One of the most serious Cold War events was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It occurred in a dangerous standoff between the Soviets and the US when the latter discovered the secret deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Communist Cuba. Only sensible decision making by the US President (Kennedy) and the Soviet leader (Khrushchev) who ignored the advice of “hawks” prevented a nuclear holocaust. Events that led to the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union were triggered by the policies of the Reagan administration which stepped up military spending that the ailing economy of the Soviet Union was unable to match. The Sovie