Wave Moments

Why was communication between the Soviet Union and the United States important during the Cold War?

this is for my paper on the cuban missile crisis, and i need to write about how it helped establish the direct communication, but now i need why the direct communication was needed. oh, and if possible, i would need a source that you got your information from so i can include it in my works cited page. i have found nothing searching google.

Public Comments

1. Pharris?
2. to prevent WW3 and overescalation of proxy wars into direct U.S. U.S.S.R. direct military confrontations
3. They realized that there would need to be some type of communication because the US and Soviet Union were the only kid's on the block with nukes. The radar and intelligence systems at that time were quite crude. If there was a thought that one side or the other was lunching an attack , they would at least need some type of direct communication to make sure that an event was really happening or it was a computer glitch. A " False Positive" would be catastrophic. Read the last couple of chapters of Tom Clancy's "Sum of All Fears" or watch the old movie 'Fail Safe" with Henry Fonda ,and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about.
4. One of the outcomes of the Cuban Missile Crisis was the establishment of a "hotline" between Washington and Moscow to provide direct communication. Contrary to popular belief, this was a teletype machine, not a telephone line. The book "Thirteen Days" by Robert F. Kennedy is THE definite book on the Missile Crisis, although the 2000 docu-drama "Thirteen Days" directed by Roger Donaldson is also very interesting. I suggest you get the book from your library and the DVD from your library and/or video store. One of the problems that came up during the crisis was that JFK received a message from Khrushchev that seemed rather conciliatory, then he got another that took a harder stand. Clearly, direct communication would have been helpful to clear up any confusion. I haven't found a direct link to back up what I say. I have included a link to some audio tapes made at the time of the crisis, but I haven't read the complete scripts to find exactly where this comes in. It is, after all, your homework assignment, not mine. The second link is an analysis of the Kennedy book.