The Cuban Missile Crisis happened after the bay of pigs. Khrushchev used his alliance with Castro to put a lot of soviet missiles in Cuba. These missiles could easily reach the U.S. Some had more range than others and were able to hit everywhere in the U.S. other than Seattle. The missiles were discovered by a U2 spy plane that flew over Cuba. This point in the war is considered the hottest point because the tensions were so high, and we were very close to WWIII.
U.S. MissilesThe USSR having missiles in Cuba was completely a justifiable action. Not only were they at war the the U.S. and its kind of a part of war, but the U.S. had missiles in Turkey and many other places that could all reach Moscow. Khrushchev thought that since the U.S. had missiles so close, that he needed missiles close to them that way he could strike back if he needed to.
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Removing the Missiles
Both Kennedy and Khrushchev wanted the threats to be gone. Kennedy wanted the missiles out of Cuba, and Khrushchev wanted the missiles out of Turkey. In a letter that Khrushchev sent to Kennedy, he said, "The greatest joy for all peoples would be the announcement of our agreement." This meant that no one wanted to go to war knowing that it would lead to complete destruction. The agreement they had was to remove all missiles from Cuba, all missiles from Turkey, and remove the quarantine that blocked Cuba. Kennedy made a public announcement saying that he agreed to everything except for the missiles in Turkey, which he did not mention at all. Instead, Robert Kennedy talked to a Russian Ambassador and said that they would need 4-5 months to remove the missiles from Turkey and that the president could say nothing about the missiles to the public. They agreed, and because of this, the USSR came out looking weak, even though both sides removed their weapons.