Today in 1962, then President J.F.Kennedy goes on television and informs the world that the Soviet Union has placed missile installations in Cuba, only 90 miles from the American mainland. Since and forever after, Cuba has become the little big bad red wolf all people in the U.S. are to fear and hate. My mother told me stories about drills she went through in school, hiding underneath her desk (because that was gonna protect them). The report allegedly put most of the eastern seaboard and southern United States within range of Soviet nuclear warheads.

But this was about more than the fear of nuclear war this was about power, about who exactly had the right to do anything in Latin America. Certainly not the Latin Americans themselves. That’s why the U.S. had created the Monroe Doctrine. That’s why the U.S. had gone in before via the Bay of Pigs to try and oust Fidel Castro. Additionally the U.S. liked to (and still does) go by the rule, do as I say, not as I do. The U.S. had put its own missiles in Turkey.

Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba. In the end, Russia pulled out of Cuba in exchange for American guarantees not to invade Cuba. It is said that that moment was the closest we’ve ever been to nuclear war.

Via / Wired