CHAOS IN CUBA

In October 1962, the world held a collective breath as the US and the Soviet Union teetered on the brink of nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis, as it became known, lasted less than a fortnight, but it was the closest the two great superpowers came to direct confrontation.

The tensions that had led to the crisis had been building for some time. Cuba, which is just 90 miles from the coast of Florida, had previously been a close ally of the US, with the Americans having a large business presence on the island. On 1 January 1959, however, the relationship was thrown into turmoil when the Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista, was toppled in a revolution. Whereas the US had backed Batista due