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The Cuban Missle Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, which Cubans refer to as the Caribbean Crisis, was the result of the escalating tensions of the deepening Cold War. The Soviet Union felt severely threatened by the American deployment of intermediate-range ballistic missiles on the Turkish border with the USSR. To the Soviets, the Bay of Pigs fiasco provided an opening for them to establish bases at equally close range to the US, which could then be used as bargaining chips for a reduction of US bases in Turkey. Castro feared that the US was planning to invade Cuba.
Thus, the Soviets told him they had intelligence confirming his fears. Fidel accordingly requested strategic defensive weapons. The Soviets began their military build-up in Cuba in early 1962, then pressured the Cuban government to formally request that the Soviet Union install nuclear missiles. Cuban ports were closed and a curfew enacted while the missiles were brought in. They were a public secret everyone knew, including Cubans leaving the island for Florida.
Soon enough, on 14 October, a U- 2 spy plane over western Cuba discovered missile sites. President Kennedy demanded that they be removed. Kruschev refused. On October 22, Kennedy ordered the US military to go from DefCon (Defense Condition) 5 to DefCon 3.
That night, Kennedy went on national TV and announced, I have directed... initial steps to be taken immediately for a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment... It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring full retaliatory response on the Soviet Union. As he began speaking, 54 Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers took to the air, Polaris submarines put to sea, and the SAC prepared 136 Atlas and Titan ICBMs for firing.
A US naval task force set out to intercept Soviet vessels and blockade Cuba. That day, Revoluci n published the banner headline US Prepares Invasion Of Cuba. A volatile exchange of messages between Kennedy and Khruschev followed. Tensions mounted. On October 24, the US military went to DefCon 2 for the first and only time in history. The two superpowers verged on full-scale nuclear war.
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Research essay sample on Soviet Union Cuba Military
