attempt
to overthrow Castro and a major blow for
President Kennedy. In this context, in the
summer of 1962 Castro accepted the Soviet
offer to install missiles in Cuba as a
deterrent to a U.S. invasion.

18. President Kennedy’s Cabinet

19. Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas
Dillon

20. National Security Advisor McGeorge
Bundy

21. General Maxwell Taylor Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

22. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara

23. Secretary of State Dean Rusk

24. CIA Director John McCone

25. JFK’s Five Options
1. Do nothing; ignore the missiles in Cuba.
2. Open direct negotiations with Khrushchev asking that the missiles
be withdrawn.
3. Order a blockade of Cuba until the missiles are removed.
4. Send a warning to Castro and Khrushchev, and if the dismantling of
the missile sites is not underway within 24 hours, order an air strike
against the sites.
5. Order an air strike against the missile sites with no prior warning.