Thirteen Days
The motion: “The blockade was the right decision, and the crisis was resolved by restraint rather than by strength.”
Your opponent: John F. Kennedy · Course: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE History (4HI1) · Assessment objectives: AO1, AO2, AO4
Kennedy will give you the options exactly as they were on the table, and ask what you would have ordered.
What you are asked to argue
You defend the motion for the whole debate. Kennedy will attack it from a different direction each round.
What the specification expects you to bring
- The sequence of the thirteen days, October 1962
- The options before ExComm: air strike, invasion, blockade, diplomacy
- The Turkish Jupiter missiles and the private element of the settlement
- The Bay of Pigs and how it shaped the decision
- The consequences: the hotline, the Test Ban Treaty
Positions that are defensible
Disagreeing with the figure is not an error. Any of these can score full marks if argued well:
- That it was the right decision for the wrong reasons, and the outcome owed much to luck
- That the settlement was a genuine mutual concession rather than restraint by one side
- That the crisis was created by American policy toward Cuba, which complicates the motion's framing
Common misconceptions this debate is built to expose
- Wrong: Kennedy won and Khrushchev backed down.
The correction: The settlement included an American undertaking not to invade Cuba and the quiet withdrawal of the Jupiters from Turkey. It was a bargain that was presented as a victory. - Wrong: The blockade was obviously the correct choice.
The correction: It was obvious to nobody in the room. The Joint Chiefs pressed for air strikes, and the calculation about Soviet response was made with very incomplete information.
What passing it proves
One position held across the debate, narrowed rather than abandoned, that handles the Jupiter settlement honestly.
Why them?
Read the life before you argue with it — the case you are about to meet was built by a real person, over a real career:
- The life of John F. Kennedy — 35th President · Commander-in-Chief · 35th President of the United States · 1917–1963
Prepare for this debate → — the motion, the rounds and the marking descriptors, then the debate itself. Free, no account needed.