Nikita Khrushchev

Documents from the Mikoyan archive, published in English in 2012, showed that resolving the Cuban missile crisis continued after Khrushchev's public October agreement. Tactical nuclear weapons remained on the island, and Soviet leaders initially intended to leave them there before Anastas Mikoyan negotiated their removal in November. This complicates the familiar picture of a single decisive retreat. It also reveals dangerous gaps between what Washington believed had been settled and what Moscow and Havana still needed to resolve.