The missile crisis in Cuba in 1962
Introduction
In October 1962, the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States had a hard confrontation for two weeks due Cold war and creating an environment of tension due to the possibility of using these weapons. With the closure of this stage, a certain laxity begins in relations and peaceful coexistence between the states, faced after World War II.
On October 15, 1962, one of the riskiest events of the Cold War began, which put humanity on the edge of the nuclear holocaust of unsuspected magnitude. The possibility of the atomic conflict between the United States and the extinct Soviet Union, two political and ideologically antagonistic superpowers, closed a stage of the Cold War, where it was seen that there was among them a total and permanent clash due to the way of seeing the world, based In the arms race to guarantee peace through a balance of power and leaving clear in this context that alliances can cause global crisis.
Developing
The Cuban revolution triumphed in 1959 and had a strong nationalist component, which sought to be economically and politically separated from the United States, a country that considered Cuba as its backyard. This movement, led by Fidel Castro, carried out numerous socialist reforms, carrying out expropriations and nationalizing economic resources (almost all in the hands of Americans), so that Cuba began to suffer a partial embargo from the US. UU., where Eisenhower suppressed in 1960 the sugar quotas that he acquired to Cuba, one of the main products of its exports, thus signing an agreement with the USSR to buy part of the sugar harvest and supply oil.
Since he went up to power in 1953, Eisenhower supported the dictatorship of Batista and, when the Castro revolution occurred and based on a hard anti -communist doctrine, he gave refuge to the criminals escaped of Cuba, whom he trained clandestinely since 1960, economicly and militarily helping To these anti -trististic counterrevolutionaries to try to overthrow the socialist system, giving rise to the invasion of Playa Girón, which turned out to be a resounding failure and was a great shame for the Kennedy administration in April 1962.
Similarly, there were numerous murder attempts by the Eisenhower government of the main revolutionary leaders, as well as the creation by J.F. Kennedy, in 1962, from an anti -subversive force to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime.
In 1961 the hostility towards Cuba became more clear, suffering an almost total economic boycott with more hard measures, where Kennedy put the Cuban sugar quota in the North American market in the North American market. In December of that year Castro acknowledged that Cuba was Marxist-Leninist and proclaimed the Socialist Republic. In January of the following year EE. UU. He expelled Cuba from the Organization of American States; In February, and once the Cuban revolutionary regime was approaching the socialist side of the USSR, the Americans hardened commercial restrictions and created a program to end the Cuban revolution through the Inter -American Bank for Development, the Alliance for Progress and the peace bodies.
After the strong setback Kennedy suffered after the invasion of Cuba, the Mongoose operation began to take place in October 1961 to occupy the island again and destabilize the Cuban government, but this time with the US army; However, the secret plan was discovered by the Soviet and alerted the Cuban authorities before it could be carried out.
Also, Castro uncovered operation ORTSAC (Castro backwards), where the US armed forces. UU. They intended to overthrow him. In this way, and convinced that EE. UU. He prepared a new attack on the island, he had no choice but to ask for military help from the Soviet Union.
Taking advantage of the situation, the then president of the USSR, Nikita Jrushchov, proposed to Cuba the installation on its nuclear missile coasts as defensive weapons to protect the island from another American invasion, at the same time that this act was a balance factor before the nuclear superiority of the United States and thus demonstrate their nuclear potential, a measure that could deter the Americans from an attack with missiles that were placed in Turkey a year earlier and that pointed directly to the USSR.
conclusion
In this way, any attack on Cuba would be understood as a direct attack on the USSR. Castro that this operation was made public, but the Soviet leader preferred to keep it a secret until the bases were installed. Although the rise to the power of Nikita Khrushchev encouraged greater opening in international relations based on peaceful coexistence with the 1959 Camp agreements, the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961 made a patent, once again, the discrepancies Between the socialist bloc and the capitalist.
These continuous aggressions (economic, political and military) from the United States to Cuba and the growing danger of a new invasion of the island caused the increase in tensions between the two countries.
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