Some things blissfully took place before I had a chance to be terrified by them.
As a kid, I was plagued by worry. I've gotten over it since then, perhaps to an excessive degree, but back then, it didn't take much to fill me with fear. And if I'd been a bit more aware when I was two years old, I'd have been up all night, just like much of the rest of the world was in 1962.
It all started on January 1, 1959. President Manuel Batista fled Cuba, leaving it in the hands of Fidel Castro and his revolutionary forces. Despite the fact that Batista was about as crooked a character as was around at the time, the US took it as a personal insult that communism had taken hold just 90 miles from its borders. The fact that lands and corporations held by US entities were nationalized by the Cuban government certainly didn't help the mood, either.
Premier Nikita Kruschev was delighted, though. The outspoken, emotional head of the Soviet Union was another burr under the US's saddle. The USSR had been flexing their muscles throughout the post WWII years, and Ike was sick and tired of it. By the time JFK was elected in 1960, the US had made it clear that Soviet expansion would not continue without resistance from them.
The Russians were nervous. The US had enough ICBM's to bomb their entire nation, but the Red Bear couldn't strike back. They could pepper Europe, but most of the US mainland was out of their reach. Solution: put missiles within the borders of new ally Cuba.
That went over with Kennedy like the proverbial fart in the elevator. Thus began one of the scariest chapters in world history.
On October 14, 1962, a U-2 plane flying high over Cuba spotted indisputable evidence that Russian missiles were being placed on the island. Kennedy kept the discovery under his hat and met with advisors for a few days.
The decision was made to create a naval blockade around Cuba. On October 22, he went public with the news, and also announced that any missile launch from Cuba would be regraded as an attack on the US, and would be given an appropriate response. He further demanded that the existing missiles be dismantled, and that all offensive weapons be removed.
Strong words. They were met by equally strong words from Kruschev. In a letter to Kennedy, he wrote that the blockade amounted to "an act of aggression propelling humankind into the abyss of a world nuclear-missile war."
Thus began a time when the civilized world was faced with the very, very real threat of nuclear annihilation. Schools stepped up their air raid drills, fathers restocked their bomb shelters, and some folks literally began living their lives like there was no tomorrow.
Looking back, you could certainly see that the Soviets had a point. The US had been deploying missiles in NATO countries. The Russians responded with similar actions in their own Warsaw Pact holdings, but the US itself was too distant a target to be in danger. Wouldn't missiles in one of the USSR's western hemisphere strongholds be fair play?
HELL NO was JFK's response.
The public responded in a variety of ways. Fear, obviously, was the most common reaction, but some felt compelled to protest. Peaceful marches took place in various locations in the US calling for "negotiation, not annihilation." And, of course, others were ready to let the nukes fly and see who would survive.
But Kennedy was adamant. The missiles had to go, or Cuba would continue to be embargoed. The ball was in Kruschev's court.
One of the scariest things about the whole mess was Kruschev on the other end. He was a bombastic individual who once took his shoe off and beat on the desk in protest of an opposing speech in a UN General Assembly. He also told western ambassadors ""Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in." No, he didn't actually say "We will bury you," but his meaning was clear.
Knowing that he had a red button he could push was stay-up-all-night worrisome.
Finally, on October 28, 1962, Kennedy, United Nations Secretary-General U Thant, and Kruschev reached an agreement. The Russians would withdraw from Cuba in exchange for the US declaring that they would never invade the island nation. Behind the scenes, the US would also disassemble a number of missiles that it had in Europe and Turkey.
The world exhaled.
Fifty years later, the US has kept their promise. Castro is still alive, but his son is calling the shots. Kruschev is gone, so is the USSR.
But we're all still around, thanks to a blustery individual making a calm decision. Say what you want about Nikita Kruschev, he prevented a nuclear war that he very easily could have instead caused to be. And Kennedy's ballsy stance kept the western hemisphere free of Soviet missiles, thus giving one fretful youngster one less thing to worry about.
Comments (5)
Yes, events leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis began in January 1959. Just after JFK was sworn in on January 20, 1961, on the night of January 24, 1961, an event occurred locally that put the nuclear fears deep into my 10-year-old heart. My home is Goldsboro, NC, also home of Seymour Johnson AFB. On that evening a B-52 bomber, flying an airborne alert mission, suffered structural damage and crashed as a fiery ball into a rural field twelve miles from base. Of the B-52's eight crewmen, five parachuted to safety, three others perished. That B-52 was also carrying a payload of two H-bombs! One bomb's parachutes deployed and it safely landed. The second bomb struck the field at the estimated speed of mach 1-- 760 mph. The site is part of Nahunta Swamp and is very boggy. The Army Corps of Engineers spent weeks excavating, to a depth of over 40 feet, the bomb's crash site, telling reporters, at first, that they were searching for a "lost seat." Due to the swampy soil and quicksand-like conditions, the excavation finally had to be abandoned. All of that bomb's components were never recovered. Many scholars and weapons experts speculate that bomb clicked through five of its six fail-safes. Only one remained before detonation. The Air Force purchased a land easement of a circle 200 ft. in radius from the farm owner and the water table continues to be monitored for radiation leakage.
The newspaper coverage of the crash and photos of all the recovery efforts as well as talk by the adults coupled with bomb drills in school made the path towards the Cuban Missile Crisis feel very nightmarish to this youngster.
To read more about Eastern NC's brush with nuclear disaster, visit this site:
http://www.ibiblio.org/bomb/
Posted by NCeddie | April 23, 2011 1:45 PM
Posted on April 23, 2011 13:45
I was born in 59. I do not remember the events of the Cuban affair. I did not even know JFK at the time. Only looking back has changed all that. But looking back sure does make me marvel at JFK.
His platform emphasized a critical time and juncture in which the direct we took was going to have big effects. It may have seemed like he was blowing hot air to get elected but in retrospect, he was dead on. But how did he know or see this when no one else saw it or at least spoke of it?
The Cuban affair was just one of those critical decisions and show downs. But there was a much bigger one, too. Eisenhower had warned of the Military-Industrial Complex as he was leaving. This was another. And too, Jack was taking on things, even now disputed, that lead to his getting assassinated mob style and arrogant like, for all of us to see. What would make men of power act so ruthlessly and yet so impulsively. What sort of threat was JFK presenting to them?
JFK gave a speech at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on April 27, 1961. "The President and the Press" before the American Newspaper Publishers Association. In it, he spoke disparagingly of secrecy and secret societies, and similar sorts of topics and asked for help from the press. Sounds like the fox guarding the hen house to me ;-)
But it also looked much like a shot across the bow of power and secrecy. Whatever it was, it likely helped start the platting to eliminate a “traitor” as far as power people were concerned. 2.5 years later, JFK would be done in at Dallas.
There was a TV interview with Gov. John Connally while he was in a hospital bed. You can look up the video on YouTube. It goes like this:
>>He [Kennedy] accomplished in death what he could not accomplish in life. To so shock and so stun a nation and the people and the world. Now what’s happening to us; of the cancerous growth that’s being permitted to expanded and enlarge itself, upon the community and society in which we live, that breeds hatred, the bigotry, and intolerance and indifference; a lawlessness, that I think really an outward manifestation of what occurred here in Dallas. It could have occurred in any other city in America. It is nothing more than a manifestation of an extremism on both sides that basically is the genesis of our self destruction if we’re ever gonna be destroyed. I am not the least fearful of any foreign enemy so long as we have within ourselves, not hate but human understanding, not passion and prejudice but reason and tolerance, not ignorance but knowledge and the willingness to use that knowledge. This is the only answer I can give, Martin, why he’s gone and I’m not.
It looks a lot like sides were lining up, almost like “High Noon.” There were those who thought perhaps decency, law, and procedure might be allowed to take place in an open fair game. And then there were those who preferred lawlessness and mob tactics of brute ruthless force. The bad guys won the day and we lost our president. Not a perfect man but a man willing to take a chance and stop things if he could. He could not.
The king is dead. Long live the king. It would be impossible to overestimate just how amazing this time was to, not only boomers, but the whole world. The election of JFK began a whirlwind of changes. Perhaps in part, coincidence, or maybe all related, but after the death of JFK, the Beatles come along just months later and so much more begins to unfold. The Boomer era, not even begun for many, such as myself or anyone born through 64, was really taking hold now. It was well on its way for the older Boomers.
A decisive time and Jack seemed to see it all before it took place. We got to see it in hindsight. Lets hope if offers some foresight such as JFK did seem to have.
Posted by Scott I | April 23, 2011 8:32 PM
Posted on April 23, 2011 20:32
I was 9 or 10 years old when those events unfolded. Even at that tender age, those were some truly frightening moments if you paid attention to the Trusted Mainstream Newscasts of the day.
There is a very much worth-watching movie (on VCR/DVD) that came out a few years ago--starring John Goodman--and was centered around those events. Name of the film: "Matinee."
Definitely worth investing a couple of hours watching. Lends an element of unofficial "history" to the events that might have been missed by Huntley and Brinkley.
Posted by J.D.Carlson | April 24, 2011 12:10 AM
Posted on April 24, 2011 00:10
I was just a toddler when this was going on. My father was in the reserve and almost got called up for this event.
Posted by Rivers End | April 25, 2011 9:02 AM
Posted on April 25, 2011 09:02
Our country could very well be a different place if these events did not unfold as they did. It is scary to think about times of war and of fights between nations, but as you said the United States came out on top. For those who remember these events, it was a very frightening time indeed.
Posted by firstSTREET | April 29, 2011 2:26 PM
Posted on April 29, 2011 14:26