Rember the accronym M.A.D. (Mutally assured destruction). MAD is the only strategy that works for nuclear weapons, even to this day! The idea behind it is that when one country shoots a nuclear weapon, the only thing the attacked country can do is respond, by detonating a bomb on their enemy. And what does that country do, detonate another bomb. This goes back and forth until both countries are destroyed or out of bombs. The simple idea that the United States and the Soviet Union would have suffered so much damage at that time, brought them to descalate the crisis.