The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Push For Nuclear War
The strain on the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States finally boiled over in October of 1962 when russian nuclear missiles were spotted by aircraft, pointing towards the United States. While the first instinct was to attack the Soviets by air, land, and sea, the authorities choose to create a “military blockade” between Russia and Cuba by placing American ships in the way of the trade route being used. For the first time in human history, the two major world powers were on the brink of nuclear warfare. On October 22, 1962, JFK addressed the American public on live television, saying that “It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union” (John F. Kennedy, The Cold War). Both countries possessed the almighty a-bomb, and the even more fearsome hydrogen bomb. With radioactive missiles lined up and ready to fire, the whole world could have easily been swept away by the moral conflict between the Capitalists and the Communists.