EVENTS IN CUBA 1959-62

A Revolution in the USA's 'Back Yard'

On New Year's Day 1959, Fulgencio Batista, the authoritarian and corrupt, but pro-US dictator of Cuba, fled Havana for exile in the Dominican Republic and Portugal. One week later, Fidel Castro, a Cuban nationalist with socialist tendencies swept in the capital and declared a new government.

The revolution appeared to be a backlash against US policies in Latin America- essentially economic and diplomatic dominance that benefited the USA without adequate investment in the region- and sent shock waves throughout Washington D.C., where Eisenhower was nearing the end of his two terms as president.

Negotiations with the new regime over the level of US business on the island (the USA were the main purchaser of Cuban sugar, the single largest Cuban resource and there were many US-owned hotels and casinos) soon broke down. Castro, increasingly under the influence of his brother Raul and a young Argentinian doctor, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, began to pursue communist policies.

This meant that:

1. His regime became increasingly anti-American in nature. Castro ordered that private land and property belonging to foreign interests (at that time, overwhelmingly American) be nationalized and returned to the people of Cuba. For example, he confiscated American oil refineries and ordered them to be used to refine crude oil purchased from the USSR.
2. In response, the US imposed a trade embargo on Cuba. This was potentially catastrophic for the Cuban economy, which had previously been reliant on the USA for sugar exports and oil imports. However, the Soviet Union had already started to take over this role.
3. As a result, Cuba gradually aligned itself with the Soviet Union. Eventually, this relationship not just included economic assistance but military aid as well.

The Bay of Pigs (1961)

Concerned about a Communist country located just 90 kilometres from Florida, the CIA planned an operation that aimed to overthrow the Castro regime. Their plan was to land 1,500 Cuban exiles (who had fled Cuba after the revolution) supported by CIA agents at the Bay of Pigs.

It was hoped that this invasion would also lead to a popular uprising which would, in the eyes of international opinion, represent a spontaneous counter-revolution by the Cuban people. Although the planning for this operation begun during the last year of the Eisenhower administration, John F. Kennedy gave his authorization for the invasion to proceed in April 1961.

The invasion was an unmitigated disaster.

The Cuban Army, under the personal leadership of Fidel Castro, defeated the exiles within 3 days and there was no popular uprising. Moreover, Kennedy refused to provide US Air Force support. The USA were humiliated and discredited on the international stage- there was condemnation and criticism of US actions in Cuban in the UN.

The main consequence of the Bay of Pigs fiasco was to push Cuba further into the arms of the Soviet Union- Castro asked Khrushchev for nuclear weapons to defend Cuba from any further US invasion attempts.

The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

Why did Khrushchev place nuclear missiles on Cuba?

1. He wanted defend Cuba from any further US invasion . Cuba was the only Communist country in the western hemisphere, Castro was hugely popular in the developing world and the Cuban Revolution represented a propaganda victory for international communism.
2. He was under pressure from hard-line Communists in Moscow . This was especially true after the Hungarian Uprising, for which Khrushchev's De-Stalinization policies were held responsible.
3. He wanted to restore the nuclear balance . Concerned about US nuclear missile bases in the UK, Italy and Turkey, Khrushchev wanted to redistribute Soviet resources to counter this threat.
4. He wanted to test the inexperienced Kennedy . Khrushchev had gained the upper hand when the two leaders met at the Vienna Summit in 1961. Moreover, Kennedy appeared out of his depth during the Bay of Pigs fiasco and even at times during the Berlin Wall Crisis.
5. Since the Suez Crisis, he had embraced the threat of nuclear weapons as a way to influence international events . Khrushchev believed that it had been the threat of nuclear attacks on the UK, France and Israel that had resulted in their withdrawal from Egypt. He believed that nuclear diplomacy was a viable tactic to deliver strategic goals.

It is has been confirmed since that Khrushchev had no intention of starting a nuclear war. However, by placing nuclear missiles on Cuba, he had seriously miscalculated what the US response would be. In this respect, his attitude towards the use of nuclear weapons, particularly as a diplomatic tactic, was especially reckless and the culmination of a strategy that had been formulated in the aftermath of the Suez Canal Crisis in 1956.

The events of the crisis

• 14th October 1962: US U-2 planes take photos of Soviet medium range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads on the island of Cuba.
• 16th October 1962: After analysis, President Kennedy is informed of the presence of Soviet missiles on Cuba.
• 20th October 1962: After four days of deliberations, Kennedy decides to order a naval blockade of Cuba, despite pressure from the military to invade Cuba or even attack the Soviet Union. The naval blockade was termed as a "quarantine" as a blockade in international waters is officially an act of war. The main aim of the quarantine was to buy Kennedy time to negotiate with Khrushchev.
• 22nd October: Kennedy makes a public address to the American people, announcing the presence of nuclear missiles on Cuba and the steps taken by his administration to counter their threat.
• 25th October: As the quarantine holds, and there is no outbreak of fighting between American and Soviet ships, the US ambassador to the UN, Adlai Stevenson, clashes with his Soviet counterpart in the UN in New York.
• 26th October: Castro writes a letter to Khrushchev, urging him to launch a nuclear strike on the US in the event of an American invasion of Cuba. Kennedy receives a letter from Khrushchev offering to remove the missiles in exchange for a lifting of the quarantine and a promise not to invade Cuba. This in many ways represented a break through between the two leaders.
• 27th October: Kennedy receives a second letter from Khrushchev demanding tougher conditions for the removal of the missiles. Robert Kennedy advices the president to ignore this letter. Later that evening, Robert Kennedy reaches an agreement with Soviet Ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin- in exchange for the removal of the missiles, the USA would lift the quarantine, promise not to invade Cuba and secretly agree to remove obsolete Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
• 28th October: Radio Moscow announces that the Kremlin has accepted the agreement made between Robert Kennedy and Dobrynin. This marked the end of the most dangerous period of the crisis. The crisis did not officially end for another month, when the USSR finally managed to prize the missiles off a reluctant Cuba.

Great website on the events of the crisis from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
Cuban Missile Crisis Simulation

Consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis
The crisis arguably marked the height of tensions in the Cold War- Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara remarked years later that he remembered thinking that Saturday 27th of October (the tensest day of the crisis) might be the last day he would ever see. However, there were a number of significant consequences that had a real impact on the Cold War.

1. Both sides recognized the futility of all-out war involving nuclear weapons . After years of brinkmanship and nuclear diplomacy, both sides embraced the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD. A direct phone line (or 'hotline') was established in both the White House and the Kremlin to allow the leaders of both superpowers to speak directly to each other in times of crisis. In 1963, both the USA and USSR signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. There were further successful attempts to reduce nuclear arsenals in the 1970's and 1980's.
2. John F. Kennedy's international reputation soared as a result of the crisis. His handling of the crisis was highly praised and this proved to be, in many ways, a turning point in his presidency. Whereas before the crisis the president had at times seemed out of his depth, he had now proven his diplomatic credentials and became far more self-assured. Largely because of the secret nature of the agreement to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey, he was perceived to have 'won' the crisis.
3. Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power in the USSR in 1964. In contrast, Khrushchev was perceived to have 'lost'. As far as the rest of the world were concerned, he had recklessly started the crisis by placing the missiles on Cuba, continue to blunder and make miscalculations and then backed down when confronted with the calm resolve of Kennedy. He was replaced by the Soviet leadership, who were tired of his unpredictable behaviour after the events in Poland, Hungary, Berlin and now Cuba. His successor was the far more reliable, if conservative, Leonid Brezhnev.
4. Cuba began to move away from the USSR. Castro was desperately disappointed that the missiles were withdrawn from Cuba and felt that not enough had been gained in exchange from their removal. His relationship with the Soviet Union cooled until the early 1970's, when the USSR intervened to rescue the ailing Cuban economy.