The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted for 2 long weeks as the world waited for nuclear war. Diplomacy and trust between the world's two superpowers were the only thing that kept the world together in such an uncertain time.
In the spring of 1961, the CIA attempted a coup on the communist government of Cuba which was under the control of dictator Fidel Castro. The coup failed, leaving Castro shaken enough to ask the Soviet Union for help against the US threat.
In early October 1962, United States spy planes took photos of Soviet nuclear missiles being installed on the island of Cuba, just 90 miles off the Florida coast.
When presented with the photos, President John F. Kennedy met with his most trusted advisors for three days to devise a strategy to deal with the delicate situation without alarming the world or sending it into war.
JFK announced on October 24th that a “quarantine” of Cuba by United States Naval ships would be put into place after informing the American public of the offensive missiles on its neighboring island.
While American citizens braced themselves for nuclear fallout, JFK and the Soviet Union’s Premier Nikita Khrushchev exchanged letters, each urging the other to stand down, in the name of world peace.
On the 26th of October, Soviet ships began to meet United States Naval ships guarding the island. When the first Soviet ship turned around, there was a collective sigh of relief. But war still loomed.
While barbed wire was put up along the Florida shorelines, Fidel Castro was amping his army up about the imminent invasion by US troops while they hurried to finish the missile installations.
While war loomed over the nations, pilot Rudolf Anderson was on assignment to gather more intel on the missile sites. His unarmed plane was shot down over Cuba. The Crisis had taken its 1st victim and the devastation that could have followed weighed on the minds of Kennedy and Krushchev.
That same night, October 27th, a Soviet submarine was trapped by the US Navy after a 2 day pursuit. Unaware of the state of affairs on the surface, the submarine's crew was sure that the harmless signaling depth charges coming from the ships above were proof that the world above had been plunged into war. 2 of the 3 captains agreed that a nuclear torpedo should be launched from the submarine. Vasily Arkhipov, the 3rd captain, refused to consent to the action, saving the world from whatever horrors would have followed.
The events of Black Saturday, as the 27th would become known, gave way to an agreement. The final negotiation letter drafted by Attorney General Bobby Kennedy was accepted by Khrushchev. The Soviet Union would remove all missiles from Cuba while the United States would do the same with their missiles in Turkey. The Cuban Missile Crisis was over but the Cold War trudged on.