Cuban Missile Crisis

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(1962) Major confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union over the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. In October 1962 a U.S. spy plane detected a ballistic missile on a launching site in Cuba. Pres. John F. Kennedy placed a naval blockade around the island, and for several days the U.S. and the Soviet Union hovered on the brink of war. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev finally agreed to remove the missiles in return for a secret commitment from the U.S. to withdraw its own missiles from Turkey and to never invade Cuba. The incident increased tensions during the Cold War and fueled the nuclear arms race between the two countries. See also Fidel Castro.

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Cuban missile crisis (1962). In May 1960, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev promised military assistance to the beleaguered Castro regime in Cuba. Two years later, he saw that the USSR's relations with Cuba also represented a unique opportunity to offset the threat posed to Moscow by US nuclear missiles based in Turkey. In addition to aircraft, air defence systems, armoured vehicles, and troops, Khrushchev offered a selection of nuclear-armed medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. Castro accepted the offer and within months the USA and the USSR were on the verge of all-out nuclear war. On 14 October 1962, following indications of increased military activity on Cuba and a growing Soviet presence, an American U-2 aircraft photographed missile sites in western Cuba. Subsequent intelligence indicated that the missiles—SS-4 and SS-5, both with 1 megaton warheads—had the ability to reach almost the entire continental USA, including every Strategic Air Command base. On 22 October 1962, after intense debate in the Executive Committee (ExComm) of the National Security Council, during which the possibilities of aerial bombardment or invasion of Cuba were discussed, US Pres John Kennedy announced a maritime blockade to prevent further shipments of missiles and military equipment. Kennedy also demanded that Khrushchev dismantle and remove all missiles from Cuba. For six terrifying days, the two superpowers considered their options until on 28 October Khrushchev agreed to Kennedy's demands. In return, the USA agreed never to invade Cuba and (secretly) to remove its missiles from Turkey.

— John P. Campbell

On 15 October, 1962, U.S. intelligence discovered Soviet strategic nuclear missile bases under construction in Cuba, leading to the most dramatic and dangerous crisis of the nuclear age. After a week of secret deliberation with a group of advisers (the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or ExComm), President John F. Kennedy demanded that the missiles be withdrawn and imposed a naval “quarantine” on shipments of “offensive” weapons to Cuba. Kennedy ordered a massive redeployment of U.S. forces to the Caribbean and placed the Strategic Air Command (SAC) on heightened alert.

Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev was furious at what he considered Kennedy's flagrant interference in Soviet‐Cuban affairs and his violation of freedom of navigation. But by the time the quarantine took effect on the morning of 24 October—after a unanimous endorsement by the Organization of American States—Khrushchev ordered Soviet ships not to challenge the blockade. For several days a settlement proved elusive and pressure built for more decisive action.

Neither Kennedy nor Khrushchev wanted to risk nuclear war over the issue, and both became increasingly concerned that an accident or inadvertent military action might trigger escalation. An apparent break in the tension came on 26 October, when, in a rambling, emotional letter, Khrushchev offered to withdraw the missiles in return for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba. But in a second, tougher letter received the following morning, Khrushchev demanded that Kennedy withdraw analogous Jupiter missiles from Turkey (deployed under the aegis of NATO). Most of Kennedy's advisers argued strongly against this, on the ground that it would be interpreted by the Soviets as evidence of American weakness, and by NATO as betrayal of an ally. Kennedy decided to ignore Khrushchev's latest demand and accept his earlier offer.

As the ExComm deliberated on 27 October, word reached the White House that an American U‐2 reconnaissance plane had been shot down over Cuba, and that another had inadvertently strayed over Siberian air space, narrowly avoiding a similar fate. Kennedy resolved to bring the crisis to an end. Ignoring the ExComm's advice, he secretly agreed that the United States would withdraw its missiles from Turkey “within a few months” as a private quid pro quo to a UN‐verified withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. Kennedy would also pledge publicly not to invade Cuba. Khrushchev accepted, and on 28 October the acute phase of the crisis came to an end.

Castro, feeling betrayed by his Soviet patron, refused to allow United Nations inspectors on Cuban soil to verify the withdrawal. But satisfied by aerial photography that the Soviets had withdrawn the weapons the United States considered offensive, Kennedy issued a proclamation terminating the quarantine on 21 November.

The causes of the crisis have long been debated. Khrushchev conceived the deployment in the late spring of 1962, after a hasty and uncritical decision‐making process involving only a small group of advisers. His goals appear to have been to deter a feared American invasion of Cuba; to redress the United States's massive superiority in strategic nuclear weapons, publicly revealed by the United States in October 1961, exploding the myth of a “missile gap” favoring the Soviet Union; and less importantly, to reciprocate the Jupiter deployment in Turkey.

The crisis provides textbook illustrations of important misperceptions and miscalculations. The U.S. government had calculated that the Soviet Union would not deploy nuclear weapons to Cuba because such a move would be inconsistent with past Soviet behavior, and because it seemed obvious that it would trigger a major confrontation. The Kennedy administration also failed to appreciate the extent to which the public demolition of the missile gap myth heightened the Soviets' sense of vulnerability; the strength of Soviet and Cuban fears of a U.S. invasion of Cuba (heightened by the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of the previous year); and the strength and sincerity of the Soviet view that if the United States had the right to deploy missiles in Turkey, the Soviet Union had the right to deploy missiles in Cuba. Consequently, Kennedy failed to deter the move in a timely fashion, issuing stern warnings against it only in September 1962, when the secret deployment was well underway.

Similarly, Khrushchev grossly overestimated the willingness of Kennedy and the American people to tolerate a major disruption in the hemispheric status quo; under estimated the likelihood that American intelligence would discover the missiles prematurely; and failed to appreciate that the secrecy and deception surrounding the deployment would inflame American passions. Consequently, Khrushchev underestimated the risks of the deployment.

Although scholars differ in their assessment, some consider the Cuban Missile Crisis a classic case of prudent crisis management. Kennedy and Khrushchev prevented the conflict from escalating while they sought and found a mutually satisfactory solution. They did so by avoiding irreversible steps, curtailing unwarranted bluster, and avoiding backing each other into a corner. Other scholars have criticized the handling of the crisis as being too timid or too reckless. Kennedy's critics on the right lament his unwillingness to seize the opportunity to destroy Castro; his critics on the other side of the spectrum condemn his willingness to risk nuclear war merely to delay the inevitable—the vulnerability of the American homeland to Soviet nuclear weapons. Hard‐liners in the Soviet military severely criticized Khrushchev for yielding to U.S. pressure. New information on intelligence failures, command and control breakdowns, and near accidents suggest that both leaders' fears of uncertainty, misperception, misjudgment, accident, and unauthorized military action provided a critical degree of caution and circumspection that prevented the crisis from escalating even further.

Paradoxically, the Cuban Missile Crisis led to an immediate improvement in U.S.‐Soviet relations. A series of agreements intended to restrain the arms race and improve crisis stability followed, most notably the Hot‐Line Agreement and Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. Over the following decades, the superpowers crafted a modus vivendi designed to prevent a similar occurrence whereby the Soviet Union refrained from deploying military equipment with offensive capabilities to Cuba, and the United States acquiesced in a Communist‐controlled Cuba with close ties to the USSR.

[See also Arms Control and Disarmament; Cold War: External Course; Cold War: Changing Interpretations; U‐2 Spy Planes.]

Bibliography

• Raymond L. Garthoff, Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1987; rev. ed. 1989.
• James G. Blight, Bruce J. Allyn, and David A. Welch, Cuba on the Brink: Castro, the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse, 1993.
• James G. Blight, and David A. Welch, Risking ‘The Destruction of Nations': Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis for New and Aspiring Nuclear States, Security Studies, 4 (Summer 1994), pp. 811–50.
• Anatoli I. Gribkov, and William Y. Smith, Operation Anadyr: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1994.
• Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, We All Lost the Cold War, 1994.
• Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1997.
• James G. Blight and David A. Welch, eds., Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1998

A Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the installation of ballistic missiles in Cuba. President John F. Kennedy, on learning of the installation of the missiles in 1962, considered an invasion, air strikes, or a naval blockade of Cuba. The blockade was implemented and diplomatic negotiations began between Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviet leader agreed to remove the missiles, and the crisis was diffused. Many consider that it was the world's closest approach to nuclear war.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 is generally regarded as the most dangerous moment of the Cold War, one in which the world moved perceptibly close to nuclear conflict between the superpowers.

In the period after Fidel Castro's successful revolution in Cuba, 1959, the Americans considered various plans to restore an anti-Communist government. In April 1961 these plans culminated in the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion which the American government authorized and supported. This was followed by a build-up of Soviet forces in Cuba. Throughout 1962 the issue of Cuba caused difficult relations between the superpowers, already tense as a result of the Berlin Wall crisis of the previous year. The Americans publicly signalled that they would not tolerate the Soviets placing ‘offensive’ nuclear missiles in Cuba, which lay only about one hundred miles from the coast of Florida. Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, appeared to understand and to comply with this demand. President Kennedy stated on 13 September that if Cuba were to become an offensive military base then he would take whatever steps were necessary to protect American security. During September the first missiles and the equipment to build the launchers arrived in Cuba.

On 14 October photographs from U2 aircraft revealed that medium-range missiles were being installed and on 16 October the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExCom) held the first of its meetings to resolve what the American government regarded as a direct threat to its security. President Kennedy announced on television the detection of the missiles, demanded their removal, and the ExCom went into semi-permanent session to consider the next American steps. A variety of strategies was considered, including doing nothing (which was quickly dismissed), various forms of diplomatic action (which ran the risk of leading to negotiation and hence counter-concessions by the Americans) over the missiles' removal, invasion, an air strike against the missiles, and a blockade. Kennedy initially favoured military action of some sort and the possibility of invasion and air strike was held in reserve throughout the crisis. However, a blockade to prevent further missiles reaching Cuba emerged as the preferred solution. A blockade, accompanied by demands for the removal of the existing missiles, offered various advantages. It demonstrated American resolve and willingness to use military force, it capitalized on America's local naval superiority, it gave time for Khrushchev to back down, and it threw back onto him the difficult next step of escalating further the crisis if he were not to comply. The ultimatum, in short, offered the ‘last clear chance’ to avoid an uncontrollable confrontation which might probably end in nuclear war.

At first Khrushchev appeared reluctant to comply. He made a good deal both of the American threat to Cuba's integrity and the deployment of American medium-range missiles in Turkey. Kennedy was reluctant to make any deal which traded the Turkish for the Cuban missiles, though he personally had ordered the removal of the missiles from Turkey several months earlier on the grounds that they were unnecessary to American security and provocative to the Soviet Union. The imposition of the American blockade went ahead and the risks of incidents between the two naval forces became apparent.

In the days after 16 October the tension increased and the two states appeared to be moving to war as the Soviets showed no willingness to back down. On 26 October the Americans received in secret what they interpreted as a personal letter from Khrushchev which offered the possibility of a solution. The letter, in effect, offered to remove the missiles in return for the Americans removing the blockade and agreeing not to invade Cuba. The following day Khrushchev sent a public letter which was both more belligerent in tone and which demanded the removal of the missiles from Turkey in return for removal of the missiles from Cuba. The Americans were adamant that such a deal was unacceptable, moreover the tone of the letter suggested to them that Khrushchev might have lost control within the Presidium to more hawkish elements. The same day Soviet surface-to-air missiles in Cuba shot down an American plane. American military action appeared imminent. At that point Robert Kennedy, brother of the President, suggested that the Americans agree to Khrushchev's first (secret) letter, publicize the ‘agreement’, and in that way attempt to lure Khrushchev into acceptance—making clear at the same time that the burden of failure and responsibility for war would fall onto Khrushchev if he failed to accept.

The following day the crisis ended on these terms. The Americans had secured a great diplomatic victory, though by running enormous risks, and Kennedy's prestige stood at its new peak. The Soviets got much less out of the crisis, though they were able to share public credit for the resolution of the crisis. However, they had got the American promise not to invade Cuba and, some time later, they saw the Americans remove their medium-range missiles not merely from Turkey but from Europe as a whole. The Soviet withdrawal appears to have fatally undermined Khrushchev's prestige within the Presidium and to have led to his overthrow two years later. The Americans consolidated their leadership within NATO which had been threatened by their inability to prevent the Soviet gains in Berlin in 1961.

The successful resolution of the crisis led to an immediate improvement in superpower relations. The ‘hot line’ was installed to give direct communications between the leaderships in Washington and Moscow, and in 1963 the two powers, with Britain playing an important minor role, went on to conclude the Partial Test Ban Treaty which outlawed nuclear testing in the atmosphere. Above all, the mutual realization of how close the world had come to war led the two superpowers to give renewed attention to their doctrines of nuclear deterrence. In the West the missile crisis was taken as a paradigm case of a new science or art of ‘crisis management’, and the decision-making processes within ExCom were analysed in order to learn the ‘rules’ or conventions of the new science. In particular the importance of manipulating risk, or brinkmanship, emerged as a key element in coercive diplomacy—using the risk of war to push the opponent into backing down—together with the equal importance of allowing the opponent a last clear chance to avoid uncontrollable escalation. Kennedy himself laid great emphasis on finding terms to offer to Khrushchev that would not be so humiliating that in fact he would decline to take them.

— Peter Byrd

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in October 1962 that threatened all-out nuclear war. The dispute involved the Soviet placement of intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba.

On October 15, 1962, President John F. Kennedy received a briefing from intelligence advisers informing him that the Soviet Union was installing intermediate-range ballistic missiles, medium-range bombers, in Cuba and sending more than 10,000 troops to that island nation. The Executive Committee of the National Security Council (known as Ex Comm) gave Kennedy four options. He could do nothing, use quiet diplomacy and not publicize the presence of the missiles, take the weapons out with an air strike, or impose a naval blockade against Cuba.

The “do nothing” option was not feasible because Congress had already passed a joint resolution backing military action if offensive weapons were found in Cuba, and Republicans were using the possibility of the existence of such weapons against Democrats in the upcoming midterm (1962) congressional elections. Six members of the Ex Comm favored an air strike. Kennedy decided against it because he thought American allies in Europe would not approve until other alternatives had been tried. Attorney General Robert Kennedy argued against bombing, calling the tactic “a Pearl Harbor in reverse.” The State Department legal adviser argued that bombing would be a violation of international law. Moreover, there were logistical concerns. The bombing could not be done by a single “surgical” strike; 500 or more missions would be required, destroying hundreds of targets to prevent missiles or aircraft from attacking the United States. The magnitude of the operation would lead to high casualties (provoking international outrage) and losses among the Soviet military, which might bring on military action by its forces against the United States.

On October 17 Kennedy decided on a blockade, or “quarantine,” as his advisers called it, because a blockade is prohibited under international law unless a nation is at war. It would begin only with further shipments of missiles but if necessary could expand to cover civilian goods. Implementing it in stages would permit time for diplomacy to work. The quarantine would take place near American waters, where the United States had overwhelming naval superiority.

On October 22 Kennedy gave a televised speech to the nation in which he called the presence of the missiles “a change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again, by friend or foe.” He described the threat to the United States, saying that “the purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.” He announced the quarantine and warned the Soviet Union that “it will be the policy of the United States Government to regard any missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack upon the United States by the Soviet Union, requiring a full retaliatory response.” Soviet ships attempting to enter Cuban waters would be subject to search in international waters, and if Soviet ships tried to run the blockade, Kennedy would order American ships to fire on them. The following day the Council of the Organization of American States unanimously backed Kennedy's quarantine.

For several days Soviet ships headed toward the blockade line and work on missile sites in Cuba accelerated. Then the ships stopped dead in the water, leading the members of the Ex Comm to think that the crisis was over. But one ship started again toward Cuba, and a Soviet air-defense missile battery shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane flying over Cuba, heating the crisis up again.

The crisis was finally resolved by negotiations between President Kennedy and Soviet chairman Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev offered to remove the missiles if the President would pledge that the United States would not invade Cuba. Kennedy hinted, through Attorney General Robert Kennedy, that if the Soviets ended the crisis, the United States would remove intermediate-range missiles from bases in Turkey. On October 28, the Soviets agreed to withdraw their missiles (and accepted verification by United Nations observers). The United States ended the quarantine and pledged not to invade Cuba.

The Soviets withdrew 42 missiles and 42 long-range bombers as well as 5,000 troops. They also removed weapons that the United States did not know were on the island: 9 short-range missiles equipped with nuclear warheads, which would have been used in case of an American invasion, and 36 nuclear warheads for use on the medium-range Soviet missiles. The short-range missiles could have been fired by local commanders, without authorization from Moscow, a possibility of which the American side was completely unaware. After the crisis ended, the Soviets kept in Cuba 37,000 of the 42,000 troops already there—a number far higher than American estimates during the crisis—as well as fighter planes and antimissile weapons. (The size of the Soviet commitments was not revealed to the American side until Soviet and American officials who had been involved in the crisis held a series of meetings between 1987 and 1992.)

American intermediate-range Jupiter missiles were withdrawn from Turkey and Italy. Kennedy pledged not to invade Cuba, but on December 14, 1962, he wrote to Khrushchev that the United States would require “adequate assurances that all offensive weapons are removed from Cuba and are not reintroduced, and that Cuba itself commits no aggressive acts against any of the nations of the Western Hemisphere.” He thus left open the possibility that the United States might invade Cuba if these assurances were not received.

See also Kennedy, John F.; National Security Council

Sources

• Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: The Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971).
• James Bright and David Welch, On the Brink: America and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Hill & Wang, 1991)

Often regarded as the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age, the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was a culmination of several Cold War tensions that had been building for some time. As a result of Cuban leader Fidel Castro's turn toward Soviet-style communism in the early 1960s and the failed U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961, U.S. Cuban relations were openly hostile by 1962. In April and May 1962, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev decided to deploy Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, just ninety miles from Florida. In an agreement with Castro, the weapons would be shipped and installed secretly, so that when they were operational, the West would be presented with a fait accompli.

During August and September 1962, U.S. intelligence found evidence of increasing Soviet military aid arriving in Cuba, including advanced surface-to-air missile installations, IL-28 Beagle nuclear-capable bombers, and several thousand Soviet "technicians." Refugee reports also suggested that Soviet ballistic missiles were on the island. Although U.S. intelligence could not confirm these reports, critics of President John F. Kennedy's administration used them in political attacks during the lead-up to the November congressional elections. In response, in September, Kennedy publicly warned that if weapons designed for offensive use were detected in Cuba, "the gravest consequences would arise."

On 14 October, a U-2 aerial reconnaissance flight over Cuba returned photographs of long, canvas-covered objects. As American photo analysts pored over the photos during the next twenty-four hours and compared their findings to their catalogs of known Soviet weaponry, it became clear that the Soviets were installing medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and launch pads in Cuba, where they would be within easy striking distance of much of the mainland United States.

Having just dealt with the civil rights riots at the University of Mississippi, the Kennedy administration again found itself confronted with a crisis. The president was informed of the discovery on the morning of 16 October and immediately convened a White House meeting of his top national security advisers, a body that later became officially known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or ExComm. Kennedy decided not to confront the Soviets until he and the ExComm could consider and prepare courses of action. During this series of top secret meetings, several courses of action were considered, ranging from direct military strikes on the missile sites, a full-scale invasion of Cuba, a quid pro quo removal of American Jupiter missiles in Turkey, and a blockade of the island. Acutely aware that miscalculation by either side could spark nuclear war, Kennedy settled upon a blockade of Cuba in tandem with an ultimatum to the Soviets to remove the missiles, both to be announced during a special national broadcast on television during the evening of 22 October. In that broadcast, Kennedy declared that a naval quarantine of Cuba would go into effect on the morning of 24 October and would not be lifted until all offensive weapons had been removed. He also announced that he had ordered increased surveillance of Cuba and, ominously, that he had directed the armed forces "to prepare for any eventualities."

On 24 October, as U.S. strategic nuclear forces were placed on DEFCON 2, the highest alert status below actual nuclear war, the world waited anxiously for the Soviet response to the quarantine. Despite some tense moments, the deadline ultimately passed without serious incident, as several Soviet-chartered ships either changed course or stopped short of the quarantine line. On 25 October, the

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai E. Stevenson, famously confronted his Soviet counterpart, Valerian Zorin, with photographic evidence and said he would "wait until hell freezes over" for a Soviet explanation. At U.S. insistence, the Organization of the American States officially condemned the Soviet-Cuban action and thereby formalized Cuba's hemispheric isolation.

Over the next few days, U.S. intelligence reported that not only were the MRBMs nearing operational status, but there were also intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and tactical nuclear weapons on the island. While U.S. forces continued to mobilize, a series of letters between Kennedy and Khrushchev was supplemented by several secret unofficial channels, the most notable of which was Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's secret meetings with Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, and Georgi Bolshakov, the intelligence chief at the Soviet embassy.

On Saturday, 27 October, the crisis was at its peak. During the afternoon, reports came in of an American U-2 being shot down over Cuba by a surface-to-air missile. As tension mounted, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that they were ready to launch an invasion of Cuba within twenty-four hours. In communications on 27 and 28 October, Khrushchev formally capitulated by agreeing to dismantle the missiles and ship them back to the Soviet Union. In turn, Kennedy publicly announced that he had pledged to provide a noninvasion guarantee to Cuba conditional on the offensive weapons being removed and the implementation of effective international verification. Secretly, he also agreed to remove the American Jupiter missiles from Turkey.

Although the crisis had been largely defused peacefully, it was not over. Castro refused to allow UN inspectors onto Cuban sovereign territory, and Khrushchev initially refused to accept that the Soviet IL-28 Beagle bombers were offensive weapons. Intensive discussions through the United Nations finally led to Khrushchev agreeing on 20 November to remove the bombers in exchange for a lifting of the naval quarantine.

For many, the crisis demonstrated the dangers of the nuclear age. Subsequently, a telephone hotline was established linking the White House and the Kremlin and efforts were intensified to secure arms control agreements and détente.

Bibliography

Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Timothy Naftali. One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964. New York: Norton, 1997.

Garthoff, Raymond L. Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Rev. ed. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1989.

May, Ernest, and Philip Zelikow, eds. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Concise ed. New York, Norton, 2002.

—David G. Coleman

The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most serious incidents of the Cold War. Many believed that war might break out between the United States and the Soviet Union over the latter's basing of nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba.

Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba promising to restore the liberal 1940 constitution but immediately took more radical steps, including an economic agreement in 1960 with the Soviet Union. In turn, the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, promised in June to defend Cuba with Soviet nuclear arms. In early 1961, the United States broke relations with Havana, and in April it helped thousands of Cuban exiles stage an abortive uprising at the Bay of Pigs.

Khrushchev was convinced that the United States would strike again, this time with American soldiers; and he believed that Castro's defeat would be a fatal blow to his own leadership. He decided that basing Soviet missiles in Cuba would deter the United States from a strike against the Castro regime. Moreover, so he reasoned, the Cuba-based medium-range missiles would compensate for the USSR's marked inferiority to America's ICBM capabilities. Finally, a successful showdown with Washington might improve Moscow's deteriorating relations with China.

In April 1962, Khrushchev raised the possibility of basing Soviet missiles in Cuba with his defense minister, Rodion Malinovsky. He hoped to deploy the missiles by October and then inform Kennedy after the congressional elections in November. He apparently expected the Americans to accept the deployment of the Soviet missiles as calmly as the Kremlin had accepted the basing of U.S. missiles in Turkey. Foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, when finally consulted, flatly told Khrushchev that Soviet missiles in Cuba would "cause a political explosion" (Taubman) in the United States, but the premier was unmoved. In late April, a Soviet delegation met with Khrushchev before departing for Cuba. They were told to "explain the plan" to install missiles "to Castro" (Taubman). In fact, their mission was more one of "telling than asking." Castro was hardly enthusiastic, but was ready to yield to a policy that would strengthen the "entire socialist camp" (Taubman). Later the Presidium voted unanimously to approve the move.

Perhaps most remarkably, Khrushchev believed that the deployment of sixty missiles with forty launchers, not to mention the support personnel and equipment, could be done secretly. General Anatoly Gribkov warned that the installation process in Cuba could not be concealed. And American U-2 spy planes flew over the sites unhindered. The Cubans, too, doubted that the plan could be kept secret; Khrushchev responded that if the weapons were discovered the United States would not overreact, but if trouble arose, the Soviets would "send the Baltic Fleet."

In July 1962, the American government learned that the USSR had started missile deliveries to Cuba. By the end of August, American intelligence reported that Soviet technicians were in Cuba, supervising new military construction. In September, Kennedy warned that if any Soviet ground-to-ground missiles were deployed in Cuba, "the gravest issues would arise." Rather than calling a halt to the operation, Khrushchev ordered it accelerated, while repeatedly assuring Washington that no build-up was taking place.

On October 14, U.S. aerial reconnaissance discovered a medium-range ballistic missile mounted on a launching site. Such a missile could hit the eastern United States in a matter of minutes. On October 16, Kennedy and his closest advisers met to discuss the crisis and immediately agreed that the missile must be removed. On October 22, Kennedy announced a "quarantine" around Cuba, much to Khrushchev's delight. The premier thought the word sufficiently vague to allow for negotiation and exulted, "We've saved Cuba!" Despite his apparent satisfaction, Khrushchev fired off a letter to Kennedy accusing him of interfering in Cuban affairs and threatening world peace. He then went to the opera.

The turning point came on October 24, when Attorney General Robert Kennedy told the Soviet ambassador that the United States would stop the Soviet ships, strongly implying that it would do so even if it meant war. Khrushchev reacted angrily, but a letter from President Kennedy on October 25 pushed the premier toward compromise. Kennedy wrote that he regretted the deterioration in relations and hoped Khrushchev would take steps to restore the "earlier situation." With this letter, Khrushchev finally realized that the crisis was not worth the gamble and began to back down. Another war scare occurred on the twenty-seventh with the downing of a U-2 over Cuba, but by this point both leaders were ready and even anxious to end the crisis. On October 29, the premier informed Kennedy that the missiles and offensive weapons in Cuba would be removed. Kennedy promised there would be no invasion and secretly agreed to remove America's Jupiter missiles from Turkey.

Khrushchev's Cuban gamble helped convince the Soviet leadership that he was unfit to lead the USSR. This humiliation, combined with failures in domestic policies, cost him his job in 1964.

Bibliography

Fursenko, Aleksander, and Naftali, Timothy. (1997). "One Hell of a Gamble": Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy, 1958 - 1964. New York: Norton.

Nathan, James A. (2001). Anatomy of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Taubman, William. (2003). Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: Norton.

Thomson, William. (1995). Khrushchev: A Political Life. Oxford, UK: Macmillan.

—HUGH PHILLIPS

The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was triggered by the Soviet deployment to Cuba of medium-range, nucleararmed ballistic missiles. The United States demanded that the Soviet Union remove these missiles and imposed a naval blockade on Cuba, threatening to sink any Soviet ships that approached the island without permitting their cargoes to be inspected. Eventually, the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) announced that it would remove the missiles, and the crisis ended. Most historians affirm that the world has never been closer to global nuclear war than during the 13 days of the Cuban missile crisis (Oct. 14–Oct. 28, 1962).

The roots of the Cuban missile crisis go back, in part, to an earlier crisis—the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban expatriates trained, supplied, and directed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The purpose of the failed invasion was to overthrow Fidel Castro's leftist rule of Cuba, but had two unintended effects. First, it frightened Castro, causing him to make concessions to the U.S.S.R, which wanted to place military bases on the island of Cuba, in exchange for protection against further U.S. invasion attempts. Second, it heightened tensions between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, read U.S. weakness in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and blustered publicly that he might retaliate by driving the U.S. out of West Berlin. U.S. President John Kennedy, in return, openly boasted that the U.S. possessed many more (and more accurate and deliverable) nuclear missiles and warheads than the U.S.S.R., and would consider striking first with them if it ever found itself at a military disadvantage. Kennedy's claim was true; in 1962, the U.S.S.R. had at most 20 or 30—perhaps as few as four— functional, deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs); the U.S. had several hundred. Nevertheless, Kennedy had claimed, during his presidential campaign, that the incumbent Eisenhower's administration had allowed the Soviets to get ahead of the U.S. in missiles, causing a "missile gap." A missile gap did exist, as Kennedy knew, but in reverse; it had always been the U.S. that was far ahead of the U.S.S.R. in such weapons. Once in office, Kennedy dropped the old story about the "missile gap" and brandished the United States's nuclear superiority openly against Khrushchev.

Khruschev's response was to secretly build missile bases on Cuban soil to compensate for Soviet inferiority in ICBMs. These missiles were medium-range and intermediate-range, rather than intercontinental, but from Cuba could reach the entire continental U.S. except its northwest corner. Similar missiles had been by stationed the United States for years in Turkey, which borders southern Russia. Castro gave permission to the Soviets to build Cuban missile bases in trade for a promise of protection against U.S. invasion and for cancellation of Cuban monetary debts.

Construction of the Cuban bases proceeded throughout the summer of 1962. The U.S. was aware, from various intelligence sources, that the Soviets were building up military forces on the island, but did not realize that intermediate-range nuclear weapons were part of the plan. Kennedy issued warnings to Khrushchev that the U.S. would not tolerate a major military buildup in Cuba, but would do "whatever must be done" to guarantee U.S. security; Kennedy and his advisors believed that Khrushchev would take these grave warnings seriously, and were also aware that the U.S.S.R. had never yet placed nuclear weapons outside Russian territory; these factors made it seem unlikely that nuclear weapons were part of the Cuban buildup. Nevertheless, they were.

U-2 spy planes (aircraft designed to take reconnaissance photographs from very high altitudes) were making regular flights over Cuba, observing the military buildup. On October 14, a U-2 spy plane photographed an area near San Cristóbal, Cuba, revealing launch pads, missile erectors, and transport trucks for medium-range missiles. Four of the launchers were already in firing position. Khrushchev had decided to deploy launchers for at least 16 intermediate-range missiles (capable of reaching most of the continental U.S.) and 24 medium-range missiles (capable of reaching the southeastern U.S., including Washington, D.C.).

The U-2 pictures were shown to Kennedy on the morning of October 16. Much like the Kennedy administration's claims during the Bay of Pigs crisis that the U.S. had no illegal intentions in Cuba, Khrushchev's claims to have no desire to base missiles in Cuba had proved to be untrue. Kennedy hastily assembled an ad hoc executive committee of the National Security Council, which helped him come up with two alternative plans: (1) Immediate attack on the Soviet missiles sites in Cuba, followed by a full invasion of the island using 180,000 U.S. troops. (2) A naval blockade of Cuba, to be lifted only if the Soviets removed its missiles. If the blockade did not work—and it was a risky plan, as such a blockade is, by international law, an act of war—the invasion plan would be carried out.

On October 22, 1962, Kennedy addressed the American people by television. He stated: "This sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again…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."

Over the next four days, ships carrying Russian goods were searched at sea, and several Soviet vessels carrying missiles were turned back by U.S. naval vessels. The U.S. Strategic Air Command placed all its B-52 intercontinental bombers on 15-minute takeoff alert on October 20; on October 22, it placed them on a revolving airborne alert, with a percentage of bombers airborne at all times, ready to head over the North Pole toward the Soviet Union. ICBM crews were also placed on highest alert, ready to launch, and nuclear-armed Polaris submarines moved to their pre-assigned war stations at sea. The Soviet Union already had over 45,000 of its own troops on Cuba (though the U.S. estimated only 16,000), armed with 90 shortrange nuclear warheads that would have been used against a U.S. invasion force. (The U.S. did not know of these short-range nuclear weapons.)

A U.S. invasion of Cuba, had it occurred, could have escalated rapidly to nuclear war, first in Cuba and then globally. The entire world, including Kennedy and Khrushchev and their advisors, feared throughout the crisis that global nuclear war was extremely probable. If nuclear war had occurred, it could have caused hundreds of millions of deaths, and significantly destroyed the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and many other nations as functioning societies.

On October 26, Khrushchev sent a private message to Kennedy indicating that he would be willing to remove the missiles if the U.S. would promise not to invade Cuba. The following day, a more formal message said that Soviet Union would remove its missiles only if the U.S. would remove its Jupiter-class intermediate-range missiles from Turkey. In secret negotiations between Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and U.S. attorney general Robert Kennedy (brother of President Kennedy), the U.S. did promise not to invade Cuba in exchange for withdrawal of the Soviet missiles; it did not, however, promise to remove its missiles from Turkey. These missiles were considered largely symbolic by U.S. strategists, and were technically unreliable and obsolete. Additionally, their threat to the U.S.S.R. could have been replaced by deployment of a Poseidon submarine carrying nuclear missiles to the eastern Mediterranean. In secret, therefore, Kennedy seriously considered trading the missiles in Turkey for the missiles in Cuba, although in public he refused to do. On October 28—one day before the deadline urged by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff for launching a Cuban invasion—the Soviets stated that they would remove their missiles from Cuba. The crisis abated.

Many historians have viewed Kennedy's handling of the Cuban missile crisis as a masterpiece of statesmanship. The Soviet Union backed down; its missiles were removed; U.S. goals were fully met; American geomilitary prestige was preserved. Other historians argue that the Kennedy administration was not as deft in reality as it seemed publicly. Kennedy and his advisors were badly frightened; Secretary of State Dean Rusk began to weep when told, at the height of the crisis, that a U-2 plane had been shot down over Cuba. Robert Kennedy said later that his brother had put events in motion that he could not control.

What is certain is that Khrushchev and Kennedy were both willing to risk global nuclear war for dubious gains. The Soviets were soon to achieve strategic nuclear parity with the U.S. simply by building more and better ICBMs; any strategic advantage to be gained by placing missiles in Cuba would, therefore, be short-term. By the same token, no long-term U.S. interests were at stake in the deployment of Soviet intermediate-range missiles to Cuba, as within a few years every city in the continental U.S. would be vulnerable to Soviet ICBMs and submarinelaunched ballistic missiles anyway. Kennedy administration officials knew that the Soviet buildup in Cuba would, at worst, decrease the United States's massive strategic advantage, or appear to do so—in Kennedy's words, make the Soviets "look like they're coequal with the U.S." Kennedy was thus, willing to gamble the world's future not to save the U.S. from an imminent military threat, but because to tolerate the Soviet buildup in Cuba would, in his words, "have politically changed the balance of power. It would have appeared to, and appearances contribute to reality."

The U.S. emerged from the Cuban missile crisis with greatly expanded confidence in its own geopolitical skill. Its policymakers had verified, as they believed, that "showing resolve" (threatening to use military force) was more effective than diplomacy, the United Nations, or international law—with the proviso that the U.S. should be more willing to commit conventional (non-nuclear) military forces in a crisis, in order to keep back from the nuclear abyss. Today, many historians argue that U.S. willingness to invade Vietnam is directly attributable to its success during the Cuban missile crisis.

Further Reading

Books

Nathan, James. Anatomy of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 2001.

Periodicals

Frankel, Max. "Learning from the Missile Crisis." Smithsonian. October, 2002: 53–64.

The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was a dangerous moment in the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The actions taken by President John F. Kennedy's administration prevented the installation of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, just ninety miles from Florida. The crisis also illustrated the limitations of international law, as the United States relied on military actions and threats to accomplish its goal.

The crisis grew out of political changes in Cuba. In the 1950s, Fidel Castro, a young lawyer, led a guerrilla movement against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Batista lost the confidence of the Cuban people and on January 1, 1959, fled the country. Castro became premier of the new government.

At first, the United States supported the Castro government. This changed when Castro seized U.S.-owned sugar estates and cattle ranches in Cuba. The United States subsequently embargoed trade with Cuba, and the Central Intelligence Agency began covert operations to topple Castro. In 1960 Castro openly embraced communism and signed Cuba's first trade agreement with the Soviet Union.

Many Cubans had left the island of Cuba for the United States following the Castro revolution. Aided by the United States, a Cuban exile army was trained for an invasion. Though most of the planning took place in 1960, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower was finishing his second term, the final decision to invade came during the first months of the Kennedy administration. In April 1961, Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The invasion was a debacle, in part because U.S. air support that had been promised was not provided. The exile army was captured.

Convinced that the United States would attempt another invasion, Castro asked Premier Nikita Khrushchev, of the Soviet Union, for nuclear missiles. Khrushchev agreed to what would be the first deployment of nuclear weapons outside the Soviet Union. President Kennedy at first did not believe the Soviets would follow through on their promise. On October 14, 1962, however, photographs taken by reconnaissance planes showed that missile sites were being built in Cuba.

President Kennedy convened a small group of trusted advisers, called the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (Ex Com). Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy served on Ex Com and became the key adviser to the president during the crisis.

Military officials advocated bombing the missile sites or invading Cuba. Others argued for a nuclear strike on Cuba. These ideas were rejected in favor of a naval blockade of Cuba. All ships attempting to enter Cuba were to be stopped and searched for missiles and related military material.

President Kennedy, believing that the Soviets were using the missiles to test his will, resolved to make the crisis public. Bypassing private, diplomatic procedures, Kennedy went on national television on October 22 and informed the United States of the missile sites, the naval blockade, and his resolve to take any action necessary to prevent the missile deployment.

Tension built during the last days of October as the world awaited the approach of Soviet missile-bearing ships at the blockade line. If Soviet ships refused to turn back, it was likely that U.S. ships would either stop them or sink them. If that happened, nuclear war seemed probable.

During the crisis, the United Nations was not used as a vehicle for negotiation or mediation. The United States and the Soviet Union ignored an appeal by Secretary General U Thant, of the United Nations, that they reduce tensions for a few weeks. Instead, the Security Council of the United Nations became a stage for both sides to trade accusations. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, from the United States, presented photographs of the missile sites to back up the U.S. claims.

On October 24, the crisis began to ease, as twelve Soviet ships on their way to Cuba were, on orders from Moscow, diverted or halted. However, construction on the missile sites continued. On October 26, Premier Khrushchev sent a long, emotional letter to President Kennedy, claiming that the missiles were defensive. He implied that a pledge by the United States not to invade Cuba would allow him to remove the missiles.

President Kennedy replied, accepting the proposal to exchange withdrawal of the missiles for the promise not to invade. He also stated that if the Soviet Union did not answer his reply in two or three days, Cuba would be bombed. On October 28, the Soviets announced on Radio Moscow that the missile sites were being dismantled.

Some historians maintain that President Kennedy acted heroically to meet a threat to the security of the United States. Others claim that the missiles at issue were of limited range and were purely defensive, and that Kennedy was reckless in brandishing the threat of nuclear war. Most agree that the crisis was probably the closest the Soviet Union and the United States ever got to nuclear war.

A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war. The Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, placed Soviet military missiles in Cuba, which had come under Soviet influence since the success of the Cuban Revolution three years earlier. President John F. Kennedy of the United States set up a naval blockade of Cuba and insisted that Khrushchev remove the missiles. Khrushchev did.

Jupiter IRBM picture

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba in October 1962, during the Cold War. In Russia, former Eastern Bloc countries, and other communist countries (i.e. China and North Korea), it is termed the "Caribbean Crisis" (Russian: Карибский кризис, Karibskiy krizis), while in Cuba it is called the "October Crisis" (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre). In September 1962, the Cuban and Soviet governments placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. When United States military intelligence discovered the weapons, the U.S. government sought to do all it could to ensure the removal of the missiles. The crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War, and is generally regarded, along with the Able Archer 83 incident in 1983, as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to a nuclear war.^[1]

The tensions were at their height on 27 October 1962, which was known as "Black Saturday". On 14 October, United States reconnaissance observed (with a US Navy F-8 Crusader) missile bases being built in Cuba. The crisis ended two weeks later on October 28, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy and the United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with the Soviets to dismantle the missiles in exchange for a no-invasion agreement. In his negotiations with the Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy informally proposed that the Jupiter missiles in Turkey would be removed "within a short time after this crisis was over"^[2]. The last missiles were taken down by 24 April 1963, and were flown out of Turkey soon after.^[3] In the meeting between Attorney General Kennedy and Ambassador Dobrynin, the ambassador was caught in a lie. He had told Kennedy previously, on the basis of what Krushchev said, that the only missiles placed in Cuba by the Russians were strictly defensive, and were not capable of reaching the United States. Also discussed in this meeting was the issue that no action was supposed to be taken on the part of the Russians until the American Presidential elections were over. This conversation, held on October 24, 1962, made the Soviet Union look misleading.

Contents 1 Background 2 U-2 flights 3 Planning an American response 4 Quarantine 5 Crisis deepens 6 Secret negotiations 7 Crisis continues 8 Drafting the response 9 Ending the crisis of 1962 10 Aftermath 11 Historical notes 12 See also 12.1 Media 13 Notes 14 References 15 External links

Background

The Americans feared the Soviet expansion of Stalinism, but for a Latin American country to ally openly with the USSR was regarded as unacceptable, given the Russo-American enmity since the end of the Second World War in 1945. Such an involvement would also directly defy the Monroe Doctrine, a United States policy which held that European powers should not interfere with states in the Western Hemisphere.

The United States had been embarrassed publicly in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, which had been launched by the CIA under President John F. Kennedy. Afterwards, 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."^[4] The halfhearted 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."^[4] Covert operations continued in 1961 in the unsuccessful Operation Mongoose.^[5] Publicly, in February 1962, the United States launched an economic embargo against Cuba.^[6]

The United States considered covert action again and inserted CIA paramilitary officers from their Special Activities Division.^[7] Air Force General Curtis LeMay presented to Kennedy a pre-invasion bombing plan in September, while spy flights and minor military harassment from the United States Guantanamo Naval Base were the subject of continual Cuban diplomatic complaints to the U.S. government.

In September 1962, the Cuban government saw what it perceived to be significant evidence that the U.S. would invade, including a joint U.S. Congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force in Cuba if American interests were threatened,^[8] and the announcement of a U.S. military exercise in the Caribbean planned for the following month (Operation Ortsac).

Khrushchev and Cuban leader Fidel Castro agreed to place strategic nuclear missiles secretly in Cuba. Like Castro, Khrushchev felt that a U.S. 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."^[9] The Soviet leadership believed that Kennedy would avoid confrontation and accept the missiles as a fait accompli, based on Kennedy's perceived lack of confidence during the Bay of Pigs invasion.^[10] The Soviet missiles in Cuba could also been seen as a counter to the US Jupiter IRBMs in Turkey.

President Kennedy gave a key warning in his first public speech on the crisis (October 22, 1962):

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 on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.^[11]

This speech included another key policy:

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 and 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.

Kennedy ordered intensified surveillance, and cited cooperation from the foreign ministers of the Organization of American States (OAS). Kennedy "directed the Armed Forces to prepare for any eventualities; and I trust that in the interest of both the Cuban people and the Soviet technicians at the sites, the hazards to all concerned of continuing the threat will be recognized." He called for emergency meetings of the OAS and United Nations Security Council to deal with the matter.^[11]

U-2 flights

U-2 reconnaissance photograph of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Shown are the transports and tents for fueling and maintenance.

The first consignment of SS-3 MRBMs (medium range ballistic missiles) arrived on the night of September 8, followed by a second on September 16. The Soviets were building nine sites — six for SS-4s and three for SS-5s with a 4,000 kilometer-range (2,400 statute miles). The planned arsenal was forty launchers, a 70% increase in first strike capacity. The Cuban populace readily noticed it, with over one thousand reports reaching Miami, which U.S. intelligence considered spurious.^[12]

On 7 October, Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós spoke at the U.N. 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". Several unrelated problems meant the missiles were not discovered by the U.S. until a 14 October Lockheed U-2 flight showed the construction of an SS-4 site at San Cristóbal, Pinar del Río Province, in western Cuba.

Planning an American response

When President Kennedy saw the photographs on 16 October,^[13] he assembled the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM), fourteen key officials and his brother Robert, at 9.00 a.m. The U.S. had no plan for dealing with such a threat, because U.S. intelligence was convinced that the Soviets would not install nuclear missiles in Cuba. The EXCOMM quickly discussed five possible courses of action:

1. Do nothing.
2. Use diplomatic pressure to get the Soviet Union to remove the missiles.
3. An air attack on the missiles.
4. A full military invasion.
5. The naval blockade of Cuba, which was redefined as a more selective quarantine.^[14]

Unanimously, the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed that a full-scale attack and invasion was the only solution. They agreed that the Soviets would not act to stop the U.S. from conquering Cuba; Kennedy was skeptical, saying:

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.^[15]

Kennedy concluded that attacking by air would signal the Soviets to presume "a clear line" to conquer Berlin. Adding that in taking such an action, the United States' allies would think of the U.S. as "trigger-happy cowboys" who lost Berlin because they could not peacefully resolve the Cuban situation.^{[citation needed]}

President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara in an EXCOMM meeting.

The EXCOMM then discussed the effect on the strategic balance. The Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the missiles would seriously alter the 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 circa 5,000 strategic warheads^[16], whilst the Soviet Union only had 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."^[17]

The EXCOMM did agree, however, 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"^[18]. Second, U.S. credibility amongst their allies, and amongst the American people, would have been damaged if they had 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."^[19]

A full-scale invasion was not the first option, but something had to be done. Robert McNamara supported the naval blockade as a strong but limited military action that left the U.S. in control. According to international law a blockade is an act of war, but the Kennedy administration did not feel itself limited, thinking that the USSR would not be provoked to attack by a mere blockade.^{[citation needed]}

By 19 October, 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 maximal action. 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.

Quarantine

	Address on the Buildup of Arms in Cuba Kennedy addressing the nation on October 22, 1962 about the buildup of arms on Cuba
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A U.S. Navy P-2 of VP-18 flying over a Soviet freighter.

In customary international practice, a blockade stops all shipments into the blockaded area, and is considered an act of war. Quarantines are more selective, as, in this case, being limited to offensive weapons. While the original U.S. Navy paper did use the term "blockade,"

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.

Kennedy made an address to the Nation in which he said "To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated." "1962 Year In Review: Cuban Missile Crisis"

Admiral Anderson's paper, by differentiating between the quarantine of offensive weapons and all materials, indicated that a classic blockade was not the original intention. Since it would take place in international waters, President Kennedy obtained the approval of the OAS for military action under the hemispheric defense provisions of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (i.e., the Rio Treaty).

Latin American participation in the quarantine now involved two Argentine destroyers which were to report to the U.S. Commander South Atlantic [COMSOLANT] at Trinidad on 9 November. An Argentine submarine and a Marine battalion with lift were available if required. In addition, two Venezuelan destroyers and one submarine 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 U.S. to discuss this assistance. The Argentine Air Force informally offered three SA-16 aircraft in addition to forces already committed to the quarantine operation.^[20]

President Kennedy signs the Proclamation for Interdiction of the Delivery of Offensive Weapons to Cuba at the Oval Office on October 23, 1962.

At 7 p.m., on 22 October, President Kennedy delivered a televised radio address announcing the discovery of the missiles. As part of the context of the speech a directive went out to all US forces worldwide placing them on DEFCON 3. The world wide US Forces DEFCON 3 status was returned to DEFCON 4 on 20 November 1962.

Crisis deepens

On 23 October at 11:24 a.m. a cable drafted by George Ball to the U.S. Ambassador in Turkey and the U.S. Ambassador to NATO notified them that they were considering making an offer to withdraw missiles from Italy and Turkey in exchange for a withdrawal from Cuba. Later, on the morning of 25 October, journalist Walter Lippman proposed the same thing in his syndicated column. For many years, this has been interpreted as a trial balloon floated by the Kennedy administration, although the historical record suggests this is not the case.^{[citation needed]}

At the time the crisis continued unabated, and that evening TASS^{[citation needed]} reported on an exchange of telegrams between Khrushchev and Bertrand Russell, in which Khrushchev warned that the United States' "pirate action" would lead to war. However, this was followed at 9:24 p.m. by a telegram from Khrushchev to Kennedy which was received at 10:52 p.m., 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.

On the night of October 23, the Joint Chiefs of Staff instructed Strategic Air Command to go to DEFCON 2, for the only confirmed time in history. The message, and the response, were deliberately transmitted uncoded, unencrypted, in order to allow Soviet intelligence to intercept them.^[5] Operation Falling Leaves quickly set up three radar bases to watch for missile launches from Cuba.^{[clarification needed]} The radars were experimental models ahead of their time. Each base was connected with a hotline to NORAD control.

At 1:45 a.m., on 25 October, Kennedy responded to Khrushchev's telegram, stating that the U.S. 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 recently declassified map used by the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet showing the position of American and Soviet ships at the height of the crisis.

At 7:15 a.m., 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, it was allowed through the blockade. Later that day, at 5:43 p.m., the commander of the blockade effort ordered the USS Kennedy to intercept and board the Lebanese freighter Marcula. This took place the next day, and the Marcula was cleared through the blockade after its cargo was checked.

At 5:00 p.m., 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 the first air strikes on the Soviet Union).

The next morning, Kennedy informed the executive committee 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 U.S. 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.^[21]

Secret negotiations

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At 1:00 p.m., John A. Scali of ABC News had lunch with Aleksandr Fomin 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 U.S. 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 U.S. that it would never invade Cuba. The U.S. responded by asking the Brazilian government to pass a message to Castro that the U.S. would be "unlikely to invade" if the missiles were removed.

At 6:00 p.m., the State Department started receiving a message that appeared to be written personally by Khrushchev. 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 p.m., 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.

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[22]

S-75 Dvina with V-750V 1D missile 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 was soon at hand, and he dictated a letter to Khrushchev which appeared to call for a preemptive strike on the U.S. He also ordered all anti-aircraft weapons in Cuba to fire on any U.S. aircraft, whereas in the past they had been ordered only to fire on groups of two or more. At 6:00 a.m., on 27 October, 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.

At 9 a.m., 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 Jupiters from Italy and Turkey. At 10 a.m., 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.^[23] 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 quarantine line and suggested relaying this information to them via U Thant at the UN.

Air Force U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft of the type shot down over Cuba. The aircraft in 1962 was painted overall gray.

While the meeting progressed, at 11:03 a.m. 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 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, while it is now known that Italy's Prime Minister Fanfani, who was also Foreign Minister ad interim, offered the withdrawal of the missiles deployed in Apulia as a bargaining chip, entrusting the general manager of RAI-TV Mr. Ettore Bernabei, one of his most trusted friends, who at the time was in New York to attend an international conference on satellite TV broadcasting, to convey the message to Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., which later informed him of the President's agreement.

The engine of the Lockheed U-2 shot down over Cuba on display at Museum of the Revolution in Havana.

That morning, a U-2 piloted by USAF Major Rudolf Anderson, departed its forward operating location at McCoy AFB, Florida, and at approximately 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, he was shot down and killed by an S-75 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2 Guideline) SAM launched from an emplacement in Cuba. The stress in negotiations between the USSR and the U.S. intensified, and only later was it learned that the decision to fire was made locally by an undetermined Soviet commander acting on his own authority. Later that day, at about 3:41 p.m., several U.S. Navy RF-8A Crusader reconnaissance aircraft on low-level photo reconnaissance missions were fired upon, and one was hit by a 37 mm shell but managed to return to base. At 4 p.m., Kennedy recalled the executive committee to the White House and ordered that a message immediately be sent to U Thant asking if the Soviets would "suspend" work on the missiles while negotiations were carried out. During this meeting, 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 leave the matter unless another attack was made. In an interview 40 years later, McNamara remembers (Note that he dates, from memory, the shooting down of the U-2 to Friday, October 26):

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.^[24]

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.^[25] 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 USSR Ambassador in Washington to discover whether these intentions were genuine. The EXCOMM was generally against the proposal because it would undermine NATO, 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. White House Special Counsel and Advisor 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 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy, Secretary of State Rusk, and Secretary of Defense McNamara, in the White House Cabinet Room.

At Juan Brito'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 U.S. 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.

Within the U.S. 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 base 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..."

At 8:05 p.m., 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."

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 p.m., 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".

At 12:12 a.m., on 27 October, the U.S. 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 a.m. the CIA reported that all missiles in Cuba were ready for action.

On 27 October, the US Navy dropped a series of "signaling depth charges" (explosives designed to signal submarines) on a Soviet submarine (B-59) at the quarantine line, unaware that it was armed with a nuclear-tipped torpedo with orders that allowed it to be used if the submarine was "hulled" (hole in the hull from depth charges or surface fire).^[26]

Ending the crisis of 1962

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.

At 9 a.m., on 28 October, 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 U.S. 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 U.S. territory or from the territory of other countries neighbouring to Cuba."^[27]

The practical effect of this Kennedy-Khrushchev Pact was that it effectively strengthened Castro's position in Cuba in that he would not be invaded by the United States. 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. However, 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. However, 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.^[27]

Aftermath

The compromise was a particularly sharp embarrassment for Khrushchev and the Soviet Union because the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Italy and Turkey was not made public—it was a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev. The Russians were seen as retreating from circumstances that they had started — though if played well, it could have looked just the opposite. Khrushchev's fall from power two years later can be partially linked to Politburo embarrassment at both Khrushchev's eventual concessions to the U.S. and his ineptitude in precipitating the crisis in the first place. However, the Cuban Missile Crisis was not solely responsible for the fall of Khrushchev. The main reason was that rival politicians such as Leonid Brezhnev believed that Khrushchev did not have enough "power" to handle international crises^{[citation needed]}.

For Cuba, it was a partial betrayal by the Soviets, given that decisions on how to resolve the crisis had been made exclusively by Kennedy and Khrushchev, and certain issues of interest to Cuba, such as the status of Guantanamo, were not addressed. This caused Cuban-Soviet relations to deteriorate for years to come.^[28] On the other hand, Cuba continued to be protected from invasion.

One U.S. military commander was not happy with the result either. General LeMay told the President that it was "the greatest defeat in our history" and that the U.S. should invade immediately.

The Cuban Missile Crisis spurred the Hotline Agreement, which created the Moscow-Washington hot line, 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.

Various commentators (Melman, 1988; Hersh, 1997) also suggest that the Cuban Missile Crisis encouraged U.S. use of military means, such as in the Vietnam War.

This Russo-American confrontation was synchronous with the Sino-Indian War, dating from the U.S.'s military quarantine of Cuba; historians speculate that the Chinese attack against India for disputed land was meant to coincide with the Cuban Missile Crisis.^[29]

Historical notes

Adlai Stevenson shows aerial photos of Cuban missiles to the United Nations in November 1962.

Arthur Schlesinger, historian and adviser to John F. Kennedy, on National Public Radio on October 16, 2002, concluded that Castro had not wanted the missiles but that Khrushchev had forced them upon Cuba in a bit of political arm-twisting and "socialist solidarity." However, Castro has said that although he was not completely happy about the idea of the missiles in Cuba, the Cuban National Directorate of the Revolution accepted them to protect Cuba against U.S. attack, and to aid its ally, the Soviet Union.^[30] Schlesinger believed that, having accepted the missiles, Castro was angrier with Khrushchev than he was with Kennedy when the missiles were withdrawn, because Khrushchev had not consulted Castro before deciding to remove them from Cuba.^[31]

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,^[32] though General Anatoly Gribkov, part of the Soviet staff responsible for the operation, stated that the local Soviet commander, General Issa Pliyev, had predelegated authority to use them if the U.S. had mounted a full-scale invasion of Cuba. Gribkov misspoke: the Kremlin's authorization remained unsigned and undelivered.^{[citation needed]} (Other accounts show that Pliyev was given permission to use tactical nuclear warheads but only in the most extreme case of a U.S. invasion during which contact with Moscow was lost. However, when U.S. forces seemed to be readying for an attack (after the U-2 photos, but before Kennedy's television address, Khrushchev rescinded his earlier permission for Pliyev to use the tactical nuclear weapons, even under the most extreme conditions.)

Castro has stated that he knew during the crisis that the warheads had indeed reached Cuba, and that he would have recommended their use in the event of invasion, despite being sure that Cuba would be completely destroyed should nuclear war break out.^[32]

In October 1997, The John F. Kennedy Library released a set of tape recordings documenting the crisis for the period October 18 to October 26, 1962. These recordings were made in the Oval Office. They include President Kennedy's personal recollections of discussions, conversations with his advisers, meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and members of the president's executive committee.

Arguably the most dangerous moment in the crisis was unrecognized until the Cuban Missile Crisis Havana conference in October 2002, attended by many of the veterans of the crisis, at which it was learned that on October 26, 1962 the USS Beale had tracked and dropped signalling depth charges on the B-59, a Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine which was armed with a 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 chief of staff of the submarine flotilla, Commander Vasiliy 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.^[33]

At the Cuban Missile Crisis Havana conference, Robert McNamara admitted that nuclear war had come much closer than people had thought. Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, said that "a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world."

See also

Cuba portal

• Central Intelligence Agency
• International crisis
• Cold War
• Brinkmanship
• Bomber gap
• Missile gap
• Dino Brugioni
• Cuba – United States relations
• Cuba–Soviet Union relations
• Stanislav Petrov
• Sino-Indian War
• Able Archer 83
• Norwegian rocket incident

Media

• Missiles of October, a dramatization
• Thirteen Days (book)
• Thirteen Days (film)
• The Fog of War, a film biography of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.
• Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath, a videogame set in this period
• The World Next Door, a novel set in this period
• C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, features a parody known as the "Newfoundland Missile Crisis"^[34]

Notes

1. ^ B. Gregory Marfleet, ‘The Operational Code of John F. Kennedy During the Cuban Missile Crisis: A Comparison of Public and Private Rhetoric’, Political Psychology, 21/3, p 545.
2. ^ Glover, Jonathan (2000). Humanity: a moral history of the twentieth century. Yale University Press. p. 222. ISBN 0300087004. http://books.google.com/books?id=xtqFJVhmuowC&pg=PA222&dq=%22within+a+short+time+after+this+crisis+was+over%22+%2Brobert+kennedy&client=firefox-a. Retrieved July 2, 2009. 
3. ^ Schlesinger, Arthur (2002). Robert Kennedy and his times. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 523. ISBN 0618219285. http://books.google.com/books?id=0xqrU5lnD7AC&pg=PA528&dq=robert+kennedy+ambassador++cuban+missile&client=firefox-a. Retrieved July 2, 2009. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Mind-Sets and Missiles: A First Hand Account of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kenneth Michael Absher, Strategic Studies Institute, United States Army War College, 2009, p. 10.
5. ^ ^{a b} Franklin, Jane, [excerpts from The Cuban Missile Crisis - An In-Depth Chronology], http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/missile.htm 
6. ^ The American Presidency Project. "Proclamation 3447—Embargo on all trade with Cuba". http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=58824. 
7. ^ Shadow Warrior: The CIA Hero of 100 unknown battles, Felix Rodriguez and John Weisman, Publisher: Simon & Schuster, October 1989, ISBN 9780671667214
8. ^ Cuban resolution,october U.S. Public Law 87-733, S.J. Res. 230
9. ^ quote in Weldes, J. - "Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis" University of Minnesota Press, 1999 p.29
10. ^ Absher, p. 1.
11. ^ ^{a b} Kennedy, John F. (October 22, 1962) (^{[dead link]} – ^{Scholar search}), Speech on the Cuban Missile Crisis, http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/10/documents/kennedy.speech/ 
12. ^ Interview with Sidney Graybeal - 29.1.98, George Washington University National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-21/graybeal3.html 
13. ^ Revelations from the Russian Archives
14. ^ Allison, Graham (1999). Essence of Decision. Pearson Education. pp. 111–116. ISBN 0-321-01349-2. 
15. ^ Kennedy, Robert (1971). Thirteen Days: A memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 14. ISBN 0-393-09896-6. 
16. ^ Robert Evan Ornstein, Paul R. Ehrlich: “New world new mind: moving toward conscious evolution”: the University of Michigan, USA: Doubleday, 1989. P.p. 261
17. ^ Blight, J. & Welch, D. - 'On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis' Noonday Press, 1990
18. ^ Kennedy, J. - 'The President's News Conference of September 13, 1962', In 'Public Papers of the Presidents: John F Kennedy, 1962' pp. 674-681. Washington, DC. Government Printing Office, 1963
19. ^ Kennedy, J. - 'After Two Years: A conversation with the president' Television and radio interview, December 17, 1962. In 'Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1962' pp.889-904. Washington, DC. Government Printing Office 1963
20. ^ Anderson, George Whelan Jr. (Chief of Naval Operations), "The Naval Quarantine of Cuba, 1962: Abeyance and Negotiation, 31 October -13 November", The Naval Quarantine of Cuba, 1962, U.S. Naval Historical Center, Report on the Naval Quarantine of Cuba, Operational Archives Branch, Post 46 Command File, Box 10, Washington, DC, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq90-5c.htm 
21. ^ Helms, Richard (Deputy Director for Plans, CIA) (19 January 1962), Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence: Meeting with the Attorney General of the United States concerning Cuba, George Washington University National Security Archives, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/620119%20Meeting%20with%20the%20Attorney%20Gen..pdf 
22. ^ Attack us at your Peril, Cocky Cuba Warns US by Henry Brandon, The Sunday Times, October 28, 1962
23. ^ For the President's Eyes Only, pg. 300
24. ^ Interview with Robert McNamara by Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment, bundled as a DVD special feature of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
25. ^ Frey, Jennifer (January 14, 2007). "At Yenching Palace, Five Decades of History to Go". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/13/AR2007011301272.html. Retrieved 2008-12-27. 
26. ^ "The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: Press Release, 11 October 2002, 5:00 PM". George Washington University. 2002-10-11. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/press3.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-26. 
27. ^ ^{a b} Faria p. 103
28. ^ Ramonet, Ignacio, Fidel Castro: My Life. Penguin Books: 2007, p. 278. ISBN 978-0-1410-2626-8
29. ^ Frontier India India-China Section Note alleged connections to Cuban Missile Crisis
30. ^ Ramonet, Ignacio, ibid, p. 272
31. ^ 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 lack of consultation. See Ramonet, Ignacio, Fidel Castro: My Life. Penguin Books: 2007, pp. 284-5. ISBN 978-0-1410-2626-8
32. ^ ^{a b} Arms Control Association: Arms Control Today
33. ^ Dobbs, Michael, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2008; p. 303, 317. ISBN 978-1-4000-4358-3.
34. ^ http://www.csathemovie.com/timeline/moreinfo/newfoundland.html

References

The short time span of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the extensive documentation of the decision-making processes on both sides makes it an excellent case study for analysis of state decision-making. In the Essence of Decision, Graham T. Allison and Philip D. Zelikow use the crisis to illustrate multiple approaches to analysing the actions of the state.

It was also a substantial focus of the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, which won an Oscar.

• Allison, Graham and Zelikow, P. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis; New York: Longman, 1999.
• Blight, James G., and David A. Welch. On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis; New York: Hill and Wang, 1989.
• Chayes, Abram. The Cuban Missile Crisis, International Crisis and the Role of Law; Oxford University Press, 1974; 2nd ed., 1987.
• Diez Acosta, Tomás, October 1962: The 'Missile' Crisis As Seen From Cuba; Pathfinder Press, New York, 2002.
• Divine, Robert A. The Cuban Missile Crisis; New York: M. Wiener Pub.,1988.
• Dobbs, Michael. One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2008; ISBN 978-1-4000-4358-3.
• Faria, Miguel, Cuba in Revolution—Escape from a Lost Paradise(2002); Hacienda Publishing, Macon, Georgia, ISBN 0-9641077-3-2. http://www.haciendapub.com
• Frankel, Max, High Noon in the Cold War; Ballantine Books, 2004; Presidio Press (reprint), 2005; ISBN 0-345-46671-3.
• Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Naftali, Timothy; One Hell of a Gamble - Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy 1958-1964; W.W. Norton (New York 1998)
• Fursenko, Aleksandr; Night Session of the Presidium of the Central Committee, 22-23 October; Naval War College Review, vol. 59, no. 3 (Summer 2006).
• George, Alice L. (2006). Awaiting Armageddon: How Americans Faced the Cuban Missile Crisis. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807828289. 
• Gonzalez, Servando The Nuclear Deception: Nikita Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis; IntelliBooks, 2002; ISBN 0-971-1391-5-6.
• Kennedy, Robert F. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis; ISBN 0-393-31834-6.
• Khrushchev, Sergei, How my father and President Kennedy saved the world; American Heritage magazine, October 2002 issue.
• May, Ernest R. (editor); Zelikow, Philip D. (editor), The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis; Belknap Press, 1997; ISBN 0-674-17926-9.
• Polmar, Norman and Gresham, John D. (foreword by Clancy, Tom) DEFCON – 2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis; Wiley, 2006; ISBN 0-471-67022-7.
• Pope, Ronald R., Soviet Views on the Cuban Missile Crisis: Myth and Reality in Foreign Policy Analysis; University Press of America, 1982.
• Pressman, Jeremy. "September Statements, October Missiles, November Elections: Domestic Politics, Foreign-Policy Making, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” Security Studies 10, no. 3 (Spring, 2001), pages 80–114.
• Stern, Sheldon M., Averting the Final Failure: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings; Stanford University Press, 2003; ISBN 0-804-74846-2
• Stern, Sheldon M. (2005). The Week The World Stood Still: Inside The Secret Cuban Missile Crisis (Stanford Nuclear Age Series). Stanford University Press. ISBN 0804750777. 
• The Cuban Missile Crisis: Declassified (Television Program)

External links

• The CWIHP at the Wilson Center for International Scholars Document Collection on the Cuban Missile Crisis
• New Photos (2009) of the Missile Sites of the Cuban Missile Crisis
• IV. Chronology of Submarine. Contact During the Cuban Missile Crisis. October 1, 1962 - November 14, 1962. Prepared by Jeremy Robinson-Leon and William Burr.
• CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962(.pdf, 354 pgs.) U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, McAuliffe, M. ed., CIA History Staff, 1992.
• Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, 1961 - 1963, Volume XI of the Kennedy Administration in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Keefer, E., Sampson, C., & Smith, L., Eds., U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1996. The official U.S. documentary historical record.
• Declassified Documents, etc. - Provided by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University.
• Declassified "Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense" on "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba," from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C., March 13, 1962, html text from Cryptome .pdf from National Security Archive, at The George Washington University.
• Transcripts and Audio of EXCOMM meetings - Provided by the Miller Center's Presidential Recordings Program, University of Virginia.
• Tapes of debates between JFK and his advisors during the crisis
• President Kennedy's Address to the Nation on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba
• The World On the Brink: John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
• 14 Days in October: The Cuban Missile Crisis - a site geared toward high-school students
• Nuclear Files.org Introduction, timeline and articles regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Cuba Havana Documentary Bye Bye Havana is a documentary revealing what Cubans are thinking about today
• Annotated bibliography on the Cuban Missile Crisis from the Alsos Digital Library.
• October, 1962: DEFCON 4, DEFCON 3
• Spartacus Educational(UK): Cuban Missile Crisis
• Latin American Task Force
• What the President didn't know
• Document - Britain's Cuban
• The Cuban Missile War: an alternate history timeline
• No Time to Talk: The Cuban Missile Crisis
• S.Isaev. The 32nd Guards Air Fighter Regiment in Cuba (1962-1963)

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