AP History Document Based Essay
To what extent were the Soviet Union and the United States equally responsible for bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
Document A
"Acting, therefore, in the defense of our own security and of the entire Western Hemisphere,
I have directed that the following initial steps be taken immediately:
First: To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life, as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin Blockade in 1948.
Second.- I have directed the continued and increased [aerial] surveillance of Cuba and its military buildup.
Third.- It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.
Fourth: As a necessary military precaution, I have reinforced our base at Guantanamo [Cuba], evacuated today the dependents of our personnel there, and ordered additional military units to be on a standby alert basis.
Fifth: We are calling tonight for an immediate meeting of the Organ of Consultation under the Organization of American States, to consider this threat to hemispheric security. . . . Our other allies around the world have also been alerted.
Sixth: Under the Charter of the United Nations, we are asking tonight that an emergency meeting of the Security Council be convoked without delay to take action against this latest Soviet threat to world peace. Our resolution will call for the prompt dismantling and withdrawal of all offensive weapons in Cuba, under the supervision of U.N. observers, before the quarantine can be lifted.
Seventh and finally: I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man." Source: Public Papers of the President of the United States, John E Kennedy: pp. 807-808 (October 22, 1962).
Document B
"Our purpose has been and is to help Cuba, and no one can challenge the humanity of our motives aimed at allowing Cuba to live peacefully and develop as its people desire. You want to relieve your country from danger and this is understandable. However, Cuba also wants this. All countries want to relieve themselves from danger. But how can we, the Soviet Union and our government, assess your actions which, in effect, mean that you have surrounded the Soviet Union with military bases, surrounded our allies with military bases, set up military bases literally around our country, and stationed your rocket weapons at them? This is no secret. High placed American officials demonstratively declare this. Your rockets are stationed in Britain and in Italy and pointed at us. Your rockets are stationed in Turkey. You are worried over Cuba. You say that it worries you because it lies at a distance of 90 miles across the shores of the United States. However, Turkey lies next to us. Our sentinels are pacing up and down and watching each other. Do you believe that you have the right to demand security for your country and the removal of such weapons that you qualify as offensive, while not recognizing this right for us?. . . . This is why I make this proposal: We agree to do this and to state this commitment in the United Nations. Your representatives will make a statement to the effect that the United States, on its part,. . . .will evacuate its analogous weapons from Turkey. Let us reach an understanding on what time you and we need to put this into effect." Letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy Source: Department of State Bulletin 47 (November 12, 1962): 742.
Document C
Dear Mr. Chairman:
I have read your letter of October 26th with great care and welcomed the statement of your desire to seek a prompt solution to the problem. The first thing that needs to be done, however, is for work to cease on offensive missile in Cuba and for all weapons systems in Cuba capable of offensive use to be rendered inoperable, under effective United Nations arrangements. Assuming this is done promptly, I have given my representatives in New York instructions that will permit them to work out this weekend-in cooperation with the Acting Secretary General and your representative-an arrangement for a permanent solution to the Cuban problem along the lines suggested in your letter of October 26th.
If you will give your representative similar instructions, there is no reason why we should not be able to complete these arrangements and announce them to the world within a couple of days. " John F. Kennedy reply to Khrushchev. Source: Department of State Bulletin 47 (November 12, 1962): 743.
Document D
Caribbean Pest Denver Post ,1961
Document E
"The threat to peace was created by hostile, adventurist schemes aimed at the very existence of the Cuban Republic. The Soviet Union could not disregard Cuba's predicament in the face of the imperialistic provocations. Our country, fulfilling its international duty, came to the fraternal assistance of the Cuban people, and in these troubled days of the provocational aggravation. . . . it has stood, stands, and will continue to stand firmly with Cuba.
The progression of events showed that the far-seeing, wise course of the Soviet government was the only correct one in the situation that had developed and led in a short time to the start of the normalization of the situation and the creation of conditions in which the interests of universal peace and of the. . . . integrity of the Cuban Republic will be assured.
Thus reason and wisdom prevailed. At present, all conditions exist for the total elimination of the conflict and for further efforts toward the strengthening of peace and security. All honest people, anxious over the fate of peace, render their due to our Communist Party, to the Soviet government and to Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev for the fact that the forces of aggression and war have been restrained and reason in international relations has prevailed over folly.
These days telegrams are being received in Moscow, in the Kremlin, from all corners of the globe. They express the impassioned voices of people of good will, conveying their support of the peace loving position of the Soviet Union. . . . " commentary in the official Soviet newspaper Izvestia Source: The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, published weekly at The Ohio State University.
Document F
"If they blockade our country they will exalt our nation, because we will resist. . . . We are part of humanity and we run the necessary risks, yet, we are not afraid. We must learn how to live in our allotted times and with the dignity with which we know to live. Everybody, men and women, young and old, we are all one in this moment of danger." Fidel Castro. Source: Radio and Television speech to the Cuban people, 22 October 1962.
Document G
"I remember the precise moment when they interrupted the song. . . . "Who's that talking?" Noenii has asked, after a while. "It's Kennedy, President Kennedy, I think. . . . " "What is he saying?" I was staring fixedly at the parchment fight on the dial in the casing of the radio. "I don't know. . . . He says there are missiles in Cuba." "What are they, love?" she asked and she embraced me, but I could no longer feel anything. I was numb. "The atomic bomb?" "Yes, the atomic bomb," I answered her. "They say they have concrete evidence, photographs. He says. . . . I guess the marines will land, they'll bomb Havana. I can't believe it, missiles here, in this beautiful tropical island. . . . It's all over." Source: Edmundo Desnoes, Memories of Underdevelopment.
Document H
"The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, was a major Cold War confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the USSR secretly began building missile launching sites in Cuba. After the construction was detected by U.S. reconnaissance flights, U.S. President Kennedy demanded (Oct. 22) the withdrawal of the missiles, and imposed a naval blockade on Cuba. The Soviets agreed (Oct. 28) to dismantle the missile sites, and the crisis ended as suddenly as it had begun." The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, Copyright © 1995 by Columbia University Press.
Document I
Document J
Dear Comrade Khrushchev:
"From an analysis of the situation and the reports in our possession, I consider that the aggression is almost imminent within the next 24 or 72 hours. There are two possible variants: the first and likeliest one is an air attack against certain targets with the objective of destroying them; the second, less probable although possible, is invasion. . . . this variant would call for a large number of forces and it is, in addition, the most repulsive form of aggression. The morale of the Cuban people is extremely high and the aggressor will be confronted heroically.
If the second variant is implemented and the imperialists invade Cuba with the goal of occupying it, the danger that that aggressive policy poses of humanity is so great that following that event the Soviet Union must never allow the circumstances in which the imperialists could launch the first nuclear strike against it. It has influenced my opinion to see how this aggressive policy is developing, how the imperialists, disregarding world public opinion and ignoring principles and the law, are blockading the seas, violating our airspace and preparing an invasion, while at the same time frustrating every possibility for talks, even though they are aware of the seriousness of the problem.
. . . . up to the last moment we will maintain the hope that peace will be safeguarded and we are willing to contribute to this as much as we can.” Havana, October 26, 1962. Fidel Castro. Source: Blight, James G., Cuba on the Brink. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993.
Document K
Dear Comrade Fidel Castro:
"Our October 27 message to President Kennedy allows for the question to be settled in your favor, to defend Cuba from an invasion and prevent war from breaking out. Kennedy's reply, which you apparently also know, offers assurances that the United States will not invade Cuba with its own forces, nor will it permit its allies to carry out an invasion.
I would like to advise you in a friendly manner to show patience, firmness and even more firmness. Naturally, if there's an invasion it will be necessary to repulse it by every means. But we mustn't allow ourselves to be carried away by provocations, because the Pentagon's unbridled militarists, now that the solution to the conflict is in sight and apparently in your favor, creating a guarantee against the invasion of Cuba, are trying to frustrate the agreement and provoke you into actions that could be used against you. I ask you not to give them the pretext for doing that.
On our part, we will do everything possible to stabilize the situation in Cuba, defend Cuba against invasion and assure you the possibilities for peacefully building a socialist society." October 28, 1962 N. Khrushchev Source: Blight, James G., Cuba on the Brink. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993.
Document L
"He [Kennedy] instructed us to meet-sometimes with him, sometimes without him, until we had determined on a course of action we were prepared to recommend to him, and not under any circumstances to make public the knowledge we had that these Soviet missiles had been introduced into Cuba until he made his decision. There was great division as to whether we should essentially follow a military course that would involve an attack on Cuba.
It is very unlikely that the political leaders of the Soviet Union would ever have authorized a nuclear response to a U.S. air attack and/or ground attack on Cuba. However, it was highly probable that they would authorize some other form of military response: attacks on the flanks- Norway, Turkey, for example, attacks on the central front of NATO [i.e., Germany].
[And] in the face of an air attack [on Cuba] and in the face of the probability of a ground, it was certainly possible, and I would say probable, that a Cuban sergeant or Soviet officer in a missile silo, without authority from Moscow, would have launched one or more those intermediate-range missiles, equipped with a nuclear warhead, against one or more of the cities on the East Coast of the United States. They could have hit Miami. They could have hit Washington. They could have hit New York. " Robert McNamara Source: Sharnik, John, Inside the Cold War. New York: Arbor House, 1987.
Document M
" My main goal was to convince the other participants that the purpose of Operation ANADYR was defensive. That was the gist of the specific articles I cited from August 1962 Cuban-Soviet agreement, provisions that referred to the urgent necessity of taking measures to ensure mutual security against possible aggression against the Cuban Republic and the Soviet Union.