None of this comes to validate the opinion that "USA unilaterally committed itself to ending the entire planet if they didn't get what they wanted." and that "

None of this comes to validate the opinion that "USA unilaterally committed itself to ending the entire planet if they didn't get what they wanted." and that "The USSR were the adults in that conflict". The first link is about a near miss. There were a dozen of these on both sides during the Cold war. The second link is about the equivalence USSR saw between missiles in Turkey and missiles in Cuba. This is not about being adults in the room. This is about Russia failing to being stealthy enough in Cuba. Seriously. They would have done it if they could have gotten away with. And US would have simply bombed Cuba with conventional weapons. Something neither country wanted.