Putin’s gambit

The Cuban missile crisis began in 1961 when the US started to deploy 15 Jupiter IRBM — intermediate-range ballistic missiles — in Turkey, close to the Soviet border. With a range of 1,500 miles and a flight time of about 16 minutes, the missiles threatened several cities — including Moscow. On October 14, 1962, photographs shot by US reconnaissance planes and shown to President John F. Kennedy revealed similar installations being erected in Cuba, as a response to the American threat. Days later, on October 28, after a dramatic confrontation threatened world peace, Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, with the intercession of the Secretary General of the United Nations, agreed both sides would dismantle their installations. Now 46 years later US President George W. Bush wants to install a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and a radar tracking station in Poland. News of US missiles being positioned