July in Focus

The events leading up to the Cuban missile crisis as the Soviet military buildup in Cuba gathered momentum exactly half a century ago.

BY RACHEL DOBBS | JULY 17, 2012


July 7, 1962

Raúl Castro, brother to Fidel and Cuban Minister to the Armed Forces, shown above on the far left with General Pliyev (right), arrives in Moscow to negotiate the mutual defense agreement between the USSR and Cuba.

Having met with Raúl, Premier Khrushchev later tells a meeting of his military advisors that "it is impossible to move these forces to Cuba secretly."

The first party of Soviet military advisers then flies to Cuba by TU-114 plane to reconnoiter missile sites.

The Inter-regional Association of Internationalist Fighters (Mezhregional'naya Assotsiatsia Voinov-Internationalistov) 

 

Rachel Dobbs is a research assistant with the Cuban Missile Crisis +50 project. You can follow the project on Twitter at @missilecrisis62.