CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War. The ensuing crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War and is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict.

 The policy change of Cuba
In 1959, Fidel Castro, Ernesto “Che” Guevara and their Guerilleros sweep the Dictator sheep of Flugencio Batista, and became leaders of the Cuba’s capital : Havana. They tried to obtain an agreement with the US government (Cuba was before very close of the USA), but they turned quickly to the USSR and China. Relationship between Cuba and USA became flamed, and a lot of “anticastro” wanted the USA to intervene on the Island. Cuba nationalized the properties of the big American companies. In return, America issued an embargo on the Cuban agricultural produces.

Fidel Castro and his « Guerilleros » during the revolution.

 The Bay of Pigs landing
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful attempt by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support from US government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile combatants in three days. This plan was a total failure, and relationships between USSR and USA became very tense.

 The crisis
The presence of a communist island at fifty kilometers of the South of the United States is a chance for the USSR. This one is indeed under the direct threat of American rockets and nuclear bombers situated in Europe thanks to the NATO, or in Asia. That’s why Khrushchev negotiated a secret agreement with Castro for the installation of military bases with nuclear