Cuban Missile Crisis
American reconnaissance photographed Soviet missile sites in Cuba in October 1962 and the world came closer to nuclear war than at any other moment. Khrushchev's reasons were three: defending Cuba after the Bay of Pigs, correcting a strategic imbalance in which the United States had far more intercontinental missiles, and answering the American Jupiters in Turkey. The deployment was concealed, and Soviet officials denied it directly to the American president. A U-2 flight on 14 October brought back images of launch sites under construction for medium-range missiles. Kennedy assembled an executive committee that met for thirteen days. The military recommended air strikes and an invasion; the alternative chosen was a naval quarantine — the word blockade being an act of war — announced publicly on 22 October. What almost went wrong is more frightening than what happened. A U-2 was shot down over Cuba, another strayed into Soviet airspace, and a Soviet submarine under depth charges, out of contact and with the air running out, came within one officer's refusal of firing a nuclear torpedo. The settlement was made on 27 and 28 October: the missiles withdrawn in exchange for a public undertaking not to invade Cuba, and a private one to remove the Jupiters from Turkey within months. Neither leader wanted a war and both had discovered how little control they had. A direct teletype link between the capitals followed, and the test ban treaty within a year. The Soviet warheads on the island included tactical weapons that American intelligence did not know about, and the local commander had discretion to use them against an invasion. The air strike option the joint chiefs recommended would very probably have produced a nuclear exchange on the beaches.
- Year: 1962 CE
- Category: Military
