During the Cuban missile crisis, 35th U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy [May 29, 1917-November 22, 1963] never shut down communications with Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev [April 17, 1894-September 11, 1971]. Some of the Soviet leader's statements were conciliatory, others escalatory. Despite the advice of the military and the commentary of those associated with the previous Eisenhower administration, the President always maintained a tone that was consistent with the more conciliatory of the Russian statements. And so the Kennedy line always rang respectfully clear, but strong, to the Soviet Union: we are all mortal, we all worry about those we love and about succeeding generations, and so we must not let this lead to nuclear war. How was nuclear war to be avoided? The President recognized that just as the United States didn't like Soviet missiles in nearby Cuba, the Soviet Union didn't like U.S. missiles in nearby Turkey. He asked that the Soviets remove their defenses in Cuba - or face U.S. quarantine of Cuba, to the great suffering of the Cuban people - in exchange for a removal of U.S. defenses in Turkey. It was a win-win situation.
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He ordered a naval "quarantine" of Cuba and communicated directly and indirectly with the Kremlin.
Nikita Kruschev, Russian PM
1962. The Cuban missile crisis. The soviet union set up nuclear missile camps in cuba
Nikita Khrushchev.
Cuban Missile Crisis of '62.
The (JFK) bungled attempt to rescue Cuba from Castro. The Cuban Missile Crisis The Berlin Wall Crisis JFK's committing the USA to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.