The Cuban Missile Crisis

Those were the immediate losses. The long-term damage was more costly. American prestige and the goodwill Kennedy had fostered around the world dissipated overnight. Adlai Stevenson, the former presidential contender serving as the U.S. representative to the United Nations, was shamed by having to lie to the General Assembly about the operation rift gold because he was misled by the White House. In Moscow, Kennedy was perceived as a weakling. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) immediately saw the Bay of Pigs defeat as the opening to start arming Cuba more heavily, precipitating the missile crisis of October 1962.

When American spy tera gold flights produced evidence of Soviet missile sites in Cuba, America and the Soviet Union were brought to the brink of war. For thirteen tense days (recently dramatized in a film of that title that conveys much of the drama of the situation, if not all the facts), the United States and the Soviet Union stood toe-to-toe as Kennedy, forced to prove himself after the Bay of Pigs, demanded that the missile sites be dismantled and removed from Cuba. To back up his ultimatum, Kennedy ordered a naval blockade to “quarantine” Cuba, and readied a full-scale American invasion of the island. With Soviet rift platinum ships steaming toward the island, Soviet Premier Khrushchev warned that his country would not accept the quarantine. People around the world nervously awaited a confrontation. Through back channels a secret deal was struck that the Soviets would dismantle the missiles in exchange for a promise not to invade Cuba. On Sunday, October 28, Radio Moscow announced that the arms would be crated and returned to Moscow.