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Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Jaime Suchlicki
Forty-seven years ago, in the autumn of 1962, the Soviet Union surreptitiously
introduced nuclear missiles into Cuba . A surprised, embarrassed and angry
President John F. Kennedy instituted a blockade of the island and after eleven
tense days the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles.
The crisis which brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust--the
missiles of October--helped, among other things, to shape the perceptions of
American foreign policy leaders toward the Soviet threat and the world. Some of
the lessons of that crisis are still with us today.
The first lesson was that there is no substitute for alert and quality
intelligence. The United States was surprised by the Soviet gamble, and not
until the missiles were in the island and U.S. spy planes had photographed them
did the While House discover the magnitude of the challenge and the peril that
they represented to U.S. security. While Cubans on the island reported
suspicious movement of missiles, U.S. intelligence failed to warn the Kennedy
administration in advance of Soviet plans or objectives.
The second lesson was a heightened awareness about the dangers of nuclear
weapons. Following the crisis, the United States , the Soviet Union and most
countries of the world signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A direct
telephone line was installed for communication between the U.S. President and
the Soviet leader, and U.S. withdrawal of some missiles from Turkey and
elsewhere followed.
The third lesson was in management of crises. President Kennedy’s careful moves
during those tense 11 days averted a nuclear confrontation. While some in this
country advocated an invasion of Cuba and the end of the Castro regime, the
president preferred a blockade, and diplomacy and negotiation with the Kremlin.
As we have learned since, Castro called on Khrushchev to launch the missiles
from Cuba against the United States , an action that would have surely forced a
counter-launch not only against Cuba but also the Soviet Union , causing a major
world catastrophe.
The fourth lesson is that weakness on the part of the American leadership, or
perception of weakness by enemies of this country, usually encourages those
enemies to take daring and reckless actions. The single most important event
encouraging and accelerating Soviet involvement in Cuba was the Bay of Pigs
fiasco in 1961. The U.S. failure to act decisively against Castro gave the
Soviets illusions about U.S. determination and interest in the island. The
Kremlin leaders now perceived that further economic and even military
involvement in Cuba would not entail any danger to the Soviet Union itself and
would not seriously jeopardize U.S.-Soviet relations. This view was further
reinforced by President Kennedy’s apologetic attitude concerning the Bay of Pigs
invasion and his generally weak performance during his summit meeting with
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in June of 1961.
The final and perhaps most important lesson is that there are anti-American
leaders in the world willing to risk the destruction of their countries to
fulfill their political ambitions. Castro and Khrushchev belonged to this
group--the former because of his Anti-American hatred and his ambition to play a
power role beyond the capabilities of his small island, and the latter because
of his desire to overcome the U.S. strategic advantage and change the balance of
power in the world. Both were willing to take actions that endangered their
people as well as the world.
Dangerous and daring leaders, enemies of the United States , remain today in and
out of power in many countries. The actions of Castro and Khrushchev in 1962
should give us pause, but little comfort. Not only are nuclear weapons still
around, but more ominous chemical and biological weapons have been developed
since the missile crisis. The lessons of that crisis and the danger of a
difficult world are still with us.
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* Jaime Suchlicki is Professor and Director, Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies, University of Miami . He is the author of Cuba: From
Columbus to Castro, now in its fifth edition; Mexico: From Montezuma to NAFTA,
now in its second edition and the recently published Breve Historia de Cuba.
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