When the Caribbean crisis happened. Caribbean crisis: the "hot" phase of the Cold War

Alexander Fursenko - Yulia Kantor

And Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Fursenko is equally known both in our country and abroad as the largest researcher of one of the most painful subjects in post-war world history - the Caribbean crisis. The Duke of Westminster Award for Contribution to the Study of History was recently held at London's Whitehall. For the first time, this one of the most prestigious awards in the world scientific community was presented to a Russian academician Fursenko. At the end of November, an international conference will be held in Cambridge on the history of Soviet-British relations in the 20th century. The speaker from the Russian side will be Alexander Fursenko, the author of the famous monographs “Infernal Game. The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis 1958-1964" and "Khrushchev's Cold War. Inner History.

How do you see Khrushchev, because you worked with documents that make it possible to shed light on previously unknown personality traits of this politician? What made the biggest impression on you?
Khrushchev was an emotional man prone to adventurism. But he was also a major statesman who cared about the national interests of the country, thought about the welfare of the people. He sincerely cared about people, sought to make their lives better. From the records of the Politburo minutes, sometimes laconic, sometimes detailed, we ourselves were surprised to learn that Khrushchev thought about such mundane things as underground passages, dry cleaners. Khrushchev dreamed of a large scale deal with the United States that would demilitarize the Cold War and allow him to redirect resources into the Soviet economy. In order to achieve this, he resorted to both threats and peaceful initiatives. I recently read documents from his personal archive: there are a lot of uncorrected transcripts. I will publish them exactly as they are, "uncombed" - just as he said. This is amazingly interesting. His vocabulary, style, humor, the very way of thinking - all this is important for understanding what was happening then, for recognizing Khrushchev himself. After all, he was a very interesting personality, although it is customary for us to portray him in a caricature, sometimes mockingly. But he did a gigantic deed for our country: being implicated in the crimes of the Stalinist regime, he was nevertheless not afraid to tell the truth. Not all, of course, but at least he outlined the path ...

Hell game

From the title of your and Timothy Naftali's sensational book in the scientific and political world “Infernal game. The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis 1958-1964 "sounds like an action movie ...
It does sound somewhat detective, but the English title of this book, published in the USA in 1997, is different. This is a reminder of John F. Kennedy, who in October 1962, before addressing the nation, addressed a small group of members of the Senate and the House of Representatives. He then said: “I know the places where there are Soviet missiles, and I can send bombers even now. But I'm not sure if these are all places where there are rockets. And in this sense, the bombing would be an insanely risky hellish game. In Russia, the book was published in 1999 under the title “Infernal game. The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis 1958-1964. In 2006, I corrected this free translation and republished it under a more accurate, in my opinion, title: “Mad Risk. The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Your American opponents questioned several fundamental provisions of the monograph, in particular the question of the role of intelligence in the history of the crisis and its resolution...
Quite right. Prior to the publication of the book, it was believed that the events on the eve of Playa Giron were a failure for both our and Cuban intelligence. What the USSR could not know about the operation being prepared by the Americans. But in the archives of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence Service, I saw a report from Mexico, which said: one of these days there will be an invasion of Cuba. Mexico was the main KGB station in Latin America, and this report came from Guatemalan friends. Former KGB chief Shelepin wrote opposite the text of this telegram that arrived in Moscow: "That's right." And Castro was immediately sent a telegram from us, that is, he received our warning two days before the attack.

Or disagreements over the "ultimatum of Bulganin", which put an end to the Suez war. We, as you know, demanded a halt to military operations against Egypt, hinting at Britain's strategic missiles. In the West, many believe that this ultimatum was not as decisive as the Soviet side ascribed to itself. That England, France and Israel stopped the war mainly for financial reasons. Under pressure from Treasury Secretary Harold Macmillan, the government of Anthony Eden was forced to retreat from Egypt. Of course, the factors cited by the British were significant. But "Bulganin's ultimatum" worked too obviously to be denied! They tried to convince me that the British were not at all afraid of our ultimatum, they simply ignored it, because they knew that Soviet missiles could not reach London. And he reassured them, that is, allegedly influenced the situation, the American resident. Later, when the book came out, I received another confirmation of my point of view. Working in London in the archives of the joint intelligence committee, I found reports that the British, the Intelligence Service, knew the parameters of our missiles well before the Americans. The British clearly did not want a deep conflict with Khrushchev.

Which of the documents you introduced into scientific circulation made the greatest impression on the London Royal Institute of Military Research, which presented you with the Duke of Westminster Prize?
I think protocols from the Kremlin archives. Under my editorship, these documents saw the light of day for the first time, two volumes of uncorrected protocols and transcripts of meetings of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU have already been published, and a third is being prepared for publication. Both the British and the Americans, after reading the book, were dumbfounded to learn the exact number of troops deployed to Cuba during Operation Anadyr. (For the first time, I named this figure at a conference of participants in the Cuban crisis arranged in Moscow in January 1989. I was there thanks to Academician Primakov, and a Politburo resolution was necessary allowing my participation in the delegation.) There were more than 40,000 of our people there! The Americans did not know this. They did not know for a long time that we had nuclear warheads there. This is what we told them many years later.

Weakness as a secret

Is Khrushchev's voluntarist diplomacy the fruit of natural cunning, diluted with party-Soviet ideas about the style of behavior with the capitalists?
Voluntary diplomacy is a good term for Khrushchev's foreign policy. Sending rockets to Cuba was Khrushchev's adventure. But Khrushchev, as it turns out from the documents, did not even think of using these missiles. He wanted to scare the United States, to force him to speak with the USSR on an equal footing. When the acute phase of the conflict passed, he happily boasted: "We are in the world club." Well, yes, and very risky. The main thing is that Khrushchev was not an instigator of war. For example, he said that we make rockets like sausages. As funny as it sounds, that was a big exaggeration. When the Americans launched spy satellites, they couldn't find intercontinental ballistic missiles on our territory. But the fact is that there were only six or seven of them. The biggest secret was our weakness. He was bluffing in order to come to the UN session and from the podium effectively tell Kennedy about Soviet missiles and the conclusion of an agreement with Castro. I spoke to the military men whom he spoke to in the Kremlin before sending missiles to Cuba, in particular with General Garbuz, deputy commander of the Soviet group of troops in Cuba. He told them: "We want to throw a hedgehog in the pants of the Americans, but in no case are we going to use rocket weapons against America." This is confirmed by the minutes of the Central Committee. His words are recorded there: “We wanted to intimidate, but not unleash a war. But if they hit, we will have to respond and there will be a big war.

Playa Giron is a town in the Bay of Pigs ("Bay of Pigs") on the southern coast of Cuba. On April 17, 1961, the main forces of the specially formed "brigade 2506" were landed in the bay by the Americans. The landing was carried out under the cover of US ships and aircraft. On April 19, the Americans were defeated. These events have become one of the historical symbols of the Cuban revolution.

The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 14, 1962 when the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft of the US Air Force, during one of the regular overflights of Cuba, discovered Soviet medium-range missiles R-12 and R-14 in the vicinity of the village of San Cristobal. By decision of US President John F. Kennedy, a special executive committee was created to discuss possible solutions to the problem. For some time, the meetings of the executive committee were secret, but on October 22, Kennedy addressed the people, announcing the presence of Soviet "offensive weapons" in Cuba, which immediately began to panic in the United States. A quarantine (blockade) of Cuba was introduced.
At first, the USSR denied the presence of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, then assured the Americans of their deterrent nature. On October 25, photographs of the missiles were shown to the world at a meeting of the UN Security Council. On October 27, an American U-2 aircraft was shot down. Supporters of the military solution to the problem urged Kennedy to start a massive bombardment of Cuba.
Nikita Khrushchev offered the Americans to dismantle the installed missiles and deploy ships still heading towards Cuba in exchange for US guarantees not to attack Cuba and remove its missiles from Turkey. Kennedy agreed, and the dismantling of the missiles began on October 28. The last Soviet missile left Cuba a few weeks later, on November 20, the blockade of Cuba was lifted. The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted 38 days.

The Caribbean crisis is the most acute international crisis of the Cold War era, the manifestation of which was an extremely tense diplomatic, political and military confrontation between the USSR and the USA in October 1962, which was caused by the secret transfer and deployment of military units and military units on the island of Cuba. units of the Armed Forces of the USSR, equipment and weapons, including nuclear weapons. The Caribbean crisis could lead to a global nuclear war.

According to the official Soviet version, the crisis was caused by the deployment in 1961 by the United States in Turkey (a NATO member state) of Jupiter medium-range missiles, which could reach cities in the European part of the USSR, including Moscow and the main industrial centers of the country. In response to these actions, in the immediate vicinity of the US coast, on the island of Cuba, the USSR deployed regular military units and subunits armed with both conventional and nuclear weapons, including ground-based ballistic and tactical missiles. Submarines of the Soviet naval forces equipped with missiles and torpedoes with nuclear warheads were also deployed on combat duty off the coast of Cuba.

Initially, after the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Cuba did not have close relations with the USSR. The rapprochement between Cuba and the USSR became apparent after radical transformations began to be carried out in Cuba, including those directed against the dominance of the Americans. The imposition of US sanctions against Cuba in 1960 hastened this process of rapprochement. Such steps put Cuba in a very difficult position. By that time, the Cuban government had already established diplomatic relations with the USSR and asked for help. In response to Cuba's request, the USSR sent oil tankers and organized the purchase of Cuban sugar and raw sugar. Experts from various sectors of the national economy of the USSR went to Cuba on long business trips to create similar industries, as well as office work. At the same time, the Soviet leader N.S. Khrushchev considered the defense of the island important to the international reputation of the USSR.

The idea of ​​deploying missile weapons in Cuba arose shortly after the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation. N.S. Khrushchev believed that deploying missiles in Cuba would protect the island from a re-invasion, which he considered inevitable after the failed landing attempt. The militarily significant deployment of a critical weapon in Cuba would also demonstrate the importance of the Soviet-Cuban alliance to Fidel Castro, who demanded material confirmation of Soviet support for the island.

A role was also played by the fact that in 1961 the United States began deploying in Turkey, near the city of Izmir, 15 PGM-19 Jupiter medium-range missiles with a range of 2400 km, which directly threatened the European part of the USSR, reaching Moscow. Soviet strategists realized that they were practically defenseless against the impact of these missiles, but it was possible to achieve some nuclear parity by taking a counter step - placing missiles in Cuba. Soviet medium-range missiles on Cuban territory, with a range of up to 4000 km (R-14), could keep Washington at gunpoint.

The decision to deploy Soviet missiles on the island of Cuba was made on May 21, 1962 at a meeting of the Defense Council, during which N.S. Khrushchev raised this issue for discussion. The members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, who were members of the Defense Council, supported N.S. Khrushchev. The ministries of defense and foreign affairs were instructed to organize the secret transfer of troops and military equipment by sea to Cuba.

On May 28, 1962, a Soviet delegation consisting of the USSR Ambassador A.I. flew from Moscow to Havana. Alekseev, Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces Marshal S.S. Biryuzov, Colonel General S.P. Ivanov, as well as Sh.R. Rashidov. On May 29, 1962, they met with Raul and Fidel Castro and presented the Soviet proposal to them. On the same day, a positive response was given to the Soviet delegates.

On June 10, 1962, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the results of the trip of the Soviet delegation to Cuba were discussed and a preliminary draft of the missile transfer operation prepared at the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces was presented. The plan envisaged the deployment of two types of ballistic missiles in Cuba: R-12 with a range of about 2,000 km and R-14 with a range of about 4,000 km. Both types of missiles were equipped with 1 Mt nuclear warheads. It was supposed to send a group of Soviet troops to Cuba, for combat protection of five divisions of nuclear missiles (three R-12 and two R-14). After listening to the report of R.Ya. Malinovsky, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU voted for the operation unanimously.

By June 20, 1962, a group of Soviet troops in Cuba was formed to deploy on the island:

units of the Strategic Missile Forces, consisting of: the consolidated 51st Missile Division (16 launchers and 24 R-14 missiles), the 79th Missile Regiment of the 29th Missile Division and the 181st Missile Regiment of the 50th Missile Division (24 launchers and 36 R-12 missiles) with repair and technical bases attached to them, support and maintenance units and subunits;

ground troops covering missile forces: 302, 314, 400 and 496 motorized rifle regiments;

air defense troops: 11th air defense anti-aircraft missile division (12 S-75 installations, with 144 missiles), 10th air defense anti-aircraft division (anti-aircraft artillery), 32nd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (40 newest MiG-21F front-line fighters -13, 6 training aircraft MiG-15UTI);

air force: 134th separate aviation squadron (11 aircraft); 437th separate helicopter regiment (33 Mi-4 helicopters); 561st and 584th regiments of cruise missiles (16 launchers, of which 12 launchers have not yet been put into service with Luna tactical missiles);

navy: 18th division and 211th submarine brigade (11 submarines), 2 mother ships, 2 cruisers, 2 missile and 2 artillery destroyers, missile boat brigade (12 units); a separate mobile coastal missile regiment (8 launchers of the Sopka towed coastal missile system); 759th mine-torpedo aviation regiment (33 Il-28 aircraft); detachment of support vessels (5 units);

rear units: a field bakery, three hospitals (600 beds), a sanitary and anti-epidemic detachment, a transshipment base service company, 7 warehouses.

In Cuba, it was planned to form the 5th Fleet of the USSR Navy as part of the surface and underwater squadrons. It was planned to include 26 ships in the surface squadron: cruisers pr. 68 bis - "Mikhail Kutuzov" and "Sverdlov"; Project 57-bis missile destroyer "Angry", "Boikiy"; artillery destroyers of project 56 "Light" and "Fair"; brigade of project 183R missile boats "Komar" - 12 units; 8 auxiliary vessels, including 2 tankers, 2 bulk carriers, 1 floating workshop. It was planned to include in the squadron of submarines: Project 629 diesel missile submarines: K-36, K-91, K-93, K-110, K-113, K-118, K-153 with R-13 ballistic missiles; Project 641 diesel torpedo submarines: B-4 (submarine), B-36, B-59, B-130; project 310 floating base "Dmitry Galkin", "Fyodor Vidyaev".

General I.A. was appointed commander of the GSVK. Pliev. Vice Admiral G.S. was appointed commander of the 5th Fleet. Abashvili. The relocation of submarines to Cuba was singled out as a separate operation under the code name "Kama".

The total number of the redeployed group of troops was 50,874 personnel and up to 3,000 civilian personnel. It was also necessary to transport over 230,000 tons of logistics.

By June 1962, the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces had developed a cover operation codenamed "Anadyr". Marshal of the Soviet Union I.Kh. planned and directed the operation. Bagramyan. Missiles and other equipment, as well as personnel, were delivered to six different ports. Transportation of personnel and equipment by sea was carried out on passenger and dry cargo ships of the merchant fleet from the ports of the Baltic, Black and Barents Seas (Kronstadt, Liepaja, Baltiysk, Sevastopol, Feodosia, Nikolaev, Poti, Murmansk). 85 ships were allocated for the transfer of troops. In early August 1962, the first ships arrived in Cuba. On the night of September 8, 1962, the first batch of medium-range ballistic missiles was unloaded in Havana, the second batch arrived on September 16, 1962. The headquarters of the GSVK was located in Havana. Battalions of ballistic missiles deployed in the west of the island near the village of San Cristobal and in the center of the island near the port of Casilda. The main troops were concentrated around the missiles in the western part of the island, but several cruise missiles and a motorized rifle regiment were transferred to the east of Cuba - a hundred kilometers from Guantanamo Bay and the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay. By October 14, 1962, all 40 missiles and most of the equipment had been delivered to Cuba.

The United States became aware of the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba, after October 14, 1962, the first reconnaissance flight over Cuba since September 5, 1962, was carried out. A Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft of the 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, piloted by Major Richard Heizer, took off at about 3 am from Edwards Air Force Base in California. An hour after sunrise, Heizer reached Cuba. The flight to the Gulf of Mexico took him 5 hours. Heizer circled Cuba from the west and crossed the coastline from the south at 7:31 am. The plane crossed the whole of Cuba almost exactly from south to north, flying over the cities of Taco-Taco, San Cristobal, Bahia Honda. Heizer covered these 52 kilometers in 12 minutes. Landing at an air base in south Florida, Heizer handed the film to the CIA. On October 15, 1962, CIA analysts determined that the photographs were of Soviet R-12 medium-range ballistic missiles (“SS-4” according to NATO classification). In the evening of the same day, this information was brought to the attention of the top military leadership of the United States.

On the morning of October 16, 1962 at 8:45 a.m., the photographs were shown to US President J.F. Kennedy. This date is considered the beginning of the events that are known in world history as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After receiving photographs showing Soviet missile bases in Cuba, J.F. Kennedy called a special group of advisers to a secret meeting at the White House. This 14-member group, later known as the "Executive Committee", consisted of members of the US National Security Council and several specially invited advisers. Soon, the committee offered the president three possible options for resolving the situation: destroy the missiles with pinpoint strikes, conduct a full-scale military operation in Cuba, or impose a naval blockade of the island.

An immediate bombing attack was rejected out of the blue, as was an appeal to the UN that promised a long delay. The real options considered by the committee were only military measures. Diplomatic, barely touched upon on the first day of the work, were immediately rejected - even before the main discussion began. As a result, the choice was reduced to a naval blockade and an ultimatum, or to a full-scale invasion. The idea of ​​an invasion was criticized by J.F. Kennedy, who feared that "even if Soviet troops did not take active action in Cuba, the answer would follow in Berlin", which would lead to an escalation of the conflict. Therefore, at the suggestion of Minister of Defense R. McNamara, it was decided to consider the possibility of a naval blockade of Cuba.

The decision to impose a blockade was made at the final vote on the evening of October 20, 1962: J.F. Kennedy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and US Ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson, specially summoned from New York. On October 22, 1962, the United States announced the introduction of a complete naval blockade of Cuba from 10 am on October 24, 1962. Officially, these actions were called by the American side as "quarantine of the island of Cuba", because. the announcement of the blockade meant the automatic start of war. Therefore, the decision to impose a blockade was submitted for discussion by the Organization of American States (OAS). Based on the Rio Pact, the OAS unanimously supported the imposition of sanctions against Cuba. The action was called not a "blockade", but a "quarantine", which meant not a complete cessation of maritime traffic, but only an obstacle to the supply of weapons. The United States required all ships bound for Cuba to stop completely and present their cargo for inspection. If the ship's commander refused to allow the inspection team on board, the US Navy was instructed to subject the ship to arrest and escort it to an American port.

Simultaneously, on October 22, 1962, J.F. Kennedy addressed the American people (and the Soviet government) in a televised speech. He confirmed the presence of missiles in Cuba and declared a naval blockade of 500 nautical miles (926 km) around the coast of Cuba, warning that the armed forces were "ready for any developments" and condemning the USSR for "secrecy and imposing delusion." Kennedy noted that any missile launch from Cuban territory against any of the American allies in the Western Hemisphere would be regarded as an act of war against the United States.

In response to N.S. Khrushchev declared that the blockade was illegal and that any ship flying the Soviet flag would ignore it. He threatened that if the Soviet ships were attacked by the Americans, a retaliatory strike would follow immediately.

However, the blockade went into effect on 24 October 1962 at 10:00 am. 180 ships of the US Navy surrounded Cuba with clear orders not to open fire on Soviet ships in any case without a personal order from the president. By this time, 30 ships and vessels were going to Cuba. In addition, 4 diesel submarines were approaching Cuba, accompanying the ships. N.S. Khrushchev decided that the submarines, the Aleksandrovsk and four other missile-carrying ships, the Artemyevsk, Nikolaev, Dubna, and Divnogorsk, should continue on their current course. In an effort to minimize the possibility of a collision of Soviet ships with American ones, the Soviet leadership decided to deploy the rest of the ships that did not have time to reach Cuba home.

At the same time, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU decided to put the Armed Forces of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries on high alert. All layoffs have been cancelled. Conscripts preparing for demobilization were ordered to remain at their duty stations until further notice. N.S. Khrushchev sent F. Castro an encouraging letter, assuring him of the unshakable position of the USSR under any circumstances.

October 24, 1962 to N.S. Khrushchev received a short telegram from J.F. Kennedy, in which he called on the Soviet leader to "show prudence" and "observe the terms of the blockade." The Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU gathered for a meeting to discuss the official response to the introduction of the blockade. On the same day, N.S. Khrushchev sent J.F. Kennedy a letter in which he accused him of setting "ultimatum conditions." He called the quarantine "an act of aggression pushing humanity towards the abyss of a world nuclear missile war." In a letter to N.S. Khrushchev warned J.F. Kennedy that "the captains of Soviet ships will not comply with the instructions of the American Navy", and also that "if the United States does not stop its piracy, the government of the USSR will take any measures to ensure the safety of ships."

On October 25, 1962, at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, one of the most memorable scenes in the history of the UN played out, when the US representative E. Stevenson tried to force the representative of the USSR V. Zorin, who, like most Soviet diplomats, was unaware of Operation Anadyr , to give an answer regarding the presence of missiles in Cuba, making the well-known demand: "Do not wait until you are translated!" Refused by Zorin, Stevenson showed photographs taken by US reconnaissance aircraft showing missile positions in Cuba.

At the same time, Kennedy gave the order to increase the combat readiness of the US Armed Forces to the level of DEFCON-2 (the first and only time in US history).

Meanwhile, in response to N.S. Khrushchev, a letter arrived from J.F. Kennedy, in which he pointed out that "the Soviet side violated its promises regarding Cuba and misled him." This time, the Soviet leader decided not to go for a confrontation and began to look for possible ways out of the current situation. He announced to the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU that "it is impossible to store missiles in Cuba without going to war with the United States." At the meeting, it was decided to offer the Americans to dismantle the missiles in exchange for US guarantees to stop trying to change the state system in Cuba. Brezhnev, Kosygin, Kozlov, Mikoyan, Ponomarev and Suslov supported Khrushchev. Gromyko and Malinovsky abstained from voting.

October 26, 1962 N.S. Khrushchev set about compiling a new, less militant message to J.F. Kennedy. In a letter, he offered the Americans the option of dismantling the installed missiles and returning them to the USSR. In exchange, he demanded guarantees that "the United States will not invade Cuba with its troops and will not support any other forces that would intend to invade Cuba." He ended the letter with the famous phrase: "You and I should not now pull the ends of the rope on which you tied the knot of war."

N.S. Khrushchev wrote this letter to J.F. Kennedy alone, without gathering the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Later in Washington there was a version that the second letter was not written by the Soviet leader and that a coup d'état may have taken place in the USSR. Others believed that the Soviet leader, on the contrary, was looking for help in the fight against hardliners in the ranks of the leadership of the USSR Armed Forces. The letter arrived at the White House at 10 am. Another condition was publicly broadcast over the radio on the morning of October 27, 1962: to withdraw American missiles from Turkey.

In the meantime, the political situation in Harbor was heated to the limit. F. Castro became aware of the new position of N.S. Khrushchev, and he immediately went to the Soviet embassy. F. Castro decided to write to N.S. Khrushchev a letter to push him to more decisive action. Even before he finished the letter and sent it to the Kremlin, the head of the KGB station in Havana informed the First Secretary of the essence of the message: “In the opinion of Fidel Castro, intervention is almost inevitable and will take place in the next 24-72 hours.” At the same time R.Ya. Malinovsky received a report from the commander of the Soviet troops in Cuba, General Pliev, about the increased activity of American strategic aviation in the Caribbean. Both messages were delivered to N.S. Khrushchev to the Kremlin at 12 noon on Saturday, October 27, 1962

At the same time, on the same day, October 27, 1962, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down in the sky over Cuba. The pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, was killed. Around the same time, another U-2 was almost intercepted over Siberia, as General K. Lemay, Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, disregarded the order of the President of the United States to stop all flights over Soviet territory. A few hours later, two US Navy RF-8A Crusader photographic reconnaissance aircraft were fired upon by anti-aircraft guns while flying over Cuba at low altitude. One of them was damaged, but the pair returned safely to base.

Military advisers to the President of the United States tried to persuade him to order the invasion of Cuba before Monday, "before it was too late." J.F. Kennedy no longer categorically rejected such a development of the situation. However, he did not leave hope for a peaceful resolution. It is generally accepted that "Black Saturday" October 27, 1962 - the day when the world was closest to a global nuclear war.

On the night of October 27-28, 1962, on the instructions of the President of the United States, Robert Kennedy met with Anatoly Dobrynin, the USSR ambassador to the United States, in the building of the Ministry of Justice. Kennedy shared with Dobrynin the president's fears that "the situation is about to get out of control and threaten to give rise to a chain reaction" and said that his brother was ready to give guarantees of non-aggression and the speedy lifting of the blockade from Cuba. Dobrynin asked Kennedy about the missiles in Turkey. “If this is the only obstacle to reaching the settlement mentioned above, then the president does not see insurmountable difficulties in resolving the issue,” he replied.

The next morning, October 28, 1962, N.S. Khrushchev received a message from Kennedy stating: 1) You will agree to withdraw your weapons systems from Cuba under the appropriate supervision of UN representatives, and to take steps, subject to appropriate security measures, to stop the supply of such weapons systems to Cuba. 2) We, for our part, will agree - provided that a system of adequate measures is created with the help of the UN to ensure the fulfillment of these obligations - a) to quickly lift the blockade measures that have been introduced at the moment and b) to give guarantees of non-aggression against Cuba. I am sure that other states of the Western Hemisphere will be ready to do the same.

At noon N.S. Khrushchev gathered the Presidium of the Central Committee at his dacha in Novo-Ogaryovo. At the meeting, a letter from Washington was being discussed, when a man entered the hall and asked Khrushchev's assistant, Troyanovsky, to phone: Dobrynin called from Washington. Dobrynin conveyed to Troyanovsky the essence of his conversation with Kennedy and expressed fear that the US President was under strong pressure from Pentagon officials, and also conveyed word for word the words of the brother of the US President: “We must receive an answer from the Kremlin today, on Sunday. There is very little time left to resolve the problem.” Troyanovsky returned to the hall and read out to the audience what he managed to write down in his notebook. N.S. Khrushchev immediately invited the stenographer and began to dictate consent. He also dictated two confidential letters personally to J.F. Kennedy. In one, he confirmed the fact that Robert Kennedy's message reached Moscow. In the second - that he regards this message as an agreement to the condition of the USSR on the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba - to remove the missiles from Turkey.

Fearing any "surprises" and disruption of negotiations, Khrushchev forbade Pliev to use anti-aircraft weapons against American aircraft. He also ordered the return to airfields of all Soviet aircraft patrolling the Caribbean. For greater certainty, it was decided to broadcast the first letter on the radio so that it would reach Washington as soon as possible. An hour before the broadcast of N.S. Khrushchev (16:00 Moscow time), Malinovsky sent an order to Pliev to begin dismantling the R-12 launch pads.

The dismantling of Soviet rocket launchers, their loading onto ships and their withdrawal from Cuba took 3 weeks. Convinced that the USSR had withdrawn the missiles, US President J.F. Kennedy on November 20, 1962, gave the order to end the blockade of Cuba.

A few months later, American Jupiter missiles were also withdrawn from Turkey as "obsolete." The US Air Force did not object to the decommissioning of these IRBMs, because. by this point, the US Navy had already deployed the much more forward-based Polaris SLBMs.

The peaceful resolution of the crisis did not satisfy everyone. Offset N.S. Khrushchev from the post of First Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU a few years later can be partially associated with irritation in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU regarding the concessions made by N.S. Khrushchev JF, Kennedy, and his inept leadership that led to the crisis.

The Cuban leadership regarded the compromise as a betrayal on the part of the Soviet Union, since the decision that put an end to the crisis was made exclusively by N.S. Khrushchev and J.F. Kennedy.

Some US military leaders were also dissatisfied with the result. Thus, the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, General K. Lemay, called the refusal to attack Cuba "the worst defeat in our history."

At the end of the Caribbean crisis, analysts of the Soviet and American intelligence services proposed establishing a direct telephone line between Washington and Moscow (the so-called “red telephone”), so that in case of crisis, the leaders of the “superpowers” ​​would have the opportunity to immediately contact each other, and not use telegraph.

The Cuban Missile Crisis marked a turning point in the nuclear race and the Cold War. In many respects, it was after the Caribbean crisis that the beginning of the détente of international tension was laid.

Cuban Missile Crisis- a well-known historical term that defines the acute relations between superstates in October 1962.

Answering the question, what is the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is impossible not to mention that it affected several spheres of confrontation between the two geopolitical blocs at once. Thus, he touched upon the military, political and diplomatic spheres of confrontation within the framework of the Cold War.

cold war– global economic, political, ideological, military, scientific and technical confrontation between the USA and the USSR in the second half of the twentieth century.

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Causes of the crisis

Causes of the Caribbean Crisis consist in the deployment by US military personnel of nuclear ballistic missiles in Turkey in 1961. The new Jupiter launch vehicles were capable of delivering a nuclear charge to Moscow and other major cities of the Union in a matter of minutes, because of which the USSR would not have a chance to respond to the threat.

Khrushchev had to react to such a gesture and, having agreed with the government of Cuba, stationed Soviet missiles in Cuba. Thus, located in close proximity to the US East Coast, missiles in Cuba were able to destroy key US cities faster than nuclear warheads launched from Turkey.

Interesting! The deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba caused panic among the US population, and the government regarded such actions as a direct act of aggression.

Considering Causes of the Caribbean Crisis, one cannot but mention the attempts of the USA and the USSR to establish control over Cuba. The parties tried to expand their influence in the third world countries, this process was called the cold war.

Caribbean Crisis - Deployment of Nuclear Ballistic Missiles

In response to the threatening deployment of weapons in Turkey Khrushchev convenes a conference in May 1962. He discusses possible solutions to the problem. After the revolution in Cuba, Fidel Castro repeatedly asked the USSR for help in order to strengthen its military presence on the island. Khrushchev decided to take advantage of the offer and decided to send not only people, but also nuclear warheads. Having received consent from Castro, the Soviet side began to plan a secret transfer of nuclear weapons.

Operation Anadyr

Attention! The term "Anadyr" means a secret operation of the Soviet troops, which consisted in the covert delivery of nuclear weapons to the island of Cuba.

In September 1962, the first nuclear missiles were delivered to Cuba on civilian ships. Courts were covered diesel submarines. On September 25, the operation was completed. In addition to nuclear weapons, the USSR transferred about 50,000 soldiers and military equipment to Cuba. US intelligence could not fail to notice such a move, but it did not yet suspect the transfer of secret weapons.

Washington's reaction

In September, American reconnaissance aircraft spotted Soviet fighters in Cuba. This could not go unnoticed, and during another flight on October 14, the U-2 aircraft takes pictures of the location of Soviet ballistic missiles. With the assistance of a defector, US intelligence was able to determine that the image contained launch vehicles for nuclear warheads.

October 16 about photos, which confirm the deployment of Soviet missiles on the island of Cuba, report personally to President Kennedy. Having convened an emergency council, the president considered three ways to solve the problem:

• naval blockade of the island;
• pinpoint missile attack on Cuba;
• full-scale military operation.

The President's military advisers, having learned about the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba, said that it was necessary to start full-scale military operations. The president himself did not want to start a war, and therefore on October 20 he decided on a naval blockade.

Attention! A naval blockade is regarded in international relations as an act of war. Thus, the United States acts as an aggressor, and the USSR is only an injured party.

Because the United States presented its act not as military naval blockade but like quarantine. On October 22, Kennedy addressed the people of the United States. In the appeal, he said that the USSR secretly deployed nuclear missiles. Also he said, that the peaceful settlement of conflicts in Cuba is his main goal. And yet he mentioned that launching missiles from the island towards the United States would be perceived as the start of a war.

The Cold War on the island of Cuba could very soon turn into a nuclear war, as the situation between the parties was extremely tense. The military blockade began on 24 October.

The Peak of the Caribbean Crisis

On October 24, the parties exchanged messages. Kennedy urged that Khrushchev not exacerbate the Cuban Missile Crisis or try to bypass the blockade. The USSR, however, stated that they perceive such demands as aggression on the part of the States.

On October 25, at the UN Security Council, the ambassadors of the conflicting parties presented their demands to each other. The American representative demanded recognition from the USSR about the deployment of missiles in Cuba. Interesting, but the representative of the Union did not know about the missiles, since Khrushchev initiated very few people into the Anadyr operation. And so the representative of the Union evaded the answer.

Interesting! The results of the day - the United States announced increased military readiness - the only time in the history of the country's existence.

After Khrushchev writes another letter - now he does not consult with the ruling elite of the USSR. In it, the general secretary compromises. He gives his word to withdraw the missiles from Cuba, returning them to the Union, but in return, Khrushchev demands that the United States not undertake acts of military aggression against Cuba.

balance of power

Speaking of the Caribbean Crisis, one cannot deny the fact that October 1962 is the time when a nuclear war could really start, and therefore it is reasonable to briefly consider the balance of forces of the parties before its hypothetical start.

The United States had much more impressive weapons and air defense systems. The Americans also had more advanced aircraft, as well as launch vehicles for nuclear warheads. Soviet nuclear missiles were less reliable and would have taken longer to prepare for launch.

The US had about 310 nuclear ballistic missiles around the world, while the USSR could only launch 75 long-range ballistic missiles. Another 700 had an average range and could not reach strategic important US cities.

Aviation of the USSR was seriously inferior to the American- their fighters and bombers, although they were more numerous, lost in quality. Most of them could not reach the shores of the United States.

The main trump card of the USSR was the advantageous strategic location of missiles in Cuba, from where they would reach the shores of America and hit important cities in a matter of minutes.

"Black Saturday" and conflict resolution

On October 27, Castro writes a letter to Khrushchev, in which he claims that the Americans will begin hostilities in Cuba within 1-3 days. At the same time, Soviet intelligence reports on the activation of the US Air Force in the Caribbean, which confirms the words of the commandant of Cuba.

In the evening of the same day, another US reconnaissance aircraft flew over the territory of Cuba, which was shot down by Soviet air defense systems installed in Cuba, as a result of which an American pilot died.

On this day, two more US Air Force aircraft were damaged. Kennedy no longer denied the vast possibility of a declaration of war. Castro demanded a nuclear strike on the United States and was ready to sacrifice for this all of Cuba and your life.

denouement

The settlement of the situation during the Caribbean crisis began on the night of October 27th. Kennedy was willing to lift the blockade and guarantee Cuban independence in exchange for the removal of missiles from Cuba.

On October 28, Khrushchev receives Kennedy's letter. After some thought, he writes a response message in which he goes to reconcile and resolve the situation.

Effects

The outcome of the situation, called the Cuban Missile Crisis, was of worldwide significance - nuclear war was cancelled.

Many were not satisfied with the outcome of the talks between Kennedy and Khrushchev. The ruling circles of the USA and the USSR accused their leaders of in softness towards the enemy They shouldn't have to make concessions.

After the conflict was settled, the leaders of the states found a common language, which caused a warming of relations between the parties. The Cuban Missile Crisis also showed the world that it is wise to stop using nuclear weapons.

The Caribbean Crisis is one of the key events of the 20th century, about which the following interesting facts can be cited:

• Khrushchev learned about American nuclear missiles in Turkey quite by accident during a peaceful visit to Bulgaria;
• the Americans were so afraid of a nuclear war that they launched the construction of fortified bunkers, and after the Caribbean crisis, the scale of construction increased significantly;
• the opposing sides had so many nuclear weapons in their arsenal that their launch would cause a nuclear apocalypse;
• On October 27, on Black Saturday, a wave of suicides swept across the United States;
• at the time of the Caribbean crisis, the United States in the history of its country declared the highest degree of combat readiness;
• The Cuban nuclear crisis marked a turning point in the Cold War, after which détente began between the parties.

Conclusion

Answering the question: when did the Caribbean crisis occur, we can say - October 16-28, 1962. These days have become for the whole world one of the darkest in the twentieth century. The planet watched the confrontation unfold around the island of Cuba.

A few weeks after October 28, the missiles were returned to the USSR. The United States still keeps the promise given to Kennedy not to interfere in the affairs of Cuba and does not send its military contingent into Turkish territory.

Fidel Castro and N.S. Khrushchev

On January 1, 1959, in Cuba, after a long civil war, communist guerrillas led by Fidel Castro overthrew the government of President Batista. The United States was quite alarmed at the prospect of having a communist state at its side. In early 1960, the administration directed the CIA to raise, arm, and covertly train a brigade of 1,400 Cuban exiles in Central America to invade Cuba and overthrow the Castro regime. The administration, having inherited this plan, continued to prepare for the invasion. The brigade landed in the Bay of Pigs ("Pigs"), on the southwestern coast of Cuba, on April 17, 1961, but was defeated on the same day: Cuban intelligence agents managed to penetrate the ranks of the brigade, so the plan of the operation was known to the Cuban government in advance, which made it possible to draw a significant number of troops into the landing area; the Cuban people, contrary to the forecasts of the CIA, did not support the rebels; the "way of salvation" in the event of a failure of the operation turned into 80 miles through impassable swamps, where the remnants of the landed militants were finished off; "Washington's hand" was immediately recognized, causing a wave of indignation throughout the world. This event pushed Castro closer to Moscow, and in the summer and autumn of 1962, 42 missiles with nuclear warheads and bombers capable of carrying nuclear bombs were deployed in Cuba. This decision, taken at a meeting of the USSR Defense Council in May 1962, was in the interests of both sides - Cuba received a reliable cover ("nuclear umbrella") from any aggression from the United States, and the Soviet military leadership reduced the flight time of their missiles to American territory. As contemporaries testify, it was extremely annoying and frightening that the American Jupiter missiles stationed in Turkey could reach the vital centers of the Soviet Union in just 10 minutes, while Soviet missiles need 25 minutes to reach the United States. coin accessories
The transfer of missiles was carried out in the strictest secrecy, but already in September, the US leadership suspected something was wrong. On September 4, President John F. Kennedy declared that the United States would under no circumstances tolerate Soviet nuclear missiles 150 kilometers from its coast.

In response, Khrushchev assured Kennedy that there were no Soviet missiles or nuclear weapons in Cuba and never would be. The installations discovered by the Americans in Cuba, he called the Soviet research equipment. However, on October 14, an American reconnaissance aircraft photographed the missile launch pads from the air. In an atmosphere of strict secrecy, the US leadership began to discuss retaliatory measures. The generals proposed to immediately bomb the Soviet missiles from the air and launch an invasion of the island by the forces of the marines. But this would lead to war with the Soviet Union. This prospect did not suit the Americans, since no one was sure of the outcome of the war.
Therefore, John F. Kennedy decided to start with softer means. On October 22, in an address to the nation, he announced that Soviet missiles had been found in Cuba and demanded that the USSR immediately remove them. Kennedy announced that the United States was beginning a naval blockade of Cuba. On October 24, at the request of the USSR, the UN Security Council urgently met.
The Soviet Union continued to stubbornly deny the existence of nuclear missiles in Cuba. Within days, it became clear that the US was determined to remove the missiles at any cost. On October 26, Khrushchev sent a more conciliatory message to Kennedy. He admitted that Cuba had powerful Soviet weapons. At the same time, Nikita Sergeevich convinced the president that the USSR was not going to attack America. In his words, "Only crazy people can do this or suicides who want to die themselves and destroy the whole world before that." This saying was very uncharacteristic of Khrushchev, who always knew how to "show America its place," but circumstances forced him to a softer policy.
Nikita Khrushchev suggested that John F. Kennedy pledge not to attack Cuba. Then the Soviet Union will be able to remove its weapons from the island. The President of the United States replied that the United States was prepared to make a gentleman's pledge not to invade Cuba if the USSR withdrew its offensive weapons. Thus, the first steps towards peace were taken.
But on October 27 came the "Black Saturday" of the Cuban crisis, when only by a miracle a new world war did not break out. In those days, squadrons of American planes swept over Cuba twice a day for the purpose of intimidation. And on October 27, Soviet troops in Cuba shot down one of the US reconnaissance aircraft with an anti-aircraft missile. Its pilot Anderson was killed.

Soviet missiles on Liberty Island. US Air Force aerial photography

The situation escalated to the limit, the US President decided two days later to begin the bombing of Soviet missile bases and a military attack on the island. The plan called for 1,080 sorties on the very first day of combat operations. The invasion force, stationed in ports in the southeastern United States, totaled 180,000 people. Many Americans left major cities, fearing an imminent Soviet strike. The world is on the brink of nuclear war. He had never been so close to this edge. However, on Sunday, October 28, the Soviet leadership decided to accept the American terms. A message to the President of the United States was sent in plain text.
The Kremlin already knew about the planned bombing of Cuba. "We agree to withdraw those assets from Cuba that you consider offensive," the message said, "we agree to carry this out and declare this obligation to the UN."
The decision to remove the missiles from Cuba was made without the consent of the Cuban leadership. Perhaps this was done on purpose, since Fidel Castro strongly objected to the removal of the missiles. International tension began to subside rapidly after 28 October. The Soviet Union removed its missiles and bombers from Cuba. On November 20, the United States lifted the naval blockade of the island.
The Cuban (also called the Caribbean) crisis ended peacefully, but it gave rise to further reflections on the fate of the world. During numerous conferences with the participation of Soviet, Cuban and American participants in those events, it became clear that the decisions taken by the three countries before and during the crisis were influenced by incorrect information, incorrect assessments and inaccurate calculations that distorted the meaning of events. Former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara cites the following facts in his memoirs:
1. The confidence of the Soviet and Cuban leadership in the inevitable imminent invasion of the US army into Cuba, while after the failure of the operation in the Bay of Pigs, the John F. Kennedy administration had no such intentions;
2. In October 1962 Soviet nuclear warheads were already in Cuba, moreover, at the height of the crisis, they were delivered from storage sites to deployment sites, while the CIA reported that there were no nuclear weapons on the island yet;
3. The Soviet Union was sure that nuclear weapons could be delivered to Cuba secretly and no one would know about it, and the United States would not react to this in any way, even when it became known about its deployment;
4. The CIA reported the presence of 10,000 Soviet troops on the island, while there were about 40,000 of them, and this is in addition to the well-armed 270,000-strong Cuban army. Therefore, the Soviet-Cuban troops, in addition armed with tactical nuclear weapons, would simply arrange a "bloodbath" for the landing American expeditionary force, which would inevitably result in an uncontrolled escalation of military confrontation.
On the whole, the Cuban crisis had only a beneficial effect on the world, forcing the USSR and the USA to make mutual concessions in foreign policy.

Caribbean crisis

On October 28, 1962, the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev announced the dismantling of Soviet missiles in Cuba - the Cuban Missile Crisis ended.

Fidel Castro takes office as prime minister

On January 1, 1959, the revolution won in Cuba. The civil war, which lasted from July 26, 1953, ended with the flight of the dictator from the island Fulgencio Batista y Saldivara

and the coming to power of the July 26 Movement, led by 32-year-old Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, who entered Havana on January 8 on a captured tank Sherman just as General Leclerc entered liberated Paris in August 1944.

At first, Cuba did not have close relations with the Soviet Union. During his struggle with the Batista regime in the 1950s, Castro approached us several times for military assistance, but was consistently refused. Fidel made his first foreign visit after the victory of the revolution to the United States, but then President Eisenhower refused to meet with him. Of course, Eisenhower would have done the same with Batista - Cuba had to know its place. But, unlike Batista - the son of a soldier and a prostitute - the noble Fidel Angelevich Castro, who came from a family of wealthy latifundists who owned sugar plantations in the province of Oriente, was not the kind of person who could simply swallow this insult. In response to Eisenhower's trick, Fidel staged an undeclared war on American capital: the telephone and electric companies, oil refineries, and 36 largest sugar factories owned by US citizens were nationalized.

The answer was not long in coming: the Americans stopped supplying oil to Cuba and buying sugar from it, spitting on the long-term purchase agreement that was still in effect. Such steps put Cuba in a very difficult position.

By that time, the Cuban government had already established diplomatic relations with the USSR, and it turned to Moscow for help. In response to a request, the USSR sent tankers with oil and organized the purchase of Cuban sugar.

Realizing that Cuba was getting out of control, the Americans decided to act militarily, and on the night of April 17 they landed in the Bay of Pigs the so-called brigade 2506, which consisted of Batista's supporters who had dug in in the United States.

Before that, for two days, American aircraft bombed the locations of Cuban troops. but knowing that the barracks are empty, and the tanks and planes have already been replaced with mock-ups.

At dawn, the Cuban government aircraft, which the Americans could not destroy by bombing, inflicted several blows on the landing forces and managed to sink four transports of emigrants, including the Houston, on which the Rio Escondido infantry battalion was in full force, transporting most of the ammunition and heavy weapons of the 2506 brigade. By the middle of the day on April 17, the offensive of the paratroopers was stopped by the superior forces of the Cuban government, and on April 19, the 2506 brigade capitulated.

prisoners from the brigade 2506

The Cuban people rejoiced at the victory, but Castro understood that this was only the beginning - from day to day one should have expected the open entry of the US army into the war.

By the beginning of the 60s, the Americans had finally become insolent - their U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flew wherever they wanted, until one of them was shot down by a Soviet missile over the Sverdlovsk region. And in 1961 they went so far as to place their missiles in Turkey PGM-19 Jupiter with a range of 2400 km, directly threatening cities in the western part of the Soviet Union, reaching as far as Moscow and the main industrial centers. Another advantage of medium-range missiles is their short flight time - less than 10 minutes.

PGM-19 "Jupiter" at the starting position

America had every reason to be impudent: the Americans were armed with approximately 183 Atlas and Titan ICBMs. In addition, in 1962, the United States was armed with 1,595 bombers capable of delivering about 3,000 nuclear charges to the territory of the USSR.

B-52 “Stratofortress”

The Soviet leadership was extremely concerned about the presence of 15 missiles in Turkey, but could not do anything. But then one day, when Khrushchev, while on vacation, was walking with Mikoyan along the Crimean coast, he came up with the idea to put a hedgehog in America's pants.

Military experts have confirmed that it is possible to effectively achieve some nuclear parity by deploying missiles in Cuba. Soviet medium-range R-14 missiles stationed on Cuban territory, with a range of up to 4,000 km, could keep Washington and about half of the air bases of US Air Force strategic bombers at gunpoint with a flight time of less than 20 minutes.

R-14 (8K65) / R-14U (8K65U)
R-14
SS-5 (Skean)

On May 20, 1962, Khrushchev held a meeting in the Kremlin with Foreign Minister Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko and the Minister of Defense Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky,

during which he outlined his idea to them: in response to Fidel Castro's constant requests to increase the Soviet military presence in Cuba, place nuclear weapons on the island. On May 21, at a meeting of the Defense Council, he raised this issue for discussion. Most of all Mikoyan was against such a decision, however, in the end, members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, who were members of the Defense Council, supported Khrushchev. The ministries of defense and foreign affairs were instructed to organize the covert movement of troops and military equipment by sea to Cuba. Due to the special haste, the plan was adopted without approval - implementation began immediately after obtaining Castro's consent.

On May 28, a Soviet delegation flew from Moscow to Havana, consisting of the USSR Ambassador Alekseev, Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces Marshal Sergei Biryuzov,

Sergei Semyonovich Biryuzov

Colonel General Semyon Pavlovich Ivanov, as well as the head of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan Sharaf Rashidov. On May 29, they met with Fidel Castro and his brother Raul and outlined to them the proposal of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Fidel asked for a day to negotiate with his closest associates.

Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara

It is known that on May 30 he had a conversation with Ernesto Che Guevara, but nothing is known about the essence of this conversation.

Ernesto Che Guevara and Fidel Castro Ruz

On the same day, Castro gave a positive answer to the Soviet delegates. It was decided that Raul Castro would visit Moscow in July to clarify all the details.

The plan envisaged the deployment of two types of ballistic missiles in Cuba - R-12 with a range of about 2000 km and R-14 with a range twice that. Both types of missiles were equipped with 1 Mt nuclear warheads.

Intermediate range ballistic missile
R-12 (8K63) / R-12U (8K63U) R-12 SS-4 (Sandal)

Malinovsky also specified that the armed forces will deploy 24 R-12 medium-range missiles and 16 R-14 intermediate-range missiles and leave half of the number of missiles of each type in reserve. It was supposed to remove 40 missiles from positions in Ukraine and in the European part of Russia. After the installation of these missiles in Cuba, the number of Soviet nuclear missiles capable of reaching US territory doubled.

It was supposed to send a group of Soviet troops to Cuba, which was supposed to concentrate around five divisions of nuclear missiles (three R-12s and two R-14s). In addition to missiles, the group also included a Mi-4 helicopter regiment, four motorized rifle regiments, two tank battalions, a MiG-21 squadron, 42 Il-28 light bombers, 2 units of cruise missiles with 12 Kt nuclear warheads with a range of 160 km, several batteries of anti-aircraft guns, as well as 12 S-75 installations (144 missiles). Each motorized rifle regiment consisted of 2,500 people, tank battalions were equipped with tanks T-55 .

In early August, the first ships arrived in Cuba. On the night of September 8, the first batch of medium-range ballistic missiles was unloaded in Havana, the second batch arrived on September 16.

missile ships

The headquarters of the GSVK is located in Havana. Battalions of ballistic missiles deployed in the west of the island - near the village of San Cristobal and in the center of Cuba - near the port of Casilda. The main troops were concentrated around the missiles in the western part of the island, but several cruise missiles and a motorized rifle regiment were transferred to the east of Cuba - a hundred kilometers from the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay. By October 14, 1962, all 40 missiles and most of the equipment had been delivered to Cuba.

On October 14, 1962, a Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft of the 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, piloted by Major Richard Heizer, photographed the positions of Soviet missiles. In the evening of the same day, this information was brought to the attention of the top military leadership of the United States. On the morning of October 16 at 8:45 a.m., the photographs were shown to the President.

After receiving photographs showing Soviet missile bases in Cuba, President Kennedy called a special group of advisers to a secret meeting at the White House. This 14-member group, which later became known as the "Executive Committee" of EXCOMM. The committee consisted of members of the US National Security Council and several specially invited advisers. Soon, the committee offered the president three possible options for resolving the situation: destroy the missiles with pinpoint strikes, conduct a full-scale military operation in Cuba, or impose a naval blockade of the island. The military proposed an invasion, and soon the deployment of troops to Florida began, and the Air Force Strategic Command relocated B-47 Stratojet medium-range bombers to civilian airports and transferred the fleet of B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers to constant patrol.

On October 22, Kennedy declared a naval blockade of Cuba in the form of a 500 nautical mile (926 km) quarantine zone around the coast of the island. The blockade went into effect on October 24 at 10:00.

180 ships of the US Navy surrounded Cuba with clear orders not to open fire on Soviet ships in any case without a personal order from the president. By this time, 30 ships and vessels were heading to Cuba, including Aleksandrovsk with a cargo of nuclear warheads and 4 ships carrying missiles for two IRBM divisions. In addition, 4 diesel submarines were approaching the Island of Freedom, accompanying the ships. On board the "Alexandrovsk" were 24 warheads for the IRBM and 44 for cruise missiles. Khrushchev decided that the submarines and four ships with R-14 missiles - Artemyevsk, Nikolaev, Dubna and Divnogorsk - should continue on the same course. In an effort to minimize the possibility of a collision of Soviet ships with American ones, the Soviet leadership decided to deploy the rest of the ships that did not have time to reach Cuba home. At the same time, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU decided to put the armed forces of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries on high alert. All layoffs have been cancelled. Conscripts preparing for demobilization are ordered to remain at their duty stations until further notice. Khrushchev sent an encouraging letter to Castro, assuring him of the unshakable position of the USSR under any circumstances.

On October 24, Khrushchev learned that Aleksandrovsk had reached Cuba safely. At the same time, he received a short telegram from Kennedy, in which he called on Khrushchev to "show prudence" and "observe the conditions of the blockade." The Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU gathered for a meeting to discuss the official response to the introduction of the blockade. On the same day, Khrushchev sent a letter to the US President, in which he accused him of setting "ultimatum conditions." Khrushchev called the blockade "an act of aggression pushing humanity towards the abyss of a world nuclear missile war." In the letter, the First Secretary warned Kennedy that "the captains of Soviet ships will not comply with the orders of the US Navy" and that "if the United States does not stop its piracy, the government of the USSR will take any measures to ensure the safety of the ships."

In response to Khrushchev's message, the Kremlin received a letter from Kennedy, in which he pointed out that the Soviet side had broken its promises regarding Cuba and misled him. This time, Khrushchev decided not to go for a confrontation and began to look for possible ways out of the current situation. He announced to the members of the Presidium that "it is impossible to store missiles in Cuba without going to war with the United States." At the meeting, it was decided to offer the Americans to dismantle the missiles in exchange for US guarantees to stop trying to change the state regime in Cuba. Brezhnev, Kosygin, Kozlov, Mikoyan, Ponomarev and Suslov supported Khrushchev. Gromyko and Malinovsky abstained from voting.

On the morning of October 26, Khrushchev set to work drafting a new, less militant message to Kennedy. In a letter, he offered the Americans the option of dismantling the installed missiles and returning them to the USSR. In exchange, he demanded guarantees that "the United States will not invade Cuba with its troops and will not support any other forces that would intend to invade Cuba." He ended the letter with the famous phrase "You and I should not now pull the ends of the rope on which you tied the knot of war." Khrushchev wrote this letter alone, without gathering the Presidium. Later, in Washington, there was a version that Khrushchev did not write the second letter, and that a coup d'état might have taken place in the USSR. Others believed that Khrushchev, on the contrary, was looking for help in the fight against hardliners in the ranks of the leadership of the Soviet Armed Forces. The letter arrived at the White House at 10 am. Another condition was conveyed in an open radio address on the morning of October 27, calling for the withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey, in addition to the requirements specified in the letter.

On Friday, October 26, at 13:00 Washington time, a message was received from ABC News reporter John Scali that he had been approached with an offer to meet by Alexander Fomin, the KGB resident in Washington. The meeting took place at the Occidental restaurant. Fomin expressed concern about the escalating tensions and suggested that Scali approach his "high-ranking friends in the State Department" with a proposal to find a diplomatic solution. Fomin conveyed an unofficial offer from the Soviet leadership to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for refusing to invade Cuba.
The American leadership responded to this proposal by conveying to Fidel Castro through the Brazilian embassy that in the event of the withdrawal of offensive weapons from Cuba, "an invasion would be unlikely."

Meanwhile, in Havana, the political situation escalated to the limit. Castro became aware of the new position of the Soviet Union, and he immediately went to the Soviet embassy. Comandante decided to write a letter to Khrushchev to push him to take more decisive action. Even before Castro had finished the letter and sent it to the Kremlin, the head of the KGB station in Havana informed the First Secretary of the essence of Comandante's message: "According to Fidel Castro, intervention is almost inevitable and will take place in the next 24-72 hours." At the same time, Malinovsky received a report from the commander of the Soviet troops in Cuba, General I. A. Pliev, about the increased activity of American strategic aviation in the Caribbean. Both messages were delivered to Khrushchev's office in the Kremlin at 12 noon, Saturday, October 27th.

Issa Alexandrovich Pliev

It was 5 pm in Moscow when a tropical storm raged in Cuba. One of the air defense units received a message that an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was seen approaching Guantanamo Bay.

The chief of staff of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division, Captain Antonets, called Pliev's headquarters for instructions, but he was not there. Major General Leonid Garbuz, deputy commander of the GSVK for combat training, ordered the captain to wait for Pliev to appear. A few minutes later, Antonets called the headquarters again - no one picked up the phone. When U-2 was already over Cuba, Garbuz himself ran to the headquarters and, without waiting for Pliev, gave the order to destroy the plane. According to other sources, the order to destroy the reconnaissance aircraft could have been given by Pliev's deputy for air defense, Lieutenant General of Aviation Stepan Grechko, or the commander of the 27th Air Defense Division, Colonel Georgy Voronkov. The launch took place at 10:22 local time. U-2 was shot down.

wreckage of U-2

The pilot of the spy plane, Major Rudolf Anderson, was killed.

Rudolf Andersen

On the night of October 27-28, on the instructions of the president, his brother Robert Kennedy met with the Soviet ambassador in the building of the Ministry of Justice. Kennedy shared with Dobrynin the president's fears that "the situation is about to get out of hand and threaten to give rise to a chain reaction."

Robert Kennedy said that his brother was ready to give guarantees of non-aggression and the speedy lifting of the blockade from Cuba. Dobrynin asked Kennedy about the missiles in Turkey. "If this is the only obstacle to reaching the settlement mentioned above, then the president sees no insurmountable difficulties in resolving the issue," Kennedy replied. According to then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, from a military point of view, the Jupiter missiles were outdated, but during private negotiations, Turkey and NATO strongly opposed the inclusion of such a clause in a formal agreement with the Soviet Union, as this would be a manifestation of US weakness and would put questioned US guarantees for the protection of Turkey and NATO countries.

The next morning, a message came to the Kremlin from Kennedy stating: “1) You agree to withdraw your weapons systems from Cuba under the appropriate supervision of UN representatives, and also to take steps, subject to appropriate security measures, to

stopping the supply of the same weapons systems to Cuba. 2) We, for our part, will agree - provided that a system of adequate measures is created with the help of the UN to ensure the fulfillment of these obligations - a) quickly lift the blockade measures introduced at the moment and b) give guarantees of non-aggression against Cuba. I am sure that other states of the Western Hemisphere will be ready to do the same.”
At noon, Khrushchev gathered the Presidium at his dacha in Novo-Ogaryovo. The meeting was discussing a letter from Washington, when a man entered the hall and asked Khrushchev's assistant Oleg Troyanovsky to answer the phone: Dobrynin was calling from Washington. He conveyed to Troyanovsky the essence of his conversation with Robert Kennedy and expressed his fear that the US president was under strong pressure from Pentagon officials. Dobrynin transmitted word for word the words of the brother of the President of the United States: “We must receive an answer from the Kremlin today, on Sunday. There is very little time left to resolve the problem.” Troyanovsky returned to the hall and read out to the audience what he managed to write down in his notebook while listening to Dobrynin's report. Khrushchev immediately invited the stenographer and began to dictate consent. He also dictated two confidential letters personally to Kennedy. In one, he confirmed the fact that Robert Kennedy's message reached Moscow. In the second, that he regards this message as an agreement to the USSR's condition for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba - to remove missiles from Turkey.
Fearing any "surprises" and disruption of negotiations, Khrushchev forbade Pliev to use anti-aircraft weapons against American aircraft. He also ordered the return to airfields of all Soviet aircraft patrolling the Caribbean. For greater certainty, it was decided to broadcast the first letter on the radio so that it would reach Washington as soon as possible. An hour before the broadcast of Nikita Khrushchev's message, Malinovsky sent Pliev an order to begin dismantling the R-12 launch pads.
The dismantling of Soviet rocket launchers, their loading onto ships and their withdrawal from Cuba took 3 weeks.

Chronicle of the operation "Anadyr"

On the deployment of strategic nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba

April 1962 Nikita Khrushchev expresses the idea of ​​deploying strategic missiles on the island of Cuba.

May 20. At an expanded meeting of the Defense Council, which is attended by the entire Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee, the leadership of the USSR Ministry of Defense, a decision was made to prepare for the creation of a Group of Soviet Forces on the Island of Cuba (GSVK).

May 24th. The Minister of Defense presents to the country's leadership a plan for the creation of the GSVK. The operation is called Anadyr.

May 27th. To agree with the Cuban leadership on the deployment of Soviet strategic missiles, a delegation headed by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, Sh. Rashidov, flew to Cuba. The military part of the delegation was headed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Biryuzov.

June 13th. The directive of the Minister of Defense of the USSR on the preparation and redeployment of units and formations of all types and branches of the Armed Forces is issued.

June 14th. The directive of the Main Staff of the Strategic Missile Forces defines the tasks for the formation of the 51st Missile Division (RD) to participate in the Anadyr operation.

July 1. The personnel of the Directorate of the 51st RD begin to fulfill their duties in the new states.

5'th of July. The directive of the Main Staff of the Strategic Missile Forces defines specific measures to prepare the 51st RD for redeployment abroad.

July, 12. A reconnaissance group led by the commander of the 51st RD, Major General I. Statsenko, arrives in Cuba.

August 10. The loading of the first train echelon in the regiment of Colonel I. Sidorov begins for the redeployment of the division to Cuba.

9th of September. With the arrival of the ship "Omsk" in the port of Kasilda, the concentration of the division on the island begins. This flight delivers the first six missiles.

The 4th of October. The diesel-electric ship "Indigirka" delivers nuclear munitions for R-12 missiles to the port of Mariel.

October 14. American intelligence, based on aerial photography, concludes that there are Soviet missiles in Cuba.

October 23. Martial law has been declared in the Republic of Cuba. The military units of the 51st Soviet missile division were put on high alert. Combat packages with flight missions and combat orders for launching missiles were delivered to the command post. The ship "Aleksandrovsk" arrives at the port of La Isabela with warheads for R-14 missiles. In the USSR, by decision of the government, the dismissal of servicemen to the reserve was suspended and planned holidays were stopped.

October 24th. The commander of the missile division decides to prepare new positional areas in order to perform a maneuver. An order was given to disperse equipment in positional areas.

the 25th of October. The missile regiment of Colonel N. Bandilovsky and the 2nd division of the regiment of Lieutenant Colonel Yu. Solovyov were put on alert.

October 26th. In order to reduce the time for preparing the first salvo of missiles, the warheads from the group warehouse were transferred to the position area of ​​the regiment of Colonel I. Sidorov. The 1st division of the regiment of Lieutenant Colonel Yu. Solovyov was put on alert and fully completed the check of the missile ammunition. US Air Force spy plane shot down over Cuba.

28 of October. The directive of the Minister of Defense of the USSR on the dismantling of starting positions and the redeployment of the division in the USSR is brought to the attention of the commander of the RD.

Nov. 1. The directive of the Minister of Defense of the USSR is issued, which determines the procedure for sending strategic missiles to the Soviet Union.

November 5. Motor ship "Divnogorsk" leaves the port of Mariel with the first four missiles on board.

November 9. Motor ship "Leninsky Komsomol" from the island of Cuba transports the last eight missiles.

October 1, 1963. By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the participants in the Anadyr operation were awarded orders and medals of the USSR for their skillful actions during the period of fulfilling a particularly important government task to protect the gains of the Cuban revolution.

Convinced that the Soviet Union had removed the missiles, President Kennedy on November 20 gave the order to end the blockade of Cuba. A few months later, American missiles were also withdrawn from Turkey.