Abstract
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was a major cold war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided to install ballistic missiles in Cuba although they had made a promise to the U.S. that they would not. The paper shows that when the U.S. discovered the construction of missile launching sites, President John F. Kennedy publicly denounced the Soviet actions, demanding that they remove the nuclear missiles from Cuba.
When this did not work, Kennedy imposed a naval blockade on Cuba, threatening that the U.S. Days would meet any missile launched from Cuba with a full-scale retaliatory attack later and Soviet ships carrying missiles to Cuba went home. The paper examines how Khrushchev soon agreed to dismantle the missile sites. The U.S then ended its blockade within a month, and shortly after, all missiles and bombers were removed from Cuba. The paper provides a detailed overview of this confrontation.

From the Paper
"The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was the first time that the world was in danger of full-scale nuclear war. When the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba, the U.S. viewed this as an act of hostility that could not be tolerated.

However, many critics say that the Soviets were simply reacting to the Bay of Pigs invasion, in which Kennedy used Cubans against Castro without providing the American military support they needed. Americans saw this as a great embarrassment. But to the U.S.S.R., it was viewed as an American-sponsored military offensive against Cuba, which was a communist country and Soviet ally."

Tags: nuclear, war, Bay, of, Pigs, Fidel, Castro, DEFCON, 3