Is it true that the world was nearly seconds from the end during the cold war??

Question

My Social Studies teacher told me that he wasn't sure of this trueness but he had heard from a number of credivle sources that said that during the Cuban Missle Crisis there was a standoff and the U.S told the Soviets if they move there ships any closer or surfaced there submarines that we would blow them off the face of the Earth. I know that this may be classified but anyone that was there could you confirm this or if not give me some nonclassified information or where i could find it?

Answer 1

yes several times. the cuban missile crisis was the high point of the cold war. we here in the u.s. have a defense system that uses codes to determine the level of force that would be required to thwart an attack or to respond to an attack. its called defcom- defense command levels and they go from 5 to 1, 5 being normal routine operations and 1 being war. it was the first time the system went to defcom 2 meaning that an attack was imminent. reserves were called up, hardware was being stored in florida, ships were recalled from normal operations to patroling off the coast of florida and the keys, the marines were also stepping up training in case they had to invade, and the air force was doing the surveillance of the island to get a better idea of what they (the russians) had, had installed, the defenses of cuba, probable landing sites, etc. we did impose a blockade of the island and our ships had the authority to fire if anyone tried to run it. all you have to do is search the topic you're looking for in any search engine and you'll have thousands of hits. but the one i would try is historychannel.com, or wikipedia.com.
but there were other incidents that led nations to believe the world was about to end. the soviets launch of sputnik in 1957 had everyone thinking that nukes could be put on missiles instead of satellites. another one that we had was at norad. a computer program that had ended was somehow left on. the program was a simulation of a soviet attack on the u.s. when the people saw that they thought the u.s. was under attack and promptly sent the bombers in the air and alerted the missile silos for launch. this incident was the basis for the movie " wargames". another incident in 1995 actually brought the world closer to ending than the cuban missile crisis did. a norwegian weather satellite was launched and the soviets saw this as a first strike from the u.s. trident submarines patrolling in the north atlantic. they alerted the missile command and got the launch codes for their icbms. the icbms were one minute away from being launched. the only thing that stopped them from being sent was an officer remembered that a week prior, norway informed the soviets of a rocket launch that sent the weather satellite in orbit. look up the history of the cold war and you'll find out that there have been several near catastrophes involving nuclear weapons. hope this helped.

Answer 2

YES, three times, The Bay of Pigs, The Cuban Missle Crisis and the Berlin Blockade. Do a Yahoo or Google Search on all three and there will be information on it.

Answer 3

Google "Bay of Pigs" and "Cuban Missile Crisis"... you'll find more than you may want to know...

On the bright side... you're ignorance on the subject is now a prerequisite to become the White House Press Secretary...

Answer 4

Yes, it got pretty damn close. The Cuban Missile Crisis is not classified. You will also begin to understand why our relationship with Castro is what it is today.

Answer 5

How about you read about the Cuban missile crisis yourself. Why trust rumors from others? There's a link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missle_Crisis

Answer 6

We told the Soviets to go away or we would nuke them. It's called Brinkmanship.

Answer 7

Yea, it got real close.

Answer 8

try to read THIRTEEN DAYS this is a documentry on