CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS. Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro.

CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS

CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS

Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro

• The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States regarding the deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Introduction

• For many people the twelve days of the Cuban missile crisis was the most frightening of their lives.

• • Kennedy had been elected as United

States president by promising to get tough with the communists.

Background

• In April 1962, America had placed nuclear missiles in Turkey.

• The United States had a dramatic advantage in nuclear weapons.

• In 1961, the U.S. started deploying 15 Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM) in Turkey, these directly threatened cities in the western parts of the Soviet Union.

U.S. Advantage

• Soviet premier Khrushchev publicly expressed his anger of the missiles deployed in Turkey. He regarded the missiles as a personal affront.

• Khrushchev planned the deployment in May 1962, by late July over sixty Soviet ships were en route to Cuba.

• On September 4, 1962 Kennedy told congress that there were no offensive missiles in Cuba.

Deployment of Missiles

CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS

Missiles discovered by U-2 Surveillance planes

Medium Range

ballistic missile

base

Missiles Found in Cuba• In 1962, U.S. intelligence discovered that Cuba was

building nuclear missile sites throughout Cuba.• When the sites were completed, many East Coast cities

including NY and DC would be in range of nuclear weapons.

• Kennedy went on the offensive, blaming Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev for provoking world peace and demanded for the removal of the missiles from Cuba.

•The missiles were not discovered by the U.S. until photographs were shown to Kennedy on October, 16, 1962.

•Kennedy announced the discovery of the installations in a televised address on October 22.

• The missiles had been placed to protect Cuba from further planned attacks after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion

• The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 16th, 1962.

• The crisis ended twelve days later on October 28, 1962.

Televised Address

• Oct. 22 JFK informs the US of the Soviet missiles

• “quarantine placed around Cuba”

FIGHTING THE COLD WAR

• 90 miles from United States

• Missiles now 5 minutes away from united States

THE PLAYERS

• EX – COMM

–Kennedy’s group of advisors

–Hand-picked group of 19 men helped Kennedy through the crisis

–Most had Law backgrounds so to an international law approach

X-COMM

•Robert F Kennedy– Attorney General

– JFK’s confident and

– Facilitator of meetings

– Against Air strikes– Ambassador Dobrynin

Theodore Sorenson

• Special Counsel to President

• Dove perspective

• Wrote most of the correspondence

• Chief of Staff

• Dove

• Dove

X-COMMRobert McNamaraSecretary of DefenseOne of most important: Supported blockadeJob was to monitor blockade and reigning in the militaryDove

Dean Rusk

Secretary of State

Cautious diplomat

Wanted diplomacy

“We are still here”

Anatoly DobryninAnatoly Dobrynin

Soviet Ambassador. Good relationship with the Kennedys and opened the talks with the Soviet Union

McGEORGE BUNDYNational Security AdvisorFormer Dean of HarvardPlayed Devils advocateSupported not taking out missiles in Turkey

Adlai Stevenson

Ambassador to the United Nations

Director of CIA

Curtis LeMay

Chief of Staff United States Air Force

Dean Acheson

Advisor to Ex-Com Republican Advisor to President Eisenhower

Advisor and Speech writerfor JFK Ted Sorenson

Bay of Pigs

CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS

Cuba provided with armsAfter the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Soviet arms flooded into Cuba. The Soviet Union publicly announced that it was supplying Cuba with arms in May 1962. By September, Cuba had thousands of Soviet radar vans, missile erectors, jet bombers, jet fighters, tanks, and patrol boats, as well as 5000 Soviet technicians to help maintain the weapons.

So near America?Whilst conventional arms were being supplied to Cuba, an island next door to the USA, the Americans watched with great alarm, the question being whether the USSR would dare put nuclear missiles on Cuba. On 11 September, Kennedy warned the USSR, and on the same day, the USSR assured the USA that they had no intention of placing nuclear missiles on Cuba.

BUT…

On Sunday, 14 October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane was sent to Cuba, flying over and taking amazingly detailed photographs of missile sites in Cuba. It was obvious to all US military experts that these were nuclear missile sites, and that they were being built by the USSR. Over the next few days, it was confirmed that some sites were already supplied with missiles, and 20 Soviet ships carrying missiles were also on the way to Cuba.

Nuclear launch sites in Cuba, 1962

What should America do?

As both the USA and USSR were now in possession of many nuclear weapons, Kennedy had five main choices, put forward by his advisors. What should he do?

Do nothing Surgical attack

Invasion

Diplomatic pressures Blockade

Do nothingPROS

• The Americans knew that their nuclear power was much greater than the Soviet Union

• The USA could still destroy the USSR, and the USSR knew this, meaning that the USSR would never use the missiles

• The biggest danger to world peace would be to overreact to the discovery of the missiles on Cuba

CONS• The USSR had lied about

the missiles in Cuba, and Kennedy had already issued a warning to the USSR

• Doing nothing could be, and would be, interpreted as a sign of weakness by other countries

Attack from air

Surgical air attack

PROS• It would destroy the

missiles on Cuba before they were ready to use

CONS• The destruction of all the

sites could not be guaranteed, and if even only one site was left undamaged, the USSR would be able to launch a counterattack against the USA

• The attack would kill Soviet soldiers, causing the Soviet Union to retaliate at once

• The attack would be seen as immoral

All-out invasion by air and sea

Invasion

PROS• An all-out invasion of Cuba

by both air and sea would get rid of both the missiles and Castro

• The American forces were already trained and available to carry out the invasion

CONS• The USSR would either

respond immediately to protect Cuba, or would respond within the Soviet sphere of influence, with a possible take-over of Berlin

United Nations meeting to discuss Cuba

Next

Diplomatic pressures

PROS• By getting the United

Nations or other countries to intervene, or negotiate, it would avoid conflict

CONS• If the USA was forced to

back down, it would be interpreted as a sign of weakness by other countries

American blockade

BlockadePROS

• Banning the Soviet Union from bringing in any further military supplies to Cuba by using the US navy to stop and search Soviet ships would show that the USA was serious, without using a direct act of war

• Blockading the Soviet ships going to Cuba would put the burden on Khrushchev

• If this option did not work out, even though the USA had a strong navy, they could still take other options

CONS• A blockade would not solve

the main problem as the missiles were already on Cuba, and could be used within one week

• The USSR may choose to retaliate by blockading Berlin, as it had already done so before in 1948

A Brief Chronology

May, 1962: Khrushchev makes veiled references to a plot (How would the U.S. feel to have missiles pointing at them, as they have missiles pointed at us?)

September: JFK and Congress issue warnings to USSR that US will deal harshly with any threats to national security

October 14: U2 recon. flight over Cuba spots sites installing nuclear missiles

October 15: Presence of missiles is confirmed

The Missiles: One Site

Chronology, Continued

October 16: President Kennedy notified October 16-22: Secret deliberations on what

should be done October 22: Kennedy tells nation his plan for

blockade and quarantine October 23: OAS endorses naval quarantine October 24: Naval quarantine begins and

successfully changes course of many Soviet ships


October 25: One Soviet ship challenges naval quarantine; Kennedy lets it pass

October 25: At the UN, Adlai Stevenson directly challenges the Soviet ambassador to admit to the existence of missiles, when the ambassador refuses, Stevenson wheels out pictures of the missile sites

October 26: Soviets raise possibility for a deal: if we withdraw missiles will America promise not to invade Cuba?


October 27: Soviets demand that Americans also withdraw missiles from Turkey; Major Anderson’s plane is missing over Cuba, presumably shot down; U.S. recon plane strays over Soviet airspace…high tensions

Kennedy tells Khrushchev that he will accept the proposal of the 26th, Kennedy tells his brother to tell the Soviet Ambassador that though the Turkey missiles would not be part of the bargain, they would be removed in time

October 28: USSR agrees to withdraw missiles

Soviet Decisions

Motivations Close the missile gap—Currently far

behind U.S. in terms of number of missiles

Verbal threats no longer effective with overwhelming evidence of U.S. superiority

Protect Cuba Reciprocity: The U.S. has missiles

pointing at us, let’s see how they feel now

Soviet Decisions, Continued

Inability to use the missiles If fired a missile, repercussions would be

severe

Why Khrushchev Settled

Effectiveness of naval quarantine Conventional inferiority in the Caribbean No possible countermove Overwhelming world support for the U.S. Other possible reasons

Got what he wanted? No U.S. invasion of Cuba U.S. missiles withdrawn from Turkey

The American Decision

In September Kennedy had stated and Congress had passed a resolution saying that if the Soviet Union placed offensive weapons in Cuba we would not tolerate it.

Could we then rely solely on diplomacy? Kennedys thought John could be “impeached” if he didn’t act in accordance with his prior warnings

Determined in first 48 hours of crisis that the removal of missiles was the primary objective

This objective effectively ruled out isolated diplomacy, and left two options…

The American Decision cont.

Option 1 - Air Strike On October 17th, President Kennedy “made

the flat statement that there would definitely be an air strike, at least against the missile sites, and perhaps against wider targets” (Bundy 394)

Reservations from others, airstrike may be using a “sledgehammer” to kill a “fly

Later that day Robert McNamara suggests policy in between diplomacy and an air strike

The American Decision cont.

Option 2 – Blockade Advocated early on by McNamara and Robert

Kennedy, blockade would not require instant killing, but critics feared it would not remove the missiles and would allow Soviets time to complete what they already had in Cuba

Douglas Dillon strengthened blockade argument by suggesting that it would only be a first step, that if Khrushchev did not remove the missiles to lift it, then more could be done

By Friday the 19th, the committee working on the blockade adapted it into a quarantine, on Sunday Kennedy accepted their plan as the course of action

Could America have acted differently?

Could we have used the crisis to remove Castro? Our warnings all along had been against offensive

weapons so once that warning is tested if we use it to attack Castro are we sticking to our word?

Could we have tried diplomacy before resorting to the quarantine? If we didn’t keep secrecy, Khrushchev could have

proclaimed defiance, or denounced quarantine…then both countries would be in positions where they’re heading straight for each other and can’t just turn back

Castro’s Role

No real role in decision making

Apparently out of touch with the situation

Oct. 26: “Aggression imminent/imperialists disregarding world opinion”—Clearly not the case

Khrushchev plays along to some extent but it is clear he disagrees with him (“your suggestion would have started a thermonuclear world war”)

Questions Do you feel Major Anderson’s death justified

more aggressive action? Seeing as how our options in the crisis were

somewhat dictated by the warnings we issued in September…should we have issued those warnings?

If the missiles in Cuba were conventional, and neither the Soviet Union nor the U.S. possessed any nuclear weapons, would the crisis have been avoided?

• The compromise reached satisfied no one, it was a particular embarrassment for Khrushchev and the Soviet Union who had not made public the withdrawal of the missiles in Turkey.

• .

After the Crisis

• U.S. military commanders were also not happy with the result. General LeMay told the president that it was “the greatest defeat in our history” and that the U.S should invade immediately

• Cuba felt they had been betrayed by the Soviets whom they had trusted, with all the decisions being made exclusively by Kennedy and Khrushchev.

• The Cuban Missile Crisis spurred the creation of the Hot Line. This is a direct communications link between Moscow and Washington D.C. The purpose was to have a way leaders of the two Cold War countries could communicate directly to better solve a crisis like in October 1962.


Nuclear war was averted and Kennedy gained stature or respect as a world leader


Result of crisis

“hot line” installed between Kremlin and White House

Fallout from the Crisis• When Khrushchev “blinked,” he lost

great respect in the Soviet Union.• Kennedy, on the other hand, looked

cool, calm, and collected. His legacy will be forever linked to this incident.

• What this incident did do was improve communication between the two superpowers. A “hot line” phone connection was created between the two leaders.

• A year later, the U.S. and Soviets signed a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which prohibited countries from testing nuclear bombs above ground. This would be the first nuclear agreement ever.

Blockade was chosen as solution

Kennedy addressed Nation

Brinkmanship

Ships stopped

“looks like someone blinked”

Russia and Khrushchev sent letter with terms that were agreeable to U. S.


Next day second letter with additional terms

U. S. missiles must be removed from Turkey


X-Com ignored the first letter

Blockade and negotiations were successful


Promise not to invade Cuba

Russia would take out missiles


Adali Stevenson and U.N. proved missiles were in Cuba over Russia’s denial


Missiles were removed from Cuba U. S. agreed to remove missiles from Turkey 6 months later

CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS. Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro.

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