h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A complete account of the Cuban Missile Crisis:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A527672

I believe an article on this subject is not complete without mentioning how near the US government was to launching global Armageddon, SAC on Defcon 2, with all bombers fuelled engines running on the runway & ready to roll. With only one plan; wipe Eastern Europe, USSR & China. I also believe a mention must made of General Maxwell Taylor who was in favour of an all out strike. Mention should also made of the fact that this crisis prompted McNamara to spend the rest of his time in office altering SAC's plans from massive strike to graduated response.

A few things to ponder, from a briefing at The Oval Office, October 18, 1962, 11:00 a.m.


'The important factor there is that if you do this first strike you would kill a lot of Russians' - Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defence).

'The real account [?] is, I think clearly is our strong, legal basis we need to take. The other possibility is a straight declaration of war. Now this carries with it many legal privileges . . . [unintel.] . . . extremely useful for any president to have but the ...[unintel.]..' - Dean Rusk (Secretary of State)

'Bomb 'em.' – Unknown, (identity withheld for security reasons).


President Kennedy's Speech, October 22, 1962.

'I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction' - John F Kennedy.

So where did Kevin Costner come into all this?

The entry seems very fact based and chronological. How about a few subheaders e.g. Rise of Castro, Bay of Pigs Fiasco, The Crisis Begins ....

At lunch tomarrow I will work on these suggetions and transform it into guideml
thanx

There is of course a great quote that goes something like "Kennedy and Kruschev faced up to each other, eyeball-to-eyeball ...... and Kruschev blinked".

This is well-researched piece, but it does require an adjustment of style. It needs to be written in a more objective style, in the third person. The "we Americans" references don't really have a place in an Edited Guide article on the subject.

The entry is very good and as the Colonel suggests needs to become more globalised in its style.

One thing I notice is that it pre-supposes an understanding of the battle between Democracy vs Communism, East vs West, USA vs USSR. It is now 10 years since the fall of communism and I suspect in 5-10 years time there will be a whole generation that have no idea about it.

I wonder therefore whether the entry needs a brief opening paragraph discussing the beginnings of the Cold War - post WWII; and America's fight to prevent Communism taking over the world which led to its involvement in the Korean and Vietnam wars. This would add context as to why America became desperate to stop Castro in Cuba.

Hope this helps,
BBS

Yes, that does make sense also...I'll see if I can make more changes before I leave for Paris

I think this is a very good article, very complete. The Guide needs more on historical events like this. If I were a scout, I'd recommend it.

In the first paragraph, Castro didn't try to overthrow countries, he tried to overthrow corntries' governments. Countries themselves cannot be overthrown.

Other than the minor spelling errors, this entry rocks! How can anyone not love history? When you get the chance, tidy it up .

- Matt

This is a bit biased, if you don't mind me saying so. The cold war is over now you know. We could perhaps lay off the propoganda now, hmmmm? It isn't just the "we in america" bits, either. I haven't had time to read it in detail, so I'll comment more later. But in one place you say some thing about how the ending of the crisis shows how great your leaders were. Was it not also down to Kruschev? Someone has given that quote about K blinking above, but in fact I think that the fact that K and the russians were willing to back down should get credit some credit too. If he hadn't blinked we'd be sitting in our nuclear bunkers right now (well, maybe the odd one or two of us would) cursing the man for having a testosterone rush.

Also, don't you think they had a point? Am had stuck nuclear missiles in Turkey, withing striking distance of Moscow. Why shouldn't the Russians do the same to America? And as you say, the result of the crisis was that these missile were removed...

Let me start off by saying that this is good writing on an important subject, you write well, and you tell a good story. But I think a bit more emphasis on the facts, and a little less opinion, would make me happier with it - at the moment it makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

Hope to reread this once you've made the changes.

A few links would be nice (e.g. say to a copy of the transcript of the ex-comm meeting).

Have pity on us Americans who live overseas. We're the ones who have to take the backlash from the "We're so great!" attitude of many of our conationals. But I must admit, Italians do love Kennedy.

The article read well but have to agree with the "third person" requirement.
Recent events in China throw the subject into sharp relief. Could you envisage Bush as Kennedy if the stakes were upped? It was scary enough in '62 when I was a kid and everything was black and white but nowadays with a guy who says things like "the majority of our imports come from abroad" et al, do we really want a President who doesn't know their rear end from their elbow taking cues from faceless guys in the background or a proper gung ho American hero who'll face down the "bad guy"?!
Neither!
Give me a Gorbachev any day of the week!
End of rant. Sorry!

Thanks for your recommendation. You'll be glad to know that we think this entry is great, and it has now gone into the Editorial Process for future inclusion in the Edited Guide. When it does get into the Edited Guide, we will email to let you know, but please bear in mind it can take a while for entries to go through the sub-editing system. Thanks for writing for the guide!

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Congratulations!

Since this is now being edited I'm not al all sure I should be posting this here but here we go. And I'm not at all sure who I'm adressing either, but nevermind. I promised to look a bit more closely and here are the er results.

One of the things I would like to question in the slant is that it implies that the whole significance of this episode was that the Amricans came out on top. I tend to disagree. In my opinion, the importance of the crisis was that although the two countries, the USSR and the USA got themselves into a right pickle, they actually managed to avoid triggering a world war. In a somewhat similar position, the belligerants of the first world war did not. Part of the reason for this was Kennedy's handling of the situation as the writer points out, but it is not the only point of interest. How they got themselves into the situation in the first place is quite interesting from this point of view too, and this isn't really touched on except with the referance to Castro. Which I find a bit bizzare actually, as having stated very stongly that he is the key, he is not mentioned again. Essentially, as someone has already said, it is assumed that everyone understands the awful significance of Castro's horrible act in allying himself with the bad Russians, why, in fact Am took any action in this area so seriously. I do not accept, you see, that it was only about the fact that Cuba is 90 miles off the Am shore, although I do realise that was part of it.

Ideally, therefore, it might be nice to add a few lines about the cold war and the fact that neither the Am nor the Russians felt able to sit back and let the other side gain an influence advantage. If it is possible to do this without making it look like a just crusade on the part of the USA against the Evil Empire (too much), I'd appreciate it.

Apart from the general significance of this issue, there are a few specific ways in which it relates to Cuba, and in particular they have bearing on what in God'sa name the Russians thought they were doing. Don't worry, they get to look really dumb when they come to carry out their reason based plans.

So, in relation to the power game the two contries were playing, obviously the USSR did not want to lose its influence over Cuba, partly because this would be generally bad in the struggle, partly cos of the geographical location and partly cos of the domino effect theory very prevalent at the time (the same theory which later lad to Am involvement in Vietnam), which suggested that a significant loss of grip in Latin America would lead to the loss of the whole of Latin Am. Presumably this was affecting Am policy too. Ok. Now at this point it is important to remember that the Russians did not have a terribly rosy view of the USA, and that they were actually a tad concerned that the Am would invade Cuba and try to take it back. The Bay of Pigs incident clearly wasn't very helpful in quieting this idea, neither was the fact that the USA had a contingency plan, called Operation Mongoose, to invade Cuba with the full force of the Am war machine. Now I agree that the USA was not committed to this plan, but what with trade embargos in place and whathaveyou it is reasonable to assume that the Cubans and Russians were not reassured.

Another problem of the Cold War was the nuclear arms race. Kennedy had been elected on a promise to take care of a supposed lead by the Soviets in nuclear missiles. This supposition that was false, as were the estimates given by the CIA for the explosion in production the USSR was expected to show in the next few years, and which led Kennedy once he came to office to order a large build up of intercontinental balistic missiles. The build up was such, that in June 1962 it was announced that the USA would be able to target every Soviet missile with an Am one with spares left over. At the time of the crisis, in fact, the Am missiles outnumbered the Russian ones 17 to 1. It is not surprising therefore that Kruschov feared an Am first strike. A first strike which would leave him wihout an effective answer. This threat was another reason why he sent the missiles into Cuba, but was essentially not an aggressive act (as btw, the American build up of arms was likewise defensive).

Now, I will admit that the arrival of nuclear weapons on an island so close to the USA did pose something of a military threat, and one which the Am were not used to facing. They would have been able to kill something like 80 million Americans if they had been realeased, and were particularly dangerous in the event that Castro (remember him?) got his hands on them. Castro, who in the middle of the crisis sent a letter to Kruschov giving clear indications of urging the russians to make a first strike against Am. BUT the forty odd extra warheads the Soviets were proposing to implant on the island would not have tipped the strategic balance much in Russia's favour. McNamara acknowledged this by saying "Do you really think an extra forty three missiles in Cuba, each carrying one warhead, would have led him [Kruschov] to think he could use his nuclear weapons? No way! Kruschov had created a political problem, not a military problem."

Even if it were, there are, as I've said before, paralells to the Am placement of missiles in Italy and Turky (a country that was not 90 miles of the soviet shore, but was right up against the border). Kennedy ands his team knew this. When the exchange of missiles (Cuban for Italian/Turkish) offered by the Soviets ( first proposed by Adlai Stevenson, the US ambassador to the UN, at the beginning of the crisis) he said"to any man at the UN or to any rational man, it will look like a very fair trade." The speech Kennedy made on Monday 22nd October was full of references to the secrecy of the move, the deceptiveness of the move, the suddeness of the move (is is the bit quoted abocve) precisely to draw attention away from this issue. And, by the way in the last meeting between Robert Kennerdy and Dobrynin, where you say that RK laid down the law, what the article does not mention was that they also made a specific deal to exchange the Turkish/Italian missiles for the Cuban ones. By putting it at the end of the article as it is, it looks like the kind humanitarian Americans rationally and reasonably acepted the Russian arguement and of the kindness of their hearts magnanimously decided to shift the things. Not true. I realise that Robert's memoir states that he refused a deal (though he gave some assurances), but his diaries on which he based the memoir state that it was an explicit deal.

Why the deception? I'll get to that in another post. Sorry.

Hold on to your hats boys, here we go again.

The deception. Ah yes. This is related to the fact that McNamara considered it a domestic pollitical problem not a military one (he said it a few times, apparently). Domestic, you note. I've already said that the placement of the missiles was not particularly an aggressive move, or a particularly important one in military terms. American public opinion, however, was very hostile towards Cuba (and the Soviet Union). It would not have accepted the missiles in Cuba. Stevenson was attacked in the press after the fact (you'll remember he proposed the swap first), and whilst Kennedy gave him private support he could not afford to do so publically. At one point too Kennedy said "Last month I said we were not going to [allow it]. Last month I should have said that we don't care." At another time Kennedy and Robert Kennedy discussed the fact that it was impossible for him to have taken a more concilliatory line, because "...I would have been impeached." And the suppression of the Robert diaries shows the continuing concern for this image. American people as cause for the crisis. Love it to bits, no?

Kennedy's achievement in this crisis (be relieved, I think it was huge!) was that in the face of the pressure to be seen to be following a tough line, in the face of the fact that he could not be seen to be the one to offer a compromise, he did manage to leave enough room for the Russians to back out of the situation, and as you say, resisted the urge to let the military have their head in the matter. He also took pains to control them in the execution of their duties. McNamara apparently had a discussion with the Admiral in charge of the blockade. It was the Admiral's plan which is mentioned above, to fire a shot across the bow followed by one into the rudder. McN made it clear to him that this was not an action he could take without getting the pres/McN ecpress licence for it. In this way they were slightly mopre sucessful than the soviets in keeping their military apparatus under control (although the chappie who sent the alert to go to defcon 2 did it uncoded - against orders - to rattle the russians. Eeeek). But Kruschov, no less than Kennedy was coming under constant pressure to take a more combative line, and on top of this he was the one to have to make the (humiliating) public climbdown. Admittedly, he didn't have to worry, as Kennedy did, about public opinion at home (he he. Who has the better system now huh . That was a not very in good taste joke. Joke.), but he did have to put up with the loss of prestige abroad, and whatnot.

Now why did Kennedy and Krushchov feel the need to go to great lengths to solve this crisis without undue force? Bothered if I know actually. It is most unlike political leaders. Especially as kennedy's military advisers were, as it says above, somewhat sanguine about the likelihood of a response from the Russians in the event of an air strike/invasion (about which they were wrong. Or at least russian diplomats and others close to the crisis centre were somewhat horrified to learn of this attitude after the fact. They certainly thought they would have made a response). Part of it was the moral issue of bombing Cuba as something they didn't want to be seen to do. Part of it was n awareness on the Am side of the connection with the way the world ended up in WW1 (see, historians as saviours of the world). Part of it, on the Russian side, was that they hadn't intended for this situation to get as out of control as it had, they hadn't intended to start a war. This is where the russians do something stupid so you can pay attention now. It seems that Krushchov knew, essentially, that there would be something of a problem if Am discovered the missiles before they were ready and, even taking into account that he appears to have underestimated the detection capacity of the USA, decided to do it anyway. The whole crisis was sparked off by Krus taking a huge gamble (albeit a gamble that one assumes the Am had already pulled off successfully in Italy and Turkey).

Hopefully that made it easier to be the one who brought it to a close, to write the letter that was the beginning of the end. The letter which was not, I think about the horrors of nuclear war as is written above, but about the horrors of war full stop. You may remember that Russia also fought in the second world war, that of all the casualties in the european arena (such a horrible phrase) something like half were of people from the soviet block. Therefore, Kruschov had first hand experience of what war can do to your homeland, and it is a bit snide to call it an emotional letter without pointing out that the emotion and the drive to end the contest peacefully were probably genuine (possibly not, mind you. I have no illusions about Kruschov's moral worth as a human being. He survived Stalin...). And Kennedy had a keen imaginative appreciation of the enormity of nuclear war too, thank goodness (although, risk nuclear war vs upsetting the Am people. Hmm. difficult choice).

One last point and then I'm done. Thank you for your patience so far. In the article the strange choice of the ABC reporter is mentioned (crazy russians...). Although the telephone existed, both sides declined to get a hotline set up. Since it was the Am who were issuing the deadlines and demands, the Russians had to get a bit creative in order to respond to them before the military got their way and bombed Cuba off the face of the map. If you think the reporter thing is funny, you should hear what Dobrynin had to say about the embassy trying to send messages to moscow via western union.

I'm sure I had a point to this when I started (where's your conclusion Solnushka?). Uh, we all nearly died beacause of a whole bunch of stuff from national pride to well, national pride probably. Kennedy and Kruschov made sure we didn't but it was a close run thing. I'm indebted for most of this to a chap called Jonathon Glover (you don't think I actually know about the crisis do you?). Oh and the quote about blinking was after the Russian ships slowed down/changed course to avoid the blaokade. It realy goes "We are eyeball to eyeball and the other fellow just blinked." Dean Rusk to McGeorge Bundy.