Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cold War was the indirect confrontation between Russia and the United States of America which lasted from 1947 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 11, 1989. During this time, both nations attempted to overpower each other by absorbing other countries into their spheres of influence. O achieve this they used whatever methods they had available in order to accomplish their goals. The end always justified the means. Espionage, propaganda, and continuous threat of war were commonplace. The whole world lived in fear of full-out nuclear war in which there would be no winners, only losers.
The closest the world ever came to a nuclear holocaust was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which lasted for thirteen days, from October 16 thru October 28, 1962. The crisis began after a United States spy plane photographed the construction of missiles in Cuba on October 15 1962. On the next day, President John F. Kennedy, of the United States organized the EX-COMM, a group of his twelve most important advisors to deal with the crisis. After seven days of discussion, Kennedy decided to order a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent the arrival of additional weapons and, on October 22nd, informed the American public of the situation. He immediately said that a missile attack from Cuba to the United States would be considered as an attack from the Soviet Union and demanded that all the missiles be removed from the island by the Soviets.
The nuclear missiles were placed in Cuba by the Soviets for two reasons. One reason was that Fidel Castro, who was governing Cuba after the socialist revolution triumphed in 1959, and who had undergone a failed attack at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, wanted to protect the island from another invasion which he was sure would com from the United States. On the other had, Russia was behind the United States in the arms race and, while the United States had missiles capable of attacking the Soviet Union, Russian missiles could only reach Europe and having missiles based in Cuba, about a hundred miles from the continental United States, meant an improved capacity to respond in case of an American attack on Soviet interests.
After intense negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union, represented by President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev respectively, the world was saved from destruction when both countries reached an agreement on October 28th, 1962. This agreement resulted in the removal of all Russian missiles from Cuba in exchange for an American compromise not to attack island and the removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey, a country next to Soviet Union borders.
The Cuban Missile Crisis led to the establishment of a direct communications link between the governments of the United States and Russia called the “Hot Line”. This line, which was built undersea, had the purpose of facilitating direct communications between the two Cold War superpowers so that future crises could be solved more effectively.