Cuban Missile Crisis 1960s

One significant Cold War event of the 1960s included the Cuban Missile Crisis. Broadly, this crisis was a thirteen day conflict in 1962 involving the United States and the Soviet Union regarding the installment of Soviet airstrike missiles in Cuba. This situation was globally televised and was the nearest the Cold War had ever come to a nuclear war. Tension between superpowers, Fidel Castro, and the Bay of Pigs Invasion led this event to unfold as it did and the event took the Western bloc in an entirely new direction.
Leading up to the crisis, the tension between the United States and Russia heightened because each superpower was in constant competition over the space race and the arms race in terms of nuclear testing. Each country strove …show more content…
The Vienna Summit was a conference between United States President, John F. Kennedy, and Soviet Union Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, on June 4th, 1961 to talk about the poor relationship between the two countries and to find a resolution to their many problems. Secondly, the Berlin Wall was a physical concrete and wire wall that was constructed by communist East Germany’s government to stop East Berliners from rebelling and moving to the West. At this period in time, the United States was still fearful of Communism and discussing each country’s issues with one another did not help the stressful situation as it was intended to. Also occurring before the Cuban Missile Crisis, Fidel Castro rose to Cuban authority as Prime Minister and in 1960, he constructed an agreement with Russia promising sugar in exchange for machinery, oil, and money. The close proximity of Cuba to the United States and the weaponry and utilities that were sent to cuba from Russia unnerved Americans as they perceived these details as extremely threatening. In response to their concerns, the United States discontinued all trade with Cuba and in tern, Cuba’s government cut off and took over all of the American-owned