Crisis Over Berlin and Bay of Pigs

In March 1960, President Eisenhower gave the CIA permission to train Cuban exiles for an invasion of Cuba. He hoped that the invasion would trigger an uprising to overthrow Castro. Kennedy learned of the plan a mere nine days after his election. He reluctantly approved the plan. On April 17, 1961, 1,300 to 1,500 Cuban exiles supported b the U.S. military landed on the southern coast at Bahia de Cochinos, the Bay of Pigs. The mission did not go as planned, as the air strike had failed to knock out the Cuban air force even though they claimed it had succeeded. An advance group never reached shore, and when the main unit landed they faced 25,000 Cuban troops backed by the Soviet Union. The Cuban media's report of the defeat of "North American mercenaries" was a big hit. One reporter stated that the Americans "look like fools to our friends, rascals to our enemies, and incompetents to everyone else." The disaster left Kennedy embarrassed and he publicly accepted the blame for the fiasco. He ended up paying 53 million dollars in food and medical supplies in return for the release of surviving commandos. He promised the exiles that they would return to a "free Havana." Castro continued to accept Soviet aid, even in the face of Kennedy's claim that he would resist further Communist expansion.
Kennedy's goal during the Cuban missile crisis was that he wanted to prove to Khrushchev his determination to contain communism. He was also thinking of the confrontation in Berlin, which led to the building of the Berlin Wall, which severed the city into two parts. In 1961, 11 years since the Berlin Airlift, almost 3 million East Germans had fled into West Berlin to escape communist rule. This decreased the East German population by 20 percent, advertised he failure of the East German Communist government, and weakened East Germany's economy. Khruschev realized that he needed to solve this problem, so at a summit meeting in Vienna, Austria in 1961, he threatened to sign a treaty that would enable East Germany to close all the access roads to West Berlin. Kennedy refused to give up U.S. access to West Berlin, causing Krushchev to declare, "I want peace. But, if you want war, that is your problem." Kennedy returned home proclaiming that Berlin was "the great testing place of Western courage and will." He pledged to keep communism at bay and not give up the U.S.'s hold on West Germany. This determination and the superior American nuclear power prevented Khrushchev from closing the air and land routes connecting East and West Berlin. Instead of closing those routes, the Soviet premier stunned the world by erecting the Berlin Wall seperating East Germany from West Germany. The wall ended the Berlin crisis, but increased Cold War tensions. The wall, along with armed guards and dogs, reduce the number of East German escapees, solving Khrushchev's problem. The wall was an ugly symbol of Communism though.

- Written by JP