The hotline that was created between the Kremlin and the White House allowed diplomatic messages to be sent over a span of hours between messages. The hotline was also commonly referred to as the "red telephone." But in truth, it was not a telephone, and it was not actually red. This hotline was critical because it allowed the leaders to contact each other quickly in the event of an emergency.

Thanks to failing policy, Nikita Khrushchev was brought out of power only for Leonid Brezhnev to take his place. Khrushchev's policies were already in place and laid a path of western tolerance that the U.S.S.R. decided to take. As for Cuba, Fidel Castro (see right) was seen as a great leader for even pulling off an alliance with the Soviet Union in defiance to America and stayed in power until 2008. In the United States, John F. Kennedy's successful diplomacy with the Soviet Union was seen as a political win for the U.S. and helped the country's morale and opinion of Kennedy.