“An eye for an eye, a missile for a missile”- that’s how the famous saying goes, something we all as students, and members of society have known. So did the Soviet Union and the United States in the fall of 1962, getting on to a 13-day staring contest, not the kind we have with our friends, but the kind that alarms the existence of mankind.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, otherwise known as the October Crisis in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis, was a 13-day military and political confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when the American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were coordinated with the Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October, 1962 and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to a full-scale nuclear

conflict in the Cold War era (1945-1991). With only one tap of a finger of either one of the superpowers, the title of this post would have been “the third world war” instead of “almost war”.

THE ONSET OF A “CRISIS”

After the Second World War, conflict between the “superpowers” of the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies became unexceptionally fierce. Both sides saw the other as an existential threat and was worried of their counterpart’s growing supremacy around the world. 

Cuba, a country in the Caribbean was halted by a communist revolution in the 1950s. After the United States headed by John F. Kennedy rejected the requests for aid from the Cuban revolutionaries, the then president of Cuba Fidel Castro turned to the Soviet Union. The new Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, was delighted to have an ally just off the U.S. coast. The U.S. forces unleased their powers in Cuba in order to obliterate Castro’s regime. Under the arrangements of the C.I.A., the U.S. forces in the company of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, led the “Bay of Pigs” invasion on April 17, 1961. However, the invasion was neutralised by Castro’s forces in just a period of two days. Instead of overturning Castro’s jurisdiction, the invasion rather braced his profile among the

Cuban masses.

Nikita Khrushchev looked at this as an ideal opportunity for positioning weapons of mass destruction in Cuba and was keen on shielding its ally from the U.S. forces. Additionally, the Soviet Union decided to payback the doings of the U.S., when in the previous year the latter had placed nuclear missiles in Turkey, a neighbouring nation of the Soviet Union. Khruschev argued that his purpose of stationing similar missiles in Cuba was to even their score with the United States. The Soviet also placed ground troops, bomber and fighter aircraft (some of which were nuclear-capable), and SAMs. The missiles in Cuba and Turkey were intermediate range missiles. They could reach

their targets more reliably and with less warning than the bomber aircraft or early intercontinental missiles of that time. These were inevitably mightier than the ones launched at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945- capable of exterminating mammoth cities with just a click.

ALERT!! DEFCON 2!

DEFCON, short for Defence Readiness Condition or simply Defence Condition, is the U.S.

military’s ranking system for defence readiness for a potential nuclear attack. DEFCON 2, one step from nuclear war, is implemented when an enemy attack is expected. Troops are deployed for combat at this time.

The military notified President John F. Kennedy on October 16, 1962. Kennedy and his advisors were convinced that the stationing of Soviet missiles in Cuba was a threat to the United States’ “integrity.” The U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC) for the only time in U.S. history was put at DEFCON 2. Although many of Kennedy’s advisors prompted him to break through and launch air strikes, he discouraged their suggestions under the logic of deterrence. He directed a blockade, putting a halt on the Soviet ships from further dispatching any weapons to Cuba.

ALL GOOD WORLD? CRISIS RESOLVED?

With the naval blockade, Khrushchev ordered the Soviet ships to stop and turn around. However, the American Navy did hunt through other Soviet vessels which continued to sail their way through the western routes. For instance, a Soviet tanker was allowed to deliver oil and a Lebanese ship was stopped and searched, but was allowed to continue its journey as it contained no missile building materials.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev dispatched letters to President Kennedy. In one of those letters, sent on 26 October, Khrushchev proposed that the Soviets will have their missiles removed from Cuba in exchange for America making an obligation to not invade Cuba. A second letter, sent on the following day, made the same suggestion, but in addition that America should remove their own missiles from Turkey as well. On the same day, a US spy plane was shot down over Cuba, further raising tensions.

The U.S. President replied to Khrushchev acknowledging the proposals in the first letter. On October 28, Khrushchev addressed the world and announced that Soviet missiles would be withdrawn from Cuba. However, Kennedy decided to keep his silence on the second letter. Even so, Robert Kennedy, the U.S. Attorney General, agreed with the Soviet Union and got the American missiles removed from Turkey but in absolute secrecy.

Secrecy? Why is that so? President Kennedy and his councillors kept this withdrawal a secret to remain maintain their prestige and prevent the world from seeing it as a sign of their frailty. Clever move, America!

NUCLEAR WAR DODGED!! NOW WHAT NEXT?

Although the parties involved tried to prevent a nuclear war, the danger of one happening unintentionally, was very high. Misjudgement, miscalculations, and misinformation played a top-notch role in this “almost war”.

In immediate response to this, both the superpowers took steps like installation of a “hotline” of teletype machines and other communication lines between Moscow and Washington D.C., as a means to improve their international relations.

With almost 62 years of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we as a part of global community still keep going back to it and question the humanity on what type of past we have built, and what kind of future will take us forward together. This incident during the Cold war presents to us a lesson on how the slightest of miscommunications alongside the race and greed for power between just two parties can bring the entire mankind on the brink of extinction.