Cuban Missile
Crisis
By Philip Brenner
CIA Briefing Map
Meeting of
the ExComm
October 16, 1962
U-2 Photo of Missile Site, October 14, 1962
Missile Warhead
ExComm
Deliberation
During the
Crisis
Letter from Nikita Khrushchev to John F. Kennedy,
October 26, 1962
Black Saturday – Second Letter
Black Saturday
Low-level
reconnaissance
of Cuban antiaircraft sites
U.S. Lessons
• Crises can be managed
─ Secrecy
─ Small group with open discussion
─ Exclude and misinform Congress and public
• Steel Will (“Eyeball to Eyeball”)
─ Toughness
─ Resolve
• Superior Strength
─ Build up Military
─ Exercise Coercive Diplomacy
Problems with US Lessons First Cut
• Crises cannot be managed
• Flexibility, not steel will, saved us
• Force or threat of force precipitated the
crisis, made it more dangerous
US Misconstrues Soviet Motives
Summit in Vienna Austria, June 1961
Berlin Wall Erected, August 1961
Jan. 3, 1961
Bay of Pigs
The next day, 1,500 U.S. trained Cuban
exiles landed on Cuba with weapons
supplied by the United States.
Richard
Goodwin
Meets
Ché
Guevara
●●●
●●●
Operation
Mongoose
Memorandum
from Gen.
Lansdale
to Special
Group
(Augmented)
-- Pg 1
Gen.
Lansdale
Memorandum
(Continued)
-- Pg 2
Operation Anadyr
In July 1962 the Soviet Union began to
send ballistic missiles, other weapons
and soldiers to Cuba. The build-up
troubles US military planners, even as
they conclude
that ballistic
missiles are
not being
installed.
New York
Times
October 23, 1961
...
Soviet Union responds by
exploding a 50-megaton
hydrogen bomb in the
atmosphere, Oct 30, 1961
White House
Statement
Problems with US Lessons Second Cut
• Crisis management
Groupthink and
exclusion of information
• Steel will
inflexibility and no
negotiations; force becomes only alternative
• Coercive diplomacy
military build-up;
ignores factors such as patriotism
Soviet Lessons
• Crises cannot be managed
• Crises must be prevented
– Improve communications with the other
superpower
– Achieve parity (equal military force) with US
President
Kennedy’s
American
University
Speech
June 10, 1963
Cuban Lessons
• Neither superpower can be trusted
• Cuba must defend itself with
asymmetric warfare
– Support revolution in Third World
– Strengthen military forces
– Intensify internal security
Castro’s Five Demands
• Cessation of the US economic embargo and US
pressure on other countries to cut commercial
links to Cuba;
• End US subversive activities against Cuba,
including the “organization of invasions by
mercenaries” and “infiltration of spies and
saboteurs”
• Cease “piratical attacks” from bases in the
United States and Puerto Rico
• End violations of Cuban airspace
• US withdrawal from Guantanamo Naval Base
Anastas Mikoyan Arrives in Cuba
IL-28 Bomber (Bulgarian model in Cuba)
How Castro Remembered Mikoyan’s Visit
-- From: James Blight and Philip Brenner, Sad and Luminous Days
OSPAAL:
Organization of
Solidarity of the
Peoples of
Africa, Asia and
Latin America
Cuban Missile
Caribbean
October
Crisis