Credit: Warren K. Leffler. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
In January 1959 Fidel Castro’s revolutionary forces seized power. While the Cuban leader initially claimed this was not a communist revolution, a year later Cuba formally aligned itself with the Soviet Union. Relations with the United States deteriorated further in 1961when the U.S. supported CIA-trained anti-Castro exiles in the Bay of Pigs invasion – a failed attempt to overthrow Castro and a major blow for President Kennedy. In this context, in the summer of 1962 Castro accepted the Soviet offer to install missiles in Cuba as a deterrent to a U.S. invasion. During the crisis Castro urged Khrushchev to defend Cuba and reject American demands to withdraw the missiles. On October 27, believing a U.S. attack was imminent, Castro urged Khrushchev to initiate a nuclear first strike. Castro was excluded from the negotiations and felt that, by agreeing to withdraw the missiles, the Soviets had betrayed Cuba.