After the failed U.S. attempt to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs invasion, and while the Kennedy administration planned Operation Mongoose, in July 1962 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev reached a secret agreement with Cuban premier Fidel Castro to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter ...

Since the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's military dictatorship in January 1959, Cuba had been ruled by Fidel Castro. In the course of agricultural reform, Castro nationalised the Cuban property of American undertakings on the island, thereby incurring the wrath of Washington.