The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was the closest the USA and Soviet Union ever came to nuclear war. A US spy plane took photographs of Russian missiles in Cuba. Cuba is 90 miles off the coast of Florida. President Kennedy told Nikita Krushchev, the Russian Prime Minister to remove the missiles. Krushchev refused to do so. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba - nothing in or out. In response, The Soviet Navy headed towards Cuba to take on the US Navy. Kennedy left the blockade in place,. Krushchev backed down and had the Soviet ships return to the Soviet Union. Dean Rusk, the American Secretary of State stated"We are eyeball to eyeball with the enemy and he just blinked." The way Kennedy handled this crisis led historians to believe it was Kennedy's finest hour. The Soviets removed the missiles from Cuba and as a show of good faith, Kennedy had American missiles removed from Turkey.
