U.S. hostility to Cuba was at root of missile crisis

U.S. hostility to Cuba was at root of missile crisis

Carlos Lechuga speaks at book launching
April 7, 2003  --  See http://www.themilitant.com and
http://www.pathfinderpress.com

The following are the remarks of Carlos Lechuga at a February 3 meeting
in Havana that celebrated the publication of October 1962: The
‘Missile’ Crisis as Seen from Cuba, by Tomás Diez Acosta. New
York-based Pathfinder Press (http://www.pathfinderpress.com) published
an English-language edition of the book on the 40th anniversary of the
October 1962 events (see ad below). The Cuban publisher Editora
Política released a Spanish-language edition, which quickly sold out
and is being reprinted.
Lechuga served as Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations during the
U.S. government-instigated "missile crisis" 40 years ago (see box
below).

Also speaking on February 3 were Mary-Alice Waters, president of
Pathfinder, and Iraida Aguirrechu, current affairs editor of Editora
Política, who chaired the event. Coverage of the meeting, which drew
nearly 100 people, appeared in the March 10 Militant.

The event, which was part of the annual Havana International Book Fair,
also launched the new title Marianas in Combat: Teté Puebla and the
Mariana Grajales Platoon in Cuba’s Revolutionary War, published by
Pathfinder in English and Spanish. The translation and subheadings are
by the Militant.


*****

BY CARLOS LECHUGA
Tomás Diez Acosta, author of the book we’re presenting today, is a
diligent researcher of well-earned merit, as well as a thoroughgoing
analyst of the most important and dangerous crisis of the Cold War
period: the October Crisis. During the crisis Tomás Diez wasn’t in
Moscow or in Washington, but in a military unit in Cuba, where he
served as a political instructor. That vantage point gave him a
profound and multifaceted view of this important historical event.
This youthful experience, combined with his extensive academic and
historical investigations, gives this work great value, because it
enables him to analyze the crisis from the Cuban point of view. Such an
analysis is of particular interest for knowing what actually happened,
without distortions or doctoring.

The book contains a wealth of new information extracted from the Cuban
archives, as well as from interviews with direct participants in those
events. He also cites declassified U.S. documents that clarify many
aspects of the conflict.

For a long time--and still today--attempts have been made to distort
the true cause of that dramatic turning point, which, simply put, was
the U.S. policy of aggression against Cuba going back to the first days
of the revolution. That policy developed along two well-defined paths.
One, the clandestine approach, was carried out through the Central
Intelligence Agency. The other path involved the Organization of
American States as an instrument to politically isolate Cuba and thus
facilitate a military attack, which had already been prepared when the
crisis arose.

Washington seeks to isolate Cuba
On a hemispheric level, Washington resorted to every means to make the
Latin American governments bend to their wishes with the aim of
punishing Cuba. Eight months after the revolutionary triumph, a meeting
was held of foreign ministers. Such meetings had been held four times
in 20 years. But after January 1, 1959, in the course of just 24
months, there were four of them, all with the aim of destroying the
revolution. At the last one [in January 1962], the Americans obtained
the votes necessary to expel Cuba from the OAS.

This was an illegal violation of the regional organization’s charter,
which did not provide for expelling any member. It also violated the
United Nations Charter, which supersedes the OAS charter and does not
discriminate against any country on the basis of its socioeconomic
system. In fact, the OAS also played an important role in the October
Crisis, inasmuch as its Council aided Washington by hurriedly adopting
a resolution endorsing a naval blockade of the island. This decision
was made at the request of the U.S. State Department, and its legality
was also highly questionable.

At the time Cuba was expelled from the OAS, the country was already
reinforcing its military capacity, as the book details. It was
impossible to keep Washington’s intentions hidden.

The subversive activities, which had never stopped, were stepped up and
organized better, under the watchful eye of the highest authorities in
Washington. The plans for sabotage and the assassination of leaders,
Fidel Castro in particular, did not stop. The book contains an account
of those facts, as well as the contingency plans to invade Cuba.

[Soviet premier Nikita] Khrushchev’s idea of proposing to Cuba the
installation of nuclear missiles is told in detail in Tomás Diez’s
book. The idea was prompted by the threat to the security of his
country by the installation of U.S. "Jupiter" missiles in Turkey and
Italy, and by the imminent danger of an attack on Cuba. Robert
McNamara, Kennedy’s secretary of defense, has revealed that, during the
time of the October 1962 crisis, the United States possessed 5,000
nuclear missiles while the Soviet Union had 300. That meant a 17 to 1
ratio, in addition to a large disparity as regards bombers and other
strategic weapons.

It’s interesting to read in the book about all the military aspects of
the operation involving the installation of the missiles, the errors
committed by the Soviet leadership, and Cuba’s clarity and foresight
throughout the entire process. The book also takes up the main reason
why Cuba accepted the strategic weapons as well as the evolution of the
diplomatic negotiations.

We get a clear view of the gigantic effort involved in preparing all
the troops and military equipment in the USSR, transferring them to
Cuba, and installing them in our territory. The troops and military
equipment docked in seven ports and it took 185 sea journeys to
transport them. The details of the operation in this book read like
scenes of a great work of drama, with the added interest that
everything was taking place amid a climate of dangerous confrontation
on a world scale. We likewise learn of the locations on the island
where the different types of troops and missile systems were placed, as
well as the reasons they could be discovered by U.S. planes. It should
be said, however, that despite all its efforts, the enemy’s
intelligence never found out the number of Soviet troops that were in
Cuba.

The book faithfully reflects the political and diplomatic side of the
crisis, which played a noteworthy role. It recounts the positions of
Havana, Washington, and Moscow in all their various nuances.

The United Nations attempted to be the center of the negotiations. Many
countries expected that as soon as the conflict was over and war
averted, the Security Council would meet and come up with a long-term
agreement to solve the differences between Cuba and the United States,
thus ending the tensions in the Caribbean and eliminating a point of
friction that endangered world peace. Washington refused to consider
the question in that form, and rejected Cuba’s participation in its
negotiations with the Soviets, pushing aside in fact the conciliatory
efforts by the United Nations secretary-general.

In the end, the Security Council was unable to meet despite the fact
that the crisis was on its agenda. The Soviets and the Americans came
to an agreement and sent a note to the UN’s highest body saying that no
discussion on this point was necessary since the crisis had already
been resolved. Cuba sent another note, but with the opposite
conclusion. The Cubans and Soviets had prepared an agreement that
reflected the positions of the three countries, to be presented to the
Council. But Washington did not agree to it.

U.S. gov’t refuses to end aggression
The discussions were very tense. The Cuban leadership found out about
the Soviet agreement to remove the missiles in Cuba through a broadcast
over Radio Moscow. What happened was that Kennedy made continual
demands on the Soviets that were always accepted without much debate.
Kennedy’s promise not to invade Cuba, which Khrushchev agreed to even
though he had no guarantees, was rejected by Cuba. The fact that
Washington refused to agree to end the economic war against Cuba,
discontinue subversive activities and acts of piracy, and stop
violating our territorial air space and waters demonstrated that there
was absolutely no basis to such an offer. Nor did they accept the
additional guarantee demanded by Cuba: the withdrawal of the Guantánamo
naval base. None of these conditions--acceptance of which would have
given Kennedy’s promise a solid foundation--was agreed to by
Washington. As it says in the book, Cuba already had a long and bitter
experience with Washington’s lack of sincerity.

The book reviews all aspects of the crisis, presenting the viewpoints
of the three parties to the conflict. In addition the book contains an
extensive section of Cuban documents of great historical value.

One of the propaganda weapons that the United States utilized very
effectively was the fact that the missiles were installed in our
territory in a clandestine way, covertly, and not as the result of a
legitimate military agreement between two sovereign nations, such as
those the United States signs with its allies. Fidel Castro warned the
Soviets that it was necessary, as a normal procedure, to make the
agreement public, but Khrushchev didn’t see it that way. This opened up
the USSR and Cuba to the charge of deceiving world public opinion.

Cuba’s position was always based on principle, on defending its
sovereignty, on defending its right to have all the weapons it deemed
necessary to respond to the attacks against it. Cuba did not surrender
its right to refuse inspections and it did not agree to negotiate any
undermining of its independence.

Cuban outrage at Soviet leaders’ conduct
When reading the book, it’s instructive to follow all those
discussions, which were taking place in a very tense atmosphere, when
the world was often on the verge of nuclear war.

Moscow and Washington, each for their own reasons, kept the outcome a
secret: an agreement to withdraw the missiles from Cuba in exchange for
the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey and Italy. This crude truth
became known later on, but the U.S. plans to destroy the revolution
continued. The negotiations over the crisis did not disrupt U.S.
intentions of making Cuba submit to its control. The outcome of the
crisis did not offer any guarantee to Cuba.

When the nuclear missiles were withdrawn, the Cuban people expressed
great indignation. We should also not forget the response to this move
by the Soviet troops, who were willing to defend us against all
dangers. That human aspect of the crisis should not be forgotten.

In analyzing how the crisis ended, the book states that for the
revolutionary leadership it became clear that the country’s security
depends above all on the courage, determination, and willingness of the
people to be part of its defense. Any outside support would always be
subject to conjunctural factors of international policy, even though
solidarity will always play a significant role.

Undoubtedly the events of those days left a sense of disillusionment
and bitterness owing to the poor political role played by the Soviet
Union in accepting all the U.S. demands.

On the other hand, internationally the situation did not improve. The
conflicts that endangered world peace did not end. The arms race
continued its accelerated course, with an enormous waste of resources.
The economic situation of the underdeveloped countries continued to get
worse. But, as the book states, these realities should not feed
pessimism about the future. History, the author correctly states, shows
that just and noble causes always triumph, regardless of the power of
the forces standing in their way.



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What was Oct. 1962 ‘missile’ crisis?

In October 1962, in what is widely known as the Cuban Missile Crisis,
Washington pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war. The events
brought to a head the drive by the U.S. rulers to launch a direct
invasion of Cuba and overthrow the revolutionary government there.
On Jan. 1, 1959, the Cuban workers and farmers had overthrown a
U.S.-backed dictatorship and begun a deep-going revolution. From that
point on, Washington took increasingly aggressive actions to try to
undermine and overthrow the new revolutionary power. In April 1961,
Cuba’s revolutionary militias and armed forces crushed a U.S.-organized
mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs. In subsequent months, the
Kennedy administration launched "Operation Mongoose" and other
campaigns of counterrevolutionary terror and sabotage.

In the spring and summer of 1962, in face of escalating preparations by
Washington for a full-scale invasion of Cuba, the revolutionary
government signed a mutual defense pact with the Soviet Union,
including the deployment of Soviet missiles on the island. In October
of that year U.S. president John F. Kennedy demanded removal of the
Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba. Washington imposed a naval blockade
of Cuba, stepped up preparations for an armed assault, and placed its
armed forces on nuclear alert.

In face of the mobilization of Cuban workers and farmers to defend
their national sovereignty and revolutionary gains, the U.S. government
backed off its invasion plans. Following an exchange of communications
between Washington and Moscow, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev,
without consulting Havana, publicly announced his decision to remove
the missiles on October 28. A few days after the Soviet announcement,
the U.S. government demanded that Cuba accept "inspectors" to "verify"
the removal of the missiles. UN secretary-general U Thant went to Cuba
to try to persuade Havana to accept such a group of "inspectors." The
revolutionary government rejected this demand as a blatant violation of
Cuba’s national sovereignty.