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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Misc

From a scholarly point of view, I feel 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.

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.

This revisionist garbage is so inaccurate and misguided. One question: If, as is here claimed, Khruschev perceived this as a justified normal response to a supposed superiority of US nuclear imbalance, why, then did he attempt to keep the Cuban missiles secret? Khrushchev was not a timid leader. Why did he not install the missiles openly in Cuba, as both the USSR and the US constantly engaged in bragging, threatening, etc. about their resapective nuclear capabilities? Only because he knew that the US would regard this act as a much more serious threat to their sovereignty. And because he knew that such a US belief would have been in fact justified. I have read all the accounts by the major participants, the transcripts of the ExCom group, etc. Nowhere have I seen the reasoning in this article. Common Wikipedia ill-informed amateurish "Encyclopedia that anyone can edit." 66.108.4.183 20:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Glad to see the article has been re-written. 66.108.4.183 20:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

"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)

Yeah I agree, removed. I suppose it could say 'could be considered an act of war' or something. 222.152.249.145 01:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

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)


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.

"The Soviet ships turned back, and on October 28 Khrushchev announced that he had ordered the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba. The decision prompted then Secretary of State Dean Rusk to comment, "We were eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked."

A book I'm reading (Kennedy's wars - Berlin, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam) says that this comment was made in regards to the first soviet freighters turning away from the blockade. Does anyone know the source for the other context? 222.152.101.3 02:33, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


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)

It's actually possible for admins on Wikipedia to ban any offender, account or not. It's not 1st-time policy to do that though. 199.126.134.144 04:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It's traditional for the offender to be hunted down and killed by raging horses.

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)

--Pixydust91 22:18, 30 July 2006 (UTC)=>What are ICBMs<= The ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missiles were built by the americans because of the fear of the Soviets for launching the satellite sputnik into space. The launching of the satellite sputnike was not a threat but of the technology used to launch the satellite into space was a threat. The rocket could be used to transport any nuclear warhead to North America


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)

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.

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)

I don't think enough emphasis is placed on the fact that the U.S. had missiles in Turkey in this article. The problem is that this fact is not as widely known and I think mostly nelglected in overly patriotic rose-tinted views of the situation in the mid 20th century. 01:45, 1 September 2006 (BST)

I'd also be willing to bet the USSR was a heck of a lot more likely to fire its missiles unprovoked than the US. The US missiles were to be used as a defense, after someone else, like the USSR, took offense.

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.

Heard about this before and far as i know its accurate. At 5pm on 27 October 1962 an Ameican ship depth charged a Russian sub breaking the blockade. It exploded but did not penetrate the hull. What they didnt know was that the sub was carring a nuclear wahead and the captain gave the order to retaliate by lauching a nuke against an american target.As a safety device he required two on board officers to simultaniously turn their keys arming the warhead. At the last minute second captain Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov refused to turn his key. Had he not nuclear war would have followed.

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)

I added the information that San Cristobal is situated in Pinar del Rio province. It is a town of some 10,000 inhabitants about 50 km southwest of Havana (see [2]). As to the exact missile launch sites there is a posting in the Google Earth community indicating 4 MRBM sites in the vicinity of San Cristobal, another two IRBM sites at Guanajay (a bit closer to Havana), and three more sites near the centre of the island [http:bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=132732]. There is nothing much to see there, nowadays, as those were mobile launch sites that were dismantled at the end of the crisis. --Proofreader 17:56, 18 January 2007 (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)

>>The Real Truth About the Ending of the Crisis<< Simply the Cuban Missile Crisis ends when the two powers the soviets and the americans are on the brink to a nuclear war and when president kennedy issued his ultimatum, soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev backed down removing the miilies and avoiding the confrontation. >>This information was from my history notes in school and is mostly correct*<<

Not exactly. Khruschev was able to "back down" because Kennedy gave him the ability to save face, by agreeing to withdraw the Jupiter missiles from Turkey, and also that the US would agree never to invade Cuba again. This was Kennedy's greatest moment (I am someone who thinks he was a good President, but not great); he realized that, in order to avoid war, he must allow the Soviets to save face. Further threats and posturing--which were recommended by many in the military, members of ExCom, etc.--would just make the risk of nuclear war ever greater. This was true leadership. Everyone knew that the Jupiter missiles were obsolete, and the agreement between Kennedy and the USSR demanded confidentiality anyway, but between the two countries, Khruschev was given a way to bow out gracefully. Leadership is not always about bullying; intelligence and wisdom are just as important. And foolhardiness is not the same thing as courage. 66.108.4.183 20:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC) Allen Roth

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: [3] --Striver 02:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Confusing sentence

"By the fall of 1962, America�s arsenal contained 3,000 nuclear warheads and nearly 300 in espionage."


I do not understand this sentance. How can somebody have anything "in espionage"? Harley peters 23:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

The newly created trivia section states,

"The famous comment "Don't wait for the translation!" was later used in the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"

Sorry to be blunt, but I don't give a crap. I don't know anything about "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", and I don't want to know anything about it. I'm reading this because I want to know about the Cuban missile crisis. To me this is just too trivial and detracts from the article. Does anyone have any thoughts about it's removal?--Zleitzen 08:43, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it is very famous, and should be under Stevenson's article, but does not relate to the CMC. Perhaps if more pop culture references were made to this line (or can be found to support this), then it could be included here as well. Totalirrelevance 13:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Kennedy's options

This section appears to lack sources, and is dominating the page somewhat. Could those who have contributed this section provide sources before we work on honing that section. I'll give it a few days, if no sources come forward then it may have to be removed in it's entirety. --Zleitzen 11:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Spam link?

Can any German-speaker check this link from the "external links" section?

cuban missile crises part of a final paper about the cuban missile crises

It looks like spam, but I can't read German any better than I can read Linear A Nyttend 06:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

This is English wikipedia; foreign language links should only be included if no English links suffice - I don't think that is the case here. -- Beardo 23:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, the page linked to is indeed about the CMC, but the page itself is about tourism in the carribbean region.

"Most people..."

Most people mistakenly believe this image was taken during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when in fact it was taken after the crisis had concluded.

This part of the caption should be reworded to remove weasel words.

71.117.209.8 07:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Clarification on SAM Incident Needed

Later, a U-2 flight was shot down by an SA-2 Guideline SAM emplacement on October 27, causing negotiation stress between the USSR and the U.S. Khrushchev had not given the order, and Castro had used the freedom of using SAM missiles. However, Kennedy did not destroy the site, as he claimed to do, if such an incident happened. Kennedy's contradictory decision probably averted nuclear war.

This section contains two sentences that lack clarity and would benefit from editing by someone more familiar with the events of October 1962 than I. First of all, what happened in the incident described here as "... and Castro had used the freedom of using SAM missiles"? It sounds like the Cubans shot down the U2 without Soviet permission, but the phrasing "had used the freedom of using" is awkward and requires repeat reading to make sense. Would it be more clear to say, "Krushchev had not given the order; the Cubans were in control of the SAM emplacement from which the missile was launched"?

Secondly, what is meant by "Kennedy did not destroy the site, as he claimed to do, if such an incident happened"? Is the author saying JFK claimed to have destroyed the SAM site but in fact had not, thus (one supposes) saving face at home while avoiding confrontation with the Russians? Or is the author saying that JFK had threatened, not "claimed", to destroy any missile emplacement from which an attack on US aircraft was launched but did not follow through on the threat, thus averting nuclear war? I suspect the second meaning is the correct one, but the phrasing here really needs cleaning up and clarification. Any help would be appreciated. 68.83.143.100 03:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)Essex9999

Osama?

That little line about 'Osama' in the Background. Very sketchy, most probably vandalism. Just need some clarification before I remove it. Totalirrelevance 10:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Uhm, no. I don't think so. Besides the fact that this is absolutely the most rediculous thing I've ever heard, considering that Osama was about 5 years old when this happpened, and the fact that The Empire State Building doesn't reside in California, I'm going with no. --Lightdifference 19:26, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Since 15.40, 26 November, the only genuine change, which has not been reversed as vadalism, was to change "leader" to "premier". I wonder whether this page should be semi-protected ? -- Beardo 03:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, Beardo. I added it to the "most vandalised pages" list a while back, but fat use that was. Check the history to see how many times I've reverted vandalism in the last few months.--Zleitzen 03:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I actually put it on the requests for protection page, which seems to have worked. -- Beardo 23:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It's just been unprotected - and the vandalism started again. -- Beardo 17:02, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I submitted it to be protected again. This entire article needs to be rewritten. Goodolclint 15:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's not vandalism... maybe people just don't like obviously biased bullshit. This article is crap. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.18.83 (talk • contribs) on 17:32, 12 January 2007

Feel free to not specific changes - with cited sources - here, and we'll consider them. -- Beardo 04:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Updates regarding the Timeline Problems

There was some criticism about contradicting time mentions, especially regarding the the start of the incident. The photos were taken on October 14, were presented to JFK two days later, on October 16 and Kennedy's widely known TV statement was made on the October 22.

Between the 16th and 22nd of October, there was a relatively peaceful period, sort of like the silence before hurricane. During the period, the hardliners in the Pentagon and the White House have tried to persuade Kennedy into some kind of a military response, at least a surgical strike. But both Kennedy and Khrushchev have been reluctant to take military action. As a precaution, the military command deploys the Navy in Florida, to intervene in case the crisis does not get resolved until the end of the month.

On 26th, Khrushchev offers to withdraw the nuclear weapons if US promises not to attack Cuba. On 27th, this offer expands to include the withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles deployed in Turkey. During this diplomatic traffic, Castro starts to distribute arms to the people, in an effort to create a militia army to resist a possible US invasion.

In the meanwhile, US reconnaissance flights continue to increase, increasing the armed Cubans' enthusiasm to respond back. On the 27th, a group of armed Cuban militia opens fire on a USAF U-2 plane. This alerts the Soviet base in Cuba and failing to contact Moscow, the base takes the initiative to launch a missile at the plane on the mistaken assumption the war has finally started.

This response panics both Washington, on the assumption that the Soviets are willing to do whatever it takes to get their offer accepted and Moscow, in expectation of a military reprisal that will trigger a large-scale war. On the 28th, as Khrushchev was preparing to declare that he's dropping the condition of the withdrawal of the missiles deployed in Turkey, Kennedy accepts the Soviet offer and the crisis ends. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scsazak (talk • contribs) 11:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

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