Who Was Involved In The Cuban Missile Crisis ?
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The Cuban missile crisis is one of the biggest events in American and Russian Cold war history. It is also called the October Crisis as the entire series of events took place in the last week of October. It is also known as Caribbean Crisis in Russia. There were three countries involved in the crisis, America, Russia and Cuba. In October 1962, in the middle of the cold war between America and Russia, there was a likelihood of a nuclear attack on America.
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In September 1962, the US tried to overthrow the Cuban government that was being led by Fidel Castro. However, America did not succeed in its intentions. They conducted an operation called Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose but they were severely hampered by the lack of island knowledge and also lack of maps. The US had considered attacking Cuba by air and sea in order to achieve a military quarantine of the country.
At that time Fidel Castro allied with Russia and sought their help expecting a second attack by United States. So he allowed the Russians to install missile stations on Cuban soil. Russia built a nuclear weapon launch station 90 miles off coast from the United States on Cuban island. America found this out through their spy airplane. President Kennedy was briefed on Russians nuclear weapons through photographs taken by them. On October 26th, after a lot of meetings and talks held by American president, John F. Kennedy spoke to Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev and sent him a letter. In the letter he mentioned that if Russia did not withdraw its missiles and all other weapons from Cuba, then it will be construed that America was under attack by Russia.
On October 28th, Khrushchev replied positively saying that Russia is willing to withdraw its weapons provided America assures that they will never try to take over Cuba again. United States assured them that they will keep away from Cuba provided every single missile station is dismantled.
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The Soviet Union decided to deploy the missiles in Cuba based on two things, one is that Soviet was feeling insecure and the second is it would lose Cuba through invasion. Both these factors put together led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that time President John F. Kennedy was repeatedly mentioning that there is a huge missile gap between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. He felt that the American missiles and weapons may be inferior to the Soviet Union and this posed an inherent danger to the country.