CJC Prelim 2025 SBQ Suggested Approach

1 2025 Catholic Junior College JC2 Preliminary Examinations Suggested Answer Success Criteria Answer #1a Sources A and B are similar in showing that Castro believed that Cuba’s interests were sidelined in Superpower negotiations to end the crisis . Castro, in Source A, asserts that the removal of Jupiter missiles from Turkey as a condition for the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba “was contradictory to the theory that the missiles were sent for the defence of Cuba,” suggesting that Castro perceived Cuba’s security was not prioritised and instead, Cuba was used as an “exchange token” for the USSR to improve i ts position in the nuclear arms race. Similarly, Castro, in Source B, asserts that “American guarantees have no great significance for us,” and the US continued to pose a threat to Cuba with “the blockade” that “existed [before],” suggesting that Castro believed the deal did not benefit Cuba’s interests. #1b The similarity in views is due to their shared historical context . During the negotiations between Kennedy and Khrushchev on 27 October 1962 to defuse the crisis, Castro was not consulted and was kept in the dark. The decision to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba was made without consulting Castro. Castro only discovered through a third party on 28 October that Khrushchev had made a deal behind his back. The deal left Castro without a nuclear deterrent against American aggression, and also did not address the ongoing economic blockade and covert operations against Cuba, leaving Cuba vulnerable. Thus, both sources expressed Castro’s frustration with the USSR for the way the crisis was handled. #2a Sources A and B are different in showing the extent of Castro’s dissatisfaction with the USSR’s actions to end the crisis . Castro, in Source A , is critical and resentful of Khrushchev’s actions. Castro suggests that Khrushchev had intentionally wanted to withhold the secrets of Superpower negotiations i.e., the trading of missiles in Turkey for the missiles in Cuba from Castro, and Khrushchev’s slip of the tongue led to Castro discovering “the last thing that Nikita wanted me to hear.” In contrast, Castro, in Source B , is more measured in his words, where he reminds Mikoyan that Cuba had agreed to “the withdrawal of the Soviet bombers only in order to help the Soviet Union” end the crisis, while reminding him that this had made Cuba’s “situation…worse.” #2b The difference in views is due to the differing purposes of the two sources . Source A was from Castro’s recollections of a discussion with Khrushchev during his visit to the USSR in 1963, when he belatedly discovered from Khrushchev’s slip of the tongue that the US had removed their Jupiter missiles from Turkey as part of the deal for the USSR’s removal of missiles from Cuba. Given that he was sharing his incident at a conference on the Cuban Missile Crisis held in Havana in 1992, Castro could have been motivated to remind his international audience of Soviet betrayal, thus explaining the high level of disdain for Khrushchev in Source A . In contrast, Source B was from a conversation Castro was having with Mikoyan in November 1962, after the crisis had ended and Soviet missiles had been removed from Cuba. In addition, Soviet bombers were also to be removed, reducing the military deterrents Cuba had enjoyed earlier. Hence, in this conversation, he was likely seeking to persuade Mikoyan to provide more security guarantees, thus explaining why he was more measured in his dissatisfaction.

2 2025 Catholic Junior College JC2 Preliminary Examinations 1b. How far do Sources A-E support the assertion that Khrushchev's motivation to put missiles on Cuba was to help Cuba defend itself? [30] Suggested Answer Success Criteria Answer #1 The assertion implies that Khrushchev’s decision to place missiles on Cuba was motivated purely by his desire to protect Cuba from an American invasion. Sources B and E support the assertion by showing that Khrushchev’s decision to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba was to help Cuba defend its sovereignty against American invasion threats. In contrast, Sources A, C, and D challenge the assertion by suggesting that Khrushchev was motivated by strategic calculations related to Superpower rivalry in the context of the Cold War. #2 Sources B and E support the view that Khrushchev’s main motivation was to help Cuba defend itself. In Source B, Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Mikoyan reminds Castro that the Soviet Union’s military presence helped prevent an imminent American invasion, reminding Castro “how the Americans were preparing an operation under the code name ‘Ortsac’... They were preparing to land 20,000 marines!” This suggests the deployment of weapons to Cuba was intended to deter American aggression. This view is shared by Source E, where Khrushchev’s official report to the Supreme Soviet, justifies the deployment of missiles on humanitarian and defensive grounds. He explains that the USSR acted “at the request of the Cuban Government,”, and that their “motives [were] exclusively humanitarian,” aimed at protecting Cuba against “a real threat of invasion.” Together, these sources portray the missile deployment as a protective respon se to U.S. hostility and intervention. #3 Sources B and E offer weak evidence that Khrushchev’s main motivation was to defend Cuba. Contextually, both sources referred to the invasion threats Cuba faced after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and during Operation Mongoose that aimed at overthrowing the Castro regime. The invasion threats came on the back of deteriorating US -Cuba relations where the US had imposed an economic embargo in retaliation to Castro’s alignment to the USSR and nationalisation of US enterprises and property in Cuba . Thus, in Source B, Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Mikoyan reminds Castro that Soviet missiles were deployed to Cuba to deter an imminent US invasion, suggesting that Source B offers fair evidenc e to support the assertion. However, the source, from a private conversation between Castro and Mikoyan, also reveals Castro’s scepticism about

3 2025 Catholic Junior College JC2 Preliminary Examinations Success Criteria Answer Mikoyan’s claim. Given Castro was not consulted by Khrushchev when he negotiated with Kennedy to defuse the crisis and the resultant outcome, such as the continuation of American economic embargo, was not entirely satisfactory to Cuba, Mikoyan’s claim was likely made to placate Castro, weakening the reliability of his claim. In the same context as Source B , Source E, from Khrushchev’s statement to the Supreme Soviet, also offers fair evidence that defending Cuba was one motivation for the deployment of missiles to Cuba. However, as Khrushchev was likely trying to defend his decisions in front of the top law-makers in the Supreme Soviet after his embarrassing retreat from Cuba, by emphasising the USSR’s altruistic intervention as necessary to defend a poor nation from American aggression, Source E is not entirely convincing as evidence. The claims made by Mikoyan in Source B and Khrushchev in Source E are contradicted by Source A where Castro revealed that Khrushchev unwittingly revealed to him that Cuba was used as an exchange token for the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, reflecting Khrushchev’s strategic calculations . Khrushchev’s decision to place missiles on Cuba was also intended to offer a short-term solution to overcome the USSR’s weakness in ICBMs by leveraging on Cuba’s strategic location to deploy its shorter-ranged missiles. On balance, Sources B and E offer weak evidence to support the assertion. #2 In contrast, Sources A, D, and C challenge the idea that Khrushchev was primarily motivated by the defence of Cuba and suggest Khrushchev had strategic calculations in relation to the wider Superpower rivalry in the Cold War . In Source A, Castro expresses his disillusion