Jupiter IRBM Missiles Installed in Turkey
Beginning in 1961, the United States deployed fifteen Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) to bases in Turkey, near Izmir, as part of NATO's nuclear posture in the eastern Mediterranean. The missiles, which could reach major Soviet cities including Moscow, were stationed there following a NATO decision made in 1957 and negotiations with the Turkish government. They represented a significant offensive nuclear capability aimed at Soviet territory from a NATO ally on the USSR's southern border — precisely analogous, from Moscow's perspective, to American concerns about Soviet missiles in Cuba. The Jupiter missiles in Turkey were already militarily obsolescent by the time they were deployed — they were slow to fuel, vulnerable on their fixed launch pads, and increasingly superseded by submarine-launched Polaris missiles. The Kennedy administration had actually decided to remove them before the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the decision had not been implemented. When Khrushchev decided to deploy missiles in Cuba in 1962, one of his stated motivations was the Turkish precedent: he was merely doing to the United States what the Americans had done to the Soviets. The missiles became a central element of the secret resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis: the US privately agreed to remove the Jupiters from Turkey within six months in exchange for the Soviet withdrawal from Cuba.
- Year: 1961 CE
- Category: Military
