Cuban missile crisis (1962)
- That the Soviets launched missiles on Cuba. The US tried to help them by putting men around the island. Many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. To learn more about this event Click
- On the morning of October 16, CIA imagery analysts brief the president on the results of U-2 photo reconnaissance overflights of Cuba on Sunday that had discovered the existence of Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) in Cuba. To listen to the briefing Click
- On october 16, 1962, John F. Kennedy and his advisers were stunned to learn that the Soviet Union was, without provocation, installing nuclear-armed medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. With these offensive weapons, which represented a new and existential threat to America, Moscow significantly raised the ante in the nuclear rivalry between the superpowers—a gambit that forced the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. On October 22, the president, with no other recourse, proclaimed in a televised address that his administration knew of the illegal missiles, and delivered an ultimatum insisting on their removal, announcing an American “quarantine” of Cuba to force compliance with his demands. In the tense 13‑day crisis, the Americans and Soviets went eyeball-to-eyeball.
- The onset of the Cuban missile crisis would have shocked the American people in 1962, for the simple reason that Kennedy’s administration had misled them about the military imbalance between the superpowers and had concealed its campaign of threats, assassination plots, and sabotage designed to overthrow the government in Cuba. For more information about what happened Click