Cuban Missile Crisis: When

the Cold War Steamed Up

Rachel Redden

Alayna Mull

Junior Division

Group Website

Student Composed Words: 1062

Process Paper Word Count: 489

 As it was asked of us to obtain a topic, we first thought about doing the Cold War

because of our interest in it. We did some research and almost closed the deal on the topic.

However, we believed it was too broad so we decided on one of the most important events

during the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Our study began by searching the internet for websites, documents, newspaper articles,

etc. that were relevant to our topic. Thankfully, we found many credible websites, documents,

letters, addresses, and much more that were necessary for our project and worked well with it.

We interviewed a former navy seal, which we found from a national archive. This gave us a

better understanding of how people reacted to this event. We also went to our local library and

found books on the subject that helped us tremendously.

A website seemed fitting for us considering we are very tech-savvy individuals. For our

project, we went to Weebly, a website creator, and started to create different headings that

seemed relevant to the topic of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There were numerous images online

and a good percentage of them were propaganda posters, which really completed our website’s

appearance, and represented the time period, as well. Sorting facts into different titles gave us a

sense of organization. We gained a better understanding on how to make sure everything written

correlates with our thesis as well as the theme of conflict and compromise. Another thing we

learned is how to divide work evenly and without hassle.

 Our project is relevant to the National History Day theme this year because the Cuban

Missile Crisis was when the Soviets and U.S went into one of their biggest conflicts during the

Cold War after the pilot of an American U-2 spy plane flying over Cuba on October 14, 1962,

photographed a Soviet SS-4 medium-range ballistic missile being assembled for installation.

This resulted in a compromise in which Cuba and the Soviet Union (allied) offered to take the

missiles out of Cuba in exchange for the U.S. not to proceed with their plan to invade the

country. Our topic is important in history because this event could have broken out into a nuclear

war, which every citizen of Cuba and the U.S. were dreading. This event has taught the countries

about nuclear weapons and how to handle them. There’s something similar to the Cuban Missile

Crisis going on currently with Iran and how one of their nuclear bombs could signal a

devastating and long-lasting blow to the U.S. The U.S. is planning to do a peaceful compromise,

like John F. Kennedy did in the event of the Cuban Missile Crisis. People can look back on the

Cuban Missile Crisis for the answers to their questions on the current topic involving Iran,

therefore the Cuban Missile Crisis is very important in history and currently.