The Global War: Confrontation between the superpowers -> The 13 days of the missile crisis Flashcards
What was EXCOMM?
Ad hoc group of top government officials and top military leaders who advised Kennedy
- it met everyday during the crisis
What was the US so tragically convinced of?
That Cuba was its backyard that it never thought it the USSR would send missiles there until it discovered they had on 14 October 1961
What were the two sides of the US government trying to win Kennedy over to their perspective?
The Doves and Hawks
Who were the Doves?
- Dean Rusk - Secretary of State
- ‘Bobby’ Kennedy - Attorney General
- Robert McNamara - Secretary of Defense
What were the Doves?
- Symbol of peace
- Faction most in favour of a negotiated settlement
- Committed to working with Soviets
What were the Hawks?
Military men who wanted a confrontation
What members of the Hawks were there?
- Maxwell Taylor - Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
- General Curtis Lamay - Head of Strategic Air Command
What balance was needed and was it easy?
A balance had to be struck between civilian and military leaders
- the military tended to hold more ‘hawkish’ opinions
Who were the key Soviet actors?
Dobrinin and Gromyko were frantically active during the 13 days of the crisis - they had to serve both Khrushchev AND try to avoid a war
Who was Anotoly Dobrinin?
- Soviet ambassador
- Will be with Brezhnev and Gorbachev
Who was Andrei Gromyko?
- Soviet foreign minister
- wins over Bobby Kennedy and Dean Rusk
What motivated all of Kennedy’s actions?
Everything Kennedy does is in the shadow of the November 1962 mid-term elections
What happened specifically on October 14th 1962?
A U-2 US spy plane flight produced unmistakable evidence of an R-12 missile site at San Cristobal, ending the secrecy of Soviet nuclear deployment
What happened specifically on 16th October 1962?
Kennedy’s National Security Adviser, McGeorge Bundy informed him of the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba
What happened on October 14th-17th 1962?
- Excomm meets and debates; the Joint Chiefs of Staff strongly advise Kennedy to make an air strike
- Consisted of ‘hawks’ who called for US military action and ‘doves’ who called for a diplomatic solution
What option did Kennedy opt to to deal with the missiles?
Kennedy opted for a naval blockade that would stem the flow of missiles entering Cuba
What happened on October 18th 1962?
Gromyko assures Kennedy that Soviet Cuban aid has been only for the ‘defensive capabilities of Cuba’
- based on events like April 1961 Bay of Pigs incident, March 1962 Operation Quick Kick, US missiles in Turkey
What happened on October 22nd 1962?
US military forces go to DEFCON 3.
- Kennedy announced a ‘quarantine zone’ around Cuba
- If any Soviet ships entered this zone, action would be taken
- On the same day Soviet ships were stopped and turned away from Cuba
- US bases were also put on maximum alert in preparation of a possible military strike against Cuba
-> Act of brinkmanship, breaks international law
What did Eisenhower begin making plans for?
An immediate invasion of Cuba
- 180,000 troops were moved into Florida as if in preparation for an invasion (pressured by Hawks and Doves)
- Nuclear submarines were sent to patrol the waters around Cuba
- Bomber squadrons equipped with nuclear weapons were ordered to fly sorties around Cuba
What happened on October 23rd 1962?
Kennedy receives a letter from Khrushchev in which he states that there is a, ‘serious threat to peace and security of peoples,’ and offers to remove the missiles if the USA undertook to respect Cuban sovereignty
- Robert Kennedy speaks with Ambassador Antonin Dobrinin
-> age of proliferation
Who met on October 23rd 1962?
The UN Security Council
- The US ambassador, Adlai Stevenson condemned the Soviet deployment and referred to Cuba as ‘an accomplice in the communist enterprise of world domination’
How did Kennedy react to the blockade?
He called it ‘an act of aggression…pushing mankind toward the abyss of a world nuclear-missile war’
What happened on October 24th 1962?
- Soviet ships en route to Cuba, reverse their course except for one, - US Military Forces go to DEFCON 2
What happened on October 25th 1962?
JFK sends a letter to Khrushchev placing the responsibility for the crisis on the Soviet Union
What was Kennedy willing to negotiate on during this time?
On the presence of US nuclear missiles in Turkey
- The Jupiter missiles posed the same threat to the USSR as nuclear weapons in Cuba posed to the USA, making it an appropriate bargaining chip
What did Kennedy say on 26th October 1962?
He was keeping his options open and although he had not rejected the idea of compromise as he said, ‘ We will get the strategic missiles out of Cuba only by invading Cuba or by trading,’ using force to overthrow Castro and remove the missiles remained an essential policy option
What did Kennedy send on October 26th 1962?
Khrushchev sends a letter to president Kennedy proposing to remove his missiles if Kennedy publicly announces never to invade Cuba
What made a military solution still a viable option for Kennedy by October 26th 1962?
- A peaceful resolution was made more difficult at this point by the actions of Castro
- He was convinced an American attack was imminent
- On 26th Oct: Castro ordered Cuban anti-aircraft forces to start firing in low-level reconnaissance planes
What happened on October 27th 1962?
- An American U-2 is shot down over Cuba killing the pilot
- A U-2 strays into Soviet airspace, near Alaska, and is nearly intercepted by Soviet fighters
- Kennedy sends Khrushchev a letter stating that he will make a statement that the US will not invade Cuba if Khrushchev removes the missiles from Cuba
What was Kennedy’s strategy to recover?
To ignore Khrushchev’s second letter and simply reply to the first
- Needed to ensure that Khrushchev would accept this response
What happened on October 28th 1962?
- Khrushchev announces over Radio Moscow that he has agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba
- In return the US agrees to the withdrawal of US nuclear missiles from Turkey ending the Cuban Missile Crisis
How did Castro interpret this turn out?
He was incensed at what he saw as a humiliating betrayal by Khrushchev and refused to allow inspections of the missile sites once they had been dismantled
- were an essential element of the US-Soviet agreement and were only fulfilled as Soviet ships removing the missiles revealed the contents of their cargoes to US inspectors
What was the crisis effectively defused by?
- The two messages from Khrushchev
- The actions of Bobby Kennedy and Dean Rusk: they played a key role in persuading Kennedy to reach a compromise
What could the Cuban Missile Crisis be seen as?
- A turning point and a sign for better days
- Height of tension AND beginning of cooperation
- October 18th - November 1963 sees cooperation between US and USSR
- brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever before
What did the CMC suggest about international relations?
it could not be conducted through crisis management methods
What were the significant outcomes of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
- Arms control - ‘nuclear-proliferation’ - became a serious issue for the first time
- Reflected in the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water (Oct 1963) -> major contributory factor in the development of detente
- The Cuban Missile Crisis also made it clear that reliable, direct communication between the USA and USSR was a necessity
-> took the US nearly 12 hours to receive and decode Khrushchev’s 3,0000 word initial settlement message - Rectified by the Memorandum of Understanding Regarding the Establishment of Direct Communications Line (June 1963) - established a ‘hot line’ between the White House + Kremlin
- CMC also demonstrated that the strategy of brinkmanship was played out - it led to an easing of relations between the US + USSR during the 1960s, and paved the way for detente in the 1970s
What were the limitations of nuclear test banning?
- The implicit sanctioning of the testing of nuclear weapons underground ecnouraged weapon proliferation among the major nuclear powers
- After three months, the signatories could restart testing if they thought that their vital national interests were at stake by not doing so
- There was no obligation on states to sign up: China and France didn’t
What evidence is there to support that the CMC was a triumph for the Soviet Union?
- Cuba remained a communist state when the missile crisis had concluded
-> the US agreed not to attack Cuba in the future
-> the US also removed its missiles from Turkey - The communist state was within 90 miles of the US mainland
-> the USSR had succeeded in preserving a communist state in the USA’s ‘own back yard’ - Khrushchev wanted to move towards greater nuclear parity with the USA
-> the missile crisis undoubtedly raised awareness for the need to move towards greater efforts on nuclear arms controls - this was in the USSR’s interests - The crisis confirmed the Soviet’s commitment to the Third World
-> the stance against the USA, although ultimately defeated, was a propaganda victory
How was the CMC a partial failure and partial success for the US?
- The US commitment to containment and the Truman Doctrine had failed
- part of a process of revolutionary change within developing countries
- ensured both the survival of Cuba and its communist regime and the survival of West Berlin as an outpost of Western capitalist democracy in the heart of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe
How was the CMC not a triumph for the Soviet Union?
- The crisis was a defeat -> the USSR had to remove the missiles
- The importance of Kennedy’s status as a world leader was enhanced
->Kennedy had won the struggle over brinkmanship as Khrushchev withdrew - The crisis strengthened the USA’s status in WG and Europe
-> the stand over Cuba strengthened the importance of the USA as the defender against communism
-> this further weakened Khrushchev’s position in Europe
What could be argued in conclusion about the CMC?
- On balance, the outcomes were significantly more favourable than the withdrawal might suggest at face value
- However, the US emerged more triumphantly from the crisis than did the USSR
- The crisis heralded a turning point in international relations and that benefited both the USSR and USA
- Aspects of the dynamics of international relations and Cold War interaction had moved the bipolar world closer towards greater cooperation prior to the era of detente which was to follow
