between the two countries had developed into an important issue. The leaders of France, Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union intended to discuss a . Their meeting did not result in a to this issue.
. . The failed in 1961 brought the USA and the Soviet Union closer to direct war.Many historians believe that the . The events brought the world to the brink of nuclear warfare. It was a and cause a 'thaw' in .
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a result of decades of tension between the USA and the Soviet Union
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. informed Kennedy that approaching Soviet ships could be carrying | between the USA and the Soviet Union. Castro publicly announced that he was a . Kennedy warned Khrushchev not to place nuclear weapons on Cuba | Since 1945, US-Soviet relations had been tense. . The USA and the Soviet Union developed powerful nuclear weapons that could destroy the world |
Khrushchev decided to place nuclear weapons in Cuba because:
NATO had missiles pointing at the Soviet Union in Turkey . The Soviet Union wanted the USA to experience what this nuclear threat felt like. Khrushchev may have wanted the missiles removed from Turkey
Khrushchev was under political pressure in the Soviet Union. His colleagues saw him as a weak leader after the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 . A victory in Cuba could restore his power and reputation
The Soviet Union became increasingly worried about the military power of the USA . Khrushchev needed Cuba to remain communist to strengthen the Soviet Union
Missiles in Cuba worried the USA
Soviet missiles on Cuba had significant political consequences for the USA . The US government felt determined to stop the Soviet missiles from arriving in Cuba
The US Defence Secretary , Robert McNamara, told Kennedy that the Soviet missiles would become operational two weeks after their arrival . This gave Kennedy time pressure to make his decision about how to react to missiles in Cuba
A concept map showing the three options available to the USA over the issue of Cuba in 1962
Before making a decision, Kennedy had to consider:
How the American public would react to missiles on Cuba. Little to no reaction by the US government could cause widespread panic in the USA
How his decision would affect election results. Elections for the US Congress were in November. If Kennedy failed to deal with the situation in Cuba effectively, it would damage the success of his political colleagues, the Democrats
The impact of his decision on other Cold War issues . Kennedy worried that a strong reaction to Cuba would encourage Khrushchev to become more aggressive over the issue of Berlin
Kennedy had limited options to deal with Cuba
The US government had already attempted an invasion of Cuba during the Bay of Pigs incident in 1961
Kennedy knew that this would be unpopular in Cuba and may cause a major conflict within the country.
Bombing Cuba would make the USA look aggressive
Depending on the bomb that the USA used, it could cause a significant number of civilian deaths in Cuba
The Cold War was a war of propaganda
Kennedy had to make the best decision that would not damage the USA's reputation internationally
The 'Thirteen Days' refers to the period of 16th October to 28th October 1962
Between these 13 days, the world became the closest it had ever been to nuclear war
Kennedy made a series of decisions about how to deal with the missile sites in Cuba
A flow diagram showing the progression of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the Thirteen Days of 16th October to 28th October 1962
The Soviet ships' reluctance to break the naval blockade of Cuba was a key moment in the Cuban Missile Crisis
Kennedy had prepared the US military to sink the Soviet ships. This would have triggered a war between the USA and the Soviet Union
The actions of the Soviet ships proved that the Soviet Union was unwilling to cause direct armed conflict with the USA
The events of the Thirteen Days shocked the world
Kennedy's announcement had warned the US public about the possibility of nuclear warfare if the Soviet ships ignored the blockade
Internationally, people became even more afraid of the threat of nuclear warfare
Students are often overwhelmed by the amount of events that happened in a short space of time in the Cuban Missile Crisis. This revision note displays these events in a flow diagram and in a timeline. This should help you visualise how one event triggered the next event to happen. Knowing the order of the events in the Thirteen Days is crucial if a question asks you to write a narrative account of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
On 26th October, Khrushchev telegrammed Kennedy to resolve the issue of missiles in Cuba
He promised to remove the missile launch pads from Cuba if Kennedy promised not to invade the country
The next day (27th October), Kennedy received a further request from Khrushchev
Khrushchev added that he wanted the USA to remove the NATO missiles from Turkey
Kennedy's brother, Robert, secretly met with the Soviet ambassador in Washington
They verbally agreed to the removal of the US missiles in Turkey
The Hawks in the US government pressured Kennedy to go to war over Cuba
Kennedy refused to succumb to this pressure
By 28th October, Kennedy and Khrushchev had resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis
Kennedy agreed not to invade Cuba in return for the removal of the missile launch pads in the country
The US public had no knowledge of the removal of the US missiles in Turkey
While both countries continued to threaten war, the Cuban Missile Crisis made the world safer
Khrushchev and Kennedy faced pressure from their government and the public to start a full-scale war with each other. They did not do this
The USA and the Soviet Union had more motivation to avoid a situation like the Cuban Missile Crisis from occurring again
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The 'hotline' (June 1963) | Moscow and Washington established a with each other. This improved communication between the USA and the Soviet Union |
The Test Ban Treaty (August 1963) | Signed by the USA, the Soviet Union and Britain. The treaty . This treaty slowed down the nuclear |
The Outer Space Treaty (1967) | The USA and the Soviet Union agreed . It also banned placing nuclear weapons in . This helped to control the developing between the two countries |
The Nuclear Treaty (1968) | Signed by the USA, the Soviet Union, Britain and 59 other countries. The treaty formalised a promise to |
The Cuban Missile Crisis had significant impacts on Kennedy and Khrushchev
Kennedy's popularity increased
The US public believed that Kennedy had dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis effectively. Kennedy looked stronger as the removal of US missiles in Turkey was unknown to the public
Kennedy had stood up against the Hawks in his government. The Cuban Missile Crisis had proved that he was a strong leader
Kennedy gained more confidence in dealing with the Soviet Union
Khrushchev's popularity decreased
While Khrushchev interpreted the Cuban Missile Crisis as a success for the Soviet Union, his military did not. His government believed that Khrushchev had humiliated the country by withdrawing their missiles from Cuba
Leonid Brezhnev ousted Khrushchev from power in 1964
Overall, US-Soviet relations improved
Explain one consequence of the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
One consequence of the Cuban Missile Crisis was better regulation of nuclear weapons. The Cuban Missile Crisis had shown how dangerous the nuclear arms race had been. When the Soviet Union planned to place missiles on Cuba, it showed the US public the real threat of nuclear technology. If ICBMs had been placed in Cuba, the Soviet Union could have destroyed every major city in the USA. When nuclear war was avoided in 1962, it highlighted to the world the need to control the testing and production of nuclear weapons. For example, the Test Ban Treaty (August 1963) and The Outer Space Treaty (1967) restricted where nuclear weapons could be tested. This made the possibility of nuclear warfare between the USA and the Soviet Union less likely.
In this example, you can see the development of wider knowledge of the period. The example has linked the development of ICBMs to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The existence of this type of nuclear weapon is significant to understanding why the Cuban Missile Crisis increased tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union. This answer would not be effective if it only discussed ICBMs. The example is linked back to the consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the creation of the Test Ban Treaty (August 1963) and The Outer Space Treaty (1967) to help better regulate nuclear weapons.
This question has previously asked you to explain two consequences . In the Superpower Relations exam paper for 2025 , this question will ask you to explain one consequence. However, there will be two different "Explain one consequence of" questions, each worth four marks.
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Managing of cuban missile crisis, reference list.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a battle that arose between the United States, Cuba and Soviet Union in 1962. United States unsuccessful efforts to overthrow Cuban regime (Operation Mongoose) prompted Soviet to furtively erect bases in Cuba to provide medium and intermediate range of airborne nuclear artilleries to prove to the world its military supremacy.
The artilleries had a capability of striking continental America. The installation of missiles in Cuba was a Soviet mission done privately to facilitate surprise attack to continental America (White, 1997, p.69).
The US administration of the time believed that Moscow‘s activities in Cuba were a threat to International security, hence; the ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba enhanced a major security blow to the leadership of United States. To curb potential danger caused by the situation, John F. Kennedy effected strategies which proved useful in calming the situation
Managing the Cuban Missile Crisis was a complex issue by John F. Kennedy administration. Perhaps, the United States intelligence was convinced that Soviet would not succeed in installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. However, this was not the case; the Soviet had gone ahead and installed the missiles without prior knowledge of United States security intelligent.
To mitigate the risk, the Kennedy administration discussed various options to reduce the likelihood of a full blown crisis. Mitigation measures adopted included; military, quarantine and diplomacy among other measures
The John Kennedy administration embraced using military to designate Missile sites in Cuba by using military prowess. United States Military interventions were well developed thus the Kennedy administration found it easy to order posting to strategic sites on the Atlantic Ocean. Besides, the Army, marine, and navy had a tough program if they were not engaged; they were systematically ordered to the sea (White, 1997, p.79).
Concentrated air monitoring in Atlantic was instigated, tracking more than 2,000 foreign ships in the area. The government was determined in case the Soviet Union launched nuclear assault; United States military was standby to answer.
Beginning 20th October, 1962, The United States’ Strategic Air Command began diffusing its aircraft, fully equipped on an upgraded alert. According to White (1997, p.109), heavy aircraft such as B-52 began a significant aerial vigilance that involved 24 hour flights and instant standby response for every aircraft that landed.
Besides, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile troops assumed analogous vigilant authority. Moreover, the POLARIS submarines were deployed to reassigned locations in the sea bordering United States and Cuba. The supreme nuclear weapons of Kennedy administration were installed to forestall any hasty battle poised by the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Divine (1998,p.97) points out that United States air defense troops, under the operational control of North America Defense Command, were also organized. Combatant interceptors, NIKE-HERCULES and HAWK missile hordes, were tactically relocated to southeast part to enhance local air defense (White, 1997, p.118).
The John Kennedy constituted its Air Force, Army and Navy in October. When command organizations were officially constituted, the Commander in Chief Atlantic was chosen to lead the team and provide a unified authority.
The John F. Kennedy administration implemented all these plans through the Joint Chiefs of Staff who later named Chief of Naval Operations to administer all necessary actions and subsequent execution.
Military intervention instituted by John Kennedy administration deterred Soviet Union intention of installing Missile center in Cuba of which would have posed a serious threat not only to America but entire America’s continent (Divine, 1998, p.123).
The John F. Kennedy administration imposed a quarantine to exert more pressure on Soviet Union with a view of subverting possible war. This was one of the flexible methods unlike others that US government embraced. Quarantine was aimed at constraining buildup of offensive military weapons en-route to Cuba.
To thoroughly execute the strategy, all kinds of ships en-route to Cuba from whichever country or port were scrutinized to confirm the presence of aggressive artilleries. Byrne (2006, p.29) explains that if toxic artillery were located, the ship was forced to unwind the voyage or risk being confiscated.
This quarantine was stretched to other kinds of cargoes and carriers. Quarantine provided more opportunity to Soviet Union to reconsider their position and destroy all offensive military apparatus in Cuba. Quarantine was believed as a precise strategy in solving the Cuban Missile Crisis because, the US government thought that it will be easier to start with a limited steps towards stringent measures for implementation (Byrne, 2006, p 86).
Though it started at a low pace, it exerted more pressure on Soviet Union thus yielding to United States demands. This proved to be an effective strategy. Soviet Union sentiment was that United States was contravening international law.
However, it was hard for the Soviet to test the applicability of this strategy. They knew if they dare rise the situation at hand would become even worse. The Soviets acknowledged installing missiles in Cuba to secure it against the US invasion. The Kennedy administration accordingly accepted to invade Cuba.
John Kennedy and ExComm (John F. advisers) team prodded every probable diplomatic system to truncate a nuclear holocaust. The Cuban Missile Crisis deepened diplomatic relations between the United States and Soviet Union with a choice of evading more emergency or perhaps war.
According to Byrne (2006, p.125), Kennedy himself was skillful and embraced compulsion to gain a diplomatic success. He sustained emphasis upon Khrushchev vehemently but adeptly. Potency was used shrewdly by Kennedy administration as a powerful, discreet component to urge Soviets cede the plan without embarrassment. His persistence was unwavering.
United States and the Soviet exchanged letters and intensified communication both formal and informal. The Soviet through Khrushchev dispatched letters to Kennedy administration explaining the circumstances of Missiles in Cuba and peaceful intention of Soviet Union.
Further, diplomatic efforts were strengthened by more letters from Soviet Union explaining the intent of dismantling the missile installations in Cuba and subsequent personnel relocation. This was only after United States dismantled its missile it had installed in Italy and Turkey.
Kennedy’s respond to crisis diplomacy is lauded as a contributory factor which barred the Cuban Missile Crisis resulting in nuclear conflict.
Byrne (2006, p.132) alleges that, if Kennedy’s responses were altered, it would have led to another world war. hence his diplomatic finesse succeeded in convincing Soviet Union to dismantle its Missiles in Cuba under United Nations supervision whereas the honoring its commitment in removing its missile installations in the continental Europe.
John F. Kennedy administration amicably responded to Cuban Missile Crisis in an effective way. Measures undertaken such as; military intervention, quarantine and skillful diplomacy necessitated subversion of the crisis.
Failure of which would have resulted in another World War. Besides, the plans facilitated the Kennedy administration to effectively prove to the world it was capable of handling similar magnitude of threats to enhance world peace and security.
Byrne, P. J. (2006). The Cuban Missile Crisis: To the Brink of War , Minneapolis: Compass Point Books
Divine, R. A. (1988). The Cuban Missile Crisis. New Jersey: Markus Wiener Publishers
White, M. J. (1997). Missiles In Cuba: Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro, And The 1962 Crisis , Texas: University of Texas
IvyPanda. (2019, May 2). Cuban Missile Crisis Management. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cuban-missile-crisis-essay/
"Cuban Missile Crisis Management." IvyPanda , 2 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/cuban-missile-crisis-essay/.
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IvyPanda . 2019. "Cuban Missile Crisis Management." May 2, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/cuban-missile-crisis-essay/.
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The Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. The crisis was a major confrontation between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The confrontation was caused by the Soviets putting missiles in Cuba , just 90 miles off the coast of the United States of America. The world was in the hands of President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khruchchev. These two men would have to reach a compromise or else the results would be fatal. During the cold war John F. Kennedy and the Soviet premier met to discuss the was between the east and west but they resolved nothing and Khrushchev left thinking that Kennedy was a weak leader. The Soviets …show more content…
Kennedy was informed the the missiles that very same day and his advisors told him that they wanted an air strike followed by an invasion put up in Cuba. Kennedy knew that if the US invaded the Soviets would use their missiles. On one of the following days, Kennedy asked if the Air Force could take out all of the missiles in Cuba. The Air Force then told the President that with that process there would be 10-20,000 civilian casualties. Kennedy then decided to set up a blockade around Cuba. US ships prepared for a quarantine. The press then learned about the nuclear missles and questioned them about it, the President asked the reporters not to reveal the news so he could announce it to the American people on TV. The Soviets had instrustion to launch the missiles within minutes of Kennedy’s speech. After Castro listened to the President’s speech he moblized all of Cuba’s military forces. The Organization of American States approved the US quarantine of Cuba and by the end of the day the US ships were in line and were prepared to destroy and ship that failed to stop at that line. On Wednesday, October 24th the Soviets ships approached the quarantine line. Soviets ship stopped when they received a radio message from Moscow. On Thursday, October 25th the Military alert was raised to DEFCON 2, the highest ever in US history. At any moment the US could launch an attack on Cuba or the
The Cuban Missile Crisis all started in October, 1962, when an American spy plane spotted and secretly photographed missile sites being built on the island of Cuba by the Soviet Union. President Kennedy did not tell the Soviet Union right away that we had found their nuclear missile site. But days later, President Kennedy meet secretly with his advisors to discuss the situation. President Kennedy and his advisors though long and hard about what to do and the finally came up with an idea. Kennedy decided to put a naval blockade around the island of Cuba. The purpose of this was so Cuba could not get anymore military supplies for the Soviet Union. President Kennedy demanded that the missiles that were already there be disabled and that the sit be destroyed. Later on, Kennedy told America what was happening on a televised address. Everyone was anxious about what the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, would say about the naval blockade. But both President Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev recognized that the devastation that a nuclear war will bring is too much.
The Cuban Missile Crisis began October 16, 1962. It was at the height of the Cold War that this potentially lethal confrontation arose between the United States and the Soviet Union. A United States reconnaissance plane discovered a military stockpile of Soviet nuclear missiles and bombers in Cuba. Some historians point out that Khrushchev's real intention in deploying the missiles into Cuba was to control West Berlin. They would be used in this context as a sufficient reason for the Western powers (The USA, UK, and France) to allow him to achieve his plan. However, The government of Washington, along with President John F. Kennedy at its head, believed this to be a threat and was not willing to tolerate such a threat so close to home.
On October 15, 1962, a photograph proved the existence of the missile being constructed on Cuba, and for the U.S., the nightmare began. After a week of intense debating with his closest advisors, President Kennedy made a decision. He decided to impose quarantine, of sorts, around Cuba to ensure there were no more missiles arriving. The Soviet Union demanded the
People on both sides wondered if this would cause World War III. On October 22, 1962, President Kennedy appeared on national television to speak about the crisis; the people need to know what was going on directly (Edwards, 9). President Kennedy said the missiles stationed in Cuba could strike Washington, DC, or the Panama Canal. They could also strike Cape Canaveral, Florida, or Mexico City; nowhere in the US was safe. He explicated that he warned Cuba not to strike any American cities; this meant cities in Central American and South America, too (Edwards, 9). President Kennedy also shared with the American people his plan of surrounding Cuba with the US Navy. Now, it was just a matter a
He revealed the evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba and how he called for their removal. During Kennedy’s speech he “imposed a naval blockade on Cuba and declared that any missile launched from Cuba would warrant a full-scale retaliatory attack by the United States against the Soviet Union” (Cuban Missile Crisis). Until the Soviet Union agreed to dismantle the missile sites, there should be no additional missiles shipped to Cuba. On day eight the ships of the naval quarantine fleet move into place around Cuba. Soviet submarines threaten the quarantine by moving into the Caribbean area. In the evening Robert Kennedy meets with Ambassador Dobrynin at the Soviet Embassy. After the quarantine is endorsed, President Kennedy asks Khrushchev to halt any Russian ships heading toward Cuba. On day nine Chairman Khrushchev replies to President Kennedy's October 23 letter and states that he thinks Kennedy is trying to threaten him or Kennedy will use force. Day ten Kennedy knows that some missiles in Cuba are now operational and this pushes JFK to personally draft a letter to Khrushchev again urging him to change the course of events. Day eleven more photographic evidence is found showing accelerated construction of the missile sites. In a private letter, Fidel Castro urges Nikita Khrushchev to initiate a nuclear first strike against the United States in the event of an American invasion
There was a suspicious report that there was a nuclear threat from Soviet that might've been based on Cuba with missiles aiming to bomb America. On 29 August President John F. Kennedy ordered periodic flights over to Cuba by high-speed, high-altitude U-2 spy planes. A quote that relates and explains more about this is "Although U-2 flights through 7 October showed Soviet antiaircraft missile (SAM) sites under construction and the introduction of Soviet-built patrol boats, they turned up no hard evidence of offensive missile sites or introduction of such missiles" (The Cold War Continued: The Cuban Missile Crisis). The evidence shows that the prior statement confirms Kennedy's swift action to protect the safety of the American people. This led Kennedy to send forces to examine if Cuba actually had missiles; which they didn't. He always made sure that this country was protected. His priorities was straight and he knew exactly what had to be
invaded the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. The two nations decided to place nuclear missiles in Cuba to stop further advances from the United States. President Kennedy and ExCom decided that missiles being in Cuba was unacceptable, so the decision was made to deploy a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent the Soviet Union from sending more missiles and other military equipment to Cuba, and JFK issued an ultimatum that the missiles needed to be removed or military force would be used. On October 22nd, 1962 President Kennedy notified the American public about the presence of missiles in Cuba, explained the blockade, and assured the citizens that the U.S. Military was prepared to neutralize the threat to the nation. Two days later the Soviet Union ships attempted to break through the Naval blockade, but stopped just short of the barrier.
President John F. Kennedy yesterday ordered a naval Quarantine of Cuba. Such measures are to be put in place in order to prevent any further Soviet Missiles reaching Cuban shores. The quarantine comes after the U.S. recently discovered the existence of missile sites and launch pads in Cuba that, although seemed to be not yet operational would soon harbour the ability to fire at American shores. This announcement came as a shock to many as the possibility of a nuclear war has now arisen. The world will today be waiting on the result of the quarantine knowing that the fate of America rests solely on the success of the quarantine. President Kennedy condemned the course of action undertaken by the soviets referring to it as a ‘clandestine, reckless,
It is evident that the US had been flagrantly deceived. Then Kennedy called for a naval blockade of Cuba. Kennedy used political negotiations with Khrushchev to come to an agreement in the removal of the weapons. Throughout negotiations, there were incidents that occurred which amplified tensions. Such as on the noon of October 27th, a U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba. In those moments, both the US and the Soviet Union assumed that it was Castro who commanded the fire of low-flying U.S. planes on October 27th. Although Castro had certainly commanded Cuban antiaircraft artillery to fire, there is no indication that he had also ordered Soviet artillery to fire. Another occurrence is Castro’s letter to Khrushchev insisting that the Soviet Union should launch a first-strike nuclear attack on the United States.
In 1962, Cuba was convinced that the USA was planning to attack them and asked the Soviet Union for military assistance. The USSR sent Cuba materials to build missile bases and launch sites. When President Kennedy realized that Cuba could launch missiles into America, he demanded that the USSR remove its weapons and troops. The Americans formed a naval blockade as the world stood nervously on the edge of a nuclear war. The USSR removed its weapons despite protests from Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
The photographs were shown to Kennedy two days later on October 16, and a general consensus was reached by the president and his committee that the missile sites being built in Cuba by the U.S.S.R were offensive in nature and therefore posed an immediate nuclear threat to the United States and its Allies. President John F. Kennedy faced a major dilemma: if he gave the authorization for the United States to attack the sites, it may have lead to a global nuclear conflict with the U.S.S.R., but if he did nothing then the United states would be confronted with the greatly increased threat from the medium range nuclear missiles, as well as the United states would appear to the rest of the world to be less committed to the defence of the western hemisphere. In late October 1962, president Kennedy authorized a quarantine of all offencive weapon imports bound for Cuba, which lead to the U.S.S.R. backing down and removing the missile sites from Cuba. The implementation of the blockade effectively blocked the installment of the medium range missiles, and eventually helped lead to the the Nuclear test ban treaty, and resulted in one of JFK’s many great achievements as
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the only devastating event in U.S. to ever bring the country into DEFCON-2. Ever since World War 2, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have been rivals(Jeffery, Riley, 4). The Soviets later aligned themselves with the small country of Cuba. It is a small piece of land in enemy territory, but it is very important to them because they have to protect their allies at all times. For this reason, The USSR placed missiles in Cuba to keep them prepared for an invasion. In 1962, The two huge superpowers brought the Cold War to a nuclear crisis in Cuba which led to DEFCON-2, the closest point to a nuclear war(The Choices Program)
In October of 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union reached a near-nuclear experience when in a short fourteen days; Russia was caught building nuclear missile bases in Cuba. With the Second World War just barely in the past, the United States was still on their toes making sure they were in the clear. When they sent the U-2 spy plane to monitor Cuba they found missile bases that were armed and ready to wipe out the western hemisphere. Considering the military, economy, and diplomacy of the U.S., Kennedy could take no chances.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day political and military standoff occurring in October of 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis came about after the Bay of Pigs. Krushchev gave Castro some of the Soviet military equipment to avoid a follow-up American invasion of Cuba causing Americans to become alarmed. In September 1962, the Soviets said they had no intention of placing nuclear missiles in Cuba; which was a lie. The Cuban Missile Crisis was over the installation of nuclear-armed soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles away from U.S. shores. This tense political and military standoff include leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. On October 22, 1962 president John F. Kennedy told Americans about the missiles, he also explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and he also made it clear that the United States would use military force if needed.
A 13-day political and military standoff on October 1962 over the installation of nuclear armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores was the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US responded after news that Cuba obtained nuclear power the US performed a naval blockade making it clear that the US was prepared to use military force to neutralize the threat if necessary. Huge tensions were created because of this as the idea of a nuclear war was very possible. Both superpowers the US and USSR wanted more nuclear capabilities than the other and were reluctant to give out their advantage over. However through the enormous tensions that were built up both sides managed to make a deal. Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy in which he offered
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Historiographical essay, the cuban missile crisis at 60, where do we stand.
by William M. Morgan, PhD
https://doi.org/10.35318/mch.2023090103
PRINTER FRIENDLY PDF ePub Audiobook
During the past 60 years, our understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis has evolved from the initial portrayal of the situation as an American victory achieved by brilliant crisis management by John F. Kennedy and his advisors to a more deeply researched and nuanced description of a dangerous draw reached only after misconceptions, miscalculation, last-minute compromise, and good luck.
Pro-Kennedy insider accounts dominated early writings. Kennedy’s confidante and speechwriter, Theodore C. Sorensen, quickly produced a vivid biography of 781 pages a year and a half after the president’s assassination. In 1965, renowned historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a special assistant in the White House, used more than 1,100 pages to describe the “Thousand Days” of Kennedy’s tenure. The journalist Elie Abel’s popular history emerged from background interviews with insiders. The classic insider account was Robert Kennedy’s Thirteen Days , drafted to boost his presidential bid and heavily edited by Sorenson for publication after Robert Kennedy’s 1968 assassination. These early writings portrayed a heroic president and his brother making the aggressive Soviets back down. This image still lives in the public mind, though few living Americans know much about the crisis. 1
A second wave of “insider” writings appeared from the 1970s, less devoted to polishing the Kennedy legacy but still claiming victory. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, and others produced memoirs. On the Soviet side, Nikita Khrushchev’s posthumous memoirs, though self-serving, provided the first glimpse of Soviet internal politics. 2 A 1971 blockbuster by political scientist Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis , a blending of factual narrative and analytical theory, dominated the literature of the 1970s and, via a 1999 rewrite with historian Philip Zelikow, remains an important study. 3
The 1980s saw the emergence of new U.S. and Soviet sources. The discovery of Kennedy’s White House taping system initiated the slow but steady release of transcripts through the supposedly final batch, released in 2004. Transcripts of the meetings of the executive committee of the National Security Council, the president’s hand-picked secret advisory group, hugely illuminated the administration’s debate of options. 4 Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost policy led to the first documentary releases from Soviet archives. The end of the Cold War accelerated the flow of information from the Russian side. A series of international conferences of crisis participants as well as scholars began in the late 1980s, initially between Russians and Americans, with Cubans, including Fidel Castro, soon joining. Not only did participants provide startling and previously unknown detail, such as the presence of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons on the island, but their accounts were often accompanied by supporting documents. 5
By the late 1990s, much more information became available. On the U.S. side, the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volumes for the Kennedy administration appeared, as well as other material declassified by the 1967 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process initiated by scholars and organizations such as the National Security Archive of George Washington University and the Cold War International History Project of the Wilson Center. Russian archives opened a bit, and former Soviet officials and military officers published memoirs. During the past 10–20 years, scholars digested the new information, which has continued to emerge, albeit slowly.
Recent scholarly writing falls into two categories: overviews and specialized monographs. The earliest overviews of the crisis focused on the famous “Thirteen Days” from Kennedy learning of the missiles in Cuba on 16 October through Khrushchev’s letter on 28 October announcing he would withdraw the missiles. Recent overviews have become increasingly detailed and more nuanced, tending to see the crisis not as an American victory but as, simultaneously, a lucky draw and a near-catastrophe. Two fresh overviews exemplify the trend. The late Martin J. Sherwin’s Gambling with Armageddon nested the Cuban Missile Crisis in post–World War II American nuclear policy and included the latest archival discoveries. Harvard professor Serhii Plokhy burrowed into the unit histories and officer memoirs of the Soviet forces sent to Cuba in Nuclear Folly . Many of these units had been based in Ukraine and had many Ukrainian soldiers. Because Ukrainian records were more accessible than archives in Moscow, Plokhy filled in some blank areas in the historical record. 6
Targeted studies of underexamined aspects of the crisis dove deeper into precrisis events such as the Bay of Pigs (April 1961), the Khrushchev-Kennedy summit in Vienna (June 1961), and the 1961 Berlin Wall confrontation, all of which shaped the subsequent approaches of both Khrushchev and Kennedy during the 1962 crisis. Scholars also surveyed the impact of domestic/internal factors on Khrushchev’s motivations to deploy the missiles and Kennedy’s resolve that the missiles be removed. Lastly, they cast new light on the difficult post-crisis Soviet-American and Soviet-Cuban negotiations over implementing the general commitments of Kennedy and Khrushchev.
Recent scholarship has explored—even back to the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration—four shaping factors (political atmospherics) that made the October 1962 crisis so dangerous. One powerful shaping factor was fierce high technology competition with the Soviet Union that increased dramatically with the Sputnik launches in 1957. Americans feared the United States had fallen behind in the high technology field, and disastrous attempts to quickly catch up, such as the Vanguard satellite-carrying missile that exploded on the launch pad in early 1958, enhanced the feeling of inferiority. Consequently, both Eisenhower and Kennedy accelerated satellite and manned mission programs. The Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) programs were already underway but received even more resources. Most importantly, as Philip Nash noted in his outstanding monograph The Other Missiles of October , the Sputnik launches triggered the deployment of American intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) to Europe to “restore U.S. strategic credibility in post-Sputnik alliance politics” by restoring Allied confidence in U.S. extended deterrence. This deployment proved a crucial causal building block in the eventual 1962 crisis. Sixty Thor missiles went to Britain, 30 Jupiters to Italy, and 15 Jupiters to Turkey. 7
A second shaping factor was the myth of the nuclear missile gap, a key issue in the 1960 presidential election. According to the myth, the United States lagged the Soviet Union in ICBMs and strategic bombers. Better intelligence in 1961–62, much aided by the first generation of reconnaissance satellites, proved that rather than a gap, the United States had a decisive advantage in strategic weapons. A widely publicized speech in October 1962 by Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric destroyed the myth, but while it lasted, it intensified Soviet-American tensions and contributed to the U.S. deployment of missiles in Europe. 8
A third shaping factor was more than a century of contentious U.S.-Cuba relations, culminating in the Communist revolution that brought Castro to power in December 1958. Castro’s seizure of American oil companies and other corporations in Cuba and his harsh repression of dissent convinced U.S. officials that he was unpredictable and possibly dangerous. 9
A final shaping factor was the impact of internal politics on the leaders of both countries, and their mutual ignorance of each other’s problems. Khrushchev did not understand Kennedy’s determination not to look weak, either to Khrushchev or to the American people. Led by Republican New York senator Kenneth B. Keating, domestic critics claimed Kennedy’s Cuban policy was timid. They pointed to the Bay of Pigs failure, the lack of progress at the Vienna summit, and the building of the Berlin Wall as signs of weakness. Cuba was Kennedy’s domestic Achilles heel. For the first two years of his presidency, Kennedy enjoyed significant Democratic majorities. If he misplayed Cuban policy, his Democratic party might lose seats, perhaps even its majority, in the November 1962 midterm elections. Khrushchev knew and cared little about Kennedy’s political struggles.
For their part, Kennedy and his advisors ignored Khrushchev’s domestic troubles. His much-touted agricultural reform program foundered. Despite some successes in space, Russia’s ICBM program was grossly inferior in quality and numbers. Soviet missiles were liquid fueled, a process which took several hours. The fueled missiles could only remain launch-ready for a couple of days because the toxic fuel eroded the tanks. The missiles had to be defueled and taken off alert. By contrast, the American Minuteman ICBM and Polaris SLBM used inert solid fuel and were always prepared to launch. Moreover, the Soviets had far fewer ICBMs. Khrushchev implemented a big shakeup in the ICBM program, but even his hand-picked advisors told him it would be years before the Soviets could match U.S. missile technology or ICBM numbers. Lastly, Khrushchev had few diplomatic successes; he needed a win.
Besides broad shaping forces, four events worsened tensions and made the 1962 crisis more likely. First was the May 1960 shoot-down over the Soviet Union of an American Lockheed U-2 piloted by Captain Francis Gary Powers. Because the Soviets produced both wreckage and, miraculously, a live pilot, they reaped a huge propaganda windfall. The incident ruined a Geneva meeting between Eisenhower and Khrushchev and scuttled a promised Eisenhower visit to the USSR. Thus, Kennedy took office amid strained bilateral relations. 10
A second event was the inept Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961. From 1961 to the present, scholars and policymakers alike have judged the Bay of Pigs as a major error by Kennedy, who failed to think through the plan or challenge its faulty assumptions. While all scholars have seen the episode as a failure, pro-Kennedy insiders like Sorensen and Schlesinger asserted that Kennedy inherited a flawed invasion plan from the Eisenhower administration, and so the blame for failure should be spread around. Their interpretation persisted until quite recently. In his excellent recent study, Irwin Gellman demonstrated that although Eisenhower approved limited training of exiles as early as March 1960, he never approved or ordered an amphibious assault plan for Cuba. The final, failed plan—chiefly a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) product—emerged during the first months of the Kennedy administration. Kennedy never liked the CIA plan and watered it down a bit (which decreased its already minimal chances for success), but in bad judgment let the invasion proceed to its tragic end. 11
For Khrushchev and Castro, the Bay of Pigs fiasco strengthened their belief that the United States intended to topple the Castro regime. Khrushchev thought that Kennedy was young, inexperienced, and weak, unable to control all the elements of his government, especially the military and intelligence organizations. For Kennedy, the failed invasion soured his trust in the CIA and to a lesser extent his military advisors. He soon replaced CIA director Allen W. Dulles with John A. McCone and forced the resignation of Air Force lieutenant general Charles P. Cabell, the agency deputy director, and Richard Bissell, the deputy director for plans.
Third, the June 1961 Vienna summit gave the leaders powerful but skewed personal impressions of each other. They committed to the summit soon after Kennedy’s inauguration, despite Khrushchev’s anger at the Bay of Pigs debacle. In a masterful chapter in his book Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century , David Reynolds concluded that Khrushchev did not want a crisis over Berlin in the summer of 1961. Rather, he hoped to use Berlin as a lever to obtain a broader settlement of German issues. 12 Kennedy sought to convince Khrushchev of the reasonableness of the American position. Each man thought if he “played it tough, the other man would come around. Each had fundamental blind spots about his adversary.” 13 Kennedy expected Khrushchev to be rational, open to argument. But he encountered a rigid ideologue for whom the Berlin issue was vital. For his part, Khrushchev discovered that Kennedy would not be pushed around at the summit table, but he did not completely rid himself of his presummit impression of Kennedy as young and inexperienced, someone who might flinch under certain circumstances. 14
For some years, it was thought that Kennedy lost the Vienna summit, partly because of his later lament to journalist Joseph Alsop that Khrushchev had rolled right over him. Unprepared for Khrushchev’s rants, Kennedy felt postsummit that he had looked weak. But in reality, he made no concessions, as the State Department summary of the 4 June meeting makes clear. 15 Indeed, as Martin J. Sherwin explains, Kennedy revamped American foreign and security policies to demonstrate strength to Khrushchev. The president emphasized support for West Berlin in tough speeches, warning that any attempt to block access to West Berlin would be confronted: “The NATO shield was long ago extended to cover West Berlin—and we have given our word that an attack on that city will be regarded as an attack upon us all.” 16 He obtained from Congress blanket authority to mobilize Reserve and National Guard units. Presummit, there had been discussion of pulling the obsolete Jupiters out of Turkey and replacing their deterrent value with a Polaris ballistic missile submarine in the eastern Mediterranean. But postsummit, Kennedy agreed with the State-NATO-DOD recommendation that withdrawal “might seem a sign of weakness” given Khrushchev’s hard line at Vienna. Kennedy let construction proceed on the launch sites. The first site, manned by Americans, became operational in March 1962. In a peculiar coincidence, after Turkish technicians completed training in the United States, the Turks assumed control of the first launch site on 22 October 1962, the day of Kennedy’s naval quarantine speech. 17
The contentious Berlin Wall dispute constituted the fourth milestone event. In 1949, Britain, France, and the United States merged their occupation zones into the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany. It became fully sovereign on 5 May 1955 and joined NATO four days later. Khrushchev wanted East Germany, set up in 1949 in response, to have the same control inside its borders as West Germany now had. As revealed in Frederick Kempe’s deeply researched monograph, Berlin 1961 , and in Hope Harrison’s nuanced article, Khrushchev was under great pressure from Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader. East Germany’s Communist economy steadily lost ground to that of West Germany. Young, talented, and educated East Germans fled to the West by passing through East Berlin into West Berlin and then onward to West Germany via the air and ground corridors permitted to the Western powers. From 1945 to 1961, approximately 2.8–4 million people, perhaps 1 in 6 East Germans, escaped to the West. This immense brain drain hindered the economy and was an embarrassing example of the poor conditions in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. To curb the exodus, Khrushchev allowed the East Germans to build a wall through the city. Harrison concluded that “the Wall, although proposed by Ulbricht, ended up being Khrushchev’s compromise solution for preserving East Germany while not provoking the West.” 18
Though most scholars have praised Kennedy’s handling of Berlin, Kempe criticizes his actions. Well aware of the brain drain problem, in late July 1961, Kennedy told his advisor, Walt Rostow, that Khrushchev might use “perhaps a wall” to curb the refugee flow, but he did not intend to prevent it. He could get NATO to defend West Berlin, he said, but not the eastern part of the city. 19 Kempe judges Kennedy’s Berlin policy as weak and inept: “As the Cuban Crisis would later show, Kennedy’s inaction in Berlin only encouraged greater Soviet misbehavior.” 20 He criticizes Kennedy for signaling that West Berlin was the main concern, thereby freeing Khrushchev to use the wall to cut off East Berlin and stem the outflow. 21
His criticism is overdone. He is probably correct that when Democratic Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright said in a July 1961 television interview that the East Germans had a right to close the Berlin border and Kennedy did not repudiate the statement, Khrushchev was reassured that the Americans would not react. That is not quite the same as signaling. It is also likely that this was a rare occasion when Khrushchev read Kennedy—and probable American policy—correctly. More importantly, what was Kennedy’s prudent alternative? Soviet and East German forces heavily outnumbered American forces isolated in the middle of East Germany. Resupplying U.S. forces in combat would have been virtually impossible. The Soviet Army was dominant in conventional forces. U.S.-NATO war plans for Berlin relied on the use of nuclear weapons. Compared to the disaster that would have resulted from a Soviet-American nuclear shooting war over Berlin, accepting the wall was a wise if distasteful course of action.
While the roots of the crisis lay in previous years, the famous 13 days began on 16 October, when National Security advisor McGeorge Bundy told Kennedy—in his pajamas and reading the morning papers in his bedroom—that a U-2 flight discovered strategic missiles in Cuba. For decades, a central question has been “Why did Khrushchev send strategic nuclear missiles to Cuba?” As Kennedy wrote to Khrushchev during the crisis, “The step which started the current chain of events was the action of your government secretly furnishing offensive weapons to Cuba.” 22
Regarding Khrushchev’s motives, several explanations are common in the literature. 23 There were several significant possible motives.
How to rank the motivations for deployment? Would any one of the motivations mentioned have been sufficient to trigger deployment? In the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis, no motivation appears strong enough to have caused deployment on its own, but Cuban defense and rejiggering the strategic balance are the two strongest. Probably the best we can do, barring new archival discoveries, is declare those two motivations as the chief drivers of the crisis, followed by the other three. Multicausal events are common in history. And as Sergey Radchenko notes, Khrushchev likely had multiple motivations that to his mind may have been inseparable. For example, the strategic missiles might have made it riskier for the United States to attack Cuba, and they simultaneously improved Russian strategic inferiority. 25
Over the years, the Berlin trump card explanation (no. 5) has all but disappeared, simply because no one has been able to make a persuasive case for it. Partial rectification of the strategic missile imbalance has remained at the top, recently joined by the Cuban defense argument. The third and fourth motivations—a gamble for a win and an emotion-driven trade for the Jupiters, have gained supporters. Both are intertwined with Khrushchev’s emotional personality, ideological beliefs, political vulnerabilities, and cognitive practices. As Robert Jervis put it, “To separate power-political from ideological-identity motives is probably impossible . . . but the latter have gained [the] most currency over the years.” 26 (This trend will be discussed below.)
That Khrushchev personally invented the missile deployment plan now seems beyond question. April and early May 1962 were bad times for the premier. Part of Khrushchev’s calculations involved the possible weakening of pro-Moscow elements in the Cuban government. Castro had soured on Escalante, an ambitious man well-liked in Moscow because he was cautious about supporting revolutionary movements throughout Latin America, but whose loyalty to Castro appeared weak. Escalante fled to Moscow. He claimed that Chinese influence was growing in the Castro regime. Alarmed, the Kremlin pondered how to retain Castro’s confidence. In early April, the Central Committee publicly supported Castro’s criticisms of Escalante. The Kremlin’s desire to retain Castro’s good will peaked during consideration of military aid options. 27
Khrushchev decided to beef up Cuban defense. Besides the obvious military benefits, this step might also solidify Castro’s trust in the Soviet Union. On 12 April 1962, the State Council Presidium approved an initial draft plan of sending over a hundred V-75 antiaircraft missiles, a battery of Sopka shore-to-ship cruise missiles, and a 650-troop Soviet military training mission. Moreover, Cuba would jump ahead of Egypt in the V-75 delivery queue, receiving the missiles in the next few months. 28
In May, Khrushchev made an official visit to Bulgaria where, he claimed in his memoirs, he got the idea of sending strategic nuclear missiles to Cuba. 29 This would further defend Cuba, he reasoned, please Castro, strengthen pro-Soviet elements in Cuba, and help rectify the strategic imbalance with the United States. His assistant, Oleg Troyanovsky, later recalled that “Khrushchev had a rich imagination, and when some idea took hold of him, he was inclined to see in its implementation an easy solution to a particular problem, a sort of cure-all. . . . He could stretch even a sound idea to the point of absurdity.” 30 Indeed, in his definitive biography of Khrushchev, William Taubman titled the chapter on the missile crisis “The Cuban Cure-all.” The son of a diplomat, Troyanovsky grew up in the United States and graduated from Swarthmore College, but Khrushchev did not ask his opinion about the probable American reaction to the plan, which Troyanovsky believed would be hostile. Nor did the premier consult his KGB/GRU intelligence analysts. He did run the idea by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who told him that deploying nuclear missiles to Cuba would create a political explosion in the United States. 31 Miscalculating, Khrushchev did not change his mind.
Returning from Bulgaria on 21 May 1962, Khrushchev pitched his nuclear deployment idea to the State Council Presidium, meeting only open opposition from his deputy in the Council of Ministers, the practical and cautious Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan. The presidium approved the plan. Defense Minister Malinovsky assigned the planning to a small cadre, including Major General Anatoli Gribkov, whose book, Operation Anadyr , is the best account of the Soviet deployment. 32
Gribkov and colleagues greatly expanded the April draft plan. As Khrushchev ordered, the strategic missiles now composed the vital heart of the new arms package: 36 medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) with a 1,770-kilometer range and 24 IRBMs with a 4,025-kilometer range. Though construction started on the launch facilities for both types in early September, the IRBMs did not make it to Cuba. The missiles were still on the water when the U.S. blockade went into effect, so Khrushchev sent them back home. 33 The Soviets also sent shorter-range, dual-use (conventional or nuclear-capable) systems: 36 Luna surface-to-surface missiles and, for coastal defense against invasion, 80 front cruise (FKR) missiles and 32 Sopka cruise missiles. The Soviets included six nuclear-capable Ilyushin IL-28 light bombers. 34 A final, significant step was adding four mechanized infantry regiments. Soviet personnel totaled about 43,000 by mid-October.
From July to October 1962, the Soviets sent a torrent of ships to Cuba, all monitored by U.S. planes and naval vessels. But the Russians had carefully masked the cargoes, loading the missiles into deep-hulled cargo ships with nothing on the decks to betray their presence. The thousands of troops aboard were kept below deck in the daytime. The first shipments were chiefly the V-75 surface-to-air missile systems and the technicians and construction workers needed to install them. V-75 installation began in August; a U-2 mission of 29 August photographed some of them. The strategic (and other) missiles arrived later; the first MRBMs arrived on 9 September. They were unloaded at night and then, during two to three days, trucked to their launch sites. They were not photographed until 14 October.
For the various missiles, the Soviets sent 164 nuclear warheads to Cuba aboard two ships, one arriving on 4 October and the second on 25 October, just before the blockade went into effect. The warheads were hidden in the cargo holds. There were 36 1-megaton warheads for the MRBMs, 24 for the IRBMs, 80 2-to-20-kiloton warheads for the FKR cruise missiles, 12 2-kiloton warheads for the Luna surface-to-surface missiles (added by Khrushchev in early September), 6 warheads for Sopka shore defense missiles, and 6 gravity bombs for the IL-28 bombers. 35
When American reconnaissance flights finally spotted the strategic missiles on 14 October, analysts and decisionmakers properly assumed that warheads for the strategic missiles were nearby, as MRBMs and IRBMs were useless in a conventional role. But the dispatch of the additional 104 tactical warheads was unknown. These warheads had not been photographed, and more importantly, U.S. civilian and military officials did not presume that tactical warheads had been sent for the FKR, Luna, and Sopka dual-use missiles. After the crisis ended, the Soviets removed their missiles and the U.S. Navy took pictures of them on board the ships. But the Soviets never told the United States that tactical warheads had been on the island. They removed the warheads secretly, and U.S. intelligence did not spot the warheads on their way back to the Soviet Union. American policymakers were therefore unaware of the presence of the tactical warheads for 30 years. In 1992, at a U.S.-Russia-Cuba conference in Havana, General Gribkov revealed their presence, stunning McNamara and other American participants.
Khrushchev’s public diplomacy for the deployments was ill-considered, indeed counterproductive. Several aides and Cuban officials urged him to announce simply a conventional (nonnuclear) arms package and the signing of a Soviet-Cuban defense pact. Their thinking was that the presence of more than 40,000 Soviet military with modern weapons—including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)—would deter a U.S. invasion. Or Khrushchev could have announced the conventional arms and troops, the defense pact, and even the supply of the tactical nukes, whose shorter range could not endanger the American homeland but could deter an invasion force.
Khrushchev rejected both suggestions, but if Cuban defense was his main goal, he should have accepted them. The United States might have been deterred from any action. But even if the Americans did react, it would surely be less confrontational than the discovery of secretly shipped strategic nuclear weapons that would reach most of the United States. That discovery might well trigger a massive air strike and possibly an invasion. In sum, adding strategic nuclear missiles to the arms package was counterproductive. Instead of making Cuba safer from American intrusion, Khrushchev endangered it.
We now know much more about why the missiles were discovered on 14 October rather than earlier or later. The tardy timing of discovery was critical as it severely limited the menu of options considered by the president and the executive committee. Earlier discovery would have allowed more time for diplomacy, as missile construction would have been in the earliest stages. A later discovery date might have meant dealing with many installed, operational nuclear-tipped missiles. The facts are these: the first MRBMs arrived in a Cuban port on 9 September 1962. 36 After being unloaded at night, they were transported to the first launch site in San Cristobal, where installation began as early as 15 September. 37 A U-2 mission over San Cristobal might have detected the initial MRBM shipload on 15 September.
Thanks to an excellent article by Max Holland followed by a book cowritten with David Barrett, we know that infighting between cautious White House and State Department officials and more proactive CIA and DIA analysts derailed the twice-monthly U-2 flights over the middle of Cuba, a schedule and route that had been followed for months. On 30 August 1962, an American U-2 strayed over Soviet airspace for more than an hour, as Soviet fighters scrambled to intercept it. On 8 September, the Chinese shot down a Taiwanese U-2 using the Soviet V-75 missile that brought down Gary Powers’s U-2 over the USSR in 1960 and which was being emplaced all over Cuba. A small, very senior group headed by Bundy met on 10 September and decided that, at least for the moment, the regular flights over the center of the island were too risky. Crucially, this led to a five-week pause in such flights just when the missiles arrived. Instead of direct overflights, the overly cautious Bundy group authorized only flights on the edge of Cuban territory, with cameras taking less-accurate distant photographs from an oblique angle. Four of these restricted missions were flown: 26 and 29 September and 5 and 7 October. They saw nothing. Meanwhile, the internal pressure from the CIA and DIA for direct overflights grew stronger as reliable human intelligence reports worked their way through the system. The Bundy group finally blessed a direct overflight that, delayed several days by cloudy weather, discovered MRBMs in San Cristobal on 14 October. 38
Fresh studies have given us a clearer picture of the super-charged reconnaissance efforts undertaken after discovery. William B. Ecker and Kenneth V. Jack ably recount the extensive low-level reconnaissance mission, called Blue Moon, flown by the U.S. Air Force McDonnell RF-101 Voodoos and U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Vought RF-8 Crusaders. 39 During the crisis, the U-2s flew constantly, as well. In his heavily detailed series of books, the latest in 2015, British pilot and U-2 expert Chris Pocock has covered virtually all aspects of that remarkable aircraft. 40 Though an interesting read, another book about the U-2 missions, Above and Beyond: John F. Kennedy and America’s Most Dangerous Cold War Spy Mission , contains factual errors as well as an unproven claim that the Soviets fired V-75 missiles at a U-2 on 25 October, two days before they did shoot down a U-2 over eastern Cuba, killing the pilot, Major Rudolph Anderson Jr. 41 Besides U-2s and low-level reconnaissance flights, the United States had early October photographs from the new Corona spy satellite, but as Joseph Caddell’s recent article explains, the resolution of the early Corona equipment did not allow image interpreters to identify the missile sites. In 1962, the Corona could only resolve objects about 13 feet in diameter, good enough to image airfields and bases. The U-2 was roughly five times better, with resolution of targets as small as two to three feet, permitting analysts to “see” missiles and launchers. 42
Recent writing has not substantially changed the standard interpretation of the Kennedy administration’s internal deliberations of options. An airstrike was initially considered, but led by the president, opinion slowly coalesced around a naval blockade. An airstrike would not destroy all the missiles, would kill plenty of Russians, and would leave no room for diplomacy. As a final check, on 21 October, Kennedy spoke personally with Tactical Air Command chief General Walter C. Sweeney, who confirmed that even a large air strike would destroy only 90–95 percent of the strategic missiles. Kennedy announced the blockade in a national television address on 22 October. 43 He thought of the blockade as an intermediate step to pressure Khrushchev to stop missile installation. If that did not work, the president would bless air strikes alone or coupled with an invasion.
On Saturday morning 27 October, the executive committee considered a rambling, stream-of-consciousness letter from Khrushchev that ended with a proposal to withdraw the missiles if the United States promised never to invade Cuba. As the Americans pondered, a more businesslike second letter arrived, adding the condition that the United States withdraw the Jupiters from Turkey. For years, it was thought that a worried Khrushchev, alone in his office on Friday night, and perhaps sipping vodka, wrote the first rambling letter. The second letter was thought to come from other members of the State Council Presidium who wanted to extract an additional concession—the Jupiters—from the United States. Scholars are now sure that Khrushchev wrote both letters.
The president and his advisors debated that Saturday whether to answer only the first letter by making the noninvasion pledge—this was the majority executive committee view—or by giving up the Jupiters as well, as the second letter requested. The president clearly favored adding the Jupiters, knowing they were obsolete and thinking the crisis would be more quickly resolved if Khrushchev could portray the Jupiter withdrawal as a win. Repeatedly during the debate, he kept returning to the Jupiter trade. Interrupting the discussion, the Air Force reported that a U-2 on a routine air-sampling mission had strayed into Soviet airspace. It was soon learned that the Soviets had shot down Major Anderson’s U-2 over Cuba. Kennedy had previously declared that a U-2 shootdown would trigger an attack against the offending V-75 site, and possibly other V-75 sites. But now he decided against a strike that would kill Soviets and escalate the crisis just as Khrushchev offered a deal. No one could explain, however, why the Soviets destroyed the U-2 just as they reached out; the two actions seemed contradictory.
In fact, the U-2 shootdown was not ordered by Moscow. Khrushchev had forbidden his forces to shoot down a U-2, thinking such a move would escalate the crisis. But the crew of a V-75 battery in eastern Cuba tracked Major Anderson’s U-2. Worried that the photographs would be used in the invasion everybody thought imminent, the crew called headquarters. General Issa A. Pliyev was out, but his deputy, Lieutenant General Andrei Grechko, authorized the shootdown. Defense Minister Malinovsky later told Pliyev that the action had been “too hasty,” but no officer received punishment. 44
Meanwhile, the executive committee agreed that Kennedy’s reply to Khrushchev should be only a noninvasion offer, with no mention of the Jupiters. That formal letter was sent, and the president adjourned the committee at 1945. Kennedy asked Robert Kennedy and a few of his innermost circle to remain, telling them he intended to offer the Jupiter withdrawal as a secret pledge to be carried out in four or five months. He swore them to secrecy. 45 Kennedy sent his brother to pass the offer to Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and stress the need for an answer within one day. Khrushchev and the State Council Presidium, meeting Sunday morning 28 October in Moscow, accepted the deal. The main crisis was over, though touchy issues between Cuba and the Soviet Union, and between them and the United States, took several months to work out. 46
While the overall picture of events during 16–28 October has not changed much, historians have provided more granularity about several key aspects. An example is a well-known but inaccurate scene in the 2000 movie Thirteen Days , when McNamara and Admiral George W. Anderson, chief of naval operations, angrily clashed over how the Navy would execute the tracking and “hold down” of Soviet submarines. When blockade emerged as a likely option, Kennedy asked questions about implementation methods. Following up, McNamara and his deputy, Gilpatric, fretted over the Navy’s procedures for signaling Soviet submarines to surface. To be sure the Soviets would understand the signals, he ordered the Navy to prepare a signaling system, called Submarine Surfacing and Identification Procedures. Passed to the Kremlin during the crisis, there is no evidence that it reached the captains of the four nuclear-armed, diesel-powered Foxtrot -class submarines already in Cuban waters. As Svetlana Savranskaya explained, signaling American warships would drop harmless explosive devices along with a specified underwater sound to advise the subs to surface. 47 Until they did, the warships would hover above the subs, dropping the signaling charges and pinging with sonar. The subs attempted to evade until they were forced to surface to recharge batteries and ventilate the putrid internal air.
In the real meeting, McNamara did not berate the admiral, but there was indeed a confrontation. According to Gilpatric, he and McNamara “weren’t being told anything; we were just being assured that this overall type of action was being implemented, and the navy would take care of everything.” They went to the admiral’s office and found
a phalanx of fifteen or twenty, at least, navy brass all lined up around him. We were the two civilians. And Anderson was very high in color and obviously very, very angry about the whole [ sic ], what he regarded as intrusion. And he listened to a whole series of questions from McNamara that he hadn’t got answers to. And then Anderson just sort of exploded. And I don’t know whether he said goddamn it, but he used some very strong expletives to the effect that, “This is none of your goddamn business. This is what we’re here to do. We know how to do this. We’ve been doing this ever since the days of John Paul Jones, and if you’ll just go back to your quarters, Mr. Secretary, we’ll take care of this.” And during this tirade I could see the color rising in McNamara’s countenance. 48
Visibly angry, McNamara controlled his temper, and as he and Gilpatric walked back to their offices, the secretary of defense muttered, “That’s the end of Anderson. I’ll never. . . . He won’t be reappointed, and we’ve got to find a replacement for him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s lost my confidence.” But in the short run, McNamara got what he wanted. After the clash, every half hour the chief of naval operations sent an officer to the secretary’s office to brief any details he wanted. 49
Most writers once considered executive committee deliberations a highly rational process of evaluating options under Kennedy’s purposeful guidance. With the recordings released, most scholars now agree that, at a minimum, the process had nonrational elements. Sociologist David R. Gibson’s fascinating “conversational analysis” of the deliberations examines how the way participants talked to each other influenced decisions. He analyzes what people said overall and in individual sentences. Did they interrupt or talk over each other? Did they coalesce around certain participants or band together against others? In particular, Gibson explores how blockade became the option of choice even though no one could make a case that it alone would force Khrushchev to withdraw the missiles. Gibson argues that the dynamics of the meetings and
the need to reach consensus at each stage required the [executive committee] to avoid, or cease, consideration of some of the risks: the risk of having to bomb operational missiles if the blockade failed; the risk that letting the Bucharest pass [the blockade] would leave Khrushchev with the impression that Kennedy was weak; and the risk that by accepting Khrushchev’s first offer and ignoring his second, the first real path out of the crisis (like-for-like missile withdrawal) would be sacrificed. 50
Though Kennedy initially favored an air strike, he came to favor a blockade because it would minimize loss of life, allow Khrushchev time to reflect, and still allow an air strike or invasion if Khrushchev would not remove the missiles. Gibson concludes that, aware of the president’s leanings, the executive committee debate adjusted to them.
Scholars have clarified three important aspects of the worst day of the crisis—Saturday 27 October—when Kennedy and Khrushchev were jolted by unplanned events into the realization that they were sliding over the brink. First, as mentioned, there is now scholarly consensus that Khrushchev wrote both letters the executive committee assessed. After proposing missile withdrawal in exchange for a noninvasion pledge, Khrushchev reflected for several hours and decided he could obtain the Jupiter withdrawal as well. Why the delay? Why did Khrushchev not simply make both demands in a single letter? Just after sending the first letter, Khrushchev read a translation of Walter Lippman’s 25 October column in the New York Herald-Tribune suggesting “a face-saving agreement” that would swap the Jupiters for the Soviet missiles in Cuba. 51 Khrushchev promptly wrote the second letter and directed it be announced by Radio Moscow, so Washington would receive it around the time that the first cabled letter arrived. It is possible, though unproven, that with Kennedy’s blessing, an administration official informed Lippman that the missile swap was a feasible option, hoping that the columnist would give Khrushchev a hint. 52
Erratic and unpredictable behavior by Soviet officers and Castro made Khrushchev feel events were slipping out of his control, forcing him to consider how to end the crisis. Soviet troops built and staffed the V-75 missile batteries. Falsely overconfident in the degree of camouflaging done at the MRBM and IRBM sites, Khrushchev forbade the V-75 units from shooting at the U-2 flights, which might trigger American counterstrikes. Yet, Soviet generals, convinced that an invasion was imminent, destroyed Major Anderson’s midday flight on 27 October.
Likewise convinced of impending American landings, Castro stormed over to the Soviet embassy and, using Soviet ambassador Alexander Ivanovich Alekseyev as notetaker, dictated a letter intended to stiffen Khrushchev’s spine. Castro asserted that any invasion would end up with a massive exchange of nuclear missiles. Therefore, the Soviets should launch a full-scale nuclear strike should America invade, eliminating the American danger forever “through a legitimate act of self-defense, however harsh and terrible the solution would be.” Taken aback, Alekseyev asked if Castro wanted him to write that “we should be first to launch”? Castro replied that he did not want to say that directly, but that is definitely the meaning that Khrushchev correctly took away from the missive.
Coupled with the unordered U-2 shootdown, Castro’s emotional, irrational letter contributed to Khrushchev’s growing sense of unease and to his ultimate compromise. Khrushchev later wrote to Alekseyev that “aside from other factors, your telegram also played a role in our being forced to accept Kennedy’s conditions. . . . So we made this decision [to remove our missiles from Cuba] literally a day later.” 53 In fact, Alekseyev’s “head’s up” telegram reached Moscow at 1400 on 27 October, and the completed letter arrived at 1300 the following day.
Though even before the U-2 shootdown and the Castro letter, the premier had sent his two crucial messages to Kennedy, the deal had not been closed. The frightening sequence of the U-2 shootdown and the apocalyptic letter made him even more determined to cement the agreement with Kennedy, which he did on Sunday by accepting the public noninvasion pledge and Kennedy’s secret promise to remove the Jupiters. 54
Regarding nuclear weapons in Cuba, American civilian policymakers, senior military leaders, and intelligence specialists failed in three respects. First, they overlooked evidence—which they had already collected and assessed—that the Soviet Union had secretly deployed nuclear-tipped weapons outside its borders once before. In 1959, the Soviets deployed medium-range ballistic missiles in East Germany, north of Berlin, for six months, apparently to bring the United Kingdom within range. Though unknown to American intelligence at the time, CIA analysts later connected the dots and in January 1961 published a report that strangely never surfaced during the Cuban crisis. The CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate of 19 September 1962 claimed that deployment of strategic missiles would be unique, an aberration in Soviet policy, and that there were no signs of such a policy change. The writers had, for some reason, not seen the January 1961 memo. Similarly, in the executive committee and other deliberations, no one mentioned the previous deployment to East Germany. If that episode had resurfaced in September, as it should have, analysts might well have wondered if the Soviets were doing it again, this time in Cuba. They would have increased, not decreased, direct U-2 overflights, probably leading to earlier discovery of the missiles. 55
A second failure was blindness to the implications of the deployment of short-range nuclear-capable missiles, such as the FKRs and Lunas. When reconnaissance discovered the construction of the MRBM and IRBM sites, leaders and advisors assumed that nuclear warheads for those missiles had also been sent, though the United States could not yet identify the warhead storage sites. Hence, nuclear capability of the strategic missiles was factored into American consideration of options such as air strike, blockade, or diplomacy. But in the case of the FKRs, Sopkas, and Lunas, though they were discovered by air reconnaissance, U.S. officials failed to evaluate the impact on an American invasion if these missiles carried nuclear warheads. Not until after Khrushchev’s 28 October concession on missile withdrawal was the topic discussed, and then not very carefully. Why?
Motivated thinking was an important reason, skewing the analysis of contingencies—things that might happen. When pushing for invasion, Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis E. LeMay, Army Chief of Staff Earle G. Wheeler, and others did not imagine that there might be dangerous unknowns. Known unknowns exist in poorly understood situations. An adept planner or analyst knows a knowledge gap exists, but for various reasons, usually a lack of information, cannot close the gap, leading decisionmakers—correctly—to hedge. By contrast, unknown unknowns emerge from completely unpredictable directions that are not possible to discern in advance. Sometimes called “black swans,” they seemingly emerge from nowhere.
The presence of tactical nukes was not a black swan but a known unknown. LeMay and others should have evaluated the probable presence of tactical nukes when creating their best military advice, to use the common term. But because of their motivated thinking—a conviction and strong desire to invade to completely eliminate the Communist threat—the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to temper its pro-invasion advice with an assessment of tactical nukes on the island. Their failure could have been catastrophic if the Soviets used tactical nukes against the landing force.
Civilian analysts did no better. On 26 October, two days before the crisis ended, John McCone showed the president a photograph of a Luna and noted that such weapons were dual use, indicating the possible presence of “tactical nuclear weapons for fighting troops in the field.” 56 This significant statement disappeared into the mist. Nobody pushed for a follow-up, certainly not the invasion advocates.
More understandable was a third failure—a lack of imagination by all analysts. The CIA team that created the 19 September Special National Intelligence Estimate could have been more imaginative in trying to assess Khrushchev’s feeling of Soviet weakness (a feeling he had for many months), which might have led them to look for signs of a risky gamble to try to rebalance relative nuclear power. Admittedly, this was a difficult task. Even Khrushchev’s colleagues in the Presidium found him unpredictable, often surfacing—and pushing—strange new ideas. Moreover, as Amy Zegart persuasively recounts, the CIA’s process for separating the wheat from the chaff of human field reports was slow, though Sherman Kent, the legendary director of analysis, defended it as careful and professional. 57 The CIA had field agents in Cuba who sent reports; CIA analysts also debriefed Cuban refugees at a special facility in Opa-locka, Florida. It must be remembered that the strategic weapons did not arrive until mid-September; Serhii Plokhy concludes the first batch arrived 9 September. Of the roughly 1,000 human reports and debriefs received after that date, perhaps only a dozen or so were significant. But in the three to four weeks after the missiles arrived in Cuba, the CIA processed and circulated a few reliable human intelligence reports that suggested unusual activity near San Cristobal in western Cuba. These reports helped proactive officers in the intelligence community lobby successfully for the resumption of direct overflights, which promptly discovered the missiles.
The crisis could easily have led to nuclear exchanges. Yet, even with the discovery more than 30 years after the crisis that there were at least 104 tactical nukes plus 60 warheads for the MRBMs and IRBMs on the island and that the four Foxtrots being harassed by the U.S. Navy had nuclear-tipped torpedoes, some observers are reluctant to accept that we came close to nuclear exchanges. They say the obvious: “Nobody knows what would have happened.” This is a dodge, a cop-out, for whenever we assess alternatives or counterfactuals of any event, we never know what would have happened. But counterfactual analysis allows deeper understanding of events. The relevant task is to examine the forces at play and assess probabilities. Admittedly, counterfactuals must be handled carefully. Some are much more realistic, relevant, and useful than others.
In the Cuban crisis, relevant and realistic counterfactuals suggest a likely nuclear exchange. Had Kennedy and Khrushchev not settled the crisis on 28 October, Kennedy intended to order air strikes and an invasion to remove the strategic missiles. He warned the military to be ready to implement that plan on 29 or 30 October. How do we assess the most likely counterfactuals had invasion occurred? 58
First and most dangerous was a Russian intent to use tactical nukes to destroy the 5,000-person Marine garrison and facilities in Guantánamo. As Michael Dobbs revealed in his ground-breaking account, the Russians deployed a detachment of three FKR missiles armed with 14-kiloton nuclear warheads (Hiroshima-size weapons) near Guantánamo to await launch orders. As Dobbs makes clear, it is probable that an American invasion meant nuclear destruction of Guantánamo and thousands of Americans dead. 59 Very likely, the U.S. response would have been use of nuclear weapons, probably against several Russian missile sites or, if identified, against storage areas for Russian nuclear warheads. Whether a tactical nuclear exchange inside Cuba would have escalated to a strategic weapons exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States is less likely, but certainly possible, as emotional and muddled thinking (both had already appeared in earlier stages of the crisis) distorted a more rational response.
Second, should an invasion have occurred, it is quite likely that the Soviets would have used tactical nukes to defend their units. Why else had the tactical weapons been sent to the island? In addition to strategic missile forces and antiair missile units, the Soviets had four infantry regiments, which, more capable than the Cuban forces, would have been the main targets of U.S. landing forces. Initially the Soviet commander, General Issa Pliyev, had authority to use the tactical nukes for defense against landing forces, which is why shore-to-ship missiles with warheads had been sent to Cuba. Kennedy warned on 7 September that if offensive missiles were found to be in Cuba, “the gravest consequences” would occur. Deterrence theory suggests that deterrence increases if defenders clearly communicate red lines as well as the consequences that would result if the red lines were violated. But instead of making Khrushchev cautious, the warning made him more committed to giving his conventional forces powerful weapons to defend against an American attack. He ordered additional tactical nuclear weapons delivered to Cuba; they were immediately loaded on the Indigirka and sent speedily to the island. Although Moscow retained authority for their use, Khrushchev would have been under great pressure to permit tactical nukes to defend against an invasion force killing thousands of Soviet soldiers. Again, why send tactical nukes to the island if they were never to be used under any circumstances? And why increase the number of tactical warheads after Kennedy’s warning? If the tactical warheads, both the first and second batches, were intended to deter an invasion, why did Khrushchev not announce their deployment? Rather, the warheads were intended for use depending on circumstances.
Third, there was the possible, even probable use of the weapons on the initiative of local commanders. By 10 October, most warheads had arrived in Cuba and were stored near the launchers. General Nikolai Beloborodov, who managed the warheads, “took partial measures to move the warheads closer to very remote combat units to reduce the amount of time required for their transfer once we received the special orders [to use them].” 60 Once the invasion began, while under attack—the Russians expected an invasion plan to include air strikes on missile sites followed by ground assault—local Soviet commanders would have mated warheads and missiles. It seems logical that they would defend themselves with the most powerful weapons they had. As Beloborodov later wrote, “It was clear that in the conditions of the existing balance of forces in conventional arms, which was ten to one against us, there was only one way we could repel a massive assault—by using tactical nuclear weapons against the invaders.” 61 A good test case was the shootdown of the U-2 on 27 October, an act forbidden by Moscow. But stressed local commanders, believing the U-2 was gathering data on the latest Soviet positions for the imminent invasion, approved the shootdown. This kind of decision under intense stress would have occurred repeatedly across Soviet forces if the U.S. invaded. It is quite likely at least a few of those local decisions would have brought tactical nukes into play. The warheads for the FKR missiles had no security devices and could be launched by a lieutenant and a couple of technicians. 62
Nor would have American airstrikes been able to take out the Russian tactical warheads before the invasion began. As Beloborodov noted, “When I met with the Americans 30 years later, they were very interested to find out about the places where the nuclear warheads were actually located in Cuba in 1962. It is obvious that they did not have accurate information, which in the event of a U.S. military action would have excluded [the possibility] of impact on the warheads.” 63
Finally, regarding a fourth dicey scenario, recent analysis has lowered the probability of a submarine destroying an American warship with a nuclear-tipped torpedo. The USSR sent four Foxtrot submarines to Cuban waters. Each carried a single nuclear-tipped torpedo (range 19 km) for defensive purposes, along with 21 conventional torpedoes. As noted above, the U.S. Navy tracked and pressured these subs using so-called practice depth charges—similar to a hand grenade—to signal that the subs should surface. Commanders would use Morse code sonar signals to transmit “IDKCA,” which meant “rise to surface.” To be considered as nonthreatening under the new U.S. Navy procedures, the subs had to surface and sail an easterly course. Unaware of this new American guidance and unsure if U.S.-Soviet combat had started, the submarine captains attempted to evade the pursuers and remained submerged as long as possible. The temperature inside the subs rose beyond 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Officers and crew were fainting from the heat and bad air. On one destroyer at least, U.S. sailors encased practice depth charges in cardboard, which kept the trigger from popping until the cardboard disintegrated deeper than normal. Detonating beside the subs rather than far above them, the magnified sound was like being in an oil drum struck with a sledgehammer. 64
It now appears that Soviet submarine B-59 —the Foxtrot often associated with use of a nuclear torpedo—was not quite as close to firing as previously thought. Forced to surface with exhausted batteries, noxious air, and the concussions of the practice depth changes, a frazzled Captain Valentin Savitsky climbed into the conning tower to face blinding searchlights, a Lockheed P2 Neptune firing .50-caliber warning shots on each side of the bow, and loudspeaker demands from hovering American destroyers. It is unclear whether these procedures were the ones described to McNamara. Believing he was about to be attacked, Savitsky ordered his watch officers below and yelled that he was going down to launch his nuclear torpedo. Fortunately, one officer, loaded with signaling equipment, briefly blocked the narrow ladder down into the submarine. This delayed Savitsky long enough for the submarine flotilla’s chief of staff, Captain Vasili Arkhipov, on board B-59 and still in the conning tower, to calm Savitsky by pointing out that the American actions were not an attack but aggressive signaling. B-59 quickly signaled the American units to stop their harassment. Monitored by the Navy, B-59 remained on the surface, recharging batteries and cooling the submarine’s interior for more than a day. 65
In the first three scenarios above, tactical nuclear use by the Soviets was likely and so was an American nuclear response. If the United States invaded, all three scenarios would have occurred simultaneously, increasing the probability that at least one of them would have triggered nuclear use. There is ample reason to regard the Cuban Missile Crisis as a nuclear near miss.
The nature of the cognitive processes used by the participants played a key but still only partly understood role in the crisis. Scholars increasingly find the concept of strategic empathy useful. Strategic empathy is not sympathy but an understanding of the personality and circumstances of the adversary and how those factors motivate or constrain adversary actions. The lack of strategic empathy by both leaders helped cause the Cuban crisis by preventing them from properly assessing their opponent’s political pressures and circumstances. 66 Instead they “mirror-imaged,” using their own experience and beliefs to explain their adversary’s motives. 67 Until the final days of the crisis, for example, Khrushchev wrongly believed Kennedy would accept the strategic missiles in Cuba just as he had been forced to accept the Jupiters in Turkey. Khrushchev gave little thought to the possibility that Kennedy might see the missile deployment as a disastrous internal political blow and react strongly. Kennedy did a bit better, particularly as the crisis wore on. The executive committee transcripts reveal Kennedy often asked questions about Khrushchev’s motivations.
A powerful reason for Soviet misbehavior in Cuba was not because Khrushchev thought Kennedy was weak on Cuba. More important were Khrushchev’s fears of Soviet strategic and political weakness, as well as his own psychological and political need to strengthen his position in the State Council Presidium. Kennedy’s strong stance on Berlin, his signaling via the Gilpatric speech that the United States had nuclear superiority, and his military and clandestine efforts to demonstrate an ability—if not a clear intent—to topple Cuba increased Khrushchev’s worries. 68
In early 1962, no longer able to play the missile gap card and fearing American invasion of Cuba, Khrushchev tilted toward a policy of extreme brinkmanship, his only remaining tool to influence events. He developed the idea of the meniscus as a model for his dangerous brinkmanship. When a glass is very slowly filled with water, the surface tension of the water might allow a meniscus, or small ring of water, to protrude very slightly above the lip of the glass. Khrushchev’s idea of a meniscus was not scientifically sound, but it explained his intention to practice brinkmanship so extreme that it approached but did not quite “spill over” into conflict. In short, he would accept a lot of risk. 69 It is important to note again that the meniscus strategy emerged from weakness. Alas, akin to touching the meniscus slightly above the rim of a glass of water, his brinkmanship soon spilled over the edge in the Cuban crisis. Kennedy and his advisors did not sense Khrushchev’s weakness; they saw only his bullying and provocations.
Recent progress in political psychology provides new approaches to explain Khrushchev’s risky nuclear deployment. Though Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky developed prospect theory in 1979, in recent years international relations scholars have used it. 70 Simply stated, prospect theory says that humans worry much more about great potential loss than about significant potential gains. Therefore, they adopt riskier actions to prevent major loss than to achieve gains. Khrushchev was operating in the domain of potential loss, though of course he was unaware of his internal cognitive processing. To prevent loss of influence and control he took a risky step—the conventional arms buildup—then doubled down with an even riskier step by adding strategic nuclear arms to the package, partly to slightly remedy the strategic imbalance and partly to prevent the potential loss of Cuba and with it, Soviet prestige and his own prestige. One might assume that Khrushchev’s feeling of weakness would spur caution and curb risk-taking. Instead, his fears led to increasingly risky behavior to avoid the further loss of influence and prestige.
In their insightful article “The Pitsunda Decision,” Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali make this point clearly. 71 In response to the charge by Senator Kenneth Keating and other Republicans that his Cuban policy was timid, Kennedy released the statement on 4 September 1962 declaring that “the gravest issues would arise” if the Soviets placed offensive weapons in Cuba. 72 Kennedy hoped to deter Khrushchev from sending such armaments to Cuba, but as Fursenko and Naftali show, his statement had the opposite effect. Learning of Kennedy’s warning while vacationing at his Black Sea dacha at Pitsunda in Georgia on 7 September, Khrushchev doubled down, adding tactical nuclear warheads for the short-range missiles. As noted above, this decision greatly increased the risk of nuclear weapons use.
In the past 10 years, political psychologists have made great progress in illuminating the hidden role of emotion in foreign policy decision-making. For years many foreign policy analysts have used a Rational Actor Model (RAM) as their default approach. 73 RAM assumes that states and the leaders of states assess options by rationally weighing the pros and cons and choosing the option that provides the most advantage. In other words, states or the leaders of states use expected utility theory —another concept from economics—to compare options and choose the one with the most benefit. RAM is a deliberative, logical approach.
What role might emotion or biases play? In his recent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow , Daniel Kahneman describes cognition as having two systems, or tracks. System One is unconscious heuristics, prizing speed, gut feelings, hunches, emotions, and the like. System Two is consciously slow, deliberative measurement of pros and cons. System One allows a big role for emotion and biases; System Two is akin to RAM.
But some of the latest writing in political psychology claims that emotion plays a role in every decision or perception, even in the supposedly factual deliberation of Kahneman’s System Two. Emotion unconsciously influences what one accepts as evidence, how one interprets that evidence, and what action one chooses. In short, emotion is everywhere, skewing factual assessment, minimizing or maximizing threat perception, fostering emotions such as fear and anger. 74
Khrushchev and Kennedy were both influenced by emotion. Khrushchev’s decision to send strategic nuclear weapons to Cuba was partly an emotional payback for the U.S. deployment of Jupiters to Turkey. Kennedy’s anger at Khrushchev when the missiles were discovered was partly emotional, reflected in his purported first reaction: “He can’t do this to me.” Castro’s mid-crisis letter to Khrushchev urging use of the nuclear weapons was clearly emotional. Emotion underlay the motivated thinking of LeMay and other hard-core invasion advocates. When one views the details of the Cuban crisis through this “emotion is everywhere” lens, one finds plenty of examples. Richard Ned Lebow, who along with Janice Gross Stein was one of the first to explore emotional aspects of the Cuban crisis, argues that “Khrushchev acted out of a sense of desperation. He made a high-risk gamble in the belief that inaction would further erode Soviet strategic and foreign policy interests.” Lebow asserts that “Khrushchev also acted out of anger. His emotional arousal clouded his judgment and made empathy with President Kennedy and the constraints under which he [Kennedy] operated all but impossible. It also ruled out a thorough and dispassionate evaluation of the likely repercussions of a Cuban missile deployment.” 75
While Kennedy did not understand Khrushchev’s motives before the crisis, during the crisis he sought to understand the Soviet leader’s reasoning. He sometimes escaped the mirror-imaging problem that afflicted Khrushchev. The executive committee transcripts often reveal Kennedy raised the question of Khrushchev’s motivation and asked others for their assessment. 76 He knew that if he could correctly understand Khrushchev’s real motives, he could devise a more effective policy to counter them. By the end of the crisis, Kennedy was the leading peacenik in the room, convinced that a settlement was best reached by giving Khrushchev a way out that allowed him to portray the settlement as a win.
Among several excellent, recent studies of the role of emotion in threat perception and decision-making, Robin Markwica’s remarkable book Emotional Choices stands out because it examines the Cuban crisis as one of his two case studies (the other is the 1990–91 Gulf War). Markwica asserts that an emotional model operates simultaneously in the decision-maker’s mind with two other approaches, a rationalist model (RAM) and a social constructivist or identity model. The rationalist model uses expected utility, advantages and disadvantages, and cost-benefit calculations to formulate decisions. An identity or social constructivist model privileges the ideas, accepted norms and standards, and practices of the decision-maker’s society or nation. Markwica’s emotional model postulates that five emotions—fear, anger, hope, pride, and humiliation—influence decision-making. He assesses the importance of emotions in eight major Khrushchev decisions in the missile crisis. He finds that fear influenced Khrushchev in half of his decisions. Markwica wisely resists the temptation to claim fear as the most important determinant in those decisions. Rather, he persuasively explains why the decisions cannot be fully understood without including emotional aspects. 77
Markwica correctly observes that difficulty of use is a disadvantage of an emotional model. A RAM analysis uses factual evidence, mainly material factors, to weigh expected utility. A RAM analyst examines such known or collectable material factors as the size, location, and capability of troop deployments, the location of missile installations, and weapon ranges and destructive power. From those factors, the RAM analyst makes rational inferences to uncover motives and drivers. But an emotional model requires much more information about a leader or leadership group’s patterns of thought, fears, hopes, and other emotions. Much of that information is unknown when a crisis arises and is not immediately collectable by intelligence operations. Only later, as recordings, letters, oral histories, and archival documents emerge is it possible to more accurately assess the impact of emotion, hence Markwica’s justifiable caution about claiming too much for an emotional model. 78 That said, despite unsatisfactory access to Russian and some American archival material, enough is known about the Cuban missile crisis to demonstrate that emotion played an important role.
This event demonstrates the crucial relationship between military force and diplomacy. It mattered that the crisis occurred just off American shores, so that immense military power could be assembled quickly. Moreover, that military capability had been well-exercised in the preceding year, most prominently in the spring 1962 Caribbean exercises. And from Army general Maxwell D. Taylor, his senior military advisor, and General Walter Sweeney, commander of the Tactical Air Command, Kennedy got accurate, as opposed to overly optimistic, estimates of the percentage of strategic missiles that airstrikes might destroy. Kennedy ultimately chose blockade while pursuing a diplomatic solution and simultaneously readying airstrikes and an invasion. American conventional military dominance subtly but powerfully shaped the decisions made by both sides during the crisis.
It also shows the failure of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to provide high-quality military advice. Already mentioned was the failure of the Joint Chiefs as well as civilian analysts to imagine that an invasion might encounter tactical nuclear weapons, which would hugely escalate the crisis. Military advice in a sudden international crisis may need to be different from military advice in a theater campaign.
In the Cuban missile crisis, best military advice and diplomatic and political advice were inseparable. Airstrike, invasion, blockade, diplomatic bargaining, or simply accepting the Soviet missile deployment (inaction) each required assessment of a broad range of nonmilitary as well as purely military factors. Assessing Soviet motivation for missile deployment was crucial to finding a suitable give-and-take. A strongly motivated Soviet Union would require a major American compromise in a deal, or perhaps the Soviets would not deal at all. Best military advice had to consider the mindset and motivations of Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders. How would they react? Would pressure on Cuba cause the Soviets to attack Berlin or some other vulnerable point? Would an airstrike trigger a broader nuclear exchange? Could the missiles be removed by negotiation rather than by force? And so forth.
What Kennedy got from the Joint Chiefs was advice derived from predisposition toward—or a belief in—certain kinds of actions regardless of circumstances and context. An example was the Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting with the president and McNamara in the cabinet room of the White House on Friday, 19 October. At this stage, Kennedy was considering the air strike and blockade options. Stating that an American response to the missile deployment was necessary, he said, “The question is, what kind of response?” General LeMay said he did not share the view that an invasion of Cuba would trigger a Soviet invasion of Berlin. The Soviets would not move if Kennedy simply told Khrushchev that invading Berlin meant war. “This blockade and political action I see [as] leading to war. . . . This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich. . . . I just don’t see any other solution except direct military intervention, right now!” Admiral Anderson said the Navy could execute a blockade but that he did not think “there is any solution to the Cuban problem except a military solution. . . . It’s the same thing as Korea all over again, only on a grander scale.” General Earle Wheeler insisted that airstrikes, blockade, and an invasion were needed: “I feel that the lowest risk is the full gamut of military action by us.” LeMay asserted: “I think that a blockade and political talk would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as a pretty weak response to this. And I’m sure a lot of our citizens would feel that way too.” The president observed that a limited airstrike would be less of an escalation than a major airstrike coupled with invasion and made the key point that “we have to assume that the Soviet response to each of these would have to be different.” After Kennedy and McNamara left the room, and the Joint Chiefs were alone—and unaware that Kennedy’s taping system was still running—they vented their displeasure about the president’s reluctance to commit to a full-scale military action. Marine Commandant David M. Shoup praised LeMay for pulling the rug from under Kennedy’s arguments: “When he says ‘escalation,’ that’s it. If somebody could keep them from doing the goddamn thing piecemeal . . . that’s our problem. You go in there and friggin’ around with the missiles. You’re screwed.” “That’s right,” LeMay growled, “You’re screwed, screwed, screwed.” Kennedy later told his aides Kenneth P. O’Donnell and David F. Powers that LeMay was dead wrong in his certainty that Khrushchev would do nothing if the United States bombed the missiles and killed many Russians. “These brass hats have one great advantage in their favor,” the president remarked. “If we listen to them and do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them they were wrong.” 79
General officers creating the best military advice during the Cuban missile crisis needed the same range of skills as policymakers and civilian analysts. The Joint Chiefs of Staff should have seen that the military options on the table had potentially significant political and diplomatic consequences that in turn would affect future military options, but their advice showed no signs of such reflection. Senior civilians had the converse requirement of making policy with a sensitive assessment of military factors. The intertwining of all essential factors—military, political, cognitive/emotional, etc.—in strategic level decision-making is the essence of true “Jointness.”
Other senior commanders understood this imperative. Vice Admiral Alfred G. Ward, who ran the Navy’s blockade forces, noted that although in wartime blockades local commanders decided which enemy ships would be boarded and searched, in the Cuban crisis “we asked instructions on whether or not we should stop a Soviet ship.” Ward agreed with making the decision “at a political level because it was a political decision rather than a military one.” 80
The Cuban missile crisis will always be worth studying because we know more about it than we do almost any other crisis, so we have greater insight into the challenges faced by the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. This is not to say that we know everything that we need to know. As more documents are unsealed, especially in Russia and Cuba, many aspects of the crisis can be further fleshed out. For example, both deterrence failure and success marked the crisis. Khrushchev was not deterred by Kennedy’s warnings of “the gravest consequences” of sending offensive weapons; indeed, the premier doubled his gamble, sending more tactical nuclear warheads. Kennedy was not deterred by the possibility that U.S. action in Cuba would provoke a Soviet assault on Berlin. Both men were deterred from stepping over the brink by their justified fear of the existential threat of global nuclear war. Further scrutiny of the Cuban crisis may sharpen our understanding of deterrence theory.
In addition, continued work by political psychologists in the hopefully larger pool of primary sources may give us greater insights into the most basic level of analysis: the cognitive processes of leaders and leadership groups, and the role of emotions in their decision-making.
Last, analyzing the crisis with a broader range of analytical tools, some derived from the intelligence community, will surely bring rewards. For example, premortem analysis is an excellent technique for stimulating imagination and fresh thinking by analysts. The technique of placement described by Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May in their classic Thinking in Time , coupled with greater use of strategic empathy, could prove useful in assessing when, in the future, leaders might be making an atypical, out of the norm move, such as when Khrushchev decided to send strategic nuclear weapons to Cuba. 81
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Dr. William M. Morgan has been a professor of strategic studies and director of the Diplomacy and Statecraft course at the Marine Corps War College, Marine Corps University, since 2010. A former Marine, he also spent 31 years in the Foreign Service of the Department of State.
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A strongly worded statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office accused Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, of harming the chances of reaching a hostage release deal.
By Adam Rasgon
reporting from Jerusalem
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel blasted his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on Monday after the Israeli news media reported that Mr. Gallant had disparaged the Israeli leader’s goal of “total victory” over Hamas, the armed Palestinian group Israel has been battling in Gaza.
The strongly worded statement from Mr. Netanyahu’s office was a reflection of a rift within Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing government, and in Israel more broadly, over the prosecution of the war, now in its 11th month.
Ynet, a centrist Israeli news outlet, reported that Mr. Gallant had told members of the Israeli Parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee on Monday that Mr. Netanyahu’s “total victory” slogan was “nonsense.” A member of the committee, who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose details of the closed-door meeting, confirmed Mr. Gallant used the term.
“When Gallant adopts the anti-Israel narrative, he harms the chances of reaching a hostage release deal,” the prime minister’s office said. “Israel has only one choice: To achieve total victory, which means eliminating Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, and releasing our hostages. This victory will be achieved.”
Realizing that goal, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said, was the directive of the prime minister and the cabinet, which everyone in the government, including Mr. Gallant, must follow.
Mr. Gallant, in a post on social media on Monday, seemed to play down his differences with Mr. Netanyahu. “During a security briefing I gave today to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, I emphasized I was determined to achieve the war’s goals and continue fighting until Hamas is dismantled and the hostages are returned,” he said.
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COMMENTS
Cuban missile crisis, major confrontation at the height of the Cold War that brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of a shooting war in October 1962 over the presence of Soviet nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. The crisis was a defining moment in the presidency of John F. Kennedy.
Origins of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The origins of the Cuban Missile Crisis lie in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, during which US-supported Cuban exiles hoping to foment an uprising against Castro were overpowered by the Cuban armed forces. After the invasion, Castro turned to the Soviets for protection against future US aggression.
The Cuban Missile crisis was a 13‑day political and military standoff in October 1962 over Soviet missiles in Cuba.
For a fortnight in October 1962 the world held its breath during the Cuban missile crisis, as the US government responded to Soviet weapons in nearby Cuba.
In October 1962, an American U2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. Because he did not want Cuba and the Soviet Union to know that he had discovered the missiles, Kennedy met in secret with his advisors for several days to discuss the problem. After many long and difficult meetings, Kennedy decided to place a naval ...
The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. The crisis was unique in a number of ways, featuring calculations and miscalculations as well as direct and secret communications ...
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis ( Spanish: Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis ( Russian: Карибский кризис, romanized :Karibskiy krizis ), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy ...
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the signature moment of John F. Kennedy's presidency. The most dramatic parts of that crisis—the famed "13 days"—lasted from October 16, 1962, when President Kennedy first learned that the Soviet Union was constructing missile launch sites in Cuba, to October 28, when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev publicly announced he was removing the missiles from the ...
The Cuban missile crisis was a uniquely compact moment of history. For the first time in the nuclear age, the two superpowers found themselves in a sort of moral road test of their apocalyptic powers.
Cuban Missile Crisis. In the fall of 1962, the Soviet Union began construction on ballistic missile launch sites in Cuba. The United States responded with a naval blockade. For thirteen days, the fear of impending nuclear war continued until an agreement was reached for the removal of the weapons. Painting, watercolor on paper; by Richard ...
Cuban Missile Crisis. At the height of the Cold War, for two weeks in October 1962, the world teetered on the edge of thermonuclear war. Earlier that fall, the Soviet Union, under orders from Premier Nikita Khrushchev, began to secretly deploy a nuclear strike force in Cuba, just 90 miles from the United States.
The Cuban missile crisis began for the United States on the morning of October 16, when. President Kennedy was informed of the discovery of missile sites in Cuba by U-2 surveillance. aircraft. Kennedy convened an informal group of cabinet officials and top civilian and military.
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were largely prevented from engaging in direct combat with each other due to the fear of mutually assured destruction (MAD). In 1962, however, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world perilously close to nuclear war.
Sixty years ago, the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. Today, we face a new nuclear threat as events in Ukraine escalate. What are the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis for us now?
of available archival, memoir, and interview evidence in the past decade and aa half about the Cuban missile crisis, makes this a propitious time to discuss critically both editions as ways of understanding U.S. foreign policy in general and the Cuban missile crisis in particular. In addressing those issues, this essay,
By William M. Morgan, PhD During the past 60 years, our understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis has evolved from the initial portrayal of the situation as an Ameri-can victory achieved by brilliant crisis management by John F. Kennedy and his advisors to a more deeply researched and nuanced description of a dangerous draw reached only after misconceptions, miscalcula-tion, last-minute ...
F or decades, scholars and practitioners have been reluctant to call the pre-crisis intelligence estimates of 1962 a strategic warning failure. Instead, the intelligence narrative of the Cuban missile crisis has taken two contradictory forms.
Contextual Essay Topic: How did the Cuban Missile Crisis affect the United States' foreign policy in Cuba during the Cold War?
Revision notes on The Cuban Missile Crisis for the Edexcel GCSE History syllabus, written by the History experts at Save My Exams.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a battle that arose between the United States, Cuba and Soviet Union in 1962.
The Cuban Missile Crisis Essay Decent Essays 495 Words 2 Pages Open Document The Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. The crisis was a major confrontation between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The series encompasses major historical events, including the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963.
Essays. History. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an event occurred in October 1962 when the USA detected that the USSR had deployed medium range missiles in Cuba, which was ninety miles away from Florida. It was the period that the cold war reached its peak because of the possible confrontation between the two superpowers, the US and the USSR, at ...
The missile, a Kh-101 filled with ... Coaches are in short supply. Children have moved abroad. Ukraine faces a long hard road toward rebuilding its athletic programs. A 'Love Crisis' for ...
Historiographical Essay. During the past 60 years, our understanding of the Cuban Missile Crisis has evolved from the initial portrayal of the situation as an American victory achieved by brilliant crisis management by John F. Kennedy and his advisors to a more deeply researched and nuanced description of a dangerous draw reached only after misconceptions, miscalculation, last-minute ...
The United States, Qatar and Egypt are pressuring Israel and Hamas to reach a deal in negotiations on Thursday.
A strongly worded statement from the Israeli prime minister's office accused Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, of harming the chances of reaching a hostage release deal.