9. Following Kennedy’s speech the world prepared for nuclear war
China immediately announced its support for Cuba, and by doing so its support of the Soviet Union in the growing crisis. The Soviet Union called Kennedy’s naval quarantine “outright piracy”. In turn, Kennedy elevated the defense readiness of the United States’ armed forces worldwide. Preparations for airstrikes and a follow-up invasion of Cuba continued in the United States, though no longer covertly. French newspapers questioned the accuracy of the photographic evidence of the missiles presented by the CIA. In Rome, Pope John XXIII issued a statement imploring the world’s governments, “do all that is in their power to save peace.
A frightened world stood at the precipice of nuclear annihilation, with America’s top military advisors pushing the young President to take immediate action through bombing and invasion. On October 26 Castro addressed Khrushchev, urging a preemptive nuclear strike on the United States, to forestall an American invasion of Cuba. Khrushchev demurred, continuing secret backdoor negotiations with American diplomats and through couriers. Through the end of October nuclear war seemed imminent. In the end, a deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev brought the crisis to an end without a series of mushroom clouds over the United States, the Caribbean, Western and Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union.