US President Joe Biden said this month threats by Russian President Vladimir Putin to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine put the threat of nuclear conflict at its highest since the Cuban Missile Crisis, which began 60 years ago today.
Events in 2022 and in October 1962 have similar parallels – a belligerent Russia, a US president under pressure to respond to aggression, two nuclear superpowers facing off.
Sixty years ago, the flashpoint was Cuba and the deployment of Russian nuclear missiles to the island – just 180km from the US mainland.
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Here is a look at how the dramatic events unfolded over a tense 13 days.
The island of Cuba – close to the American mainland and controlled by Moscow-backed communist Fidel Castro – was a sensitive issue for the US government at the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s.
Weeks before the crisis blew up on October 16, 1962, US President John F. Kennedy had issued statements vowing never to permit the Soviets to put "offensive weapons" less than 200km from Florida.
Kennedy had drawn that red line because he was convinced that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, for all of his characteristic bluster, would never be so foolhardy as to do it.
But then the Soviets did it.
In fact, as the US government was mulling over the possibility of a Soviet missile installation in Cuba, Soviet ships were carrying troops, ballistic missiles, tactical nuclear weapons, nuclear-armed cruise missiles and a force of military planes with nuclear bombs.
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When Kennedy found out, thanks to pictures taken by a U-2 spy plane, he realised, that he had no choice but to act tough.
The US military gave Kennedy three options: a limited air strike; a big air strike; an invasion of Cuba.
Reluctantly, Kennedy endorsed a fourth option designed by his advisors, a group known to history and later Hollywood as "the ExCom".
Kennedy would institute a naval blockade – called a quarantine – and insist that Khrushchev remove all of the offensive weapons already on the island.
But just implementing the blockade, an act that was to delay the approach of war, actually involved the possibility of nuclear confrontation because the US Navy had no idea how the Russians would respond.
On Friday, October 26, 1962, fears of a US invasion were so great that Cuban leader Fidel Castro ordered American reconnaissance planes to be shot down.
The end game came in the form of a public US promise the next day not to invade Cuba and a private – long denied – promise to remove US missiles from Turkey in return for a Soviet pledge to pull out their nuclear missiles from Cuba.
How the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded
October 16: Photos taken by a US spy plane that show nuclear-armed missiles on Cuba are shown to President John F. Kennedy.
October 18: Kennedy receives an assurance from the Soviet government that his country is providing only defensive aid to Fidel Castro's Cuba.
October 22: In a TV address, Kennedy says the weapons are a "clear and present danger" to the US and its allies.
October 23: US naval forces deploy around Cuba to enforce their blockade
October 25: Russian freighters bound for Cuba turn back.
October 26: Nikita Khrushchev writes to Kennedy offering to remove the missiles if the US lifts the blockade and pledges not to invade Cuba.
October 27: Kennedy receives a second letter from the Soviet government demanding much tougher terms. A US spy plane is shot down over Cuba and its pilot dies.
October 28: Russian state radio announces Khrushchev will withdraw the missiles in exchange for a non-invasion pledge by the US.
– Reported with CNN
