The Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to thermonuclear war. "Nuclear catastrophe was hanging by a thread…and we weren't counting by days or hours, but minutes." 1 The United States was at its highest readiness state ever and the Soviets were ready to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield to defend an island off the coast of Florida - Cuba. Due to two great leaders The United States and The Soviet Union avoided actions that may have started WWIII. Fidel Castro assumed power over Cuba on January 1st, 1959. On December 19th, 1960, Cuba openly aligns itself with the So