Cuban Missile Crisis

Based on Wikipedia: Cuban Missile Crisis

Thirteen Days That Almost Ended the World

In October 1962, humanity came closer to extinction than at any other moment in recorded history. For thirteen days, two men—one in Washington, one in Moscow—held the fate of civilization in their hands while nuclear-armed missiles pointed at each other across ninety miles of Caribbean water.

This wasn't a hypothetical close call. This wasn't a drill that got out of hand. American and Soviet forces were on hair-trigger alert, with orders to launch if given the word. Submarines carrying nuclear torpedoes stalked each other in the Atlantic. Bomber crews sat in their cockpits, engines warm, waiting for the order to fly toward their targets. One wrong move, one miscommunication, one panicked officer—and millions would have died in the first hours, with hundreds of millions more to follow.

How did we get there? And how, against all odds, did we get out?

The Missiles That Started It All

To understand the Cuban Missile Crisis, you need to understand what came before it. And what came before it was an arms race spiraling out of control.

Starting in 1959, the United States had been quietly placing nuclear missiles in allied countries ringing the Soviet Union. Thor missiles went into England under a program called Project Emily. Then, in 1961, Jupiter missiles arrived in Italy and Turkey. Every single one of these missiles could reach Moscow.

Imagine you're Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union. You wake up one day and learn that your greatest enemy has positioned nuclear weapons on your doorstep. Not across an ocean, but right next door. Missiles that could vaporize your capital city in minutes, with almost no warning.

What would you do?

The Island in the Caribbean

Meanwhile, ninety miles off the coast of Florida, something remarkable had happened. In 1959, a young revolutionary named Fidel Castro had overthrown the American-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista and taken control of Cuba. For decades, the United States had treated Cuba essentially as a colony—American businesses dominated the economy, American tourists filled the casinos, and American influence shaped the government.

Castro changed all that. He nationalized businesses. He aligned with the Soviet Union. And he thumbed his nose at the superpower next door.

The American government was not pleased.

In April 1961, the Central Intelligence Agency launched what became known as the Bay of Pigs invasion. The CIA had trained a force of Cuban exiles to land on the island, spark an uprising, and overthrow Castro. It was a disaster from start to finish. The invaders were quickly surrounded and captured. The promised popular uprising never materialized. And worst of all, the whole world knew the United States was behind it.

Former President Dwight Eisenhower warned his successor, John F. Kennedy, that the failure "will embolden the Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do." He was right.

What Khrushchev Saw

Khrushchev looked at the young American president and saw weakness.

Kennedy had fumbled the Bay of Pigs. He'd seemed hesitant during the Berlin Crisis of 1961, when East Germany built a wall to prevent its citizens from fleeing to the West. One Soviet aide later wrote that Khrushchev thought Kennedy was "too young, intellectual, not prepared well for decision making in crisis situations... too intelligent and too weak."

Khrushchev told his son Sergei that when it came to Cuba, Kennedy "would make a fuss, make more of a fuss, and then agree."

But Khrushchev also had a problem. The much-hyped "missile gap" between the superpowers was real—but it favored America, not the Soviets. By 1962, the United States had roughly 170 intercontinental ballistic missiles, with more coming off the production lines every month. The Soviets? They had maybe twenty that could actually reach American soil.

Khrushchev had been bluffing, telling the world the USSR was churning out missiles "like sausages." In reality, Soviet missiles were unreliable and inaccurate. The Americans had nearly eight times as many nuclear warheads overall. In a straight-up nuclear exchange, the Soviet Union would lose. Badly.

So Khrushchev came up with a plan. If the Soviets couldn't match American missile production, they could even the odds by positioning their existing missiles closer to American cities. Much closer.

Cuba was perfect.

The Secret Agreement

In July 1962, Khrushchev and Castro met and struck a deal. The Soviet Union would place nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. In exchange, Cuba would gain protection from any future American invasion attempt.

There was another factor pushing Castro toward acceptance. The United States hadn't stopped trying to destroy his government after the Bay of Pigs. Starting in late 1961, the CIA launched an extensive campaign of sabotage and terrorism against Cuba—attacks on factories, power plants, and civilian targets. The operation was called the Cuban Project, though it's sometimes referred to as Operation Mongoose. American agents trained and armed Cuban exiles to carry out bombings and assassinations. It was state-sponsored terrorism, and everyone knew it.

Castro wanted those missiles as insurance.

Construction began in secret. Soviet ships carried missiles, launch equipment, and thousands of technicians to Cuban ports. The plan was to present the Americans with a fait accompli—by the time Washington figured out what was happening, the missiles would already be operational.

It almost worked.

The Photographs

On October 14, 1962, an American U-2 spy plane flew over western Cuba and took photographs. When analysts examined the images, they found something alarming: construction sites that looked exactly like Soviet missile installations.

Within days, the analysts confirmed their fears. The Soviets were installing medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles on Cuba. Once operational, these missiles could reach Washington, New York, Chicago, and most major American cities. Flight time: roughly thirteen minutes. There would be almost no warning.

President Kennedy learned of the missiles on the morning of October 16. He immediately assembled his closest advisors into a group that would become known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or ExComm. For the next two weeks, these men would meet almost continuously, debating what to do.

The options, as they saw them, were grim.

The Menu of Bad Choices

Kennedy's military advisors pushed hard for an immediate air strike to destroy the missiles before they became operational, followed by a full-scale invasion of Cuba. It was the most aggressive option, and many in the Pentagon believed it was the only one that would actually eliminate the threat.

But there were problems. An air strike couldn't guarantee it would destroy all the missiles. Some might survive, ready to launch. And once American bombs started falling on Soviet personnel in Cuba—and there were thousands of them—Khrushchev would almost certainly retaliate. Maybe in Cuba. Maybe in Berlin. Maybe by launching missiles at American allies in Europe.

And then what? Escalation. Counter-escalation. Nuclear war.

Kennedy rejected the air strike option, at least initially. Instead, he chose something less aggressive but still forceful: a naval blockade. American warships would encircle Cuba and prevent any more Soviet missiles from arriving. The missiles already there would remain, at least for now—but no new ones would get through.

There was just one problem with calling it a "blockade." Under international law, a blockade is an act of war. So Kennedy's team came up with a different word: quarantine. It sounded gentler. It avoided the legal implications. And it gave both sides a little more room to maneuver.

The World Holds Its Breath

On the evening of October 22, Kennedy went on national television and told the American people what was happening. Soviet missiles were in Cuba. American ships were moving into position. And the United States would regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, "requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."

The message was clear: if those missiles fly, we all die.

Across the country and around the world, people watched and waited. Parents wondered if they should send their children to school. Families discussed whether to stock their fallout shelters. Some people prayed. Some people panicked. Most just watched the news and hoped.

The quarantine line went into effect on October 24. American warships took up positions in a wide arc around Cuba. Soviet ships carrying more missiles steamed toward them.

Secretary of State Dean Rusk watched the Soviet vessels approach the line on radar. Then, remarkably, they stopped. Some turned around. Rusk turned to his colleagues and said, "We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked."

The Letters

But the crisis wasn't over. The missiles already in Cuba were still there, and the Soviets were racing to make them operational. American reconnaissance flights showed construction crews working around the clock.

Behind the scenes, frantic communications flew between Washington and Moscow. Kennedy and Khrushchev exchanged letters—sometimes formal, sometimes almost pleading. Both men understood what was at stake. Both were looking for a way out.

On October 26, Khrushchev sent a long, emotional letter to Kennedy. In it, he compared the two superpowers to two men pulling on a rope with a knot of war tied in the middle. The harder they pulled, the tighter the knot became. Eventually, someone would have to cut the rope. And cutting it meant destruction for everyone.

He proposed a deal: the Soviets would remove their missiles from Cuba if the United States pledged never to invade the island.

Kennedy was ready to accept. But before he could respond, a second letter arrived on October 27. This one was harder, more formal, almost certainly written by committee. It demanded that the United States also remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey.

Now Kennedy faced a dilemma. The Jupiter missiles in Turkey were obsolete—the military had already planned to remove them. But publicly trading them for the Cuban missiles would look like capitulation. It would suggest that the Soviets could place missiles wherever they wanted and then bargain them away for concessions.

Kennedy's brother Robert came up with a solution. He met secretly with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and proposed a deal: the United States would publicly pledge not to invade Cuba, and the Soviets would publicly remove their missiles. Privately, the Jupiter missiles in Turkey would come out within six months. But this part of the deal had to remain secret.

Dobrynin relayed the offer to Moscow. And Khrushchev, staring into the abyss, said yes.

Standing Down

On October 28, Radio Moscow broadcast Khrushchev's message: the Soviet Union would dismantle and remove its missiles from Cuba. In exchange, the United States would promise not to invade.

It was over. Or at least, the worst part was.

The quarantine remained in place until November 20, while United Nations inspectors verified that the missiles were actually being removed. Soviet bombers that had been deployed to Cuba also had to go. Slowly, carefully, both sides stepped back from the edge.

By the summer of 1963, all the Jupiter missiles had been quietly removed from Turkey, just as Robert Kennedy had promised. The Thor missiles in England came out around the same time. The deployments that had helped spark the crisis were undone, and most Americans never knew their government had made this trade.

What It Meant

The Cuban Missile Crisis changed everything—and changed nothing.

In the short term, both superpowers realized they needed better communication. A miscalculation, a delayed message, a misunderstood signal—any of these could have triggered catastrophe. Within a year, a direct communication link was established between the White House and the Kremlin. It's often called the "hotline," though it was originally a teletype machine, not a telephone. The idea was simple: in a crisis, the two leaders needed to be able to talk directly, without intermediaries or delays.

The crisis also led to the first major arms control agreements of the nuclear age. The Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 prohibited nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and in space. It wasn't much—underground tests continued—but it was something. A recognition that the arms race needed limits.

For Khrushchev, the crisis was the beginning of the end. Although he had arguably achieved his main goal—protecting Cuba from American invasion—the public perception was that he had backed down. The secret deal on the Turkish missiles remained secret, which meant no one knew the Americans had given up anything. The Soviet Politburo saw it as a humiliation. Ambassador Dobrynin later wrote that the leadership viewed the outcome as "a blow to its prestige bordering on humiliation."

Two years later, Khrushchev was removed from power, and the embarrassment of the Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the charges against him.

Kennedy emerged from the crisis looking strong and decisive—the young president who had stared down the Soviet Union and won. He had less than a year to enjoy this reputation before his assassination in Dallas.

Cuba remained Communist. Castro remained in power. The island stayed aligned with the Soviet Union for decades, a permanent thorn in America's side just ninety miles from Florida.

The Lessons We Almost Didn't Learn

In the decades since, historians and participants have pieced together just how close we came. During the crisis, American intelligence believed there were perhaps a few thousand Soviet troops in Cuba, with no tactical nuclear weapons. The reality? There were over 40,000 Soviet military personnel on the island, and they had tactical nuclear weapons—short-range missiles and nuclear-armed torpedoes that could have been used against an American invasion force.

If Kennedy had ordered the air strike and invasion that his generals wanted, Soviet commanders in Cuba had the authority to use those tactical weapons. An American invasion force could have been met with nuclear fire. And then what?

There were also moments during the crisis when individual decisions by individual people prevented disaster. Soviet submarine B-59 was being depth-charged by American destroyers, trying to force it to surface. The captain, exhausted and isolated from Moscow, was ready to launch his nuclear torpedo. The decision to fire required agreement from three officers. Two said yes. The third, a man named Vasili Arkhipov, said no. He argued they should surface and await orders from Moscow.

Because one Soviet naval officer kept his head, we're all still here.

Living With the Bomb

The Cuban Missile Crisis forced both superpowers to confront an uncomfortable truth: nuclear weapons made total war unwinnable. The whole point of the arms race was to gain an advantage over the enemy. But when both sides have enough weapons to destroy civilization, there is no advantage. There's only mutual suicide.

The doctrine that emerged from this realization has an appropriately grim name: Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD. The idea is that if both sides know that any nuclear attack will be met with a devastating counter-attack, neither side will ever launch first. Safety through terror. Peace through the promise of annihilation.

It sounds insane, and maybe it is. But it has worked, so far. Since October 1962, no nuclear weapon has been used in war. The taboo established in those thirteen days has held.

The missiles are still out there, of course. There are fewer of them now than at the height of the Cold War—the United States and Russia have signed several treaties limiting their arsenals. But there are still enough nuclear weapons in the world to end human civilization several times over.

And the same questions that haunted Kennedy and Khrushchev haunt us still. What happens when leaders miscalculate? What happens when communication breaks down? What happens when someone makes a mistake?

For thirteen days in October 1962, we found out just how close the answers to those questions could bring us to the end of everything. The fact that you're reading this now means we got lucky.

Let's hope our luck holds.