THE FOREIGN POLICY OF JOHN F. KENNEDY, 1961 (CUBA, SOUTHEAST ASIA, GERMANY)

This dissertation examines Kennedy's management of simultaneous crises in Berlin, Cuba, and Southeast Asia in 1961, and shows how global concerns affected decisions pertaining to each particular region. For example, the requirements of the Laos and Berlin crises forced Kennedy to alter the plans for the Bay of Pigs invasion, and Kennedy denied repeated requests to intervene in Southeast Asia in order to conserve military resources for the Berlin crisis. This study also shows that Kennedy's major decisions in 1961 were consistent with a long-term plan to secure U.S.-Soviet detente.; Khrushchev deliberately challenged the Americans with multiple crises in 1960 and 1961, because he feared U.S. intervention in Cuba. Khrushchev could not directly defend Cuba with Soviet military power, but diverted American attention from Cuba by means of pressure on Berlin and in Southeast Asia. His political campaign against Berlin in early 1961 resulted from the concern that U.S. military support would enable Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro. Khrushchev expected Kennedy to compensate for the Bay of Pigs debacle by invading Cuba, and therefore escalated the campaign against Berlin in the summer of 1961.; Khrushchev's interest in Cuba as a missile base originated in late 1959, when he decided against large-scale deployment of the first-generation Soviet ICBM. Soviet preparations for the Cuban missile venture began in November 1961, not in April-May 1962, as many authors suggest.; By September 1961, Kennedy knew the Soviets did not have an effective ICBM force, and would not have such a force until 1963. Simple logic suggested the Soviets might send Medium and Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles to Cuba to bridge the gap until they deployed an effective ICBM force. In October, Kennedy ordered a number of steps taken to end the Berlin crisis, including a speech by Roswell Gilpatric and a confrontation at Checkpoint Charlie. Kennedy anticipated that these steps might trigger a Soviet missile deployment in Cuba. Thus, in November, Kennedy signed National Security Action Memorandum 111, reshuffled the bureaucracy to neutralize the advocates of intervention in Vietnam, and established the covert action campaign against Castro known as Operation Mongoose. These measures focused American foreign policy on Cuba, and set the stage for the Cuban crisis of 1962.