... be fired at the Soviets. The Russians felt rightly threatened and desperately wanted an ally closer to America. When America cut off aid to Cuba, the Soviets saw their opportunity. In 1960 the USSR signed an agreement to buy 1,000,000 tonnes of Cuban sugar every year. This meant that the Soviet Union were soon seen far more fondly than America was by both Castro and the majority of the Cuban people. When the Soviets decided to respond to the threat posed by Western missiles throughout Europe by placing their own missiles close to America, Cuba was the obvious location for those missiles. When the USSR put their missiles in Cuba, America panicked and the Cuban Missile Crisis began. The public explanation for the positioning of missiles so close to America was the defence of the Cuban people. This was welcomed by Castro, who played on Cuban's fears, that America would ...

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