Daniel Kim

Mrs. Faircloth

APUSH

4/4/13

11.5 DBQ – JFK Brings Camelot Mystique to the White House

In the early 1960s, the United States was in the thick of the Cold War; during his term,

President John F. Kennedy led the nation through its share of alarm and embarrassment.

President Kennedy’s foreign policy was ineffective in containing communism’s global expansion

but did facilitate some measure of US-Soviet disarmament. The failure at the Bay of Pigs

invasion of Cuba, the inability of the US to contain Soviet advancement into the Western

Hemisphere, and the incompetence of the Kennedy administration to firmly bargain with its

Soviet counterpart Khrushchev all undermined United States foreign policy.

In 1961, the Kennedy administration sought to remove the communist Fidel Castro from

power in Cuba; the Central Intelligence Agency trained an army of Cuban exiles and launched an

invasion at the Bay of Pigs. However, because he did not want any evidence of American

involvement, President Kennedy denied US air support; the Bay of Pigs invasion ended in

catastrophe, with nearly all of the Cuban exiles killed or captured. Because of the “failed US

attempt to invade Cuba,” the Soviet Union “decided to install nuclear missiles inside Cuba” (Doc

8). The Kennedy administration’s failure to effectively deal with Cuba led to strained tensions

with the USSR and even the most alarming situation of the entire Cold War: the Cuban Missile

Crisis.

1962 brought more potentially-disastrous events for the United States; for the first time,

the Soviets had commenced in a “secret, swift, and extraordinary buildup of Communist

missiles” (Doc 4) outside of their own soil and in Cuba. President Kennedy was faced with

imminent ruin and was forced to bargain with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev for a “fair and

effective disarmament treaty” (Doc 5). Because of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States

lost the military advantages it once had; to coerce the USSR to remove its Cuban missiles, it had

to remove its own foreign-based weapons in Turkey. The Kennedy administration was not able

to practice its own containment policy on its neighbors, allowing Soviet influence and military to

spread into Cuba.

Simultaneously, events in Germany threatened U.S. foreign interests. The Soviet Union

began to exert its influence on East Germany, threatening to sign a treaty with it that would give

the USSR “control over access routes to Berlin” (Doc 6). While Kennedy did engage in talks

with Khrushchev, Kennedy failed to assert US interests efficaciously; the Soviets ended up

gaining entry to East Berlin regardless of Kennedy’s somber talks. The Eastern bloc even

constructed the infamous Berlin Wall, a symbol of communism’s defiance of American

demands.

Throughout the presidency of John F. Kennedy, the US failed to assert its authority

through foreign policy against the Soviet Union. From 1961 to 1963, Soviet influence rapidly

expanded in Cuba and Eastern Europe (namely East Germany) while the US could not

effectively respond. Missteps in the Bay of Pigs invasion led to the Cuban Missile Crisis,

injuring American influence in the Western Hemisphere as well as the US’ foreign military

advantages. The inability of Kennedy to challenge Khrushchev in Berlin resulted in heightened

tensions in Europe and the building of the Berlin Wall.