The world was on high alert, given the potential of a nuclear war. The tension was eased, however, on October 26, when Moscow declared that it would remove its missile pads in Cuba if the US promised not to attempt another invasion of the island (Dockrill and Hopkins, 2006: 85). Even more important was the secret US promise to dismantle its nuclear arsenal in Turkey. In the end, the crisis revealed that open channels of diplomacy and communication could go an extremely long way to bringing a situation back from the brink, setting a powerful precedent for détente a decade later.