Cuban Missile Crisis: Encyclopedia II - Cuban Missile Crisis - U.S. response

Cuban Missile Crisis - U.S. response

With the news of the confirmed photographic evidence of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, President Kennedy convened a special group of senior advisers to meet secretly at the White House. This group later became known as the ExComm, or Executive Committee of the National Security Council. From the morning of October 16 this group met frequently to devise a response to the threat. The officials had discussed the various options. An immediate bombing strike was dismissed early on, as was a potentially time-consuming appeal to the United Nations. The real options for the ExComm were only military, the diplomatic ones barely considered and dismissed on the first day before even the real discussions started. The choice was reduced to either a naval blockade and an ultimatum, or full-scale invasion. A blockade was finally chosen, although there were a number of hawks (notably Paul Nitze, and Generals Curtis LeMay and Maxwell Taylor) who kept pushing for tougher action. An invasion was planned, and troops were assembled in Florida. However US intelligence was flawed: they believed Soviet and Cuban troop numbers on Cuba to be around 10,000 and 100,000, when they were in fact around 43,000 and 270,000 respectively [2]. Also, they were unaware of the 12 Luna tactical nuclear weapons already on the island, which could be launched on the authority of the Soviet commander on the island, General Pliyev, [3] in the event of an invasion. An invasion would therefore probably have invoked a nuclear strike against the invading force, with catastrophic results.

There were a number of issues with the naval blockade. There was legality - as Fidel Castro noted, there was nothing illegal about the missile installations; they were certainly a threat to the U.S., but similar missiles aimed at the U.S.S.R. were in place in Europe (sixty Thor IRBMs in four squadrons near Nottingham, in the United Kingdom; thirty Jupiter IRBMs in two squadrons near Gioia del Colle, Italy; and fifteen Jupiter IRBMs in one squadron near Izmir, Turkey). There was concern of the Soviet's reaction to the blockade; it might turn into escalating retaliation.

Kennedy spoke to the American public, and to the Soviet government, in a televised address on October 22. He confirmed the presence of the missiles in Cuba and announced the naval blockade as a quarantine zone of 500 nautical miles (926 km) around the Cuban coast. He warned that the military was "prepare[d] for any eventualities," and condemned the Soviet Union for "secrecy and deception". The U.S. was surprised at the solid support from its European allies, although Britain's prime minister Macmillan, as well as much of the international community, did not understand why a diplomatic solution was not considered.

The case was conclusively proved on October 25 at an emergency session of the UN Security Council. U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson attempted to force an answer from Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin as to the existence of the weapons, famously demanding, "Don't wait for the translation!" Upon Zorin's refusal, Stevenson produced photographs taken by U.S. surveillance aircraft showing the missile installations in Cuba.

Khrushchev sent letters to Kennedy on October 23 and 24 claiming the deterrent nature of the missiles in Cuba and the peaceful intentions of the Soviet Union; however, the Soviets had delivered two different deals to the United States government. On October 26, they offered to withdraw the missiles in return for a U.S. guarantee not to invade Cuba or support any invasion. The second deal was broadcast on public radio on October 27, calling for the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey in addition to the demands of the 26th. The crisis peaked on October 27, when a U-2 (piloted by Rudolph Anderson) was shot down over Cuba and another U-2 flight over Russia was almost intercepted when it strayed over Siberia, after Curtis LeMay (U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff) had neglected to enforce Presidential orders to suspend all overflights. At the same time, Soviet merchant ships were nearing the quarantine zone. Kennedy responded by publicly accepting the first deal and sending Robert Kennedy to the Soviet embassy to accept the second in private that the fifteen Jupiter missiles near Izmir, Turkey would be removed. The Soviet ships turned back and on October 28, Khrushchev announced that he had ordered the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba. The decision prompted then Secretary of State Dean Rusk to comment, "We went eyeball to eyeball, and the other fellow just blinked."

Satisfied that the Soviets had removed the missiles, President Kennedy ordered an end to the quarantine of Cuba on November 20.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "U.S. response", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki