Was the Cuban Missile Crisis the most dangerous episode of the Cold War? Текст научной статьи по специальности «Философия, этика, религиоведение»

WAS THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS THE MOST DANGEROUS EPISODE OF THE COLD WAR?

Karen SSaradzhyan, Simon SSaradzhyan *

Introduction

Academics and politicians have often described the Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC) of 1962 as the moment when the human race came closest to a nuclear war. This article will seek to answer two questions related to that crisis, the 55th anniversary of which is observed this October. The first question is as follows: What particular developments in the course of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation of October 1962 increased chances of the so-called nuclear exchange between the two superpowers? The second question is as follows: Were the chances of a nuclear war greatest during CMC or was there any other incident during the Cold War that made a nuclear conflict between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. even more likely?

Brief History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

The origins of the events - that later became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis in America and Caribbean Crisis in Russia - can be traced to the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's decision to secretly send nuclear missiles to the island of Cuba, which is located less than 90 miles from Florida. Khrushchev did so after the U.S. had unsuccessfully tried to remove the Cuba's Communist leader Fidel Castro from power and placed America's Jupiter nuclear missiles in Turkey, from which they could reach the Soviet Union. By placing their R-12 and R-14 missiles in Cuba, the Soviet leadership had hoped to narrow the so-called "missile

* Director of the Russia Matters project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

gap" - at the time the U.S.S.R was lagging behind United States in terms of the number of missiles capable of reaching the opposite side's territory1. Khrushchev was also hoping that the deployment of these short-term and medium-range missiles would also help to prevent the U.S. from attacking Cuba to overthrow its Communist leadership2. With Castro's consent, these missiles were secretly brought from the U.S.S.R. to Cuba by Soviet civilian cargo ships and construction of launch pads for them commenced on this island in August 1962. It was not until October 14, 1962 that an American spy plane, U2, photographed the constructions sites and U.S. intelligence analysts then identified them as launch pads for R-12 and R-14 missiles3. President John F. Kennedy was briefed on the findings on October 16, 1962, which was the day that many American and foreign historians now describe as the first day of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The U.S. government confronted the Soviet government with these findings. Moscow at first denied there were any Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, but Washington pressed on. While putting pressure on Khrushchev, John Kennedy also put the U.S. armed forces on high alert, known as DEFCON 3, and ordered a naval blockade of Cuba4. He also shared his knowledge of the Soviet missiles in Cuba with the American public in a public address. In that address, which was broadcast on TV on October 22, 1962, he demanded that the Soviets withdraw missiles from Cuba. This public pressure, combined with the U.S. government's private promise to the Soviet government that the U.S. Jupiter missiles would be withdrawn from Turkey, convinced Soviets to withdraw the missiles. The Soviet

1 These reasons are elucidated in a book edited by Len Scott and R. Gerald Hughes. Scott, Len, and R. Gerald Hughes, eds. The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Critical Reappraisal. Routledge, 2015. Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=UJEGCAAAQBAJ&pg=PT261&dq=Khrushchev% 27s+rationale+for+missiles+in+Cuba+missile+gap+and+Castro&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib_ZyS5 MrUAhUHJsAKHRHBDQMQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=Khrushchev's%20rationale%20for% 20missiles%20in%20Cuba%20missile%20gap%20and%20Castro&f=false

2 These reasons are given in the book edited by Len Scott and R. Gerald Hughes. Scott, Len, and R. Gerald Hughes, eds. The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Critical Reappraisal. Routledge, 2015. Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=UJEGCAAAQBAJ&pg = PT261&dq=Khrushchev% 27s+rationale+for+missiles+in+Cuba+missile+gap+and+Castro&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib_ZyS5 MrUAhUHJsAKHRHBDQMQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=Khrushchev's%20rationale%20for% 20missiles%20in%20Cuba%20missile%20gap%20and%20Castro&f=false

3 'World on the Brink. John F. Kennedy and the Cuba Missile Crisis. Thirteen Days in October 1962." John F Kennedy presidential library and museum. Undated. Available at http://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/

4 Ibid.

premier Khrushchev announced that the R-12 and R-14 missiles would be withdrawn on October 28, 1962 on condition that Americans promise not to invade Cuba1. Historians now describe that day as the final day of the 13-day crisis, although it took longer for the Soviets to withdraw R-12s and R-14s from Cuba and Americans didn't start withdrawing Jupiters from Turkey until 19632.

Review of the Literature on Dangers of the Cuban Missile Crisis

The authors' review of the literature on the Cold War reveals that the view -that the Cuban Missile Crisis has been the most dangerous episode in the Cold War - is not uncommon. First of all, participants in the events themselves viewed CMC as a very dangerous moment. President Kennedy wrote that the odds of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear war during CMC were "between one out of three and even"3 and that 200 million could have died in that war4. John Kennedy's assistant Arthur M. Schesinger agreed with his boss. "The missile crisis was not only the most dangerous in the Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in all history," Schesinger wrote5.

Retired Russian general Viktor Yesin, who was actually a participant in the crisis because he was sent by the Soviet defense ministry to Cuba at that time as a young officer, also believes CMC was the most dangerous moment in

1 Letter from Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, October 28, 1962, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Available at http://microsites.jfklibrary.org/cmc/oct28/doc1.html.

2 "The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962," U.S. State Department, undated. Available at https:// history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis

3 Powaski, Ronald E. The Cold War: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1917-1991. Oxford University Press, 1997. Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=u9uWIl7W_BcC&pg= PT161&dq=between+one+out+of+three+and+even%E2%80%9D+and&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKE wihgoqL78rUAhULAcAKHVUKBVUQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=between%20one%20out%20of% 20three%20and%20even%E2%80%9D%20and&f=false

4 Glover, Jonathan. Humanity. Yale University Press, 2012. Available at https://books.google.com/ books?id = fivCnCpiPm0C&pg = PA220&dq=Robert + Kennedy + 200 + million +people+died+Cuban+Missile+Crisis&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWgM_M7srUAhUnJ8AKHSPXC aQQ6AEINTAC#v=onepage&q=Robert%20Kennedy%20200%20million%20people%20died% 20Cuban%20Missile%20Crisis&f=false

5 Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. A thousand days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002.Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=JsqBEdFx-fQC&printsec= front-cover&dq = Cuban + Missile + Crisis + + %E2%80%9Cthe + most + dangerous+ mo-ment+in+human+history.%E2%80%9D.&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAyJjgx8rUAhWDNz 4KHXb1CdIQ6AEINzAD#v=onepage&q=the%20most%20dangerous%20moment%20in% 20human%20history.%E2%80%9D.&f=false

the Cold War1. A number of American and Russian scholars have also expressed views that CMC was the most dangerous of all Cold War episodes. For example, John Hershberg has referred to this crisis as "most dangerous passage of the Cold War" in his foreword to a transcript of a meeting that John F. Kennedy's brother Robert and Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin held on October 27, 19622. American political scientist Graham Allison has also referred to the events of October 16-28, 1962, as "the most dangerous moment in recorded history."3 A number of Russian scholars also believe that CMC ranks first in the list of dangerous episodes of the Cold War. For example, former Russian deputy defense minister Andrei Kokoshin has also argued that the crisis was "most dangerous in the history of the Cold War when the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, came very close to a full -scale war involving nuclear weapons."4

What Made Cuban Missile Crisis So Dangerous and Did U.S. and U.S.S.R Come Closest to a Nuclear War during that Crisis?

Several elements of the Cuban Missile Crisis made it extremely dangerous, making nuclear war likely. To begin with, both sides made 'routine' moves in the course of the October 1962 crisis that could have been misinterpreted by the other side as either preparation for a nuclear strike or even beginning of such a strike. On the U.S. side, the DEFCON 3 alert - that President Kennedy announced on October 22, 1962 - required some of American warplanes to begin patrolling skies with nuclear missiles onboard. Some of these nuclear armed warplanes came very close to engaging in a dogfight with Soviet fighters when the latter tried to intercept a U-2 spy plane that flown into the So-

1 Yesin, Viktor I. "The Cuban Missile Crisis: Debatable Issues, Instructive Lessons." Article, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, October 16, 2013. Available at http://www.belfercenter.org/publication/cuban-missile-crisis-debatable-issues-instructive-lessons

2 Hershberg, Jim. "Anatomy of a Controversy: Anatoly F. Dobrynin's Meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, Saturday, 27 October 1962." Cold War International History Project Bulletin 5 (1995): 75-80.Available at http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/moment.htm

3 Allison, Graham. "50 years after Cuban missile crisis: closer than you thought to World War III." Christian Science Monitor, October 15, 2012. Available at http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/ Opinion/2012/1015/50-years-after-Cuban-missile-crisis-closer-than-you-thought-to-World-War-III

4 Yesin, Viktor I... "The Cuban Missile Crisis: Debatable Issues, Instructive Lessons." Article, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, October 16, 2013. Available at http://www.belfercenter.org/publication/cuban-missile-crisis-debatable-issues-instructive-lessons

viet airspace on October 26, 19621. One can only imagine what the Soviet response would have been if one of these American warplane had fired a nuclear missile during that confrontation. It cannot be ruled out that this response included firing a nuclear missile back at the American planes in what would have started a nuclear war.

The U.S. military also made other pre-planned 'routine' moves during the crisis, which increased chances of a nuclear war. For example, the U.S. military test-fired a missile from the Vandenberg Air Force base in California on October 26, 1962. The missile was not carrying a nuclear warhead because it was a test launch, which had been planned before the crisis. However, the DEFCON 3 alert, which President Kennedy announced during the crisis, required that base to actually arm all of its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with nuclear warheads2. Had the Soviets known about that DEFCON 3 requirement, they could have misinterpreted the October 26 test-launch as a beginning of a surprise strike and rushed to launch their own missiles from Cuba so that the U.S. strike would not destroy them. It should be noted that the Americans themselves misinterpreted events during the crisis. For instance, the operators of a U.S. radar station in New Jersey reported on October 28, 1962 to their superiors that they had detected missiles launched from Cuba towards Florida. This report caused the U.S. commanders to consider how to retaliate. Fortunately, it was quickly discovered that a "test tape simulating a missile launch from Cuba was inserted in the computers to run a check on the software and displays at the radar facility," according to David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists3.

The Soviets also had routines, known as standard operating procedures (SOPs) that increased probability of a nuclear war during the crisis. The most dangerous of these SOPs was the Soviet leadership's decision to grant commanding officer of each of the several Soviet submarines, which were sent to

1 Philips, Alan FMD. "Mishaps that Might have Started Accidental Nuclear War." Nuclearfiles.org. Undated. Available at http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm

2 Wright, David, ""Six Close Calls During the Cuban Missile Crisis," Union of Concerned Scientists, October 30, 2015. Available at http://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/six-close-calls-during-the-cuban -missile-crisis-941

3 Ibid.

waters off Cuba in 1962, the right to launch nuclear weapons if three conditions were met. The first condition was that the submarine's commanding officer concluded that either his ship or other Soviet ships were under attack by Americans. The second condition was that he could not establish a radio contact with the Soviet Naval headquarters at the time of the attack. The third condition was that the boat's commanding officer, his second-in-command and political officer all voted in favor of launching a nuclear weapon1. That was exactly the view that commanding officer of Soviet submarine B-59 Valentin Savitsky developed on October 26, 1962 in waters off Cuba. At that time his diesel submarine had no contact with the Soviet naval headquarters. Therefore, Savitsky ordered his crew to intercept U.S. radio broadcasts, and the crew caught a broadcast by a commercial Miami radio station. "On Miami radio it's descriptions of the flotilla offshore. It's descriptions of total mobilization," American historian Thomas Blanton wrote of what Savitsky and his crew must have heard2. Shortly afterward, Savitsky's boat was detected by the U.S. Navy warships. One of these American warships started to drop signaling charges to try to force Savitsky's submarine to surface. Savitsky - whose submarine had no contact with the Soviet naval command at that time - did not know that those were signaling charges3. Rather, he thought these were actual bombs that were being dropped on his boat because a war had broken out. Savitsky believed the submarine should respond by launching a nuclear torpedo, and, proposed that the three top officers of B-59, including himself, his second-in-command Vasily Arkhipov, and the submarine's political officer Ivan Maslennikov vote on whether to do so, according to a book on CMC ed-

1 Wilson, Jim. Britain on the Brink: The Cold War s Most Dangerous Weekend, 27-28 October 1962. Pen and Sword, 2012. Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=JK4J2a12n-YC&pg= PT130&dq=Savitsky++special+weapons++nuclear+war.&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAlOHijM3UA hVIXD4KHTeXDScQ6AEIPzAE#v=onepage&q=Savitsky%20%20special%20weapons%20% 20nuclear%20war.&f=false

2 Genzlinger, Neil, "Same Cuba Crisis, Different Angles: 50 Years Later Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited on PBS," New York Times, October 12, 2002. Available at

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/arts/television/cuban-missile-crisis-revisited-on-pbs.html

3 Wilson, Jim. Britain on the Brink: The Cold War s Most Dangerous Weekend, 27-28 October 1962. Pen and Sword, 2012. Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=JK4J2a12n-YC&pg=PT130&dq=Savitsky++special+weapons++nuclear+war.&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAlO HijM3UAhVIXD4KHTeXDScQ6AEIPzAE#v=onepage&q=Savitsky%20%20special%20weapons% 20%20nuclear%20war.&f=false

ited by Priscilla Roberts. An argument broke out between Savitsky and Arkhi-pov, who did not want to launch the nuclear torpedo. Arkhipov won that argument, the torpedo was not launched and the submarine came to the surface, according to the book1.

The CMC episodes listed above clearly demonstrate that CMC was a very dangerous episode of the Cold War. In fact, in the view of the authors of this article, it was the most dangerous of such episodes. Yes, the Cold War saw several other "close calls" later on. For instance, in 1960 North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) issued a false warning that Soviet missiles were minutes away from continental United States, but it was quickly discovered that some of its satellites mistook a rising moon for Soviet missiles2. More than 20 years later NATO exercise Able Archer sent alarms ringing in Moscow that this U.S.-led Western alliance was planning a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union3. During that 1983 exercise the world "had, without realizing it, come frighteningly close-certainly closer than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962," according to KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky, who defected from U.S.S.R to West with top secret documents4. However, in contrast to CMC, the U.S. and Soviet forces were not actually put on high alert during the Able Archer episode, according to historian Stephen J. Cim-bala. Therefore, "no immediate nuclear scare captured the imagination of

1 Roberts, Priscilla. Cuban Missile Crisis: The Essential Reference Guide. Abc-clio, 2012. Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=3-WoO0V6rRMC&pg=PA14&dq=Cuban+Missile+Crisis+Savit-sky+and+Maslennikov+nuclear+torpedo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjVlKaUv6fUAhWnx4MKHX pJDJkQ6AEIQDAE#v=onepage&q=Cuban%20Missile%20Crisis%20Savitsky%20and% 20Maslennikov%20nuclear%20torpedo&f=false

2 Busch, Nathan E. No end in sight: the continuing menace of nuclear proliferation. University Press of Kentucky, 2015.Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=NZsfBgAAQBAJ&pg= PA58&dq=in+1960++N0RAD+attack+moon&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLq82W68rUAhVjIMAK HUeAAEYQ6AE I KDAA#v=onepage&q=moon&f=false

3 Jones, Nate. Able Archer 83: the Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War. New York, The New Press, 2016.Availbale at https://books.google.com/books? id=qNExDQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Able+Archer&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidk8z35 crUAhUBWBQKHS0TAHoQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=attack&f=false

4 Andrew, Christopher M., and Oleg Gordievsky. More Instructions from the Centre: Top Secret Files on KGB Global Operations 1975-1985.Abingdon, Taylor and Francis, 2012.Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=uN1TU0vrsr0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Instructions+ from+the+Centre:+Top+Secret+Files+on+KGB+Global+Operations&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6cADU9PLOO GSyAHb6YGYAw#v=onepage&q=Cuban&f=false

leaders in Washington, Moscow or Brussels," according to Cimbala1. That year also saw another dangerous episode occur. The Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov made an ultimate judgment in September 1983 that report of an U.S. nuclear missile attack was a false alarm. Petrov was a software engineer serving in the Soviet Space Defense Forces at the time and he was responsible for fine-tuning the Soviet military's "Oko" (Eye) early warning system, which was designed to detect American missile launches. Petrov was on duty on September 26, 1983 when one of Oko's nine satellites - that were watching nuclear missile launch pads in the United States - sent a signal that five American Min-uteman intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) had taken off from the continental United States and were headed toward U.S.S.R. The alerts were automatically sent to the Soviet military command, but it was up to Petrov to make an ultimate judgment whether there was really an American nuclear attack underway. The officer had ten minutes to come up with an answer and he actually decided that it was a false alarm2. Had Petrov decided otherwise, the Soviet Union might have launched a nuclear strike on the United States, according to American scholar of Cold War David Hoffman3. This September 26, 1983 episode was, indeed, very dangerous, but it was just one episode. Therefore, this episode overall carried lower risks of leading to a nuclear war than the Cuban Missile Crisis did if only because CMC included an entire series of 'close calls,' each of which could have led to a nuclear war, in the authors' view. As General Yesin wrote: "The bilateral relationship has had its ups and downs: one need only look at the tense situation around Able Archer in fall 1983. Yet the superpowers never again came so perilously close to the

1 Cimbala, Stephen J. "Nuclear Crisis Management and "Cyberwar". Strategic Studies 117 (2011). Available at http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/2011/spring/cimbala.pdf

2 Hoffman, David. The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy. Anchor, 2009, 11. Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=JQGHqScEFtoC&printsec =frontcover&dq=The+Dead+Hand:+The+Untold+Story&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiügvq_6crUA hVG1xQKHXTzCVkQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=Petrov&f=false

3 Hoffman, David. The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy. Anchor, 2009. Available at https://books.google.com/books?id=JQGHqScEFtoC&printsec =frontcover&dq=The+Dead+Hand:+The+Untold+Story&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiügvq_6crUA hVG1xQKHXTzCVkQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=Petrov&f=false

danger of full-scale nuclear war as they did during the Cuban Missile Crisis."1 The authors cannot agree more with this statement by General Yesin.

Conclusion

This article sought to answer two questions: (1) What particular developments in the course of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation of October 1962 increased chances of the so-called nuclear exchange between the two superpowers; and (2) were the chances of a nuclear war greatest during CMC, or was there any other incident during the Cold War that made a nuclear conflict between U.S. and U.S.S.R even more likely. The article answered the first question by highlighting which of the military 'routines' on both sides could have led to a nuclear war on a number of occasions in the course of that crisis. The article answered the second question by contrasting how these multiple occasions were fraught with risks, that if summed up, made the probability of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear war higher than any of the other "close calls" reviewed above. It is the authors' hope that both leaders of U.S. and Russia as well as other nuclear powers will always remember the grave dangers of CMC in mind and avoid nuclear brinkmanship that can lead to a war kill not only much of the population of their countries, but also cause deaths of hundreds of millions more all over the world2.

October, 2017

1 Yesin, Viktor I. "The Cuban Missile Crisis: Debatable Issues, Instructive Lessons." Article, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, October 16, 2013. Available at http://www.belfercenter.org/publication/cuban-missile-crisis-debatable-issues-instructive-lessons

2 "It would require only in the neighborhood of 10 to 100" super bombs yielding 100 megatons of fission each to destroy humankind, according to recently declassified document by scientists at America's Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. Bienaime, Pierre, "Here's How Many 'Super Nukes' American Scientists Thought It Would Take To Destroy The World In 1945," December 16, 2014. The document is available at https://ia802303.us.archive.org/26/items/ManhattanDistrictHistory/ MDH-B8V02P01-LosAlamos-Technical.pdf