Caribbean crisis: the "hot" phase of the Cold War. Caribbean Crisis: Causes, Resolution and Consequences
Cuban Missile Crisis- a well-known historical term that defines the acute relations between superstates in October 1962.
Answering the question, what is Caribbean crisis, it is impossible not to mention that it affected several areas of confrontation between the two geopolitical blocs at once. Thus, he touched upon the military, political and diplomatic spheres of confrontation within the framework of the Cold War.
cold war– global economic, political, ideological, military, scientific and technical confrontation between the USA and the USSR in the second half of the twentieth century.
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Causes of the crisis
Causes of the Caribbean Crisis consist in the deployment by US military personnel of nuclear ballistic missiles in Turkey in 1961. The new Jupiter launch vehicles were capable of delivering a nuclear charge to Moscow and other major cities of the Union in a matter of minutes, because of which the USSR would not have a chance to respond to the threat.
Khrushchev had to react to such a gesture and, having agreed with the government of Cuba, stationed Soviet missiles in Cuba. Thus, being in close proximity to east coast US, missiles in Cuba were able to destroy key US cities faster than nuclear warheads launched from Turkey.
Interesting! The deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba caused panic among the US population, and the government regarded such actions as a direct act of aggression.
Considering Causes of the Caribbean Crisis, one cannot but mention the attempts of the USA and the USSR to establish control over Cuba. The parties tried to expand their influence in the third world countries, this process was called the cold war.
Caribbean Crisis - Deployment of Nuclear Ballistic Missiles
In response to the threatening deployment of weapons in Turkey Khrushchev convenes a conference in May 1962. He discusses possible solutions to the problem. After the revolution in Cuba, Fidel Castro repeatedly asked the USSR for help in order to strengthen its military presence on the island. Khrushchev decided to take advantage of the offer and decided to send not only people, but also nuclear warheads. Having received consent from Castro, the Soviet side began to plan a secret transfer of nuclear weapons.
Operation Anadyr
Attention! The term "Anadyr" means a secret operation of the Soviet troops, which consisted in the covert delivery of nuclear weapons to the island of Cuba.
In September 1962, the first nuclear missiles were delivered to Cuba on civilian ships. Courts were covered diesel submarines. On September 25, the operation was completed. In addition to nuclear weapons, the USSR transferred about 50,000 soldiers and military equipment to Cuba. US intelligence could not fail to notice such a move, but it did not yet suspect the transfer of secret weapons.
Washington's reaction
In September, American reconnaissance aircraft spotted in Cuba Soviet fighters. This could not go unnoticed, and during another flight on October 14, the U-2 aircraft takes pictures of the location of Soviet ballistic missiles. With the assistance of a defector, US intelligence was able to determine that the image contained launch vehicles for nuclear warheads.
October 16 about photos, which confirm the deployment of Soviet missiles on the island of Cuba, report personally to President Kennedy. Having convened an emergency council, the president considered three ways to solve the problem:
- naval blockade of the island;
- pinpoint missile attack on Cuba;
- full-scale military operation.
The President's military advisers, having learned about the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba, said that it was necessary to start full-scale military operations. The president himself did not want to start a war, and therefore on October 20 he decided on a naval blockade.
Attention! A naval blockade is regarded in international relations as an act of war. Thus, the United States acts as an aggressor, and the USSR is only an injured party.
Because the United States presented its act not as military naval blockade but like quarantine. On October 22, Kennedy addressed the people of the United States. In the appeal, he said that the USSR secretly deployed nuclear missiles. Also he said, that the peaceful settlement of conflicts in Cuba is his main goal. And yet he mentioned that launching missiles from the island towards the US would be perceived as the start of a war.
The Cold War on the island of Cuba could very soon turn into a nuclear war, as the situation between the parties was extremely tense. The military blockade began on 24 October.
The Peak of the Caribbean Crisis
On October 24, the parties exchanged messages. Kennedy urged that Khrushchev not exacerbate the Cuban Missile Crisis or try to bypass the blockade. The USSR, however, stated that they perceive such demands as aggression on the part of the States.
On October 25, at the UN Security Council, the ambassadors of the conflicting parties presented their demands to each other. The American representative demanded recognition from the USSR about the deployment of missiles in Cuba. Interesting, but the representative of the Union did not know about the missiles, since Khrushchev initiated very few people into the Anadyr operation. And so the representative of the Union evaded the answer.
Interesting! The results of the day - the United States announced increased military readiness - the only time in the history of the country's existence.
After Khrushchev writes another letter - now he does not consult with the ruling elite of the USSR. In it, the general secretary compromises. He gives his word to withdraw the missiles from Cuba, returning them to the Union, but in return, Khrushchev demands that the United States not undertake acts of military aggression against Cuba.
balance of power
Speaking of the Caribbean Crisis, one cannot deny the fact that October 1962 is the time when a nuclear war could really start, and therefore it is reasonable to briefly consider the balance of forces of the parties before its hypothetical start.
The United States had much more impressive weapons and air defense systems. The Americans also had more advanced aircraft, as well as launch vehicles for nuclear warheads. Soviet nuclear missiles were less reliable and would have taken longer to prepare for launch.
The US had about 310 nuclear ballistic missiles around the world, while the USSR could only launch 75 long-range ballistic missiles. Another 700 had an average range and could not reach strategic important US cities.
Aviation of the USSR was seriously inferior to the American- their fighters and bombers, although they were more numerous, lost in quality. Most of them could not reach the shores of the United States.
The main trump card of the USSR was the advantageous strategic location of missiles in Cuba, from where they would reach the shores of America and hit important cities in a matter of minutes.
"Black Saturday" and conflict resolution
On October 27, Castro writes a letter to Khrushchev, in which he claims that the Americans will begin hostilities in Cuba within 1-3 days. At the same time, Soviet intelligence reports on the activation of the US Air Force in the area caribbean, which confirms the words of the commandant of Cuba.
In the evening of the same day, another US reconnaissance aircraft flew over Cuban territory, which was shot down by Soviet air defense systems installed in Cuba, as a result of which an American pilot died.
On this day, two more US Air Force aircraft were damaged. Kennedy no longer denied the vast possibility of a declaration of war. Castro demanded a nuclear strike on the United States and was ready to sacrifice for this all of Cuba and your life.
denouement
The settlement of the situation during the Caribbean crisis began on the night of October 27th. Kennedy was willing to lift the blockade and guarantee Cuban independence in exchange for the removal of missiles from Cuba.
On October 28, Khrushchev receives Kennedy's letter. After some thought, he writes a response message in which he goes to reconcile and resolve the situation.
Consequences
The outcome of the situation, called the Cuban Missile Crisis, was of worldwide significance - nuclear war was cancelled.
Many were not satisfied with the outcome of the talks between Kennedy and Khrushchev. The ruling circles of the USA and the USSR accused their leaders of in softness towards the enemy They shouldn't have to make concessions.
After the conflict was settled, the leaders of the states found a common language, which caused a warming of relations between the parties. The Cuban Missile Crisis also showed the world that it is wise to stop using nuclear weapons.
The Caribbean Crisis is one of the key events of the 20th century, about which the following interesting facts can be cited:
- Khrushchev learned about American nuclear missiles in Turkey quite by accident during a peaceful visit to Bulgaria;
- the Americans were so afraid of a nuclear war that they launched the construction of fortified bunkers, and after the Caribbean crisis, the scale of construction increased significantly;
- the opposing sides had so many nuclear weapons in their arsenal that their launch would cause a nuclear apocalypse;
- On October 27, on Black Saturday, a wave of suicides swept across the United States;
- at the time of the Caribbean crisis, the United States in the history of its country announced the highest degree combat readiness;
- The Cuban nuclear crisis marked a turning point in the Cold War, after which détente began between the parties.
Conclusion
Answering the question: when did the Caribbean crisis occur, we can say - October 16-28, 1962. These days have become for the whole world one of the darkest in the twentieth century. The planet watched the confrontation unfold around the island of Cuba.
A few weeks after October 28, the missiles were returned to the USSR. The United States still keeps the promise given to Kennedy not to interfere in the affairs of Cuba and does not send its military contingent into Turkish territory.
The Caribbean (Cuban) crisis of 1962 is an international conflict situation caused by the deployment of Soviet medium-range missiles in Cuba. Humanity has fully experienced the reality of the apocalypse. Fortunately, the mind then prevailed over the recklessness and the erupted emotions. The statesmen of the USSR, the USA and Cuba for the first time realized what a "nuclear impasse" meant, and, having shown the necessary realism in eliminating the crisis situation, they found the strength to embark on the path of solving the most acute international problems not by military, but by diplomatic means. And it would not be an exaggeration to say that the lessons of the crisis, warning against hasty, ill-considered actions, have become a serious contribution to the development of both new thinking and new approaches to events on the world stage.
The external outline of those long-standing events is well known: on October 14, 1962, US Air Force reconnaissance planes discovered Soviet missiles on the "Island of Freedom" - in the Republic of Cuba, which posed a real threat to US security. American President John F. Kennedy demanded that the Soviet government withdraw the missiles. These events could bring the world to the brink of a nuclear missile war.
This is the summary of that distant history behind which the cardinal turns of world politics are hidden.
The purpose of my essay: to show the causes of the conflict between the USSR and the USA in the post-war decades, to determine how serious and fruitful the steps to prevent them were, and to mention the lessons and consequences of the Caribbean crisis.
Chapter 1
1.1 Political causes of the crisis
RUSSIAN-CUBAN relations have deep historical roots. Suffice it to recall that the first honorary consul of Russia was accredited to Cuba as early as 1826.
In fairness, it must be said that, on the whole, until the early 1960s, bilateral relations with Cuba developed rather formally. Until the victory of the 1959 revolution, Cuba was steadily in the orbit of US geopolitical interests. This was primarily due to its favorable position in the center of the Caribbean and the significant resource potential of the island. Having the formal status of an independent state, ... Cuba from the beginning of the century, in fact, turned out to be cruelly oriented towards the United States. Under these conditions, the US managed to consolidate its influence through the so-called "Plath Amendment", included under pressure in the Cuban Constitution. According to the amendment, the United States received an unprecedented right to direct military intervention in the internal affairs of the Cuban state in the event that Washington considers that the country's stability is under threat.
Immediately after the revolution in Cuba in 1959, neither Fidel Castro nor his associates had not only no contacts either with the Soviet Union or with other socialist states, but even elementary knowledge about Marxism-Leninism, about communist doctrine.
During his fight against the regime in the 1950s, Castro approached Moscow several times for military assistance, but was refused. Moscow was skeptical about the leader of the Cuban revolutionaries and about the very prospects of a revolution in Cuba, believing that the influence of the United States was too great there.
The US government was openly hostile to the Cuban revolution:
In April 1961, detachments of counter-revolutionary mercenaries were landed on the territory of the Republic of Cuba in the Playa Giron area (they were defeated by decisive actions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba)
In February 1962, under US pressure, Cuba was expelled from the Organization of American States (OAS)
· The United States constantly violated the borders of Cuba, invading its air and sea space, bombarded Cuban cities; a pirate raid was made on the seaside areas of Havana.
Fidel made his first foreign visit after the victory of the revolution to the United States, but President Eisenhower refused to meet him, citing his busy schedule. After this demonstration of an arrogant attitude towards Cuba, F. Castro carried out measures directed against the dominance of the Americans. Thus, the telephone and electric companies, oil refineries, 36 largest sugar factories owned by US citizens were nationalized; the former owners were offered the corresponding packages of securities. All branches of North American banks owned by US citizens were also nationalized. In response, the United States stopped supplying oil to Cuba and buying its sugar, although a long-term purchase agreement was in effect. Such steps put Cuba in a very difficult position. By that time, the Cuban government had already established diplomatic relations with the USSR, and it turned to Moscow for help. In response to a request, the USSR sent tankers with oil and organized the purchase of Cuban sugar.
It can be considered that Cuba was the first country to choose the communist path without significant military or political interference from the USSR. In this capacity, she was deeply symbolic to Soviet leaders, especially to Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, who considered the defense of the island critical to the international reputation of the USSR and communist ideology.
1.2 Military causes of the crisis
The crisis was preceded by the 1961 United States deployment of Jupiter medium-range missiles in Turkey, directly threatening cities in the western part of the Soviet Union. This type of missile "reached" Moscow and the main industrial centers. Moreover, the United States planned to deploy strategic missiles in Japan and Italy, which was intended to change both the proportionality of nuclear charges and their carriers in relation to 17: 1 in favor of the United States, and reduce " flying time", which is an important strategic characteristic of nuclear deterrence. Let us also note the following important, but practically unknown to contemporaries circumstance. Based on its imaginary scientific and technical superiority, the United States believed that from now on space and other technical means intelligence reliably guarantee the security of the country and therefore decided to shift the burden of intelligence activities from human intelligence to technical intelligence. From this - which later turned out to be false - premise, by the way, a rather dubious conclusion was made that in reconnaissance confrontation the center of gravity should also be shifted from undercover protection of state secrets to technical, focusing on countering enemy technical intelligence.
Soviet strategists realized that some nuclear parity could be effectively achieved by deploying missiles in Cuba. Soviet medium-range missiles on Cuban territory, with a range of up to 4,000 km (P-14), could keep Washington and about half of the air bases of strategic nuclear bombers of the US Strategic Air Force at gunpoint, with a flight time of less than 20 minutes.
The head of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev, publicly expressed his indignation at the fact of the deployment of missiles in Turkey. He considered these rockets a personal affront. The deployment of missiles in Cuba - the first time that Soviet missiles left the territory of the USSR - is considered Khrushchev's direct response to American missiles in Turkey. In his memoirs, Khrushchev writes that the first time the idea to deploy missiles in Cuba came to him in 1962, when he led a delegation of the Soviet Union visiting Bulgaria at the invitation of the Bulgarian Central Committee of the Communist Party and the government. “There, one of his associates, pointing towards the Black Sea, said that on the opposite coast, in Turkey, there are missiles capable of striking the main industrial centers THE USSR" .
Thus, with such a balance of forces, the actions of the USSR for that period of time were really forced. The Soviet government needed to balance its military potential, if not by increasing the number of missiles, but by strategically placing them. The USSR began to view Cuba as a springboard for a "symmetrical response" to the threat posed by American missiles in Europe.
The United States, pursuing an aggressive policy against Cuba, not only did not achieve positive results, but also showed all mankind that their own national interests are more important for them than the generally recognized norms of international law, the defender of which they have always positioned themselves.
Chapter 2
2.1 Making a decision
"The idea of installing missiles with atomic warheads in Cuba occurred to Khrushchev solely for the purpose of protecting Cuba. He was in Bulgaria in 1962, I think in the middle of May. He came and told me that he had been thinking all the time how to save Cuba from the invasion, which , as he believed, should inevitably be repeated, but by other forces, with the expectation of a complete victory for the Americans. “And the thought came to me,” he says, “that if we send our missiles there, quickly and imperceptibly install them there, then announce to the Americans, first by through diplomatic channels, and then publicly. This will immediately put them in their place. Any attack on Cuba will mean an attack directly on their territory. And this will lead them to the fact that they will have to abandon any plans to attack Cuba."
On May 20, 1962, Nikita Khrushchev had a conversation in the Kremlin with Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Anastas Mikoyan and Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky, during which he outlined his idea to them: in response to Fidel Castro's constant requests to increase the Soviet military presence in Cuba, deploy on the island nuclear weapon.
On May 21, at a meeting of the Defense Council, he supported the proposal of N.S. Khrushchev. The Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs were instructed to organize covert movement of troops and military equipment by sea to Cuba.
On May 28, a Soviet delegation flew from Moscow to Havana, consisting of the USSR Ambassador Alekseev, Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces Marshal Sergei Biryuzov, Colonel General Semyon Pavlovich Ivanov, and Sharaf Rashidov. On May 29, they met with Raul and Fidel Castro and outlined to them the proposal of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Fidel asked for a day to negotiate with his closest associates. On the same day, Castro gave a positive answer to the Soviet delegates. It was decided that Raul Castro would visit Moscow in July to clarify all the details.
2.2 Composition of the contingent
On June 10, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, the results of the trip of the Soviet delegation to Cuba were discussed. After Rashidov's report, Malinovsky presented a preliminary draft of the missile transfer operation prepared at the General Staff. It was envisaged to deploy the 43rd Missile Division in Cuba, which was armed with R-12 and R-14 nuclear missiles with a range of up to 2.5 thousand and 5 thousand km, respectively, which made it possible to hit any targets on the continental United States up to Canadian border. In addition, it was planned to place cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, with a range of up to 60 km. It was planned ... also ... to deploy as auxiliary forces a naval (2 cruisers, 4 destroyers, 12 Komar missile boats, 11 submarines) and an aviation group (1 Mi-4 helicopter regiment, 4 motorized rifle regiments, two tank battalions, a squadron MiG-21, 42 Il-28 light bombers, 2 units of cruise missiles with nuclear warheads 12 Kt with a range of 160 km, several batteries of anti-aircraft guns, as well as 12 S-75 installations). 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.
2.3 Anadyr
By June 1962, the General Staff had already developed a cover operation codenamed Anadyr. Marshal of the USSR Hovhannes Khachaturovich Bagramyan planned and directed the operation. According to the drafters of the plan, this was to mislead the Americans about the destination of the cargo. All Soviet servicemen, technical personnel and others who accompanied the "cargo" were also told that they were heading for Chukotka. But, despite such a large-scale cover, the operation had one significant flaw: it was impossible to hide the missiles from the American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft regularly flying around Cuba. Thus, the plan was developed in advance, taking into account the fact that the Americans would detect Soviet missiles before they were all mounted. The only way out that the military managed to find was to place several anti-aircraft batteries already in Cuba at the places of unloading.
85 ships were allocated for the transfer of troops. Not a single captain knew about the contents of the holds before sailing, as well as about the destination. Each captain was given a sealed package, which was to be opened at sea in the presence of the political officer. The envelopes contained instructions to go to Cuba and avoid contact with NATO ships.
In early August, the first ships arrived in Cuba. On the night of September 8, the first batch of medium-range ballistic missiles was unloaded in Havana, the second batch arrived on September 16. The headquarters of the Grouping of Soviet Forces in Cuba (GSVK) is located in Havana. The main troops were concentrated around the missiles in the western part of the island, but several cruise missiles and a motorized rifle regiment were transferred to the east of Cuba - a hundred kilometers from Guantanamo Bay and the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay. By October 14, 1962, all 40 missiles and most of the equipment had been delivered to Cuba.
It is worth noting that although the Americans practically from the very beginning had information about the provision of military assistance by the Soviet Union to Cuba and conducted intensive aerial photography of the island, they did not have concrete evidence of the deployment of Soviet offensive weapons here. The Soviet side explained the equipment of the sites and access roads on the island by the deployment of defensive air defense systems. In September-October 1962, dense clouds and successive hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea prevented the Americans from conducting regular photographic reconnaissance from the air. Thus, in the immediate vicinity of US territory, a military group was formed, from the possible strike of which, in the event of a conflict, the US was extremely difficult to evade.
Chapter 3 Escalation and Conflict Resolution
3.1 Operation Mongoose
The United States also carried out large-scale military measures: Washington developed a special plan to eliminate the government of Fidel Castro, code-named “Mongoose”. This plan included two phases:
August-September 1962 - preparation and start of the anti-Castro "rebel" movement in Cuba
October - the organization of a "popular uprising" with the support of American intelligence services and troops with a possible landing of American troops on the island
In preparation for the implementation of this plan, in August 1962, large-scale naval maneuvers were held off the coast of Cuba, in which 45 military and more than 100,000 marines participated.
On August 23, 1962, John F. Kennedy ordered the intensification of measures to "deliberately foment a full-scale uprising against Castro" . This act clearly testifies to the complete fiasco of American intelligence in obtaining objective information about the events taking place on the island.
3.2 U-2 flights
A U-2 flying out in late August photographed a number of anti-aircraft missile sites under construction, but on September 4, 1962, Kennedy told Congress that there were no "offensive" missiles in Cuba. In fact, at that time, Soviet specialists were already building nine positions - six for the R-12 and three for the R-14 with a range of 4,000 km. Until September 1962, US Air Force planes flew over Cuba twice a month. Flights were suspended from September 5 to October 14. On the one hand, because of bad weather, on the other hand, Kennedy banned them for fear of escalating the conflict if an American plane was shot down by a Soviet anti-aircraft missile.
It is worth noting that until September 5, the flights were carried out with the knowledge of the CIA. Now such flights have come under the control of the Air Force. The first flight took place on October 14, 1962. Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft of the 4080th strategic ... reconnaissance ... wing, ... manned. Major Richard Heizer, took off at about 3 am from Edwards Air Force Base in California. The flight to the Gulf of Mexico took him 5 hours. Heizer circled Cuba from the west. and crossed the coastline from the south at 7:31 am. The plane crossed the whole of Cuba almost exactly from south to north, flying over the cities of Taco-Taco, San Cristobal, Bahia Honda. Heizer covered these 52 kilometers in 12 minutes.
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 Soviet ballistic missiles medium-range R-12 ("SS-4" according to NATO classification). In the evening. the same day, this information was brought to the attention of the superior. military. US leadership. Morning.16. October at 8:45 the photos 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.
3.3 Designing responses
“By October 22, when US President John F. Kennedy spoke on American radio and television about the discovery of Soviet missiles in the cube, all 42 missiles and warheads for them, as well as military personnel, were already in place. Some missiles were put on alert. Some of our ships were still on the way, but they had auxiliary equipment and food for the military contingent, which could be dispensed with on occasion.
After receiving photographs of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, President Kennedy called a special group of advisers to a secret meeting at the White House. This group of 14 people later became known as the "Executive Committee". It consisted of Council members national security United States and several specially invited advisers.
The committee soon offered the president three possible options for resolving the situation:
An immediate bombing strike was rejected immediately. To a direct question from the President, Secretary of Defense R. McNamara replied that. he cannot guarantee the absolute destruction of air defense batteries during an air strike.
Diplomatic methods, barely mentioned on the first day of 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.
3.4 Quarantine and worsening crisis
President Kennedy addressed the American public (and the Soviet government) in a televised speech on October 22. By this time, all 42 missiles and their warheads, as well as military personnel, were already in place. Some missiles were put on alert. Part Soviet ships was still on the way, but they had auxiliary equipment and food for the military contingent, which, on occasion, could be dispensed with.
In his address, John F. Kennedy 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 development of events" and condemned the Soviet Union for "secrecy and misrepresentation."
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 October 24 at 10:00.180 US Navy ships surrounded Cuba with clear orders not to open fire on Soviet ships under any circumstances without a personal order from the president.
At the same time, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU decided to put the armed forces of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries on high alert. All layoffs have been cancelled. Conscripts preparing for demobilization are ordered to remain at their duty stations until further notice. Khrushchev sent an encouraging letter to Castro, assuring him of the unshakable position of the USSR under any circumstances. Moreover, he knew that a significant part Soviet weapons already made it to Cuba.
On the evening of October 23, Robert Kennedy went to the Soviet embassy in Washington. At a meeting with Ambassador Dobrynin, Kennedy found out that he had no idea about the Soviet military preparations in Cuba. However, Dobrynin informed him that he knew about the instructions received by the captains of the Soviet ships - not to comply with illegal requirements on the high seas. Before leaving, Kennedy said: "I don't know how it will all end, but we intend to stop your ships."
On October 24, Khrushchev received a short telegram from Kennedy, in which he called on the Soviet leader to show prudence and comply with the conditions of the blockade. The Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU gathered for a meeting to discuss the official response to the introduction of the blockade. On the same day, Khrushchev sent a letter to the President of the United States, in which he accused him of setting difficult conditions. Khrushchev called the blockade "an act of aggression pushing humanity towards the abyss of a world nuclear missile war." In a letter, the First Secretary warned Kennedy that the captains of Soviet ships would not comply with the instructions of the US Navy, and that if the United States continued its piracy, the Soviet government would take any measures to ensure the safety of ships.
In response to Khrushchev's message, the Kremlin received a letter from Kennedy, in which he pointed out that "the Soviet side violated 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 told the members of the Presidium that it was practically impossible to keep 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.
On the morning of October 26, Nikita Khrushchev began to compose a new, less militant message from Kennedy. In a letter, he offered the Americans the option of dismantling the installed missiles and returning them to the Soviet Union. In exchange, he demanded assurances that the United States would not invade Cuba, nor would it support any other force that intended to invade Cuba. Another condition was aired in an open address over the radio on the morning of October 27, acknowledging the withdrawal of US missiles from Turkey, in addition to the requirements specified in the letter.
3.5 Black Saturday
Meanwhile, in Havana, the political situation escalated to the limit. Castro became aware of the new position of the Soviet Union, and he immediately went to the Soviet embassy. Fidel decided to write a letter to Khrushchev to push him to take more decisive action. Even before Castro finished the letter and sent it to the Kremlin, the head of the KGB station in Havana informed the First Secretary that, according to F. Castro, intervention. almost. is inevitable and will happen within the next 24-72 hours. At the same time, Malinovsky received a report from the commander of the Soviet troops in Cuba, General I.A. Pliev about the increased activity of American strategic aviation in the Caribbean. Both messages were delivered to Khrushchev's office in the Kremlin at 12 noon, Saturday, October 27th.
On the same day, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile during a reconnaissance flight. Its pilot Anderson was killed. Situation. V. USA. heated up. to the limit: Americans call that day "black ... Saturday." The President, who was...under the strongest...pressure of the "hawks" who demanded immediate retribution, regarded this event as the determination of the USSR not to back down from threats, even with the risk of starting a nuclear war. If before that he adhered to the arsenal of traditional military-diplomatic means, now he realized that only diplomacy, only equal negotiations and compromises can become effective means crisis resolution.
3.6 Resolution
On the night of October 27-28, on the instructions of the President, Robert Kennedy again met with the Soviet ambassador in the building of the Ministry of Justice. Kennedy shared with Dobrynin the president's fears that the situation might be about to get out of hand. Robert Kennedy said that his brother was ready to give guarantees of non-aggression and the speedy lifting of the blockade from Cuba. Dobrynin asked Kennedy about the missiles in Turkey. "If this is the only obstacle to reaching the settlement mentioned above, then the president sees no insurmountable difficulties in resolving the issue," Kennedy replied.
The next morning, a message came to the Kremlin from Kennedy stating: "1) You will agree to withdraw your weapons systems from Cuba under the appropriate supervision of UN representatives, and to take steps, subject to appropriate security measures, to stop the supply of such weapons systems to Cuba.2) We, for our part, will agree - provided that a system of adequate measures is created with the help of the UN to ensure the fulfillment of these obligations - a) quickly cancel the currently blockade measures and b) give guarantees of non-aggression against Cuba. I am sure that other states of the Western Hemisphere will be ready to do the same."
The Soviet leadership accepted these conditions. On the same day, Malinovsky sent Pliev an order to begin dismantling the R-12 launch pads. Dismantling of the Soviet rocket launchers, loading them onto ships and withdrawing 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."
Chapter 4
The crisis had multifaceted and far-reaching ... consequences, both positive and negative. Among the first are the following:
· Awareness by the superpowers of their own vulnerability and dependence on each other. It became obvious that a nuclear confrontation between the US and the USSR poses a threat to the existence of the entire world; some kind of “rules of conduct” were developed, which made it possible in the future to prevent the emergence of such acute crisis situations in relations between Moscow and Washington.
· Immediately after the end of the crisis, both sides undertook conditions aimed at consolidating the agreements reached and improving the security mechanism. A direct "hot" line was established between Washington and Moscow; in 1963 The Treaty on the cessation of nuclear tests in three environments (in the atmosphere, space and under water) was signed.
However, along with the positive ones, the Caribbean crisis also had negative consequences:
It was not possible to put a reliable barrier to the process of the spread of nuclear weapons, since the technologies for the production of atomic bombs in the second half of the 70s were mastered South African Republic and Israel.
· in the conditions of the Cold War, the struggle for dominance in the world between the USSR and the USA continued indirectly - as if moving from the global to other levels of the world order (conflicts and wars between the "vassals" of the two superpowers).
The Caribbean crisis, despite all its internal intensity and drama, allows us to draw a number of useful lessons that can be used in the future:
Lesson #1 Paradoxically, it was the presence of nuclear weapons that helped maintain the fragile peace on Earth for more than half a century. From this we can conclude that the need for self-preservation in humans is great enough to resist the temptation of a nuclear adventure.
Lesson number 2. Conflicts have existed in the past, and they will continue into the new millennium, as international relations are oversaturated with contradictions. Therefore, it is more rational not to deny their presence and not strive to get rid of them in one fell swoop, but to learn to get along with conflicts, control and regulate them.
Lesson number 3. " Especially for us: you can’t be weak, because the weak are pitied or despised, but not respected. Moreover, they are not taken into account." In order to reliably protect its national interests and make any encroachment on our country unprofitable, Russia must be able to inflict unacceptable damage on any potential aggressor.
Conclusion
So in the middle XX V. mankind, having passed along the edge of the nuclear abyss, safely passed the third world war.
For the Soviet Union, perhaps, the end of the Caribbean crisis was more beneficial than for the Americans. The USSR achieved the withdrawal of missiles from Turkey and confirmed the strategic parity between the two great powers. True, this crisis did not benefit Khrushchev personally. He showed his mistakes, thoughtlessness of strategically important decisions, political short-sightedness. He was criticized both by fraternal parties and by party comrades for the decision to withdraw troops from Cuba, but from today's perspective, it is clear that he was right. At that time, the world was saved by the mutual unwillingness of war, and a certain progressiveness of the "new" politicians then in power. The fear of a nuclear war turned out to be stronger than their own desires, both on one side and on the other.
In my opinion, the Caribbean crisis was the same bitter but useful lesson for humanity as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tens of thousands died then, but the whole world realized the horror of a nuclear catastrophe, and their death saved millions in the future.
List of used literature
1. Yu.V. Aksyutin “Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. Materials for a biography”, POLITIZDAT, 1989.
2. Mikoyan S.A. "", Academy, 2006.
3. "State security from Alexander I to Putin", M., 2005.
4. Mikoyan S.A. "Jump across the ocean. Why rockets?" // Latin America, 2003 No. 1.
5. Vostikov S.V. "Equilibristics at the forefront of war" // Latin America, 2003 No. 1.
6. Morozov V., Korchagin Yu. "Centenary of Russian-Cuban diplomatic relations" // International life, 2002 No. 7.
7. Timofeev M.A., Fursenko A.A. "Mad risk", ROSSPEN, 2006.
8. Lavrenov S.Ya., Popov I.M. "The Soviet Union in Local Wars and Conflicts. Caribbean Crisis: The World on the Brink of Catastrophe".
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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 of 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 a few more disassembled. 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 17.10.2012Lessons from the Caribbean Crisis
Slate.fr 10/16/2012Sergei Khrushchev @ InoTV: "For my father, the Cuban Missile Crisis was an invitation to bargain"
BBC World 24.10.2007When 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, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, 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 arrived at the White House.
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 medium-range missiles were visible. 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 the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maxwell Taylor, and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson offered different solutions: either immediately bomb the missile sites, or send Marines there, or 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 verify this information in every possible way. 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 it was 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 on a honeymoon trip 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 20 Soviet ships with military cargo were seen.
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 the following February. 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 on 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 at the highest level, which could eventually lead to nuclear war. “NATO has repeatedly stated that it will never use military force the first, however, the alliance will not give in to the USSR and will not refuse to be the first to use nuclear weapons if the alliance is attacked, ”wrote British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her memoirs, Years in Downing Street.
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 a 50 megaton hydrogen bomb, that is, it was ten times more powerful than all 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 like the democratically elected President of Guatemala, 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 Victory Day was celebrated in the USSR, Golman called Bolshakov to arrange a 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 aircraft will 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 of 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 an infantry division were transferred to Florida. 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 4,000 marines practiced a strike against the notional dictator Ortsak, but in reality against Castro.
Photos of Soviet missiles stationed on the island. The White House discussed the "powerful" option for solving the problem, and his supporters convinced Kennedy to start a massive bombardment of Cuba as soon as possible, followed by landing of sea and air assault forces on the island.
critical phase. World on the brink of nuclear war
As Commander-in-Chief, President John F. Kennedy, under pressure from the military, ordered DEFCON-2 to put the U.S. Armed Forces on "Combat Readiness #2". This meant that his next order would begin full-scale hostilities or war with the USSR and its allies. On the evening of October 22, the President of the United States made a televised "Address to the American People." He stated that 250,000 ground troops, 90,000 marines and paratroopers are being prepared for the invasion of Cuba, and a strike force has been created air force, capable of making 2,000 sorties per day of invasion, the navy pulls more than 100 ships for various purposes to the island.
Panic began among the civilian population of the United States: people urgently bought food and bottled water, went on vacation and left American cities with their families. In rural areas, residents equipped basements and cellars in case nuclear war, stocking food, water and essentials. Many American families left their homes and moved into basements, cellars and hastily made dugouts and dugouts. Schools, colleges and universities routinely conducted exercises on the topic: "How to behave in the event of an atomic explosion."
The Pentagon created a "ring" of blockade around the island of Cuba, which was formed by 25 destroyers, 2 cruisers, aircraft carriers, submarines and auxiliary vessels. Aircraft were constantly loitering in the air, including bombers with atomic bombs on board. American high-altitude U-2 reconnaissance aircraft continuously carried out photographic reconnaissance of the island and the adjacent waters of the Atlantic Ocean. All Soviet ships were escorted by surface ships, submarines and subjected to systematic overflights by helicopters and aircraft of the air force.
Such US actions did not go unnoticed by Soviet intelligence. Already on October 21, the GRU officer, the military attache in Washington, at a meeting with Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, announced that the units of the US armed forces stationed in the southern and southwestern states were put on high alert. Neither the attache nor the ambassador were informed that the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces had deployed ballistic and tactical missiles and atomic warheads to them.
From the evening of October 22, all members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were transferred to the "barracks position" and were in the Kremlin in Moscow without a break.
With the sanction of Nikita Khrushchev and by order of the Minister of Defense, the Armed Forces of the USSR were also put on full combat readiness: the servicemen were raised on alert, regular weapons and ammunition were issued, equipment and weapons were brought to combat positions and dispersed, nuclear warheads were attached to missiles and torpedoes , atomic bombs were suspended from aircraft, atomic shells were taken out of warehouses to artillery positions in the Western direction. The USSR Navy began tracking American submarines and aircraft carrier formations in the waters of the World Ocean adjacent to the territory of the USSR. According to the plans previously developed by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR, atomic strike forces - bombers and submarines with atomic weapons on board - advanced to the shores of the United States. All formations of the Strategic Missile Forces were put on high alert to immediately deliver an atomic strike against predetermined targets in the United States, large American military bases, sea and land groups located in other countries. The strike forces of the armored forces, motorized infantry units and aviation of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany were to carry out an offensive from the territory of the GDR to West Berlin with the aim of occupying it within 2-4 hours.
Cuban Revolution
During the Cold War, the confrontation between the two superpowers, the USSR and the USA, was expressed not only in a direct military threat and an arms race, but also in the desire to expand their zones of influence. The Soviet Union sought to organize and support the so-called "liberation" socialist revolutions in various parts of the world. In pro-Western countries, support was provided to "people's liberation movements" of various kinds, often with weapons and sending military specialists, instructors and limited military contingents. 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. 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 similar tactics, also stimulating "revolutions" to establish democracy and supporting pro-American regimes. Usually, 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.
Initially, after the victory of the revolution in Cuba in 1959, its leader Fidel Castro did not have close relations with the Soviet Union. During his fight against the regime of Fulgencio Batista in the 1950s, Castro approached Moscow several times for military assistance, but was refused. Moscow was skeptical about the leader of the Cuban revolutionaries and about the very prospects of a revolution in Cuba, believing that the influence of the United States was too great there. Fidel made his first foreign visit after the victory of the revolution to the United States, but President Eisenhower refused to meet him, citing his busy schedule. After this demonstration of an arrogant attitude towards Cuba, F. Castro carried out measures directed against the dominance of the Americans. Thus, the telephone and electric companies, oil refineries, 36 largest sugar factories owned by US citizens were nationalized; the former owners were offered the corresponding packages of securities. All branches of North American banks owned by US citizens were also nationalized. In response, the United States stopped supplying oil to Cuba and buying its sugar. Such steps put Cuba in a very difficult position. By that time, the Cuban government had already established diplomatic relations with the USSR, and it turned to Moscow for help. In response to a request, the USSR sent oil tankers and organized the purchase of Cuban sugar and raw sugar. Experts from various sectors of the national economy of the USSR went to Cuba on long business trips to create similar industries, as well as office work on the Island of Freedom. Soviet specialists built various facilities, for example, according to a special project, they made steam power plants with boilers using “sugar cane waste” fuel.
As an illustration, we can recall why one of the types of Cuban mineral water is called Tipaborjomi. Before the arrival of L. I. Brezhnev, another well was drilled, and a new drink was presented to the distinguished guest. He tried it and said: "Like Borjomi." That is, similar to such water from Georgia.
It can be considered that Cuba was the first country to choose the communist path without significant military or political interference from the USSR. In this capacity, she was deeply symbolic for Soviet leaders, especially for Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, who considered the defense of the island critical to the international reputation of the USSR and communist ideology.
Khrushchev probably believed that placing missiles in Cuba would protect the island from a second American invasion, which he considered inevitable after the failure of the landing attempt in the Bay of Pigs. The militarily significant deployment of a critical weapon in Cuba would also demonstrate the importance of the Soviet-Cuban alliance to Fidel Castro, who demanded material confirmation of Soviet support for the island.
US missile positions in Turkey
Number of US and USSR nuclear warheads without deployed
By 1960, the US had a significant advantage in strategic nuclear forces. For comparison: the Americans were armed with about 6,000 warheads, and in the USSR there were only about 300. By 1962, the United States was armed with more than 1,300 bombers capable of delivering about 3,000 nuclear charges to the USSR. In addition, 183 Atlas and Titan ICBMs were in service with the United States. (English) Russian and 144 Polaris missiles on nine George Washington and Ethen Allen-class nuclear submarines. The Soviet Union was able to deliver about 300 warheads to the United States, mainly with the help of strategic aviation and R-7 and R-16 ICBMs, which had a low degree of combat readiness and the high cost of creating launch complexes, which did not allow for large-scale deployment of these systems.
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 range of 160 km, several batteries of anti-aircraft guns, as well as 12 S-75 installations (144 missiles). Each motorized rifle regiment consisted of 2,500 men, and the tank battalions were equipped with the latest T-55 tanks. 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.
Operation Anadyr
After 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
Development of possible countermeasures
After receiving photographs showing Soviet missile bases in Cuba, President Kennedy called a special group of advisers to a secret meeting at the White House. This 14-member group, which later became known as the "Executive Committee" (EXCOMM (English) Russian ), consisted of members of the US National Security Council and several specially invited advisers. Soon, the committee offered the president three possible options for resolving the situation: destroy the missiles with pinpoint strikes, 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 committee 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.
However, on October 19, another U-2 flight revealed several more mounted missile sites, an Ilyushin Il-28 squadron off the northern coast of Cuba, and a battalion of cruise missiles aimed at Florida.
The decision to impose a blockade was 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 voted for the blockade.
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) of quarantine around the coast of Cuba, warning that the armed forces were "ready for any eventuality" and condemning the Soviet Union for "secrecy and misleading." 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 had strong support from their European allies. 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 and vessels were going 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 the 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 pointed out that "the Soviet side violated 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
The arsenal of ICBMs was supplemented by the PGM-19 Jupiter IRBM, with a radius of 2400 km. 30 of these missiles were deployed in northern Italy and 15 in Turkey. Also, 60 PGM-17 Thor missiles were deployed in the UK, with similar characteristics.
The basis of the offensive power of the Air Force, in addition to ICBMs, was a huge fleet of strategic bombers - more than 800 B-52 and B-36 intercontinental bombers, over 2000 B-47 strategic bombers and about 150 supersonic B-58s.
To equip them, there was an arsenal of more than 547 AGM-28 Hound Dog supersonic missiles with a radius of up to 1200 km and free-falling nuclear bombs. US Air Force positions in Northern Canada and Greenland allowed for transpolar attacks against deep Soviet rear areas with minimal Soviet opposition.
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 U-2 reconnaissance aircraft 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 was killed. Around this time, another U-2 was almost intercepted over Siberia, as General Curtis LeMay (English) Russian , chief of staff of the US Air Force, disregarded the order of the US President to stop all flights over Soviet territory.
A few hours later, two US Navy RF-8A Crusader photographic reconnaissance aircraft were fired upon by 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 was closest to a global nuclear war.
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 Jupiter missiles were also withdrawn from Turkey as "obsolete" (the US Air Force did not object to the decommissioning of these IRBMs, since by this time the US Navy had already deployed much more forward-based Polaris SLBMs, which made Jupiter » obsolete).
Consequences
The peaceful resolution of the crisis did not satisfy everyone. Khrushchev's removal a few years later can be partly attributed to irritation in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU regarding concessions to the United States made by Khrushchev and his inept leadership that led to the crisis.
The Cuban communist leadership regarded the compromise as a betrayal by the Soviet Union, since the decision that ended the crisis was made solely by Khrushchev and Kennedy.
Some US military leaders were also dissatisfied with the result. So the commander of the US Air Force, General Lemay (English) Russian called the refusal to attack Cuba "the worst defeat in our history".
At the end of the crisis, analysts from the Soviet and American intelligence agencies proposed establishing a direct telephone line between Washington and Moscow (the so-called “red telephone”), so that in case of crisis, the leaders of the superpowers would have the opportunity to immediately contact each other, and not use the telegraph.
Historical meaning
The crisis was a turning point in the nuclear race and the Cold War. The beginning of the détente of international tension was laid. In Western countries, an anti-war movement began, which peaked in the 1960s and 1970s. In the USSR, voices also began to be heard calling for limiting the nuclear arms race and strengthening the role of society in political decision-making.
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 1962 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, American missiles in Turkey, which, according to Khrushchev, provoked him to deploy 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 after a few years the Soviet Union already had enough intercontinental missiles capable of reaching any city and military facility in the United States directly from the territory of the USSR.
Nikita Khrushchev himself, in his memoirs, assessed the outcome of the crisis as follows: “Now many years have passed, and this is already the domain of history. And I am proud that we have shown courage and foresight. And I think we won."
We, comrades, have supplied missiles, medium-range missiles in Cuba. Why did we put them up, what made us put them up? We argued that the Americans cannot stand Cuba, they say it directly, that they can devour Cuba. I spoke with the military, with Marshal Malinovsky. I asked: if we were in the place of America, we took a course to break such a state as Cuba, how much would we need, knowing our means? - A maximum of three days, and they would wash their hands. Comrades, this must be taken into account, because it is America that also has these opportunities. Therefore, we believed that Cuba could be saved only by placing missiles in Cuba. Then you touch it, so the hedgehog will curl up in a ball, and you won’t sit down. (Laughter) Apparently, they tried it once. (Laughter) These missiles are like hedgehog needles, they burn. When we made a decision, we discussed it for a long time and did not immediately make a decision, we postponed it twice, and then made a decision. We knew that if we set it up, and they would definitely find out, it would shock them. It's no joke to say that a crocodile has a knife under its belly! [...] As a result of the correspondence, we wrested a statement from the President of the United States that he, too, was not thinking of invading. Then we considered it possible to make a statement that we then also consider it possible to remove our missiles and Il-28. Was it a concession? Was. We gave in. Was there a concession from America? Was a public word given not to intrude? Was. So who gave in and who didn't? We never said that we would invade another country. America said that she would not tolerate a revolutionary Castro regime in Cuba, and then she refused. This means that it is clear that the other side has assumed an obligation that it did not recognize before the installation of our missiles in Cuba. So? VOICES: Yes. (Applause.) KHRUSHCHEV: There are smart people now, but there are always more smart people when the danger is over than at the moment of danger. (Laughter in the audience.) [...] And if we hadn't given in, maybe America would have given in more? May be so. But it could have been like a children's story when two goats met on the crossbar in front of the abyss. They showed goat wisdom, and both fell into the abyss. That's the problem.
Epilogue
Caribbean crisis in art
- Thirteen Days is a film by Roger Donaldson. Roger Donaldson ) (2000)
- "Fog of War" The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara ) is a film by Eroll Maurice. Errol Morris ) (2003).
- In 2004, the Japanese company Konami released the cult video game Metal Gear Solid 3, which was set against the backdrop of the Caribbean Crisis.
- "Prayers" () for baritone and chamber orchestra by the composer Luigi Dallapiccola. The score is defiantly dated to the day of Kennedy's address to the people.
- In light of these events, it was sometimes joked in the Soviet Union that the name of the island of Cuba stands for "Communism off the coast of America."
see also
- Black Saturday (1962)
- Rocket PGM-19 Jupiter, Jupiter
- Rocket R-12 (SS-4)
- Rocket R-14 (SS-5)
Notes
- Kennedy Robert Thirteen Days: A memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. - W.W. Norton & Company, 1971. - P. 14. - ISBN 0-393-09896-6
- Table of US Strategic Bomber Forces. Archive of Nuclear Data(2002). Archived from the original on August 28, 2011. Retrieved October 17, 2007.
- Table of US ICBM Forces. Archive of Nuclear Data(2002). archived
- Table of US Ballistic Missile Submarine Forces. Archive of Nuclear Data(2002). Archived from the original on August 28, 2011. 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
- Marshal Baghramyan. Love in the line of fire
- Interview with Sidney Graybeal - 1/29/98 // 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
- A. A. Gromyko - "Memorable", book 1
- K. Tariverdiev. Caribbean Crisis
- 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
- N. S. Khrushchev. Memories. Page 490
- SM-65 Atlas - United States Nuclear Forces
- David K. Stumpf: "Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program", Univ. of Arkansas, 2000
- Anatoly Dokuchaev But Kennedy suspected Khrushchev... Who ordered the shooting down of an American spy plane over Cuba? . "Independent Military Review" (August 18, 2000). Archived from the original on August 28, 2011. Retrieved February 22, 2009.
- THIRTEEN DAYS. Robert McNamara responds to your questions (March 2001)
- In particular, Academician A. D. Sakharov, one of the developers of Soviet nuclear weapons, made such a statement Reflections on progress, peaceful coexistence and intellectual freedom
- Nikita Khrushchev - Voice from the past. Part 2.
- final speech by N.S. Khrushchev at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU on November 23, 1962.
- (English)
- SOVIETS CLOSE TO USING A-BOMB IN 1962 CRISIS, FORUM IS TOLD
Literature
- Lavrenov S.A., Popov I.M. The Soviet Union in local wars and conflicts. - M .: Astrel, 2003. - S. 213-289. - ISBN 5-271-05709-7
- Manoilin V.I. Basing of the Navy of the USSR. St. Petersburg: Neva Publishing House, 2004. - 320 p. - ISBN 5-7654-3446-0
- Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean Crisis. , Academia Publishing, 2006. ISBN 5-87444-242-1
- Okorokov A.V. USSR in the struggle for world domination. Moscow: Yauza: Eksmo, 2009. - 448 p. - ISBN 978-5-699-37381-9
- The feat of P.L. "Strategic nuclear weapons of Russia", M.: IzdAT, 1998
- Feklisov A.S. Caribbean nuclear missile crisis / Kennedy and Soviet agents. Moscow: Eksmo: Algorithm, 2001. - 304 p. Cc. 234-263. - ISBN 978-5-699-46002-1
- Fursenko A., Naftali T. Mad Risk, publishing house ROSSPEN, 2006
- Allison, Graham and Zelikow, P. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Longman, 1999.
- Blight, James G., and David A. Welch. On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Hill and Wang, 1989.
- Brugioni, Dino A. Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Random House, 1991.
- Divine, Robert A. The Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: M. Wiener Pub., 1988.
- Fursenko, Aleksandr, and Naftali, Timothy; One Hell of a Gamble - Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy 1958-1964; W.W. Norton (New York 1998)
- Giglio, James N. The Presidency of John F. Kennedy. Lawrence, Kansas, 1991.
- Gonzalez, Servando The Nuclear Deception: Nikita Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis; IntelliBooks, 2002 ISBN 0-9711391-5-6
- Kennedy, Robert F. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis; ISBN 0-393-31834-6
- May, Ernest R., and Philip D. Zelikow., eds. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis. Concise Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001.
- Nuti, Leopoldo (ed.) I "Missili di Ottobre": La Storiografia Americana e la Crisi Cubana dell'Ottobre 1962 Milano: LED, 1994.
- Thompson, Robert S. The Missile of October: The Declassified Story of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- Diez Acosta, Tombs. October 1962: The "Missile" Crisis As Seen From Cuba. Pathfinder Press, New York, 2002.
Links
- Memoirs of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev about the Cuban Missile Crisis
- Photocopy of the first page of a letter from N. S. Khrushchev to President Kennedy on October 24, 1962. Storage of the National Library of Congress USA.
- Appeal of N. S. Khrushchev to D. F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 10/27/1962 and D. Kennedy's answer to N. S. Khrushchev. October 28, 1962
- Caribbean crisis . Essay by M. Statkevich 2004
- Caribbean crisis: turning point. Behind the scenes of history. Article by I. Khlebnikov in the journal Obozrevatel.
- Lavrenov S. Ya, Popov I. M. The Soviet Union in local wars and conflicts. Caribbean crisis: the world is on the brink of disaster
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the climax in the history of the Cold War. He could start the Third World War, however, US President R. Kennedy and USSR Secretary General N. S. Khrushchev were able to agree on time. Let us examine in detail the question of how and why this event occurred.
Causes of the Caribbean Crisis
After the end of World War II, an arms race began between the United States and the USSR. In 1959, the revolutionary government of Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, which began to seek contacts with the Soviet Union, which began to work closely with the Cuban people interested in building socialism. The essence of cooperation was that the USSR acquired the first ally on the other side of the ocean, and Cuba received support and funding from one of the most powerful powers in the world. The very fact of cooperation with the Soviet Union neighbor US could cause concern in Washington.
Rice. 1. Portrait of D. Kennedy.
In turn, in the early 60s, the United States had an advantage in the number of nuclear missiles. In 1961, the Americans established a military base in Turkey and deployed missiles with nuclear warheads in close proximity to the borders of the USSR. The flight range of these missiles completely reached Moscow, which created the threat of colossal losses among the Soviet army and command in the event of a war.
Kennedy himself believed that missiles stationed in Turkey were much more dangerous and more important than ballistic missiles located on American submarines.
N. S. Khrushchev understood the consequences of such missile attack across the USSR. Therefore, the Soviet leadership decided to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba as a retaliatory step. Their movement and installation were carried out secretly, so the Americans, waking up in the morning and discovering the danger right on their shores, were in shock at first. Thus began the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the United States, the USSR and Cuba became participants.
Rice. 2. Portrait of N. S. Khrushchev.
Events and results of the Caribbean crisis
In the fall of 1962, the Soviet troops carried out Operation Anadyr. Its content included the covert transfer to Cuba of 40 nuclear missiles and the necessary equipment. By October 14, the main part of the planned activities was completed.
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On October 15, CIA analysts established the ownership of the missiles and the danger emanating from them. The Pentagon immediately began to discuss possible measures to counter the emerging danger.
Rice. 3. Soviet troops in Cuba.
The report to President Kennedy offered options for a bombing attack on Cuba, a military invasion of the island, a naval blockade, or an amphibious military operation. However, all of them presented the United States as an aggressor in relation to the USSR or Cuba, so it was decided to create a quarantine zone of 500 nautical miles around the coast of Cuba, warning the world that the United States was ready for any development of events and accused the USSR of secrecy of its activities. On October 24, the blockade came into force, and, along with this, the armed forces of the Department of Internal Affairs and NATO were put on alert. On the same day, Khrushchev and Kennedy exchanged short telegrams about the ongoing blockade. Khrushchev, knowing that Soviet troops were deployed in Cuba and that reinforcements had arrived, assured F. Castro that the USSR would remain unshakable in its positions.
On October 25, in the UN Security Council, attacks began on the representative from the USSR Zorin regarding the presence of missiles on the territory of Cuba, which he was not aware of. Zorin only replied that he was not in an American court and was not going to give any comments on this matter.
On October 25, for the first and only time in US history, the US military was brought to the DEFCON-2 readiness level on the readiness scale american army to full scale war.
Diplomatic negotiations, during which the whole world held its breath, lasted a week. As a result, the parties agreed that the USSR withdraws its forces from Cuba, and the United States abandons attempts to invade the island and removes its missiles from Turkey.
Speaking of chronology, it should be noted that the dates of the beginning and end of the Caribbean crisis are very close to each other. The crisis began on October 14 and ended on October 28.
What have we learned?
Speaking briefly about the Caribbean crisis of 1962, it should be noted that, almost causing the Third World War, it showed the danger of nuclear weapons and the inadmissibility of using them in diplomacy. It was after these events that the Cold War began to decline. The article information can be used to create a report in preparation for a class history lesson.
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