During the Cold War, the Soviet Union owned the missiles in Cuba that were aimed at the United States. In 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev secretly deployed nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to Cuba, whose government was led by Fidel Castro. The weapons were Soviet, although they were stationed on Cuban territory.
The deployment followed the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and reflected Soviet concerns about protecting Cuba from another U.S.-backed attack. It also answered a strategic concern: the United States had stationed nuclear missiles in Turkey and Italy, close to Soviet territory. From Cuba, Soviet missiles could reach much of the continental United States.
U.S. reconnaissance photographs revealed the missile sites in October 1962, beginning the Cuban Missile Crisis. President John F. Kennedy imposed a naval quarantine, while Washington and Moscow negotiated under the threat of nuclear war. Khrushchev eventually agreed to remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba. In a related, privately handled arrangement, the United States later removed its Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Cuba hosted the launch sites, but the missiles belonged to the Soviet Union.