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Formally he announced a "quarantine" of Cuba. This was a "polite" way of saying blockade without formally saying blockade. If he had formally declared a blockade of Cuba, he would also be implicitly declaring war on Cuba and indirectly with its ally the USSR. He did not want to declare war on the USSR, so he played games with words. The USSR could have easily called his bluff and either ran the "quarantine" or declared that "your quarantine is really a blockade, which is an act of war, we are now at war." However they did not, their ships turned around and the missiles were removed. (secretly in exchange for our removing Jupiter and Thor missiles from Turkey that were already obsolete and on our schedule for removal anyway even without the threat of missiles in Cuba.)

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14y ago

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