The confrontation to the Cold War came in October of 1962. After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Kennedy administration resumed its efforts to overthrow Castro. These efforts were under the name, Operation Mongoose. Among other things, the CIA was planning to mainly kill Castro. In response to the hostile acts of the U.S., the Soviet Union stepped up military aid to Cuba, including the installation of defense missiles. On Monday October 22, 1962, Kennedy confronted the Russians on a television address. He announced that the U.S. would place a naval quarantine on all Soviet military equipment. While the world held its breath, the Soviets halted their voyage. Khrushchev wrote a letter to Kennedy saying that if the U.S. agreed not to attack Cuba, the Russians would remove their missiles. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world has come to a nuclear war. However, in August 1963, the three nuclear powers-the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain- agreed to ban the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater.
This information is paraphrased from the book, "America's History", Volume 2, page 930-931, author: Michael Conzen.
My own impressions of the Cuban Missile Crisis involve
If I, Gavin Grant, could do back to 1962, then I would like to find out answers to these questions.
Did the Russians ship arms to Cuba because they felt threatened by us?
Specifically, were they threatened by our arms in Turkey?
How did Castro react once Khruschev decided to stop sending arms?
