Fifty years ago this weekend the world stood on the brink of nuclear oblivion as the USA and USSR squared up to one another over what is now referred to as the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is no exaggeration to say that had the crisis of October 1962 ended differently the world’s history would have terminated on October 27th, 1962. Our planet really was that close to Armageddon.

After the end of World War II an “Iron Curtain” (as Sir Winston Churchill put it) came down between the forces of the West, led by the USA and the forces of Communism led by the USSR. Those two nations became engaged in a nuclear arms race and by the turn of the 1960s had accumulated enough weaponry to destroy each other (and the rest of the world) several times over. The period, known as the Cold War, was a time of great tension and the whole world watched nervously as these hugely powerful nations squared up to one another.

The crisis occurred when the USSR, in retaliation against the USA’s placing of nuclear weapons on the territory of their near neighbours Turkey, accepted an invitation by the American’s sworn enemy Fidel Castro, leader of Cuba, to place nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. This was a step too far for the Americans who hitherto had not been exposed to the same sort of direct threat of nuclear attack that they had imposed upon their enemies. The crisis escalated when the American President, John F. Kennedy, demanded the removal of the missiles and placed US forces on the highest possible alert for war. Negotiations proved fruitless and when an American spy plane was shot down in Cuban airspace the world held its breath and nervously awaited the descent into oblivion.

Fortunately, it never occurred because the Soviet leader, Nikita Kruschev no more wanted war than Kennedy and the USSR agreed to the removal of the weapons in return for a secret agreement by the Americans to remove their weapons from Turkey. The crisis was over and twenty seven years later , in November 1989, the Cold War was over for good with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break up of the Soviet Union.

The question is have we learned from this and, perhaps more importantly, is the world now a safer place? The answers are not too encouraging because although the USSR is no more and Russia and America along with China have a reasonable dialogue and mutual respect and understanding their nuclear weapons remain. Worse still, there has been a proliferation of world wide nuclear capability with nations such as India and Israel joining the club and the very real possibility or probability of rogue states like Iran joining them. Add to this the relentless spread of world terrorism and the threat of Al-Qaeda then it is difficult to say that the world is a safer place than it was fifty years ago.

All we can hope is that those former combatants, Russia and America, and the rest of the civilized world, for that matter, remain committed to peace. We must hope too that they remain vigilant and do all they can to prevent the type of weapons that so nearly destroyed the world all those years ago from falling into the wrong hands now.