Analysing Sources The Cuban Missile Crisis LSource 1
CANADA HISTORICAL JUDGMENT Range of Boston UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Salt Lake City Denver Chicago Washington Atlantic Ocean
Range of short-range missiles 1,600 km)
New Orleans MEXICO Miami USA
US naval blockade of Cuba Approaching Soviet ships Cuban missile sites
Havana CUBA Bay of Pigs
Cuba and North America, showing cities that would come within the range of missiles fired from Cuba LSource 3
LSource 2
The change of Cuba into an important strategic (planned military advantage) base by the presence of long-range offensive weapons of mass destruction (missiles) creates a clear threat to the peace and security of all the Americas … This sudden and secret decision to place strategic weapons outside of Soviet soil is a deliberately provocative (challenging) and unjustified change in the existing state of affairs. Our objective must be to prevent the use of these missiles against the USA and any other country, and to secure their withdrawal from the Western hemisphere … We will not risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth – but neither will we shrink from the risk at any time. (President Kennedy’s television address, October 1962)
Bahamas
Cape Canaveral (space research)
New York
long-range missiles (3,200 km)
A missile site in Cuba
1. What danger does the US face in the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Source 1?
2. How could the ‘Approaching Soviet ships’ in Source 1 cause a war? 3. What are President Kennedy’s views about Cuba in Source 2?
4. Do President Kennedy’s views in Source 2 match the information shown in Source 1?
5. What is President Kennedy’s objective in Source 2?
6. What does he mean when he says, ‘the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth’?
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7. Does the information in Source 3 support President Kennedy’s views in Source 2?
