Page "Cuban missile crisis" Paragraph 14

A second reason Soviet missiles were deployed to Cuba was because Khrushchev wanted to bring West Berlin — the American / British / French-controlled democratic zone within Communist East Germany — into the Soviet orbit.

The East Germans and Soviets considered western control over a portion of Berlin a grave threat to East Germany.

For this reason, among others, Khrushchev made West Berlin the central battlefield of the Cold War.

Khrushchev believed that if the Americans did nothing over the missile deployments in Cuba, he could muscle the West out of Berlin using said missiles as a deterrent to western counter-measures in Berlin.

If the Americans tried to bargain with the Soviets after becoming aware of the missiles, Khrushchev could demand trading the missiles for West Berlin.

Since Berlin was strategically more important than Cuba, the trade would be a win for Khrushchev.

President Kennedy recognized this: “ The advantage is, from Khrushchev ’ s point of view, he takes a great chance but there are quite some rewards to it .”