Huntingdon
College: Political Science & International
Relations Programs
PSC 303: International Relations,
Student outlines:
One Minute to Midnight:
The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962.
Thanks to Mindy Bevan and Drew Goldman; compiled by Prof.
Jeremy Lewis, Huntingdon College;
revised 16 May 2003.
(first section omitted here)
Eight missiles, one ready to launch, 1,000 km range, enough to hit D.C.
90 miles from the U.S. shore, highly provocative.
Trying to decide to quarantine or attack Used game theory to decide how
to handle it.
Operation security to keep the opponent on the defensive, highly secretive
that the U.S. new what the Soviets were up to.
The US wanted to keep Castro nervous, so we kept conducting operations
in the Caribbean, to show him we had the power to invade if we wanted to.
Oct. 17, US was moving troops, aircraft, ships were moved to the Southeastern
US.
The navy was shipped out, but not told why, were to wait for orders while
at sea.
Kennedy still fulfilled campaign commitments to keep the public from becoming
alarmed.
The Air Force was campaigning to bomb Cuba.
on the 17th they got "slash marks" signifies the SS5.
Still had not told Gromyko that the US knew about the nuclear weapons,
met with Gromyko when he had the pictures of the missiles and Gromyko claimed
there were no offensive weapons in Cuba. Immense level of deceit.
Top level officials rode to the White House in one vehicle to avoid alerting
the press.
Oct. 20 ExCom met and they discussed the presidential speech. The White
House told the press that the President was sick so that he could cancel
campaign trips and meet at the White House.
Thursday, Oct.25: Strategic air force on highest alert in its history.
Soviet ships continued towards the quarantine, feared war through a series
of misapprehensions.
The US presented proof (photos) of the missils in Cuba to the UN.
Pres. Kennedy sent a letter to K* stating that he had believed all
of the assurances that Soviet Union was not sending offensive weapons to
Cuba, and then saw that this was not the case.
The navy is the most traditional force, brought about by poor communications
early on.
Because of how historic this moment is the Nav y wanted their men in dress
whites, was a debate over how exactly the Navy should be dressed.
First Soviet ships were searched, cleared through to Havanna.
The media was used for back channel communication by both governments.
Two letters were sent by K*, one was concillatory, offering to remove the
missiles if the US promises not to invade Cuba..
Sat. Oct. 27-single worse day of the crisis. U2 was in Soviet Union airspace
by accident, Migs came up to intercept, so US planes followed w/ nuclear
rockets to protect him and get him home.
The Pres. decided to "largely ignore" the 2nd K* letter which was much
less concilitory. A letter was drafted in response to the first letter.
Cuba is preparing for an invasion.
The US sends one more U2 flight over Cuba. Soviets shot down a US U2 over
Cuba, no one knew if it was the beginning of the war or a local mistake.
Made the Soviets very nervous, they were not used to losing central command
and having any mistakes made by local parties.
Bobby Kennedy becomes another back channel communication, goes to
the Soviet's embassy. Soviets add that they want the US to remove our nuclear
missiles from Turkey. D*.
US continues to put pressure on the Soviets.
Pres. Kennedy was going to address the nation again. Made the Soviets nervous,
thought he was announcing either an invasion or airstrikes.
Soviets hastily wrote a letter to send to Kennedy to forestall the announcement.
The Soviet Union ordered the dismantle of the missiles and to have them
shipped back to the Soviet Union (Sun).
The most humiliating act for the Soviet's military was showing the US how
many missiles were on the deck of the ships leaving Cuba.
Castro found out that the crisis was over through the media. Cuba was very
angry, thought it was unjustifiable wanted a more honorable solution.
This hurt ties between Cuba and Soviet Union for many years. Cuba
hated that K* made all the concessions and that the US was not required
to make any. Castro felt that it was his duty to accept the missiles from
the Soviets before the crisis, but in retrospect, knowing what he knows
now, he would not have accepted the missiles.
Castro believied we were extremely close to nuclear war, almost a dead
end street. People believe had Pres. Kennedy launched an attack/invasion
on Cuba, the Soviets would have retaliated with nuclear weapons.
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