JFK Cuban Missile Crisis Newsreel

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the military confrontation among the United States of America, the Soviet Union, and Cuba when the Cold War threatened to become a nuclear war. The Russians call it the "Caribbean Crisis," while the Cubans call it the "October Crisis." Like the Berlin Blockade, it was one of the major confrontations of the Cold War. According to recently de-classified documents of NSA, Soviet Military shipments of 2,454 tons were discovered on September 23, 1960. The actual confrontation began on October 14, 1962, when U.S. reconnaissance photographs taken by an American U-2 spy plane revealed missile bases being built in Cuba, in response to similar U.S. bases built at the Turkish-Soviet border. After a bellicose confrontation on October 28, 1962, both U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, with the intercession of U.N. Secretary-General, U Thant, agreed to remove their respective nuclear weapons.