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Concept
Cuban Missile Crisis
Summary
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) (Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from October 16 to October 29, 1962. The confrontation is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.
In 1961, the US government put Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey. It had also trained a paramilitary force of Cuban exiles, which the CIA led in an attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow its government. Starting in November of that year, the US government engaged in a violent campaign of terrorism and sabotage in Cuba, referred to as the Cuban Project, which continued throughout the first half of the 1960s. The Soviet administration was concerned about a Cuban drift towards China, with which the Soviets had an increasingly fractious relationship. In response to these factors, Soviet First Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, agreed with the Cuban Prime Minister, Fidel Castro, to place nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba to deter a future invasion. An agreement was reached during a secret meeting between Khrushchev and Castro in July 1962, and construction of a number of missile launch facilities started later that summer.
During the campaigning for the 1962 United States elections, the White House denied the charges for months and ignored the presence of Soviet missiles positioned approximately away from Florida. Later, the missile preparations were confirmed when a US Air Force U-2 spy plane produced clear photographic evidence of medium-range R-12 (NATO code name SS-4) and intermediate-range R-14 (NATO code name SS-5) ballistic missile facilities.
When this was reported to President John F. Kennedy, he then convened a meeting of the nine members of the National Security Council and five other key advisers, in a group that became known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM).
Official source
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