The Cuban Missile Crisis was seen as an embarrassment for the Soviet Union and led directly to the removal of Nikita Kruschev from power two years later. There is some irony in this, since the deal which ended the crisis gave each side something that they wanted. Just as the USA secured the removal of Soviet Missiles from Cuba, so to did the Soviet Union secure the removal of American missiles from Turkey. However, it was not widely known at the time that the US had agreed to remove its missiles in Turkey, and so the outcome of the crisis was widely portrayed as a Soviet defeat. Because of this perception, Kruschev lost prestige and was unable to maintain his position at the head of the Soviet Union.
