Cuba

For the United States the crisis began on October 15, 1962 when reconnaissance photographs were taken of Soviet missile installations under construction in Cuba. The next morning, President John F. Kennedy was made aware of the situation in Cuba and quickly assembled a group of twelve advisors, called EX-COMM, to help him throughout the crisis. After seven days of intense discussion with government officials, he ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba to prevent any more weapons form arriving at the island. On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy made the events public and tensions rose throughout the world. Kennedy demanded that all Russian arms be removed from Cuba immediately. During the crisis Kennedy ordered low-level missions over Cuba every two hours to keep watch over the progress. On the twenty-fifth Kennedy moved the quarantine line back and raised the military readiness level. Then on the twenty-sixth the United States' government received a letter from Soviet Premier Khrushchev promising that the Soviets would retreat form Cuba under the condition that the American government would not plan another attack on Cuba, but the next day was worse. A plane was shot down over Cuba and another letter arrived from Khrushchev. This time the Soviet Premier asked for more in return for the removal of arms from Cuba. Khrushchev now asked that the United States remove all missiles from Turkey in return for the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy suggested that the government ignore the new letter and agree only to the first. On the twenty-eighth tensions began to ease when Khrushchev agreed to remove the missile installations in Cuba confiding in the United States' assurance that they would not attack Cuba. The tensions during the crisis were extremely high and Soviet General and Army Chief of Operations Anatoly Gribkov described it best - "Nuclear catastrophe was hanging by a thread ... and we weren't counting days or hours, but minutes."

As the tension from the missile crisis subdued, the Cold War continued and the fear of a nuclear holocaust lingered while the United States and the Soviet Union were still engaged in the Cold War with one another. The two countries still tried to find ways to get closer to the other with their nuclear arms. Now the countries tried to launch missiles from submarines near the coast of the opposing country, but the plan did not work because of closeness to the country. The submarines would get detected too easily, so the plans continued. The "Space Race" also began to take place. The Russians launched "Sputnik": he first man-made satellite to space, but it was not only a satellite, but a spy camera as well. It could take pictures of license plates on cars and it was illegal to shoot down anything outside the atmosphere. So the Soviets were able to see what the Americans were doing without violating any law.

In Russia, after the death of Russian General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko in 1985, a great change was going to occur for Russia and for the world. One of the great reformers of the time, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, would slowly rise to the power in Russia. Between 1985 and 1990, Russia progressed dramatically. By 1990, Communism had died in Russia and General Secretary Gorbachev was now President Gorbachev. The Cold War had been going on since 1945 and the tension between the United States and Russia escalated more each day. No one knew what to expect from either country at any given time.

The nuclear arms build-up and lack of negotiating caused for the Cold War to reach the heights that it did, but Russian President Gorbachev and United States President Reagan were set to compromise and allow the fear of the world to be suppressed.

Reagan, at the beginning of his presidency, changed America's view on the arms race. The country was trying to produce less nuclear arms during the Nixon era and after, but Reagan started to buildup arms once again. He believed that this way he would scare the Soviets into "Westernizing". The arms race that Reagan started was much like that which occurred in the period of time between the end of World War II (1945) until Stalin's death in 1953. He began building MX missiles and started B-1 bomber programs once again, and started the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as the "Star Wars" defense program.

People