Cuban Missiles Crises

The Longest Fourteen Days

Fidel Castro was looking for a way to defend his country from the United States. This all started after the Bay of Pigs invasion on Cuba. Castro felt that a second invasion was just a matter of time. So in 1962 Castro got that chance. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had been looking for a way to get the Soviet missiles closer to the U.S. and now they found a way. So that summer the Soviets started to install the missiles in Cuba. The U.S. found out on October 15, when a reconnaissance photo showed the Soviet missiles under construction in Cuba. The next day President John Kennedy was told about the missiles. He then quickly gathered the EX-COMM, which is a group of his twelve most important advisors to help handle the situation. After seven days of intense debate President Kennedy concluded to make a naval blockade of Cuba. This was to stop any more Soviet weapons to be installed there. On October 22 Kennedy made the missiles public and informed them of the naval blockade. He then demanded the soviets to remove all the weapons from Cuba. Tension was build bigger every hour. President Kennedy order low-level reconnaissance missions once every two hours. He then pulled back the blockade back and raised the military readiness to DEFCON 2. On the 26 Khrushchev sent a letter to the U.S. stating they would pull out of Cuba if the U.S. promised not to invade Cuba. Then on October 27 a U2 bomber was shot down over Cuba and they also received a second letter from Khrushchev demanding the removal of U.S. missiles in Turkey in exchange for Soviet missiles in Cuba. Finally on October 28 Khrushchev announced that he would dismantle the installations and return the missiles to the Soviet Union and in turn the U.S. would not attack Cuba. Now the tension can finally start to calm down and the U.S. has won another battle in the war against communism.

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