Cuban Missile Crisis Soviets had more than 550 similar weapons in Europe. The enormity of how close the world came to thermonuclear war impelled Khrushchev to propose a far-reaching easing of tensions with the US. In a letter to President Kennedy dated October 30, 1962, Khrushchev outlined a range of bold initiatives to forestall the possibility of a further nuclear crisis, including proposing a non-aggression treaty between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact or even disbanding these military blocs, a treaty to cease all nuclear weapons testing and even the elimination of all nuclear weapons, resolution of the hot-button
Cuban Missile Crisis place because its intelligence had been convinced that the Soviets would never install nuclear missiles in Cuba. EXCOMM, of which Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was a member, quickly discussed several possible courses of action: The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously agreed that a full-scale attack and invasion was the only solution. They believed that the Soviets would not attempt to stop the US from conquering Cuba. Kennedy was skeptical: Kennedy concluded that attacking Cuba by air would signal the Soviets to presume "a clear line" to conquer Berlin. Kennedy also believed that US allies would think of the country