THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST

REPUBLICS AND THE WARSAW PACT

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

TABLE OF CONTENTS Dais Overview

Background Setting Warsaw Pact Important Figures

Кризис!: Cuban Missile Crisis Background Berlin Ultimatum and European Integration The Nuclear Arms Race Battle for Influence over the Third World Premiership of Khrushchev Cuban Revolution and the Bay of Pigs Invasion Berlin Crisis of 1961 Cuban Missile Crisis and Khrushchev ouster Balance of Power Recent Developments Questions to Consider

Appendix Timeline of the World (1945 - Present) Maps

Dais Chair: Nur Diana Binti Rodzi Diana is currently in her second semester of her Advanced Level Programme in Sunway College. She has always been interested in political and international issues ever since high school. When Model United Nations was introduced to her early this year and was immediately captivated. She has been actively participated in conferences as a delegate. In her first conference, she participated as a delegate in the League of Nations during KYSISMUN which sparked her love for historical councils. Recently she has participated in SingaporeMUN 2015 that was held in the National University of Singapore as a delegate in the Historical Security Council which has intensified her love for historical councils. She has also been part of the secretariat for her college’s own inaugural conference, SUNMUN 2015, that was held this past June. CGSMUN 2015 would be her first time being on the dais and she hopes that her past experiences would be beneficial to the dynamics of the debate. Apart from being involved in MUNs, she spends her time keeping up to date with her YouTube subscriptions. She also helps out at the campus Animal House, from feeding the animals to cleaning their enclosures. She aspires to be a Veterinarian one day and hopes to have a Charity to help animals worldwide. Co-Chair: Ahmad Hariz Bin Zahidi Cempakan fifth-former Ahmad Hariz bin Zahidi started participating in MUN since November 2014 and has participated in six conferences, locally (Cempaka MUN, Kolej Yayasan Saad International School MUN, Asia Pacific University MUN, Malaysian National MUN, Taylor’s College Sri Hartamas MUN) and in Singapore (Yale-NUS Asia Pacific MUN), and has won several awards (Best Delegate and Honorable Mention). Hariz is a pioneer Axiata Young Talent Programme scholar, and enjoys photography, travelling (18 countries), fencing, guitar, history and political science, and international relations. Hariz also had the opportunity to study in Manchester for over a year. With his background, he hopes to utilise his experience and to facilitate constructive debate in the committee. Hariz aspires to pursue a career in the Foreign Service.

Overview Background Zdravstvujtye, comrades. It is the autumn of 1962, and one false step away from nuclear winter. The capitalist tyrants of the West once again threaten our existence and have put the lives of our toiling and hardworking proletariat masses across the wide berth of our Motherland in jeopardy. Challenging the dominance of the legacy of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, and in contrast to our nature as a peace-loving union of socialist republics, the imperialist pigs of the United States have secretly stationed nuclear ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, poised to strike at the heart of the Soviet Union at a moment’s notice. Across the rippling Atlantic, our steadfast allies in Cuba chafe under the threat of American expansion. The might of the revolution has overcome the clandestine operations of the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs Invasion, and shall no doubt prevail against the American embargo. But the Americans do not seem one bit dissuaded; another invasion seems imminent, and our compatriot Fidel Castro is in dire need of our aid. Cuba is an ocean away, and in the event of all-out war our missiles are not in range to be of any aid except to bring summer to Alaska. This situation presents an opportunity to secure Communist superiority not seen since the fall of Berlin seventeen years prior. Castro and Khrushchev have secretly stationed intermediate-ranged and medium-ranged nuclear ballistic missiles just 90 miles (144.841 km) from Florida, presenting a formidable counter to American machinations. It is not clear how far the Eastern Bloc is willing to go, and what risks it is willing to take, in defense of their stalwart ally Castro before the threat of mutually assured destruction descends upon the horizon. It is clear, however, that the Yankee oligarchs of Wall Street will not rest until all of the free world is in shackles. It is 17 October 1962. At this point of time you must now thrust into action and decide the fate of the world. Shall Lady Liberty have her place usurped by a monument to Lenin twice as large? Shall the Central Committee of the Communist Party reign supreme and unchallenged over a worker’s paradise spanning the world over? Or will you be among cockroaches in a world of glass craters? Only one course remains, however. You, and the proletarian vanguard of the Eastern Bloc, must together steer the course of the free world. At the same time, there is an east wind blowing. Workers of the world, unite!

Setting The purpose of a historical council, more so a crisis committee, is to revisit turning points during a specific historical moment that could have transpired differently, and put delegates in the shoes of historical figures whose decisions and actions may potentially affect or alter the world at large. Hence, all events in history up to midnight 17 October 1962 are understood to have occurred. All events that occur in our timeline after midnight 17 October 1962 are taken to not have happened. All delegates are reminded not to make references to events after the set date in their position papers, speeches, working papers or draft action plans during the conference. For the purposes of this council, events after midnight 17 October 1962 have not happened, and are shaped by the decisions of the committee, creating in effect an alternate timeline. Time in the crisis will move one day per one hour in real time, or at the discretion of the dais. Warsaw Pact While on paper intended to safeguard the peace of Europe under the auspices of the Charter of the United Nations, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, or Warsaw Pact as it was known to the West, came largely as a response vis-a-vis the threat of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), more so with the entry of Western Germany into its ranks nine years after the fall of the Third Reich.

Consisting of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the USSR, this treaty of collective defense, with Soviet military dominance at the helm, stands vigilant at the frontier of the Iron Curtain, ready to defend the sickle and the hammer or surge through the Fulda Gap if any of its member states came under threat, and alternatively turn on itself should any of its member states try to escape the Soviet orbit, as was the case in 1956 Hungary.

While not part of the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union and its allies are aligned with their ideological counterparts of the Eastern Bloc across continents, among others China and North Korea in Asia and Cuba in the Americas.

In response to American aggression in Turkey and Italy, and the stationing of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the Premier of the Soviet Union and his Deputy Chairman, the top brass of the Red Army, the heads of state of China, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and North Korea, as well as the Cuban leaders have convened in Moscow.

Important Figures

Nikita Khrushchev- Premier of the USSR

Anastas Mikoyan- First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers

Rodion Malinovsky- Soviet Defense Minister

Vasily Kuznetsov- First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs

Issa Pliyev- Commander of Soviet troops in Cuba

Georgy Abashvili- Deputy Commander-in-Chief to Issa Pliyev and Naval Commander of Soviet forces in Cuba

Andrei Gromyko- Soviet Foreign Minister

Fidel Castro- Prime Minister of Cuba and First Secretary of the Cuban CCCP

Raul Castro- Minister of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces 

Che Guevara- Argentine revolutionary, Director of Instruction for the Cuban Armed Forces

Kim Il-Sung - Supreme Leader of the DPR of Korea

Todor Zhivkov - Premier of the Bulgarian People’s Republic and General Secretary of the Bulgarian CCCP

Antonin Novotny - President of Czechoslovakia and First Secretary of the KSC

Mao Zedong - Chairman of the People’s Republic of China

 

Кризис!: Cuban Missile Crisis Background The world after the fall of the Third Reich was, to a large extent, divided between two camps: the powers of NATO and their allies on the Western Bloc, and the Warsaw Pact and its allies on the Eastern Bloc. For most it was a conflict of ideology, pitting the principles of capitalism, the free market, liberalism, and democracy against the ideals of Marxism, common ownership, egalitarianism, revolution, and Communism. For others it was a manifestation of the eternal struggle between East and West, between Western Europe and North America against Eastern Europe and Asia. In 1949 Mao Zedong crushed the Kuomintang and seized control in China. The embryonic People’s Republic of China aligned itself with the Eastern Bloc. The flames of revolution, fanned by the successes of the Soviet Union, China, and other such shining examples, set fire to the Third World as Marxists all over the world began rising against their Western or Western-backed governments. While no true war ever occurred between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, scores of conflicts flared up worldwide as proxy wars between the two coalitions. In every theatre in every corner of the world the two polar extremes vied for influence and dominance, and when there were no more theatres to wage war over, they took to the stars; in time the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, and placed the first man in space.

Berlin Ultimatum and European Integration

In 1948 the US, Great Britain, and France began reforming their occupied zones of Germany, which came to be known as West Germany (vs. East Germany, held by the USSR), to prepare it to assume self-governance. Through this process they introduced a new currency that would allow it to participate and compete economically internationally.

However, the USSR did not like the prospect of a currency in Germany that it would not be able to control, and the USSR was concerned about a powerful Germany considering its experience during WWII, having been invaded by Hitler’s forces. West Germany received supplies through routes controlled by the USSR that went through East Germany. The USSR decided to levy its power over these supply routes to implement a blockade against West Germany that would force the western powers, the US, Great Britain, and France, to basically rethink its Germany-recovery strategy.

However, the US and other western powers responded to the Berlin Blockade by airlifting supplies to the people in Western Germany for almost one year. Furthermore, the blockade encouraged the western powers to equip Germany with the economic capabilities needed to ensure that it would not be a victim to communism. They also formed the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, which basically served as a public statement by the nations in NATO against the USSR: an external threat against one nation in NATO was considered a threat against all the nations in NATO. Naturally, the USSR was not in NATO and eventually responded by forming an organization of its own by and for communist nations, the Warsaw Pact (1955).

The Nuclear Arms Race

The atomic bomb used by the US to take out Japan in World War II initiated the nuclear arms race between the US and the USSR. The US possessed a weapon of immeasureable strength that permitted it to take out anyone it pleased at a whim; the USSR did not. And so the USSR began a nuclear weapons development program of its own to match the US and to defend itself from what it saw as the threatening spread of the US’s power. The USSR successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, mere years after the US had first used the atomic bomb.

Americans were shocked that the Soviets were able to decode the nuclear technology so quickly; but a significant amount of information regarding nuclear development was provided via spying. This espionage and the fear of communism prevalent in the US and bolstered by the rhetoric of Congressman Joseph McCarthy contributed to the Red Scare in the 1950’s, in which Americans suspected of spying for the Soviets or having communist sympathies were reported, arrested and/or punished, oftentimes mistakenly.

One such example was J. Robert Oppenheimer, a leading figure in the Manhattan project, who spoke publicly about his concerns of continuing nuclear arms development and the plausibility of a nuclear arms race, in addition to his fears of unleashing a power that could threaten the very safety of the entire world should it be employed. His concerns were misconstrued as Soviet sympathies and he became a victim of the McCarthyism that was taking over the public scene in the US.

The nuclear arms race was but one aspect of the general technology advancement race between the two superpowers, as each nation struggled to surpass the other to claim dominance. The launch of Sputnik by the USSR in 1957 was one such instance that accelerated funding for the US’s own space program.

Battle for Influence over the Third World The first of such conflicts, a Soviet-orchestrated invasion of South Korea in 1950 by North Korea under Kim Il-Sung, drew the intervention of the international community and NATO. In Egypt, both sides battled for dominance of the Suez Canal. Elsewhere, the CIA ousted the legitimate governments of nations such as Iran, Guatemala, and Congo, and attempted to do so in Indonesia and Cuba. Newly independent from the French, Vietnam too devolved into proxy war between the communist North Vietnam of Ho Chi Minh and a pro-Western South Vietnam of Ngo Dinh Diem.

On the nuclear front, the United States and the USSR pursued nuclear rearmament and developed long-range weapons with which they could strike the territory of the other. In August 1957, the Soviets successfully launched the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and in October, launched the first Earth satellite, Sputnik. The launch of Sputnik inaugurated the Space Race. This culminated in the Apollo Moon landings, which astronaut Frank Borman later described as "just a battle in the Cold War."

Premiership of Khrushchev After the death of Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev rose to power, having ousted Stalinist rivals and distanced the Soviet Union from his legacy. The ties between Marxist nations were formalised under the auspices of the Warsaw Pact in 1955. On 18 November 1956, while addressing Western ambassadors, Khrushchev declared, "History is on our side. We will bury you,". Throughout his reign, Khrushchev continued to goad the West with nuclear annihilation. He claimed that Soviet missile capabilities were far superior to those of the United States, capable of reducing any enemy city to ruins, while still committing the USSR to "peaceful coexistence". In this vein, it was believed peace would allow capitalism to collapse on its own and buy time to close the missile gap between the USSR and the US. This was a Soviet Union that had no room for compromise, and it showed when the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, threatening to slip away from USSR orbit, was utterly crushed; thousands were arrested, imprisoned, and deported to the Soviet Union. The brutal reprisal in Hungary set communist unity back for decades, leaving many across Europe disillusioned with the Communist struggle. Yugoslavian statesman Milovan Đilas remarked, "The wound which the Hungarian Revolution inflicted on communism can never be completely healed". It was clear that in the war for hearts and minds, the West became the clear victor, while the war of military superiority remained unresolved.

Cuban Revolution and the Bay of Pigs Invasion

In Cuba, the July 26 Movement seized power in January 1959, toppling President Fulgencio Batista, whose unpopular regime had been denied arms by the Eisenhower administration.

Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States continued for some time after Batista's fall, but President Eisenhower deliberately left the capital to avoid meeting Cuba's young revolutionary leader Fidel Castro during the latter's trip to Washington in April, leaving Vice President Richard Nixon to conduct the meeting in his place. Cuba began negotiating arms purchases from the Eastern Bloc in March 1960.

In January 1961, just prior to leaving office, Eisenhower formally severed relations with the Cuban government. In April 1961, the administration of newly elected American President

John F. Kennedy mounted an unsuccessful CIA-organized ship-borne invasion of the island at Playa Girón and Playa Larga in Las Villas Province—a failure that publicly humiliated the United States. Castro responded by publicly embracing Marxism–Leninism, and the Soviet Union pledged to provide further support.

Berlin Crisis of 1961  

The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was the last major incident in the Cold War regarding the status of Berlin and post–World War II Germany. By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to restricting emigration movement was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc. However, hundreds of thousands of East Germans annually emigrated to West Germany through a "loophole" in the system that existed between East and West Berlin, where the four occupying World War II powers governed movement.

The emigration resulted in a massive "brain drain" from East Germany to West Germany of younger educated professionals, such that nearly 20% of East Germany's population had migrated to West Germany by 1961. That June, the Soviet Union issued a new ultimatum

demanding the withdrawal of Allied forces from West Berlin. The request was rebuffed, and on 13 August, East Germany erected a barbed-wire barrier that would eventually be expanded through construction into the Berlin Wall, effectively closing the loophole. This move remains unpopular domestically and is considered a gaffe, much like Khrushchev’s brandishing of his shoe at the UN General Assembly years earlier.

Cuban Missile Crisis  

Continuing to seek ways to oust Castro following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Kennedy and his administration experimented with various ways of covertly facilitating the overthrow of the Cuban government. Significant hopes were pinned on a covert program named the Cuban Project, devised under the Kennedy administration in 1961.

In February 1962, Khrushchev learned of the American plans regarding Cuba: a "Cuban project"—approved by the CIA and stipulating the overthrow of the Cuban government in October, possibly involving the American military—and yet one more Kennedy-ordered operation to assassinate Castro. Preparations to install Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba were undertaken in response.

Alarmed, Kennedy considered various reactions, and ultimately responded to the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba with a naval blockade and presented an ultimatum to the Soviets. Khrushchev backed down from a confrontation, and the Soviet Union removed the missiles in return for an American pledge not to invade Cuba again. Castro later admitted that "I would

have agreed to the use of nuclear weapons. ... we took it for granted that it would become a nuclear war anyway, and that we were going to disappear."

The United States was concerned about an expansion of Communism, and a Latin American country allying openly with the USSR was regarded as unacceptable, given the U.S.-Soviet enmity since the end of World War II. Such an involvement would also directly defy the Monroe Doctrine, a U.S. policy which, while limiting the United States' involvement with European colonies and European affairs, held that European powers ought not to have involvement with states in the Western Hemisphere.

The U.S. had been embarrassed publicly by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961, which had been launched under President John F. Kennedy by CIA-trained forces of Cuban exiles. Afterward, former President Eisenhower told Kennedy that "the failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do." The half-hearted invasion left Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and his advisers with the impression that Kennedy was indecisive and, as one Soviet adviser wrote, "too young, intellectual, not prepared well for decision making in crisis situations ... too intelligent and too weak." U.S. covert operations continued in 1961 with the unsuccessful Operation Mongoose.

In addition, Khrushchev's impression of Kennedy's weakness was confirmed by the President's soft response during the Berlin Crisis of 1961, particularly the building of the Berlin Wall. Speaking to Soviet officials in the aftermath of the crisis, Khrushchev asserted, "I know for certain that Kennedy doesn't have a strong background, nor, generally speaking, does he have the courage to stand up to a serious challenge." He also told his son Sergei who on Cuba, Kennedy "would make a fuss, make more of a fuss, and then agree."

In January 1962, General Edward Lansdale described plans to overthrow the Cuban Government in a top-secret report (partially declassified 1989), addressed to President Kennedy and officials involved with Operation Mongoose. CIA agents or "pathfinders" from the Special Activities Division were to be infiltrated into Cuba to carry out sabotage and organization, including radio broadcasts. In February 1962, the U.S. launched an embargo against Cuba, and Lansdale presented a 26-page, top-secret timetable for implementation of the overthrow of the Cuban Government, mandating that guerrilla operations begin in August and September, and in the first two weeks of October: "Open revolt and overthrow of the Communist regime." When Kennedy ran for president in 1960, one of his key election issues was an alleged "missile gap" with the Soviets leading. In fact, the U.S. led the Soviets by a wide margin that would only increase. In 1961, the Soviets had only four intercontinental ballistic missiles (R-7 Semyorka). By October 1962, they may have had a few dozen, although some intelligence estimates were as high as 75.

As it would be later discovered, the Soviets had stationed approximately 100 IRBMs and MRBMs in missile launch facilities in Cuba.

The U.S., on the other hand, had 170 ICBMs and was quickly building more. It also had eight George Washington- and Ethan Allen-class ballistic missile submarines with the capability to launch 16 Polaris missiles each, with a range of 1,500 nautical miles (2,800 km).

Khrushchev increased the perception of a missile gap when he loudly boasted to the world that the USSR was building missiles "like sausages" whose numbers and capabilities actually were nowhere close to his assertions. The Soviet Union did have medium-range ballistic missiles in quantity, about 700 of them; however, these were very unreliable and inaccurate. The U.S. had a considerable advantage in total number of nuclear warheads (27,000 against 3,600) at the time and in all the technologies needed to deliver them accurately.

The U.S. also led in missile defensive capabilities, Naval and Air power; but the USSR enjoyed a two-to-one advantage in conventional ground forces, more pronounced in field guns and tanks (particularly in the European theater).

Recent Developments

In May 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was persuaded by the idea of countering the U.S.' growing lead in developing and deploying strategic missiles by placing Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, despite the misgivings of the Soviet Ambassador in Havana, Alexandr Ivanovich Alekseyev who argued that Castro would not accept the deployment of these missiles. Khrushchev faced a strategic situation where the U.S. was perceived to have a "splendid first strike" capability that put the Soviet Union at a huge disadvantage. In 1962, the Soviets had only 20 ICBMs capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the U.S. from inside the Soviet Union. The poor accuracy and reliability of these missiles raised serious doubts about their effectiveness. A newer, more reliable generation of ICBMs would only become operational after 1965. Therefore, Soviet nuclear capability in 1962 placed less emphasis on ICBMs than on medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs). These missiles could hit American allies and most of Alaska from Soviet territory but not the contiguous 48 states of the U.S.

A second reason Soviet missiles were deployed to Cuba was because Khrushchev wanted to bring West Berlin—the American/British/French-controlled democratic zone within Communist East Germany—into the Soviet orbit. The East Germans and Soviets considered western control over a portion of Berlin a grave threat to East Germany. For this reason, among others, Khrushchev made West Berlin the central battlefield of the Cold War. Khrushchev believed that if the U.S. did nothing over the missile deployments in Cuba, he could muscle the West out of Berlin using said missiles as a deterrent to western counter-measures in Berlin. If the U.S. tried to bargain with the Soviets after becoming aware of the missiles, Khrushchev could demand trading the missiles for West Berlin. Since Berlin was strategically more important than Cuba, the trade would be a win for Khrushchev. President Kennedy recognized this: "The advantage is, from Khrushchev's point of view, he takes a great chance but there are quite some rewards to it." Khrushchev was also reacting in part to the nuclear

threat of obsolescent Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missiles which the U.S. had installed in Turkey during April 1962.

In early 1962, a group of Soviet military and missile construction specialists accompanied an agricultural delegation to Havana. They obtained a meeting with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The Cuban leadership had a strong expectation that the U.S. would invade Cuba again and they enthusiastically approved the idea of installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. However, according to another source, Fidel Castro objected to the missiles deployment that would have made him look like a Soviet puppet, but was persuaded that missiles in Cuba would be an irritant to the U.S. and help the interests of the entire socialist camp. Further, the deployment would include short-range tactical weapons (with a range of 40 km, usable only against naval vessels) that would provide a "nuclear umbrella" for attacks upon the island.

By May, Khrushchev and Castro agreed to place strategic nuclear missiles secretly in Cuba. Like Castro, Khrushchev felt that a U.S. invasion of Cuba was imminent, and that to lose Cuba would do great harm to the communist cause, especially in Latin America. He said he wanted to confront the Americans "with more than words ... the logical answer was missiles." The Soviets maintained their tight secrecy, writing their plans longhand, which were approved by Rodion Malinovsky on July 4 and Khrushchev on July 7.

From the very beginning, the Soviets' operation entailed elaborate denial and deception, known in the USSR as "maskirovka". All of the planning and preparation for transporting and deploying the missiles were carried out in the utmost secrecy, with only a very few told the exact nature of the mission. Even the troops detailed for the mission were given misdirection, told they were headed for a cold region and outfitted with ski boots, fleece-lined parkas, and other winter equipment. The Soviet code name was Operation Anadyr. Anadyr was also the name of a river flowing into the Bering Sea, the name of the capital of Chukotsky District, and a bomber base in the far eastern region. All these were meant to conceal the program from both internal and external audiences.

Specialists in missile construction under the guise of "machine operators," "irrigation specialists" and "agricultural specialists" arrived in July. A total of 43,000 foreign troops would ultimately be brought in. Marshal Sergei Biryuzov, chief of the Soviet Rocket Forces, led a survey team that visited Cuba. He told Khrushchev that the missiles would be concealed and camouflaged by the palm trees.

The Cuban leadership was further upset when in September the U.S. Congress approved U.S. Joint Resolution 230, which expressed Congress's resolve to prevent the creation of an externally supported military establishment. On the same day, the U.S. announced a major military exercise in the Caribbean, PHIBRIGLEX-62, which Cuba denounced as a deliberate provocation and proof that the U.S. planned to invade Cuba.

The Soviet leadership believed, based on their perception of Kennedy's lack of confidence during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, that he would avoid confrontation and accept the missiles as a fait accompli. On September 11, the Soviet Union publicly warned that a U.S. attack on Cuba or on Soviet ships carrying supplies to the island would mean war. The Soviets continued the

Maskirovka program to conceal their actions in Cuba. They repeatedly denied that the weapons being brought into Cuba were offensive in nature. On September 7, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin assured United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson that the USSR was supplying only defensive weapons to Cuba. On September 11, the Telegrafnoe Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza (Soviet News Agency TASS) announced that the Soviet Union had no need or intention to introduce offensive nuclear missiles into Cuba. On October 13, Dobrynin was questioned by former Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles about whether the Soviets plan to put offensive weapons in Cuba. He denied any such plans. On October 17, Soviet embassy official Georgi Bolshakov brought President Kennedy a personal message from Khrushchev reassuring him that "under no circumstances would surface-to-surface missiles be sent to Cuba."

As early as August 1962, the U.S. suspected the Soviets of building missile facilities in Cuba. During that month, its intelligence services gathered information about sightings by ground observers of Russian-built MiG-21 fighters and Il-28 light bombers. U-2 spy planes found S-75 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2) surface-to-air missile sites at eight different locations. CIA director John A. McCone was suspicious. Sending anti aircraft missiles into Cuba, he reasoned, "made sense only if Moscow intended to use them to shield a base for ballistic missiles aimed at the United States." On August 10, he wrote a memo to President Kennedy in which he guessed that the Soviets were preparing to introduce ballistic missiles into Cuba.

With important Congressional elections scheduled for November, the Crisis became enmeshed in American politics. On August 31, Senator Kenneth Keating (R-New York), who received his information from Cuban exiles in Florida, warned on the Senate floor that the Soviet Union may be constructing a missile base in Cuba. He charged the Kennedy Administration was covering up a major threat to the U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay presented a pre-invasion bombing plan to Kennedy in September, while spy flights and minor military harassment from U.S. forces at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were the subject of continual Cuban diplomatic complaints to the U.S. government.

The first consignment of R-12 missiles arrived on the night of September 8, followed by a second on September 16. The R-12 was an intermediate-range ballistic missile, capable of carrying a thermonuclear warhead. It was a single-stage, road-transportable, surface-launched, storable liquid propellant fueled missile that could deliver a megaton-class nuclear weapon. The Soviets were building nine sites—six for R-12 medium-range missiles (NATO designation SS-4 Sandal) with an effective range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) and three for R-14 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (NATO designation SS-5 Skean) with a maximum range of 4,500 kilometres (2,800 mi).

Cuban locals have been reporting the deployment of what appear to be long, canvas-covered cylindrical objects on large trucks — many have seen them pass through their towns late at night, ostensibly Soviet missiles to be deployed in Cuba. In September 1962, photo interpreters from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) noticed that Cuban surface-to-air missile sites were arranged in a pattern similar to those used by the Soviet Union to protect its ICBM bases, leading the wary Agency to lobby for the resumption of U-2 flights over the

island. The U.S. first obtained U-2 photographic evidence of the missiles on October 14, capturing images of what turned out to be an SS-4 construction site in western Cuba.

At this point of time, the proletariat vanguard is left to presume that the Americans may or may not have already discovered the existence of the missiles; how will they proceed?

Questions to Consider:

Moving forward, in the fight against Capitalism, you must consider the following:

1) How should the Eastern Bloc guarantee its survival in its dealings with the West — shall it pursue peaceful dialogue or arm itself for a possible conflict and formulate cohesive military operations to capture strategic objectives?

2) How should the Politburo confront internal dissatisfaction both domestically, internationally, and within its own ranks?

3) Will the threat of US Jupiter MRBMs placed in Italy and Turkey be removed? 4) How shall the Soviet Union and its allies use the resources and mechanisms they have

at their disposal in order to gain the support of the international community? 5) How will the Soviet Union compensate for having a smaller nuclear arsenal than the

United States? 6) Can war be avoided? If it can, should it? 7) In the event of a nuclear launch, what measures will the USSR and its allies pursue in

order to protect itself from the possibility of mutually assured destruction? 8) What actions will the Soviet Union take to enhance the global spread of Communism? 9) What actions can be taken to prevent similar confrontations in the future?

Appendix

Timeline of the Cold War (1945 - Present)

4-11 February 1945 Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin meet up to discuss events to happen after the war

8 May 1945 Victory in Europe as Germany surrenders to the Russian army

17 July - 2 August 1945 The Potsdam Conference formally divides Germany and Austria into four zones. The Russian Polish border is determined and Korea is sectioned into Soviet and American Zones.

6 August 1945 The United States drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima

8 August 1945 The United States drops second bomb on Nagasaki

14 August 1945 Japanese surrenders, ending WWII

2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh proclaims Vietnam an independent republic.

5 March 1946 Churchill delivers his ‘Sinews of Peace’ speech.

12 March 1947 President Truman promises to help any country facing a Communist takeover

5 June 1947 The Marshall Plan is offered to only Western European Countries

September 1947 The USSR sets up Cominform

June 1948 The French, USA and UK partitions of Germany are merged to form West Germany

24 June 1948 Russia cuts off all rail and road links to West Germany. The Berlin Airlift is exercised.

4 April 1949 NATO is formed

May 1949 Russia ends the blockade of Berlin

25 June 1950 The start of the Korean War

5 March 1953 Death of Stalin and rise of Nikita Khrushchev

27 July 1953 End of Korean War

Summer of 1954 Geneva Accords ends the French war with Vietnam

14 May 1955 The Warsaw Pact is formed

23 October 1956 The Hungarian Revolution begins

30 October 1956 British and French forces invade Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal

1 November 1957 USSR Sputnik II sends Laika the dog out to space, becoming the first living creature in space

1 January 1959 Fidel Castro assumes power after the Cuban Revolution

1960 Paris East/West Talks are held to discuss the fate of Germany

19 December 1960 Cuba openly aligns itself with the USSR and their policies

3 January 1961 USA terminates diplomatic relations with Cuba

12 April 1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyvich Gagarin becomes the first human being in space.

17 April 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion by a force of Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA and aided by US government, to overthrow Castro’s communist government

3-4 June 1961 Khrushchev and Kennedy hold summit talks in Vienna regarding Berlin, Laos, and the Bay of Pigs Invasion

13 August 1961 Berlin Wall built to separate East and West Germany

31 August 1962 Senator Kenneth Keating tells the Senate that there is evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba

11 September 1962 Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, warns that an American attack on Cuba will initiate war with the Soviet Union

7 October 1962 Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós speaks at the UN General Assembly, warning the world of their possession of “inevitable weapons” which would be employed in self-defense.

10 October 1962 Border skirmish on the Sino-Indian border. 25 Indian and 33 Chinese casualties.

14 October 1962

A U-2 spy plane flying over western Cuba obtains first photographs of Soviet nuclear missile base.

16 October 1962 President John F. Kennedy forms Executive Committee (EXCOMM)

17 October 1962 (present)

More aerial photographs of Soviet nuclear missile base are taken. Soviet military presence in Cuba confirmed.

Maps

Map of nations aligned to either bloc in 1962.

Sectors of Berlin in 1961, marked with border crossings, railroads, and major roads.

The immediate environs of the Fulda Gap, ‘Strategic Corridor’ illustrating the way to Frankfurt