During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the
Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in
October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba,
just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President
John Kennedy (1917-63) notified Americans about the presence of the missiles,
explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear
the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this
perceived threat to national security. Following this news, many people feared
the world was on the brink of nuclear war. However, disaster was avoided when
the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's (1894-1971) offer to
remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade
Cuba. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.
Discovering the Missiles
After seizing power in the Caribbean island nation of Cuba
in 1959, leftist revolutionary leader Fidel Castro (1926-) aligned himself with
the Soviet Union. Under Castro, Cuba grew dependent on the Soviets for military
and economic aid. During this time, the U.S. and the Soviets (and their
respective allies) were engaged in the Cold War (1945-91), an ongoing series of
largely political and economic clashes.
The two superpowers plunged into one of their biggest Cold
War confrontations after the pilot of an American U-2 spy plane making a
high-altitude pass over Cuba on October 14, 1962, photographed a Soviet SS-4
medium-range ballistic missile being assembled for installation.
President Kennedy was briefed about the situation on October
16, and he immediately called together a group of advisors and officials known
as the executive committee, or ExCom. For nearly the next two weeks, the
president and his team wrestled with a diplomatic crisis of epic proportions,
as did their counterparts in the Soviet Union.
A New Threat to the U.S.
For the American officials, the urgency of the situation
stemmed from the fact that the nuclear-armed Cuban missiles were being
installed so close to the U.S. mainland--just 90 miles south of Florida. From
that launch point, they were capable of quickly reaching targets in the eastern
U.S. If allowed to become operational, the missiles would fundamentally alter
the complexion of the nuclear rivalry between the U.S. and the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR), which up to that point had been dominated by the
Americans.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had gambled on sending the
missiles to Cuba with the specific goal of increasing his nation's nuclear
strike capability. The Soviets had long felt uneasy about the number of nuclear
weapons that were targeted at them from sites in Western Europe and Turkey, and
they saw the deployment of missiles in Cuba as a way to level the playing
field. Another key factor in the Soviet missile scheme was the hostile
relationship between the U.S. and Cuba. The Kennedy administration had already
launched one attack on the island--the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961--and
Castro and Khrushchev saw the missiles as a means of deterring further U.S.
aggression.
Weighing the
Options
From the outset of the crisis, Kennedy and ExCom determined
that the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba was unacceptable. The challenge
facing them was to orchestrate their removal without initiating a wider
conflict--and possibly a nuclear war. In deliberations that stretched on for
nearly a week, they came up with a variety of options, including a bombing
attack on the missile sites and a full-scale invasion of Cuba. But Kennedy
ultimately decided on a more measured approach. First, he would employ the U.S.
Navy to establish a blockade, or quarantine, of the island to prevent the
Soviets from delivering additional missiles and military equipment. Second, he
would deliver an ultimatum that the existing missiles be removed.
In a television broadcast on October 22, 1962, the president
notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision
to enact the blockade and made it clear that the U.S. was prepared to use
military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national
security. Following this public declaration, people around the globe nervously
waited for the Soviet response. Some Americans, fearing their country was on
the brink of nuclear war, hoarded food and gas.
Showdown at Sea
A crucial moment in the unfolding crisis arrived on October
24, when Soviet ships bound for Cuba neared the line of U.S. vessels enforcing
the blockade. An attempt by the Soviets to breach the blockade would likely
have sparked a military confrontation that could have quickly escalated to a
nuclear exchange. But the Soviet ships stopped short of the blockade.
Although the events at sea offered a positive sign that war
could be averted, they did nothing to address the problem of the missiles
already in Cuba. The tense standoff between the superpowers continued through
the week, and on October 27, an American reconnaissance plane was shot down
over Cuba, and a U.S. invasion force was readied in Florida. (The 35-year-old
pilot of the downed plane, Major Rudolf Anderson, is considered the sole U.S.
combat casualty of the Cuban missile crisis.) "I thought it was the last
Saturday I would ever see," recalled U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara (1916-2009), as quoted by Martin Walker in "The Cold War." A
similar sense of doom was felt by other key players on both sides.
A Deal Ends the
Standoff
Despite the enormous tension, Soviet and American leaders
found a way out of the impasse. During the crisis, the Americans and Soviets
had exchanged letters and other communications, and on October 26, Khrushchev
sent a message to Kennedy in which he offered to remove the Cuban missiles in
exchange for a promise by U.S. leaders not to invade Cuba. The following day,
the Soviet leader sent a letter proposing that the USSR would dismantle its
missiles in Cuba if the Americans removed their missile installations in
Turkey.
Officially, the Kennedy administration decided to accept the
terms of the first message and ignore the second Khrushchev letter entirely.
Privately, however, American officials also agreed to withdraw their nation's
missiles from Turkey. U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy (1925-68) personally
delivered the message to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, and on October
28, the crisis drew to a close.
Both the Americans and Soviets were sobered by the Cuban
Missile Crisis. The following year, a direct "hot line" communication
link was installed between Washington and Moscow to help defuse similar
situations, and the superpowers signed two treaties related to nuclear weapons.
The Cold War was far from over, though. In fact, another legacy of the crisis
was that it convinced the Soviets to increase their investment in an arsenal of
intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. from Soviet
territory.
