The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major political and military tension between Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the United States. The crisis included many different events. Tension and secrecy nearly led the three nations to the first outright nuclear war. This predicament began when Fidel Castro came to power as dictator in Cuba on January 1, 1959 (Cuban Missile Crisis Timeline). Shortly after becoming leader of the country, on December 19, 1960, he openly declared that he agreed with the Soviet Union and its policies (Cuban Missile Crisis Timeline). This angered the United States, as it was already in conflict over whether capitalism or communism was better with the Soviet Union. On January 3, 1961, the United States ended all diplomatic relations with Cuba (Cuban Missile Crisis Timeline). Then, on April 17, the United States launched the Bay of Pigs invasion, during which a group of Cuban exiles, supported by the United States, launched an unsuccessful anti-Castro rebellion (Cayton et al. 752). After about two months, Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, and ...