On that particular day of the Cuban crisis, I worked at Brotherhoods, a large engineering Company in Peterborough, and building Money (Notes) printing machines for De La Rue, IIRC it was 3pm, the deadline for the ships to turn away, or else!!. At 2.50. every single machine, or anything that made a noise was shut down, and a whole factory listened to the radio, that was piped through the Tannoy system. no one spoke, it was really spooky. Then, with just seemingly minutes to go, we heard the ships had turned, I saw grown men hug each other and some even cry.
This was a long time ago, and some of the facts I have stated may be a little way out, however, I remember it well.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

A particularly “hairy” moment in time, many commentators now believe that it was just sabre rattling, but the facts are that the missile sites were ready in Cuba, missiles were loaded on the Soviet ships heading for Cuba.

Fairly obviously the USA simply would not tolerate nuclear missiles virtually just off the coast, close enough to void any idea of MAD as a deterrent, look up the status of our V bomber force at that time, aircraft dispersed and loaded with live weapons on standby for rapid launch, the threat certainly felt real and as far as most of can tell was real.

Remember Kruschev was not an amiable Russion bear, he was given to some belligerent statements and extremely excitable, one rash move was all it needed at that time.