Cuban Missile Crisis

Andrew Wood and Dave Ryan

A Brief Chronology
May, 1962: Khrushchev makes veiled

references to a plot (How would the U.S. feel to have missiles pointing at them, as they have missiles pointed at us?) September: JFK and Congress issue warnings to USSR that US will deal harshly with any threats to national security October 14: U2 recon. flight over Cuba spots sites installing nuclear missiles October 15: Presence of missiles is confirmed

The Missiles: One Site

Chronology, Continued
October 16: President Kennedy notified
October 16-22: Secret deliberations on what

should be done October 22: Kennedy tells nation his plan for blockade and quarantine October 23: OAS endorses naval quarantine October 24: Naval quarantine begins and successfully changes course of many Soviet ships

Chronology, Continued
October 25: One Soviet ship challenges naval

quarantine; Kennedy lets it pass October 25: At the UN, Adlai Stevenson directly challenges the Soviet ambassador to admit to the existence of missiles, when the ambassador refuses, Stevenson wheels out pictures of the missile sites October 26: Soviets raise possibility for a deal: if we withdraw missiles will America promise not to invade Cuba?

Chronology, Continued
October 27: Soviets demand that Americans

also withdraw missiles from Turkey; Major Andersons plane is missing over Cuba, presumably shot down; U.S. recon plane strays over Soviet airspacehigh tensions Kennedy tells Khrushchev that he will accept the proposal of the 26th, Kennedy tells his brother to tell the Soviet Ambassador that though the Turkey missiles would not be part of the bargain, they would be removed in time October 28: USSR agrees to withdraw missiles

Soviet Decisions
Motivations

Close the missile gapCurrently far behind U.S. in terms of number of missiles Verbal threats no longer effective with overwhelming evidence of U.S. superiority Protect Cuba Reciprocity: The U.S. has missiles pointing at us, lets see how they feel now

Soviet Decisions, Continued

Inability to use the missiles

If fired a missile, repercussions would be severe

Why Khrushchev Settled

Effectiveness of naval quarantine
Conventional inferiority in the Caribbean No possible countermove

Overwhelming world support for the U.S.

Other possible reasons

Got what he wanted?

No

U.S. invasion of Cuba U.S. missiles withdrawn from Turkey

The American Decision

In September Kennedy had stated

and Congress had passed a resolution saying that if the Soviet Union placed offensive weapons in Cuba we would not tolerate it.

Could we then rely solely on diplomacy? Kennedys thought John could be impeached if he didnt act in accordance with his prior warnings

Determined in first 48 hours of crisis

that the removal of missiles was the primary objective

This objective effectively ruled out isolated diplomacy, and left two options

The American Decision cont.

Option 1 - Air Strike

On October 17th, President Kennedy made the flat statement that there would definitely be an air strike, at least against the missile sites, and perhaps against wider targets (Bundy 394) Reservations from others, airstrike may be using a sledgehammer to kill a fly Later that day Robert McNamara suggests policy in between diplomacy and an air strike

The American Decision cont.

Option 2 Blockade Advocated early on by McNamara and Robert Kennedy, blockade would not require instant killing, but critics feared it would not remove the missiles and would allow Soviets time to complete what they already had in Cuba Douglas Dillon strengthened blockade argument by suggesting that it would only be a first step, that if Khrushchev did not remove the missiles to lift it, then more could be done By Friday the 19th, the committee working on the blockade adapted it into a quarantine, on Sunday Kennedy accepted their plan as the course of action

Could America have acted differently?

Could we have used the crisis to remove

Castro?

Our warnings all along had been against offensive weapons so once that warning is tested if we use it to attack Castro are we sticking to our word?

Could we have tried diplomacy before resorting

to the quarantine?

If we didnt keep secrecy, Khrushchev could have proclaimed defiance, or denounced quarantinethen both countries would be in positions where theyre heading straight for each other and cant just turn back

Castros Role
No real role in decision

making Apparently out of touch with the situation

Oct. 26: Aggression imminent/imperialists disregarding world opinionClearly not the case Khrushchev plays along to some extent but it is clear he disagrees with him (your suggestion would have started a thermonuclear world war)

Questions
Do you feel Major Andersons death justified

more aggressive action? Seeing as how our options in the crisis were somewhat dictated by the warnings we issued in Septembershould we have issued those warnings? Robert Kennedy likened an air strike to Pearl Harbor (Bundy 394), was that a fair analogy? If the missiles in Cuba were conventional, and neither the Soviet Union nor the U.S. possessed any nuclear weapons, would the crisis have been avoided?

The Cuban Missile Crisis