Cuban Missile Crisis

[bookaholic]

I'm reading about JFK and wanted to know about the Cuban Missile Crisis but I can't seem to find anything on it that isn't very long and way more involved than I need to know. I just need a simple (if possible) explanation of it. Particularly info regarding the loss of life because of a time zone miscalculation.
Thanx

[Senegoid]

Off the top of my head, here's an anecdote or two.

You might find maps showing Cuba and the eastern United States, with concentric circles drawn on it centered on Cuba. The circles are marked in hours, meaning how many hours it would take a missle from Cuba to reach various places. I think Wash. D.C. was around the 3-hour circle, or so. NO WAY would a missile ever come anywhere even close to the West Coast.

Yet there was panic even in Los Angeles. People were buying back-yard bomb shelters. A neighbor on our block got one installed.

I was in 5th grade at the time. My mother came home from shopping one day and announced that the shelves at the supermarket were BARE. People were panic buying.

My father claimed right from the start that it was all a big dust-up over nothing. He claimed that there was no way Khrushchev would ever go to war over a little rock out in the Caribbean. Apparently, he called it right. Kennedy threw up a naval blockade around Cuba, and Khrushchev backed down.

Many years later, I came across some article about it, which described the whole incident as "The Biggest Cold War Crisis that Almost Was".

[Senegoid]

Well, here's a link, titled "An Overview of the Crisis"
http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/days/index.html
So if you're looking for a brief summary, maybe this is a good starting point.

ETA: There's much more to this site too besides this home page -- Links to additional pages with more detail, if you want to read more.

[friedo]

My father claimed right from the start that it was all a big dust-up over nothing. He claimed that there was no way Khrushchev would ever go to war over a little rock out in the Caribbean. Apparently, he called it right. Kennedy threw up a naval blockade around Cuba, and Khrushchev backed down.


While the public was worried (probably a little too much) about Cuba, the government was mostly thinking about Germany. Many in the administration were convinced that if Kennedy blockaded Cuba, the Soviets would retaliate by cutting off Berlin. Then NATO would oblige the US to beef up forces in Western Europe, which would eventually lead to a direct confrontation with the Eastern Bloc.

Cuba was the flashpoint, but the crisis was primarily about Europe.

[Boyo Jim]

...You might find maps showing Cuba and the eastern United States, with concentric circles drawn on it centered on Cuba. The circles are marked in hours, meaning how many hours it would take a missle from Cuba to reach various places. I think Wash. D.C. was around the 3-hour circle, or so....

I don't know what maps you're referring to, but this is flat out wrong. The Cubans had ballistic missiles, which travel at thousands of miles per hour. Flight time would have been minutes, not hours. Distance from Havana to DC is roughly 1100 miles, so maybe... 20 minutes or so? The height of the arc would make a significant distance in the travel time.

[Boyo Jim]

I'm reading about JFK and wanted to know about the Cuban Missile Crisis but I can't seem to find anything on it that isn't very long and way more involved than I need to know. I just need a simple (if possible) explanation of it. Particularly info regarding the loss of life because of a time zone miscalculation.
Thanx

What kind of "time zone miscalculation" are you talking about? I have never read or seen anything close to this phrase used in an explanation of this event. I'm also not aware of any deadlines place on demands made by either side, which is the only kind of thing I can think of related to time. There was an blockade, which was related to distance -- how close the US Navy would allow Russian supply ships to get to Cuba without challenge.

[633squadron]

I'm reading about JFK and wanted to know about the Cuban Missile Crisis but I can't seem to find anything on it that isn't very long and way more involved than I need to know. I just need a simple (if possible) explanation of it. Particularly info regarding the loss of life because of a time zone miscalculation.
Thanx

Don't know anything about a loss of life because of a time zone miscalculation.

The crisis started when the USAF discovered from recon photos that the Cubans seemed to be installing ballistic missiles of a type that were known to be nuclear-capable. Further recon flights counted the number of installed sites.

The Kennedy administration responded by reporting the situation to the UN Security Council, and by declaring a quarantine around Cuba for vessels containing ballistic missiles or parts. The word "quarantine" allowed the US to sidestep the issue of declaring war on Cuba; declaring an "embargo" or "blockade" could have, in international law, been construed as a hostile action.

It was, of course, the Soviet Union that was bringing in the missiles. Castro had been pushing Kruschev for support, especially after the Bay of Pigs incident, and Kruschev himself was eager to push hard at the US. The Soviets also argued that having missiles in Cuba was just a response to the US having installed missiles in Turkey.

The quarantine and the Security Council discussion called the bluff of the Soviet Union. While the USAF (and Curt LeMay in particular) wanted to duke it out bomb-wise with the USSR, Kennedy just wanted the missiles out. Kruschev backed down rather than risk war. The US secretly assured the USSR that the missiles in Turkey would be removed, since Kennedy wanted them out anyway.

The incident actually killed Kruschev's career. The Politburo had always thought he was too excitable and unpredictable, and the crisis "proved" it. Within a year they'd pushed him aside.

Some other random notes:
One U-2 pilot flying recon was killed when his plane was hit by a SAM. Yet again, the Soviets proved that they had AA capabilities that outdid the supposedly "invulnerable" U-2.
Washington, DC was supposedly within range of the missiles. I was 9 years old at the time, living in the DC suburbs. I remember that we had "duck and cover" drills every day for a week, and even planned to have a drill where we'd be sent home from school. Fortunately, nothing happened; otherwise, someday an archaeologist would have found a line of black spots of tar along the base of some ancient, buried wall... :)

[Gary T]

Particularly info regarding the loss of life because of a time zone miscalculation.Sounds like you're thinking of the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was a precursor to the Missile Crisis. There were many missteps in that operation, including a lack of air support due to ignorance of a time zone difference that led to the death of four U.S. airmen.

Overview/summary of Bay of Pigs invasion. (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1765.html) Text just above 2nd photo tells of deaths mentioned above.

Specific mention of time zone mistake (scroll down to 6th paragraph). (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/bayofpigs/)

[bookaholic]

Thank you, my people.
633squadron seems to have gotten it down pat. I think I have things confused with the 'Bay of Pigs' sitch as far as the time zone, but the book stated that JFK was so upset about the CMC that it made him ill, and that there was a significant loss of life because of it. HMMMM....

[MEBuckner]

You might find maps showing Cuba and the eastern United States, with concentric circles drawn on it centered on Cuba. The circles are marked in hours, meaning how many hours it would take a missle from Cuba to reach various places. I think Wash. D.C. was around the 3-hour circle, or so. NO WAY would a missile ever come anywhere even close to the West Coast.

Yet there was panic even in Los Angeles. People were buying back-yard bomb shelters. A neighbor on our block got one installed.
If a nuclear missile had been launched from Cuba and hit Washington, DC, it's not like the whole thing would have just stopped there. Presumably World War III would have broken out at that point, and the Soviets would be doing their best to nuke everything from Maine to San Diego--obviously not all by way of Cuba, but with other longer-range missiles and with bombers and so forth--and the U.S. would be doing the same for everything from Leningrad to Vladivostok. And (one side or the other) Western and Eastern Europe, and Japan, and the Koreas, and maybe China too.

[Roderick Femm]

I agree with MEBuckner, I lived on the west coast at the time (I was 13 or so) and what we were worried about was not being hit by a missile from Cuba, but the start of global thermonuclear war (would you like to play a game?).

I recall being rather fatalistic about things at the time, thinking that I would rather be killed in the first strike than attempt to live through the aftermath. This might have been a rationalization for the fact that we were too poor to have a bomb shelter. I didn't know anyone who had a bomb shelter, by the way.


Roddy

[Trinopus]

I wish I had a cite for this, but I guess it qualifies as a general question... I remember, not too long ago, there was a retrospective conference on the CMC, with old Soviet and U.S. cold warriors all talking about what happened, and bringing out until-then secret records, etc.

Someone said that the conference involved a lot of people turning very gray and saying, "My God, you did what? We had no idea..." The notion was that the world came *much closer* to war than anyone had known at the time...

Is there any validity to this...or is it even a meaningful question? (How do you measure "probability" of an unique event?)

[Mangosteen]

Don't know anything about a loss of life because of a time zone miscalculation.

The crisis started when the USAF discovered from recon photos that the Cubans seemed to be installing ballistic missiles of a type that were known to be nuclear-capable. Further recon flights counted the number of installed sites.

The Kennedy administration responded by reporting the situation to the UN Security Council, and by declaring a quarantine around Cuba for vessels containing ballistic missiles or parts. The word "quarantine" allowed the US to sidestep the issue of declaring war on Cuba; declaring an "embargo" or "blockade" could have, in international law, been construed as a hostile action.

It was, of course, the Soviet Union that was bringing in the missiles. Castro had been pushing Kruschev for support, especially after the Bay of Pigs incident, and Kruschev himself was eager to push hard at the US. The Soviets also argued that having missiles in Cuba was just a response to the US having installed missiles in Turkey.

The quarantine and the Security Council discussion called the bluff of the Soviet Union. While the USAF (and Curt LeMay in particular) wanted to duke it out bomb-wise with the USSR, Kennedy just wanted the missiles out. Kruschev backed down rather than risk war. The US secretly assured the USSR that the missiles in Turkey would be removed, since Kennedy wanted them out anyway.

The incident actually killed Kruschev's career. The Politburo had always thought he was too excitable and unpredictable, and the crisis "proved" it. Within a year they'd pushed him aside.

Some other random notes:
One U-2 pilot flying recon was killed when his plane was hit by a SAM. Yet again, the Soviets proved that they had AA capabilities that outdid the supposedly "invulnerable" U-2.
Washington, DC was supposedly within range of the missiles. I was 9 years old at the time, living in the DC suburbs. I remember that we had "duck and cover" drills every day for a week, and even planned to have a drill where we'd be sent home from school. Fortunately, nothing happened; otherwise, someday an archaeologist would have found a line of black spots of tar along the base of some ancient, buried wall... :)

The crisis really started when the US parked some Jupiter missiles in Turkey, not far from the USSR border.

[SanDiegoTim]

I can't comment on all its detail/accuracy, but I thought the movie "Thirteen Days" did a pretty good job of documenting the CMC.

[Senegoid]

I don't know what maps you're referring to, but this is flat out wrong. The Cubans had ballistic missiles, which travel at thousands of miles per hour. Flight time would have been minutes, not hours. Distance from Havana to DC is roughly 1100 miles, so maybe... 20 minutes or so? The height of the arc would make a significant distance in the travel time.

Okay, mea goofa. I definitely remember seeing such maps, but I confess I was thoroughly unsure what the time frames were. Now I think I might have just pulled that 3-hours out of my ass. Still, no way they were going to blow Los Angeles away, but people were panic-buying even there.

[rbroome]

I wish I had a cite for this, but I guess it qualifies as a general question... I remember, not too long ago, there was a retrospective conference on the CMC, with old Soviet and U.S. cold warriors all talking about what happened, and bringing out until-then secret records, etc.

Someone said that the conference involved a lot of people turning very gray and saying, "My God, you did what? We had no idea..." The notion was that the world came *much closer* to war than anyone had known at the time...

Is there any validity to this...or is it even a meaningful question? (How do you measure "probability" of an unique event?)

I remember the same thing. There were several surprises from that conference. If I remember correctly, one big one was that the Kremlin had turned operational control of the nuclear missles over the the Russian military in Cuba. The Kremlin figured they would be out of communication if war was starting. The Cubans pushed hard for the local commander to launch right away. The compromise was that the missles would be fired as soon as the first conventional attack by the US. Washington didn't realize that the crisis came down to one or two Russian military officers, surrounded in a strange country with the local hosts demanding action. They thought missle control was still held in the Kremlin.

[Johnny Q]

While the public was worried (probably a little too much) about Cuba, the government was mostly thinking about Germany. Many in the administration were convinced that if Kennedy blockaded Cuba, the Soviets would retaliate by cutting off Berlin. Then NATO would oblige the US to beef up forces in Western Europe, which would eventually lead to a direct confrontation with the Eastern Bloc.

Cuba was the flashpoint, but the crisis was primarily about Europe.

Berlin was a different but related game. If this account is accurate, (http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/high_noon_friedrichstrasse_rise_fall_berlin_wall) it was just as touchy and full of bull moves and bluffing.

[rbroome]

I'm reading about JFK and wanted to know about the Cuban Missile Crisis but I can't seem to find anything on it that isn't very long and way more involved than I need to know. I just need a simple (if possible) explanation of it. Particularly info regarding the loss of life because of a time zone miscalculation.
Thanx

I googled around and found this:
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002_11/cubanmissile

October 27, 1962. The most dangerous day in human history.
I was 10. On that day I had a less than 10% chance of living to 11.

[Rich G7subs]

Many years later, I came across some article about it, which described the whole incident as "The Biggest Cold War Crisis that Almost Was".

I believe there was an event in late 1983 where we even came closer to war! I'll have to research it a bit but here's what I know.

Reagan came out with his "Stars Wars" SDI missile defense system and basically took a stance that the Soviets wanted war and we were ready for it. He called the USSR "The evil Empire". That really torqued the Russkies. They thought the US was trying to provoke them.

The Soviets then "accidentally" shotdown a Korean airlines civilian jetliner that they "thought" was a US spy plane.

The US responded by launching war games (testing of ALL the communication gear, etc) in Eastern Europe which the Soviet's thought was a massive troop build up on their borders in preparation for a ground assault. Apparently the USSR came within minutes of launching their missiles.

[Senegoid]

I believe there was an event in late 1983 where we even came closer to war! I'll have to research it a bit but here's what I know.

You're thinking of Korean Air Lines Flight KAL-007, shot down on Sept. 1, 1983.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAL_007

[bookaholic]

'Thirteen Days'....of course. Good idea.
I guess the big K was very agonized by this whole thing. He was the last pres whom I thought actually had some integrity to him. I'm probably wrong.

[Morgenstern]

My father was a USMC officer on active duty at the time. I was pretty young, but I remember knowing something was going on when he did not return home one day. Even my mother did not know where he was, other than that he was still on base. This happened before Kennedy announced the crises to the country. IIRC, it was several days before we saw him again.

So, from the military's point of view, it was a very serious situation and they were prepared to meet it.

[Senegoid]

'Thirteen Days'....of course. Good idea.
I guess the big K was very agonized by this whole thing. He was the last pres whom I thought actually had some integrity to him. I'm probably wrong.

Gotta be careful using big K like this. Kennedy was always referred to as "JFK" in the press. The letter K by itself commonly referred to Khrushchev.

[handsomeharry]

'Thirteen Days'....of course. Good idea.
I guess the big K was very agonized by this whole thing. He was the last pres whom I thought actually had some integrity to him. I'm probably wrong.

Not trying to get into a oneupmanship in re Missile Crisis movies, but "The Missiles of October" is one kickbutt movie. I liked it better than 13 Days. YMMV>

[md2000]

You're thinking of Korean Air Lines Flight KAL-007, shot down on Sept. 1, 1983.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAL_007

This flight did accidentally(?) stray into Soviet airspace over a sensitive area so they had a pausible excuse to shoot it down. One version I read said that it was mistaken for a US AWAC-type electronic spy plane, and the Soviets thought "aha! Finally we have a valid excuse to teach those USAF/CIA guys a lesson!" Other claims said the pilots should have been able to tell the aircraft type by markings and windows (and a 747 from a 707?), it was deliberate; others say they attacked from below and the rear from quite a distance so as to not get showered with debris and would not have seen clearly, etc.

Conspiracy types will argue that the navigation "error" was deliberate, some still think it had spy equipment on board too, etc.

Oddly, there was an identical problem a few years before where a KAL(?) jet from northern europe got navigationally confused and did a 180 near the pole, and ended up being forced down on a frozen lake in northern Russia. Not as big a deal was made of it, because most of the passengers survived.

[kenobi 65]

Conspiracy types will argue that the navigation "error" was deliberate, some still think it had spy equipment on board too, etc.


Not to mention the fact that a flight numbered "007" *must* be on a spy mission!

[Dallas Jones]

I believe there was an event in late 1983 where we even came closer to war! I'll have to research it a bit but here's what I know.

Reagan came out with his "Stars Wars" SDI missile defense system and basically took a stance that the Soviets wanted war and we were ready for it. He called the USSR "The evil Empire". That really torqued the Russkies. They thought the US was trying to provoke them.

The Soviets then "accidentally" shotdown a Korean airlines civilian jetliner that they "thought" was a US spy plane.

The US responded by launching war games (testing of ALL the communication gear, etc) in Eastern Europe which the Soviet's thought was a massive troop build up on their borders in preparation for a ground assault. Apparently the USSR came within minutes of launching their missiles.

The war games you are thinking of was exercise Able Archer. It was going on at the same time that the Soviet Union was running it's own nuclear war predictive program called RYAN. All of the pieces that RYAN used to predict a first strike by the US on the Soviet Union were falling into place and some were convinced that Able Archer was a cover for a first strike by the US on the Soviet Union.

During this same period Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet missile commander was on watch when their missile warning system alerted that the US had launched missiles. He kept resetting the computer and did not launch a response. He was correct as the missile launches were really reflection off high level clouds that had been picked up by Soviet early warning systems. As a reward for saving the entire fucking world he was demoted.

The Wiki link covers most of the issues of the time and the You Tube link is to a very good documentary of the time. "1983 The Brink of the Apocalypse." 90 minutes but well worth the time.

Later revelations of these incidents changed the mind of President Reagan who had earlier referred to the USSR as an 'Evil Empire'. He and his advisors realized that they needed to open dialog with the USSR because the fear level was too high and the communication too low.

This eventually led to the end of the cold war and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Very good reading and viewing in these links.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled Cuban Missile Crisis thread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kTnXqfT1Mk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

[handsomeharry]

Not to mention the fact that a flight numbered "007" *must* be on a spy mission!

Oh, it was even better than that. The President of the John Birch Society (extreme anti-Commie) was on the plane. 007, JBS President...what's not to love?

[Senegoid]

Oh, it was even better than that. The President of the John Birch Society (extreme anti-Commie) was on the plane. 007, JBS President...what's not to love?

That extreme anti-commie JBP prez also happened to be a U. S. Congressman.

Still, I agree with your sentiment, harry -- I can just tell there's a mod note in your near future, which is why I didn't write the above first. :eek:

[Elendil's Heir]

If you want to learn more about the Cuban Missile Crisis:

A short and interesting (if somewhat biased) account by an insider, the President's brother:
http://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Days-Memoir-Missile-Crisis/dp/0393318346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332034146&sr=8-1

A much more detailed, process-oriented discussion of JFK's calm, skillful handling of the situation:
http://www.amazon.com/Essence-Decision-Explaining-Missile-Edition/dp/0321013492/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332034194&sr=1-1

A good account by a British historian, putting the Crisis in context with all of the other foreign policy headaches JFK had to deal with during his White House years:
http://www.amazon.com/Kennedys-Wars-Berlin-Cuba-Vietnam/dp/0195152433/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332034280&sr=1-1

[handsomeharry]

That extreme anti-commie JBP prez also happened to be a U. S. Congressman.

Still, I agree with your sentiment, harry -- I can just tell there's a mod note in your near future, which is why I didn't write the above first. :eek:

;)

[handsomeharry]

As a reward for saving the entire fucking world he was demoted.
[/url]

This is an injustice?

[md2000]

During this same period Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet missile commander was on watch when their missile warning system alerted that the US had launched missiles. He kept resetting the computer and did not launch a response. He was correct as the missile launches were really reflection off high level clouds that had been picked up by Soviet early warning systems. As a reward for saving the entire fucking world he was demoted.


This is an injustice?

Maybe he was well aware of the reliability of the computer.

(Maybe it was running an early version of Windows).