Most of what has been published and what is still being published about the Missile Crisis continues to emphasise everything on the American side and what the Soviets were intending to do, not about what was happening on the Cuban side.
When the Crisis exploded, I was picking coffee in the Sierra Maestra mountains; I was 14 years old. In those years, we Cubans were not just used to being on the brink of a war with the US, we were actually already at war with the Americans. That war was part of our daily lives for 3 years. We had had the Bay of Pigs incident 18 months earlier: a civil war, with thousands of counterrevolutionary guerrillas, fuelled and supplied by the US, had extended to the whole island. Teenagers, teachers like me, had been assassinated by those guerrillas.
Since 1960, Cubans had become accustomed to living with crises. That is to say, between states of alert (between DEFCON 1 and DEFCON 3), the bombing of sugar cane fields and cities, US Navy warships that could be seen from the Havana seawall, civil war with armed groups in all the provinces, infiltrations and landings by enemy forces, militia mobilisations, maneuvers and Navy war games in the Caribbean, and the Guantánamo naval base. After the Bay of Pigs, the idea of a direct US invasion remained a daily notion.
There are a series of questions that are still there, about the causes, the factors, the Cuban motivations about their security, before, during, and after the Crisis. The lessons of the Crisis, for us, remain a relatively unexplored matter.
What actions and plans in US policy towards Cuba led to the October Crisis of 1962? What was the relationship between Cuba and the USSR like in 1960, 1961 and 1962? Did the Cuban–Soviet agreement subordinate Cuba to Soviet policy? Did Cuba and the USSR intend to threaten the US from their own backyard? Did the installation of nuclear weapons violate norms or principles of international law? Did Fidel Castro suggest to Nikita Khrushchev that he launched a first nuclear strike against the US? Was it a correct decision to exclude Cuba from US–USSR negotiations to facilitate the achievement of a stable agreement? What consequences did this exclusion have? Did the agreement remove only nuclear weapons from Cuba? Were the world and Cuba safer after 1962? What lessons did the Crisis have then and now?
A Soviet declassified document that was recently released by the National Security Agency (NSA) shows a unique first conversation between Raúl Castro and Nikita Krushchev in the summer of 1960, two years before the Crisis. Krushchev had warned the US, in a public speech, a few days earlier that Soviet nuclear rockets would be used to defend Cuba if the US dared to intervene with troops.
Fidel Castro wanted to know if that declaration was for real: “To what extent will the USSR take decisive action in the spirit of what was declared?” Krushchev’s answer was very clear and distinct: “We will do everything to not allow the intervention against Cuba. But we don’t want war. However, we must bear in mind that one can unleash a great war to defend Cuba.” And he adds: “In our opinion, the United States does not want war either. We seriously warn the US that they should not even think about an intervention against Cuba. But you, the Cuban leadership, should also moderate yourself, so as not to be provoked.”
Four months before the conversation between Raúl Castro and Krushchev in Moscow, President Eisenhower had signed the Bay of Pigs plan, which included direct military intervention once the 2506 Brigade controlled territory where “his” government could land. Playa Girón was an ongoing self-fulfilled prophecy, even though Soviet intelligence had not detected it, and the USSR had not sent the conventional weapons needed to defend Cuba, as they did later on.
The logic of spheres of influence and the geopolitical order agreed between East and West at Yalta is at the very core of the Soviet response. The solidarity with and enthusiasm for the Cuban Revolution in the USSR, and Khrushchev’s personal interest in capitalising on it in a domestic political context, does not diminish the merit of a policy of economic and military support for the Cuban Revolution, which eventually went against the grain of that geopolitical order, vital for its survival at a decisive stage.
Cuba and its leaders suddenly found themselves in that major league of world politics, forced to play a game on which the Revolution, and also the independence and sovereignty of the nation, depended. Defending them with political intelligence and determination, albeit at a high cost, was their major legacy, on the way to building a grand strategy, according to the classic definition, that involved the mobilisation and political support of the Cuban people.
Did the US learn its Cuban lesson in 1962 and later? A historian, Arthur Schlesinger, opposed to the blockade and in favor of normalisation, affirmed, however, that “the United States never had the intention of attacking Cuba”, and mocked “the Cuban litany about CIA conspiracies”, as “a way to divert attention from the real problems of the country”. One wonders if hawks, doves and owls really learned anything from the Missile Crisis.
The JFK–Khrushchev pact that sealed the biggest Cold War confrontation did not materialise in a treaty, not even in a signed piece of paper, and left many loose ends and inconsistencies. Although Cuba did not participate in the negotiations, it was agreed that it let its territory be inspected by the United States and the UN. After the terms of the Soviet–American agreement were established, the Soviets would remove “offensive weapons” not “medium and intermediate range missiles”. So the Komar missile boats, MiG 21s, the IL-28 bombers, and any other conventional means that could reach US territory, fell under what the United States would continue demanding.
The US commitment was limited to not invading with its troops. There was nothing about paramilitary actions from US territory, support for armed groups in all provinces, terrorism and other subversive actions, provocations from the Guantánamo naval base, or the total multilateral embargo, most of which remains in place today.
Cuba shared the basic interest of avoiding nuclear war, but, without its presence, not in the way it was negotiated, and not just because of principles of sovereignty and equity but for having been an active participant in the deployment of the missiles, as well as the theatre of operations. That is, for being in the front line of combat, running the greatest danger and taking the biggest risk.
In spite of all the above, however, it cooperated with the departure of the missiles and the Soviet troops; and it was left alone with the enemy, who had never given up trying to put an end to the Revolution.
As to the aftermath of the Crisis, being exposed and alone with a not exactly appeased United States has determined Cuba’s political system and the conduct of its leadership. Moreover, the reason for the siting of the missiles, that is, the US threat and its effects on the lives of Cubans, has never ceased because of the continued US occupation of the Guantánamo naval base, with its constant provocations; because of its support for armed counterrevolutionary groups in various provinces; because of the headquarters of paramilitary organisations being in Florida; because of the economic blockade, which has become the axis of the isolation and destabilisation strategy; and, finally, because the island remains a recurring target on its radar.
If the Cuban policy has principles, it is not because it is tied to a doctrine, to a set of apothegms, but rather to practices dictated by a specific historical and geopolitical situation. The necessity was to integrate a community of nations that refuse to align themselves with the great powers, be they capitalist or socialist, and that at the same time require alliances to compensate for the fatality of the space that they have been assigned, that is, in the face of hostility from their main neighbor, as in, for example, Vietnam.
For Cuba, the October Crisis is not a simple episode of the Cold War, but a key in the architecture of its foreign policy. Its refusal to allow the inspection of its territory when the missiles were withdrawn, after a negotiation in which it did not participate, as well as the continuation of low flights over its territory, was not a rhetorical gesture nor an outburst of wounded pride, but the practice of sovereignty, which did more with respect to the application of international law and maintaining a stable peace than most treaties.
This story not only shows that being in the geopolitical space of a power, in its “sphere of influence”, does not entail assuming submission to its dictates. It also documents that Cuba did not seek to wage war against the United States, nor did it ever join an enemy military bloc, nor did it align itself in favour of nuclear proliferation in the region. The history of the “Missile Crisis” shows under what exceptional conditions of imminent threat the country accepted the placement of the missiles. What I call “the cornered cat syndrome” is a lesson big powers should learn.
My cuban lessons
An initial commentary about the October 1962 Crisis from the Cuban viewpoint was written by Che Guevara in his farewell letter to Fidel Castro. He assessed the 1962 Crisis as a turning point of lucidity and disillusion: excluded from dialogue with the superpower by its major ally, Cuba was sailing on its own in that East–West confrontation, and because of that critical experience, a 36-year-old chief became a great statesman. Praising Fidel Castro, Guevara says that, “rarely has a statesman shone brighter”, and praises his way of “perceiving dangers and principles”, in those “bright and sad days”. In that personal letter, barely three years after the events, the words he chose capture the complex intensity of a dramatic moment.
Getting in and out of the nuclear crisis where the war with the US dragged us, with an ally more experienced militarily but trapped in deadly competition with its archenemy, one inept at deciphering the political algorithm of the Cuban Revolution, and doing it as part of the major leagues of world politics, was a supreme test of survival for the Cubans, which was only worth it because the recovered ideal of independence and sovereignty was at stake once again.
Fidel Castro’s statesmanship, recognised by his worst enemies, was tested by his ability to defend national integrity, even in the face of the force majeure of an essential alliance with the Soviet Union, which led him to emerge from the Missile Crisis with the political recognition and prestige of a Third World leader. This acknowledgment of the Third World opened a large gap in the US political siege.
If Cuba was not attacked by the US after 1962, it was not because of the lessons learned by JFK, who was assassinated a few months later. Nor was it because of the Soviet umbrella, which was definitively not granted any longer. It is true that the agreed status quo has been respected in practice. However, that cannot provide a retroactive argument to question the realistic choices available to Cuban leaders 60 years ago. That is a peculiar way to understand a historic political context.
As the total conventional war against Cuba launched by the US before October 1962 implied total devastation of the country and annihilation of the civilian population, it was not, in terms of national interests, a better option than nuclear deterrence. Looking back to the Cuban strategic situation in the early days of the Revolution, the idea of allowing the missiles to be sited in Cuba remains the most rational choice in terms of avoiding a kind of war equivalent to a one-sided holocaust.
When the missiles were withdrawn, after been wrongly concealed “under the cloak of secrecy and deception”, Cuba could only depend on its own defense and security capacity. A military buildup, which drained and distracted a huge portion of Cuban resources, was necessary because of national security. The political, economic and ideological consequences of that national security centrality on the Cuban political system and the life of its people up to the present day cannot be exaggerated.
Nowadays, misinterpretations of Cuban policies judge its position as “ambiguous”. However, that position characterises the current Russian intervention in Ukraine as “the use of force and non-observance of legal principles and international norms that Cuba subscribes to”, and reaffirms its opposition “to the use or threat of force against any state”. Of course, Cuba’s position does not defend Ukraine’s right to join NATO militarily nor to support its far-right government.
Any parallel between Cuba and the US during the Missile Crisis and the Russia–Ukraine conflict is misguided: for instance, the statement that “Ukraine challenges Russia with the same spirit as Cuba challenges the United States” or that “the invasion of Russia will be like the US invasion of Vietnam and Iraq”. Such comparisons assume that not joining the anti-Russian bloc is equivalent to isolation, as if China, India, Vietnam, Iran or South Africa had not done the same, and did not appreciate self-determination. In addition, it takes for granted that this Cuban position will have repercussions in relations with its main interlocutors and allies in Africa and Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Finally, it argues that this position will give rise to the continuation of the blockade – or even to a US intervention on the island.
History shows, however, that the end of the USSR and the withdrawal of Cuban troops in Africa, more than 30 years ago, did not move the US Cuban policy one millimetre.
Progress in bilateral relations, under Carter and Obama, has occurred precisely when the island has been less alone or distanced from allies such as the USSR or Russia or China. In the end, US policy has helped to bring its two main Cold War rivals together and has made it easier for Cuba to strengthen its relations with both at the same time as never before in 60 years.
In any case, the determination to maintain independence and sovereignty at all costs has played a decisive role in the dissuasion of the use of military force by the US as a rational choice to dispose of the Cuban Revolution after 1962.