In the Rearview Mirror: The Cuban Missile Crisis‏

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Children attending middle school today have no direct experience of the events that led to the quagmire in Afghanistan. Likewise, they have no experience of the pre-9/11 world. They have grown up in a time and place that bears the imprint of that tragic act of war and all of the knee-jerk stupidity that followed in its wake.

A comparable event for people of my generation might be the construction of the Berlin Wall or, better, the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was an event that left a lasting impression on the adults and older children of our youth. Its trauma was tangible given that it was the closest the US and USSR got to a full blown exchange of nuclear munitions. The fear left a mark on those who lived it while the youngest of us picked up on it in a second-hand fashion. It seemed as if the world was always that way just as today's middle school students know nothing of life before Homeland Security and the Patriot Act.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has made it possible for us to get a glimpse of the machinations behind the scenes in Moscow. A. A. Fursenko and Timothy Naftali published a joint study of the event as an East/West collaboration. The work includes the impression that IRBM (intermediate range ballistic missile) deployment by US/UK/NATO in England, Italy, and Turkey made on Soviet leaders. These missiles were brought up in the negotiations over withdrawal of Soviet MRBs and IRBMs from Cuba. Another historian, Philip Nash, has published an account of these other missiles and President Kennedy's secret agreement to dismantle them.

The event left us with expressions such as being eyeball to eyeball when the other guy blinked as well as an eloquent description of a rope upon which the knot of war is tied. Dean Rusk, the American Secretary of State at the time, describes the origin of the "eyeball to eyeball" remark in his personal memoir.

Kennedy came away from the event with mixed reviews. He was seen as a strong leader in the eyes of some and a spineless wimp in the eyes of others. Although Kennedy achieved the withdrawal of Soviet IRBMs from Cuba, he promised in return not to invade Cuba and to dismantle American IRBMs. This did not sit well with hard line anti-Communists at the time. Although the removal of the missiles occurred months later, their removal was suspected as a concession to the Soviets. It turned out to be an accurate suspicion since Kennedy's promise to Khrushchev included a removal time frame that was adhered to.



Here is an image of one of the American missiles in Turkey from Philip Nash's book and an image from the Internet. (The nuclear explosive nosecone is missing on the second photo.)

Do you have any observations on US/Soviet/Cuban relations to mark this 50th anniversary of the Missile Crisis? Are there any lessons from that event that political leaders today can learn from?

Links: Fursenko and Naftali's book, One Hell of a Gamble. Philip Nash's book, The Other Missiles of October. Khrushchev's "knot of war" letter. Dean Rusk's memoir, As I Saw It.

Comments

[papasha-mueller.livejournal.com]

It happens that only decades after people understand, who really blinked first.
In the strategic retrospective, I believe Khrushjov played his part well: he both secured Cuba from US invasion AND got the American missiles removed from Turkey.
On the other hand, it has to be admitted that the crisis, paradoxically, led to 'better' relations between two superpowers - i mean the understanding of each other's motivation, way of thinking and decision making processes improved.
'Special thanks to informal contacts.'
In this sense, Khrushev and Kennedy paved the way for Noxon-Brezhnev and emergence of 'arms control'
PS. Cuban missile crisis belongs to the same epogue with the U2 downing, Berlin wall crisis, Vietnam war etc - it was time pretty well packed with notable events.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, commented that the US government had a certain degree of empathy for the Soviet side during the Crisis. The hard liners in the US military were champing at the bit to go into Cuba, wipe out the missile installations and Castro's regime along with them. Fear that the missiles might be operable was one of the reasons that Kennedy was able to rein in the hotheads.

As for the informal contacts, Fursenko and Naftali mention the role of a Russian emigre bar tender in alerting the Soviets of the seriousness of American military plans.

Gary Powers tells an interesting story of his experience of being shot down in a U2 over Sverdlovsk, imprisoned, interrogated, and tried. It is a fascinating look into post-Stalin Lubyanka.

[papasha-mueller.livejournal.com]

I didn't hear of the bartender, the deal was brokered by Kennedy's brother, Robert and Russian ambassador to US.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The back channel connections with Bobby Kennedy are mentioned in a number of places. The bartender did not participate in that aspect of the event. He passed on inside information on US preparations to attack Cuba militarily.

[papasha-mueller.livejournal.com]

You mean to say, he was different channel serving to different needs. One of these channels, I'd say.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

They would have also wanted to avenge the Bay of Pigs incident, while the USA never appreciated the irony of its ringing the USSR with nuclear missiles and screaming bloody murder the very first time the USSR found a way to try to turn the tables. Khrushchev fell not because of Cuba, but the Virgin Lands clusterfuck, and also because he tried to run the USSR as a generic dictatorship.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The issue of Cuba was brought up in the proceedings against Khrushchev two years later.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, was the subject of a documentary The Fog of War, highly recommended to watch.

Subsequent revelations from former Soviet officials and their American counterparts, along with Fidel Castro show how much much closer than anyone previously thought. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis) cf: "Post-Crisis Revelations." And according to these new revelations, Khrushchev wanted New York City as one of the primary targets for those missiles in Cuba.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It is an excellent movie. It prompted me to read his memoirs on Vietnam. The movie has more material on McNamara's personal life than is in the book, but the book has more detail on his professional life.

Fursenko and Naftali mention an exchange between Castro and a Soviet official where Castro actually favored the Soviets launching a nuclear attack on the US. It gave him a reputation as a hot-head with the Soviets. Castro came out the loser in the whole affair despite the promise on the part of Kennedy to not invade.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yep, I grew up near Langley AFB, which was at that time headquarters for TAC, and my older brother and his cousin would ride their bikes during the Missile Crisis out to the outskirts of the base, and see the jets readied for immediate take off.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I have heard stories about empty shelves at the grocery store as a result of panic shopping. Did you encounter that aspect of the event?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

He actually didn't come out the loser in a serious sense. Cuba went on after this to enjoy a heyday as the major Soviet proxy in large parts of the world like say, South America and Africa, and the USA was never able to invade and/or depose him as happened to people like Lumumba, Mossadeqh, and Allende.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

He lost in the sense that the Soviets did not take him as seriously as they had before. He also had become accustomed to the idea of being a nuclear power, however much of a proxy one it might have been.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

The Fog of War is great. I'll second that recommendation.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

That makes your second a second second.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It actually was not the closest incident, that would appear to be the Able Archer incident in the 1980s when the USSR really believed WWIII was on the verge of breaking out. As far as the Crisis itself goes, that simply illustrates the reality of US policy at the time and the degree of realism Kennedy had when he asked about missiles in Turkey that had been there for over a decade without realizing they were actually there. And as far as geopolitics goes, in hindsight it was the USSR and Cuba which ultimately won as the USA never invaded Cuba again to impose another pro-US regime there into the 21st Century, but in the short-term it was a US success only in that nuclear war did not happen at a point in time when US preponderance was so overwhelming that a few US cities might have been hit, note the word 'might', but the USSR would have turned into the world's largest concentrated area of green glass.

That Kennedy did not know the extent of the US nuclear arsenal at the time is not a surprise, he, after all, ran on a missile gap that never was and used that kind of fearmongering to make people in the USA frightened of the USSR more than they should have been. It was in the 1970s and 1980s that it actually *did* have a missile gap in its favor. Not the 1960s, which is the reason that no nuclear war happened over this incident.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The installation in Turkey was not ten years old. It had come online during Kennedy term. Perhaps you got the impression that it had been there for a decade since it took about that long from the inception of the program before the missiles were finally operable.

Kennedy was fully aware that the missile gap was smoke and mirrors once he got into office. McNamara made the faux pas of admitting as much in a press conference during his first weeks on the job.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The installation taking ten years is no excuse not to realize we actually had missiles there. One would think someone so terrified of phantom missiles would know damned well where our missiles were or were not.

You realize that in noting that McNamara simply made it clear that the Kennedy Administration was the Democratic version of the Bush Administration, namely idealistic, reliant on blatant lies to secure power, and having no fundamental comprehension of how geopolitics works in the real world?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The exact status of the missiles in Turkey was classified information available only on a need-to-know basis. It would be natural for any elected leader to be in the dark on the matter until he asked about it.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I must admit I actually enjoy your non-Caesar, non-psychiatry posts.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Your secret is safe with me.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

I was in college during the Cuban missile crisis; watching Kennedy on television scared the bejeezus out of me. I thought nuclear war was only days away.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It was. Both sides had nuclear munitions ready to use in case of action. The military gears were enmeshed such that things were about to heat up very quickly. According to the people who were in the White House, it was not a game.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

It was closer than that. McNamara said if Kennedy knew the warheads were armed, he would have ordered an air strike / and or invasion. It wasn't known until the mid 1990s when the former Soviet participants met with their American counter parts and revealed some unknown information.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

That position was one that Kennedy took early on. Once he knew more about the risks of such an operation, he decided that a blockade quarantine would be safer and (hopefully) more effective. After all, there is the concept of "use it or lose it" where military operations could precipitate a launch rather than deter it.