Cold War Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Cuban Missile Crisis and Khrushchev's ousting=== {{Main|Operation Mongoose|Cuban Missile Crisis}} [[File:Cuban missiles.jpg|thumb|left|Aerial photograph of a Soviet missile site in [[Cuba]], taken by a US [[Surveillance aircraft|spy aircraft]], 1 November 1962]] The Kennedy administration continued seeking ways to oust Castro following the Bay of Pigs invasion, experimenting with various ways of covertly facilitating the overthrow of the Cuban government. Significant hopes were pinned on the program of terrorist attacks and other destabilization operations known as [[Operation Mongoose]], that was devised under the Kennedy administration in 1961. Khrushchev learned of the project in February 1962,{{sfn|Zubok|1994}} and preparations to install Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba were undertaken in response.{{sfn|Zubok|1994}} Alarmed, Kennedy considered various reactions. He ultimately responded to the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba with a [[naval blockade]], and he presented an ultimatum to the Soviets. Khrushchev backed down from a confrontation, and the Soviet Union removed the missiles in return for a public American pledge not to invade Cuba again as well as a covert deal to remove US missiles from Turkey.{{sfn|H. Jones|2009|p=122}} Castro later admitted that "I would have agreed to the use of nuclear weapons. ... we took it for granted that it would become a nuclear war anyway, and that we were going to disappear."{{sfn|Blight|Allyn|Welch|2002|p=252}} The [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] (October–November 1962) brought the world closer to [[Nuclear warfare|nuclear war]] than ever before.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=82}} The aftermath led to efforts in the [[nuclear arms race]] at nuclear disarmament and improving relations, although the Cold War's first arms control agreement, the [[Antarctic Treaty System|Antarctic Treaty]], had come into force in 1961.{{efn-ua|National Research Council Committee on Antarctic Policy and Science, p. 33}} The compromise embarrassed Khrushchev and the Soviet Union because the withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey was a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev, and the Soviets were seen as retreating from circumstances that they had started. In 1964, Khrushchev's Kremlin colleagues managed to [[Nikita Khrushchev#Removal|oust]] him, but allowed him a peaceful retirement.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|pp=119–120}} He was accused of rudeness and incompetence, and John Lewis Gaddis argues that he was also blamed with ruining Soviet agriculture, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war, and becoming an "international embarrassment" when he authorized construction of the Berlin Wall.{{sfn|Gaddis|2005|p=119}} According to Dobrynin, the top Soviet leadership took the Cuban outcome as "a blow to its prestige bordering on humiliation".<ref>William Taubman, [[Khrushchev: The Man and His Era]] (2004) p. 579.</ref><ref name="The Malin Notes">{{cite web|url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/publication/CWHIP_Bulletin_17-18_Cuban_Missile_Crisis_v2_s3_Soviet_Union.pdf|title=The Malin Notes: Glimpses Inside the Kremlin during the Cuban Missile Crisis|work=Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars|author=Jeffery D. Shields|date=March 7, 2016}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page