Cuban Missile Crisis

He wasn't able to do much. The Russians were in charge of the missiles on Cuba and not Castro, so it was up to them to respond to JFK.

There is no picture of any actual missiles in Cuba.. All the pictures are of sites and trucks and empty carriers and items covered up. The entire ploy was to get the US to remove Missiles from Turkey.

A spy plane took a picture of the where the missiles were being stored.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Cuba were both communist countries, and the Soviet Union provided money and supplies to Cuba during the US trade embargo with Cuba. After the collapse of the Soviet Union all aid to Cuba was cut off. Cuba's close proximity to the United States gave the Soviet Union a foothold in the Western hemisphere at the US doorstep.

Yes there is pen-is but not Denis. So the answer is okay.

So that the whole world would try to conform to American culture. It worked.

Because it was such a failure. The US was supporting the attempts of Cubans to overthrow the Castro Government. When the attempt failed the US ended up looking rather foolish.

It also emboldened the Castro dictatorship and its Soviet backing.

I am neutral, neither American or Russia, but I would say the Russians as they were blatantly about to attack the U.S

Within its brief but highly tense duration, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis affected the world in a deeply negative way: it caused fear and anxiety on a widespread scale while also causing further polarization of nations supporting Cuba and the Soviet Union and nations supporting the United States. At the same time, it provided individuals and societies an opportunity to demonstrate courage and determination; further, a number of world-leaders used the crisis as an opportunity to speak up powerfully on behalf of peace throughout the world.

The Bay of Pigs occurred on April 17, 1961. The Bay of Pigs was a failed attempt to invade Cuba. John F. Kennedy was the U.S. President at the time.

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Any conflict between the superpowers had the potential to become a nuclear war.

Kennedy ordered a blockade (oops, sorry, can't call it a blockade as that is an act of war... have to call it a quarantine instead) of cuba. Finally Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles from cuba in exchange for Kennedy removing Jupiter and Thor missiles (which were already obsolete and scheduled to be removed, but Khrushchev didn't know that) from turkey.

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, Cuba lost its most powerful ally. The Soviet Union helped the small Island a large amount in an economic fashion and gave Cuba a safety blanket against the US. After 1991, the affect of communism on the Western Hemisphere severly lessened and Cuba is considered a considerably smaller threat now.

SS-4 medium range missile, SS-5 intermediate range missile, Luna ground-to-ground rockets, and the FKR cruise missile.

It was a part of the nuclear arms race, not just the number of available warheads and the delivry systems, but also the time factor. Time from launch detection to detonation had become a critical factor in strategic planning. The U-2 incident with the Soviets had broken off talks on weapons limitations. The botched CIA backed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba had increased US-Cuban tension, Castro declared Cuba as a Socialist state and aligned itself with the USSR. The balance of power would be shifted greatly if missiles were placed in Cuba where US cities were only 16 minutes away from nuclear destruction. The USSR had a missile advantage. The US had a two to one warhead advantage, Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles in Turkey and the big advantage of Submarine Launched Ballistic Missles. The US wanted to maintain its advantage.

There were several spots where direct war between the United States and Soviet Union seemed likely.

Berlin Airlift - In 1948, the Soviets blocked all highway access to Berlin in the belief that they could force the city to join East Germany and eventually control all of Germany. The US Air Force and other western allies came to the aid of Berlin. More than 80 lives were lost and there were numerous violent encounters. Both sides prepared for invasion.

Korean War - The Soviets boycotted the United Nations vote on support for South Korea and the US ramrodded through a UN invasion to stop the communist North Koreans from taking over the whole country. Chinese 'volunteers' joined the fight and drove the US / UN forces back. Less well known is that Soviet planes and pilots joined the bombing of US forces. At times US and Soviets were fighting directly without knowing it.

Vietnam War - The US had military advisors and later over 530,000 combat forces in Vietnam. Several incidents during the war risked direct Soviet involvement. Among these was an American incursion into the North in search of a POW camp. The POWs were not there but hundreds of Soviet support troops were present and they were killed in great numbers by attack helicopters and Green Berets. Later, the US bombed Hanoi and Haiphong (after promising not to do so) and a number of Soviet military and civilians were killed. Some were antiaircraft technicians and some were crewmen on freighters in the harbor. The Soviets were extremely upset by the death of their people.

Cuba - The Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis both brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of direct warfare. The Soviets placed hundreds of nuclear-capable medium range missiles in Cuba and were preparing to make them active. Some present-day sources say the Soviets had dozens of missiles actually ready to launch with nuclear warheads. American forces were on standby for bombing and invasion of Cuba. Several thousand Soviet combat troops were in Cuba, along with thousands of engineers and technicians. Pro-war generals on each side tried to bait the other side into direct warfare.

The answer that there were "possible" operational/accidental fatalities during the Cuban Missile Crisis is incorrect. There were about a dozen definite fatalities directly related to the crisis.

Maj. Rudolf Anderson, USAF, was shot down in his U-2F, # 56-6676, by a Soviet made S-75 resulting in his death near Banes, Cuba. In addition, we lost a number of USAF RB-47 crew members of the 55th SRW, my former unit where I was a reconnaissance navigator in RC-135s, due to accidents while engaged in operations against Cuba.

These were not the only deaths of reconnaissance crew members during the Cold War during that time period due to actions by the Soviets or their surrogates including Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, China, E. Germany, Greek Communists, N. Korea, Romania, and Yugoslavia.

Some good sources on Cold War incidences can be found at:

Unless there is third party confirmations, answer won't suffice.

Everything South of Washington, DC and West to New Orleans was in range.

Yes, missiles from the Soviet Union were transported to and assembled in Cuba before the 1963 Cuban missile crisis.

In the documentary movie "The Fog of War", Robert McNamara (then the Secretary of Defense for the Kennedy administration) tells of a discussion of his in the 1990's with Cuba's leader Fidel Castro. McNamara recalls that Castro said he not only had nuclear warheads available on the island, but that he would have used them on the US if the US had invaded. Stunned by this McNamara asked if Castro would do this knowing full-well that the US would respond with overwhelming nuclear force, and Castro answered "Yes."

I recommend you read about the Cuban Missile Crisis on Wikipedia and there's an excellent little book on the Cold War titled "The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction" by Oxford university press.

candian prime minister, during a very important meetin with fidel castro appartntly "Drop a dirty anal air biscuit" acoording to castro. Almost causing the apocalypse. When asked how he felt the prime minster retorte ;Better out then in i always say;

The Cuban missile crises was caused by the Soviet Union, who was allied with Cuba. The Soviet Union dispatched missiles to Cuba to strike the U.S. mainland and deal a crippling blow to the U.S. military and morale.

Two were established, an economic boycott in February of 1962 and the Missile Crisis to prevent the introduction of Soviet weapons in October of the same year.

While it is not completely perfect, I suggest seeing the Costner film (based on books about and tapes of the administration) titled Thirteen Days. It is the quickest way to get a good idea of the tension and the situation.

The blockade (quarantine) during the missile crisis was because Cuba was (viewed as) a pawn of the USSR and they placed rocket-powered nuclear warheads on Cuban soil aimed at the USA. The blockade was a compromise measure by the Kennedy administration between invading Cuba and thus setting off a likely nuclear exchange with the USSR due to treaties and (being seen to be) doing nothing and being an appeaser to the USSR. Bobby Kennedy worked very hard to handle the politics in the USA and to get buy-in from the cabinet and other stakeholders in the government to avoid military action. The Blockade prevented further buildup of offensive arms aimed at the USA in the western hemisphere and gave the USA and USSR time to negotiate and it gave the USSR time to dismantle the in-place missiles and to save face. Essentially it was a strategic response to an aggressive move by the USSR in the cold war.

Involvement in both is wrongly credited to the administration of President John Kennedy. President Eisenhower had put the wheels in motion for both incidents. The planning for the Bay of Pigs Invasion was entirely set up, recruited, trained and financed and placed into motion by Eisenhower and was inherited by Kennedy. The US Advisors, Assistance Command (MACV) and Air America program to support the French recolinization of Vietnam had been in place when Kennedy was elected, Americans had died in action before that date. The connection between the two conflicts was their creators.

Ivan the Terrible dealt with his enemies during his "bad period" by organizing his own police force, whose chief duty was to hunt down and murder people that Ivan considered traitors

Resources: Modern World History: Patterns of Interaction page 174 3rd paragraph.