d drafted a plan to invade Cuba to keep Castro nervous. As a
             result, Castro thought the US was serious, and he was desperate to find
             protection. This protection came in the form of sixty Soviet medium-range
             ballistic missiles. (Detzer 30-32, 39, 55, 68, 87)
             During his presidential campaign, Kennedy repeatedly stated that the
             US had less missiles than the Soviets, contradicting the Pentagon's claim that
             the opposite was true. However, during the summer of 1961, when
             Khrushchev constructed a wall around West Berlin, the Kennedy
             Administration revealed to Khrushchev that the US. did, in fact, have more
             missiles than the Soviet Union. What worried Khrushchev the most, though,
             was that the Soviet missiles were only powerful enough to be launched
             against Europe, but the US missiles were capable of striking the entire Soviet
             Union. He worried that if the Soviet Union lost the arms race that badly, it
             would invite a nuclear attack from the US. Khrushchev needed a way to
             counter the United State's lead. (May 49)
             In April of 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev came up with the
             idea of installing medium-range missiles in Cuba. Cuba was close enough to
             the United States that the Soviet missiles would be an effective deterrent to a
             potential US attack against either the Soviet Union or Cuba. Castro accepted
             Khrushchev's offer, since it would protect Cuba and, therefore, solve
             Castro's previous dilemma. In mid-July of 1962, the Soviet Union began its
             buildup of offensive weapons in Cuba.
             The Soviets spent most of the late-summer and early-fall of 1962
             ferrying launch equipment and personnel necessary for the preparation of
             missiles to Cuba. Since they could not use military ships (for fear of being
             discovered) the Soviets used civilian vessels. However, even with this
             caution, their actions were detected. As the US monitored the suddenly
             increased shipping activity to Cuba,...