In response to these factors the Soviet and Cuban governments agreed, at a meeting between leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, to place nuclear missiles on Cuba to deter a future US invasion. By May, Khrushchev and Castro agreed to place strategic nuclear missiles secretly in Cuba. Castro was not completely happy with the idea, but the Cuban National Directorate of the Revolution accepted them, both to protect Cuba against US attack and to aid the Soviet Union.

The documents are drawn from countries all around the world and discuss armament and military supplies sent to Cuba, troop training, security issues in the region, and relations with the US. There are many items of correspondence during the crisis itself, including letters between Soviet representatives in Cuba, the US, the UN, and the USSR Foreign Ministry. "Documents concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962--a major confrontation that brought the Soviet Union and the United States close to war over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba."

USSR, Letter, from Chairman Khrushchev to Prime Minister Castro, October 30, 1962. Cuba, Letter, from Prime Minister Castro to Chairman Khrushchev, October 31, 1962. USSR, draft directive, Directive to the Commander of Soviet Forces in Cuba on transfer of Il-28s and Luna Missiles, and Authority on Use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons, September 8, 1962.

Earlier that fall, the Soviet Union, under orders from Premier Nikita Khrushchev, began to secretly deploy a nuclear strike force in Cuba, just 90 miles from the United States. President John F. Kennedy said the missiles would not be tolerated and insisted on their removal. Khrushchev refused. The National Archives holds documents such as CIA-prepared personality studies of Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, satellite images of missile sites under construction, and secret correspondence between Kennedy and Khrushchev.

We understand that for you certain difficulties may have emerged as a consequence of the promises we made to the United States to withdraw the missile bases from Cuba in exchange for their promise to abandon their plans to invade Cuba and to prevent their allies in the Western hemisphere from doing so, to end their so-called "quarantine" -- their blockade of Cuba. The measures which we have adopted have allowed us to reach the goal which we had set when we decided to send the missiles to Cuba. We have extracted from the United States the commitment not to invade Cuba and not to allow their Latin-American allies to do so.

In early 1962, a group of Soviet military and missile construction specialists accompanied an agricultural delegation to Havana and met with Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro. According to Soviet accounts released decades later, Castro and the Cuban leadership believed that another U.S. invasion was likely. They therefore agreed to accept Soviet nuclear missiles and other offensive weapons as a way to deter such an attack, viewing the deployment as a means to strengthen Cuba’s security and the broader socialist camp.

Having promised in May 1960 to defend Cuba with Soviet arms, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev assumed that the United States would take no steps to prevent the installation of Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. The article explains that the confrontation in October 1962 was over "the presence of Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba," implying that such missiles had been installed there with the cooperation of the Cuban government, although it focuses more on superpower dynamics than the internal Cuban decision process.

In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. But the leaders of both superpowers recognized the devastating possibility of a nuclear war and publicly agreed to a deal in which the Soviets would dismantle the weapon sites in exchange for a pledge from the United States not to invade Cuba.

In May 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev proposed deploying nuclear missiles to Cuba to protect his ally from what he saw as a very real threat of a U.S. invasion. Fidel Castro, anticipating further American attempts to overthrow his government after the Bay of Pigs, accepted the Soviet plan. Cuban officials agreed to the secret emplacement of Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles on the island as part of a broader military assistance package negotiated between Havana and Moscow.

As a result of mutual concessions and compromise, an understanding was reached which made it possible to remove the dangerous tension, to normalise the situation. Both sides made concessions. We withdrew the ballistic rockets and agreed to withdraw the IL-28 aircraft. This gives satisfaction to the Americans.

The crisis began in October 1962, with U.S. U-2 aircraft taking reconnaissance photographs of Cuba that showed the Soviet Union had recently placed nuclear missiles there and was preparing them with the capacity to launch and reach targets in the United States. In the summer of 1962, therefore, the Soviet Union increased its exports of important military materiel to Cuba, depriving formerly favored allies such as Gamel Abdel Nasser’s Egypt in the process. The shipments included nuclear missile components that, when readied, could easily reach the United States.

The presence of the tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba was significant. Had JFK followed the initial advice of his advisers to strike Soviet missile bases with air attacks, those weapons might have been used. The nine Luna (FROG) missiles in Cuba had yields of up to two kilotons. ... Indeed, under the terms of an oral agreement that Moscow and Havana had struck that summer, control of the weapons was to be passed to the Cuban government. But Mikoyan became alarmed at Castro’s hostility toward the United States and feared that Moscow would not be able to control its supposed ally. So he decided on his own initiative that the weapons should not be transferred. He informed Castro on November 22 that the deal was off because it violated (an invented) Soviet law on transferring weapons.

In early 1962, a Soviet delegation including military specialists visited Havana under the cover of an agricultural mission and met with Fidel Castro. According to one report cited in historical analyses, the Cuban leadership expected that the United States would invade Cuba again and "enthusiastically approved" the idea of installing nuclear missiles on the island. The report indicates that the Cubans saw the missile deployment as a necessary step to deter U.S. aggression and strengthen the country’s defenses.

Recent scholarship based on Soviet and Cuban archival materials indicates that the missile deployment decision was the result of joint Soviet-Cuban consultations. Fidel Castro, convinced that the United States would attempt another invasion after the Bay of Pigs, agreed to host Soviet nuclear missiles as part of a broader arrangement to bolster Cuba’s defenses. Although Khrushchev initiated the proposal, Cuban acceptance was seen in Soviet accounts as eager and driven by fears of U.S. aggression.

On October 28, 1962, Kennedy and Khrushchev reached a secret deal about the Cuban Missile Crisis: the US would remove its nuclear missiles in Turkey if the Soviets removed their missiles in Cuba. JFK called President Eisenhower to brief him on the developments, though he did not mention the US’s side of the bargain. This agreement followed the earlier Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles to Cuba with the consent of the Cuban government, which had invited Soviet protection against a feared U.S. invasion.

U.S. intelligence in October 1962 discovered that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear-armed missiles on the island of Cuba. These deployments followed mid-1962 agreements between Moscow and Havana that allowed Soviet medium-range and intermediate-range missiles to be based in Cuba. The Council on Foreign Relations’ account notes that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear-armed missiles on the island, reflecting prior Cuban consent to host such weapons as part of the alliance with the USSR.

For 13 days in October of 1962, the world stood on the brink of nuclear war as the U.S. and the Soviet Union feuded over Soviet missiles stored in Cuba, just off the coast of Florida. And finally, the eventual deal between the US and the Soviet Union saw the missiles removed from Cuba under United Nations supervision and a pledge from the US not to attack Cuba. The broadcast describes "Soviet missiles stored in Cuba" in October 1962 and their later removal, implicitly confirming that Cuban territory was used to host Soviet missiles during the crisis.

On the morning of Oct. 28, 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered the removal of missiles from Cuba, ending the 13-day crisis that gripped the world with fears of an all-out nuclear war. The archival footage notes that "Russian missile bases in Cuba" would be dismantled, crated, and shipped back to the Soviet Union, confirming that Soviet missile bases had been established in Cuba by 1962 and were later removed on Khrushchev’s orders.