October 14, 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: A U.S. reconnaissance plane takes photographs of a Soviet nuclear installation being built in Cuba
On October 14, 1962, a U-2 spy planetook hundreds of photographs which, after being filtered and analyzed by theCIA, revealed the construction in San Cristobal, Pinar del Rio Province (Map34) of a Soviet nuclear missile site for MRBMs that were capable of strikingwithin a range of 2,000 kilometers, including Washington, D.C. and the wholesoutheastern United States.
(Taken from Cuban Missile Crisis – Wars of the 20th Century – Vol. 2)
Background After the unsuccessful Bay ofPigs Invasion in April 1961 (previousarticle), the United Statesgovernment under President John F. Kennedy focused on clandestine methods tooust or kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro and/or overthrow Cuba’s communist government. In November 1961, a U.S. covert operationcode-named Mongoose was prepared, which aimed at destabilizing Cuba’s politicaland economic infrastructures through various means, including espionage,sabotage, embargos, and psychological warfare. Starting in March 1962, anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Florida,supported by American operatives, penetrated Cuba undetected and carried outattacks against farmlands and agricultural facilities, oil depots andrefineries, and public infrastructures, as well as Cuban ships and foreignvessels operating inside Cuban maritime waters. These actions, together with the United States Armed Forces’ carryingout military exercises in U.S.-friendly Caribbean countries, made Castrobelieve that the United Stateswas preparing another invasion of Cuba.
From the time he seized power in Cuba in 1959, Castro had increased the size andstrength of his armed forces with weapons provided by the Soviet Union. In Moscow,Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev also believed that anAmerican invasion was imminent, and increased Russian advisers, troops, andweapons to Cuba. Castro’s revolution had provided communismwith a toehold in the Western Hemisphere andPremier Khrushchev was determined not to lose this invaluable asset. At the same time, the Soviet leader began toface a security crisis of his own when the United States under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) installed 300 Jupiternuclear missiles in Italyin 1961 and 150 missiles in Turkey(Map 33) in April 1962.
In the nuclear arms race between thetwo superpowers, the United Statesheld a decisive edge over the Soviet Union,both in terms of the number of nuclear missiles (27,000 to 3,600) and in thereliability of the systems required to deliver these weapons. The American advantage was even morepronounced in long-range missiles, called ICBMs (Intercontinental BallisticMissiles), where the Soviets possessed perhaps no more than a dozen missileswith a poor delivery system in contrast to the United States that had about 170, which when launched from the U.S. mainland could accurately hit specifictargets in the Soviet Union.
The Soviet nuclear weapons technologyhad been focused on the more likely war in Europe and therefore consisted ofshorter range missiles, the MRBMs (medium-range ballistic missiles) and IRBMs (intermediate-range ballistic missiles), both of which if installed in Cuba, which was located only 100miles from southeastern United States, could target portions of the contiguous48 U.S. States. In one stroke, such adeployment would serve Castro as a powerful deterrent against an Americaninvasion; for the Soviets, they would have invoked their prerogative to installnuclear weapons in a friendly country, just as the Americans had done in Europe. Moreimportant, the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons in the Western Hemispherewould radically alter the global nuclear weapons paradigm by posing as a directthreat to the United States.
In April 1962, Premier Khrushchevconceived of such a plan, and felt that the United States would respond to itwith no more than a diplomatic protest, and certainly would not take militaryaction. Furthermore, Premier Khrushchevbelieved that President Kennedy was weak and indecisive, primarily because ofthe American president’s half-hearted decisions during the failed Bay of PigsInvasion in April 1961, and President Kennedy’s weak response to the EastGerman-Soviet building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961.
NATO’s deployment of nuclear missiles in Turkey and Italy was a major factor in the Soviet Union’s decision to install nuclear weapons in Cuba A Sovietdelegation sent to Cubamet with Fidel Castro, who gave his consent to Khrushchev’s proposal. Subsequently in July 1962, Cuba and the Soviet Unionsigned an agreement pertinent to the nuclear arms deployment. The planning and implementation of theproject was done in utmost secrecy, with only a few of the top Soviet and Cubanofficials being informed. In Cuba,Soviet technical and military teams secretly identified the locations for thenuclear missile sites.
In August 1962, U.S. reconnaissance flights over Cubadetected the presence of powerful Soviet aircraft: 39 MiG-21 fighter aircraftand 22 nuclear weapons-capable Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers. More disturbing was the discovery of the S-75Dvina surface-to-air missile batteries, which were known to be contingent tothe deployment of nuclear missiles. Bylate August, the U.S.government and Congress had raised the possibility that the Soviets wereintroducing nuclear missiles in Cuba.
By mid-September, the nuclear missileshad reached Cubaby Soviet vessels that also carried regular cargoes of conventionalweapons. About 40,000 Soviet soldiersposing as tourists also arrived to form part of Cuba’sdefense for the missiles and against a U.S. invasion. By October 1962, the Soviet Armed Forces in Cubapossessed 1,300 artillery pieces, 700 regular anti-aircraft guns, 350 tanks,and 150 planes.
