In 1962, the Russians decided to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. However, the Americans found out about this, and only a few minutes remained before the nuclear apocalypse. At the center of these events was at that time a young and aspiring dictator Fidel Castro. He already had experience in the massacres of "opponents" and the elimination of former comrades-in-arms.

We must eliminate Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, Minister of Defense! This idea was first expressed by Colonel J. S. King, head of the Western Division of the CIA, on December 11, 1959, in a memorandum addressed to Director Allen Dulles and his deputy, Richard Bissell. King recalled that a left-wing dictatorship was being formed in Cuba: Castro had nationalized banks, industry and business, while supporting revolutionary movements in Latin America. In 1960, the CIA offered the Mafia $150,000 to kill Fidel. However, the mafia did not manage to get close to him.

The terror in Cuba was on the rise. Presumably, by the end of 1960, 15-17 thousand opponents of the new regime were executed. Hundreds of thousands of people fled to the United States. On December 1, 1961, Fidel Castro even proudly declared: "I am a Marxist-Leninist and will remain so until my last breath." Thus, he lost the support of most of the countries Latin America, and in January 1962, the Organization of American States expelled Cuba from its ranks. In February, the US imposed an embargo on trade with Cuba.

It was in December that General Edward Lansdale, a veteran of the Vietnam Special Operations Forces, along with William K. Harvey and Samuel Halpern of the CIA, launched the sabotage operation Mongoose. Her goal was to send a terrorist group to Cuba and find a way to eliminate Fidel Castro. It was one of the 30 parts of the Cuban Project.

In addition, the CIA participated in the landing of 1,500 Cuban emigrants on the island on April 17, 1961 on the beach in the Bay of Pigs. From March 1960 they were trained in camps in Guatemala, Nicaragua and in the US-administered Panama Canal Zone. President Kennedy inherited this task after Eisenhower. However, Kennedy was skeptical about the landing in Cuba and ordered that American forces not interfere with the operation itself. Fidel Castro sent an army against the invading emigrants, which in three days smashed them to smithereens.

“The Bay of Pigs was a personal defeat for J.F. Kennedy,” Nalevka wrote. “The president took full responsibility, but until the end of his life he reproached himself for having given in to the authorities of the intelligence service.” CIA director Dulles was forced to resign. Kennedy nominated John McCone, a Republican who had established himself as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Russian "students" and "economic experts" are going to Cuba

Missiles are being deployed in Cuba! On Sunday, October 14, 1962, a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft took 928 pictures over Cuba, in which experts saw one launcher and several more dismantled. One missile was even installed in a position near San Cristobal, a hundred kilometers southwest of Havana. 20 containers at the airfield in San Julian were hidden by Il-28 bombers, codified as Beagle. In 12 minutes of flight at an altitude of nine to ten kilometers, Major Richard S. Heiser covered about 90% of the territory.

Context

How the US played Russian roulette with nuclear war

The Guardian 17.10.2012

Lessons from the Caribbean Crisis

Slate.fr 10/16/2012

Sergei Khrushchev @ InoTV: "For my father, the Cuban Missile Crisis was an invitation to bargain"

BBC World 24.10.2007
When National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy broke the news to John F. Kennedy on Tuesday, October 16, 1962, at fifteen minutes to nine in the morning, the President did not believe it at first. Did Khrushchev go on such an adventure?

"The United States must eliminate this threat!" - decided Kennedy and immediately called the members of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (Exkom). By noon at The White house the secretary of defense, the secretary of state and the secretary of justice arrived, as well as some of their deputies, the director of the CIA with his specialists, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and various advisers.

The content of the images was explained in detail by the Deputy Director of the CIA, General Marshall Carter. According to him, two types of Soviet missiles were visible. medium range. SS-4 is the code designation used in the Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense (DIA), in NATO - Sandal, for the Russian P-12, the range of which reaches 630-700 nautical miles, that is, about 1.5 thousand kilometers. And the range of the SS-5/Skean or R-14 reaches 1,100 nautical miles, that is, 2,000 kilometers. In 10 to 20 minutes they would have destroyed all the American and Canadian cities in the east. 80 million victims!

Kennedy grew gloomy. Are the missiles ready to launch? Are there nuclear warheads? These two questions worried him the most.

Carter could only give him a vague answer: it looks like they want to deploy 16 to 24 SS-4s, and this will take from a week to two. So far, we have no evidence that nuclear warheads are also stored there, but we have no doubt that they have been brought or will be brought.

The situation in Cuba has changed radically. The USSR does not have enough intercontinental missiles that could threaten us - a maximum of a hundred, and we have seven thousand more. Therefore, the Union wants to turn the island into an unsinkable base, from where they can easily and quickly attack us.

Bundy, Director of Intelligence John McCone, Chief of Staff Maxwell Taylor, and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson have proposed different solutions: either immediately bomb the missile sites, or send marines there, or do both!

Already on August 10, Kennedy received a warning from McCone that the USSR was going to deploy medium-range missiles in Cuba. The Americans had a fairly large intelligence network on the island, and its members reported the arrival of a large number of Russians with unknown cargoes, the marking of restricted areas, and some managed to hear mention of missiles. Then the president ordered the intelligence service to check this information with all possible ways. At the end of August, a U-2 aircraft flew over Cuba.

All these are just defense missiles. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who participated in the meeting of the US National Security Council on August 17, agreed on this opinion. McCone insisted on his own. No! These are medium range missiles.

He knew this for sure, because the CIA and British MI6 received their description from Agent Gero, colonel of the Soviet military intelligence service GRU Oleg Penkovsky.

He managed to photograph the instructions for the R-12 and R-14 missiles, which described the maintenance and the period required to install these missiles. So the CIA knew exactly what types of missiles looked like and what properties they had, as well as methods for disguising them, including containers for transporting them. The agent had access to many secret military documents and took pictures as much as he could, and passed the films to his contacts or talked about the details with American and British intelligence officers during his business trips to the West. Thanks to the fact that many editions of the military magazine were also copied, Western generals were aware of both the thought process and the strategy of the Soviets.

Indeed, the USSR has never deployed missiles of this type outside its territory, but they have Cuba under their control. And this time the USSR did just that, McCone believed.

However, neither the president nor the ministers wanted to believe the reports of these missiles. They still believed that we are talking only about anti-aircraft missiles.

Then 60-year-old McCone went to Seattle in the northeastern United States to get married there, and then went to Honeymoon To France.

Since the end of July, more than five thousand people from the Soviet Union and other countries of its bloc have come to Cuba, according to the final CIA report of August 22. Allegedly, they were all economic experts and students, but the secrecy around them raised suspicions that their tasks were different. Many sailed on ships that were overloaded. IN Lately was seen 20 Soviet ships with military cargo.

New political trends

The United States still couldn't handle the humiliation of Soviet space superiority. The first man in the Universe in April 1961 was the Russian Yuri Gagarin. The first American John Glenn flew into space in February next year. In the summer of 1962, the USSR confirmed its superiority by sending two people on two spaceships one after the other.

The President placed special emphasis on modern combat missiles and nuclear weapons, as well as expanding the traditional arsenal. These projects cost tens of billions of dollars. In addition, Kennedy changed his mind about nuclear war: instead of a crushing response, he preferred strikes against exclusively strategic enemy targets. The concept of flexible response has emerged.

“The United States has come to the conclusion that in a possible nuclear war, we should consider military strategy in much the same way as in conventional military operations in the past,” said Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. - During a nuclear conflict, the main goal should be to destroy the military potential of the enemy, and not its civilian population. Thus, we give a potential adversary the most powerful impetus of all possible in order to refuse to strike at our cities.

The USSR should have known that if it surpassed NATO forces in one area of weapons, this would immediately entail a reaction to highest level which could eventually lead to nuclear war. “NATO has repeatedly stated that it will never use military force the first, nevertheless, the alliance will not give in to the USSR and will not refuse to use nuclear weapons first if the alliance is attacked,” wrote British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her memoir, The Downing Street Years.

Kennedy confirmed that he allowed the application nuclear strike first, in March 1962 in Newsweek magazine: "Let the USSR not think that the United States will not strike the first blow if American vital interests are threatened."

The USSR did not give up. In mid-1961, in the north, he tested hydrogen bomb with a capacity of 50 megatons, that is, it was ten times more powerful than all the warheads and bombs used in World War II.

In May or June 1960, GRU agent Murat obtained a copy of the American plan of November 1959 for nuclear bombing The Soviet Union and the countries under its control, as retired Captain First Rank Viktor Lyubimov wrote in Military Parade magazine. The plan spoke of a planned NATO operation after this strike.

In February or March 1962, Murat stole an even more detailed plan, according to which the Americans wanted to destroy 696 targets in the territory of the Warsaw Pact states.

The findings shocked the Soviet leadership. How can we prevent this? It would be convenient to make Cuba its unsinkable base, which cannot establish normal relations with the United States.

When Fidel Castro overthrew Batista, he acted not like a communist, but like a political simpleton. He wanted to maintain equal relations with the United States, but Washington could not understand this. Insensitive American policy gradually cut off Cuba from the Western world. The revolutionary leader was pressed by his left comrades, and Moscow opened its arms to him. In addition, Castro did not want to end up just like the Democratic elected president Guatemalan Jacobo Arbenz, who was overthrown by the generals in 1954 with the help of the CIA. Fidel liked power, and in order to stay at the helm, he liquidated his right-wing friends. The dictatorship of Batista was soon replaced by the left-wing dictatorship of Castro. For the Americans, he became enemy number one, because he stubbornly contradicted them and tried to infect the discontented in Latin America with revolutionary ideas.

Nevertheless, he did not dare to encroach on the American military base at Guantanamo, which is located in the north of the island. He only tried to democratically terminate the agreement of the beginning of the century on the lease of this territory.

Unofficial connection with the Kremlin

When Robert Kennedy, the president's brother, became Attorney General, he realized that the government needed to establish some kind of informal and quick connection with the Kremlin. As a rule, special services officers are suitable for such purposes. He knew from the FBI that Georgy Bolshakov, head of the Soviet TASS news agency and then embassy press officer, was in fact a GRU colonel who was well acquainted with Khrushchev's son-in-law Alexei Adzhubei. Bolshakov also occasionally met with Daily News editor John Goleman.

The minister asked the journalist to arrange a meeting for him with Bolshakov. When the colonel informed the leadership about this, such meetings were categorically forbidden to him. Did they put spokes in his wheels? Envy his connections? Probably all together.

On the morning of May 9, 1961, when the USSR was celebrating Victory Day, Golman called Bolshakov to agree on new meeting and said, "Now I will take you to the Minister of Justice." The agent could no longer refuse and spat on the prohibition of his superiors.

They went to the minister's private residence. Both Bolshakov and Kennedy probed the waters, talking about politics: about the situation in Laos, Cambodia and Cuba, about the upcoming meeting between John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev. The Russian spent five hours at the residence. The minister told him that only the president, who also approved it, knew about this meeting, and if a Russian diplomat wanted to call him, that he could do it by office phone by telling the secretary or adviser your name. Who he is, they will know.

After returning to the embassy, Bolshakov telegraphed to Moscow. The authorities were not happy. The leadership of the GRU was tormented by questions: why did Robert Kennedy choose Bolshakov? Why do Americans need such informal contact? “The situation when a member of the American government meets with our man, all the more secretly, knows no precedent,” the GRU generals wrote in an internal memorandum.

The second time the minister invited the Soviet diplomat on May 21, 1961 to his summer residence. Again, they talked about a range of political issues. Then they talked on the phone. It was a kind of preparation for the meeting between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. Despite the fact that the Soviet leader did not trust the intelligence reports too much, this time he considered them useful. Messages from Bolshakov were received by a group of advisers led by Anatoly Dobrynin, who were preparing materials for the meeting in Vienna.

However, Kennedy and Khrushchev did not find a common language. The Soviet leader got the impression that the president was too young and soft and simply not ripe for such a post.

Nevertheless, Khrushchev realized how important this contact was, so he even sent unofficial messages to the White House through Bolshakov.

The ensuing series of about four meetings between the Minister of Justice and a GRU colonel took place from September 1961 to September 1962. Robert Kennedy gave Bolshakov the opportunity to talk to some White House advisers as well. Thus, he wanted to make it clear to the leadership of the USSR how politics is being done, and what kind of pressure and tricks the US political leaders have to resist.

Their relationship strengthened and became more and more personal. Sometimes the Russian and his wife spent the weekend with the Kennedy family outside the city, and in return they invited the family to a purely personal holiday - the wedding anniversary.

In early September 1962, shortly before Bolshakov left on vacation, the minister invited him to the White House and brought him to the president, who told the Russian that he was concerned about the number of Soviet warships in Cuba. American aviation cut off this supply route. When Bolshakov said that Khrushchev did not like the number of spy plane overflights, Kennedy promised to stop them. Robert Kennedy added that the military is putting pressure on his brother, and the Kremlin should take this into account.

In Moscow, Bolshakov learned that Khrushchev was also on vacation. He gave the General Secretary a message that he had important information for him from the White House, and Bolshakov was taken directly to Khrushchev in Pitsunda in the Crimea. The Kremlin leader was in good spirits: “Kennedy is president or not? If he is a strong president, he should not be afraid of anyone. After all, he has power in his hands, and even his brother is the Minister of Justice. Khrushchev misjudged the head of the White House, considering him an indecisive intellectual.

However, Khrushchev did not mention the deployment of missiles in Cuba in a conversation with Bolshakov. Even at the embassy in Washington, no one knew about it.

Suspicious undercover pictures

In early September 1962, Robert Kennedy met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. The diplomat said that the weapons that Moscow sends to Cuba are of a defensive nature.

Pictures from a U-2 reconnaissance plane, taken on September 5, showed the installation of anti-aircraft missiles. But more people were present to serve them than is usually required.

On September 4, John F. Kennedy warned Moscow against deploying surface-to-surface missiles in Cuba. The Kremlin responded on September 11: we are not going to deploy strategic missiles outside Soviet territory. Bolshakov said the same thing to Robert Kennedy when he returned from vacation. However, at the beginning of September soviet soldiers already built nine positions for missiles: six for the R-12 and three for the R-14. The president sent a second warning on September 13. Even the September 19 CIA Special National Intelligence Evaluation stated that Soviet offensive weapons in Cuba were unlikely.

Despite this, the president finally gave the order to put 150,000 reserve troops on alert. At the same time, it was announced that large-scale exercises would take place in the Caribbean Sea in mid-October. Havana claimed that all this was just a front for an invasion operation. Moscow has reiterated that it is not sending nuclear weapons to Cuba.

At a UN meeting in New York, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko threatened the United States that if they attacked Cuba, they could provoke a war with the Soviet Union. His words were supported by Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticos.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara took another preventive step. On October 1, he discussed with the Chiefs of Staff and the commander of the Atlantic Flotilla, Admiral Robert Dennison, preparations for a blockade of Cuba, if necessary.

They were spurred on by a message from Colonel John R. Wright of the DIA this morning: “We are aware of 15 locations where SA-2/Goa anti-aircraft missiles (Soviet designation S-75) are planned to be deployed. Since September 15, radio signals confirming the presence of SA-2 have been picked up by the antennas of the National Security Agency. A closed zone appeared in the central part of the province of Pinar dal Rio, and the locals had to leave it. We have unconfirmed reports of the presence of SS-4/Sandal medium-range missiles. One of our informants saw some long "cigars" on special chassis on September 12 at Campo Libertad near Havana."

The next day, the head of the intelligence department of the State Department, Roger Hilsman, sent out information that MiG-21 fighter jets and 16 Komar coastal patrol missile boats were in Cuba.

However, footage taken from the U-2 from 5 to 7 October did not confirm the presence of offensive weapons. But in images from the Samos reconnaissance satellite on October 10, photo analysts from the National Image Interpretation Center (NPIC) saw the outlines of missile positions under construction in the western part of the island. We must go there again and as soon as possible!

However, new flights were postponed due to bad weather. Only on Sunday, October 14, pilot Major Richard S. Heiser was able to take to the skies. His pictures were analyzed on Monday. At half-past eight that evening, CIA Deputy Director Ray Kline called Bundy and Roger Hilsman with the shocking news that Cuba was deploying medium-range missiles.

They spoke an unprotected line, and Kline used code names that both officials understood. Hillsman briefed Secretary of State Dean Rusk. The President was on a campaign tour and Bundy only gave him the information in the morning. But Secretary of Defense McNamara presented pictures of San Cristobal as early as midnight.

Why are Soviet missiles deployed? On Tuesday at noon, the members of the Excom could not come to a consensus. Perhaps, by doing so, Khrushchev wants to strengthen his position before the next negotiations on the status of West Berlin? Or wants to threaten American territory?

Ambassador Thomas Thompson, who returned from Moscow three months ago and knew Khrushchev best of all, recommended giving the USSR time to think. Perhaps they want to take a better position before the negotiations on Berlin.

The President ordered U-2 flights to be carried out much more frequently: since the spring of 1962, the island was photographed, as a rule, twice a month, and now they must be photographed six times a day. So Kennedy wanted to capture every square meter Cuban territory. He repeated two questions: when will these missiles be ready to launch, and do they have nuclear warheads?

On Tuesday, October 16, politicians and generals could not agree on anything. Macken spoke about the situation with former president Eisenhower. The hero of the war, whom everyone respected, recommended the immediate launch of a naval and air operation.

Kennedy remained cautious: "I don't want to be the Tojo of the sixties!" Hideki Tojo was the Japanese prime minister who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor without a declaration of war and was executed as a war criminal in 1948. The president feared most of all that the USSR, using violence, would seize West Berlin.

However, the president agreed to a partial mobilization of the armed forces. Tuesday evening at combat readiness the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions were brought in, the air force activated the reserve, and the navy tightened control in the Caribbean. Later, two armored divisions and part of infantry division. An infantry regiment and an artillery unit were withdrawn from Germany. In the south, the navy expanded its aircraft. All preparations were carried out in the strictest secrecy.

Bolshakov phoned Robert Kennedy with a comforting message from Khrushchev: "We will by no means send surface-to-surface missiles to Cuba." The ambassador himself did not even suspect that this was a lie, that the Kremlin had deceived him too.

On Monday, the planned exercise Fibriflex-62 began in the Caribbean off the island of Vieques. 40 warships with four thousand Marines they practiced a blow against the conditional dictator Ortsak, but in reality - against Castro.

The Caribbean (Cuban) crisis of 1962 is a sharp aggravation of the international situation caused by the threat of war between the USSR and the USA due to the deployment of Soviet missile weapons in Cuba.

In connection with the ongoing military, diplomatic and economic pressure of the United States on Cuba, the Soviet political leadership at her request, in June 1962, decided to deploy on the island Soviet troops, including missile (codenamed "Anadyr"). This was explained by the need to prevent US armed aggression against Cuba and to oppose Soviet missiles to American ones deployed in Italy and Turkey.

(Military Encyclopedia. Military Publishing. Moscow, in 8 volumes, 2004)

To accomplish this task, it was planned to deploy in Cuba three regiments of R-12 medium-range missiles (24 launchers) and two regiments of R-14 missiles (16 launchers) - a total of 40 rocket launchers with a range of missiles from 2.5 to 4.5 thousand kilometers. For this purpose, the consolidated 51st missile division was formed, consisting of five missile regiments from different divisions. The total nuclear potential of the division in the first launch could reach 70 megatons. The division in its entirety ensured the possibility of defeating military-strategic facilities almost throughout the entire territory of the United States.

The delivery of troops to Cuba was planned by the civilian courts of the Ministry navy THE USSR. In July-October, 85 cargo and passenger ships took part in Operation Anadyr, which made 183 voyages to and from Cuba.

By October, there were over 40,000 Soviet troops in Cuba.

On October 14, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft in the San Cristobal area (Pinar del Rio province) discovered and photographed the starting positions of the Soviet missile troops. On October 16, the CIA reported this to US President John F. Kennedy. On October 16-17, Kennedy convened a meeting of his apparatus, including the top military and diplomatic leadership, at which the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba was discussed. Several options were proposed, including the landing of American troops on the island, an air strike on launch sites, and a maritime quarantine.

In a televised speech on October 22, Kennedy announced the appearance of Soviet missiles in Cuba and his decision to declare a naval blockade of the island from October 24, put the US military on alert and enter into negotiations with the Soviet leadership. More than 180 US warships with 85 thousand people on board were sent to the Caribbean Sea, American troops in Europe, the 6th and 7th fleets were put on alert, up to 20% strategic aviation was on combat duty.

On October 23, the Soviet government issued a statement that the US government "takes upon itself a heavy responsibility for the fate of the world and is playing a reckless game with fire." The statement did not acknowledge the fact of the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba, nor any concrete proposals for a way out of the crisis. On the same day, the head of the Soviet government, Nikita Khrushchev, sent a letter to the President of the United States, in which he assured him that any weapons supplied to Cuba were intended only for defense purposes.

On October 23, intensive meetings of the UN Security Council began. UN Secretary-General U Thant called on both sides to show restraint: Soviet Union- stop the advance of their ships in the direction of Cuba, the United States - prevent a collision at sea.

October 27 was the Black Saturday of the Cuban crisis. In those days, squadrons of American planes swept over Cuba twice a day for the purpose of intimidation. On this day, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down in Cuba, flying around the field position areas of the missile forces. The pilot of the aircraft, Major Anderson, was killed.

The situation escalated to the limit, the US President decided two days later to begin the bombing of Soviet missile bases and a military attack on the island. Many Americans left big cities fearing an imminent Soviet strike. The world was on the brink of nuclear war.

On October 28, Soviet-American negotiations began in New York with the participation of representatives of Cuba and the UN Secretary General, which ended the crisis with the corresponding obligations of the parties. The Soviet government agreed to the US demand for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for assurances from the US government that territorial integrity islands, guarantees of non-interference in the internal affairs of that country. The withdrawal of US missiles from Turkey and Italy was also announced confidentially.

On November 2, US President Kennedy announced that the USSR had dismantled its missiles in Cuba. From 5 to 9 November, the missiles were removed from Cuba. On November 21, the United States lifted the naval blockade. On December 12, 1962, the Soviet side completed the withdrawal of personnel, missile weapons and technology. In January 1963, the UN received assurances from the USSR and the USA that the Cuban crisis had been eliminated.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources.

The world has repeatedly found itself on the brink nuclear war. He was closest to it in November 1962, but then the sanity of the leaders of the great powers helped to avoid disaster. In Soviet and Russian historiography, the crisis is called Caribbean, in American - Cuban.

Who started first?

The answer to this everyday question is unequivocal - the US initiated the crisis. There they perceived "with hostility" the coming to power in Cuba of Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries, although this was an internal affair of Cuba. The American elite was categorically not satisfied with the fall of Cuba from the zone of influence, and even more so with the fact that among the top leaders of Cuba were communists (the legendary Che Guevara and the then very young Raul Castro, the current Cuban leader). When Fidel declared himself a communist in 1960, the United States turned to open confrontation.

The worst enemies of Castro were accepted and supported there, an embargo was imposed on leading Cuban goods, attempts began on the life of the Cuban leader (Fidel Castro is among politicians the absolute record for the number of survivors of assassination attempts, and almost all of them involved the United States). In 1961, the United States financed and provided equipment for an attempted invasion by a military detachment of Cuban emigrants on Playa Giron.

So Fidel Castro and the USSR, with whom the Cuban leader quickly established friendly relations, had every reason to fear US military interference in Cuban affairs.

Cuban "Anadyr"

This northern name was used to refer to a covert military operation to deliver Soviet ballistic missiles to Cuba. It was held in the summer of 1962 and became the USSR's response not only to the situation in Cuba, but also to the deployment of American nuclear weapons in Turkey.

The operation was coordinated with the Cuban leadership, so that it was carried out in full compliance with international law and international obligations THE USSR. She was provided with strict secrecy, but still US intelligence was able to get pictures of Soviet missiles on Liberty Island.

Now the Americans have reason to fear – less than 100 km separates Cuba from fashionable Miami in a straight line… The Caribbean crisis has become inevitable.

One step away from war

Soviet diplomacy categorically denied the existence of nuclear weapons in Cuba (and what was it supposed to do?), but the legislative structures and the US military were determined. As early as September 1962, calls were made to resolve the Cuban question by force of arms.

President J.F. Kennedy wisely abandoned the idea of an immediate pinpoint strike on missile bases, but on November 22 he announced a maritime "quarantine" of Cuba in order to prevent new deliveries of nuclear weapons. The action was not very reasonable - firstly, according to the Americans themselves, it was already there, and secondly, the quarantine was just illegal. At that time, a caravan of more than 30 Soviet ships was heading to Cuba. personally forbade their captains to obey the requirements of quarantine and publicly declared that even one shot in the direction of Soviet ships would immediately cause decisive opposition. Approximately the same he said in response to the letter of the American leader. On November 25, the conflict was transferred to the UN rostrum. But that didn't help resolve it.

let's live in peace

November 25 proved to be the busiest day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Since Khrushchev's letter to Kennedy on November 26, tensions have subsided. Yes, and the American president did not dare to give his ships an order to open fire on the Soviet caravan (he made such actions dependent on his personal order). Overt and covert diplomacy began to work, and the parties finally agreed on mutual concessions. The USSR undertook to take missiles out of Cuba. For this, the United States guaranteed the lifting of the blockade of the island, pledged not to invade it and to remove its nuclear weapons from Turkey.

The great thing about these decisions is that they were almost completely implemented.

Thanks to the reasonable actions of the leadership of the two countries, the world has again moved away from the brink of nuclear war. The Caribbean crisis proved that even complex contentious issues can be resolved peacefully, but only if this is what all interested parties want.

The peaceful resolution of the Caribbean crisis was a win for all the people of the planet. And this is despite the fact that the United States still continued to illegally infringe on Cuban trade, and in the world, no, no, but they are wondering: did Khrushchev leave a couple of missiles in Cuba, just in case?

background

Cuban Revolution

During the Cold War, the confrontation between the two superpowers, the USSR and the USA, was expressed not only in direct military threat and the arms race, but also in an effort to expand their zones of influence. The Soviet Union sought to organize and support liberation socialist revolutions in different parts of the world. In pro-Western countries, support was provided for the "people's liberation movement", sometimes even with weapons and people. In the event of the victory of the revolution, the country became a member of the socialist camp, military bases were built there, and significant resources were invested there. The help of the Soviet Union was often gratuitous, which caused additional sympathy for him from the poorest countries in Africa and Latin America.

The United States, in turn, followed a similar tactic, staging revolutions to establish democracy and supporting pro-American regimes. Initially, the preponderance of forces was on the side of the United States - they were supported by Western Europe, Turkey, some Asian and African countries, such as South Africa.

It was supposed to send a group of Soviet troops to Liberty Island, which should concentrate around five divisions of nuclear missiles (three R-12s and two R-14s). In addition to missiles, the group also included 1 Mi-4 helicopter regiment, 4 motorized rifle regiments, two tank battalions, a MiG-21 squadron, 42 Il-28 light bombers, 2 units of cruise missiles with 12 Kt nuclear warheads with a radius of 160 km, several batteries anti-aircraft guns, as well as 12 S-75 installations (144 missiles). Each motorized rifle regiment consisted of 2,500 men, tank battalions were equipped the latest tanks T-55. It is worth noting that the Group of Soviet Forces in Cuba (GSVK) became the first army group in the history of the USSR, which included ballistic missiles.

In addition, an impressive grouping of the Navy was also heading to Cuba: 2 cruisers, 4 destroyers, 12 Komar missile boats, 11 submarines (7 of them with nuclear missiles). In total, 50,874 military personnel were planned to be sent to the island. Later, on July 7, Khrushchev decided to appoint Issa Pliev as commander of the group.

After listening to Malinovsky's report, the Presidium of the Central Committee voted unanimously in favor of carrying out the operation.

"Anadyr"

Landing at an air base in south Florida, Heizer handed the film to the CIA. On October 15, CIA analysts determined that the photographs were of Soviet R-12 medium-range ballistic missiles ("SS-4" according to NATO classification). In the evening of the same day, this information was brought to the attention of the top military leadership of the United States. On the morning of October 16 at 8:45 a.m., the photographs were shown to the President. After that, on the orders of Kennedy, flights over Cuba became 90 times more frequent: from two times a month to six times a day.

US reaction

ExCom and developing responses

After receiving photographs showing Soviet missile bases in Cuba, President Kennedy called a special group of close advisers to a secret meeting at the White House. This group of 14 members later became known as the "Executive Committee of the Council Homeland Security USA". Soon the Executive Committee proposed to the President three possible options for resolving the situation: to destroy the missiles with pinpoint strikes, to conduct a full-scale military operation in Cuba or impose a naval blockade of the island.

An immediate bombing attack was rejected out of hand, as was an appeal to the UN that promised a long delay. The real options considered by the Board were only military measures. Diplomatic, barely touched upon on the first day of the work, were immediately rejected - even before the main discussion began. As a result, the choice was reduced to a naval blockade and an ultimatum, or to a full-scale invasion.

The decision to impose a blockade was finally made. At the final vote on the evening of October 20, President Kennedy himself, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and US Ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson, who was specially summoned for this from New York, voted for the blockade. Kennedy took a cunning move: avoiding the word "blockade", he called the action "quarantine". It was decided to introduce quarantine on October 24 from 10 am local time.

Quarantine

There were many problems with the naval blockade. There was a question of legality - as Fidel Castro pointed out, there was nothing illegal about planting rockets. They were certainly a threat to the US, but similar missiles were deployed in Europe aimed at the USSR: sixty Thor missiles in four squadrons near Nottingham in the UK; thirty medium-range Jupiter rockets in two squadrons near Gioia del Colle in Italy; and fifteen Jupiter missiles in one squadron near Izmir in Turkey. Then there was the problem of the Soviet reaction to the blockade - would an armed conflict begin with an escalation of response?

President Kennedy addressed the American public (and the Soviet government) in an October 22 televised speech. He confirmed the presence of missiles in Cuba and declared a naval blockade of 500 nautical miles (926 km) around the coast of Cuba, warning that armed forces were "ready for any turn of events", and denouncing the Soviet Union for "secrecy and misrepresentation". Kennedy noted that any missile launch from Cuban territory against any of the American allies in the Western Hemisphere would be regarded as an act of war against the United States.

The Americans were surprised by the strong support from their European allies, although the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, expressing the opinion of most international community, expressed bewilderment at the fact that no attempt was made to resolve the conflict diplomatically. The Organization of American States also voted unanimously in favor of a resolution in support of the lockdown. Nikita Khrushchev declared that the blockade was illegal and that any ship under the Soviet flag would ignore it. He threatened that if the Soviet ships were attacked by the Americans, a retaliatory strike would follow immediately.

However, the blockade went into effect on 24 October at 10:00 am. 180 ships of the US Navy surrounded Cuba with clear orders not to open fire on Soviet ships in any case without a personal order from the president. By this time, 30 ships were heading to Cuba, including Aleksandrovsk with a cargo of nuclear warheads and 4 ships carrying missiles for two IRBM divisions. In addition, 4 diesel submarines were approaching the Island of Freedom, accompanying the ships. On board the "Alexandrovsk" were 24 warheads for the IRBM and 44 for cruise missiles. Khrushchev decided that submarines and four ships with R-14 missiles - Artemyevsk, Nikolaev, Dubna and Divnogorsk - should continue on their previous course. In an effort to minimize the possibility of a collision of Soviet ships with American ones, the Soviet leadership decided to deploy the rest of the ships that did not have time to reach Cuba home.

Meanwhile, in response to Khrushchev's message, the Kremlin received a letter from Kennedy, in which he stated that "the Soviet side broke its promises regarding Cuba and misled him." This time, Khrushchev decided not to go for a confrontation and began to look for possible ways out of the current situation. He announced to the members of the Presidium that "it is impossible to store missiles in Cuba without going to war with the United States." At the meeting, it was decided to offer the Americans to dismantle the missiles in exchange for US guarantees to stop trying to change the state regime in Cuba. Brezhnev, Kosygin, Kozlov, Mikoyan, Ponomarev and Suslov supported Khrushchev. Gromyko and Malinovsky abstained from voting. After the meeting, Khrushchev suddenly turned to the members of the Presidium: “Comrades, let's go to the Bolshoi Theater in the evening. Our people and foreigners will see us, maybe this will calm them down.

Khrushchev's second letter

It was 5 pm in Moscow when a tropical storm raged in Cuba. One of the air defense units received a message that an American reconnaissance aircraft U-2 was seen approaching Guantanamo Bay. The chief of staff of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division, Captain Antonets, called Pliev's headquarters for instructions, but he was not there. Major General Leonid Garbuz, deputy commander of the GSVK for combat training, ordered the captain to wait for Pliev to appear. A few minutes later, Antonets called the headquarters again - no one picked up the phone. When U-2 was already over Cuba, Garbuz himself ran to the headquarters and, without waiting for Pliev, gave the order to destroy the plane. According to other sources, the order to destroy the reconnaissance aircraft could have been given by Pliev's deputy for air defense, Lieutenant General of Aviation Stepan Grechko or the commander of the 27th Air Defense Division, Colonel Georgy Voronkov. The launch took place at 10:22 local time. U-2 pilot Major Rudolf Anderson died, becoming the only casualty of the confrontation. Around the same time, another U-2 was almost intercepted over Siberia, as General LeMay, Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, defied an order from the US President to stop all flights over Soviet territory. A few hours later, two US Navy RF-8A Crusader photo reconnaissance aircraft were fired upon anti-aircraft guns while flying over Cuba at low altitude. One of them was damaged, but the pair returned safely to base.

Kennedy's military advisers tried to persuade the president to order an invasion of Cuba before Monday, "before it was too late." Kennedy no longer categorically rejected such a development of the situation. However, he did not give up hope peace resolution. It is generally accepted that "Black Saturday", October 27, is the day when the world, as never before, came close to the abyss of a worldwide nuclear catastrophe.

Permission

The dismantling of Soviet rocket launchers, their loading onto ships and their withdrawal from Cuba took 3 weeks. Convinced that the Soviet Union had removed the missiles, President Kennedy on November 20 gave the order to end the blockade of Cuba. A few months later, American missiles were also withdrawn from Turkey, as "obsolete."

Consequences

The compromise did not satisfy anyone. In doing so, it was a particularly acute diplomatic embarrassment for Khrushchev and the Soviet Union, who appeared to be backing down on a situation they themselves had created - when if the situation had been played out correctly, it could have been perceived in the opposite way: the USSR bravely saves the world. from nuclear annihilation by abandoning the demand to restore nuclear equilibrium. Khrushchev's removal a few years later can be partly attributed to irritation in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU regarding Khrushchev's concessions to the United States and his inept leadership that led to the crisis.

For Cuba, this was a betrayal by the Soviet Union, which they trusted, since the decision that ended the crisis was made solely by Khrushchev and Kennedy.

US military leaders were also dissatisfied with the result. General Curtis LeMay told the President that this was "the worst defeat in our history" and that the US should have invaded immediately.

At the end of the crisis, analysts from the Soviet and American intelligence agencies proposed establishing a direct line between Washington and Moscow. telephone line(the so-called "red phone"), so that in case of crisis, the leaders of the superpowers have the opportunity to immediately contact each other, and not use the telegraph.

Historical meaning

The historical significance of the Cuban Missile Crisis cannot be overestimated. The crisis became a turning point in the "nuclear race" and in the Cold War, Soviet and American diplomacy initiated the beginning of "détente". After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the first international treaties regulating and limiting the stockpiling, testing and use of weapons of mass destruction. The excitement on the verge of panic in the press gave rise to a powerful anti-war movement in Western society, which peaked in the 1970s.

It is impossible to state unequivocally whether the removal of missiles from Cuba was a victory or defeat for the Soviet Union. On the one hand, the plan conceived by Khrushchev in May was not carried through to the end, and Soviet missiles could no longer ensure the security of Cuba. On the other hand, Khrushchev obtained from the US leadership guarantees of non-aggression on Cuba, which, despite Castro's fears, have been observed and are observed to this day. A few months later, the American missiles in Turkey, which had provoked Khrushchev into placing weapons in Cuba, were also dismantled. In the end, thanks to technological progress in rocket science, there was no need to deploy nuclear weapons in Cuba and in the Western Hemisphere in general, since a few years later the Soviet Union created missiles that could reach any city and military installation in the United States directly from Soviet soil.

Epilogue

Notes

Table of US Strategic Bomber Forces. Archive of Nuclear Data(2002). Retrieved October 17, 2007.
Table of US ICBM Forces. Archive of Nuclear Data
Table of US Ballistic Missile Submarine Forces. Archive of Nuclear Data(2002). Retrieved October 15, 2007.
"Operation Anadyr: Figures and Facts", Zerkalo Nedelya, No. 41 (416) October 26 - November 1, 2002
A. Fursenko "Mad Risk", p. 255
A. Fursenko "Mad Risk", p. 256
Interview with Sidney Graybeal - 29.1.98, The National Security Archive of the George Washington University
A. Fursenko, Mad Risk, p. 299
The Cuban Crisis: A Historical Perspective (Discussion) Hosted by James Blight, Philip Brenner, Julia Sweig, Svetlana Savranskaya and Graham Allison
Soviet Analysis of the Strategic Situation in Cuba October 22, 1962
The "Cuban Missile Crisis, October 18-29, 1962" from History and Politics Out Loud
Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History by Jane Franklin, 420 pages, 1997, Ocean Press

The Caribbean Crisis is an extremely tense clash between the Soviet Union and the United States on October 16-28, 1962, which arose as a result of the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba in October 1962. The Cubans call it the "October Crisis" and in the US the "Cuban Missile Crisis".

In 1961, the United States deployed PGM-19 Jupiter medium-range missiles in Turkey, which threatened the cities of the western part of the Soviet Union, including Moscow and the main industrial centers. They could reach objects on the territory of the USSR in 5-10 minutes, while Soviet intercontinental missiles reached the United States in only 25 minutes. Therefore, the USSR decided to take advantage of the opportunity when the Cuban leadership of Fidel Castro turned to it with a request for protection, which the Americans tried to overthrow with help " Operations in the Bay of Pigs"(1961). Khrushchev decided to install in Cuba - close to the United States (90 miles from Florida) - Soviet medium-range missiles R-12 and R-14, capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Caribbean crisis. video film

The operation to transfer military personnel, equipment and missiles to Cuba was called "Anadyr". In order to keep it as secret as possible, military exercises started in the USSR were announced. Happy in military units loaded skis, winter clothes - ostensibly for delivery to Chukotka. Part of the rocket men sailed to Cuba under the guise of "specialists in agriculture", on civilian ships that carried tractors and combines. No one on the ship knew where they were going. Even captains were ordered to open secret packages only in a prescribed square of the sea.

The missiles were delivered to Cuba and their installation began there. The Caribbean crisis opened on October 14, 1962, when an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, during one of its regular overflights of Cuba, discovered Soviet R-12 missiles near the village of San Cristobal. President of the U.S.A John Kennedy immediately created a special "Executive Committee", which discussed ways to solve the problem. At first, the committee operated in secret, but on October 22, Kennedy addressed the people, announcing the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, which almost caused a panic in the United States. On October 24, the US government imposed a "quarantine" (blockade) on Cuba. On the same day, five Soviet ships came close to the blockade zone and stopped.

Khrushchev began to deny the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons on the island, but on October 25 photographs of the missiles were shown at a meeting of the UN Security Council. The Kremlin said at the time that the missiles were installed in Cuba to "deter" the United States. The "Executive Committee" discussed the use of force to solve the problem. His supporters urged Kennedy to start bombing Cuba. However, another overflight of the U-2 showed that several Soviet missiles were already ready for launch and an attack on the island would inevitably cause a war.

Kennedy offered the Soviet Union to dismantle the installed missiles and deploy the ships going to Cuba in exchange for US guarantees not to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime. Khrushchev set an additional condition: to remove American missiles from Turkey. These points were agreed just a few hours before possible start war with a caveat: the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba will be done openly, and American missiles from Turkey - secretly.

On October 28, the dismantling of Soviet missiles began, which ended in a few weeks. On November 20, the blockade of Cuba was lifted, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which had brought humanity to the brink of nuclear annihilation, ended. After him, a permanent “hot” line began to work between the White House and the Kremlin in case of an unforeseen aggravation in the future.