Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I don't know if I'd call it a win, it reached win conditions, but it set back a draw back on the cold war between the East and West and the reform of the Soviet Government by decades.
It also allowed a succession of hardliners and party hacks to ascend to power.
|
Could you imagine Russian missiles on Cuba, ready to wipe out the eastern part of the US in minutes? That was a horrendous threat and probably would have been the most destabilizing and potential hazard during the cold war.
I lived through the whole episode, and it was the scariest time of my life. The showdown between Kennedy and Khrushev, and the end result, was a great relief and victory for the whole world. It allowed the Russians and US to develop a balance in nuclear capability over the next couple of years, which eased the tensions for decades.
As far as what ultimately happened in Russia, the changes which brought down the USSR were complex, involving many years of changing economics, and world politics, which I don't believe bear a direct relationship to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
While the Crisis was going on, I was sitting on a well north of Edmonton. My wife and kids were back in Calgary, ready to evacuate in case war broke out. At the time Calgary was divided into a number of areas with designated evacuation sites for each area. We were living in Rosscarrock and my family was to travel to Marysville, BC. I recall the Federal Government had many emergency experts in the area at the time, ready to help.