The Cuban Missile Crisis-Overview

1. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 1962 Cold War confrontation between the USSR and the US. 2. US covert operations from 1959 to 1962 to overthrow the Cuban regime were unsuccessful. 3. The USSR began to build missile bases in Cuba. Missiles which could have reached most American cities. 4. The Soviet decision to place missiles in Cuba should be seen in a global context as it was in part a reaction to US missiles being placed in Europe.

1. The thirteen days referred to as the Cuban Missile Crisis (known as the October Crisis in Cuba or Caribbean Crisis (Russian: K ) in the USSR) was a confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other in October 1962, during the Cold War. 2. In August 1962, after some unsuccessful operations by the US to overthrow the Cuban regime (Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose), 3. the Cuban and Soviet governments secretly began to build bases in Cuba for a number of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) with the ability to strike most of the continental United States. 4. This action followed the 1958 deployment of Thor IRBMs in the UK (Project Emily) and Jupiter IRBMs to Italy and Turkey in 1961 more than 100 US-built missiles having the capability to strike Moscow with nuclear warheads.

1. A US U2 Spy Plane took a photograph of missile basis in Cuba on October 14th 1962. 2. This photograph led to one of the most serious incidents in the entire Cold War and could have led to Nuclear War. 3. Furthermore, the crisis was the first time the idea that the idea each side could destroy the other was a guiding principle in leading to an agreement.

1. On October 14, 1962, a United States Air Force U-2 plane on a photoreconnaissance mission captured photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba. 2. The ensuing crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade, the Suez Crisis and the Yom Kippur War as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War and is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict. 3. It also marked the first documented instance of the threat of mutual assured destruction (MAD) being discussed as a determining factor in a major international arms agreement. 1. The US decided to impose a naval blockade on Cuba to prevent offensive weapons being delivered to Cuba by the Soviets. 2. Furthermore, the Americans demanded that existing missile bases be dismantled. 3. The Soviet Leader, Krushchev responded by writing a letter to President Kennedy warning that the crisis could lead to nuclear war between the two countries.

1. The United States considered attacking Cuba via air and sea, but decided on a military blockade instead, calling itquarantine" for legal and other reasons. The US announced that it would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and 2. demanded that the Soviets dismantle the missile bases already under construction or completed in Cuba and remove all offensive weapons. The Kennedy administration held

only a slim hope that the Kremlin would agree to their demands, and expected a military confrontation. 3. On the Soviet side, Premier Nikita Khrushchev wrote in a letter to Kennedy that his blockade of "navigation in international waters and air space" constituted "an act of aggression propelling humankind into the abyss of a world nuclear-missile war". 1. The two powers began secret negotiations to end the crisis. 2. As a result of these negotiations the confrontation ended on October 28th 1962. 3. The public deal reached was the Soviets would dismantle the missile basis in exchange for a US declaration never to invade Cuba 4. However, there was also a secret deal made in which the US promised to remove the missiles deployed in Turkey and Italy.

1. The Soviets publicly balked at the US demands, but in secret backchannel communications initiated a proposal to resolve the crisis. 2. The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached a public and secret agreement with Khrushchev. 3. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba. 4. Secretly, the US agreed that it would dismantle all US-built Jupiter missiles deployed in Turkey and Italy. 1. The short-term consequences of the deal were that the Soviets removed the missile systems and bombers. 2. This led to the formal end of the blockade on November 20th. 3. And a longer term consequence of the creation of a hotline between Moscow and Washington which sought to improve communication between the two superpowers

1. Only two weeks after the agreement, the Soviets had removed the missile systems and their support equipment, loading them onto eight Soviet ships from November 59. A month later, on December 5 and 6, the Soviet Il-28 bombers were loaded onto three Soviet ships and shipped back to Russia. 2. The blockade was formally ended at 6:45 pm EDT on November 20, 1962. Eleven months after the agreement, all American weapons were deactivated (by September 1963). 3. An additional outcome of the negotiations was the creation of the Hotline Agreement and the MoscowWashington hotline, a direct communications link between Moscow and Washington, D.C.