The
Cuban missile crisis — known as the
October crisis in Cuba and the
Caribbean crisis (
Russian:
Kарибский кризис,
tr. Karibskiy krizis) in the former USSR — was a 13-day confrontation between the
Soviet Union and
Cuba on one side, and the
United States on the other, in October 1962. It was one of the major confrontations of the
Cold War, and is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a
nuclear conflict.
[2] It is also the first documented instance of the threat of
mutual assured destruction (MAD) being discussed as a determining factor in a major international arms agreement.
[3][4]
After provocative political moves and the failed US attempt to overthrow the Cuban regime (
Bay of Pigs,
Operation Mongoose), in May 1962
Nikita Khrushchev
proposed the idea of placing Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba to deter
any future invasion attempt. During a meeting between Khrushchev and
Fidel Castro
that July, a secret agreement was reached and construction of several
missile sites began in the late summer. Such a move would also
neutralize the US's advantage of having missiles in Turkey. These
preparations were noticed and on 14 October, a US
U-2 aircraft took several pictures clearly showing sites for
medium-range and
intermediate-range ballistic
nuclear missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) under construction. These images
were processed and presented on October 15, which marks the beginning of
the 13-day crisis from the US perspective.
The United States considered attacking Cuba via air and sea, but
decided on a military blockade instead, calling it a "quarantine" for
legal and other reasons.
[5]
The US announced that it would not permit offensive weapons to be
delivered to Cuba, demanded that the Soviets dismantle the missile bases
already under construction or completed, and return all offensive
weapons to the USSR. The
Kennedy administration held only a slim hope that the Kremlin would agree to their demands, and expected a military confrontation.
On the Soviet side, Premier
Nikita Khrushchev wrote in a letter from October 24, 1962, to President
John F. Kennedy that his blockade
[5]
of "navigation in international waters and air space" constituted "an
act of aggression propelling human kind into the abyss of a world
nuclear-missile war".
[6]
However, in secret back-channel communications the President and
Premier initiated a proposal to resolve the crisis. While this was
taking place, several Soviet ships attempted to run the blockade,
increasing tensions to the point that orders were sent out to US Navy
ships to fire warning shots and then open fire. On 27 October, a U-2
plane was shot down by a Soviet missile crew, an action that could have
resulted in immediate retaliation from the Kennedy crisis cabinet,
according to Secretary of Defense McNamara's later testimony. Kennedy
stayed his hand and the negotiations continued.
The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962,
[7] when Kennedy and
United Nations Secretary-General U Thant
reached an agreement with Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would
dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet
Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US
public declaration and agreement never to invade Cuba. Secretly, the US
also agreed that it would dismantle all US-built
Jupiter IRBMs, armed with nuclear warheads, which were deployed in Turkey and Italy against the Soviet Union.
After the removal of the missiles and
Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers from Cuba, the blockade
[5] was formally ended at 6:45 pm
EST on November 20, 1962.
The tense negotiations between the United States and the Soviet
Union, during which the use of nuclear weapons was not ruled out,
pointed out the necessity of a quick, clear and direct communication
between Washington and Moscow. As a result,
a direct telephone link between the leaders of the two countries was established.
Earlier actions by the United States
The
United States
was concerned about the expansion of Communism, and a Latin American
country allying openly with the USSR was regarded as unacceptable, given
the US-Soviet enmity since the end of World War II. Such an involvement
would also directly defy the
Monroe Doctrine,
a United States policy which, while limiting the United States'
involvement with European colonies and European affairs, held that
European powers ought not to have involvement with states in the
Western Hemisphere.
The United States had been embarrassed publicly by the failed
Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961, which had been launched under President
John F. Kennedy by
CIA-trained forces of
Cuban exiles. Afterward, former President
Eisenhower told Kennedy that "the failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do."
[8]:10 The half-hearted invasion left Soviet premier
Nikita Khrushchev
and his advisers with the impression that Kennedy was indecisive and,
as one Soviet adviser wrote, "too young, intellectual, not prepared well
for decision making in crisis situations ... too intelligent and too
weak."
[8] US covert operations continued in 1961 with the unsuccessful
Operation Mongoose.
[9]
In addition, Khrushchev's impression of Kennedy's weakness was confirmed by the President's soft response during the
Berlin Crisis of 1961, particularly the building of the
Berlin Wall.
Speaking to Soviet officials in the aftermath of the crisis, Khrushchev
asserted, "I know for certain that Kennedy doesn't have a strong
background, nor, generally speaking, does he have the courage to stand
up to a serious challenge." He also told his son
Sergei that on Cuba, Kennedy "would make a fuss, make more of a fuss, and then agree".
[10]
In January 1962, General Edward Lansdale described plans to overthrow
the Cuban Government in a top-secret report (partially declassified
1989), addressed to President Kennedy and officials involved with
Operation Mongoose.
[9] CIA agents or "pathfinders" from the
Special Activities Division were to be infiltrated into
Cuba to carry out sabotage and organization, including radio broadcasts.
[11] In February 1962, the United States launched an
embargo against Cuba,
[12]
and Lansdale presented a 26-page, top-secret timetable for
implementation of the overthrow of the Cuban Government, mandating that
guerrilla operations begin in August and September, and in the first two
weeks of October: "Open revolt and overthrow of the Communist regime".
[9]
Balance of power
When Kennedy ran for president in 1960, one of his key election issues was an alleged "
missile gap", with the Soviets leading. In fact, the United States led the Soviets. In 1961, the Soviets had only four
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). By October 1962, they may have had a few dozen, although some intelligence estimates were as high as 75.
[13]
The United States, on the other hand, had 170 ICBMs and was quickly building more. It also had eight
George Washington and
Ethan Allen class
ballistic missile submarines with the capability to launch 16
Polaris missiles each, with a range of 1,400 miles (2,300 km).
Khrushchev increased the perception of a missile gap when he loudly
boasted to the world that the USSR was building missiles "like sausages"
whose numbers and capabilities actually were nowhere close to his
assertions. The Soviet Union did have
medium-range ballistic missiles
in quantity, about 700 of them, however, these were very unreliable and
inaccurate. Overall, the United States had a very considerable
advantage in total number of nuclear warheads (27,000 against 3,600) at
the time and, more importantly, in all the technologies needed to
deliver them accurately.
The United States also led in missile defensive capabilities, Naval
and Air power; but the USSR enjoyed a two-to-one advantage in
conventional ground forces, more pronounced in field guns and tanks.
[13]
Soviet deployment of missiles in Cuba
In May 1962, Soviet Premier
Nikita Khrushchev
was persuaded by the idea of countering the United States' growing lead
in developing and deploying strategic missiles by placing Soviet
intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, despite the Cuban
Ambassador
Alexeyev's argument that Castro would not accept the deployment of these missiles.
[14] He faced a strategic situation where the US was perceived to have a "splendid
first strike" capability against the Soviet Union. In 1962, the Soviets had only 20
ICBMs capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the
United States from inside the Soviet Union.
[15]
The poor accuracy and reliability of these missiles raised serious
doubts about their effectiveness. A newer, more reliable generation of
ICBMs would only become operational after 1965.
[15]
Therefore, Soviet nuclear capability in 1962 placed less emphasis on
ICBMs than on medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (
MRBMs and
IRBMs). These missiles could hit American allies and most of Alaska from Soviet territory but not the
contiguous 48 states of the USA. Graham Allison, the director of
Harvard University's
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs,
points out, "The Soviet Union could right the nuclear imbalance by
deploying new ICBMs on its own soil. But to meet the threat it faced in
1962, 1963, and 1964, it had very few options. Moving existing nuclear
weapons to locations from which they could reach American targets was
one."
[16]
A second reason Soviet missiles were deployed to
Cuba was because Khrushchev wanted to bring West Berlin—the American/British/French-controlled democratic zone within Communist
East Germany—into the Soviet orbit. The East Germans and Soviets considered western control over a portion of
Berlin a grave threat to
East Germany. For this reason, among others, Khrushchev made
West Berlin
the central battlefield of the Cold War. Khrushchev believed that if
the Americans did nothing over the missile deployments in Cuba, he could
muscle the West out of Berlin using said missiles as a deterrent to
western counter-measures in Berlin. If the Americans tried to bargain
with the Soviets after becoming aware of the missiles, Khrushchev could
demand trading the missiles for West Berlin. Since Berlin was
strategically more important than Cuba, the trade would be a win for
Khrushchev. President Kennedy recognized this: "The advantage is, from
Khrushchev's point of view, he takes a great chance but there are quite
some rewards to it."
[17]
Finally, Khrushchev was also reacting in part to the nuclear threat of obsolescent
Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles which the United States had installed in Turkey during April 1962.
[13]
From the very beginning, the Soviets' operation entailed elaborate
denial and deception, known in the USSR as
maskirovka.
[18]
All of the planning and preparation for transporting and deploying the
missiles were carried out in the utmost secrecy, with only a very few
told the exact nature of the mission. Even the troops detailed for the
mission were given misdirection, told they were headed for a cold region
and outfitted with ski boots, fleece-lined parkas, and other winter
equipment.
[18] The Soviet code name,
Operation Anadyr, was also the name of a
river flowing into the
Bering Sea, the name of the
capital of
Chukotsky District,
and a bomber base in the far eastern region. All these were meant to
conceal the program from both internal and external audiences.
[18]
In early 1962, a group of Soviet military and missile construction
specialists accompanied an agricultural delegation to Havana. They
obtained a meeting with Cuban leader
Fidel Castro.
The Cuban leadership had a strong expectation that the US would invade
Cuba again and they enthusiastically approved the idea of installing
nuclear missiles in Cuba. However, according to another source,
Fidel Castro
objected to the missiles deployment that would have made him look like a
Soviet puppet, but was persuaded that missiles in Cuba would be in the
interests of the entire socialist camp.
[19]
Specialists in missile construction under the guise of "machine
operators", "irrigation specialists" and "agricultural specialists"
arrived in July.
[18]
Marshal Sergei Biryuzov, chief of the Soviet Rocket Forces, led a
survey team that visited Cuba. He told Khrushchev that the missiles
would be concealed and camouflaged by the palm trees.
[13]
The Cuban leadership was further upset when in September the United
States Congress approved US Joint Resolution 230, which expressed
Congress's resolve to prevent the creation of an externally supported
military establishment.
[20] On the same day, the US announced a major military exercise in the Caribbean,
PHIBRIGLEX-62, which Cuba denounced as a deliberate provocation and proof that the US planned to invade Cuba.
[20][21]
Khrushchev and Castro agreed to place strategic nuclear missiles
secretly in Cuba. Like Castro, Khrushchev felt that a US invasion of
Cuba was imminent, and that to lose Cuba would do great harm to the
communist cause, especially in Latin America. He said he wanted to
confront the Americans "with more than words ... the logical answer was
missiles".
[22]:29 The Soviets maintained their tight secrecy, writing their plans longhand, which were approved by
Rodion Malinovsky on July 4 and Khrushchev on July 7.
The Soviet leadership believed, based on their perception of
Kennedy's lack of confidence during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, that he
would avoid confrontation and accept the missiles as a
fait accompli.
[8]:1
On September 11, the Soviet Union publicly warned that a US attack on
Cuba or on Soviet ships carrying supplies to the island would mean war.
[9] The Soviets continued their
Maskirovka
program to conceal their actions in Cuba. They repeatedly denied that
the weapons being brought into Cuba were offensive in nature. On
September 7,
Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin assured
United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson that the USSR was supplying only defensive weapons to Cuba. On September 11, the
Telegrafnoe Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza
(Soviet News Agency TASS) announced that the Soviet Union had no need
or intention to introduce offensive nuclear missiles into Cuba. On
October 13, Dobrynin was questioned by former Undersecretary of State
Chester Bowles about whether the Soviets plan to put offensive weapons in Cuba. He denied any such plans.
[20]
And again on October 17, Soviet embassy official Georgy Bolshakov
brought President Kennedy a "personal message" from Khrushchev
reassuring him that "under no circumstances would surface-to-surface
missiles be sent to Cuba."
[20]:494
As early as August 1962, the United States suspected the Soviets of
building missile facilities in Cuba. During that month, its intelligence
services gathered information about sightings by ground observers of
Russian-built
MiG-21 fighters and
Il-28 light bombers.
U-2 spyplanes found
S-75 Dvina (NATO designation
SA-2) surface-to-air missile sites at eight different locations. CIA director
John A. McCone
was suspicious. Sending antiaircraft missiles into Cuba, he reasoned,
"made sense only if Moscow intended to use them to shield a base for
ballistic missiles aimed at the United States."
[23]
On August 10, he wrote a memo to President Kennedy in which he guessed
that the Soviets were preparing to introduce ballistic missiles into
Cuba.
[13] On August 31, Senator
Kenneth Keating (R-New York), who probably received his information from Cuban exiles in Florida,
[13] warned on the Senate floor that the Soviet Union may be constructing a missile base in Cuba.
[9]
Air Force General
Curtis LeMay
presented a pre-invasion bombing plan to Kennedy in September, while
spy flights and minor military harassment from US forces at
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were the subject of continual Cuban diplomatic complaints to the US government.
[9]
The first consignment of
R-12
missiles arrived on the night of September 8, followed by a second on
September 16. The R-12 was an intermediate-range ballistic missile,
capable of carrying a
thermonuclear warhead.
[24] It was a single-stage, road-transportables, surface-launched, storable liquid propellant fueled missile that could deliver a
megaton-class nuclear weapon.
[25] The Soviets were building nine sites—six for
R-12 medium-range missiles (NATO designation
SS-4 Sandal) with an effective range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) and three for
R-14 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (NATO designation
SS-5 Skean) with a maximum range of 4,500 kilometres (2,800 mi).
[26]
Cuba positioning
On October 7, Cuban President
Osvaldo Dorticós spoke at the
UN General Assembly:
"If ... we are attacked, we will defend ourselves. I repeat, we have
sufficient means with which to defend ourselves; we have indeed our
inevitable weapons, the weapons, which we would have preferred not to
acquire, and which we do not wish to employ."
Missiles reported
The missiles in Cuba allowed the Soviets to effectively target almost
the entire continental United States. The planned arsenal was forty
launchers. The Cuban populace readily noticed the arrival and deployment
of the missiles and hundreds of reports reached Miami. US intelligence
received countless reports, many of dubious quality or even laughable,
and most of which could be dismissed as describing defensive missiles.
Only five reports bothered the analysts. They described large trucks
passing through towns at night carrying very long canvas-covered
cylindrical objects that could not make turns through towns without
backing up and maneuvering. Defensive missiles could make these turns.
These reports could not be satisfactorily dismissed.
[27]
U-2 reconnaissance photograph of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.
Missile transports and tents for fueling and maintenance are visible.
Photo taken by the CIA
Corona satellite and U-2 flights find missiles
Despite the increasing evidence of a military build-up on Cuba, no
U-2 flights were made over Cuba from September 5 until October 14. The
first problem that caused the pause in reconnaissance flights took place
on August 30, when a U-2 operated by the U.S. Air Force's
Strategic Air Command flew over
Sakhalin Island in the
Soviet Far East by mistake. The Soviets lodged a protest and the US apologized. Nine days later, a Taiwanese-operated U-2
[28][29] was lost over western China, probably to a
SAM.
US officials were worried that one of the Cuban or Soviet SAMs in Cuba
might shoot down a CIA U-2, initiating another international incident.
Therefore, the Kennedy administration decided to try the new
Corona (satellite)
KH series in an attempt to obtain sufficient evidence. Preparations for
an emergency launch proceeded at fever pitch and led to the NRO's
institution of "R7" status, that is, keeping a Corona spy satellite
ready for launch on 7 days' notice in case of an emergency. At the end
of September, Navy reconnaissance aircraft photographed the Soviet ship
Kasimov with large crates on its deck the size and shape of
Il-28 light bombers.
[13]
With evidence in hand from both the Corona satellite and Navy
Reconnaissance aircraft, at the beginning of October the administration
decided it was now worth risking U-2 flights over Cuba. They decided to
transfer the Cuban U-2 reconnaissance missions to the Air Force; if
another U-2 was shot down, they thought a cover story involving Air
Force flights would be easier to explain than CIA flights. There was
also some evidence that the Department of Defense and the Air Force
lobbied to get responsibility for the Cuban flights.
[13]
When the reconnaissance missions were re-authorized on October 8,
weather kept the planes from flying. The US first obtained U-2
photographic evidence of the missiles on October 14, when a
U-2 flight piloted by Major
Richard Heyser took 928 pictures, capturing images of what turned out to be an SS-4 construction site at
San Cristóbal,
Pinar del Río Province (now in
Artemisa Province), in western Cuba.
[30]
President notified
On October 15, the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center
reviewed the U-2 photographs and identified objects that they
interpreted as medium range ballistic missiles. That evening, the CIA
notified the
Department of State and at 8:30 pm
EDT,
National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy elected to wait until morning to tell the President.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
was briefed at midnight. The next morning, Bundy met with Kennedy and
showed him the U-2 photographs and briefed him on the CIA's analysis of
the images.
[31] At 6:30 pm EDT, Kennedy convened a meeting of the nine members of the
National Security Council and five other key advisors,
[32] in a group he formally named the
Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM) after the fact on October 22 by the National Security Action Memorandum 196.
[33]
Responses considered
The US had no plan in place because US intelligence had been
convinced that the Soviets would never install nuclear missiles in Cuba.
The EXCOMM quickly discussed several possible courses of action,
including:
[21][34]
- Do nothing: American vulnerability to Soviet missiles was not new.
Newly placed missiles in Cuba made little strategic difference in the
military balance of power.
- Diplomacy: Use diplomatic pressure to get the Soviet Union to remove the missiles.
- Warning: Send a message to Castro to warn him of the grave danger he, and Cuba were in.
- Blockade: Use the US Navy to block any missiles from arriving in Cuba.
- Air strike: Use the US Air Force to attack all known missile sites.
- Invasion: Full force invasion of Cuba and overthrow of Castro.
The
Joint Chiefs of Staff
unanimously agreed that a full-scale attack and invasion was the only
solution. They believed that the Soviets would not attempt to stop the
US from conquering Cuba. Kennedy was skeptical.
They, no more than we, can let these things go by without doing
something. They can't, after all their statements, permit us to take out
their missiles, kill a lot of Russians, and then do nothing. If they
don't take action in Cuba, they certainly will in Berlin.[35]
Kennedy concluded that attacking Cuba by air would signal the Soviets
to presume "a clear line" to conquer Berlin. Kennedy also believed that
United States' allies would think of the US as "trigger-happy cowboys"
who lost Berlin because they could not peacefully resolve the Cuban
situation.
[1]:332
President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara in an EXCOMM meeting.
The EXCOMM then discussed the effect on the strategic balance of
power, both political and military. The Joint Chiefs of Staff believed
that the missiles would seriously alter the military balance, but
Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara
disagreed. He was convinced that the missiles would not affect the
strategic balance at all. An extra forty, he reasoned, would make little
difference to the overall strategic balance. The US already had
approximately 5,000 strategic warheads,
[36]:261
while the Soviet Union had only 300. He concluded that the Soviets
having 340 would not therefore substantially alter the strategic
balance. In 1990, he reiterated that "it made
no difference ... The military balance wasn't changed. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now."
[37]
The EXCOMM agreed that the missiles would affect the
political
balance. First, Kennedy had explicitly promised the American people
less than a month before the crisis that "if Cuba should possess a
capacity to carry out offensive actions against the United States ...
the United States would act."
[38]:674–681 Second, US credibility among their allies, and among the American people, would be damaged if they allowed the Soviet Union to
appear
to redress the strategic balance by placing missiles in Cuba. Kennedy
explained after the crisis that "it would have politically changed the
balance of power. It would have appeared to, and appearances contribute
to reality."
[39]
President Kennedy meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the Oval Office (October 18, 1962)
On October 18, President Kennedy met with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Andrei Gromyko,
who claimed the weapons were for defensive purposes only. Not wanting
to expose what he already knew, and wanting to avoid panicking the
American public,
[40] the President did not reveal that he was already aware of the missile build-up.
[41]
By October 19, frequent U-2 spy flights showed four operational
sites. As part of the blockade, the US military was put on high alert to
enforce the blockade and to be ready to invade Cuba at a moment's
notice. The
1st Armored Division was sent to
Georgia, and five army
divisions were alerted for combat operations. The
Strategic Air Command (SAC) distributed its shorter-ranged
B-47 Stratojet medium bombers to civilian airports and sent aloft its
B-52 Stratofortress heavy bombers.
[42]
Operational plans
Two Operational Plans (OPLAN) were considered. OPLAN 316 envisioned a
full invasion of Cuba by Army and Marine units supported by the Navy
following Air Force and naval airstrikes. However, Army units in the
United States would have had trouble fielding mechanized and logistical
assets, while the US Navy could not supply sufficient amphibious
shipping to transport even a modest armored contingent from the Army.
OPLAN 312, primarily an Air Force and Navy carrier operation, was
designed with enough flexibility to do anything from engaging individual
missile sites to providing air support for OPLAN 316's ground forces.
[43]
Blockade ("quarantine")
A US Navy
P-2H Neptune of VP-18 flying over a Soviet cargo ship with crated
Il-28s on deck during the Cuban Crisis.
[44]
Kennedy met with members of EXCOMM and other top advisers throughout
October 21, considering two remaining options: an air strike primarily
against the Cuban missile bases, or a naval blockade of Cuba.
[41] A full-scale invasion was not the administration's first option. Robert McNamara supported the naval
blockade
as a strong but limited military action that left the US in control.
However, the term "blockade" was problematic. According to
international law a blockade is an
act of war, but the Kennedy administration did not think that the USSR would be provoked to attack by a mere blockade.
[45] Additionally, legal experts at the
State Department and
Justice Department concluded that a declaration of war could be avoided so long as another legal justification, based on the
Rio Treaty for defense of the Western Hemisphere, was obtained via a resolution by a two-thirds vote from the members or the
Organization of American States (OAS).
[46]
Admiral Anderson,
Chief of Naval Operations wrote a position paper that helped Kennedy to differentiate between what they termed a "quarantine"
[5]
of offensive weapons and a blockade of all materials, claiming that a
classic blockade was not the original intention. Since it would take
place in international waters, Kennedy obtained the approval of the OAS
for military action under the hemispheric defense provisions of the Rio
Treaty.
Latin American participation in the quarantine now involved two
Argentine destroyers which were to report to the US Commander South
Atlantic [COMSOLANT] at Trinidad on November 9. An Argentine submarine
and a Marine battalion with lift were available if required. In
addition, two Venezuelan destroyers (Destroyers ARV D-11 Nueva Esparta"
and "ARV D-21 Zulia") and one submarine (Caribe) had reported to
COMSOLANT, ready for sea by November 2. The Government of Trinidad and
Tobago offered the use of Chaguaramas
Naval Base to warships of any OAS nation for the duration of the
"quarantine". The Dominican Republic had made available one escort ship.
Colombia was reported ready to furnish units and had sent military
officers to the US to discuss this assistance. The Argentine Air Force
informally offered three SA-16 aircraft in addition to forces already committed to the "quarantine" operation.[47]
This initially was to involve a naval blockade against offensive weapons within the framework of the Organization of American States and the Rio Treaty.
Such a blockade might be expanded to cover all types of goods and air
transport. The action was to be backed up by surveillance of Cuba. The
CNO's scenario was followed closely in later implementing the
"quarantine".
On October 19, the EXCOMM formed separate working groups to examine
the air strike and blockade options, and by the afternoon most support
in the EXCOMM shifted to the blockade option. Reservations about the
plan continued to be voiced as late as the twenty-first, however, the
paramount one being that once the blockade was put into effect, the
Soviets would rush to complete some of the missiles. Consequently, the
United States could find itself bombing operational missiles were the
blockade to fail to force Khrushchev to remove the missiles already on
the island.
[48]
President Kennedy signs the Proclamation for Interdiction of the Delivery of Offensive Weapons to Cuba at the
Oval Office on October 23, 1962.
At 3:00 pm EDT on October 22, President Kennedy formally established
the Executive Committee (EXCOMM) with National Security Action
Memorandum (NSAM) 196. At 5:00 pm, he met with Congressional leaders who
contentiously opposed a blockade and demanded a stronger response. In
Moscow, Ambassador
Kohler
briefed Chairman Khrushchev on the pending blockade and Kennedy's
speech to the nation. Ambassadors around the world gave advance notice
to non-
Eastern Bloc leaders. Before the speech, US delegations met with Canadian Prime Minister
John Diefenbaker, British Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan,
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and French President
Charles de Gaulle to brief them on the US intelligence and their proposed response. All were supportive of the US position.
[49]
On October 22 at 7:00 pm EDT, President Kennedy delivered a
nation-wide televised address on all of the major networks announcing
the discovery of the missiles.
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile
launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an
attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full
retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.[50]
Kennedy described the administration's plan:
To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive
military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships
of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port, will, if found
to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This
quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and
carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of
life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.[50]
During the speech a directive went out to all US forces worldwide placing them on
DEFCON 3. The heavy cruiser
USS Newport News was designated flagship for the blockade,
[5] with the
USS Leary (DD-879) as
Newport News' destroyer escort.
[47]
Crisis deepens
Khrushchev's October 24, 1962 letter to President Kennedy stating that
the Cuban missile crisis blockade "constitute[s] an act of
aggression ..."
On October 23 at 11:24 am EDT a cable drafted by
George Ball to the US Ambassador in Turkey and the US Ambassador to
NATO
notified them that they were considering making an offer to withdraw
what the US knew to be nearly obsolete missiles from Italy and Turkey in
exchange for the Soviet withdrawal from Cuba. Turkish officials replied
that they would "deeply resent" any trade for the US missile's presence
in their country.
[51] Two days later, on the morning of October 25, journalist
Walter Lippmann
proposed the same thing in his syndicated column. Castro reaffirmed
Cuba's right to self-defense and said that all of its weapons were
defensive and Cuba would not allow an inspection.
[9]
International response
Three days after Kennedy's speech, the Chinese
People's Daily announced that "650,000,000 Chinese men and women were standing by the Cuban people".
[49]
In West Germany, newspapers supported the United States' response,
contrasting it with the weak American actions in the region during the
preceding months. They also expressed some fear that the Soviets might
retaliate in Berlin. In France on October 23, the crisis made the front
page of all the daily newspapers. The next day, an editorial in
Le Monde
expressed doubt about the authenticity of the CIA's photographic
evidence. Two days later, after a visit by a high-ranking CIA agent,
they accepted the validity of the photographs. Also in France, in the
October 29 issue of
Le Figaro, Raymond Aron wrote in support of the American response.
[52]
Soviet broadcast
At the time, the crisis continued unabated, and on the evening of
October 24, the Soviet news agency TASS broadcast a telegram from
Khrushchev to President Kennedy, in which Khrushchev warned that the
United States' "outright piracy" would lead to war.
[53]
However, this was followed at 9:24 pm by a telegram from Khrushchev to
Kennedy which was received at 10:52 pm EDT, in which Khrushchev stated,
"If you coolly weigh the situation which has developed, not giving way
to passions, you will understand that the Soviet Union cannot fail to
reject the arbitrary demands of the United States" and that the Soviet
Union views the blockade as "an act of aggression" and their ships will
be instructed to ignore it.
US alert level raised
Adlai Stevenson shows aerial photos of Cuban missiles to the United Nations. (October 25, 1962)
The United States requested an emergency meeting of the
United Nations Security Council on October 25. US Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson confronted Soviet Ambassador
Valerian Zorin
in an emergency meeting of the SC challenging him to admit the
existence of the missiles. Ambassador Zorin refused to answer. The next
day at 10:00 pm EDT, the United States raised the readiness level of SAC
forces to DEFCON 2. For the only confirmed time in US history, while
the
B-52 bombers went on continuous airborne alert, the
B-47
medium bombers were dispersed to various military and civilian
airfields, and made ready to take off, fully equipped, on 15 minutes'
notice.
[54][55]
One-eighth of SAC's 1,436 bombers were on airborne alert, some 145
intercontinental ballistic missiles stood on ready alert, while
Air Defense Command
(ADC) redeployed 161 nuclear-armed interceptors to 16 dispersal fields
within nine hours with one-third maintaining 15-minute alert status.
[43]
Twenty-three nuclear-armed B-52 were sent to orbit points within
striking distance of the Soviet Union so that the latter might observe
that the US was serious.
[56] Jack J. Catton later estimated that about 80% of SAC's planes were ready for launch during the crisis;
David A. Burchinal recalled that, by contrast,
[57]
the Russians were so thoroughly stood down, and we
knew it. They didn't make any move. They did not increase their alert;
they did not increase any flights, or their air defense posture. They
didn't do a thing, they froze in place. We were never further from
nuclear war than at the time of Cuba, never further.
[57]
"By October 22,
Tactical Air Command
(TAC) had 511 fighters plus supporting tankers and reconnaissance
aircraft deployed to face Cuba on one-hour alert status. However, TAC
and the
Military Air Transport Service
had problems. The concentration of aircraft in Florida strained command
and support echelons; which faced critical undermanning in security,
armaments, and communications; the absence of initial authorization for
war-reserve stocks of conventional munitions forced TAC to scrounge; and
the lack of airlift assets to support a major airborne drop
necessitated the call-up of 24 Reserve squadrons."
[43]
On October 25 at 1:45 am EDT, Kennedy responded to Khrushchev's
telegram, stating that the United States was forced into action after
receiving repeated assurances that no offensive missiles were being
placed in Cuba, and that when these assurances proved to be false, the
deployment "required the responses I have announced ... I hope that your
government will take necessary action to permit a restoration of the
earlier situation."
A declassified map used by the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet showing the
position of American and Soviet ships at the height of the crisis.
Blockade challenged
At 7:15 am EDT on October 25, the
USS Essex and
USS Gearing attempted to intercept the
Bucharest
but failed to do so. Fairly certain the tanker did not contain any
military material, they allowed it through the blockade. Later that day,
at 5:43 pm, the commander of the blockade effort ordered the
USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr to intercept and
board the
Lebanese freighter
Marucla. This took place the next day, and the
Marucla was cleared through the blockade after its cargo was checked.
[58]
At 5:00 pm EDT on October 25, William Clements announced that the
missiles in Cuba were still actively being worked on. This report was
later verified by a CIA report that suggested there had been no
slow-down at all. In response, Kennedy issued Security Action Memorandum
199, authorizing the loading of nuclear weapons onto aircraft under the
command of
SACEUR
(which had the duty of carrying out first air strikes on the Soviet
Union). During the day, the Soviets responded to the blockade by turning
back 14 ships presumably carrying offensive weapons.
[55]
Crisis stalemated
The next morning, October 26, Kennedy informed the EXCOMM that he
believed only an invasion would remove the missiles from Cuba. However,
he was persuaded to give the matter time and continue with both military
and diplomatic pressure. He agreed and ordered the low-level flights
over the island to be increased from two per day to once every two
hours. He also ordered a crash program to institute a new civil
government in Cuba if an invasion went ahead.
At this point, the crisis was ostensibly at a stalemate. The USSR had
shown no indication that they would back down and had made several
comments to the contrary. The US had no reason to believe otherwise and
was in the early stages of preparing for an invasion, along with a
nuclear strike on the Soviet Union in case it responded militarily,
which was assumed.
[59]
Secret negotiations
At 1:00 pm EDT on October 26,
John A. Scali of
ABC News had lunch with Aleksandr Fomin (alias of spy
Alexander Feklisov)
at Fomin's request. Fomin noted, "War seems about to break out" and
asked Scali to use his contacts to talk to his "high-level friends" at
the State Department to see if the US would be interested in a
diplomatic solution. He suggested that the language of the deal would
contain an assurance from the Soviet Union to remove the weapons under
UN supervision and that Castro would publicly announce that he would not
accept such weapons in the future, in exchange for a public statement
by the US that it would never invade Cuba.
[60] The US responded by asking the
Brazilian government to pass a message to Castro that the US would be "unlikely to invade" if the missiles were removed.
[51]
Mr. President, we and you ought not now to pull on the ends of the
rope in which you have tied the knot of war, because the more the two of
us pull, the tighter that knot will be tied. And a moment may come when
that knot will be tied so tight that even he who tied it will not have
the strength to untie it, and then it will be necessary to cut that
knot, and what that would mean is not for me to explain to you, because
you yourself understand perfectly of what terrible forces our countries
dispose.
Consequently, if there is no intention to tighten that knot and
thereby to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war, then
let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let us
take measures to untie that knot. We are ready for this.
Letter From Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, October 26, 1962
[61]
On October 26 at 6:00 pm EDT, the State Department started receiving a
message that appeared to be written personally by Khrushchev. It was
Saturday at 2:00 am in Moscow. The long letter took several minutes to
arrive, and it took translators additional time to translate and
transcribe it.
[51]
Robert Kennedy described the letter as "very long and emotional".
Khrushchev reiterated the basic outline that had been stated to John
Scali earlier in the day, "I propose: we, for our part, will declare
that our ships bound for Cuba are not carrying any armaments. You will
declare that the United States will not invade Cuba with its troops and
will not support any other forces which might intend to invade Cuba.
Then the necessity of the presence of our military specialists in Cuba
will disappear." At 6:45 pm EDT, news of Fomin's offer to Scali was
finally heard and was interpreted as a "set up" for the arrival of
Khrushchev's letter. The letter was then considered official and
accurate, although it was later learned that Fomin was almost certainly
operating of his own accord without official backing. Additional study
of the letter was ordered and continued into the night.
[51]
Crisis continues
Direct aggression against Cuba would mean nuclear war. The Americans
speak about such aggression as if they did not know or did not want to
accept this fact. I have no doubt they would lose such a war. —Ernesto "Che" Guevara, October 1962[62]
S-75 Dvina
with V-750V 1D missile (NATO SA-2 Guideline) on a launcher. An
installation similar to this one shot down Major Anderson's U-2 over
Cuba.
Castro, on the other hand, was convinced that an invasion of Cuba was soon at hand, and on October 26, he sent a telegram to
Khrushchev
that appeared to call for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USA.
However, in a 2010 interview, Castro said of his recommendation for the
Soviets to attack America
before they made any move against Cuba: "After I've seen what I've seen, and knowing what I know now, it wasn't worth it at all."
[63] Castro also ordered all anti-aircraft weapons in Cuba to fire on any US aircraft,
[64]
whereas in the past they had been ordered only to fire on groups of two
or more. At 6:00 am EDT on October 27, the CIA delivered a memo
reporting that three of the four missile sites at San Cristobal and the
two sites at Sagua la Grande appeared to be fully operational. They also
noted that the Cuban military continued to organize for action,
although they were under order not to initiate action unless attacked.
[citation needed]
At 9:00 am EDT on October 27,
Radio Moscow
began broadcasting a message from Khrushchev. Contrary to the letter of
the night before, the message offered a new trade, that the missiles on
Cuba would be removed in exchange for the removal of the
Jupiter
missiles from Italy and Turkey. At 10:00 am EDT, the executive
committee met again to discuss the situation and came to the conclusion
that the change in the message was due to internal debate between
Khrushchev and other party officials in the Kremlin.
[65]:300 McNamara noted that another tanker, the
Grozny,
was about 600 miles (970 km) out and should be intercepted. He also
noted that they had not made the USSR aware of the blockade line and
suggested relaying this information to them via
U Thant at the United Nations.
[66]
A
Lockheed U-2F, the high altitude reconnaissance type shot down over Cuba, being refueled by a
Boeing KC-135Q. The aircraft in 1962 was painted overall gray and carried USAF military markings and national insignia.
While the meeting progressed, at 11:03 am EDT a new message began to arrive from Khrushchev. The message stated, in part,
You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you because
it is ninety-nine miles by sea from the coast of the United States of
America. But ... you have placed destructive missile weapons, which you
call offensive, in Italy and Turkey, literally next to us ... I
therefore make this proposal: We are willing to remove from Cuba the
means which you regard as offensive ... Your representatives will make a
declaration to the effect that the United States ... will remove its
analogous means from Turkey ... and after that, persons entrusted by the
United Nations Security Council could inspect on the spot the
fulfillment of the pledges made.
The executive committee continued to meet through the day.
Throughout the crisis, Turkey had repeatedly stated that it would be upset if the
Jupiter missiles were removed. Italy's Prime Minister
Fanfani, who was also Foreign Minister
ad interim, offered to allow withdrawal of the missiles deployed in
Apulia as a bargaining chip. He gave the message to one of his most trusted friends,
Ettore Bernabei, the general manager of
RAI-TV, to convey to
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr..
Bernabei was in New York to attend an international conference on
satellite TV broadcasting. Unknown to the Soviets, the US regarded the
Jupiter missiles as obsolescent and already supplanted by the Polaris
nuclear ballistic submarine missiles.
[13]
On the morning of October 27, a U-2F (the third CIA U-2A, modified for air-to-air refueling) piloted by USAF Major
Rudolf Anderson,
[67] departed its forward operating location at
McCoy AFB, Florida. At approximately 12:00 pm EDT, the aircraft was struck by a
S-75 Dvina (
NATO designation
SA-2 Guideline)
SAM
missile launched from Cuba. The aircraft was shot down and Anderson was
killed. The stress in negotiations between the USSR and the US
intensified, and only much later was it learned that the decision to
fire the missile was made locally by an undetermined Soviet commander
acting on his own authority. Later that day, at about 3:41 pm EDT,
several US Navy
RF-8A Crusader aircraft on low-level
photoreconnaissance missions were fired upon.
At 4:00 pm EDT, Kennedy recalled members of EXCOMM to the
White House
and ordered that a message immediately be sent to U Thant asking the
Soviets to "suspend" work on the missiles while negotiations were
carried out. During this meeting, General
Maxwell Taylor
delivered the news that the U-2 had been shot down. Kennedy had earlier
claimed he would order an attack on such sites if fired upon, but he
decided to not act unless another attack was made. In an interview 40
years later, McNamara said:
We had to send a U-2 over to gain reconnaissance information on
whether the Soviet missiles were becoming operational. We believed that
if the U-2 was shot down that—the Cubans didn't have capabilities to
shoot it down, the Soviets did—we believed if it was shot down, it would
be shot down by a Soviet surface-to-air-missile unit, and that it would
represent a decision by the Soviets to escalate the conflict. And
therefore, before we sent the U-2 out, we agreed that if it was shot
down we wouldn't meet, we'd simply attack. It was shot down on
Friday. ... Fortunately, we changed our mind, we thought "Well, it might
have been an accident, we won't attack." Later we learned that
Khrushchev had reasoned just as we did: we send over the U-2, if it was
shot down, he reasoned we would believe it was an intentional
escalation. And therefore, he issued orders to Pliyev, the Soviet
commander in Cuba, to instruct all of his batteries not to shoot down
the U-2.[note 1][68]
Drafting the response
Emissaries sent by both Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev agreed to meet at the Yenching Palace Chinese restaurant in the
Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington D.C. on the evening of October 27.
[69]
Kennedy suggested that they take Khrushchev's offer to trade away the
missiles. Unknown to most members of the EXCOMM, Robert Kennedy had been
meeting with the Soviet Ambassador in Washington to discover whether
these intentions were genuine. The EXCOMM was generally against the
proposal because it would undermine
NATO's authority, and the Turkish government had repeatedly stated it was against any such trade.
As the meeting progressed, a new plan emerged and Kennedy was slowly
persuaded. The new plan called for the President to ignore the latest
message and instead to return to Khrushchev's earlier one. Kennedy was
initially hesitant, feeling that Khrushchev would no longer accept the
deal because a new one had been offered, but
Llewellyn Thompson argued that he might accept it anyway.
[70] White House Special Counsel and Adviser
Ted Sorensen
and Robert Kennedy left the meeting and returned 45 minutes later with a
draft letter to this effect. The President made several changes, had it
typed, and sent it.
After the EXCOMM meeting, a smaller meeting continued in the
Oval Office.
The group argued that the letter should be underscored with an oral
message to Ambassador Dobrynin stating that if the missiles were not
withdrawn, military action would be used to remove them. Dean Rusk added
one proviso, that no part of the language of the deal would mention
Turkey, but there would be an understanding that the missiles would be
removed "voluntarily" in the immediate aftermath. The President agreed,
and the message was sent.
An
EXCOMM
meeting on October 29, 1962 held in the White House Cabinet Room during
the Cuban missile crisis. President Kennedy is to the left of the
American flag; on his left is Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara and his right is Secretary of State
Dean Rusk.
At
Juan Brito[specify]'s
request, Fomin and Scali met again. Scali asked why the two letters
from Khrushchev were so different, and Fomin claimed it was because of
"poor communications". Scali replied that the claim was not credible and
shouted that he thought it was a "stinking double cross". He went on to
claim that an invasion was only hours away, at which point Fomin stated
that a response to the US message was expected from Khrushchev shortly,
and he urged Scali to tell the State Department that no treachery was
intended. Scali said that he did not think anyone would believe him, but
he agreed to deliver the message. The two went their separate ways, and
Scali immediately typed out a memo for the EXCOMM.
[citation needed]
Within the US establishment, it was well understood that ignoring the
second offer and returning to the first put Khrushchev in a terrible
position. Military preparations continued, and all active duty Air Force
personnel were recalled to their bases for possible action. Robert
Kennedy later recalled the mood, "We had not abandoned all hope, but
what hope there was now rested with Khrushchev's revising his course
within the next few hours. It was a hope, not an expectation. The
expectation was military confrontation by Tuesday, and possibly
tomorrow ...".
[citation needed]
At 8:05 pm EDT, the letter drafted earlier in the day was delivered.
The message read, "As I read your letter, the key elements of your
proposals—which seem generally acceptable as I understand them—are as
follows: 1) You would agree to remove these weapons systems from Cuba
under appropriate United Nations observation and supervision; and
undertake, with suitable safe-guards, to halt the further introduction
of such weapon systems into Cuba. 2) We, on our part, would agree—upon
the establishment of adequate arrangements through the United Nations,
to ensure the carrying out and continuation of these commitments (a) to
remove promptly the quarantine measures now in effect and (b) to give
assurances against the invasion of Cuba." The letter was also released
directly to the press to ensure it could not be "delayed".
[citation needed]
With the letter delivered, a deal was on the table. However, as
Robert Kennedy noted, there was little expectation it would be accepted.
At 9:00 pm EDT, the EXCOMM met again to review the actions for the
following day. Plans were drawn up for air strikes on the missile sites
as well as other economic targets, notably petroleum storage. McNamara
stated that they had to "have two things ready: a government for Cuba,
because we're going to need one; and secondly, plans for how to respond
to the Soviet Union in Europe, because sure as hell they're going to do
something there".
[citation needed]
At 12:12 am EDT, on October 27, the US informed its NATO allies that
"the situation is growing shorter ... the United States may find it
necessary within a very short time in its interest and that of its
fellow nations in the Western Hemisphere to take whatever military
action may be necessary." To add to the concern, at 6 am the CIA
reported that all missiles in Cuba were ready for action.
Later on that same day, what the White House later called "Black Saturday", the US Navy dropped a series of "signaling
depth charges" (practice depth charges the size of hand grenades
[71]) on a Soviet submarine (
B-59)
at the blockade line, unaware that it was armed with a nuclear-tipped
torpedo with orders that allowed it to be used if the submarine was
"hulled" (a hole in the hull from depth charges or surface fire).
[72] The decision to launch these required agreement from all three officers on board, but one of them,
Vasili Arkhipov, objected and so the launch was narrowly averted.
On the same day a US U-2 spy plane made an accidental, unauthorized
ninety-minute overflight of the Soviet Union's far eastern coast.
[73] The Soviets responded by scrambling MiG fighters from
Wrangel Island; in turn the Americans launched
F-102 fighters armed with nuclear air-to-air missiles over the Bering Sea.
[74]
On October 27, Khrushchev also received a letter from Castro – what
is now known as the Armageddon Letter (dated Oct. 26) – interpreted as
urging the use of nuclear force in the event of an attack on Cuba.
[75]
"I believe the imperialists' aggressiveness is extremely dangerous and
if they actually carry out the brutal act of invading Cuba in violation
of international law and morality, that would be the moment to eliminate
such danger forever through an act of clear legitimate defense, however
harsh and terrible the solution would be," Castro wrote.
[76]
Crisis ends
A US Navy
HSS-1 Seabat helicopter hovers over Soviet submarine
B-59, forced to the surface by US Naval forces in the Caribbean near Cuba (October 28–29, 1962)
On October 27, after much deliberation between the Soviet Union and
Kennedy's cabinet, Kennedy secretly agreed to remove all missiles set in
southern Italy and in Turkey, the latter on the border of the Soviet
Union, in exchange for Khrushchev removing all missiles in Cuba.
[77]
At 9:00 am EST, on October 28, a new message from Khrushchev was
broadcast on Radio Moscow. Khrushchev stated that, "the Soviet
government, in addition to previously issued instructions on the
cessation of further work at the building sites for the weapons, has
issued a new order on the dismantling of the weapons which you describe
as 'offensive' and their crating and return to the Soviet Union."
Kennedy immediately responded, issuing a statement calling the letter
"an important and constructive contribution to peace". He continued
this with a formal letter:
I consider my letter to you of October
twenty-seventh and your reply of today as firm undertakings on the part
of both our governments which should be promptly carried out ... The US
will make a statement in the framework of the Security Council in
reference to Cuba as follows: it will declare that the United States of
America will respect the inviolability of Cuban borders, its
sovereignty, that it take the pledge not to interfere in internal
affairs, not to intrude themselves and not to permit our territory to be
used as a bridgehead for the invasion of Cuba, and will restrain those
who would plan to carry an aggression against Cuba, either from US
territory or from the territory of other countries neighboring to Cuba.
[78]:103
Kennedy's planned statement would also contain suggestions he had received from his adviser,
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., in a "Memorandum for the President" describing the "Post Mortem on Cuba."
[79]
The US continued the blockade, and in the following days, aerial
reconnaissance proved that the Soviets were making progress in removing
the missile systems. The 42 missiles and their support equipment were
loaded onto eight Soviet ships. The ships left Cuba from November 5–9.
The US made a final visual check as each of the ships passed the
blockade line. Further diplomatic efforts were required to remove the
Soviet IL-28 bombers, and they were loaded on three Soviet ships on
December 5 and 6. Concurrent with the Soviet commitment on the IL-28's,
the US Government announced the end of the blockade effective at 6:45 pm
EST on November 20, 1962.
[42]
At the time when the Kennedy administration thought that the Cuban
missile crisis was resolved, nuclear tactical rockets stayed in Cuba
since they were not part of the Kennedy-Khrushchev understandings.
However, the Soviets changed their minds, fearing possible future Cuban
militant steps, and at November 22, 1962 the
Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Anastas Mikoyan told Castro that those rockets with the nuclear warheads, were being removed too.
[19]
In his negotiations with the Soviet Ambassador
Anatoly Dobrynin, US Attorney General
Robert Kennedy informally proposed that the
Jupiter missiles in
Turkey would be removed "within a short time after this crisis was over."
[80]:222 The last US missiles were disassembled by April 24, 1963, and were flown out of Turkey soon after.
[81]
The practical effect of this Kennedy-Khrushchev Pact was that it
effectively strengthened Castro's position in Cuba, guaranteeing that
the US would not invade Cuba. It is possible that Khrushchev only placed
the missiles in Cuba to get Kennedy to remove the missiles from Italy
and Turkey and that the Soviets had no intention of resorting to nuclear
war if they were out-gunned by the Americans.
[82]
Because the withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles from NATO bases in
Southern Italy and Turkey was not made public at the time, Khrushchev
appeared to have lost the conflict and become weakened. The perception
was that Kennedy had won the contest between the superpowers and
Khrushchev had been humiliated. This is not entirely the case as both
Kennedy and Khrushchev took every step to avoid full conflict despite
the pressures of their governments. Khrushchev held power for another
two years.
[78]:102–105
Aftermath
The nuclear-armed
Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missile. The US secretly agreed to withdraw these missiles from Italy and Turkey.
The compromise embarrassed Khrushchev and the Soviet Union because
the withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey was a secret deal
between Kennedy and Khrushchev. The Soviets were seen as retreating from
circumstances that they had started. Khrushchev's fall from power two
years later was in part because of the
Politburo
embarrassment at both Khrushchev's eventual concessions to the US and
his ineptitude in precipitating the crisis in the first place. According
to Dobrynin, the top Soviet leadership took the Cuban outcome as "a
blow to its prestige bordering on humiliation".
[83]
Cuba perceived the outcome as a partial betrayal by the Soviets,
given that decisions on how to resolve the crisis had been made
exclusively by Kennedy and Khrushchev. Castro was especially upset that
certain issues of interest to Cuba, such as the status of the US Naval
Base in Guantánamo, were not addressed. This caused Cuban-Soviet
relations to deteriorate for years to come.
[84]:278 On the other hand, Cuba continued to be protected from invasion.
Although General
Curtis LeMay
told the President that he considered the resolution of the Cuban
missile crisis the "greatest defeat in our history", his was a minority
position.
[1]:335
He had pressed for an immediate invasion of Cuba as soon as the crisis
began, and still favored invading Cuba even after the Soviets had
withdrawn their missiles.
[85]
25 years later, LeMay still believed that "We could have gotten not
only the missiles out of Cuba, we could have gotten the Communists out
of Cuba at that time".
[57]
After the crisis the United States and the Soviet Union created the
Moscow–Washington hotline,
a direct communications link between Moscow and Washington, D.C. The
purpose was to have a way that the leaders of the two Cold War countries
could communicate directly to solve such a crisis. The world-wide US
Forces DEFCON 3 status was returned to DEFCON 4 on November 20, 1962.
U-2 pilot Major Anderson's body was returned to the United States and he
was buried with full military honors in South Carolina. He was the
first recipient of the newly created
Air Force Cross, which was awarded posthumously.
Although Anderson was the only combatant fatality during the crisis, 11 crew members of three reconnaissance Boeing
RB-47 Stratojets
of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing were also killed in crashes
during the period between September 27 and November 11, 1962.
[86] Further, seven crew died when a
MATS Boeing
C-135B Stratolifter delivering ammunition to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base stalled and crashed on approach on October 23.
[87]
Critics including Seymour Melman
[88] and Seymour Hersh
[89] suggested that the Cuban missile crisis encouraged US use of military means, such as in the
Vietnam War. This Soviet-American confrontation was synchronous with the
Sino-Indian War, dating from the US's military blockade of Cuba; historians
[who?] speculate that the Chinese attack against India for disputed land was meant to coincide with the Cuban missile crisis.
[90]
Post-crisis revelations
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., a historian and adviser to John F. Kennedy, told
National Public Radio
in an interview on October 16, 2002 that Castro did not want the
missiles, but that Khrushchev had pressured Castro to accept them.
Castro was not completely happy with the idea but the Cuban National
Directorate of the Revolution accepted them to protect Cuba against US
attack, and to aid its ally, the Soviet Union.
[84]:272
Schlesinger believed that when the missiles were withdrawn, Castro was
angrier with Khrushchev than he was with Kennedy because Khrushchev had
not consulted Castro before deciding to remove them.
[note 2]
In early 1992, it was confirmed that Soviet forces in Cuba had, by
the time the crisis broke, received tactical nuclear warheads for their
artillery rockets and
Il-28 bombers.
[91] Castro stated that he would have recommended their use if the US invaded despite knowing Cuba would be destroyed.
[91]
Arguably the most dangerous moment in the crisis was only recognized
during the Cuban Missile Crisis Havana conference in October 2002.
Attended by many of the veterans of the crisis, they all learned that on
October 27, 1962 the
USS Beale had tracked and dropped signaling depth charges (the size of hand grenades) on the
B-59, a Soviet Project 641 (NATO designation
Foxtrot) submarine which, unknown to the US, was armed with a 15 kiloton
[citation needed]
nuclear torpedo. Running out of air, the Soviet submarine was
surrounded by American warships and desperately needed to surface. An
argument broke out among three officers on the
B-59, including
submarine captain Valentin Savitsky, political officer Ivan Semonovich
Maslennikov, and Deputy brigade commander Captain 2nd rank (US Navy
Commander rank equivalent)
Vasili Arkhipov.
An exhausted Savitsky became furious and ordered that the nuclear
torpedo on board be made combat ready. Accounts differ about whether
Commander Arkhipov convinced Savitsky not to make the attack, or whether
Savitsky himself finally concluded that the only reasonable choice left
open to him was to come to the surface.
[92]:303, 317
During the conference Robert McNamara stated that nuclear war had come
much closer than people had thought. Thomas Blanton, director of the
National Security Archive, said, "A guy called
Vasili Arkhipov saved the world."
Fifty years after the crisis,
Graham Allison wrote:
Fifty years ago, the Cuban missile crisis brought
the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. During the standoff, U.S.
President John F. Kennedy thought the chance of escalation to war was
"between 1 in 3 and even," and what we have learned in later decades has
done nothing to lengthen those odds. We now know, for example, that in
addition to nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, the Soviet Union had
deployed 100 tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba, and the local Soviet
commander there could have launched these weapons without additional
codes or commands from Moscow. The U.S. air strike and invasion that
were scheduled for the third week of the confrontation would likely have
triggered a nuclear response against American ships and troops, and
perhaps even Miami. The resulting war might have led to the deaths of
100 million Americans and over 100 million Russians.
[93][94]
BBC journalist Joe Matthews published on October 13, 2012 the story
behind the 100 tactical nuclear warheads mentioned by Graham Allison in
the excerpt above.
[95]
Khrushchev feared that Castro's hurt pride and widespread Cuban
indignation over the concessions he had made to Kennedy might lead to a
breakdown of the agreement between the Soviet Union and the United
States. In order to prevent this Khrushchev decided to make Cuba a
special offer. The offer was to give Cuba more than 100 tactical nuclear
weapons that had been shipped to Cuba along with the long-range
missiles, but which crucially had passed completely under the radar of
US intelligence. Khrushchev concluded that because the Americans hadn't
listed the missiles on their list of demands, the Soviet Union's
interests would be well served by keeping them in Cuba.
[95]
Anastas Mikoyan
was tasked with the negotiations with Castro over the missile transfer
deal designed to prevent a breakdown in the relations between Cuba and
the Soviet Union. While in Havana, Mikoyan witnessed the mood swings and
paranoia of Castro, who was convinced that Moscow had made the
agreement with the United States at the expense of Cuba's defense.
Mikoyan, on his own initiative, decided that Castro and his military not
be given control of weapons with an explosive force equal to 100
Hiroshima-sized bombs under any circumstances. He defused the seemingly
intractable situation, which risked re-escalating the crisis, on
November 22, 1962. During a tense, four-hour meeting, Mikoyan convinced
Castro that despite Moscow's desire to help, it would be in breach of an
unpublished Soviet law (which didn't actually exist) to transfer the
missiles permanently into Cuban hands and provide them with an
independent nuclear deterrent. Castro was forced to give way and - much
to the relief of Khrushchev and the whole Soviet government - the
tactical nuclear weapons were crated and returned by sea to the Soviet
Union during December 1962.
[95]
See also
Media
(Listed chronologically)
- Thirteen Days, Robert F. Kennedy's account of the crisis, released in 1969
- The Missiles of October, 1974 TV docudrama about the crisis
- The World Next Door, 1990 novel by Brad Ferguson, set in this period
- Quantum Leap,1991
TV Show, (Season 3 Episode, Nuclear Family - October 26, 1962), Sam
must deal with the panic associated with the Cuban missile crisis as a
Florida fallout shelter salesman.
- Matinee, 1993 film set in Key West, Florida during the Cuban missile crisis
- The short film Symposium on Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
- seaQuest 2032, 1995 TV Show, (Season 3 Episode, "Second Chance"), seaQuest inadvertently travels back to 1962 where their presence accidentally interferes with the Cuban missile crisis
- Blast from the Past (film), 1999 American romantic comedy film, set in this period
- Resurrection Day, 1999 alternate history novel written by Brendan DuBois, set in this period
- Thirteen Days (film), 2000 docudrama directed by Roger Donaldson about the crisis
- The Fog of War,
2003 American documentary film about the life and times of former US
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara directed by Errol Morris, which
won that years' Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, 2004 video game directed by Hideo Kojima, features a fictional conflict inspired by the Cuban missile crisis
- "Meditations in an Emergency", the last episode of season 2 of the television series Mad Men takes place during the crisis
- Ur (novella), a 2009 short novel by Stephen King released for the Amazon Kindle,
is about three men who discover through a magic Kindle that in another
"Ur", the Cuban missile crisis escalated into a nuclear war and ended
that "Ur".
- Call of Duty: Black Ops, 2010 video game, set during and after the Cuban missile crisis.
- The Kennedys (TV miniseries), 2011 production chronicling the lives of the Kennedy family, including a dramatization of the crisis
- X-Men: First Class, 2011 superhero film set during the Cuban missile crisis
- The Armageddon Letters, a transmedia storytelling of the crisis with animated short films and other digital content
- "Cuban Missile Crisis: The Man Who Saved the World", Secrets of the Dead, PBS TV documentary, October 24, 2012
Notes
- ^ McNamara mistakenly dates the shooting down of USAF Major Rudolf Anderson's U-2 on October 26.
- ^ In
his biography, Castro does not compare his feelings for either leader
at that moment, however, he makes it clear that he was angry with
Khrushchev for failing to consult with him. (Ramonet 1978)
References
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Additional reading
- Allison, Graham; Zelikow, Philip (1999). Essence of Decision, Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. ISBN 0-321-01349-2.
- Chayes, Abram (1974). The Cuban Missile Crisis. International crises and the role of law. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-825320-4.
- Diez Acosta, Tomás (2002). October 1962: The "Missile" Crisis As Seen from Cuba. New York: Pathfinder. ISBN 978-0-87348-956-0.
- Divine, Robert A. (1988). The Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: M. Wiener Pub. ISBN 978-0-910129-15-2.
- Dobbs, Michael (2008). One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-1-4000-7891-2.
- Feklisov, Aleksandr; Kostin, Sergueï (2001). The
Man Behind the Rosenbergs: By the KGB Spymaster Who Was the Case
Officer of Julius Rosenberg, Klaus Fuchs, and Helped Resolve the Cuban
Missile Crisis. New York: Enigma Books. ISBN 978-1-929631-08-7.
- Frankel, Max (2004). High Noon in the Cold War: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-46505-4.
- Fursenko, Aleksandr; Naftali, Timothy J. (1998). One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964. New York: Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-31790-9.
- Fursenko, Aleksandr (Summer 2006). "Night Session of the Presidium of the Central Committee, 22–23 October 1962". Naval War College Review 59 (3).
- George, Alice L. (2003). Awaiting Armageddon: How Americans Faced the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2828-1.
- Gibson, David R. (2012). Talk at the Brink: Deliberation and Decision during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15131-1.
- Gonzalez, Servando (2002). The Nuclear Deception: Nikita Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Oakland, CA: Spooks Books. ISBN 978-0-9711391-5-2.
- Khrushchev, Sergei (October 2002). "How My Father And President Kennedy Saved The World". American Heritage 53 (5).
- Polmar, Norman; Gresham, John D. (2006). DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis. Foreword by Tom Clancy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-67022-3.
- Pope, Ronald R. (1982). Soviet Views on the Cuban Missile Crisis: Myth and Reality in Foreign Policy Analysis. Washington, DC: Univ. Press of America. ISBN 978-0-8191-2584-2.
- Pressman, Jeremy (2001). "September
Statements, October Missiles, November Elections: Domestic Politics,
Foreign-Policy Making, and the Cuban Missile Crisis". Security Studies 10 (3): 80–114. doi:10.1080/09636410108429438.
- Russell, Bertrand (1963). Unarmed Victory. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0-04-327024-7.
- Stern, Sheldon M. (2003). Averting 'the Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings. Stanford nuclear age series. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-4846-9.
- Stern, Sheldon M. (2005). The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis. Stanford nuclear age series. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-5077-6.
- Trahair, Richard C. S.; Miller, Robert L. (2009). Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations. New York: Enigma Books. ISBN 978-1-929631-75-9.
- Matthews, Joe (October 2012). "Cuban missile crisis: The other, secret one". BBC.
Historiography
Primary sources
- Chang, Laurence; Kornbluh, Peter, eds. (1998). "Introduction". The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National Security Archive Documents Reader (2nd ed.). New York: New Press. ISBN 978-1-56584-474-2.
- "Cuban Missile Crisis". JFK in History. John F. Kennedy Library.
- "Cuban Missile Crisis 1962". Presidential Recordings Program. Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia.
- Cold War International History Project: Digital Archive "Cuban Missile Crisis". Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
- Keefer, Edward C.; Sampson, Charles S.; Smith, Louis J., eds. (1996). Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath. Foreign relations of the United States, 1961–1963 XI. Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-16-045210-4.
- Kennedy, Robert F. (1969). Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-31834-0.
- May, Ernest R.; Zelikow, Philip D., eds. (2002) [1997]. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32259-0.
- McAuliffe, Mary S., ed. (October 1992). "CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962". Historical Review Program. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency.
- "The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: The 40th Anniversary". National Security Archive: Special Exhibits. Gelman Library: The George Washington University.
- "The World On the Brink: John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis". Interactive Exhibits. John F. Kennedy Library.
Lesson plans
External links
James Gandolfini, who gained fame
playing a memorable mafia boss on HBO's "The Sopranos," died after
suffering a possible heart attack in Italy on Wednesday, June 19.
Pictured, Gandolfini at the premier of "Zero Dark Thirty" in 2012.
