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A period of almost two weeks during the John F. Kennedy administration, in October of 1962, a result of continuing military buildup around the countries of Warsaw Pact especially nuclear ICBM installations in Turkey near the Soviet border and U.S. U2 surveilance flights over USSR. During the period the United States discovered that the Soviet Union was installing ICBM's in Cuba. The U.S. insisted on the withdrawal of the missiles and blockaded Cuba. Concrete proof of the existance of the missiles was provided by the U2 spy plane.

During the crisis the U.S. intrusions continued resulting in one U2 spy plane shot down over Cuba and one sighted but not shot down over USSR over the period of one day. Cuba was blockaded by U.S. navy ships blocking any further deliveries of Soviet military components. The blockade was called a "quarantine" because declaring a "blockade" would be a declaration of war. The Soviet Union wanted the U.S. to remove its missiles from Turkey. The Soviet Union backed down about the Cuban missiles, and the US removed the missiles from Turkey some time later. The Cuban missile crisis is the closest the world came to World War III or total extermination.

see also cold war