Events leading to the Cuban missile crisis
From the end of World War II until 1962, the Western world led by the United States and the communist world led by the Soviet Union were on a collision course. The adversaries clashed directly in Berlin and engaged in proxy conflicts in Czechoslovakia, Albania, Greece, Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba, and within 13 days in October 1962, the world came closer to a nuclear holocaust than ever before.
Articles on the topic: Weapons, self-defense equipment and equipment
The Caribbean missile crisis doesn’t start in Cuba. It has its roots in Berlin, Italy and Turkey, the domestic political situation in the United States, which faced the newly elected President John F. Kennedy, and in the USSR, where Nikita Khrushchev took over the country after a harsh four-year struggle for power after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Khrushchev is expected to pursue an aggressive foreign policy to protect Soviet interests, and an important part of this policy is the nuclear arms race, in which the USSR lags far behind the United States. From 1957 to 1962, the number of American nuclear warheads increased from about 5,500 to about 25,540. During this time, the Soviet Union’s arsenal has grown from 660 to 3,346 units, enough to destroy the planet Earth several times, but still not close to the balance of power. After the election of Kennedy, this situation worsens even more.
When President Eisenhower — Kennedy’s predecessor — was still in power, Fulgencio Batista was overthrown in the Cuban Revolution, and Fidel Castro came to power. According to Eisenhower’s Domino Theory, other Latin American states will follow Cuba’s example, and looking at the revolutionary movements on the South American continent, this seems a likely development.
At first, the US administration prefers not to interfere with the Castro situation until he confiscates and nationalizes all American assets in Cuba. The United States responded with an embargo on Cuban goods and economic isolation of Cuba, so in February 1960, Cuba entered into an economic union with the USSR. A month later, Eisenhower orders the U.S. military to begin training Cuban exiles for an armed counter-revolution.
In contrast to the Soviet economy, the American economy is growing rapidly, despite a brief recession in 1957 and ‘ 58. The United States escaped the destruction that befell the countries where World War II was fought, and benefited from a post-war global economy that was in desperate need of recovery.
There is a great fear in the country that communism will spread around the world and destroy the American way of life, or even lead to a new world war. In addition, when the USSR launched its first satellite in 1957, the American public mistakenly concluded that they were behind the USSR in technological development, and assumed that the Soviet Union had overtaken them in the nuclear arms race.
There are also many social conflicts in the US, and the young and ambitious Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy says he will take on all these problems. He runs his presidential campaign in 1960, promising change. It will carry out reforms, guarantee equality and freedom for all, ensure economic growth and, above all, it will be aggressive towards the USSR and close the supposed arms gap.
Until the late 1950s, the main method of deploying nuclear weapons was bombs carried by aircraft. However, the development of missiles makes it possible to deploy nuclear warheads over much longer distances and with less risk of interception. Intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, can cross the globe in just a few tens of minutes. Both the Soviet Union and the United States are working on an ICBM, and this is proving to be a real problem for both sides. In 1958, the US Air Force released the Gaitan report, which suggested that the USSR had at least 130 ICBMs, and their number would increase to almost 1,500 by 1963. At the same time, an independent CIA report reports that the Soviet Union has about ten deployable ICBMs. In fact, the USSR has four of them, of which two are untested prototypes, and the United States has several dozen. By 1962, the United States had 177 ICBMs, and the Soviet Union still had less than 40. The Eisenhower administration is well aware that the Gaitan report is wrong, and even suspects that the CIA report’s estimate is overstated, but Kennedy still decides to use it in his presidential campaign.
Kennedy begins his campaign by promising to “ close the arms gap created by the Eisenhower administration’s inaction in the arms race.” Despite the fact that Kennedy was repeatedly informed about the real situation, he continues this rhetoric. Finally, in July 1960, Eisenhower calls Kennedy and his running mate, Lyndon Johnson, to the White House and informs them of the actual situation himself. But Kennedy still continues to criticize Eisenhower for allowing the “missile gap” to occur.”); he even goes so far as to claim that he discovered the gap himself and came up with the wording.
Kennedy made public campaign promises that he must now keep. One of his first acts as president will be to plan a secret invasion of Cuba, conceived by Eisenhower. In April 1961, three months after taking office, he orders the invasion that will soon be known as the Bay of Pigs landings. On April 17, about 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles land in Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, supported by eight B-26 bombers and five supply ships. They are confronted by 25,000 soldiers, 200,000 militia and 9,000 police officers, and this fiasco is very quickly becoming public.
The Kennedy administration continues to seek ways to overthrow or undermine the Castro government. Despite the situation in Cuba, a summit between Kennedy and Khrushchev is being held in June. The main topic on the agenda is Berlin, but the negotiations do not lead to any changes. A few days later, Kennedy announces an increase in the US armed forces by more than 20% to protect the world from the USSR. He also specifically increases the number of troops in Berlin. In the same month, the United States begins deploying medium-range ballistic missiles in Italy. Unlike ICBMs, medium-range missiles are available in large numbers. These missiles now allow the US to strike the USSR within minutes of the start of the war. More missiles are deployed in NATO-allied Turkey, even closer to the Soviet Union. The next problem arises when East Germany closes the border between East and West Berlin for the passage of civilians fleeing the GDR in droves through the open border. Kennedy responds by calling up 148,000 reservists for the potential defense of Berlin.
In October, after several incidents of military equipment being denied entry, Kennedy’s envoy to Berlin, Lucius Clay, decides to make sure that U.S. military equipment is still able to cross the border freely. The vehicle is passed through. However, the Americans hedged their bets by parking a few tanks on their side of the border. The USSR also drove the tanks to their side. When the Americans see that everything went well, they recall the tanks, but the Soviet side misunderstands this step and thinks that the American tanks are retreating because of them. Soviet tanks move towards Checkpoint Charlie, the main US Army border checkpoint. American tanks are rapidly deploying and taking aggressive positions on their side of the border. There they stand, less than 80 meters apart for the next 48 hours, while Kennedy and Khrushchev discuss who will retreat first. In the end, they agree that first the Soviet troops should retreat five meters, then the Americans, and so on. While the incident is comical in nature, it has serious consequences, as both sides leave with the impression that the other side is ready to go to war over Berlin.
Meanwhile, demands for Khrushchev to do something to counter US nuclear superiority are growing, and by May 1962, a plan is emerging. He asks Fidel Castro to allow him to do the same thing that the United States did in Turkey and Italy-to place ballistic missiles in Cuba. Castro reluctantly agrees, and construction of the missile sites begins.
In the summer of 1962, Kennedy was still under attack for being too soft on communism and the Soviet Union. Therefore, on September 4 and 13, at press conferences at the White House, he publicly warned Cuba and the USSR that the United States would not tolerate any nuclear build-up in Cuba and would take decisive action to prevent it. He will regret it when, on October 16, 1962, American reconnaissance planes discover the missile sites, and the 13 most dangerous days in human history begin.
