My life has been to seek the Absolute Truth of God; to help others find the real purpose of their lives... Attempt to make this or where ever I am; better for my having been there! Amen!
This was when the United States and the Soviet Union came as close as they ever would to global nuclear war. Once the Soviet leader realized the power of the USA, he was able to peacefully disengage his nation from this most serious of Cold War confrontations.
Date: 12/1/2018 In the fall of 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union came as close as they ever would to global nuclear war. Hoping to correct what he saw as a strategic imbalance with the United States, Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev began secretly deploying medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Fidel Castro's Cuba. Once operational, these nuclear-armed weapons could have been used on cities and military targets in most of the continental United States.
Before this happened, however, U.S. intelligence discovered Khrushchev's brash maneuver. In what became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy and an alerted and aroused American government, military, and public compelled the Soviets to remove not only their missiles but all of their offensive weapons from Cuba.
The U.S. Navy played a pivotal role in this crisis, demonstrating the critical importance of naval forces to the national defense. The Navy, in cooperation with the other U.S. armed forces and allies, strategically employed military power in such a way that the president did not have to resort to war to protect vital Western interests. Khrushchev realized that his missile and bomber forces were no match for the Navy's powerful Polaris missile-firing submarines and the Air Force's land-based nuclear delivery systems once they became fully operational.
Naval forces under the U.S. Atlantic Command, headed by Admiral Robert L. Dennison, steamed out to sea, intercepting both merchant shipping en route to Cuba and Soviet submarines operating in the area. U.S. destroyers and frigates kept on station through underway replenishment by oilers and stores ships, maintained a month-long naval quarantine of the island.
Radar picket ships {like the USS Furse DDR 882 which I served on}, supported by Navy fighters and airborne early warning planes, assisted the Air Force's Air Defense Command in preparing to defend American airspace from Soviet and Cuban forces. Playing a vital role, Navy aerial photographic and patrol aircraft observed the deployment of Soviet offensive weapons into Cuba (and eventually monitored their withdrawal by sea).
As the unified commander for the Caribbean, Admiral Dennison was responsible for readying Army, Air Force, Marine, and Navy assault forces for a possible invasion of Cuba. He also served as the Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet.
The aircraft carriers, destroyers, and Marine forces of the subordinate Second Fleet, under Vice Admiral Alfred G. Ward, were poised to launch air, naval gunfire, and amphibious strikes from the sea against Soviet and Cuban forces ashore. With speed and efficiency, other fleet units reinforced the Marine garrison at Guantanamo on Cuba's southeastern tip and evacuated American civilians. Dennison also coordinated the maritime support operations carried out by Canadian, British, Argentine, and Venezuelan forces.
Khrushchev, faced with the armed might of the United States and its allies, had little choice but to find some way out of the difficult situation in which he had placed himself and his country.
President Kennedy did not press the advantage that the strength of U.S. and allied naval and military forces gave him. Thus, the Soviet leader was able to peacefully disengage his nation from this most serious of Cold War confrontations. **
'With A Heavy Heart...' -- Secret JFK Speech Could Have Signaled Start Of WWIII
'With A Heavy Heart...'
-- Secret JFK Speech Could
Have Signaled Start Of
WWIII
October 19, 2012 10:21 GMT
By Richard Solash
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (left) and U.S. President John F. Kennedy brought their countries to the brink of nuclear war in 1962.
WASHINGTON -- It could have been the start of a war the likes of which the world had never seen.
Films and history books have documented the the hair's-width margin that separated the United States and the Soviet Union from nuclear conflict during 13 days in October 1962, the height of the Cuban missile crisis.
But a speech drafted by U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and newly released to the public, throws what may be the starkest light yet on just how close the sides came to starting World War III.
"My fellow Americans, with a heavy heart, and in necessary fulfillment of my oath of office, I have ordered -- and the United States Air Force has now carried out -- military operations with conventional weapons only, to remove a major nuclear weapons build-up from the soil of Cuba," Kennedy was to begin.
The first page of a speech President John F. Kennedy had prepared in the event of a U.S. attack on Soviet installations in Cuba
This speech is the highlight of an archive containing nearly 3,000 pages of notes, transcripts, and other documents kept by Robert Kennedy, the president's brother and close adviser.
It was posted online by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum last week to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the crisis.
The newly released material offers a fascinating glimpse of the limited options open to the U.S. leader during the tense standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union.
"What this document reminds us, vividly, is that if President Kennedy had felt forced to choose what to do in the first 48 or 72 hours after the U.S. discovered the Soviet Union sneaking nuclear-tipped missiles into Cuba, he would have conducted an air strike on those missiles, as the speech tries to justify," says Graham Allison, the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and an expert on the Cuban missile crisis.
"We would have the seen the chain of events that would have initiated. Down that path we would have come to nuclear war."
Nail-Biting Diplomacy
Kennedy's speech, of course, was never delivered. The U.S. leader instead enacted a naval blockade of Cuba and as the world held its breath, the approaching Soviet ships turned back.
But Kennedy also came close to ordering a strike after the blockade to prevent the missiles that were spotted by the United States from becoming operational.
In his notes, Robert Kennedy wrote: "If we go in, we go in hard" -- a reference to the major land invasion of Cuba that was expected to follow roughly 500 bomb strikes.
What no one in Washington knew at the time is that Moscow already had nearly 100 smaller, fully operational nuclear weapons on the island, which would have been enough to eliminate U.S. forces and escalate the conflict into unprecedented territory.
According to Thomas Putnam, the director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the specter of war allegedly compelled the president's usual speech writer to turn down the assignment.
"One story is that Ted Sorensen, who wrote most of [Kennedy's] speeches and, I think, wrote the one where he announced to the world the discovery of the missiles, told [President Kennedy] he couldn't write that speech," Putnam says. "He didn't think we should invade and...he couldn't even come up with words that would perhaps support an invasion that would lead to a nuclear exchange. So I believe the author [of the speech] was [National Security Adviser] McGeorge Bundy."
After days of nail-biting diplomacy, Moscow pledged to withdraw its weapons and Washington pledged to stay out of Cuba.
Another notable document in the archive is a chart drawn by Robert Kennedy that divides the president's advisers and military leaders into proponents of a blockade and proponents of a strike -- men known to history as "doves" and "hawks." Arrows and question marks indicate that not all were convinced of which option was best.
Raw Material Of History
Memos detail the botched Operation Mongoose, a plan to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro that helped convince Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to send nuclear weapons to the island.
There are also notes referring to a secret deal for the United States to withdraw missiles from Turkey as well as CIA documents describing the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and a 1964 mafia-linked plan to assassinate Castro.
"What these documents are for us is the raw material of history," says Putnam. "They allow you to see Robert Kennedy's thinking, to see the notes, the doodles, [and] what his concerns were. Since he was such a key player in the Cuban missile crisis, having these documents helps to bring history to life."
Graham Allison says one detail from the archive has particularly resonated with him.
"Bobby has his notes after a civil defense briefing in which they've heard planning for what might happen if the actions they choose end up triggering an attack, and he writes down '42 million' and '90 million.' Those, I infer, are the answer[s] to the question [of] how many Americans are estimated to die if the U.S. attacks first, as opposed to waits until the Soviet Union attacks first, in which case 90 million Americans die."
"Well, those are unbelievable numbers, if you try to think of it. There they are in his handwriting with an underline," says Allison. "Who in the world could imagine trying to make a choice about something that has such momentous consequences?"
No comments:
Post a Comment