ABSTRACT
During the Cold War, the conflict between Cuba and the United States was marked by a series of confrontations in the national security arena that, in some cases, raised international tensions to a frightening level. The 1962 October Crisis was one such event, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. But the threat of armed confrontation was not limited to that crisis alone. Significantly, in the United States that event is generally referred to as the Missile Crisis, and in the Soviet Union as the Caribbean Crisis, but in Cuba we name it as above, by the date it took place because this was not the only time we faced the threat of invasion by the armed forces of the United States. There was danger of an armed attack on at least four other occasions: in 1961, during the battle of Playa Girón or the Bay of Pigs; in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the invasion of the Dominican Republic; in the early 1980s, when the United States accused Cuba of being behind the conflicts in Central America; and in 1983 when U.S. troops attacked the sites of Cuban construction workers during the invasion of Grenada.
