What were the causes and significance of the Cuban missile crisis?

"The origins of the Cuban missile crisis, which many historians consider to be the point at which the Cold War came nearest to open conflict, and which was, without any doubt, an event of world-wide importance, are paradoxically to be found in regional Latin American politics. In the beginning, the developments in Cuba followed roughly speaking a pattern already known from other countries in the region. A leftist (but not communist) guerrilla movement was organized against the island's dictator (Batista), setting as its aims: more social equality among the country's citizens and relative independence from the United States; a movement playing, as so often, on the peoples hatred of the gringos and of big proprietors (the two often coinciding). What was different from other cases, was Castro's unexpected success and the inability of the United States to respond to it, mainly because they had not backed Batista in the last years of hid regime and as a result had not any group on which ...  more