Well, it’s only his Wikipedia entry, but that claims Power was a source of inspiration for the character in Dr. Strangelove (not the book). Not sure about the veracity of that claim, but I believe it’s well accepted that George C. Scott’s character in the film was inspired by Curtis LeMay.
I tend to give some credence to Power being an inspiration on the film from accounts of people who were in SAC with him. He was said to be a scary person. All hearsay, of course, but I think there’s something to it.
Apparently the general’s papers are at Syracuse University. Wonder if they’ll let me drop in and look through his stuff?
Some scholars have suggested that Gromyko actually might not have known about the deployment, purposefully not having been told by Khrushchev or the Soviet military, so that he could more credibly mislead the Americans.
Archives and university libraries that hold papers are open to all researchers that come by, generally. The crux of the question is, then, who’s a researcher? Professional academics and students at a college or university are granted admission, usually, but who else does depends on the specific institution.
Syracuse University says its special collections are open to: “Syracuse University students, faculty, staff, and other scholars…” The Thomas Powers Papers have no special restrictions for access. In practical terms, this means you have to get yourself to the library and request access from the staff. Policies differ from institution to institution, but they may ask what you’re researching and why you need the access. I’m guessing they would probably react negatively to: “I was just in the neighborhood and was wondering if he really was as much of a nutcase as General Ripper.”
I will say that if that’s what your interest is, it is doubtful you’ll find anything there. As a matter of fact, it’s doubtful you’ll find anything of any interest at all. The abstract of the collection describes it as:
From experience, looking through this type of material is very, very boring. Unless you have a hypothesis you are looking to confirm or have some other idea of what you’re looking for, you’re going to find it worthless. It’s listed a 17.5 linear feet of papers – imagine a stack of office paper almost two stories tall. That’s a very large haystack to look through for your needle without some idea of how to narrow it down.
I just saw this show on the Military Channel. It is called Defcon 2: The Cuban Missle Crisis. It was on today 12-19-2009. They usually repeat so check your schedule. Answers most of the questions in this thread.
Having the “opportunity to defuse Cold war tensions” presupposes that that opportunity existed in the first place. I see no evidence of this. This confrontation began when the Soviet Union “reached” by placing nuclear weapons in Cuba. Then Kennedy responded forcefully to that. I don’t see any evidence that there was any type of opportunity to thaw the cold war in 1962, barely a year after the Berlin wall (the barbed wire portion) was started.
Actually, the causal chain of events that led up to the Cuban Missile Crisis began when the United States placed IRBMs in Turkey and Italy that were capable of reaching Moscow within about half an hour of launch. This forced Khrushchev to demonstrate to the policy hardliners and military (with whom he was already having difficulties stemming from destalinization and economic reforms that were at odds with Leninist-Marxist dogma) that he could respond in kind, hence, the placement of missiles in Cuba, which was the only comparable installation. Although the Soviet Union did have an ICBM at this point, the R-7 (NATO reporting name SS-6 ‘Sapwood’, GRAU index 8K71), calling it “deployed” would be charitable at best; the vehicle was stored in vulnerable semi-hardened aboveground shelters from which it had to be erected and fueled, a process that took several hours. And the Soviet Union never fielded more than a dozen of these at any given time.
Prior to his removal in a bloodless coup, Khrushchev (who was well aware that the Soviet economic and agricultural systems were failing despite the doctored numbers to the contrary) was attempting sweeping economic reforms and political liberalization, including an open denouncement of the excesses of the Stalin era and rapprochement with the nations of the West. He wasn’t attempting to institute democracy or any system of free representation, mind you, but the dissolution of Cominform, a wide-scale release of political prisoners, a reduced dependence upon the forced labor economy of the GULAG system and arbitrary arrest and trial to support the system, a state visit and economic exchange agreements with Western nations, and general liberalization of constraints over the East Bloc states following the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (including the quiet retirement and tacit support for removing hardline elements from the Stalin era) all indicated a thawing of Cold War tensions. However, the loss of face, especially internally, due to the way the Cuban Missile Crisis came out no doubt contributed to Khrushchev’s home troubles, and his increasing erratic behavior as his reforms failed to produce the desired results (though they no doubt did go along way to extending the viability of the Soviet economy) resulting in his removal from power and replacement by Brezhnev, who if not properly a communist hardliner himself was certainly in the sway of Stalinist elements. His first official act was essentially to denounces the reforms and disavowal of Stalin, underscoring an essential return to the silent political and military stalemate of the Stalin era.
One that that the West failed to appreciate or even understand about the Soviet Union is that nearly every strategic decision–including the take over and control of the East Bloc states–was not based upon any Marxist expansion or world revolution dogma, but the deep cultural fear that Russians have about being invaded. Russia is a nation that has been invaded regularly and brutally throughout its history, and looking at the actions of the Soviet leadership throughout the post-WWII and Cold War era gives a lot of clarity to an otherwise inconsistent policy of expansion and control. Keeping the West (and China, who is also a cultural and historical nemesis of Russia) involved and engaged in Western and Southeast Asia, limiting the manpower available to engage in invasion or incursion from Western Europe or Mongolia makes a hell of a lot more sense than supporting regimes that were Communist in name only for the sake of of Marxist brotherhood. It is worth considering, too, that Russia played essentially no role in the colonization of the 18th and 19th Centuries. While other European nations were attempting to colonize and exploit resources in the Americas, Africa, and South Asia, Russia was embroiled in internal politics and threats from without. As a result, they had no external resources and strategic bases of consequence, and were cut off from the kind of globe-hopping adventurism and wealth that the United States and the nations of Western Europe had (although these obviously came with their own problems, as both the French and British discovered as their once wide-spanning empires unraveled.) What seemed like defense and containment to us was interpreted as aggression and encirclement to a largely landlocked and resource-poor Russia.
“Resource-poor Russia”? Russia is not generally thought of as lacking in resources. That many of its resources are difficult to access is true, but they had plenty of the raw materials for industrial might - iron, coal, oil, natural gas, etc. Imperial Russia’s problem was never getting stuff out of the ground – it was the decrepit and thoroughly corrupt imperial government’s inability to organize just about anything well.
The characterization of Russia as “landlocked,” however, is spot-on. Obtaining access to an open warm-water port has been a consistent strategic obsession from the days of Peter the Great through the Soviet Era to today. The Kola Peninsula and Baltic ports ice over in winter and the Crimean ports are locked in behind the Dardanelles. The best options they managed were Vladivostok dangling at the end of the Trans-Siberian RR and Port Arthur in China which was also far from Russia’s industrial heart.
The problem with Russia is that the resources are often difficult to access, found in regions with a lot of ethnic strife, and the nation has been (both historically and in the present day) unable to extract or efficiently use those resources, as you state. Russia has had access to a lot of precious natural resources, including uranium, titanium, nickel, and rare earths, and has sold these for hard cash on the open market.
I’ve just been skimming Michael Dobbs’ book “One Minute to Midnight”. Here’s what he says:
*“Contrary to some later accounts, Pentagon records show that Power was acting on presidential authority when he took his forces to DEFCON 2. But his decision to address commanders over open communications channels was unauthorized and highly unusual. As Power expected, the message was promptly intercepted by Soviet military intelligence. It was received loud and clear in Moscow”. *
My conclusion: Power was trying to provoke a situation in which a nuclear exchange was likely.
Corollary conclusion: He was both insubordinate and f–ing crazy.