In October 1962, American reconnaissance planes discovered Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida. For 13 days, the United States and the Soviet Union stood at the edge of nuclear war. This HISTORY250 Special traces the full context, from the Berlin Airlift and Bay of Pigs through the naval blockade and the secret diplomacy that finally pulled both sides back from the brink.

Key Takeaways

• The Soviet blockade of West Berlin in 1948 prompted the Berlin Airlift, 277,000 flights over 15 months delivering food and supplies to over 2 million people cut off by Soviet forces.

• Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 was a failure partly because he reversed his decision to provide air cover for the 1,400 Cuban exiles involved.

• Soviet Premier Khrushchev dominated Kennedy at their June 1961 Vienna summit. Kennedy told a reporter, 'He savaged me.'

• American nuclear-tipped Jupiter missiles in Turkey, within range of major Soviet targets, were a key part of the crisis's underlying tensions and were quietly removed after the standoff ended.

• Cuba's Fidel Castro was largely excluded from the negotiations that resolved the crisis surrounding his own country, a humiliation he never forgot.

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Questions & Answers (FAQ):

Q1: Why did the Soviet Union place missiles in Cuba?

The Soviets had several motivations. Cuba offered a strategic position close to the American mainland. The presence of U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey, within easy range of Soviet cities, gave Khrushchev a justification for seeking equivalent proximity to American targets. He also wanted to deter any future U.S. attempt to remove Castro, following the Bay of Pigs invasion, and to demonstrate Soviet power after Kennedy's weak performance at the Vienna summit.

Q2: What was the Berlin Airlift and why did it matter?

When the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin in June 1948, the Western Allies refused to abandon the city's two million residents. American and British pilots flew over 277,000 flights over 15 months, delivering food, coal, and supplies. The airlift succeeded in sustaining West Berlin until the Soviets lifted the blockade in May 1949. It became one of the defining demonstrations of Western resolve in the early Cold War and a powerful symbol against Soviet expansionism.

Q3: How did the Cuban Missile Crisis end?

On October 28th, 1962, Soviet Premier Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would remove its missiles from Cuba. In exchange, Kennedy publicly committed not to invade Cuba and privately agreed to remove American Jupiter missiles from Turkey. The removal of the Turkish missiles was kept secret for decades. Fidel Castro, whose country was at the center of the crisis, was given no meaningful role in the negotiations.

Q4: What role did the Bay of Pigs invasion play in the Cuban Missile Crisis?

The Bay of Pigs failure in April 1961 had two significant effects on the missile crisis. First, it demonstrated to Khrushchev that Kennedy could be pressured, a perception reinforced at the Vienna summit two months later. Second, it gave Castro and the Soviets reason to believe the United States might attempt another invasion, which they used to justify placing defensive missiles on the island.

Q5: How close did the world come to nuclear war during the crisis?

Historians now know the situation was even more dangerous than it appeared at the time. Soviet submarines near the blockade line were carrying nuclear torpedoes, and at least one submarine commander reportedly considered using them when his vessel was forced to surface by U.S. depth charges. Only the intervention of a senior Soviet officer prevented a launch. On land, Soviet forces in Cuba had tactical nuclear weapons with authority to use them if invaded. The crisis was, by most accounts, the moment when nuclear war was genuinely closest to becoming a reality.

The Cold War and the Berlin Airlift

From the end of World War II to 1991, the world's two greatest superpowers opposed each other across the globe. They called it the Cold War. It meant indirect wars fought on almost every continent. A prolonged arms race posed the additional threat of a direct conflict between the two powers.

In 1962, in fact, America came close to nuclear war with the Soviet Union. How close? As close as Cuba, 90 miles off the southern tip of Florida, where Soviet missiles were ready to launch and America was the target. At the end of World War II, the victorious allies agreed that Germany should be one nation. But the Russian plan called for the German state to be communist. On June 24th, 1948, the Soviet Union blockaded all land and water routes into West Berlin, cutting off over 2 million residents from essential supplies. The intent was to force the Western Allies to relinquish their sectors of the city. The Allies responded with an unprecedented humanitarian effort, the Berlin Airlift. For 15 months, from June 1948 to May 1949, American and British pilots flew over 277,000 flights, delivering food, coal, and other vital necessities to West Berlin.

The monumental undertaking sustained the beleaguered Germans there and became a powerful symbol of Western resolve against Soviet expansionism. On May 12th, 1949, the Soviets relented and lifted the blockade. In October, however, they established East Germany, a communist regime known officially as the German Democratic Republic. The Depression that preceded these Cold War tensions is the subject of our HISTORY250 special on the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression.

Kennedy, Cuba, and the Bay of Pigs

When in 1960 John F. Kennedy was elected president, American forces were still stationed in West Berlin and, to the Soviets, the Americans were too close to the city's east side. One year earlier, Fidel Castro had led a successful communist revolution in Cuba. This meant that a little less than 100 miles from the coast of America, the Soviets had a staunch and aggressive member of their bloc. Kennedy considered an assassination of Castro. Instead, he backed an invasion designed by the CIA. On April 17th, 1961, 1,400 Cuban exiles trained by America invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The expedition was a disaster, due in some measure to the fact that Kennedy reversed his decision to provide air cover for the invading forces.

Two months later, JFK met with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The Russian dominated his American counterpart. "He savaged me," Kennedy told New York Times reporter James Reston. Khrushchev threatened to cut off Berlin if the president did not remove American troops. Kennedy responded by calling up army reserves and the National Guard. The Soviet leader countered by erecting the Berlin Wall, at first made of barbed wire, but later of concrete. America had faced foreign extortion attempts before, as we cover in our episode on the XYZ Affair and Quasi-War with France.

Missiles in Cuba

By the spring of 1962, American nuclear-tipped Jupiter missiles were operational in Turkey, within easy reach of major targets in the Soviet Union. In the fall of 1962, the temperature of the Cold War rose to an unprecedented level. American reconnaissance planes discovered that the Soviets had placed medium-range missiles on the island of Cuba.

Khrushchev was now in a position to strike American targets as far as 1,200 miles away, including Washington, D.C., or any city in the southeastern United States. On October 22nd, Kennedy appeared on national television to report the presence of the missiles on Cuba. He issued a quarantine on the island, a naval blockade intended to stop the delivery of further missiles and to force the Soviets to withdraw the ones already there. Kennedy also warned what would happen if the Soviets fired a missile on the United States or on any other country in the Western Hemisphere: "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."

They Blinked First

On October 24th, Soviet ships approached the American naval blockade, driving tensions to their highest. Some ships were allowed to proceed as they were not carrying offensive weapons. Others turned back before reaching the blockade. On October 28th, six days after Kennedy's speech, Khrushchev agreed to remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba. Fidel Castro was livid. He tried repeatedly to insert himself into the negotiations that ended the conflict surrounding his island nation, but Castro's role remained marginal.

On his part, the victorious Kennedy quietly agreed to remove the U.S. missiles from Turkey. The crisis had broken. America was spared a nuclear attack. As Secretary of State Dean Rusk remarked: "The Soviets and the Americans had stared each other down, eyeball to eyeball, and they blinked first." The Monroe Doctrine, first articulated nearly 140 years earlier, had once again proven its enduring power. The civil rights movement that defined this same era is the subject of our HISTORY250 special on Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington.