Cuban Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis
Part of the Cold War and the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution
  • Top: US Jupiter medium-range ballistic missile on its launchpad
  • Bottom: Soviet R-12 medium-range ballistic missile in Red Square, Moscow
Date16–28 October 1962
(Naval quarantine[3] of Cuba ended on 20 November)
Location
Result

Conflict resolved diplomatically

  • Publicized removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba
  • Non-publicized removal of American nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy
  • Agreement with the Soviet Union that the United States would never invade Cuba without direct provocation
  • Creation of a nuclear hotline between the United States and the Soviet Union
Belligerents
 Soviet Union
 Cuba
 United States
 Italy
 Turkey
 Venezuela[1][2]
Commanders and leaders
Strength
Soviet Union 43,000 soldiers[4] 100,000–180,000 (estimated)
Casualties and losses
None United States 1 U-2 spy aircraft lost
United States 1 US pilot killed
Universal Newsreel about the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, romanizedKaribskiy krizis), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962. The confrontation is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.[5]

In 1961, the US government put Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey. It had also trained a paramilitary force of Cuban exiles, which the CIA led in an attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow its government. Starting in November of that year, the US government engaged in a violent campaign of terrorism and sabotage in Cuba, referred to as the Cuban Project, which continued throughout the first half of the 1960s. The Soviet administration was concerned about a Cuban drift towards China, with which the Soviets had an increasingly fractious relationship. In response to these factors, Soviet First Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, agreed with the Cuban Prime Minister, Fidel Castro, to place nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba to deter a future invasion. An agreement was reached during a secret meeting between Khrushchev and Castro in July 1962, and construction of a number of missile launch facilities started later that summer.

A U-2 spy plane captured photographic evidence of medium-range R-12 and intermediate-range R-14 ballistic missile facilities in October. President John F. Kennedy convened a meeting of the National Security Council and other key advisers, in a group known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM). Kennedy was advised to carry out an air strike on Cuban soil in order to compromise Soviet missile supplies, followed by an invasion of the Cuban mainland. He chose a less aggressive course of action in order to avoid a declaration of war. On 22 October Kennedy ordered a naval blockade, terming it a "quarantine", to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba.[6] By using the term "quarantine", rather than "blockade" (an act of war by legal definition), the United States was able to avoid the implications of a state of war.[7] The US announced it would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and demanded that the weapons already in Cuba be dismantled and returned to the Soviet Union.

After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between Kennedy and Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement to not invade Cuba again. Secretly, the United States agreed with the Soviets that it would dismantle all of the Jupiter MRBMs which had been deployed to Turkey. There has been debate on whether Italy was also included in the agreement. While the Soviets dismantled their missiles, some Soviet bombers remained in Cuba, and the United States kept the naval quarantine in place until 20 November 1962.[7] When all offensive missiles and the Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers had been withdrawn from Cuba, the blockade was formally ended on 20 November. The negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union pointed out the necessity of a quick, clear, and direct communication line between the two superpowers. As a result, the Moscow–Washington hotline was established. A series of agreements later reduced US–Soviet tensions for several years, until both parties eventually resumed expanding their nuclear arsenals.

The compromise embarrassed Khrushchev and the Soviet Union because the withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey was a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev, and the Soviets were seen as retreating from a situation that they had started. Khrushchev's fall from power two years later was in part because of the Soviet Politburo's embarrassment at both Khrushchev's eventual concessions to the US and his ineptitude in precipitating the crisis in the first place. According to Dobrynin, the top Soviet leadership took the Cuban outcome as "a blow to its prestige bordering on humiliation".[8][9]

  1. ^ https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/When%20The%20Russians%20Blinked-%20The%20U_S_%20Maritime%20Response%20To%20The%20Cuban%20Missile%20Crisis.pdf[bare URL PDF]
  2. ^ Keller, Renata (3 February 2024). "The Latin American Missile Crisis". Diplomatic History. 39 (2): 195–222. doi:10.1093/dh/dht134. JSTOR 26376653.
  3. ^ "Milestones: 1961–1968 – The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962". history.state.gov. Archived from the original on 3 April 2019.
  4. ^ Dobbs, Michael (2008). One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-4000-4358-3.
  5. ^ Scott, Len; Hughes, R. Gerald (2015). The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Critical Reappraisal. Taylor & Francis. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-317-55541-4. Archived from the original on 29 July 2016. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  6. ^ Society, National Geographic (21 April 2021). "Kennedy 'Quarantines' Cuba". National Geographic Society. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
  7. ^ a b Jonathan, Colman (1 April 2019). "The US Legal Case for the Blockade of Cuba during the Missile Crisis, October–November 1962". Journal of Cold War Studies.
  8. ^ William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (2004) p. 579.
  9. ^ Jeffery D. Shields (7 March 2016). "The Malin Notes: Glimpses Inside the Kremlin during the Cuban Missile Crisis" (PDF). Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.