Premier Khrushchev decided to put ICBMs in Cuba because the U.S. had already put some in Turkey.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis of 1962 constituted a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union kicked off by the American discovery of Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to Cuba's request to put nuclear missiles on the island.
