Chapter 36: Latin America "Khrushchev to Kennedy"

Introduction
Students have read how, in the Cuban missile crisis, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev eventually backed down over the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy ordered American B-52 bombers with nuclear warheads into the skies and put American forces on full alert as Soviet ships steamed toward Cuba. This excerpt from a letter the Soviet leader sent the American president captures the tension of the time.

Lesson Description
Students will go to the Khrushchev to John F. Kennedy Web site. They will then answer four questions about what they have read.

Instructional Objectives
1. Students will analyze a primary source, a letter from Nikita Khrushchev to John F. Kennedy.
2. Students will better understand the intense emotions of the leaders during the Cuban missile crisis.

Student Web Activity Answers
1. The expression means "to issue a challenge." It derives from a term used in the age of chivalry, when a knight wanting to fight another issued a challenge by throwing down his metal-plated leather glove, or gauntlet. If the other knight picked up the gauntlet, he was accepting the challenge to fight.
2. He states that the president is actually issuing an ultimatum that, if ignored, will be followed by the use of force.
3. He says that Kennedy's actions stem from a hatred for the Cuban people and their government but also have to do with the election campaign in the United States.
4. Students' answers will vary but should acknowledge that while the Soviet leader had to answer to powerful people in the Communist party, the American president was answerable to Congress and to the entire electorate.

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