Cuban Missile Crisis

1
Cuban Missile Crisis

• Andrew Wood and Dave Ryan

2
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

3
The Missiles One Site
4
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

5
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?

6
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

7
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

8
Soviet Decisions, Continued

• Inability to use the missiles
• If fired a missile, repercussions would be severe

9
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• U.S. missiles withdrawn from Turkey

10
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

11
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

12
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

13
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

14
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)

15
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?

16
The Cuban Missile Crisis