Immediate Impact

Missile Sites in Turkey

The United States succeeded in getting nuclear weapons removed from Cuba, but it failed to remove Cuba’s Communist dictatorship.  The U.S.S.R. succeeded in getting the U.S. to promise not to invade Cuba and to remove missiles from Turkey.  However, Kennedy consequently made the U.S.S.R. look bad to the world because they secretly took missiles out of Turkey while the Soviets removed their missiles publicly. That dichotomy gave the impression that the U.S. was not the one trying to destroy the world’s peace, but the U.S.S.R. was the threat to global safety.