Cuba, an island nation located off the southern coast of the United States, allied with the Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis was centered around the island and the nuclear missiles placed there by the Soviet Union, which was reaction to the positioning of American missiles in Italy and Turkey. The crisis ended after negotiations between the President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba and the secret removal of the American missiles in Turkey and Italy.