1. Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
The Cuban Missile Crisis is widely reckoned to be the closest nuclear war shave of the entire Cold War. It was a 13 day standoff in October 1962 between The USSR and Cuba and the USA. It led to threats of MAD -Mutual Assured Destruction - for the first time between the two superpowers. The US had failed to overthrow the Communist government of Cuba - the US was understandably not keen to have a Commie government in its back yard - especially an unstable mad man like Fidel Castro. They went into Turkey and pointed missiles at Moscow. The USSR retaliated by coaxing Cuba into holding its missiles against the US. In the summer of 1962, the Cubans began construction for missile sites. US intelligence picked up on this development and also the fact that Cuba had medium and intermediate ballistic missiles. The US contemplated striking Cuba by air but instead put a military 'quarantine' on the island, forbidding any more weapons delivery and seeking the dismantling of existing weapons. The JFK administration expected the USSR would not comply especially as Kruschev made ominous statements about nuclear war. Tense negotiations were initiated during the stand off between JFK and Kruschev. Soviet military ships attempted to break the blockade and an American plane was shot down. The President could have initiated nuclear war there and then, but he stuck to diplomatic channels. On 28th October 1962, UN President U Thant came to an agreement with the US and the USA over the conflict. The USSR, under UN auspices, was to remove all weapons from Cuba and the US was to publicly declare that she would never invade Cuba. In secret, the US also agreed to remove nukes pointed at Moscow from both Turkey and Italy. Global oblivion was averted. The world was told just how close they came to nuclear war - closer than they thought during the crisis itself. In addition to the weapons the USA knew about in Cuba, the USSR had deployed an additional 100 nukes on Cuba. The Soviet Commander in Cuba could have used them at any time on his own initiative and without agreement with Moscow. The USA planned strike and invasion for the third week of the conflict would have triggered a nuclear exchange that would lead to the death of 100 USA citizens and 100 million USSR citizens. The crisis led to the development of the hot line in which both USA and USSR presidents had easy access to each other by phone. The governments learned one thing from the debacle - the need for direct and productive talks was essential in the prevention of nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest shave with oblivion that mankind has hitherto experienced.