CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

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CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS
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HOW IT ALL BEGAN

• The Cuban Missile Crisis began by the US
  discovery that the Soviet Union was building
  nuclear missile sites in Cuba. Missiles from Cuba
  could reach many major cities and military
  installations in the United States. This was the
  closest to nuclear war that the two nations have
  ever come. The world held its breath as the US
  and USSR confronted each other.

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• After the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the USSR
  increased its support of Fidel Castro's Cuban
  regime. In the summer of 1962, Nikita Khrushchev
  secretly decided to install ballistic missiles in
  Cuba. When U.S. reconnaissance flights revealed
  the clandestine construction of missile launching
  sites, President Kennedy publicly denounced the
  Soviet actions. He imposed a naval blockade on
  Cuba and declared that any missile launched from
  Cuba would warrant a full-scale retaliatory
  attack by the United States against the Soviet
  Union.

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• On Oct. 24, Russian ships carrying missiles to
  Cuba turned back, and when Khrushchev agreed to
  withdraw the missiles and dismantle the missile
  sites. The crisis ended as suddenly as it had
  begun. The United States ended its blockade on
  Nov. 20, and by the end of the year the missiles
  and bombers were removed from Cuba.

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GAME OVER GENTLEMEN!
On November 21, JFK terminated the quarantine
when Khrushchev agreed, after several weeks of
tense negotiations with the UN to withdraw Soviet
IL-28 nuclear bombers from Cuba. Three decades
later a Soviet military official would reveal
that mobile tactical nuclear weapons and more
than 40,000 Soviet troops were in place in Cuba
for use in the event of an American invasion.