Following the armed invasion of Cuba by a force of U.S.-trained Cuban exiles in April 1961 (Bay of Pigs), Washington's imposition of an economic blockade on Cuba, and other US actions widely seen as threats to the regime of Fidel Castro, Havana turned to the USSR for help in laying down a protective "screen" against possible U.S. intervention. Khrushchev, supported by Defense Minister Malinovsky, called for stationing Soviet intermediate-range missiles on the island. This was a response not only to the perceived U.S. threat to Cuba, but also to the stationing of intermediate-range missiles in Europe (in Britain, Italy, and Turkey).
To "equalize" the threat to the USSR posed by the U.S. missiles in Europe, Moscow decided to install R-12 intermediate-range missiles in Cuba that were capable of hitting targets in the United States at a distance of up to 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles). The Soviets also began preparing an operation to send troops and Air Force and Air Defense units. A total of 40,000 Soviet officers and men and 42 R-12 missiles - plus 20 nuclear warheads for the missiles - were ultimately stationed on the island. Not surprisingly, the Soviets also implemented maskirovka (camouflage concealment) measures, but the deployment of combat equipment and troop contingents on such a large scale proved impossible to conceal.
The United States, in response, activated monitoring and intelligence collection systems. Prominent among these were U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, which began taking aerial photography of Cuban territory.
On 22 October 1962, President Kennedy announced the establishment of a naval blockade or "quarantine" of Cuba. The U.S. sent 183 naval ships into the Caribbean. Ship commanders received instructions to search cargo vessels headed for the island - a violation of the rules of international law. Soviet vessels, meanwhile, were proceeding to Cuba as well. The U.S. warships stood in their path. Tensions heightened. A common understanding existed on both sides that something irreparable could happen at any time.
|
President Kennedy's Address to the Nation, October 22, 1962 
|
The crisis reached its apogee on 27 October when the Soviets shot down a U-2 piloted by Major Rudolph Anderson while he was photographing missile positions in Cuba. (Major Anderson was fatally injured.) According to a Soviet Major General who worked for the commander of Soviet forces on the island, the decision to destroy the aircraft was made by Lieutenant General S. Grechko, who was at an Air Defense command post in Cuba. Grechko had first tried - unsuccessfully - to reach his superiors by phone, presumably to consult with them before taking action against the U-2.
Shortly after Major Anderson's U-2 was downed, a message came from Moscow to its forces in Cuba, consisting of two sentences: "You were hasty. Ways of settlement have been outlined . . ." In fact, the risk of escalation had been enormous. Soon after the shootdown, for example, the Defense Department proposed that the U.S. immediately mount a strike against Cuba. President Kennedy rebuffed the proposal.
Reports from the field, including those from the air defense units in Cuba, grew more alarming each day. Immediately after President Kennedy's announcement on 22 October, the number of U.S. strategic bombers on airborne alert began to grow menacingly. Intelligence of all kinds was being produced and used with maximum intensity. Then, on the night of 27-28 October, President Kennedy's proposal for a withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for a guarantee of U.S. non-intervention in the island's internal affairs was discussed, and a settlement was soon announced by Kennedy and Khrushchev, bringing sighs of relief on both sides.
