Talk:Cuban Missile Crisis

Misc

oh snap were alla going to die.this article needs to be grounded a little more in the context of the Cold War, developing an understanding that is broader than nuclear competition. Also, it could do with a lot more balance - it reads like a straight ortodox account of Soviet aggression. Russian scholars do refer to it as "the Carribean Crisis" but also as an extension of the Berlin Crisis and as a wider part of Soviet strategy in an attempt to force a formal settlement in Europe.

Also, in reference to the discussion below about the film 13 Days, this is recommended by many International Relations Departments as a good and faithful introduction to the Cuban Missile Crisis, although with the proviso that it only tells one side of the story.

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An event mentioned in this article is an October 22 selected anniversary.

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"John F. Kennedy claimed that a blockade is an act of war (which was correct)" Isn't the "(which was correct)" here a bit unnecessary and slightly POV? Can't the reader decide whether a blockade is an act of war self? /Hugoflug 16:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

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I was on board a US destroyer in 1961. We pulled up within fifty (50) feet of Soviet cargo ships with missiles tied down on deck. Missiles are so big you can't load them inside a cargo ship. On some we could see the Russian captain's knees knocking. It was a lie that missiles were suddenly discovered in Cuba by U2's. It was known at least a year before then. The missiles were unloaded in downtown Havana. Don't tell me that in a city as large as Havana there wasn't someone who told the CIA. The reserves were called in. The American public and the world were told it was the Second Berlin Crisis. There were so many troops in Florida it was hard to hide the fact that we were getting ready to invade Cuba. There were so many Marines on Key West that the island was about to sink. <g> They were even pitching their tents out on the runways and in residential areas. A discussion of this event is not complete without mentioning the horrible statesmanship used by President Kennedy. It is called "Brinksmanship." You don't draw a line in the sand and say, "Don't cross this line or we will be at war." Kennedy should have used diplomacy. We are all indebted to Mr. Khrushchev that we are still alive today. Kennedy and his snotty nose little brother could have caused WWIII.

Perhaps yours is too harsh a judgement. The tape transcripts present a different picture. Not that of a belligerent, gung-ho president at all. But a leader who possessed hitherto untapped abilities to manage crises of such magnitude. One of the books cited in the Further Reading section ("The Kennedy Tapes") would be useful in learning more about the course of events.

Here is the testimony of Thomas S. Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, about what went down at the time : "JFK was the main 'dove' throughout the discussions of the ExComm. The first reaction of the President and all his advisers, 40 years ago today, as they looked at the photos of the missiles, was we'll have to take them out. Air strikes and invasion were the consensus. But the evidence from the Kennedy tapes shows that JFK led the move away from that position, and went for a quarantine plus secret diplomacy instead. Bobby Kennedy was initially one of the most hard-line attack-oriented advisers, but he quickly picked up on his brother's caution and by the end was leading the secret diplomacy with Dobrynin. Robert McNamara was right with the President on the caution front, but McNamara also kept the military options open. Ted Sorensen was JFK's voice, so when Sorensen summed up the arguments against pre-emptive strike on October 20, that crystallized the President's thinking. The Joint Chiefs were seriously out of step with the President, as was Dean Acheson. Immediately after the crisis, there's one very tough conversation in which JFK dresses down Dean Rusk for not having worked through all the options ahead of time."

The Gnome 09:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

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I moved this article to the uppercase since the capitalization convention reads: "Unless the term you wish to create a page for is a proper noun or is otherwise almost always capitalized, do not capitalize second and subsequent words." For whatever reasons, this crisis is almost always capitalized, so I've done the same here. —Minesweeper 22:25, Dec 5, 2003 (UTC)

This article reads surprisingly similar to the movie Thirteen Days. Has anybody checked the sources of the article? I have doubts on the whole secret-arrangement-about-the-missiles-in-Turkey thing. It sounds too much like a movie thing.

And yes, you can and most certainly should draw a line in the sand and say "Don't cross it or it's war." It's because it wasn't done with Hitler that we got WWII.

 (anon)

A line was 'drawn in the sand', as you say, with Hitler, and it's the reason that WWII began (I'm using the WWII starting date of 1939, by the way, I know there's some controversy with that). The line was entitled 'don't invade Poland'. Anyway, isn't the above a little too POV?

Johnsmy 14:04, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I've seen reference to the secret Turkey arrangement before, on h2g2. It may sound movie-like, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen... h2g2:thread, h2g2:The Cuban Missile Crisis. Martin 18:40, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Isn't Thirteen Days a dramatization of the Cuban Missile Crisis? (which is not to imply that it is necessarily historically correct, but more to say that I'm not sure why it should be surprising if it is on something as large as this) McNamara talks about it in The Fog of War as well, if I recall, and I've seen it in other places, I'm fairly sure. --Fastfission 03:58, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is an excellent article, interesting and the writing flows very well. This is my first edit with this login, but what do we think of featured article nomination? Philml 02:13, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A good edit. I'm curious tho' - Allison and Zelikow spend a fair amount of time looking into the Berlin connection. Is there a specific reason why it was omitted from this page? --Magicmike 19:30, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would love it if this article contained a section or even a sentence describing the impact of this moment on the world, on the conscience of the people listening to the news at the time. I wasn't there but from what I've heard for a few hours everyone was convinced that that was it - we were all going to die in a nuclear armageddon. Is this important?? http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/days/ for example, is pretty much just from that angle. --Shomon.

Recent Vandal

67.80.190.213 recently vandalized the page which I reverted. I'm fairly new to this site and not sure about what action (if any) is supposed to be taken against the first time offender. Falphin 22:13, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've been watching this page since it seems like a pretty frequent target of vandalism. I don't think there's too much you can do against a vandal who works through an IP address. I could be wrong, I'm pretty new as well. Considering a lot of different vandals are targeting the page, maybe this page should be protected and edits barred until the vandals lose interest. --Bkwillwm 22:19, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

U2 spyplanes

A good starting point would be the article about the U2 on Wikipedia: Lockheed U-2 --capnez 17:16:28, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. I am doing a project over the technology used in the Cuban Missile Crisis and this link was helpful ACEMAN

ICBMs

"Soviet technology was well developed in the field of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), as opposed to ICBMs. The Soviets did not believe they could achieve parity in ICBMs before 1970". That's bs. The other way around. The reason, of course, is that ICBM technology of both countries was at the stage when they could not be armed and fired quickly enough to be efficient. In other words, anything medium range would beat ICBM time-wise. I changed that part. Gaidash 6 July 2005 05:51 (UTC)

Major Lacuna

What is missing from this article is any mention of the revelations of a couple of years ago, in particular any mention of Vassily (?) Arkhipov. An action that saved at least millions of lives deserves to be in the article. In short: on October 27, one of the Russian subs was under attack by depth-charges from an American vessel. Soviet policy at the time required a unanimous vote of a committee of three officers on the sub to launch nuclear missiles - they already had been granted decision making power from Moscow.; 2 out of the 3 thought that the American action meant the war had already started. Arkhipov disagreed, so the missiles were not launched. Had he not said nyet, there would have been a nuclear war, which is why I think it is better to just plain say this was when the cold war came closest to being a nuclear war without any qualification or "is regarded".--John Z 6 July 2005 08:47 (UTC)

The guy was given the Rotondu Award, whatever that is, posthumously in the nomination "Angel of our time". I think it is some kind od Italian award[[1]]. Gaidash 7 July 2005 06:15 (UTC)

I think it clearly belongs in the article, showing how very close it came to real nuclear war.--John Z 7 July 2005 08:07 (UTC)

Images

More images needed... perhaps some of warheads? Redwolf24 10:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

• Hmm. Here are a few which could be thrown in:
  • Principle players: Khrushschev, Kennedy, Kennedy's cabinet meeting during the Crisis
  • Tech stuff: U-2, Jupiter IRBM (removed from Turkey)
• ...it's a start. --Fastfission 12:05, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

History Moment Air Force Deployed For War

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a serious event. My father was a United States Air Force SAC (Strategic Air Command) pharmacist medic on a remote SAC base (it is now closed from one of the many periodic base closures). When SAC scrambled its nuclear bombers and put on alert is nuclear missiles, the United States Air Force redeployed its forces in a aggressive posture for nuclear conflict. My father and his medical unit was sent to Spain as part of a expected front line for a war in Europe. Spain, as you know, was very anti-communist, and even had different railroad gauge, so any expected enemy could not use their tracks without taking their railroad and train system. After the crisis was over the United States Air Force relaxed its posture and redeployed back to non-warfare positions. My father left the Air Force as a Airman First Class (before the enlisted change in rank designations on 19 OCTOBER 1967), and he never forgot the event, since it was the only time he was sent out of the United States for the duration of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Quote from Section 1 (U.S. Response): "Kennedy responded by publicly accepting the first deal and sending Robert Kennedy to the Soviet embassy to accept the second in private..."

Can anyone confirm that Kennedy sent Robert Kennedy to teh embassy to accept the second deal (withdraw of missiles from Turkey)? I have a textbook that presents a contradiction.

Quote from Page 593 of Gary B. Nash's American Odyssey, published in 1997 by Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.: "The next day he [Krushchev] demanded the removal of United States missiles from Turkey. After frantic meetings, Kennedy agreed to the first demand but ignored the second."

Shouldn't that conspiracy theory be removed &

It seems to me that the following does not really belong in the article:

Author and former Cuban military intelligence officer Servando Gonzalez has advanced a controversial but well-supported hypothesis that there were never any nuclear warheads in Cuba at all--that the crisis had been an unintended consequence of a May 1962 plan hatched by Khrushchev as a means of getting the United States to invade Cuba in order to depose Castro, whom the Soviets were beginning to see as an unstable and troublesome ally, one who was fast becoming a major political and financial liability to the Kremlin.

Especially the "well-supported" bit, since the very next paragraph directly disproves that there were never any nuclear warheads in Cuba at all. I am new to wikipedia, so don't want to begin by slashing someone else's work, but the quoted part clearly needs to be edited out.

• I agree. I removed it. Thanks. --Fastfission 01:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Quarantine V.S. Blockade

The article states that a "quarantine" is not necessarily an act of war, while a "blockade" is. So the Kennedy administration set up a quarantine; later on though, they had set up a naval blockade. However, the article beings to use the two words interchangeably. Probably a result of different writers? Unless I'm missing something, I think the term "quarantine" near the end of the article, which states that Kennedy removed the "quarantine" on Nov. 20, should be changed to "blockade", as the quarantine phase had already passed.

Type of missiles in Turkey

I was wondering what type of missiles had the United States emplaced in Turkey? Nuclear or anti-aircraft weapons?--MarshallBagramyan 19:26, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The US missiles in Turkey were Jupiters, fairly short-ranged nuclear weapons. They were also based in Italy at the time.

http://www.history.ac.uk/ejournal/art3.html

Also see the Wikpedia entry for Jupiter.

I chose Cuban Missile Crisis for my Exit Project because I taught it was a way to learn more bout War's. The Revolution in Cuba was the second time a country had become communist without significant military or political intervention from the USSR,china being da first

The US had missles in the UK, Italy, Turkey and numerous subs. If the US can do it, then why the hell can't the USSR?

-G

My opinion: Because the USSR wasn't democratic. Which sounds like a snide answer, but here's my rationale: because no politician in the U.S. could have any political longevity if they allowed the USSR to park missiles off the coast of Florida. In the USSR, the people didn't have any say in these sorts of things; if the Politburo could put up with it, then that was that. This is an oversimplification, of course, but the role of accountability in U.S. politics surely makes some things "unacceptable" in a way that they don't have to be elsewhere. (Ah, and you thought I was going to make some argument based on only democratic states can be trusted with nukes, right?) --Fastfission 17:40, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

What about Soviet sub incident on 27th October 1962?

Was the crisis much closer to all out war than many people believe?
See "Arkhipov" and the B-59 being hunted.

Film Portrayals

Ah, dueling verisimilitude! Although Thirteen Days (2000) made good use of JFK's tapes for much of the character's dialogue, I personally found the film disappointing both as history and as drama. The minimalistic docu-drama The Missiles of October (1974), which arguably made far better use of the archival materials then available, for my money remains the most chilling depiction of the Cuban Missile Crisis to date, and perhaps the most factual. De gustibus non est disputandum. (I only saw the Costner film when it came out, so I can't compare the two films any more closely than that, but I was surprised to read here that it's the one used in academia.) Both films take dramatic license, of course, and neither are documentaries. I'm still waiting for the docu-drama which makes use of Soviet and Cuban archives available since that October 2002 seminar! Perhaps after Castro checks out... Heck, maybe someone will film Brendan DuBois's "Resurrection Day"! Kencf 04:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

San Cristobal

This article links to San Cristobal, with no indication of where that place actually is. -- Beardo 05:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protection?

This article seems to get vandalized every day, almost always from users without accounts, and in the flurry of reverts information often gets lost and has to be laboriously recovered. I'm thinking it might be worthwhile to just semi-protect it so that only users who have been here awhile can edit it? Any objections? --Fastfission 01:18, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I've blocked the ability of new and un-logged in users to edit this article. If any of them have legitimate changes to suggest they should do so here on the talk page. --Fastfission 18:32, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

DEFCON 3

22 Oct 1962: US Forces worldwide, with the exception of US Army Europe (USAREUR) went to DEFCON3. The thread for this was in JFK's speech of that date. This status lasted until 20 Nov 1962. This was the first time DEFCON 3 was implemented. The USAF (specifically, Strategic Air Command or SAC) went to DEFCON 2 for awhile during that interim.

Extended aftermath

I'm not sure if this is mentioned, but I saw this documentary about the Crisis where they said that after the Soviet freighters were ordered to go home, the Soviet nuclear subs never got the order. The American destroyers found the subs and dropped hand grenades as a warning. The lead sub armed its nuclear torpedo at the American ship, but the commander choose not to fire and therefore averted a war. Could we do some research on this and add it?- JustPhil 12:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• Here's a good site to use for it: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/subchron.htm. This recollection in particular seems to confirm the decision not to fire (the last paragraphs esp.). --Fastfission 14:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Self-contradiction and other problems in Aftermath section

I have a problem with the following sentence in the "Aftermath" section of this article:

It was during the first meeting that Secretary McNamara first discovered that Cuba had many more missiles than initially expected, and what McNamara referred to as 'rational men' (Castro and Khruschev) were perfectly willing to start a nuclear war over the crisis.

To begin with, it doesn't make grammatical sense. Also, it appears to be making an absolute statement, that Castro and Khruschev "were perfectly willing to start a nuclear war over the crisis". Is this sentence meant to be attributing that idea to McNamara? If so, it needs to make it clear.

Also, this sentence directly contradicts a statement earlier in the section that Khruschev "wanted to avoid nuclear war at all costs". Was he "perfectly willing to start a nuclear war", or "want[ing] to avoid nuclear war at all costs"? The article can't have it both ways.

Something needs to be done to fix this discrepancy, as well as the other problems noted. Gatoclass 18:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It is meant to be attributing the idea to McNamara, I think. I'm pretty sure he says something like this in the Morris film about him.

As for Khruschev... it is probably the difference between two different sources and two different analyses; it would be worth citing them separately. --Fastfission 19:07, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but until the relevant text is fixed, I've put a "contradict-section" notice on the article. Gatoclass 19:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

reference

This article has been referenced: [2] --Striver 02:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)