Quinones 550,000 American lives. In the early 60's the United States and the Soviet Union almost went to war when the United States learned that the Soviet Union was storing nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba. Because Cuba was so close to the U.S. it was a direct threat on U.S. security. During this event called the Cuban Missile Crisis President Kennedy sent the U.S. Navy to block Soviet ships with nuclear weapons that were coming into Cuba. The U.S. and Soviet Union were on the brink of war but they resolved the crisis.One of the most influential actions taken in our country's history in the support of containment was our countries decision to intervene in Vietnam. Our involvement was almost an exact repeat our involvement in Korea. Under President Eisenhower we sent military personnel to South Vietnam to train them in order to defend themselves from communist North Vietnam. Under The next president, President Kennedy, we were sending even more aid to Vietnam to try and prevent what the U.S. saw as a possible communist take over of Southeast Asia. When President Johnson took over after Kennedy was assassinated our involvement in Vietnam increased. Johnson saw that the South Vietnam government wasn't able to defeat the communist on their own. But the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is what enabled Johnson to send military aid. From Johnson's Quinones 6presidency through to President Nixon we saw involvement in Vietnam that eventually ended in United States failure. We left the situation unfinished with the South Vietnamese to finish without U.S. aid. With Nixon came the beginning to the end of the cold war and foreign policy of containment. Nixon began to practice a foreign policy called dtente which was an attempt to reduce tension between the United States ...
