Cuban Missile Crisis help?

Question

I'm supposed to write a letter pretending to be a leader of Russia to Fidel Castro. It's supposed to be asking to put missile sites in Cuba. What are some things I should include in the letter?

Answer 1

Khrushchev was likely concerned with the missiles the US had placed in Turkey. Castro was concerned about the threat of a US invasion to follow the failure at Bay of Pigs.
I don't think that the people who retort that the Cuban Missile Crisis was about ideology rather than geopolitics know very much about the conflict. Cuba was occupied by the US in 1898 and it had attempted to be politically independent ever since. The dictator that Fidel Castro toppled was backed by the US.
After the revolution, the US forces Cuban oil refineries NOT to process Soviet oil. Cuba, now a sovereign nation, tells the US it does business with whomever it wants. The US says with us or against us and Cuba is pushed into an alliance with the USSR.
Then the US put an embargo on Cuba and attempted to invade it. In the meantime threatening the Soviet Union with nuclear war by surrounding it with missiles.

If i had to guess, Castro said: Please help me, you are our main trade partner and these people are trying to conquer us. Please protect us. We fought them once and now they are conducting terrorism on the island (see Operation Northwoods). To which Khrushchev retorted: Well this very same people want to annihilate us. We asked why we couldn't all stop making bombs and instead they offered Mutually Assured Destruction (Google Stalin offers disarmament, bilateral withdrawal from germany; M.A.D). They have put missiles in a neighboring country and they keep on attacking our allies. I think that if we protect you, we may be safer ourselves.

Answer 2

Well, one major thing in the Cuban Missile Crisis was that Cuba and the USSR were communist, while the US was not. The USSR and Cuba wanted to spread Communism, while the USA wanted to spread Democracy. I would include things like that play up the fact that Cuba and the USSR should unite against the US.

Good luck!

Answer 3

The Soviet Union propped up the Cuban economy. Castro had wanted to deal with the US and even went to Washington DC, but was fobbed off.
The placement of missiles there was to counter the NATO missiles in Turkey.

Answer 4

I would talk about the evil capitalist regime of America and how Russia is willing to come to the aid of their comrade in arms against the evil bourgeois of the world.

Answer 5

"Cuban Missile Crisis" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis