Cuban Missile Crisis
From 1945-1991, the Cold War era took hold. A "cold war" is characterized by a state of political hostility between countries that falls short of open warfare, but typically includes threats, propaganda and other measures. The years following the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were tense to say the least. Not only had the Americans demonstrated their military might to the world, but in August of 1949, the Soviets showed that they too could play.
As Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba, he aligned himself with the Soviets and became dependent on them for military and economic support. In October of 1962, an American U-2 spy plane photographed medium range missiles being assembled in Cuba, just 90 short miles from the Florida coast. What followed in the next thirteen days, became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Red Phone
Did you know that the "hotline" created to directly link the Soviet Union and the United States into almost instant contact during the Cold War was NEVER a red phone -in fact it wasn't a phone at all. It was a special teletype machine where written messages could be sent back and forth between the two superpowers. While transcontinental phone calls were possible, they tended to take hours to connect because they had to be routed through different countries and eavesdropping would have been fairly easy. The teletype machines could be used and a response could be received in a matter of minutes rather than hours. The communication speed wasn't the only perk the hotline provided. As former US Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock stated, "... the idea being is that if you put something in writing it tends to take some of the emotion out of it and in a crisis situation you didn't necessarily want a situation where tempers might flare." Written communication helped reduce the risk of mistranslations, misunderstandings, and overly emotional responses.