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........In October
1962, the world came as close as it ever has to a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union during
the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. ........The roots of the Cuban Missile Crisis began on January 1, 1959, when Fidel Castro took control of the island nation of Cuba, after ousting the corrupt government of Fulgencio Batista. In the months that followed, Castro''s government became closely aligned with the Soviet Union, and in these tense years of the Cold War, it became intolerable to many in the United States that a Soviet ally should be established in a country not more than 90 miles from America. ........Tens of thousands of Cuban refugees fled to the United States. Some of these exiles began to fight to return, and with the aid of the CIA, a number of them formed an invasion force, a force that was doomed from the start. On April 17, 1961, more than 1,500 of these armed exiles invaded Cuba in an attempt to foment a rebellion against the Castro regime. The place of this invasion -- the Bay of Pigs --still resonates to this day as the name of a failed CIA plan to overthrow a foreign government. ........Tensions continued to grow in the months after the Bay of Pigs. CIA-sponsored exiles continued to mount raids against Cuba, burning sugar fields and destroying factories. The Soviet Union began to pour in armaments, technicians and military support personnel. The United States warned the Soviet Union on several occasions that it would not tolerate the establishment of offensive military weapons in Cuba. ........To this day, arguments still continue over what prompted Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to install nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba, but one prevailing consensus is that Khrushchev wanted to address a few challenges facing him: the overwhelming nuclear superiority of the United States, the need to defend the government of Castro, and an urge to let the United States get a taste of what it felt like to be facing offensive nuclear weapons in a nearby country, as did the Soviet Union with American missiles based in Turkey. ........But President Kennedy and his administration was not going to let those missiles remain. After U-2 surveillance flights detected the existence of the missiles in October 1962, Kennedy went on national television on Monday, October 22, to announce that a naval quarantine had been imposed around Cuba, and that the United States demanded that the nuclear missiles be withdrawn. ........In a portion of his speech that pointed out the seriousness of what the world was about to face, Kennedy said, "It shall be the policy of this Nation to 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." ........However, the quarantine was not the first choice of many of Kennedy's advisers, both civilian and military, as well as top Congressional leaders. Some favored a direct approach: bombing raids on the missile sites with a follow-up invasion that would take care of the Castro problem, once and for all. But to his credit, Kennedy resisted these pressures and insisted on trying to find a peaceful solution to the problem. ........But when the crisis erupted into the world news media, a peaceful resolution was very much in doubt. The Soviet Union denounced the quarantine as an act of piracy. Technicians in Cuba redoubled their efforts to complete the missile sites under construction. In the United States, panicked citizens emptied supermarket shelves of food, all military leaves were canceled, and long lines of railroad cars started moving to the Southeast, carrying troops and supplies for a planned invasion of Cuba. At the same time, Soviet merchant ships and submarines were heading to the quarantine line around the island, and no one was sure if the ships would attempt to run the naval blockade. Troops in Cuba were also mobilized. American forces were placed on "DefCon 2" -- the second-highest stage of alert, just short of actual war. ........High-level negotiations began to take place at the United Nations and between the White House and the Kremlin in the days following Kennedy's speech. At the time there was no "hot line" established between the two superpowers. Negotiations and discussions were conducted face-to-face, through telegrams and even over shortwave radio broadcasts. Hours would drag by as one party or another would wait for a reply to a proposal to end the crisis. ........The most tense day of the crisis was Saturday, October 27, and involved two incidents with the long-range surveillance aircraft used by the United States, the U-2. The first was when a U-2 on an air-sampling mission strayed into Soviet air space and was chased away by Soviet fighter aircraft. Horrified American officials thought that the Soviets -- rightfully so -- might have thought the aircraft was on a last-minute surveillance mission before the onset of a nuclear strike. ........The second incident was when a U-2 flying over Cuba was shot down by a surface-to-air missile (SAM) and its pilot killed. Some days earlier, a contingency plan had been established where retaliatory airstrikes would be launched against a SAM site in Cuba if it had downed an American aircraft. Planning was underway for this airstrike on the afternoon of Saturday, October 27, when orders were frantically given to the Air Force by the White House, canceling the air strikes. ........The next day, October 28, 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev publicly announced that in exchange for a pledge from the United States never to invade Cuba, the missiles would be dismantled and removed from Cuba. The Soviets had also received private assurances from the United States that American nuclear missiles in Turkey -- adjacent to the Soviet Union -- would eventually be removed. The Cuban missile crisis had ended. ........But what would have happened if there had never been a "next day"? ........In RESURRECTION DAY, the air strikes set for the SAM site occur as planned. And as in most wars, events take on a life of their own. More air attacks occur, negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union break off, and the bombings of the nuclear missile sites occur, followed by the planned American invasion. ........Yet it was only in 1992 that it was revealed publicly that the Soviet forces in Cuba had short-range tactical nuclear weapons, designed to be used on invading U.S. forces. ........Imagine the horrors of an American landing force, obliterated by Soviet nuclear weapons. Imagine the pressure on an American president, to respond in kind. And imagine the response of a Soviet premier, under attack by American nuclear weapons. Imagine what the world would be like after such a war in 1962: the Soviet Union destroyed, the United States shattered and under martial law, millions dead, the hopes and promises of the 1960's and great social changes forver gone. Imagine a place ten years later where the real truth of the war has been hidden for years, and where people continue to kill to keep this deadly secret. ........Just imagine RESURRECTION DAY. |
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