The Cuban Missile Crisis
by Chris Zimbaldi, 01.02.2005

The Cuban Missile Crisis serves as an important backdrop for MGS3: Snake Eater. Below is a paper I wrote on the crisis, hopefully it will give some of you a better understanding of the East/West tensions and the essence of the Cold War, the theme of which dominates Snake Eater.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was arguably the tensest confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States during the entire course of the Cold War. The Cold War nearly became hot on October 16, 1962, when the White House became aware of the Soviet missiles present in Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis is widely regarded as the boiling point of the nuclear arms race, when fears of thermonuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States seemed not only plausible, but even possible.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the ultimate byproduct of MAD, or mutual assured destruction, a strategic military doctrine in which the use of nuclear weapons on a full scale would theoretically result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. This strategy ultimately sends both parties into an endless loop of increased military budgets and, as is central to the Cuban Missile Crisis, policies of nuclear deterrence. Nuclear deterrence was a central strategy in the nuclear arms race between the USSR and the U.S., which began with American use of the atomic bomb against Japan during World War II. Scholars remain bitterly divided as to whether President Truman authorized the atomic strikes against Japan in order to end the war quickly, or whether he was engaging in “atomic diplomacy” in an effort to demonstrate to communist states that the United States was not afraid of using atomic weapons “to assure U.S. domination of the postwar world” (Stern 2). Coupled with Truman’s aggressive anti-communist policy, which starkly contrasted with the more flexible tone of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, relations between the two powers were not looking so well. Relations began to publicly falter on April 23, 1945, when Truman publicly insulted Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov regarding the failure to secure the Yalta Agreement onto Poland.

Aggressive US anti-communist policy forced Stalin’s declaration in February of 1946 that a peaceful coexistence with the West was unlikely “in the contemporary capitalist conditions of world economic development” (Stern 4). It was in this period where the Cold War is generally regarded to have begun. Stalin became very cautious, and perhaps a bit paranoid when it came to diplomacy; thanks in part to the German betrayal during World War II. He was convinced that in order for world communism to be successful, he couldn’t let the Americans remain the sole power with a devastating atomic weapon. The Americans enjoyed a nuclear monopoly for three subsequent years, until the U.S.S.R. successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949.

Ten years later, in 1959, Soviet Premier Khrushchev found himself in a similar situation to his predecessor. Growing embarrassment about the U.S. deployment of Jupiter IRBMs (intermediate range ballistic missiles) in Turkey, giving the Americans a huge tactical advantage over the Soviets, was seen as the main catalyst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The American IRBMs were well within the capability of striking western areas in the Soviet Union. Soviet scientists did not believe that they would be able to achieve ICBMs (inter-continental ballistic missiles) before the 1970’s, so the Soviet Union needed to find a method in which to balance out the threat of nuclear attack.

It now seemed that the most tense confrontation of the Cold War “would occur thousands of miles from Europe or Berlin and just ninety miles off the coast of southern Florida” (Stern 9). United States relations with Fidel Castro, who was originally perceived as a potential ally to the West, quickly turned sour after he executed Batista supporters, constantly postponed his previously promised elections, and seized U.S. property in Cuba. Khrushchev saw a great alliance opportunity with Cuba, and subsequently publicly praised the Cuban Revolution in January of 1961, as well as pledged to help the third world “achieve national liberation from colonial imperialism” (Stern 11). President Kennedy addressed the escalating tensions between East and West in his Inaugural Address, which he used as a platform to solidify the American response to Khrushchev’s radio address.

Khrushchev perceived Kennedy to be a bit naïve, and would often take fairly condescending potshots at the U.S. President, such as referring to him as immature. Before the scheduled June 1961 meeting in Vienna, Khrushchev said, “This young man thinks that, backed by the night of the United States, he can lead us by the hand and make us dance to his tune,” and was convinced Kennedy’s failure after the Bay of Pigs would “force him to talk with [the Soviets] on equal terms” (Zubok 243).

The Vienna talks were, to put it lightly, unproductive. Khrushchev’s “ideological harangues about the inevitability of world communism” combined with the suggestion that he might be forced to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany set a tone for the Vienna meeting that American Secretary of State Rusk described as “brutal” (Stern 19). Khrushchev legitimately believed that Kennedy could not stomach a full-scale confrontation with the Soviet Union, hence his admonishing and aggressive language. After Vienna, Kennedy had been convinced that “the Soviets would only respect American toughness in Cuba and Berlin,” especially after the botched operation that came to be known as the Bay of Pigs (Stern 19).

Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin had told the U.S. President’s brother, Attorney General, and closest advisor Robert Kennedy on September 4th, 1963 that Premier Khrushchev has no intention of placing offensive nuclear weapons in Cuba (Garthoff 29). Somewhat reassured, Kennedy shortly thereafter declared in a press conference that Americans should keep the Cuban situation in perspective and that “strong nerves and common sense…were essential requirements [for all nations] in the nuclear age.”(Stern, 28)

It was only two days later on September 15th, 1963 that “unbeknownst to anyone in Washington—including the Soviet Ambassador—the first MRBMs (medium range ballistic missiles) arrived at the Cuban port of Mariel” (Stern 28). The Soviet Union also managed to deliver “ninety-nine nuclear weapons of four different types” to Cuba while remaining undetected by the Americans (Stern 28).

Castro, while exuberant to secure the Soviet Union as an ally, was skeptical of the decision to keep Soviet missile deployment in Cuba highly secretive. He recalled the crisis years later, saying “[w]e were not violating international law. Why do it secretly—as if we had no right to do it?” (Stern 24). In addition, Khrushchev had failed to “work out a plan of action in the event that Americans discovered the missile construction sites” (Khrushchev 559). Indeed, the secretive fashion in which the missiles were transported to Cuba put Kennedy in a very unique situation, a golden opportunity to construe placement of the Cuban missiles as an aggressive precursor to Soviet military strike.

The inept CIA, which had also gravely miscalculated the Bay of Pigs operation, failed the American President yet again when U-2 flights failed to reveal evidence of nuclear sites. This became evident on October 14th, literally the day the authority for U-2 flights was transferred from the CIA to the SAC; or Strategic Air Command. The SAC took over U-2 reconnaissance flights in Cuba, and immediately discovered Cuban MRBM sites (Stern 31).

Kennedy seized the opportunity to publicly label the purpose of the newly-discovered Cuban MRBM bases to be “none other than to provide nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere,” when in reality “as we now know from the ExComm tapes[, he] believed that the missiles represented a political challenge and dismissed their significance as an offensive military threat” (Stern 31). Given that there were an estimated 40,000 Russian soldiers stationed in Cuba, the White House decided on a naval blockade of Cuba rather than a full scale invasion, which was announced in the same speech. The world was in a state of panic after Kennedy’s speech on October 22nd. American cities began to run drills preparing for nuclear Armageddon, some newspaper headlines described a nuclear exchange as an eventuality. The panic, of course, was a byproduct of Kennedy’s exaggeration as to even what he believed the nuclear weapons were for.

Some White House officials were concerned that Soviet retaliation to the blockade would create an escalating conflict that could only end in war, so talks immediately began to resolve the crisis. An emergency session of the United Nations on October 25th was used for Americans to prove to the world that there were MRBM sites in Cuba, using the photographs from the U-2. It was then that Khrushchev sent a letter to Kennedy, stating the deterrent nature of the missiles, and the peaceful intentions of the Soviet Union; it was evident that Khrushchev’s main goal was to level the playing field and give the Americans “a little of their own medicine” (Khrushchev 484).

The Soviets had offered the Americans two deals to end the conflict. On October 26th, the Soviets offered to remove nuclear missiles form Cuba in exchange for the guarantee that the Americans would not invade Cuba, nor would they support any such invasion. Growing concerned by the lack of American response, Premier Khrushchev upped the ante. He demanded new conditions for the removal of the MRBMs from Cuba in addition to his original demands. He demanded a day later that the Americans also had to remove missiles from Turkey. The Americans agreed to the terms, and on October 28th, Khrushchev ordered the removal of all MRBMs from Cuba. The American naval quarantine was ordered to a halt on November 20th, 1963 by President Kennedy. The crisis was over, and Armageddon had been averted.

The Soviets had won a tactical victory by forcing the White House’s hand, but this was outweighed by the strategic loss of the threat of nuclear attack against the Americans. Khrushchev’s removal of the MRBMs was perceived as weak, the Politburo was particularly embarrassed at the fact that Khrushchev had created and ended the crisis of his own accord, with no real tangible strategic advantage to show for it. Coupled with the failure of his agricultural policies, the Cuban embarrassment played a part in Khrushchev’s downfall a year later.

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