I had not seriously thought about the Cuban Missile Crises for many years until I saw the movie, Fog of War, which focuses entirely on the reminisces of Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense. Needless to say, I was shocked out of my seat when I heard McNamara comment that on two occasions during that crisis the world was on the edge of a nuclear war. In retrospect, can any of us imagine blowing up the world over Cuba?

 

The Cuban missile crisis marked the climax of an acutely antagonistic period in U.S.-Soviet relations, and the closest point the world had ever come to global nuclear war. It is generally believed that the Soviets’ humiliation in Cuba played an important part in Khrushchev’s fall from power in October 1964 and the Soviet Union determination to achieve at least nuclear parity with the United States.

 

For close to two weeks the fate of the world hinged on the negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States over the removal of nuclear-armed missiles that were under construction in Cuba. The United States was totally committed to removing this nuclear threat some ninety miles from our shore. These missiles could hit much of the eastern United States within a few minutes if launched from Cuba. Fortunately, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, overruled hardliners in his own government and Fidel Castro, to seek accommodation with the United States. That is, Castro was willing for Cuba to be annihilated to advance the communist cause. Ultimately, the United States agreed to withdraw our missiles from Turkey in order to get the Soviet Union to dismantle the Cuban missiles.

 

Let me try to reconstruct the world in general, and the Caribbean some forty years ago. Fidel Castro took effective control of Cuba on January 1, 1959. Within months his socialist, then communist sympathies represented both a real and imagined threat to the capitalist world. That is, the world was divided roughly into three spheres of influence—Communist bloc championed by the Soviet Union and Red China, the Capitalistic bloc championed by the NATO alliance, and the third world, non-aligned countries such as Indonesia, Egypt, and India.

During my adolescent years, almost every event seemed to have a pro or anti-communist connotation—the Soviet Space program, elections in Italy, the rightward or leftward leaning of a whole host of countries whether in South America, Asia, or Africa. We were constantly reminded that the Communist seemed to control about one-third of the world, and moreover their sphere of influence had steadily increased in Europe and Asia since World War II. John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower, articulated the domino theory, in which every communist advance had the portent of further inroads into neighboring countries. The dominoes seemed to be falling away from capitalism and toward communism. John Kennedy in some part defeated the staunch anti-communist, Richard Nixon in 1960 because Kennedy claimed that the Soviet Union had a missile advantage over the United States. Subsequently, this missile gap proved to be spurious, but Kennedy was elected president in part on the rhetoric “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. “

 

Let us understand aside from the missile crisis the fears of the United States. Only three countries in 1960 in the Caribbean were independent of foreign rule—Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The other nations in the region were under foreign domination. Moreover, in general the population was poor and ill educated. Moreover, the United States recognized that shortly many of these nations would seek independence. Therefore, in our figurative backyard, there seemed a strong likelihood of further communist advance in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Historically, America had backed right-wing dictatorships that recognized American foreign policy suzerainty. Also, a few wealthy local families, American industry, and the Catholic Church held a disproportionate share of the wealth throughout these areas. Thus, our concern about the “domino” influence in our own hemisphere heightened the tensions of the Cold War.

 

On October 14, 1962 U-2 spy planes flying over Cuba reported the presence of ballistic missile on launching sites. After carefully considering alternatives of an immediate U. S. invasion of Cuba or air strikes, John Kennedy decided to place a naval blockade on Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of missiles. Having bungled the Bay of Pigs attempted overthrow of Cuba, Kennedy was sensitive to charges of being indecisive.  The United States warned that U.S. forces would seize “offensive weapons and associated material” that Soviet ships bound for Cuba were transporting. As the Soviet Union and the United States hovered close to the brink of a nuclear war, messages of exchange between Kennedy and Khrushchev sought alternatively to threaten and mediate. On October 28,1962, Khrushchev capitulated informing Kennedy that he would remove the missiles. In return, Kennedy promised not to invade Cuba and “secretly” to withdraw our nuclear-armed missiles from Turkey. 

Castro was furious by the Soviets retreat and began to court Red China, a communist competitor of the Soviet Union. The United States not only tried to both economically and politically isolate Cuba, but also adamantly supported anti-Communist governments in the region with economic and military aide.  In hindsight, it is interesting that the communists were not able to make further inroads into our hemisphere.