Autor: FIR | 14. 10. 2022
No one would have expected that the world would once again face the threat of nuclear escalation. While Russia warns NATO not to forget Russia’s nuclear potential, representatives of Ukraine call on NATO itself to launch a first strike. Next week, NATO plans to launch its “Steadfast Noon” military exercise on the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe. The threat of nuclear weapons is politically unacceptable. Therefore, the FIR warns urgently against such an escalation and reminds of the Cuban crisis at the end of October 1962, which found 60 years ago a diplomatic solution.
Since the fall of the Batista dictatorship and the victory of the Cuban revolution under Fidel Castro, the U.S. embargo policy against Cuba began as early as 1960, a policy that, despite regular condemnation by the United Nations, continues to this day and, with trade sanctions, continues to bring supply problems for the people of Cuba. At the same time, the intelligence and military services in the United States were training Cuban exiles to try to overthrow the revolutionary government in Cuba. The failure of the landing operation by the invading forces in April 1961 went down in the history books under the name “Bay of Pigs Disaster.”
By now, at the latest, it was clear that Cuba needed military allies to protect it from another invasion. When the Soviet Union offered such protection, the Cuban government accepted this support. Beginning in June 1962, “Operation Anadyr,” the deployment of medium- and long-range nuclear missiles and 40,000 Soviet troops to Cuba, began. For the USSR, the deployment of missiles in Cuba was a response to the American deployment of nuclear missiles in Italy and especially in Turkey, aimed at Moscow and other major Soviet cities.
When it became apparent from U.S. spy flights over Cuba in October 1962 that Soviet missile deployment was progressing, the U.S. government believed it had to act. The U.S. military wanted to bomb, but President Kennedy instead announced a naval blockade on October 22. The Soviet government responded with sharp words. It called the blockade an act of piracy and accused the U.S. of bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. At a U.N. Security Council meeting on Oct. 25, the mutual accusations were reiterated, with Khrushchev writing the following day to the U.S. president offering to withdraw the missiles from Cuba if the U.S. ruled out an invasion of Cuba and withdrew the American Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Thus, a negotiated solution was on the table.
During this blockade, there was a high potential for escalation that could have led to a nuclear strike. Cargo ships were not the only ones forced to turn away in international waters. On October 27, a U.S. destroyer used depth charges to force the Soviet submarine B-59 to surface. Credit was due to the submarine’s commander Vasily A. Archipov, who, as we know today, refused to use the nuclear weapons on board without explicit orders from Moscow. American spy flights also continued, with a U-2 spy plane shot down over Cuba that day. Kennedy, however, expressly forbade a counterattack.
On the evening of October 27, there was a secret meeting between Robert F. Kennedy and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. John F. Kennedy had his brother state that he agreed with the proposal in the Soviet letter. Dobrynin immediately relayed this message to Moscow. Late that night, Nikita Khrushchev decided to accept Kennedy’s offer and withdraw the missiles from Cuba.
The United States then officially declared that it would no longer intervene against Cuba. At the end of November, the naval blockade was officially lifted, the USSR dismantled its missile sites in Cuba, and a few months later the USA retrieved the Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
This allowed the Cuban Missile Crisis, which had brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, to be resolved through diplomacy. Subsequently, a “Red Telephone” was established between Washington and Moscow for future operational understanding. Initial arms control and arms limitation talks also began.
The memory of these dramatic days in world history not only warns of the danger of nuclear wars, but also reinforces the call for diplomatic solutions to international conflicts, which are also indispensable today in the context of the Ukraine war.
International Federation of Resistants Fighters (FIR) - Association of Antifascists
