ABSTRACT
The Soviet leadership underestimated the United States’ determination to protect its own security. Washington had permitted Cuba to go communist, and it had not blocked the development of military ties between Cuba and the U.S.S.R. The time had come, it seemed to Soviet strategists, to out-flank the United States strategically by emplacing intercontinental ballistic missiles in Cuba. This move brought the United States and the Soviet Union close to nuclear war. There were negotiations, however, and the Soviets backed down, although the United States gave ground, too, notably in agreeing not to invade Cuba. A few years later Moscow put pressure on Castro in an effort to control its maverick ally
