the Cold War

 Quickly after World war 2 was the cold war which was about the Soviets wanting to make everyone a communist like them at the time the U.S. and the Soviet Union were the only ones with nuclear bombs. So there was a fear that a nuclear war would result. There were no fighting against the Soviet Union because it was a cold war. The Red Scare was a time when the Americans were "scared" of a communist infiltrating the U.S. government and would turn the U.S. communist.the Bay of pigs invasion was supposed to be an invasion of Cuba because dictator Fidel Castro over took  Fulgencio Batist, the former leader, who was allied with America. Fidel wasn't treating the Cubans right. The CIA were to train Cuban exiles to overtake the Cuban government, they were to have two bomb raids and have two different attacking forces. This mission failed terribly, most of the bombers missed their targets and the Cubans weren't trained very well. the 1,400 Cuban exiles were quickly under heavy fire and were met by 20,000 troops from Fidel. there were also bad weather also. this looked very bad for President Kennedy and for the CIA. This took place on April 17, 1961. Then there was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. This was the nearest the world came to a total nuclear war. the Cuban island had Soviet leaders in it ready to use these nuclear bombs the moment Cuba is attacked. The Soviet missiles could only reach America if launched from Europe, but American missiles could reach all the way to The Soviet Union. now that Soviet Missiles were in Cuba they could easily reach the U.S. now, this sent America into a panic. As soon as President Kennedy heard of the missiles being there he organized a group of a dozen of the best, most important advisers, he called this group EX-COMM. While this was happening, Fidel Castro the Cuban Dictator was trying to find a successful way to defend Cuba after the Attack at the Bay of pigs Invasion. Kennedy placed a Naval Blockade around Cuba to stop the transport of more weapons. He also sent a lot of stealth missions to spy on the Cubans and what their plans were. Eventually, the advisers from EX-COMM convinced the Cubans and Soviets to lower their Missiles. This could have been very, very bad.