REWARDING 100PTS AND MARKING BRAINLIEST IF ANSWERED CORRECTLY 6. The Cold War was the ideological, political, and economic conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union following World War II. During the Cold War, each country tried to limit the other country's influence around the world by building nuclear weapons, supplying weapons and money to other countries to gain their support, and spreading false information about the other. While the two countries never came into direct, open conflict with each other, they did come into indirect conflict numerous times. This included the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world seemed on the edge of a nuclear war.

A historian has made the claim that too much is being made of the Cold War and that it was never a significant threat to world peace, as proven by the fact that the United States and the Soviet Union never went to war.

Read these excerpts from speeches given by Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro, and John F. Kennedy during the Cold War. Use the information from the three passages to write a historical essay that responds to the historian's claim. Be sure to include an introduction paragraph with a thesis, body paragraphs with at least three pieces of evidence supporting your thesis, a counterclaim to your thesis, and a refutation of that counterclaim. Finally, include a conclusion paragraph restating your thesis and the evidence supporting it.

Passage 1: Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev addressed the UN Assembly in 1960 after U. S. military aircraft allegedly entered Soviet airspace.

We saw a dangerous manifestation of the work of these forces last spring when the aircraft of one of the largest States Members of the United Nations, the United States of America, treacherously invaded the air space of the Soviet Union and that of other States. What is more, the United States has elevated such violations of international law into a principle of deliberate State policy. The aggressive intrusion into our country by a United States aircraft and the whole course of the United States Government's subsequent behaviour showed the peoples that they were dealing with a calculated policy on the part of the United States Government, which was trying to substitute brigandage for international law and treachery for honest negotiations between sovereign and equal States.3

Passage 2: Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro made a speech in 1961 after the United States sponsored the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, a Soviet ally.

Our position is that we will fight to the last man, but we do not want direct aggression. We do not wish to suffer the destruction that aggression would bring. If the aggression comes, it will meet the total resistance of our people.

. . . They are the ones who are bringing the world to the brink of war through their warlike spirit, their own contradictions, and their economic problems which cause them to provoke a series of crises in order to maintain their war economy. Their factories run only when they are building war material. Their regime is marching toward a crisis. It is not like our economy, which is perfectly planned.4

Passage 3: U. S. president John F. Kennedy addressed the United States after it was discovered that the Soviet Union had placed nuclear weapons in Cuba, just 70 miles from the U. S. border.

I want to take this opportunity to report on the conclusions which this Government has reached on the basis of yesterday's aerial photographs which will be made available tomorrow, as well as other indications, namely, that the Soviet missile bases in Cuba are being dismantled, their missiles and related equipment are being crated, and the fixed installations at these sites are being destroyed.

The United States intends to follow closely the completion of this work through a variety of means, including aerial surveillance, until such time as an equally satisfactory international means of verification is effected.5