The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. The United States armed forces were at their highest state of readiness ever and Soviet field commanders in Cuba were prepared to use battlefield nuclear weapons to defend the island if it was invaded. Luckily, thanks to two men, President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, war was averted. In 1962, the Soviet Union was desperately behind the United States in …

…for Soviet missiles in Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy suggested ignoring the second letter and contacted Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to tell him of the U.S. agreement with the first. Tensions finally began to ease on October 28 when Khrushchev announced that he would dismantle the missiles and return them to the Soviet Union, trusting that the United States would not invade Cuba.The United States demanded that Soviet light bombers be removed from Cuba.