Suppose Khrushchev offers Fidel Castro all support for Cuban sovereignty short of basing nuclear missiles there. What knock-on effects could we expect?
[1] To what extent would there still be a confrontation between the US and USSR over the Soviets shipping in military supplies to shore up Castro's regime?
[2] Without an explicit nuclear war scare, might the superpowers communicate less well during future crises?
[3] Were there bullets dodged in OTL because of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
[4] What olive branches might go unoffered, or conferences unconvened, in such a scenario?
[5] How long can Khrushchev remain in power absent our TL's foreign policy humiliation?
[6] Who would replace Khrushchev in an alternate succession?
[7] Without the Crisis, what happens to Kennedy's reputation? (Of course the bigger question is whether his assassination is butterflied. Most likely, yes, but in that case the biggest difference to his reputation would be about that, not about the Crisis.)
[8] How would future American elections go? Certainly '62 would be quite different?
[9] What of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty? How long might something similar take to ratify, and might the conditions be different?
[10] What might the knock-ons of nuclear testing continued at a greater rate have been?