It’s a good time to revisit the Cuban Missile Crisis and some of the Cold War tensions that led up to it.
There was no peace agreement after WWII that dealt with Germany and Austria. The Soviet Union, which had lost around 26 million people in the war, was shocked at Western proposals to re-arm Germany.
In 1952 the USSR offered to agree to a reunified Germany in exchange for Germany becoming a neutral state. The offer was rejected by West Germany’s chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the US and NATO. West Germany was not a NATO member at its inception in 1949, and was eventually admitted on May 9, 1955.
Austria took a different course. Under an agreement known as the Austrian State Treaty or the Treaty of Vienna, signed on May 15, 1955, Austria declared its permanent neutrality, affirming that it would not join any military alliances or allow foreign military bases on its territory. In return, the occupying powers, including the Soviet Union, agreed to withdraw their troops from Austria and did so by the end of October 1955.
Austria’s declaration of neutrality and the subsequent withdrawal of foreign troops helped stabilise the region and Austria has remained a neutral state ever since.
In the late 1950s some voices within the West German political and military establishment, including Franz Strauss (Minister of Defence between 1956-62 ) and a group of politicians known as the ’atomic lobby’, advocated that West Germany should acquire its own nuclear weapons. But Chancellor Adenauer was not convinced. Germany has never had nuclear weapons.
On May 1, 1960, a U.S. spy plane was shot down over Soviet airspace. The plane, equipped with high-altitude surveillance capabilities, was conducting secret reconnaissance missions to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union.
The US claimed it was a weather plane that had flown off course (sound familiar?). But the USSR had captured the pilot alive and this, together with the plane’s wreckage, provided enough evidence so that the US eventually had to admit that the plane was spying.
A summit between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, scheduled for 16 May, was cancelled due to the incident. The summit was planned so that Khrushchev and Eisenhower could discuss important matters, (including the issues around Germany) and to potentially ease Cold War tensions.
But Khrushchev saw the spy plane incident, including the attempted cover up, as a major provocation that undermined trust and made the summit untenable.
President John Kennedy assumed office in January 1961. By then Fidel Castro had toppled the Batista regime in Cuba.
Soon after Castro came to power the Eisenhower administration and the CIA began plotting covert operations to undermine and overthrow Castro’s regime.
Castro sought security from the Soviet Union. The US was concerned about Cuba becoming a bulwark for Soviet influence in the Western Hemisphere, 90 miles from Florida. There was no consideration by the Eisenhower administration of Cuba’s “right” to determine its own foreign policy and military alliances as the US asserts in relation to Ukraine today.
The Bay of Pigs plan was already developed under the Eisenhower administration and the new president did not stop it. The invasion proved a debacle.
Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy protesting the illegal intervention.
On April 16, 1961, just a few days after the invasion, Kennedy replied claiming the US had not organised or supported the invasion and stated that the US did not intend to intervene in affairs or support any actions aimed at overthrowing the Cuban government. The Soviets were rightly sceptical.
On 14 October 1962, the United States discovered that the Soviet Union had secretly placed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The US had nuclear weapons stationed in Turkey at this time. The United States implemented a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of missiles. There were reports of Soviet submarines being detected near the blockade.
On October 18, 1962, President Kennedy received a letter from Khrushchev in which the Soviet leader expressed his willingness to negotiate a resolution to the crisis. Kennedy responded with a letter on the same day, suggesting that the two leaders engage in direct communication to avoid further escalation.
Most of Kennedy’s advisers had recommended a military, rather than diplomatic, response to the Soviet/Cuban actions.
General Curtis LeMay, who was the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, argued for a swift and forceful airstrike on the missile sites in Cuba. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy initially also supported a military strike. But Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, argued for restraint and negotiation rather than immediate military action. Fortunately for the world Kennedy opted for diplomacy.
The negotiations between Kennedy and Khrushchev unfolded through a series of private letters exchanged between them. Over the following days, the letters were sent back and forth, with both leaders expressing their concerns, proposing solutions, and engaging in a diplomatic dialogue. The negotiations were tense and complex, with each side trying to protect its own interests while avoiding a nuclear confrontation.
After several rounds of letters, on October 27, 1962, Khrushchev sent a more conciliatory letter to Kennedy, proposing a specific resolution that involved the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba. Kennedy and his advisors deliberated on the offer, and the next day, on October 28, Kennedy agreed to the terms outlined by Khrushchev. The removal of the US missiles from Turkey was a secret part of the agreement.
The United States quietly removed Jupiter nuclear missiles from Turkey in April 1963, but soon replaced them with Perishing 1a missiles which have a shorter range.
On the same day that Khrushchev sent his conciliatory letter, October 27, 1962, the U.S. Navy started dropping depth charges near a Soviet submarine that was still deployed in the Caribbean Sea.
The submarine, which was equipped with nuclear torpedoes, had lost communication with Moscow for several days. The loss of communication meant it had received no orders to turn back from its deployment.
The captain of the submarine, Valentin Savitsky, and the political officer, Ivan Maslennikov, took the depth charges as a sign that war had already broken out and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo at the U.S. Navy ships.
Fortunately, launching a nuclear weapon required the agreement of all three senior officers aboard the submarine. Vasili Arkhipov, the flotilla commander, refused to authorize the launch. He argued that the submarine should surface and establish contact with Moscow before taking such a drastic action. Only his dissenting opinion prevented the launch of the nuclear weapon.
Had the nuclear weapon been launched accidental Agamemnon would likely have followed. This is because, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States nuclear doctrine was the policy of “massive retaliation” or “mutual assured destruction” (MAD).
This doctrine was a key component of U.S. Cold War strategy during the early 1960s. It meant that if subjected to any nuclear attack the US would respond with massive nuclear attacks on the Soviet Union and allies.
Vasili Arkhipov continued in the navy reaching the rank of rear admiral. He did not seek public recognition for his actions which remained classified information for many decades. He lived a quiet life until his death in 1988, aged 72. It was only later that his actions were widely recognised.