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War history from the
communist archives,
come visit CWIHP’s
site on the World
Wide Web:
http://www.seas.gwu/nsarchive/cwihp
—and to learn about
the National Security
Archive, the leading
user of the Freedom
of Information Act to
obtain the declassifi-
cation of American
documents, visit:
http://www.seas.gwu/nsarchive
1
Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir
of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Norton,
1969; citations from Mentor/New American Li-
brary paperback edition, 1969). Questions about
the book’s reliability deepened after another
former Kennedy aide, speechwriter Theodore
Sorensen, acknowledged that, as an uncredited
editor of the manuscript, he taken it upon himself
to delete “explicit” references to the arrangement
he and Soviet ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin
reached on the evening of 27 October 1962 re-
garding the removal of U.S. Jupiter missiles from
Turkey as part of the settlement of the crisis. Also
problematic is the fact that Robert Kennedy’s
original diary, on which the book is based, has
not been opened to researchers. Sorensen made
his confession upon being challenged by
Dobrynin at a January 1989 oral history confer-
ence on the crisis held in Moscow. See Barton J.
Bernstein, “Reconsidering the Missile Crisis:
Dealing with the Problems of the American
Jupiters in Turkey,” in James A. Nathan, ed., The
Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (New York: St.
Martin’s 1992), 55-129, esp. 56-57, 94-96, 125-
126 fn 183.
2 The most detailed account of Robert F.
Kennedy’s part in the missile crisis, and his life
generally, can be found in Arthur M. Schlesinger,
Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and His Times (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1978; citations from Futura
Publications paperback edition, 1979).
3 See Jim Hershberg, “Anatomy of a Controversy:
Anatoly F. Dobrynin’s Meeting with Robert F.
Kennedy, Saturday, 27 October 1962,” CWIHP
348 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN
“Lessons” of the Cuban Missile Crisis for
Warsaw Pact Nuclear Operations
by Mark Kramer
The role of the Warsaw Pact in the
Cuban missile crisis was negligible. All
evidence suggests that the Soviet Union
neither consulted nor even informed its
East European allies about the installa-
tion of medium-range and tactical
nuclear missiles in Cuba before the de-
ployment of the former was revealed by
the U.S. government.1 Nor did the So-
viet leadership consult its Warsaw Pact
allies about the removal of the missiles.
Although the Pact declared a joint mili-
tary alert on 23 October 1962 (the day
after President John F. Kennedy’s tele-
vised revelation of the Soviet missile
deployments), the alert had no more
than a symbolic impact and was carried
out solely at Moscow’s behest.2 The
joint alert was formally cancelled on 21
November 1962, the same day that the
Soviet Union ended its own unilateral
alert (and a day after the U.S. naval
blockade of Cuba was lifted).3 So pe-
ripheral was the alliance to the Soviet
Union’s handling of the crisis that it was
not until long after the matter had been
resolved that the Soviet Prime Minis-
ter, Anastas Mikoyan, bothered to in-
form the East European governments
about the Soviet Union’s motives for de-
for the Soviet Union to handle on its
been concerned well before the Cuban
own, not a matter for the Warsaw Pact.
missile crisis about the difficulty of re-
Despite the near-irrelevance of the
taining secure control over nuclear
Warsaw Pact during the crisis, the
weapons and about the danger of unau-
events of October 1962 did have im-
thorized actions, the crisis put these
portant effects on the alliance, particu-
risks into a whole new light.8 By un-
larly on the nuclear command-and-con-
derscoring how easily control could be
trol arrangements that were established
lost, the crisis inevitably bolstered
in the mid-1960s. This article will draw
Moscow’s determination to ensure strict
on recent disclosures from the East Ger-
centralized command over all nuclear
man, Czechoslovak, Polish, and Hun-
operations, including nuclear operations
garian archives to show how the Cuban
conducted by the Warsaw Pact.
missile crisis influenced Warsaw Pact
One of the most disconcerting les-
nuclear operations. No definitive judg-
sons of the Cuban missile crisis from
ments about this matter are yet possible
the Soviet perspective was the poten-
because the most crucial documents are
tial for nuclear weapons to be misused
all in Moscow, and the archival situa-
if the aims of local actors were not iden-
tion in Russia is still highly unsatisfac-
tical to Soviet goals. It is now known
tory.7 Nevertheless, enough evidence
that at the height of the crisis Fidel
has emerged from East-Central Europe
Castro sent a top-secret cable to Mos-
to permit several tentative conclusions.
cow urging the Soviet Union to launch
The article will begin by briefly re-
a nuclear strike against the United States
viewing the “lessons” that the Cuban
if U.S. forces invaded Cuba.9 Castro
missile crisis offered for Soviet nuclear
apparently had been led to believe that
weapons deployments abroad. It will
the Soviet Union would be willing to
then delineate the command-and-con-
go to war—and risk its own destruc-
trol arrangements that were set up in the
tion—in defense of Cuba. Nikita
mid-1960s for Warsaw Pact nuclear
Khrushchev’s response to Castro’s plea
operations, and examine the East Eu-
indicates that the Soviet leader had no
ropean states’ unsuccessful efforts to
intention of ordering the use of nuclear
alter those arrangements. The article
weapons, regardless of what happened [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]