The Cuban Missile Crisis

The short analysis

In the summer of 1962, the Soviet Union secretly began deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba, partly to defend the island against another US-backed invasion and partly to offset America's advantage in strategic weapons. On October 14, a US U-2 spy plane photographed the launch sites under construction, and within days President John F. Kennedy convened a small circle of advisers, later called the ExComm, to weigh the response. Options ranged from air strikes and invasion to diplomacy. Kennedy chose a naval blockade of Cuba, publicly softened to the word quarantine, and announced the missiles to the world on October 22. For roughly thirteen days, Soviet ships approached the blockade line, work on the sites continued, and a U-2 was shot down over Cuba, sharpening the danger of escalation through accident or misreading of intentions. Behind the public confrontation, messages passed between Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, alongside quieter back-channel contacts. The crisis was resolved when the Soviets agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a US pledge not to invade Cuba, paired with a private understanding that America would later remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Both leaders had stared into the possibility of nuclear war and pulled back, making these days the closest the Cold War ever came to catastrophe.