Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis
Part of the Cold War and the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution
Top: US Jupiter medium-range ballistic missile on its launchpad Bottom: Soviet R-12 medium-range ballistic missile in Red Square, Moscow
Date 16–28 October 1962 (naval quarantine of Cuba ended on 20 November) Location Cuba Result Conflict resolved diplomatically Publicized removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba Non-publicized removal of American nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy Agreement with the Soviet Union that the United States would never invade Cuba without direct provocation Creation of a nuclear hotline between the United States and the Soviet Union
Parties involved in the crisis
Soviet Union  Cuba	United States  United Kingdom  Italy  Turkey
Commanders and leaders
Nikita Khrushchev Anastas Mikoyan Rodion Malinovsky Matvei Zakharov Sergey Biryuzov Issa Pliyev Georgy Abashvili Fidel Castro Raúl Castro Che Guevara	John F. Kennedy Robert McNamara Maxwell D. Taylor Curtis LeMay George W. Anderson Robert F. Kennedy Harold Macmillan Peter Thorneycroft Sir Thomas Pike Amintore Fanfani Giulio Andreotti Cemal Gürsel İlhami Sancar
Strength
43,000 soldiers	100,000–180,000 (estimated)
Casualties and losses
None	1 U-2 spy aircraft lost 1 US pilot killed

The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, romanized: Karibskiy krizis), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of 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 16 to 28 October 1962. The confrontation is widely considered to have been the closest the Cold War came to escalating into nuclear war.^[1]

In 1961 the US government had installed Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey. It had also trained a paramilitary force of expatriate Cubans which the CIA led in an attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow its government. Starting in November 1961, 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 country the Soviets had an increasingly fractious relationship. The Soviet and Cuban governments agreed, at a meeting between leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, to place nuclear missiles on Cuba to deter any future US invasion, and construction of missile launch facilities on Cuba was commenced.

A U-2 spy plane captured photographic evidence of medium and long range launch facilities in October 1962. US President John F. Kennedy convened a meeting of the National Security Council and other key advisers and formed the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM). Kennedy was advised to carry out an air strike on Cuba to delay Soviet missile supplies and follow this with an invasion of the Cuban mainland. He chose a less aggressive course in order to avoid having to declare war. On 22 October, Kennedy ordered a naval blockade by the US to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba.^[2] He referred to the blockade as a "quarantine" so that the US could avoid the formal implications of a state of war.^[3]

An agreement was eventually reached between Kennedy and Khrushchev. The Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and an agreement not to invade Cuba again. The United States secretly agreed to dismantle all the offensive weapons it had deployed in Turkey. There has been debate on whether Italy was also included in this agreement. While the Soviets dismantled their missiles, some Soviet bombers remained in Cuba and the United States kept the naval quarantine in place until 20 November 1962.^[3][4] The blockade was formally ended on 20 November after all offensive missiles and bombers had been withdrawn. The evident necessity of a quick and direct communication line between the two powers resulted in the establishing of a Moscow–Washington hotline. A series of agreements later reduced US–Soviet tensions for several years.

This compromise embarrassed Khrushchev and the Soviet Union. The withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey had been a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev, and the Soviets appeared to be retreating from a situation that they had started. Khrushchev's fall from power two years later was in part because of the Soviet Politburo's embarrassment at Khrushchev's eventual concessions to the US and his ineptitude in precipitating the crisis. According to the Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, the top Soviet leadership took the Cuban outcome as "a blow to its prestige bordering on humiliation".^[5][6]