Known internationally as the Cuban Missile Crisis and in the Soviet Union as the Caribbean Crisis (Карибский кризис). It is within the historical confrontation between Cuba and the United States, and in the opinion of specialists of all contemporary international relations, the most dangerous incident through which both countries and the world went through during the Cold War period. Of the long list of aggressions by the U.S. government against Cuba, what occurred during the week of October 22-28, 1962 is of singular importance. Limited in its possibilities of military manifestation to the taking of some measures that would provide a certain capacity to respond to Washington's aggressive plans and kept on the sidelines of the negotiation process between the USSR and the United States, Cuba's leading role during the October crisis was centered on the political and diplomatic field.

The first nuclear explosions were carried out by the United States in 1945, against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only ones carried out in combat situation in history. The Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear bomb in 1949, thus beginning the race for the development of nuclear weapons, in which the United States was four years ahead and with an industry on which not a single bomb had fallen during the past war, while the Soviet Union had suffered colossal losses during the war.

By 1962, the existing ratio of nuclear-weapon-carrying means that could reach the opponent's territory was 5 to 1 in favor of the United States. The strategic balance also favored the Americans in their ability to deliver a nuclear first strike to the USSR, due to the nuclear missiles they had deployed in Turkey and Italy.

The deepest motives of the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, in taking such a risky step, were related to the intention of reducing the nuclear gap between the USSR and the United States, with a wide advantage for the latter nation, an aspect that was unknown to the highest leadership of the island at that time.

At that time, the Cuban Revolution had triumphed three years earlier, during which time the U.S. government had tried to overthrow the revolutionary government in various ways without success, including the defeat suffered by the mercenary invasion at Playa Giron in April 1961.

The defeat did not call President John F. Kennedy to sanity but to revenge. On March 7, 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed to "fabricate a provocation that would justify US military action" and only two days later, the office of the Secretary of Defense submitted for the consideration of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a package of measures that could serve as a pretext to justify military intervention in Cuba.

This objective became known to the Soviet and Cuban governments during those months, in a more or less certain way. When the Soviet leaders considered that Cuba would not be able to resist direct military aggression by the United States, a proposal was made to station on the island a contingent of Soviet troops with medium-range nuclear rockets capable of reaching the territory of the United States, considering that this would be the only way to prevent the aggression, since under these conditions it would no longer be against Cuba, but a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union.

On June 10, a new meeting was held in Moscow at the highest level, in which the transfer of the nuclear rockets to Cuba was definitively approved. Much was lost in the moral, political and diplomatic fields when the Soviets decided that the installation of nuclear rockets in Cuba would be done secretly, and only made public when it was a fait accompli, to which the United States would supposedly have to resign itself. The leader of the Cuban Revolution defended at all times that the operation be made public under the support of international law.

After the arrival in Cuba of the units of the Soviet Troop Grouping, US intelligence had already determined the presence on the island of anti-aircraft rockets and MiG-21 planes, unidentified constructions and the existence of Soviet military specialists.

By October 15 an interpretation team identified in the vicinity of San Cristobal several objects similar to the components of the SS-4 (R-12 for the Soviets) medium-range rocket sites.

On October 16 President Kennedy received the photos in the morning. At that time there was almost a consensus in the Committee in favor of military action, but its members were unaware that, when such action could be imminent, there were already in Cuba dozens of nuclear charges for tactical rockets, destined to repel a landing on the island, so that any drastic action by the US forces would have raised too high the risk of the outbreak of a general nuclear war.

After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between Kennedy and Khrushchev: publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement to not invade Cuba again. Secretly, the United States agreed with the Soviets that it would dismantle all of the Jupiter MRBMs which had been deployed to Turkey against the Soviet Union. There has been debate on whether or not Italy was included in the agreement as well. While the Soviets dismantled their missiles, some Soviet bombers remained in Cuba, and the United States kept the naval quarantine in place until November 20, 1962

When all offensive missiles and the Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers had been withdrawn from Cuba, the blockade was formally ended on November 20. The negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union pointed out the necessity of a quick, clear, and direct communication line between the two superpowers. As a result, the Moscow–Washington hotline was established. A series of agreements later reduced US–Soviet tensions for several years, until both parties eventually resumed expanding their nuclear arsenals.

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