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 3,600) and in the technology required for their accurate delivery. The US also led in missile defensive capabilities, naval and air power; but the Soviets had a 2–1 advantage in conventional ground forces, more pronounced in field guns and tanks, particularly in the European theater. In 2017, in "The Putin interviews" with the Director Oliver Stone, the Russian president Vladimir Putin said that the placement of Russian missiles in Cuba was a Russian reaction to the earlier stationing of American missiles in Turkey in 1961-62 (PGM-19 Jupiter). It was Khruschev's attempt to achieve a balance of power. In May 1961,