CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS:

This is about as close as it gets..........more cyber backwater history............PEACE..........Scott


CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS:
October 22, 1962

In a televised speech of extraordinary gravity, President John F. Kennedy
announces that U.S. spy planes have discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
These missile sites--under construction but nearing completion--housed
medium-range missiles capable of striking a number of major cities in the United
States, including Washington, D.C. Kennedy announced that he was ordering a
naval "quarantine" of Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from transporting any more
offensive weapons to the island and explained that the United States would not
tolerate the existence of the missile sites currently in place. The president
made it clear that America would not stop short of military action to end what
he called a "clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace."What
is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis actually began on October 15, 1962--the day
that U.S. intelligence personnel analyzing U-2 spy plane data discovered that
the Soviets were building medium-range missile sites in Cuba. The next day,
President Kennedy secretly convened an emergency meeting of his senior military,
political, and diplomatic advisers to discuss the ominous development. The group
became known as ExCom, short for Executive Committee. After rejecting a surgical
air strike against the missile sites, ExCom decided on a naval quarantine and a
demand that the bases be dismantled and missiles removed. On the night of
October 22, Kennedy went on national television to announce his decision. During
the next six days, the crisis escalated to a breaking point as the world
tottered on the brink of nuclear war between the two superpowers.On October 23,
the quarantine of Cuba began, but Kennedy decided to give Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev more time to consider the U.S. action by pulling the quarantine line
back 500 miles. By October 24, Soviet ships en route to Cuba capable of carrying
military cargoes appeared to have slowed down, altered, or reversed their course
as they approached the quarantine, with the exception of one ship--the tanker
Bucharest. At the request of more than 40 nonaligned nations, U.N.
Secretary-General U Thant sent private appeals to Kennedy and Khrushchev, urging
that their governments "refrain from any action that may aggravate the situation
and bring with it the risk of war." At the direction of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, U.S. military forces went to DEFCON 2, the highest military alert ever
reached in the postwar era, as military commanders prepared for full-scale war
with the Soviet Union.On October 25, the aircraft carrier USS Essexand the
destroyer USS Gearing attempted to intercept the Soviet tanker Bucharest as it
crossed over the U.S. quarantine of Cuba. The Soviet ship failed to cooperate,
but the U.S. Navy restrained itself from forcibly seizing the ship, deeming it
unlikely that the tanker was carrying offensive weapons. On October 26, Kennedy
learned that work on the missile bases was proceeding without interruption, and
ExCom considered authorizing a U.S. invasion of Cuba. The same day, the Soviets
transmitted a proposal for ending the crisis: The missile bases would be removed
in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba.The next day, however,
Khrushchev upped the ante by publicly calling for the dismantling of U.S.
missile bases in Turkey under pressure from Soviet military commanders. While
Kennedy and his crisis advisers debated this dangerous turn in negotiations, a
U-2 spy plane was shot down over Cuba, and its pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, was
killed. To the dismay of the Pentagon, Kennedy forbid a military retaliation
unless any more surveillance planes were fired upon over Cuba. To defuse the
worsening crisis, Kennedy and his advisers agreed to dismantle the U.S. missile
sites in Turkey but at a later date, in order to prevent the protest of Turkey,
a key NATO member.On October 28, Khrushchev announced his government's intent to
dismantle and remove all offensive Soviet weapons in Cuba. With the airing of
the public message on Radio Moscow, the USSR confirmed its willingness to
proceed with the solution secretly proposed by the Americans the day before. In
the afternoon, Soviet technicians began dismantling the missile sites, and the
world stepped back from the brink of nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was
effectively over. In November, Kennedy called off the blockade, and by the end
of the year all the offensive missiles had left Cuba. Soon after, the United
States quietly removed its missiles from Turkey.The Cuban Missile Crisis seemed
at the time a clear victory for the United States, but Cuba emerged from the
episode with a much greater sense of security. A succession of U.S.
administrations have honored Kennedy's pledge not to invade Cuba, and the
communist island nation situated just 80 miles from Florida remains a thorn in
the side of U.S. foreign policy. The removal of antiquated Jupiter missiles from
Turkey had no detrimental effect on U.S. nuclear strategy, but the Cuban Missile
Crisis convinced a humiliated USSR to commence a massive nuclear buildup. In the
1970s, the Soviet Union reached nuclear parity with the United States and built
intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking any city in the United
States.