The letters gave a much more personal (obvious) and reasonable account of the thought process to the solving of the Cuban missile crisis. These letters affirmed some of my thoughts from last nights post, such as how Khrushchev was particularly sensitive to the gravity of the situation. But also the letters solidified my idea that Kennedy acted irresponsibly by taking advantage of a dire situation in order to gain the political and military high ground. Maybe i am just naive or it was how charismatic Khrushchev letters were, but i wanted to believe him when he sayed that the U.S.S.R. would not invade turkey (which is equivilent to the u.s. saying that it would not take any actions against cuba). But in the final agreement the u.s.s.r. had to repeal military actions while all the u.s. had to do was give them their word in front of the u.n. This is incredibly hypocritical on the part of the u.s. because as we have kept our word, I truly believe that the u.s.s.r. would have kept theirs. I realize the strategic importance the missiles in turkey, but had Kennedy not been so focused on keeping the upper hand and maybe more focused on relieving pressures and not blowing up the world, I believe that the cold war would have petered out in ten years. Because just as "reciprocal extermination" can destroy the world, reciprocal cooperation can restore it.
I kinda addressed Alec's question of "who did more to diffuse the situation", but just to reiterate, the U.S.S.R was willing to go the extra mile for peace with American offensive missiles on their door step, while the united states would not tolerate foreign missiles so close and would only offer their word to bargain with.
I think that these letters further emphasized that the Cuban Missile Crisis was more of a clash between the two world super powers than a battle over Cuba. Khrushchev would talk about how the missiles were purely defensive but I think that maybe he was only saying that to keep Cuba on his good side and he only wanted missiles pointed at the US to counter those pointed at the USSR. (Sort of answers Ryan’s question)
To Emily, I also noticed that with all that letters they were addressing each other by their titles and not their names. I think that this was purely for diplomatic reasons, to show respect to one an other. I also think that if they had not said the titles, then the letters would have seemed more hostile from the start.
To Boram’s question, I think that the USSR and Cuba broke off so suddenly because Cuba still wanted to break away from the US and all of a sudden the USSR was negotiating with the US about Cuba without Cuba having much of a say in what was going on. I think that Castro saw this and wanted to have more power over what was happening to his country.
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