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Contents

1961

In this year The U.S tried to overthrow Cuba’s latest communist government but was unsuccessful and the attempt was come to be known as the Bay of Pigs. This hence convinced Cuba to ask for help from the U.S.S.R. Nikita Khrushchev was more than happy to comply. She very secretly deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba.

She did this not just to protect the island but also to counteract the threat from the U.S missiles in Italy and Turkey. It was too late for the U.S to discover the plans as the materials that were needed to generate the missiles were ready for the action.

October 16, 1962

An emergency meeting was held on this date. There was a request for an airstrike on the missile sites by the military advisors following an invasion of the island. But John F. Kennedy, then president of the U.S has some different plans. He decided to intercept all shipments to Cuba on October 22.

But the thing was that a naval blockade was considered as an act of war. Khrushchev in his outraged letter to Kennedy wrote ‘The violence of freedom to use international waters and international airspace is an act of aggression which pushes mankind towards the abyss of world nuclear-missile war’.

The following were the intense six days of the cold war. When the U.S demanded the removal of the missile, Cuba and U.S.S.R denied saying that those were just for the defence. But the U.S wanted to play on the safer side, so it prepared for a possible invasion.

October 27, 1962

On this day, a spy plane was shot down by a Soviet missile. On the very same, a nuclear war Soviet submarine got hit by a kind of small-depth charge from a U.S navy vessel that was trying to signal it to come up.

The commanders inside the submarine thought the war had begun and started the preparation. The decision for launching their missile was supposed to be made by three officers. So, two among the three officers gave the green signal, the third officer did not give the signal and saved the war from happening.

Def Con 2

For the very first time, the U.S military set itself t DEF CON 2. In Washington D.C Attorney general attend a secret meeting with the Soviet Ambassador where they reached a solution. The solution was that the U.S would remove the missiles from Italy and Turkey and would never invade Cuba. In return, there would be a Soviet withdrawal from Cuba under the inspection of U.N. The following day, Khrushchev sent the message that Soviet missile would be removed from Cuba. Thus the crisis was over.